The Devils Lake world and inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1915-1920, 1918-07-10
The PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

- ~ .rs.S -
The presidents speech in full was
Is follows:
Gentlemen of the Diplomatic corps
and my fellow citizens:
l am happy to draw apart with you
to this quiet place of old counsel in
order to speak a little Of the meaning
Of this day Of our nations indepen-
lence. The place seems very still and
It is rs serene and untouch-
ed by the worry Of the world as it was
in those great days long ago when
General Washington was here and
held leisurely conference with the men
who were to be associated with him
in the creation of q nation. From
these gentle slopes they looked out
upon the world and saw it whole, saw
it with the light Of the future upon it,
saw it with modern eyes that turned
away a past which men Of liberated
could no longer endure. It is
for that reason that we cannot feel,
even here, in the immediate presence
Of this sacred tomb, that this is q place
Of death. 1t was a place Of achieve
ment. A great promise that was
meant for all mankind was here given
plans and reality. The associations
by which We are here surrounded are
the inspiriting association of that no
BILE death which is only a glorious
consumation. From this green hill
side we 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.
It is signiicant-significan of their
own character and purposes and of the
that were setting afoot-
that Washington and his associates
like the barns at Runnymede, spoke
and asked not for class, but fora peo-
pie. It has been left for us to see to
it that they spoke and acted not for a
people only, but for all man
kind. They were thinking, not of
themselves and of the material inter-
ests which centered in the little group
of landowners and merchants, men of
affairs with whom they were accus-
toned to act, in Virginia and the COL
onies to the north and south of her,
but of a people which wished to be
done with classes and special interests
and the authority of men whom they
had not themselves chosen to rule over
them. They entertained no private
purpose, desired no peculiar privilege.
They were conspicuously 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. And we take
our cue from them-do We not? We
intend what they intended. We here
in America believe our participation
in this present war to be only tns
fruitage of what they planted. Our
case differs from theirs only in this,
that it 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 we'll. 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
now must be settled once for all what
was settled for America in the great
age upon whose inspiration we draw
today. This is surely a fitting place
from which calmly to look upon our
task,that We may fortify our spirits
for its accomplishment. And this is
the appropriate place from which 10
avow, alike to the friends who look
on and to the friends with whom we
have the happiness to be associated in
action, the faith and purpose with
which we act.
"These great objects can be put in
to a single sentence. What We seek is
the reign of law, based upon the con-
sent of the governed and sustained by
the organized opinion of mankind.
"These great ends cannot be achiev-
ed by debating and seeking to recon
cile and accommodate what statesmen
may wish, with their projects for bal
ances OF power and IF national oppor-
tunity. They can be realized only by
the determination Of what the think
ing peoples of the world desires, with
their longing hope for justice and fol
social freedom and opportunity.
II can fancy that the air . fthis
place carries accents of such princi.
pies with a peculiar kindness. There
We're started forces which the great
nation against which they were pri.
marily directed at first regarded as {
revolt against the rightful authority
but which it has long since e t
have been a step in the liberation o:
it's own people as well as of the peopl,
of the United States and 1 stand her,
now to speak-speak proudly and will
confident hope-of the spread of thi
revolt, this liberation, to the grea
stage of the world itself. The blind
ed rulers of Prussia have reused force