We should do well also to remember the day in Manila Bay when the
English Fleet steamed and anchored between the German ships and Admiral
Dewey's squadron and when Admiral Chichester practically gave von
Diderich to understand that a shot fired against America would hit
England first. Just before this war broke out, Germany went to England,
unofficially, to say that that Government had it in mind to seize parts
of Argentine and of Brazil and to establish Imperial colonies there, and
wished to know the attitude of the English in such a contingency.
England replied, also unofficially, that Germany had forgotten the
Monroe Doctrine. Germany responded that she had not forgotten the Monroe
Doctrine, but that she was prepared to meet that issue with America if,
and when, America raised that issue. England then said that she could
only consider such an act by Germany as an expression of unfriendliness
and the German fleet never sailed.
Let us remember that Germany has never assented to the Monroe Doctrine.
In 1898 Count von Goetzen said "About fifteen years from now my country
will begin a great war. In two months she will be in Paris; then will
come the crushing of England. Some months after we have finished our
work in Europe we will take New York and probably Washington and hold
them for some time. We will put your country in its place with reference
to Germany. We will take a billion of dollars or more from New York and
other places. The Monroe Doctrine will be taken charge of by us, as we
will then have put you in your place and we will take charge of South
America as far as we want to."
"AN IMPERTINENCE"
"The Monroe Doctrine cannot be justified, it is only an aspiration
which we Europeans consider an impertinence. The inviolability of
American soil is invoked without there being at hand the slightest means
of warding off an attack of a respectable European Power." So said
Johannes Vollert in 1903.
I am told by men who freely admit England's friendliness and its value
to America that after all, England is not disinterested. She saw herself
confronted by the hostility of great powers abroad and needed the
support of America; hence her friendliness. Is it not asking a great
deal of any Government that we should demand that it should rest its
policies on disinterested affection for another people and not upon the
welfare of those for whose wellbeing they have been placed in office?
But, if we discount English friendship on that ground, let us be
logical and consistent. We have publicly and enthusiastically admitted
our debt to France for the help she gave us in our Revolution. But
before the year 1776 Vergennes, who was over the Foreign Office in
Paris, had written a memorial on American affairs. "In the document the
importance of maintaining a close alliance between the different
branches of the House of Bourbon and of opposing on all occasions the
interests of Great Britain was clearly demonstrated and especial stress
was laid upon the necessity of aiding the Americans in their struggle
for independence. The defeat and submission of the colonies would,
Vergennes declared, be followed by disastrous consequences for the
French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies. If, however, the
Americans won by their own exertions, they would be themselves disposed
to conquer the French and Spanish West Indies, so as to provide fresh
outlets for their productions. Hence it was of supreme importance that
France should at once lay the colonists under a debt of gratitude...."
"LET US BE JUST"
I yield to none in my admiration and affection for France, but let us be
just in the application of our standards and criterions of judgment. If
we are to condemn and repudiate our debt to England because we deny it
the element of disinterestedness, let us also, and for the same reason,
repudiate our admitted debt to France. It is admitted that we were
utterly unprepared for war even as late as 1917. Mr. George Creel
defends our unpreparedness and says that we could not logically and
consistently work for peace while we prepared for war, but even in
defending he admits the fact. While we have been so unprepared it has
been the English fleet that has been defending our Monroe Doctrine; it
is the English fleet that has kept our coasts unscarred; it is the
English fleet that has enabled our commerce and our transports to cross
the seas; it is that Imperial line of ships and guns and men that have
protected us through our uneasy slumbers, that have given us time to
wake up to the issues of this war and upon which we have depended for
the opportunity to make ready and prepare.
Again and again has England saved the world; once when the white sails
of the Armada rounded Ushant and spread out over the English Channel;
again when Louis XIV was threatening the Old World and the New; again
when Bonaparte was making and unmaking kings from Madrid to Warsaw; but
never did England give to the world a greater service than when she
offered up that little Expeditionary Army and threw herself, all
unprepared, across the pathway of victorious Germany. Not one of us can
look at the ruins of the cities of France and Belgium and remember the
threats of Germany directed towards ourselves without thinking with a
shudder at what might be the condition of our own cities and citizens
had England failed the world in that dreadful summer of 1914.
