Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights. Kelly Miller

America is not the name of so much territory. It is a living spirit, born in travail, grown in the rough school of bitter experiences, a living spirit which has purpose and pride and conscience, knows why it wishes to live and to what end, knows how it comes to be respected of the world, and hopes to retain that respect by living on with the light of Lincoln's love of man as its old and new testaments.

      AMERICA MUST LIVE.

      "It is more precious that this America should live than that we Americans should live. And this America as we now see has been challenged from the first of this war by the strong arm of a power that has no sympathy with our purpose, and will not hesitate to destroy us if the law that we respect, the rights that are to us sacred, or the spirit that we have, stand across her set will to make this world bow before her policies, backed by her organized and scientific military system. The world of Christ—a neglected but not a rejected Christ—has come again face to face with the world of Mahomet, who willed to win by force.

      "With this background of history and in this sense, then, we fight Germany:

      "Because of Belgium—invaded, outraged, enslaved, impoverished Belgium. We cannot forget Liege, Louvain and Cardinal Mercier. Translated into terms of American history these names stand for Bunker Hill, Lexington and Patrick Henry.

      "Because of France—invaded, desecrated France, a million of whose heroic sons have died to save the land of Lafayette. Glorious, golden France, the preserver of the arts, the land of noble spirit. The first land to follow our lead into republican liberty.

      "Because of England—from whom came the laws, traditions, standards of life and inherent love of liberty which we call Anglo-Saxon civilization. We defeated her once upon the land and once upon sea. But Australia, New Zealand, Africa and Canada are free because of what we did. And they are with us in the fight for the freedom of the seas.

      "Because of Russia—new Russia. She must not be overwhelmed now. Not now, surely, when she is just born into freedom. Her peasants must have their chance; they must go to school to Washington, to Jefferson and to Lincoln, until they know their way about in this new, strange world, of government by the popular will; and

      "Because of other peoples, with their rising hope that the world may be freed from government by the soldier.

      GERMANY'S CRIMES AGAINST US.

      "We are fighting Germany because she sought to terrorize us and then to fool us. We could not believe that Germany would do what she said she would do upon the seas.

      "We still hear the piteous cries of children coming up out of the sea where the Lusitania went down. And Germany has never asked forgiveness of the world.

      "We saw the Sussex sunk, crowded with the sons and daughters of neutral nations.

      "We saw ship after ship sent to the bottom—ships of mercy bound out of America for the Belgian starving; ships carrying the Red Cross and laden with the wounded of all nations; ships carrying food and clothing to friendly, harmless, terrorized peoples; ships flying the Stars and Stripes—sent to the bottom hundreds of miles from shore, manned by American seamen, murdered against all law, without warning.

      "We believed Germany's promise that she would respect the neutral flag and the rights of neutrals, and we held our anger and outrage in check. But now we see that she was holding us off with fair promises until she could build her huge fleet of submarines. For when spring came she blew her promise into the air, just as at the beginning she had torn up that 'scrap of paper.' Then we saw clearly that there was but one law for Germany, her will to rule.

      "We are fighting Germany because she violated our confidence. Paid German spies filled our cities. Officials of her Government, received as the guests of this nation, lived with us to bribe and terrorize, defying our law and the law of nations.

      "We are fighting Germany because while we were yet her friends—the only great power that still held hands off—she sent the Zimmermann note calling to her aid Mexico, our southern neighbor, and hoping to lure Japan, our western neighbor, into war against this nation of peace.

      GOVERNMENT THAT HAS NO CONSCIENCE.

      "The nation that would do these things proclaims the gospel that government has no conscience. And this doctrine cannot live, or else democracy must die! For the nations of the world must keep faith. There can be no living for us in a world where the State has no conscience, no reverence for the things of the spirit, no respect for international law, no mercy for those who fall before its force. What an unordered world! Anarchy! The anarchy of the rival wolf packs!

      "We are fighting Germany because in this war feudalism is making its last stand against oncoming democracy. We see it now. This is a war against an old spirit, an ancient, outworn spirit. It is a war against feudalism—the right of the castle on the hill to rule the village below. It is a war of democracy—the right of all to be their own masters. Let Germany be feudal if she will! But she must not spread her system over a world that has outgrown it. Feudalism plus science, thirteenth century plus twentieth; this is the religion of the mistaken Germany that has linked itself with the Turk; that has, too, adopted the method of Mahomet: 'The State has no conscience,' 'the State can do no wrong.' With the spirit of the fanatic, she believes this gospel and that it is her duty to spread it by force.

      "With poison gas that makes living a hell, with submarines that sneak through the seas to slyly murder non-combatants, with dirigibles that bombard men and women while they sleep, with a perfected system of terrorization that the modern world first heard of when German troops entered China, German feudalism is making war upon mankind.

      LIVE IN HAUNTED TERROR.

      "Let this old spirit of evil have its way and no man will live in America without paying toll to it, in manhood and in money. This spirit might demand Canada from a defeated, navyless England, and then our dream of peace on the north would be at an end. We would live, as France has lived for forty years, in haunting terror.

      "America speaks for the world in fighting Germany. Mark on a map those countries which are Germany's allies, and you will mark but four, running from the Baltic through Austria and Bulgaria to Turkey. All the other nations, the whole globe around, are in arms against her or are unable to move. There is deep meaning in this.

      "We fight with the world for an honest world, in which nations keep their word; for a world in which nations do not live by swagger or by threat; for a world in which men think of the ways in which they can conquer the common cruelties of nature instead of inventing more horrible cruelties to inflict upon the spirit and body of man; for a world in which the ambition or the philosophy of a few shall not make miserable all mankind; for a world in which the man is held more precious than the machine, the system or the State."

      In his denunciations of the Imperial German Government President Wilson and his advisers have indicted the House of Hohenzollern, of which Emperor Wilhelm is the head, and which has developed the unbending military spirit which has resulted in Germany being counted an outcast among the nations of the world.

      America, it must be noted, has no antipathy for the Germans as a race, but modern civilization opposes that form of Government which has permitted the cruel characteristics of the "wolf tribes" of feudal times to be carried down through the generations, and capitalized by the Imperial powers to bring terror to the hearts of all who do not bow to the iron hand of the Kaiser and his ilk.

      GERMANY A WARLIKE RACE.

      The thing from which this Prussianism—this militarism—grew is easily traceable down the German ages. The very first appearance of the Germans in history is as a warlike race. The earliest German literature is composed of folk tales about war heroes—their ideals and manly virtues. And this ideal in one form or another, under varying circumstances and conditions, persisted throughout the centuries.

      It is not merely that military service has been compulsory