The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1918-07-13
AUTOCRACY IS
. SCORED BY
WILSON
President Delivers Four-Minute
Speech Dealing With German
Menace
LIBERTY-LOVING PEOPLE
ALLIED AGAINST HUNS
Day COnsecrated to Declaration of
Independence for All
People

President Wilson yesterday, on tn,
occasion of the celebration of indie
pendence day, delivered a four-min
ute address, copies of which haC
been sent to Four-Mfnute mel
throughout the country by William
Mccormick Blair, director of Four
Minute men for the committee OF
public information. The address
was read to thousands of audience,
throughout the United States yester
day, as we'll as being published il
all allied countries, and was deliv
cred in Goldfield yesterday al tn,
court house, after the parade dis
banded. by J. M. Fenwick, one of tn,
local Four-Minute men.
The text of the presidents ad
dress follows:
You are met, my fellow citi-
Zens to commemorate the signing
of that Declaration of Independ-
ence which marked the awakening
of a new spirit in the lives Of ma
lions. Since the birth of our re-
public we have seen this spirit
grow. We have heard the de-
mand and watched the struggle
for self-government spread and
triumph among many peoples.
We have come to regard the right
to political liberty as the COM
mon right of humankind.
Year after year, within the Sc
curity of our borders, we have
continued to rejoice in the peace
full increase of freedom and dem
ocracy throughout the world.
And yet now, suddenly, we are
confronted with a menace which
endangers everything hat we
have won and everything that the
world has won.
In all it's old insolence, with all
ancient cruelty and injustice,
military a%utocracy has again arm
ed itself against the pacifist hopes
of men. Having suppressed self
government among it's W people
by an organization maintained in
part by falsehood and ~treachery,
it has set out to impose it's will
upon it's neighbors and upon us.
One by one, it has compelled every
civilized nation in the world eth
err to forego it's aspirations or to
declare war in their defense.
We find ourselves fighting again
for our national existence. we
are face to face with the necessity
Of asserting anew the fundamen-
tai right of free men to make their
own laws and choose their own
allegiance. or else permit human
itv to become the victim OF a ruin
less ambition that is determined
to destroy what it can not a
ter.
Against it's threat the liberty
loving people of the world nave
risen and allied themselves. NO
fear has deferred them, n no
bribe. of material well-being a
held them back. They have maze
sacrifices such as the world a
never known before, and their re-
s~istance in the face of death ana
suffering has proved that the aim
which animates the German effort
can never hope to rule the spirit
of mankind.
Against the horror of military
conquest, against the emptiness
of living in mere bodily content
ment. against the desolation oi
becoming part of a state tnat
knows neither truth nor honor, the
world has so revolted that ven
people long dominated and sup
pressed by force have now begun
to stir and arm themselves.
Centuries of subjugation nave
NOT DESTROYED the racial aspira-
tons of the many distinct peoples
of eastern Europe, MOI have they
accented the sordid ideals OF their
political and military masters.
They have survived the slow per-
secutions of peace as well as the
agonies of war, and now demand
recognition for their just claims
to autonomy and self-govern-
ment.
>Representatives of these races
- with you today, voicing tneir
LOYALTY to our ideals and offering
their services in the common
cause. I ask you, fellow citizens
to unite with them in making MS
our independence Day the first
that shall be consecrated to a dec
laration of independence o all
the peoples of the world.