"POISON OF HATRED"
The American citizen who is opposed to England because of the memories
of 1776, or because of the attitude of the English Government in 1861,
we can understand. We can argue with him sympathetically, for his
antagonism is based on American history imperfectly studied. But the
German-American who hates England, not because of what she has at any
time done to America, but because of what he thinks she has done or
would do to Germany and who spreads the poison of his hatred through
America, is admittedly disloyal. The Irish-American who hates England,
not because of anything she has done to America, but because of what
Cromwell did in Ireland nearly three hundred years ago or because of
what English Cabinets may not have done in more recent years may not be
disloyal in intent, but he stands upon the same basis as the
German-American in this, that he imports antagonism; he does not base it
on American soil but on a soil that is three thousand miles away. His
antagonism is not due to his Americanism, but to his affections for
another land. But exactly the same must be said of the German-American
who preaches hate for England. To-day English ships convoy our
squadrons safely through the seas made dangerous by Germany; American
destroyers are helping to guard English shores; American regiments are
merging with English regiments and are acting as reserves and
reinforcements for the English Army; our flag and the English flag are
flying side by side in Picardy. Our guns stand wheel to wheel with
English guns; our ships, our armies and our Red Cross are standing side
by side with English surgeons, nurses, soldiers and battleships. The
same spirit of unity must be maintained at home as well as abroad and we
must understand that a common cause makes a common foe, but it also
makes a common friend. Loyalty to America to-day means also loyalty to
England.
I have a friend, president of a large corporation which employs
thousands of men, who has been called to the head of a Department of a
certain war activity in Washington. He told me that they had given him
what seemed to be a very unimportant task, one that any clerk in his
employ could well discharge, "but," he said, "I am trying to make it
important by putting into it the best I have and the best that I can
do."
When that spirit grips us, every single one, we shall sweep forward to a
victory that nothing in all Germany can ever halt.
There is one other issue in this war, one other thing for which we
fight, and I have left it to the last.
Mr. La Follette tells us that we are going to war to protect our
investments, and we are. We have entered this war for just that
purpose; we have gone to war to protect our investments, but not our
stocks and bonds. Do you realize that ever since this war broke out in
1914, not a ship has sailed from any Atlantic port of America or Canada,
but that it has carried Americans, men of our flesh and blood, speaking
our language to fight this battle against the Beast. Wherever men have
fallen, these have fallen; wherever men have died, on the land, in the
air, on the sea or in German prison camps, these have died; their ashes
lie mingled with those of England's best, their bones rest in the soil
of Serbia, Italy, Belgium and France.
"We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.... It is for
us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced ... that
we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."
We all remember the vision of Constantine; that flaming cross gleaming
in the sky with the words written over it: "In hoc signo vinces." But
there is another vision of crosses that rises before our eyes. Little
crosses, white crosses, wooden crosses, that march in serried ranks
across the trench-scarred face of Europe from the North Sea to the Black
Sea--a veritable forest of crosses, low-lying, yet they throw a longer
and a darker shadow than cypress, hemlock or than pine, for beneath them
lie the great hearts of the Empire, of Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia,
and Roumania; they call to us, they wait for us.
"Who says their day is over, while others carry on
The little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone?
Not while they deck a sky line, not while they crown a view,
Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew."
(E. W. HORNUNG.)
Now, listen:
"In Flanders' fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;
While, in the sky,
The larks still bravely singing fly
Unheard amid the guns.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, saw dawn, felt sunsets glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.
Take up our battle with the foe;
To you, from falling hands we throw
The torch, be yours to bear it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
In Flanders' fields."
(JOHN MCRAE.)
It was before Verdun. All day long the lines in the field-gray uniforms
had been assailing a French trench. Late in the afternoon the continual
pressure forced the French to yield the ground. Only the dead and dying
were left when the Germans filed through to take possession. Then a
wondrous thing happened. There was a pile of the dead blocking up the
trench, and that pile began to stir, a movement swept through it. Up
from that ghastly heap there came first a hand, then an arm, a face, and
a dying Frenchman looked his German conquerers in the eye. Then with a
strength gathered from God knows where, he sprang to his feet, his voice
rang out shrill, insistent, imperative, "Debout les morts,"--"To your
feet, ye Dead," and by the Living God of Israel, the Dead heard him and
up from the reek and mire of that blood-stained trench dying Frenchmen,
men as good as dead, staggered to their feet and drove the living
Germans from that trench. So again the Tricolor rose above the parapet,
the evening breeze caressed it, the last rays of the setting Sun saluted
it!
Is there more of that spirit among dead Frenchmen than there is in
living Americans? Thank God, No. Seicheprey gives us the answer. When we
see one American boy going through a barrage of fire seven times to
bring ammunition up to the front, when we hear another mortally wounded
hand over his grenades saying "I can't use these now, take them and use
them," when we see the entire line, outnumbered eight to one, give
ground slowly, exacting the maximum price for every yard and then at
last come back, driving the Germans out of the village, out of every
captured trench, until the flag once more covers every foot of ground
over which it has flown at the sunrise; we know the soul of America
still lives. But that spirit must live in us at home, as well as in the
trenches of France. The cry of that dying Frenchman calls to us,
insistent and imperative: "Debout les américains." "To your feet,
America," and let your very soul make speed!