USA > Pennsylvania > Washington County > Charleroi > Our liberty boys of '17, Charleroi, Pennsylvania > Part 2
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"Two American vessels have been sunk-The Housatonic and the Lyman M. Law. The case of the Housatonic, which was carry- ing foodstuffs consigned to a London firm, in which it will be recalled the German Government admitted its liability for damages, and the lives of the crew, as in the case of the Fry, were safeguarded with reasonable care.
"The case of the Law, which was carrying lemon box staves to Palermo, disclosed a ruthlessness of method which deserves grave condemnation, but was accompanied by no circumstances which might not have been expected at any time in connection with the use of the submarines against merchantmen as the German Government has used it.
"In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the actual conduct of the German submarine warfare against com- merce and its effects upon our own ships and people is substantially the same that it was when I addressed you on the third of February,
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WILLIAM MATHIAS Elite Studio
THOMAS OATES Rehula Studio
DR. CRUMRINE Elite Studio
EDWARD DEITERS
EARL HOTT
Rehula Studio
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except for the tying up of our shipping in our own ports because of the unwillingness of our shipowners to risk their vessels at sea with- out insurance or adequate protection, and the very serious congestion of our commerce which has resulted, a congestion which is growing rapidly more and more serious every day. This in itself might pres- ently accomplish, in effect, what the new German submarine orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we are concerned. We can only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have ventured to hope the German commanders would in fact avoid had not occurred.
"But, while this is happily true, it must be admitted that there have been certain additional indications and expressions of purpose on the part of the German press and the German authorities which have increased rather than lessened the impression that if our ships and our people are spared it will be because the commanders of the German submarine which they may happen to encounter exercise an unexpected discretion and restraint rather than because of the instruc- tions under which those commanders are acting.
"It would be foolish to deny the situation is fraught with the gravest possibilities and dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see that the necessity for definite action may come at any time if we are in fact, and not in word merely, to defend our elementary rights as a neutral nation. It would be most imprudent to be unprepared.
"I cannot, in such circumstances, be unmindful of the fact that the expirations of the term of the present Congress is immediately at hand, by Constitutional limitation; and that it would in all likeli- hood require an unusual length of time to assemble and organize the Congress which is to succeed it. I feel that I ought, in view of the fact, to obtain from you full and immediate assurance of the authority which I may need at any moment to exercise. No doubt I already, possess that authority without special warrant of law, by the plain implication of my Constitutional duties and powers; but I prefer, in the present circumstances, not to act upon general implication.
"I wish to feel that the authority and the power of the Congress are behind me in whatever it may become necessary for me to do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act together and in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it.
"No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the midst of the present try- ing circumstances with discretion, but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the occasion, if occasion should arise. Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are suffering at the hands of Germany, there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is abundant American privilege.
"It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be necessary to put armed force anywhere into action. The American people do not
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desire it, and our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure that they will understand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose I hold nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in every thing I do.
"I am anxious that the people of the nations at war also should understand and not mistrust us. I hope that I need give no further proofs and assurances than I have already given throughout nearly three years of peace and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able. I am not now proposing or contemplating war, or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace to follow the pursuits of peace in quietness and good will-rights recog- nized time out of mind by all the civilized nations of the world. No course of my choosing or of others will lead to war. War can come only by the wilful acts and aggressions of others.
"You will understand why I can make no definite proposals or forecast of action now and must ask for your supporting authority in the most general terms. The form in which action may be neces- sary cannot yet be foreseen. I believe that the people will be will- ing to trust me to act with restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and it is in that belief that I re- quest that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defensive arms, should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits of the seas. I request also that you will grant me at the same time, along the powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance against the present war risks.
"I have spoken of our commerce and of the legitimate errands of our people on the seas, but will not be mislead as to my main thought, the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them dignity and weight. It is not of material interests merely that we are think- ing. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the right of life itself.
"I am thinking not only of the rights of Americans to go and come about their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of these rights of humanity without which there is no civili- zation. My theme is of these great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has sought to throw about human lives, the lives of non-combatants, the lives of men who are peacefully at work helping the industrial processes of the world quick and vital, the lives of women and children and of those who supply the labor which ministers to the sustenance.
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"We are speaking of no selfish material rights, but of rights which our hearts support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for justice upon which all law, all structures alike of family, of state and of mankind must rest, as upon the ultimate base of our existence and our liberty.
"I cannot imagine any man with American principle at his heart hesitating to defend these things."
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(c). Marine Corps Publicity Bureau.
After raising a flag on a municipal building of the captured city of Vera Cruz, the U. S. Marines are shown marching back to their barracks.
