The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-07-05

Mt. Vernon, Va, July president
Wilson's Fourth of July address de-
livered here this afternoon was as
follows:
Gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps
and My Fellow Citizens:
1 am happy to draw apart with
you to this quiet place of old counsel
in order to speak little of the mean
pendence.
The place seems very still and re-
mote.
It Is as serene and untouched by
the hurry of the world as it was in
these great days long ago when
General Washington was here and
held leisurely conference with the
men who were to be associated with
him in the creation of nation.
From these gentle slopes they look
ed out upon the world and saw it
whole, saw it with the light of the
future upon 1t, saw it with modern
eyes, that turned away from past
which men of liberated spirits could
no longer endure.
It is for that reason that we cannot
feel, even here, in the immediate
presence of this sacred tomb, that this
is place of death.
1t was a place of achievement.
A great promise that was meant
for all mankind was here given plan
and reality.
The associations by which we are
here surrounded are the inspiriting
associations of that noble death which
From this green hillside we also
ought to be able to see with compre-
bending eyes the world that lies about
US and should conceive anew the pur-
poses that must set men free.
1t is Signihcant---signif1 of their
own character and purpose and of the
influences they were setting afoot---
that Washington and his associates,
like the barons Of Runnymede, spoke
and actSd, rot for class, but for a
people.
1t has been left for US to see to it
that it shall be understood that they
spoke and acted, not for a single
people, but for all mankind.
They are thinking, not of them
selves and of the material interests
which centred in the little groups of
landholders and merchants and men
of affairs with whom they were ac-
customed to act, in Virginia and the
colonies to the north and south of
her, but of a people which wished to
be done with classes and special in
terests and the authority Of men
whom they had not themselves chosen
to rule over them.
They entertained no private pur-
They, were consciously planning that
men of every class should be free and
America a place to which men out O.
every nation might resort who wished
to share with them the rights and
privileges of free men.
And we take our cue from them
do we not?
We intend what they intended
We here in America believe oul
participation in this present war TO fbt
only the fruitage of what they plant
ed.
Our case differs from theirs only IL
this, that It is our 1nest1mable priv
lege to concert with men out of ever!
nation what shall make not only tn
liberties of America secure but tn
liberties of every other people a.
well.
We are happy in the thought tina
we are permitted to do what the
would have done had they been in on
place.
There must now be settled once fo
all what was settled for America
the great age upon whose inspiratio
we draw today.
This is surely fitting place frol
which calmly to look out upon OF
task, that we may fortify our spirit
for its accomplishment.
And this is the appropriate plac
from which to avow, alike to til
friends who look on and to the frienc
with whom we have the happiness
be associated in action, the faith an
purpose with which we act,
This then, is our conception of IL
great struggle in which we are Ell
gagged,
The plot is written plain upon e.
cry scene and every act of the 81
preme tragedy,
On the one hand stand the peopl
of the world-not only the peopl
actually engaged, but many othe
also who suffer under mastery but ca
not act; peoples of many races al
in every part of the world-the Poop
of stricken Russia still, among Il
rest, though they are for the nome
unorganized and helpless.
Opposed to them, masters of mai
armies, stand an isolated, friendle
group of governments who speak
common purpose but only selfish al
billions of their own by which no
can profit but themselves, and who
peoples are fuel in their hands; go
ernments which fear their people a
vet are for the time their soverei
lords, making every choice for the
and disposing of their lives and If
tunes as they will, as well as of t
lives and fortunes of every peol
who fall under their power-gover
ments clothed with the strange ira
pings and the primitive authority
an age that is altogether alien a
hostile to our own.
The Past and the Present are
deadly grapple and the peoples of t
world are being done to death
tween them.
There can be but one issue.
settlement must be final. There c
be no compromise. No halfway
cision would be tole-able. No ha
way decision Is conceivable. TIL
are the ends for which the associa
peoples Of the world are fighting a
which must be conceded them Def
IN