Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1918-12-21

any American ought to be proud to
make. 1t is statement anybody
ought to be ashamed to deny,
either at home or abroad. To deny
1t at home shows mean and
servile spirit, and denials abroad
show ingratitude for the most
splendid and unselfish succor ever
given by one people to other peo-
pies.
1t is not at all necessary to de-
preciate our own wonderful
strength and our wonderful rescue
of the Allies in order to do justice
to the splendid battle they fought
in their own defense. They deserve
full credit for their valor and sac
rifices, and this newspaper stands
ready at all times to give them full
credit for their glorious deeds. But
no American needs to rob his own
country of its rightful credit to
magnify some other country's
credit beyond just and due limits.
The truth will always prevail in
the long run, and history makes up
just verdict in time. no matter
what contemporary ignorance or
falsehood may do to submerge the
truth and obtain a wrong verdict.
Let us by all means be just and
generous in praise of the Allies
achievements. But let us also at
least be just to our own achieve
ments.
1t is a mighty poor American
who knows so little of his own
country's might and power and
courage that he believes that sew
enty million Germans, 5000 miles
away, are so much more intelligent,
valorous and resourceful and such
better fighters by sea and land that
they could have and would have
reduced us hundred millions of
Americans to slavery had not the
British navy prevented them. If
we were poor enough in spirit to
believe such a monstrous libel upon
our country, we would not say 1t
for very decency's sake-not while
our victorious dead are scarce cold
where they fell and our victorious
living are still holding those forth
fed positions so long deemed i'm
pregnable, which the most desperate
and bloody assaults of the French
troops failed to capture, and which
our soldiers did capture, foot by
foot and almost inch by inch,
against the defense of half the
German armies and the very pick
and flower of the German veterans.
Talk about Germany ever having
been able to send her armies over
here to make slaves of the breed
of men who converted the Allied
rout into sudden victory at Chateau
Thierry and who took the Argonne
Forest-that last word in sup
posedly impregnable fortifications-
by sheer, stubborn American cour-
age! You know what Whittlessey
said to the German summons to
surrender in that very Argonne
Forest. after his surrounded and
outnumbered men had fought off
thousands and been without food
for four days. You know what he
said to the messenger:
Tell them to go to hell.
Well, that's a very good Ameri-
can reply to make to any servile
American or any ungrateful for
eigner who talks about the United
States having been saved from
slavery by any foreign interven-
/ ton. Don't shame yourself and be-
little your own country by that kind
of talk. Speak of your country as
Cardinal Mercier speaks of it
proudly and truthfully.
Be at least as just to your great
and generous and invincible
motherland as this grateful and
noble old man, who speaks from
full heart the sentiments that be-
come priest, patriot and man
Of honor.