Republican farmer., 1918-07-12

follows:
 Gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps
 and My Fellow Citizens:
 I am happy to draw apart with you to this quiet place of old counsel in order to speak little of the mean ing of this day of our nations inde- 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 those 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 a nation.
 From these gentle slopes they look ed out upon the world and saw It whole, saw 1t with the light of the future upon 1t, saw it with modern eyes that turned away from a 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 a place of death- --.It 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 is only glorious consummation.
 From this green hillside we also ought to be able to see with compre- hending eyes the world that lies about us and should conceive anew the pur- poses that must set men free.
 It Is signifcant---signtfic 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 acted, not for a class, but for a people.
 It has been left for us to see to 1t that 1t 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 landhclders and merchants and men of affairs with whom they were ac-
  s 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- pose, desired no peculiar privilege. 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 be only the fruitage of what they plant ed.
 Our case differs from theirs only 1T this, that it is our inestimable privi. lege to concert with men out of every nation what shall make not only the liberties of America secure but tho liberties of every other people a! well.
 We are happy in the thought tha we are permitted to do what the would have done had they been in ou place.
 There must now be settled once fo all what was settled for America 1 the great age upon whose inspiratio we draw today.
 This is surely a fitting place fror 'S. which calmly to look out upon ou task. that we may fortify our spirit for its accomplishment.
 And this is the appropriate plac from which to avow, alike to tn friends who look on and to the friend with whom we have the happiness 1 be associated in action, the faith an purpose with which we act.
 This then, is our conception of tt great struggle in which we are CT gagged.
 The plot is written plain upon e cry scene and every act of the ST 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 peop of stricken Russia still, among t rest, though they are for the nome unorganized and helpless.
 Opposed to them, masters of ma armies, stand an isolated, friendle group of governments who speak common purpose but only selfish al bitions of their own by which no can profit but themselves, and who peoples are fuel in their hands, SC ernments which fear their people a yet are for the time their soverei lords, making every choice for the and disposing of their lives and fC tunes as they will, as well as of lives and fortunes of every peol who fall under their power-govel ments clothed with the strange tre 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 world are being done to death tween them.
 There can be but one issue. I settlement must be final. There ( be no compromise. No halfway cision would be tolerable. No hf
 
 are the ends for which the associa peoples of the world are fighting z which must be conceded them Def there can be peace:
 I, The destruction bf every al trary power anywhere that can S arately, secretly and of its sin choice disturb the peace of the wol or, if it cannot be presently destr ed, at the least its reduction to tual impotence.