tocracy and democracy. No nation can stand aside and be free from its effects. The two systems cannot endure together in the same world.

If autocracy triumphs, military power lustful of dominion, supreme in strength, intolerant of human rights, holding itself superior to law, to morals, to faith, to compassion, will crush out the free democracies of the world. If autocracy is defeated and nations are compelled to recognize the rules of law and of morals, then and then only will democracy be safe.

To this great conflict for human rights and human liberty America has committed herself. There can be no backward step. There must be either humiliating and degrading submission or terrible defeat or glorious victory. It was no human will that brought us to this pass. It was not the President. It was not Congress. It was not the press. It was not any political party. It was not any section or part of our people.

It was that in the providence of God the mighty forces that determine the destinies of mankind beyond the control of human purpose have brought to us the time, the occasion, the necessity, that this peaceful people so long enjoying the blessings of liberty and justice for which their fathers fought and sacrificed shall again gird themselves for conflict, and with all the forces of manhood nurtured and strengthened by liberty offer again the sacrifice of possessions and of life itself, that this nation may still be free, that the mission of American democracy shall not have failed, that the world shall be free.

WITH FIRMNESS IN THE RIGHT1

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858- )

Abraham Lincoln, with his far-seeing vision and his shrewd, homely common sense, set forth the doctrine which is right both as regards individuals and as regards nations, when he said: "Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong. To desert such ground because of any company is to be less than a man, less than an American." As things actually are at this moment, it is Germany which has offended against civilization and humanity-some of the offenses, of a very grave kind, being at our own expense. It is the Allies who are dedicated to the cause and are fighting for the principles set forth as fundamental in the speech of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. It is they who have highly resolved that their dead shall not have died in vain, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the face of the earth.

. . . Said Lincoln, "The issue before us is distinct, simple, and inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and settled by victory. The war will cease on the part of this government whenever it shall have ceased on the part of those who began it. . . . We accepted war rather than let the nation perish. With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish

1 From "Fear God and Take Your Own Part," written in 1914. Copyright, 1915 and 1916, by Metropolitan Magazine Company, New York. Used by permission of the author.

the work we are in, and to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among all nations.”

Surely, with the barest change of a few words, all that Lincoln said applies now to the war the Allies are waging on behalf of orderly liberty and self-government for the peoples of mankind. They have accepted war rather than let the free nations of Europe perish. They must strive on to finish the work they are in, and to achieve a just and lasting peace which shall redress wrong and secure the liberties of the nations which have been assailed.

Let ours be true Americanism, the greater Americanism, and let us tolerate no other. Let us prepare ourselves for justice and efficiency within our own border during peace, for justice in international relations, and for efficiency in war. Only thus shall we have the peace worth having.

Let this nation fear God and take its own part. Let it scorn to do wrong to great or small. Let it exercise patience and charity toward all other peoples, and yet at whatever cost unflinchingly stand for the right when the right is menaced by the might which backs wrong. Let it furthermore remember that the only way in which successfully to oppose wrong which is backed by might is to put over against it right which is backed by might. . . Until, as a nation, we learn to put honor and duty above safety, and to encounter any hazard with stern joy rather than fail in our obligations to ourselves and to others, it is mere folly to talk of entering into leagues for world peace or into any other movements of like character. The only kind of peace worth having is the peace of righteousness and justice.

THE PRUSSIAN MENACE 1

We are face to face with a world crisis. We are in a world struggle which will determine for the immediate future whether principles of democratic freedom or principles of force shall dominate. The decision will determine not only the destiny of nations, but of every community and of every individual. No life will be untouched.

Either the principles of free democracy or of Prussian militaristic autocracy will prevail. There can be no compromises. So there can be no neutrality among nations or individuals; we must stand up and be counted with one cause or the other. For Labor there is but one choice.

The hope of Labor lies in opportunity for freedom. The workers of America will not permit themselves to be deceived or to deceive themselves into thinking that the fate of the war will not vitally change our own lives. A victory for Germany would mean a Pan-German empire dominating Europe and exercising a world balance of power which Germany will seek to extend by force into world control.

Prussian rule means supervision, checks, unfreedom in every relation of life.

Prussianism has its roots in the old ideals under which men sought to rule by suppressing the minds and wills of their fellows; it blights the new ideal of government without force of chains-political or industrial - protected by perfect freedom for all.

1 From Declaration of the American Federation of Labor, issued at Washington, D.C., February 17, 1918. Used by permission of Samuel Gompers.

There are some of you, probably, who will still find it hard to believe that the Germany you knew can be guilty of the crimes which have made it an outlaw amongst the nations. But do you know modern Germany? Unless you have been there within the last twenty-five years, not once or twice, but at regular intervals; unless you have looked below the glittering surface of the marvelous material progress and achievement and seen how the soul of Germany was being eaten away by the virulent poison of Prussianism; unless you have watched and followed the appalling transformation of German mentality and morality under the nefarious and puissant influence of the priesthood of power-worship, you do not know the Germany of this day and generation.

It is not the Germany of old, the land of our affectionate remembrance. It is not the Germany which men now of middle age or over knew in their youth. It is not the Germany of the first Emperor William, a modest and God-fearing gentleman. It is not the Germany, even, of Bismarck, man of blood and iron though he was, who had builded a structure which, whilst not founded on liberty, yet was capable and gave promise of going down into history as one of the greatest examples of enlightened and even beneficent autocracy; who, in the contemplative and mellowed wisdom of his old age, often warned the nation against the very spirit which, alas, came to have sway over it, and against the very war which that spirit unchained.

1 From an address delivered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 13, 1918. Published in "Right Above Race." Copyright, 1918, by The Century Company, New York. Used by permission of the author, an American banker of German birth.