ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE RED CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON,

MAY 12, 1917

In the course of the following address, President Wilson said, in speaking of the war between the United States and the Imperial German Government: "We have gone in with no special grievance of our own."

This phrase did not stand alone, and the text of which it was a part clearly showed the President's thought to be that the war was commenced by Germany and that our liberty as well as the liberty of the world was at stake. It was only in this sense he meant it to be understood that we had no special grievance. As, however, the expression was seized upon as if it stood alone, the President wrote on May 22, 1917, and made public the following letter to Representative Heflin, who had addressed him on the subject:

"It is incomprehensible to me how any frank or honest person could doubt or question my position with regard to the war and its objects. I have again and again stated the very serious and long-continued wrongs which the Imperial German Government has perpetrated against the rights, the commerce, and the citizens of the United States. The list is long and overwhelming. No nation that respected itself or the rights of humanity could have borne those wrongs any longer.

"Our objects in going into the war have been stated with equal clearness. The whole of the conception, which I take to be the conception of our fellowcountrymen, with regard to the outcome of the war and the terms of its settlement I set forth with the utmost explicitness in an address to the Senate of the United States on the twenty-second of January last. Again, in my message to Congress on the second of April last those objects were stated in unmistakable terms. I can conceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and making the part which the United States is to play in this great struggle for human liberty an inefficient and hesitating part. We have entered the war for our own reasons and with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither the reasons nor the objects. There is no hate in our hearts for the German people, but there is a resolve which cannot be shaken even by misrepresentation to overcome the pretensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon purposes to which the German people have never consented."

MR. CHAIRMAN, MR. SECRETARY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It gives me a very deep gratification as the titular head of the American Red Cross to accept in the name of that association this significant and beautiful gift,

the gift of the government and of private individuals who have conceived their duty in a noble spirit and upon a great scale. It seems to me that the architecture of the building to which the Secretary alluded suggests something very significant. There are few buildings in Washington more simple in their lines and in their ornamentation than the beautiful building we are dedicating this evening. It breathes a spirit of modesty and seems to adorn duty with its proper garment of beauty. It is significant that it should be dedicated to women who served to alleviate suffering and comfort those who were in need during our Civil War, because their thoughtful, disinterested, self-sacrificing devotion is the spirit which should always illustrate the services of the Red Cross.

The Red Cross needs at this time more than ever it needed before the comprehending support of the American people and all the facilities which could be placed at its disposal to perform its duties adequately and efficiently.

I believe that the American people perhaps hardly yet realize the sacrifices and sufferings that are before them. We thought the scale of our Civil War was unprecedented, but in comparison with the struggle into which we have now entered the Civil War seems almost insignificant in its proportions and in its expenditure of treasure and of blood. And, therefore, it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should at the outset see to it that the American Red Cross is equipped and prepared for the things that lie before it.

It will be our instrument to do the works of allevi

ation and mercy which will attend this struggle. Of course, the scale upon which it shall act will be greater than the scale of any other duty that it has ever attempted to perform.

It is in recognition of that fact that the American Red Cross has just added to its organization a small body of men whom it has chosen to call its war council -not because they are to counsel war, but because they are to serve in this special war those purposes of counsel which have become so imperatively necessary.

Their first duty will be to raise a great fund out of which to draw the resources for the performance of their duty, and I do not believe that it will be necessary to appeal to the American people to respond to their call for funds, because the heart of this country is in this war, and if the heart of the country is in the war, its heart will express itself in the gifts that will be poured out for those humane purposes.

I

say the heart of the country is in this war because it would not have gone into it if its heart had not been prepared for it. It would not have gone into it if it had not first believed that here was an opportunity to express the character of the United States.

We have gone in with no special grievance of our own, because we have always said that we were the friends and servants of mankind. We look for no profit. We look for no advantage. We will accept no advantage out of this war.

We go because we believe that the very principles upon which the American Republic was founded are now at stake and must be vindicated.

In such a contest, therefore, we shall not fail to respond to the call for service that comes through the instrumentality of this particular organization.

And I think it not inappropriate to say this: There will be many expressions of the spirit of sympathy and mercy and philanthropy, and I think that it is very necessary that we should not disperse our activities in those lines too much; that we should keep constantly in view the desire to have the utmost concentration and efficiency of effort, and I hope that most, if not all, of the philanthropic activities of this war war may be exercised, if not through the Red Cross then through some already constituted and experienced organization.

This is no war for amateurs. This is no war for mere spontaneous impulse. It means grim business on every side of it, and it is the mere counsel of prudence that in our philanthropy as well as in our fighting we should act through the instrumentalities already prepared to our hand and already experienced in the tasks which are going to be assigned to them. This should be merely the expression of the practical genius of America itself, and I believe that the practical genius of America will dictate that the efforts in this war in this particular field should be concentrated in experienced hands as our efforts in other fields will be.

There is another thing that is significant and delightful to my thought about the fact that this building should be dedicated to the memory of the women both of the North and South. It is a sort of landmark of the unity to which the people have been brought so far

as any old question which tore our hearts in days gone by is concerned; and I pray God that the outcome of this struggle may be that every other element of difference amongst us will be obliterated and that some day historians will remember these momentous years as the years which made a single people out of the great body of those who call themselves Americans.

The evidences are already many that this is happening. The divisions which were predicted have not occurred and will not occur.

The spirit of this people is already united, and when effort and suffering and sacrifice have completed the union, men will no longer speak of any lines either of race or association cutting athwart the great body of this nation.

So that I feel that we are now beginning the processes which will some day require another beautiful memorial erected to those whose hearts uniting united America.