Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-09-08
PATTANCALL! IN HOME CITY
CALLS0N VOTERS keep Maine
: FREE Of INVISIBLE EMPIRE

ahead, think back seven years. You
can surely do that. Seven years ago.
we moboIized an army of four mil
lion men. Two million of these boys
we sent across the ocean to fight for
the preservation of the liberty of the
world. Today, in the battle ceme-
terfes Of France many of those boys
sleep side by side, Jewish boys and
Negro boys. Protestant boys and
Catholic boys, who fought shoulder
to shoulder for the preservation Of
democracy. What. I ask you, my
friends, would you say If some
Klansman went to those war time
cemeteries and pointing to the
graves Of those boys said. You are
not a. good as We are: you are not
100 per cent Americans
I'VE can all remember in those
war time days when the women Of
this country, Protestant and Cath
Ollie, Jewish and Gentle, gathered
around tables to do Red Cross work.
They did not ask them what their
religion was or IL they were native
born or Protestant.
my friends, you can't have a
doctrine in time of peace that won't
work in time of war. When the sun
IL shining. the sky is clear and the
wind il fair. it Is all very well to say
to these men, you are not 100 per
cent Americans But let war come.
and war may come. There was a
high moment at the close of the
Great War when it seemed that
peace might be assured for a time at
least but that dream has been shat
tered and now, all Europe is an
armed camp. But you do not have
to look to Europe, my friends, for
on the other side of the Pacific, sits
Japan. the proudest and most sem
sitive nation in the world, ready to
fling back into the face of the United
States Senate the gratuitous insult
that was given her against the pro-
test of President Coolidge and the
entreaty of Secretary Hughes" And
If war should come and the United
States was under the rule of the
Khan could you say to the fifteen
million Roman Catholics, two and a
half million Jews. the ten million
Negroes, and the ten million foreign
born Protestants, You are not as
good as we are in time of peace, you
are not 100 per cent Americans, but
when trouble comes and we need
you, then you shall shoulder gun
and your boys shall march beside
our boys
You can't say that 1t is a
monstrous doctrine. You would
have draft riots in every city in the
United States and you ought to have
them. You would have civil war;"
Il am reminded at this time Of
something that happened at the end
of the war. Foreign governments, af-
ter great wars, often honored their
generals, their admirals and their
diplomats, but the United States de-
cided to pay tribute to the memory
of an unknown soldier.
$50 a great battleship was dis
patched across the ocean and an eX-
petition went to a cemetery where
were buried the boys who gave their
lives for world freedom. There, a
coffin was taken up. The lid was not
removed. That coffin contained the
body of an unknown soldier. No man
looked upon his face. Nobody knew
who he was. =
THAT casket was placed on the
battleship and brought to this coun-
try where it was put on special
train and taken to Washington.
There, that unknown soldier boy was
given a burial such as might have
been given an emperor or king. The
President of the United States, the
head of the greatest and most power
full nation on the face of the earth,
rode as chief mourner in the pro-
cession. In the same procession rode
the former President of the United
States, broken in health: man
whose health had been broken by the
service which he had given his coun-