Part 2

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right, and is running amuck.

We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reëstablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.

We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test.

They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose.

If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war--into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.

But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

On July 4, 1918, the United States had been at war for more than a year, and it seemed to the millions of people who were anxiously waiting for the peaceful giant to awake that very little had been accomplished. They were fearful that the Germans in their next great offensive, for which they had been preparing for over two months, might capture Paris, or at least get near enough to it to destroy the city with their long range artillery. The offensives, already launched by the Germans, had been frightfully effective, and the Allies felt that American soldiers in large numbers were necessary to save them from possible disaster. They were looking for a great "push" by the enemy and one that German leaders had promised the people at home would bring victory and settle the war in their favor. This offensive, as we know, was launched on July 15 and instead of succeeding was changed by Marshal Foch's counter-stroke into a serious defeat for the Germans.

But this outcome could not of course be predicted in America on July 4, and hearts were heavy with fear that the United States might after all be too slow and too late. It was not then generally known that during the months of May and June, over a half million American soldiers had been landed in France.

On July 4, 1776, the American colonies by a Declaration of Independence determined to fight for liberty and democracy; on April 6, 1917, the American Congress declared that the United States would help defeat the selfish aims of Germany. In the early fight of the American colonies for independence, the first battles were fought in April and the Declaration of Independence was signed in July of the next year; in the fight for the liberty of all peoples, the German included, the Americans entered the war in April, and the President on July 4 of the following year, standing at the tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, read a Declaration of Independence, not for America alone, but for the entire world.

In 1776, the declaration was supported by a small army of a few small colonies, in 1918 the declaration was supported by the full strength of the greatest and wealthiest nation on the globe.

It was a beautiful day with a cloudless sky and a cooling breeze. President Wilson and his party, including members of the cabinet; the British ambassador, the Earl of Reading; the French ambassador, Jules J. Jusserand; and other members of the diplomatic corps, had come down the Potomac from Washington on the President's steam yacht, the _Mayflower_.

When they had gathered around the tomb of Washington near his old home, Mount Vernon, on the banks of the beautiful Potomac River, representatives of thirty-three nations placed wreaths of palms on the tomb to show their fealty to the principles for which the "Father of His Country" fought; then all stood with bared heads while John McCormack sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." As the beautiful notes rose and swelled and echoed over the hallowed ground, into the hearts of all present came the conviction that the starry flag would soon bring to all the peoples of the world the peace and security that surrounded that historic group at Mount Vernon.

Then the President with the marines about him, and beyond them thousands of American citizens, began to read the Declaration of the Independence of the World. It is so simple in language that even children of twelve years of age may understand nearly all of it, and it is so deep and noble in thought that even the greatest scholars and statesmen will find it worthy of close study. It will stand forever with Washington's Farewell Address and Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech as a great American document. It is as follows, except that the four ends for which the world is fighting are restated in briefer form:

Gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps and my Fellow-Citizens:

I 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 nation's independence. The place seems very still and remote. It is as serene and untouched by hurry 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 a 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 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 immediate presence of this sacred tomb, that this is a place of death. It was a place of achievement.

A great promise that was meant for all mankind was here given plan and reality. The associations by which we are here surrounded are the inspiriting associations of that noble death which is only a glorious consummation. From this green hillside we also ought to be able to see with comprehending eyes the world that lies around us and conceive anew the purpose that must set men free.

It is significant--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. It has been left for us to see to it that it shall be understood that they spoke and acted, not for a single people only, but for all mankind. They were thinking not of themselves and of the material interests which centered in the little groups of landholders and merchants and men of affairs with whom they were accustomed to act, in Virginia and the colonies to the north and south of here, 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 consciously 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 freemen. 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 the 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 well. We are happy in the thought that we are permitted 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 draw to-day.

This is surely a fitting place from which calmly to look out upon our task that we may fortify our spirits for its accomplishment. And this is the appropriate place from which to 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.

This, then, is our conception of the great struggle in which we are engaged. The plot is written plain upon every scene and every act of the supreme tragedy. On the one hand stand the peoples of the world--not only the peoples actually engaged, but many others also who suffer under mastery but cannot act; peoples of many races and every part of the world--the peoples of stricken Russia still, among the rest, though they are for the moment unorganized and helpless. Opposed to them, masters of many armies, stand an isolated, friendless group of governments who speak no common purpose, but only selfish ambitions of their own by which none can profit but themselves, and whose peoples are fuel in their hands; governments which fear their people and yet are for the time their sovereign lords, making every choice for them and disposing of their lives and fortunes as they will, as well as of the lives and fortunes of every people who fall under their power--governments clothed with the strange trappings and the primitive authority of an age that is altogether alien and hostile to our own. The past and the present are in deadly grapple and the peoples of the world are being done to death between them.

