One country, brethren! We must rise or fall
With the Supreme Republic. We must be
The makers of her immortality;

Her freedom, fame,

Her glory or her shame

Liegemen to God and fathers of the free!

Hark! from the heights the clear, strong, clarion call And the command imperious: "Stand forth,

Sons of the South and brothers of the North!

Stand forth and be

As one on soil and sea

Your country's honor more than empire's worth!"

After all,

'Tis Freedom wears the loveliest coronal;

Her brow is to the morning; in the sod

She breathes the breath of patriots; every clod
Answers her call

And rises like a wall

Against the foes of liberty and God!

66

1 From 'Comes One with a Song," by Frank L. Stanton. Copyright, 1898. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

INTRODUCTION

The great European war began on August 1, 1914. The United States remained neutral in this conflict for almost three years. At first the cause of the war and the aims and purposes of the contestants were somewhat befogged by contradictory statements. The policy of the German Imperial Government, however, has from month to month and from year to year thrown increasing light upon the fundamental issues.

Only a self-centered autocracy could have invaded a small, inoffensive country like Belgium, ignoring any question of justice or humanity, for the reason, since avowed, that it was supposed to be easier to take this road to the conquest of France than to face the French forts on the frontier. Only a conscienceless autocracy could have conceived the deliberate policy of robbing this Belgium of millions of money and treasure, and after removing her food supplies and the tools and machinery of her commerce and manufacture, condescending to permit other nations to feed the people made destitute by their conquerors. Only a desperate autocracy would have resorted to the infamy of reviving piracy, attacking by submarine warfare the unarmed and helpless merchantmen and passenger boats of neutral and friendly powers, instead of issuing with its navy to meet the warships of its enemy in equal battle. Only a thoroughly unscrupulous autocracy could have coolly and cynically sent forth into the neutral countries of the world an army of spies, plotters, and incendiary criminals, while continuing to profess friendship.

The issue has been made plain. The people of the United States know that the struggle is henceforth, as from the first it has shown itself to be, a grapple between autocracy and the rising spirit of democracy for the domination of the world. Germany dared her fate when she flung out the battle cry: "World Power.or Downfall!" France replied with the immortal words of Verdun: "You shall not pass!"

The merciless submarine policy of the German Empire was again and again challenged by our government. At the beginning of 1917 Germany made this warfare more ruthless than ever. War with the United States was inevitable. On April 2, President Wilson asked Congress for authority to wage war against the Imperial German Government, on the ground that that government was already waging war upon this country. Congress was not slow to respond. War was declared.

In the greatest moral crisis which the world has ever seen, we are finally ranged openly on the side of those who champion the cause of right and chivalry against brutal and cynical will to power. Long before the explicit declaration of war, Americans had poured into France to become soldiers of the Foreign Legion, privates of Canadian regiments, aviators, drivers of Red Cross ambulances, hospital surgeons and nurses, organizers of war relief work in every form. Now we are enlisted as a people, with faith that the victory of democracy must be decisive. Nations must continue in the right to rule themselves; nations as yet incapable of self-government must not be bound in the chains of greedy despotism. This is a war to make the world free, to make it, in the wise and potent phrase of Woodrow Wilson, spokesman of our nation, a world safe for democracy.

THE PRESENT CRISIS 1

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891)

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or

evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right.

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,

Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?

Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is

strong,

And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her

throng

Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments

see,

That like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea;

1 From "The Present Crisis," in Lowell's Poetical Works (Riverside Edition), Vol. I. Copyright, 1890, by James Russell Lowell. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Used by permission of the publishers.