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HONOR ROLL OF METHODIST EPISCOPAL SUNDAY SCHOOL
Frederick Ohliger
16th Regiment Cavalry
George Hudspith
Co. A, 5th Eng.
Harry Hudspith
Co. C, 5th Eng.
Henry J. Lowstuter
Co. B, 5th Eng.
William McClurg
Engineers
John Califfie
National Army
Russell J. Carroll
National Army
L. R. McKenna
Naval Medical
Ora Anderson
Navy
Jos. Gass
National Army
Columbo Califfie
National Army
Paul S. Geohring
Aviation
Russell Wilkes
Aviation
George Treasure
Aviation
Edward Beiters
William Booth
Charles B. Pollack
94th Co. Marine Corps
Allen B. Kinder
Cavalry
George D. Gabler
Navy
Enoch E. Daves
Marines
George Hott
National Army
Earl Hott
National Army
Roy S. Carson
National Army
Lewis C. Phillips
Engineers
Albert Lutes
National Army
Davis Johns
National Army
Henry Musler
Jos. Pearson
Aviation
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WAR TERMS AND SAYINGS
"Boche", German Soldiers
"Poilu", French Soldiers
"Sammies", U. S. Soldiers
"Tommies", British Soldiers
"Over There"
"Somewhere in France"
"At an Atlantic Port"
"The Hun"
"Liberty Loans" "War Saving Stamps"
"Thrift Stamps"
"Do Your Bit-Everybody's doing it, in the U. S. A.,- but the enemy in our midst."
"Slacker"
"Bolsheviki" "Four Minute Men"
"Home Guards" "War Gardens"
"Keep the Home Fires Burning' "Victory Bread"
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(c) Marine Corps Publicity Bureau.
A 3-inch gun mounted by U. S. Marines in a stratagetical spot, as a part of their training with artillery.
DOLET MARBRIER
Courtesy of the British and Canadian Recruiting Mission, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Official photograph taken on the British Western Front in France. Tank moving up to assist in holding the German Offensive.
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THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS OF APRIL 2. 1917
(Armed neutrality no longer feasible-nothing less
than war-no quarrel with the German people)
"I have called Congress into extraordinary session because there are very serious choices of policy to be made, and made immediately. which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.
"On the third of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law. of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britian and Ireland or the western coast of Europe, or any of the ports con- trolled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war. but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in con- formity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk. and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy. when no resistance was offered to escape attempted. and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precaution taken were meagre and haphazard enough. as was proven in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.
"The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind. whatever flag. their character, their destination. their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning. and without thought of help or mercy for those on board. the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium. though the latter were provided with safe con- duct through the prescribed areas by the German Government itself. and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity. have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.
"I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto sub- scribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed from the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up with meagre enough re- sults indeed. after all was accomplished that could be accomplished. but always with a clear view. at least. of what the heart and con- science of mankind demanded.
"This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity. and because it had no
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weapons which it could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world.
"I am not thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as it is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants-men, women and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be.
"The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation.
"We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.
"When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral right with arms; our right to use the seas against unlawful interference; our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their at- tacks, as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circum- stances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.
"The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has prescribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before ques- tioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely once to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents.
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"There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making, we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are not common wrongs, they cut to the very roots of human life.
"With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical char- acter of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my con- stitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.
"What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may, so far as possible, be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equip- ment of the navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States . already provided for by law in case of war, at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal lia- bility to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.
"It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.
"In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of inter- fering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equip- ment of our own military forces with the duty-for it will be a very practical duty-of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our
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(c) Marine Corps Publicity Bureau.
In the shadow of the Sphinx, U. S. Marines, serving aboard a battleship, frequently make journeys to the pyramids.
(c) Marine Corps Publicity Bureau.
A practice battle, where U. S. Marines are shown going "Over the Top," with horse Marines in the distance, taken somewhere in Mexico.
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assistance. They are in the field, and we should help them in every way to be affective there.
"I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several exec- utive departments of the Government for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall.
"While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them.
"I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and the justice in the life of the world as against selfish autocratic power, and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.
"Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples. and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic govern- ments, backed by organized force, which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances.
"We are at the beginning of an age where it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.
"We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval.
"It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynastics or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tolls.
"Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbors states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make con- quest. Such designs can be successfully worked only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions.
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A
"Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class.
"They are, happily, impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.
"A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the in- terests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
"Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia?
"Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their national instinct, their habitual attitude towards life.
"The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political struc- ture, long as it had stood and terrible as was the realty of its power, was not in fact Russia in origin, character or purpose, and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their native majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for a freedom in the world, for justice and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honor.
"One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting com- munities and even our offices of government with spies and set crim- inal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of council, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce.
"Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dis- locating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Gov- ernment of the United States.
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