There can be but one issue. The settlement must be final. There can be no compromise. No half-way decision would be tolerable. No half-way decision is conceivable. These are the ends for which the associated peoples of the world are fighting and which must be conceded them before there can be peace:

1. Every power anywhere that can secretly and of its own single choice bring war upon the world must be bound or destroyed.

2. All questions must be settled in accordance with the wishes of the people concerned.

3. The same respect for honor and for law that leads honorable men to hold their promises as sacred and to keep them at any cost must direct the nations in dealing with one another.

4. A league of nations must be formed strong enough to insure the peace of the world.

These great objects can be put into a single sentence. What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.

These great ends cannot be achieved by debating and seeking to reconcile and accommodate what statesmen may wish, with their projects for balances of power and national opportunity. They can be realized only by the determination of what the thinking peoples of the world desire, with their longing hope for justice and for social freedom and opportunity.

I cannot but fancy that the air of this place carries the accents of such principles with a peculiar kindness. Here were started forces which the great nation against which they were primarily directed at first regarded as a revolt against its rightful authority, but which it has long since seen to have been a step in the liberation of its own peoples as well as of the people of the United States; and I stand here now to speak--speak proudly and with confident hope--of the spread of this revolt, this liberation, to the great stage of the world itself! The blinded rulers of Prussia have aroused forces they know little of--forces which, once aroused, can never be crushed to earth again; for they have at their heart an inspiration and a purpose which are deathless and of the very stuff of triumph!

A KING OF HEROES

"King" is not a word that will go out of use when the world has been won for democracy. We shall still use it much as we do now, when we say, "He is a prince" or "He is a king among men"; for there are still good kings, as well as bad ones. Some countries that are really democratic prefer to keep kings as reminders of their past and as ornaments of their present.

England is really more democratic than the United States and yet England has a king; and as some one has said, he is a king and a democrat and a king of democrats. This was well shown by his letter to the first American soldiers who marched through London in April, 1918, on their way to the battle line in France. Each soldier was handed an envelope bearing the inscription, "A message to you from his majesty, King George V." In the envelope was the letter shown on the opposite page, from a democratic king to the American soldiers in the army of democracy.

No autocratic king or kaiser desires to shake the hand of each of his soldiers or to become in any way one of them. To an autocrat, to the German Kaiser, to the German officers, the German privates are only Things to be used as are swords and guns. A wounded German officer felt insulted because he was made well again in an English hospital in the same ward with German privates.

An interesting story is told of a Red Cross nurse, to whom a badly wounded man was brought at a field hospital during one of the battles in which the brave little Belgian army was trying to hold back the invading Germans. All the surgeons were busy, and the man needed assistance at once. The nurse knew what was needed to save his life until he could receive surgical treatment, and she knew how to do it; but she could not do it alone. She must have help at once, and of the right kind.

She was about to give up in despair, when she saw a man walking through the field hospital, cheering the sufferers and asking if he could be of any assistance. She called to him, and when he came she said, "You can save this man's life if you will help me and do just what I tell you, just when I tell you to do it. Do you think you can take orders and obey them promptly?"

"I think so," replied the man. "Let us save this poor soldier's life, if we can."

The nurse set to work, telling the stranger just what she wanted him to do. She wasted no words, but gave orders as if she expected them to be obeyed quickly and intelligently. The stranger proved himself equal to the occasion, and the delicate work which saved the man's life was soon done.

"Thank you," said the nurse, as she finished. "I see you are used to taking orders and know how to obey. I shall remain with this soldier, until he regains consciousness. He will want to know to whose assistance he owes his life. Kindly give me your name."

The stranger hesitated. Then he said, "The soldier really owes his life to you, but I am glad if I was able to help. If he asks, you may tell him the people call me Albert."

And all at once the commanding little Red Cross nurse understood that the tall, quiet man, who, she said, showed that he was used to taking orders, was Albert, King of the Belgians.

