Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-05
SPEAKING FOR ALL MANKIND"
President Wilson's Mount Vernon Address a
Declaration Of Independence by Hu.
manity From All Tyrants and
Their Seryitors

Their Serviiors
MO AMERICAN can read President
~ Wilson'S Fourth of July address
at Mount Vernon and fail to feel a thrill
of pride in the war mission to which our
nation is consecrated
One hundred and forty-two years ago
the Founders adopted the immortal docu-
ment which has been the Charter of
| Democracy throughout the world Yester-
| day Mr.. Wilson revised-or better still,
supplementary, so that it becomes the
charter of all mankind for the future.
What Washington and his colleagues
did then for America and the republics
which were born, like this nation, out of
the urge toward liberty and free insti-
tutions Mr.. Wilson is doing now for
humanity.
This is neither prophecy nor a boast.
1t is a plain statement of fact, and
nobody need read the speech twice to
realize it.
Mastery in diction, simple in utterance,
noble in thought, child can grasp its
significance. There are phrases in it
which will last as long as men love free
dom. It's message goes straight to the
heart; it will quicken the pulse of the
people everywhere it is heard; it appeals
alike to the soldier in the trenches, the
mother at home, the workman in the
shop, the statesman in the forum and
the scholar in his study. It is the vocal
thought for which mankind has been
cropping in the welter of war. 1t is the
death warrant of tyranny cloaked under
the baneful power of autocracy.
Once and for all the President has
disposed of the fiction still sedulously
nurtdred in some corners of the earth
that the United States had selfish in
terest in going to war. If there are
Capitalists" here or abroad who still
secretly believe the. some mercenary
gain can be wrung out of the advantage
which will surely lie with America and
the Alles when the war is ended, they
are fools, fooling only themselves. If
there are statesmen in Europe who still
believe that America S idealistic motives
in the war can be turned to serve the
cunning means of conquests either in
territory or trade, they are simpletons.
If there are gibbering radicals who still
believe that America is the tool of adroit
European politicians in high places, they
are lunatics, hopelessly mad.
Across the banners OF militant democ-
racy the one sentence which is the sum
of the Presidents great words should be
blazoned for the deluded peoples of the
Central empires to read at every firing
line-this:
What ace seek is the reign Of Iaw
based upon the consent of the gou-
erned and sustained by the organized
opinion Of mankind.
What answer can Prussianism make :?
How can kaiser or king longer betray the
rights of his subjects in the face Of
such a clean and candid declaration? =?
Where is the Lenine or Trotsky, in or
out of Europe, so glib of tongue as to
falsify that doctrine? How can Kultur
frame a reply, howeI er cpecious without
standing self-condemned before every
fair and sincere lover of the rights of
man?
Specifically, it is possible for the casuist
to read too much or too little into the
intention of the President by applying
the old conventions of diplomacy. One
might say, for example, that the second
| paragraph of the Presidents four gener.
allied but still definite declarations OF
"ends for which the associated peoples
of the world are fighting" is aimed al
some of the statesmen of the Allied coun-
tries who have not yet disabused their
minds of the hope that rational and per.
Sonal profit may be reaped from the
| enormous expenditures of life and wealth
flung into the breach of battle. Or he
could argue with the nicely of the
academician, that it is not easy to apply
abstract principles to particular instances
where the situation is so complex and
variously confused by national traditions
jealousies and aspirations. But this is all
beside the purpose.
Inspired by the exalted truth, compact
within the brief address of the President
every delegate to the peace conference
which will sit at the close of the wal
should fni no obstacle to settlement
tion of the horrors through which man.
kind is now passing No other course ca,
succeed.