WHY AMERICA IS AT WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3125, 2 July 1917, Page 6

WHY AMERICA IS AT WAR

BRILLIANT SPEECH BY UNITED STATES ' . AMBASSADOR THE FIGHT FOR FREE GOVERNMENT A very lino speech, worthy of Iho best traditions of after-dinner oratory, was recently delivered bv Dr. W. 11. Page (United States Ambassador to Urwit Britain) at a recent dinner at the Pilgrims' Club, in the Savoy Hotel, London, at which Viscount Bryce presided. Dr. Page said: Patiently, solemnly, and resolutely tho people and the Government of the United States, under the guidance ol' the. President, have, for the first time in our history, come into a European war —European .at least in its beginning, though now almost universal in its scope; and we have come in, becauso wo could do no other. (Cheers.) This is -the momentous event that we are met to celebrate. (Cheers.) (The welcome of my country into this conflict, which you are kind enough v to express by your presence, is itself most welcome to "us; for we have set out with you now in a righteous struggle in defence of good faith between nations and of the immutable principles of free goyepment. (Cheers.) we are come to save our own honour and to uphold our ideals—como on provocation done directly to us. - But .We are como also for the preservation, £hc deepening, and tho extension of freo, government, and this every American, reared on tho doctrines and the (Jccds of our political and military •lathers, instinctively feels. Our*creed is the simple and immortal creed of democracy, 1 which means government set up by the governed; for this alone can prevent physical or intellectual or moral enslavement.' This is the ideal towards which tho wholo world is now moving along paths, but moving by the impulsion of a great ethical foiee towards tho ideals of .democracy. (Cheers.) None of these old lands, not even this freest of all, will ever again slip back 'to its ante beilnni self-contentment. It is a colossal upheaval, which will turn the world into a. better homo for freo men—so colossal that it staggers'prophecy—but this much at least is "'true. So soon as its barbarisms and personal sorrows recede somewhat in memory, and wo can look over the shattered world and plan for its rebuilding, wc shall reconstruct human society better than it ever was, and on a firmer basis. Every thoughtful man carpries this conviction dimly or clearly in his mind. Else the end would bo now, for hope would die out of us.

British-American Friendship. Ao for the' particular aspects of (his great subject with which this club from its beginning has had to do—the closer, sympathy of our two branches of the English-speaking world—next to the removal of the great menace to freo government which is the prime purpose of the war, this closer sympathy will beto us, tho most important result of tho victory. It willbe important, not only to us on each side of the Atlantic, but also to all other freo. uations. There can be no assured and permanent stability without it. The ranged arches of ' any ivorldstructuro will fall without our united support. (Loud cheers.) 1 wish most earnestly to declare in this presence that, in my judgment, the differences that have arison in the immediate past between' our two Governments and peoples have 'suffered enormous exaggeration. In saying this I pay a tribute to the pervasive malevolence of German world-wide propaganda that has been carried on for many years. There is no conceivable device that has not been used on your side, and particularly, on our side to mako a breach between us and to magnify overy petty disagreement into a quarrel. Yet in spite OT. this, and in spito of every effor,t and influence of a like kind, British-American relations have remained fundamentally friendly and sound. The foundations of our instinctive and necessary friendship have never been shaken. (Loud cheers.) They are set too firmly even j for the shocks of tills war to have moved them —too firmly in blood and in institutions and in aspirations, in literature ami language and in manifest destiny. At bottom, there is unity in all the great aims of lifo-rln the value set upon individual liberty, in tlie great scheme of free government, in the typo of character that tho English-speaking world has evolved, in the Standards of fair conduct and of honour, in domestic relations, in hospitality,, iu gcmiiness, and in truth-tell-ing. (Cheers.) Tho same human coin rings true to each of us, and tho same rings false. There are no other <two different aud independent grout nations in tho world, and there never were two others, that had so much in common. American participation in the war proves this fundamental unity in tho large aims of national life.' Why elso have wo been drawn into this grim, old-world, bloody struggle—drawn in against our traditions and surely against our wishes, and against the most patient efforts'to keep out of it—this struggle with the causes of which we had nothing to do? Wo have no old wrongs- to avenge, no conquests that wo wish to make, no hatred of any people; we covet no territory, we seek no indemnities. Why do we come, except that our standard of honour and our judgment of safety are tho winm' as yours? . We sot the sumo value that you set on freedom and on good faith. Our unity of aim and the identity of our larger ideals are the moi'-e significant because of the separate and independent character of each Government and of each people. AVe are not tho same—far from it. Wo have many, differences. It has been a surprisc'io me since my residence among you to discover unexpected divergences in our thought and life. There are subjects on which we do not see eye to eye;. There 'are conflicting differences, habits, points of view. Tolerance will always have a wide spaco to cover. Our larger laud, our newer admixture of blood, our difference of social •structure, our smaller burden of traditional impedimenta—these imply and compel not only variety, but .divergent views and habits., We are not one people. I have seen many a man who had accepted the rhetorical assurauco of complete unity suffer a shock on closer acquaintance. I beg to i'emind you of one good law of frank and sensible intercourse, namely, earnest andhonest men must bo sentimental, for sentiment is one of the great qualities of right feeling, but it becomes tiresome and misleading to talk too sentimentally. Some of our differences, which we must iu frankness recognise, are historical and fundamental, but most of them are superficial. Some of thorn have been manufactured by agitation. But nono of them need or can separate ms in tho farther development of national freedom based ou individual freedom.