Italy has a king and Belgium has a king; but like King George of England they are democratic kings, exercising what authority is granted to them by the people in accordance with a constitution. The German Kaiser claims to hold all authority of life and death over his people, including the right of declaring defensive war, by "divine right," by God's choice of him and his family to rule.

When Germany, at the outbreak of the war in 1914, resolved to break the treaty in which with other nations she had pledged herself never to violate, but always to defend, the neutrality of Belgium; when she was ready to declare to the world that a sacred treaty was only "a scrap of paper" to be torn up whenever her needs seemed to require it, she sent on Sunday night, August 2, 1914, at seven o'clock, an ultimatum to the Belgian government--to be answered within twelve hours--in substance as follows:

The German Government has received information, of the accuracy of which there can be no doubt, that it _may_ be the intention of France to send her forces across Belgium to attack Germany.

The German Government fears that Belgium, no matter how good her intentions, may not be able unaided to prevent such a French advance; and therefore it is necessary for the protection of Germany that she should act at once.

The German Government would be very sorry to have Belgium consider her action in this matter as a hostile act, for it is forced upon Germany by her enemies. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, the German Government declares:

1. Germany intends no hostile act against Belgium, and if Belgium makes no resistance, the German Government pledges the security of the Belgian Kingdom and all its possessions.

2. Germany pledges herself to evacuate all Belgian territory at the end of the war.

3. Germany will pay cash for all supplies needed by her troops which Belgians are willing to sell her and will make good any damage caused by her forces.

4. If Belgium resists the advance of the German forces, the German Government will be compelled to consider Belgium as an enemy and will act accordingly. If not, the friendly relations which have long united the two nations will become stronger and more lasting.

In twelve hours Belgium must make a decision that would change her entire future history and, as later events proved, the history of Europe and of the world. She made it; and by that decision she sacrificed herself and brought death and destruction upon her people and her possessions, but she saved her honor and her soul. Germany had promised her everything, if she would only let the German armies march unhindered through Belgium into France. No Belgian should be harmed or disturbed, and anything needed by the German army would be paid for. After the Germans had won the war, as they doubtless would have done if Belgium had not blocked their way, Belgium would have become a thriving, wealthy kingdom, under German protection. Antwerp would have been perhaps the greatest port in the world, and Brussels, next to Berlin, the world's most magnificent capital. But the Belgians did not hesitate nor did their heroic king.

The Belgian Government replied on Monday morning, at four o'clock, in substance as follows:

The Note from the German Government has caused the most painful surprise to the Belgian Government. The French on August 1 assured us most emphatically that they would respect our neutrality. If this should prove to be false, the Belgian army will offer the greatest possible resistance to invasion by them. The neutrality of Belgium is guaranteed by the powers, among them Germany, and the attack which the German Government threatens to make on Belgium would be a violation of the Law of Nations. No military necessity can justify such a violation of right.

The Belgian Government, if it accepted the proposals of Germany, would sacrifice the honor of the nation and betray its duty to Europe; and it therefore refuses to believe that this will be demanded in order to maintain its independence. If this expectation proves unfounded, the Belgian Government is fully decided to resist by all means in its power any attack against its rights.

On Tuesday the King brought in person a message to the Belgian Legislature, as President Wilson has often brought such messages to the American Congress. King Albert's message was in substance as follows:

Not since 1830 has Belgium passed through such an anxious hour. Our independence is threatened. We still have hope that what we dread may not happen; but if we have to resist invasion and defend our homes, that duty will find us armed, courageous, and ready for any sacrifice. Already our young men have risen to defend their country in danger. I send to them, in the name of the nation, a brotherly greeting. Everywhere in the provinces of Flanders and of Walloon alike, in city and country, one feeling fills all minds--that our duty is to resist the enemies of our independence with firm courage and as a united nation.

The perfect mobilization of our army, the great number of volunteers, the devotion of the citizens, the self-denial of families have shown beyond doubt the bravery of the Belgian people. The moment to act has come.

No one in this nation will betray his duty. The army is ready, and the Government has absolute trust in its leaders and its soldiers.

If the foreigner violates our territory, he will find all Belgians grouped round their King and their Government, in which they have absolute confidence.

I have faith in our destinies. A nation which defends its rights commands the respect of all. Such a nation cannot die. God will be with us in a just cause. Long live independent Belgium!

Hardly had the King finished his noble message, when the Prime Minister announced to the Legislature that Germany had declared war upon Belgium, and that her troops were moving against Liége.