French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1916-1919, 1918-06-06

drIICIe was written Dy RrOT. d. w.
Briggs in response to the offer of
$25 by ]. c.. Sales for the best essay
from a public school teacher on the
reasons why the United States is at
war;
(winner of prize)
America is a peaceful nation. We
respect other nations rights, wish
them prosperity and envy them moth
ing. We have vast territory and un-
developed 20 occupy our
minds and our hands for generations
without meddling with other peoples
concerns. We believe that the peace
and happiness of mankind will best
be promoted by self-government, for
which we have stood through almost
our whole history. We protected
China. from robbery and war on the
part of more greedy nations, and
have stood the strongest friend of the
new Chinese republic. In 1896, we
stood the friend of Venezuela in her
controversy with Great Britain; for
years we have even allowed our own
citizens to be wrOnged in Mexico
rather than make war on our neigh
Dor republic. When we departed
from peace policy in 1898 and
made war on Spain, it was in order to
stop intOlerable oppression at our
very door in Cuba; and only took the
Philippine Islands that we might
save them from falling to some less
disinterested nation, and that we
might educate their people for indie
pendence later.
We did not wish to fight Germany;
she made the attack on us-on our
ships, our lives, our rights, our fu-
ture. We are in the war because we
could not keep out. It is a war of
self-defense, a war to save America,
to preserve self-respect, to Justify
our rights. Germany has dared to
tell US what oceans ships may sail
on, the kind and amount of the cargo
to be carried, and the paths they
must travel. We will not choose the
most sacred rights of our nation and
our people to be ignored or violated.
And in the name of freedom we ac-
cept the challenge with ships, with
money, with men and with our I'M
daunted spirit.
Germany forced US into war by her
unlimited submarine warfare which
she started Feb. 1, 1917 Before this
many American ships had been sunk
by German submarines, and hundreds
of lives had been lost on these and
other ships. This was contrary to all
humanity and even to all law. The
/ most horrible outrage was the sinking
i of the Lusitania in May, 1915, when
1854 lives we're lost, ia being
4 Americans. The Kaiser had struck
in advance a medal for him who COM
mitted the treacherous deed; the Ger
man school children were given a
holiday celebration of the event; in a
public address, a German pastor said:
"Whoever cannot approve from n
bottom of his heart the sinking of the
| Lusitania, and give himself up to hon
est delight at this victorious exploit
of German defensive power, him we
/ Judge to be no true German" We
saw the Sussex sunk, crowded with
the sons and daughters of neutral ma
tions. Where these ships went
down, we still hear coming up from
the sea the piteous cries of mothers
and children. And Germany has
never asked the forgiveness of the
world. We see ship after ship sent
to the bottom-ships of mercy bound
out of America for the Belgium starv-
ing; ships carrying the Red Cross,
! and laden with the wounded of all ma
tions; ships carrying food and cloth,
ing to friendly, harmless, ~terrorized
peoples; ships flying the Stars and
| Stripes-sent to the bottom hundreds
of miles from shore, manned by
American seaman, murdered against
| all law, without warning and without
mercy.
We fight because of Belgium-in-
vaded, outraged, ensIaved, Empower
ished Belgium. We cannot forget
Liege, Louvain, Cardinal MERCER.
Translated into American history,
these names stand for Bunker Hill,
Lexington, Patrick Henry. Our sense
of human justice was Mortified by the
| German invasion of Belgium, a weak
and innocent nation which stood IN
the road which the German armies
wished to take into France. We were
Mortified still more by their conduct
in BeIgium-by their vile and filthy
treatment of Belgians-by their rob-
berries and murders; by their dishon-
! oring of mothers, wives, daughters
and sisters; by their stabbing of little
| babies with b~ayonets and carrying
| them along the streets singing; by
their destruction of precious and sa-
cred things, and the transporting of
valuable material and machinery to
Germany; by their depOrting of hun
dreds of Belgians to work In the
mines and munition factories of Ger
many; by their herding together
Young married women and girls, and
in stock cars carrying them away to
destinies unknown and by the COM
| plete humiliation of towns and cities
bv burning alive the inhabitants in
| their homes. Then we hear a Ger
man officer say:: "The blood of the
| entire population of Louvain is of
less worth than one drop of the blood
of a German soldier, and the ugliest
| stone placed to mark his burial is
more glorious than all the monuments
II III 4Lo nn+hndrnlc Of E11rnnn -