Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1918-07-10

BE Finai-"BlInded Rulers of PruI-
STA Have Reused Forces They Knew
Little Of-Forces Which Once
Reused Can Never Be Crushed to
Earth"
Mount Vernon, Va, July AIN his
Independence day address, which the
world will recognize as an answer to
Won Kuehlmann's recent speech in the
reichstag, President Wilson declared
that the Father of His Country and
his associates spoke and acted
not for a class, but for a people
and that it has been left for us to see
to 1t that it shall be understood that
they spoke and acted, not for q single
people only, but for all mankind and
were planning that men of every class
should be free, and America a place to
which men out of every nation might
resort who wished to share with them
the rights and privileges of free men.
Referring to the present world strug-
gle, the president said that the peoples
of the world find themselves con-
fronted by selfish group of nations
who speak no common purpose but
only selfish ambitions of their own and
by which none can profit but them
selves and whose people are fuel in
their hands.
Text of Address.
The text Of the presidents speech
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 meaning Of this day of
our nations independence. The place
seems very still and remote. It is as
serene and untouched by the hurry Of
the world as it was in those great days
long ago when General Washington
with the men who were to be associ-
ated with him in the creation of ma
ton. From the gentle slopes they
looked out upon the world and saw it
whole, saw it with the light of the fu-
ture upon it, 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 immedi-
ate presence of this sacred tomb, that
this is a 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 as
sociations by which we are here sur
rounded are the inspiring associations
of that noble death which is only a
glorious contamination. From this
green hillside we also ought to be able
to see with comprehending eyes the
world that lies about us and should
conceive anew the purposes that must
set men free.
Planned Universal Freedom.
at is signifcant-sig significant of their
own character and purpose and of the
influences they were setting afoot-
that Washington and his associates,
like the barons at Runnymede, spoke
and acted, not for a 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 single
people only, but for all mankind. They
were thinking, not of themselves and
of the material interests which cen
tered in the little groups of landhold-
ers and merchants and men of affairs
with whom they were accustomed to
act, in Virginia and the colonies to the
north and south Of her, but of people
which wished to be done with classes
and special interests and the author
ity of men whom they had not them
selves chosen to rule over them. They
entertained no private purpose, de-
sired no peculiar privilege.
"They were consciously planning
that men of every class should be free
and America place to which men out
of 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 our participa-
ton in this present war to be only the
fruitage of what they planted. Our
case differs from theirs only in this,
that il is our inestimable privilege to
concert with men out of every nation
what shall make not only the liberties
of America secure but the liberties of
every other people as well. We are
happy in the thought that we are per-
mitted to do what they would have
done had they been in our place.
There must now be settled once for all
what was settled for America In the
great age upon whose inspiration we