The Press. Thursday, JULY 4, 1918. Our Great Western Ally.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16225, 4 July 1918, Page 6

The Press. Thursday, JULY 4, 1918. Our Great Western Ally.

Before the war, the Fourth of July was celebrated in the United States with all the enthusiasm of a great people who—except for Thanksgiving Day—had no other national anniversary, or none, at least, which the nation had agreed or desired to commemorate. They have now another anniversary—the date of the entry of their country into the great conflict— but the fact which has given them this second Day is one which will make Independence Day more to be revered than ever. For prior to last year America/ though a nation, was a nation ontried, despite its great and tragic internal struggle of over half a century igo. In the past the Fourth of July celebrations concerned Americans only, although some other peoples—and most of all, oddly enough, the British peoples —were very friendly and sympathetic spectators. To-day it is a long roll of nations that will join in spirit with the American people in their celebration of the birth of their independent nationhood. Formerly many people who greatly admired the characteristic gifts and virtues of the United States—such gifts as energy, enthusiasm, boldness, and quickness of wifc, and such virtues as kindness, public spirit, and on invincible belief in tho perfectibility of man —were nevertheless unable to feel sure .that America was truly a nation, that there was a real Americanism, solid and homogeneous. We all know better now —the revelation that there is a real and great American people is one of the most striking events in the history of nations. When the President declared /or war, the people rallied to him as one man, and ever since then it has become more and more impressively clear that there is hi the West a great nation as firm and uzkited, and as responsive to every test of nationhood, as any of the older peoples who have attained to unity through centuries of achievement and aiQiction. This great nation has thrown itself heart and soul into the muv JLnd are at ore-sent in. Franca

many thousands of American soldiers more than it had been thought possible even for American enterprise and enthusiasm to send abroad in the time. The weight of America's arm is increasing day by day, and there is more than mere conjecture in the expectation that the end of the war will come through the increasing pressure of American arms on the Western Front. But the world will owe gratitude to America for more than the material assistance rendered on the seas and on the field of battle. Her greatest contribution to tho struggle for the world's freedom will be moral assistance, the ideals which she has championed. Conscious as wo are of the justice of Britain's cause, it is immeasurably fortifying to know that in that same cause the nation above all others devoted to the ideals of peace and democracy voluntarily chose, without any hope of advantage, to go to war. "The position of America in this "war," Mr Wilson said, in his reply to the Russian Note last year, "is so " clearly avowed that no man can be "excused for mistaking it. She seeks "no material profit or aggrandisement "of any kind. She is fighting for no " advantage or selfish project of her " own, but for the liberation of peoples " everywhere from the aggression of "autocratic force. . . . Wo are

" lighting again for tho liberty, the " self-government, and the undictated " development of all peoples, and every " featuro of the settlement that con- " eludes this war must be conceived and " executed for that purpose. . . . And " then the free peoples of the world " must draw together in a common " covenant, some genuine and practical " co-operation that will in effect com"bine their force to secure peace and "justice in the dealings of nations "with ono another. The brotherhood "of mankind must no longer be a " fair but empty phrase. It must be " given a structure of force and "reality." It is tho nationhood that has flowered in this noble resolve that is being celebrated to-day, and Britons the world over will in their hearts do homage to Britain's great Ally.