/ The Bond of War. Our two Governments, yqu will agreo with me, are the ripest products of human experience and of collective human intelligence over set up in the world, tint all Governments have certain limitations «ud awkwardnesses and infelicities of conduct, because free Governments must serve their contentious citizens as well tis their contented one* Thus it comes about that ou.r differences are made tho most of in each country in political circles; for you will discover that in. most other circles in each country our Hkonesses aud not. our differences are chiefly Sajought of. Diversity, .variation, and variety, individuality End mutual rivalry and mucual vanity will continue to have free play, and ought to have. But with mutual respect, now more than ever firmly established, when the great Gorman menace to freedom' is removed, I have no apprehensions concerning outrelations for any lime that need now concern us. And our partnership in the war will make this surer and clearer.

Our association in the -war will do more to make us forget each other's idiosyncrascics and to remember each other's virtues than all other events of the last 100 vears. (Cheers.) We shall get out of this association-an indissoluble companionship and we shall henceforth have indissoluble mutual duties to mankind. I doubt if there could be another international ovont comparable in largo value and in long consequences to this closer association. I regard it as tho supremo political event of all history. For my part, therefore, 1 am stirred

In tho dopths of my nature by Ibis American companionship in arms with the British ami their -Allies, not only for the .quicker ending of the, grim business immediately in hand, but Yen- the moral union for a now era in iutcrnulion.il relations. When tho war is done we shall bo ablo to foresee more accurately tho orbic movement of-civilisation, awl wo shall think in larger units I'lian we liavo over been able to think in hitherto. vCheers.)

Our country, as you know, has long •■held to its policy of avoiding entangling alliances in Europe. The Holy Alliance, taught ns that the value of contracts <le-' pends on the character and not on the pious names of both contracting parties— <i lesson that we have bad very recent opportunities to learn over again. Complete confidence makes alliances unnecessary, and distrust makes them valueless. Therefore, during Hie period of our great tasks 'of internal' developmenttasks as great as all Europe put together has hitherto had—we wisely kept ourselves ami our energies at borne. We had a splendid isolate. Btit changes have come swiftly in our time. Ileal aloofness implied distance, and distance is no more. Aloofness implied slowness of communication and lack of trade. Great trade has come, and communication is swifter than any dreamer could ever have dreamed would be. All the other causes of sharp separation have disappeared.

s We had before the war reached by a natural process a stage in our development where aloofness was itself fast fading into the impossible; and this great, struggle whieb we shall ,now share with you and your Allies will hasten its fading. . The feeling . has been growing for several years, to a degree unconscious and not clearly thought out by tho man on the prairie, that a determined political aloofness froih Europe had ceased in itself to beia virtue. We do not yet wish any entangling alliances nor dynastic commitments—why should we? We are no longer afraid of what the Prime Minister to-day called the "oIN tricks of Kings," and in trade and all the natural rivalries of free peoples wo are quite willing to take care of ourselves. \ I should say that .we are far less likely, to contract dangerous entanglements in Europe by rendering you and your Allies what help we can than we should be by longer remaining remote. If we are not afraid of our enemy, we surely arc not afraid of our friends. As, therefore, under our great first Prosident we-adopted a policy of isolation, which was wise and safe for that time and a hundred years afterwards, we seem likely, under our latest great' President, to become, not entangled in your Old World alliances, but at least tg become more neighlwurly, trusting to you also to nieud your old-time ways of" showing a certain condescension to foreigners. (Cheers.)

Melting-pot of Democracy. Another domestic change that the war will work in our habits will be, perhaps, tomewhat to guard our gates against too promiscuous an influx., We shall never cease to be hospitable to tho oppressed or to the unfortunate, nor to those that wish to become part and parcel of our people. But hospitality that becomes too promiscuous is likely to suffer abuse.. TJie test of admission will bo a. sound body and a real desire to become American, and not a purpose to use America to aid an alien Government. But I assure you that the melting-pot does melt its contents. You have been kind enough and ignorant enough of our population io fear that our lamp-posts might have to be put to new uses of illumination. The assimilative capacity of our mobile society has, I think, not been overtaxed, or understood. Perhaps you have not' made sufficient allowance for tho beneficent influence of our democracy in changing and in stimulating as .well as in assimilating men who live in'its free atmosphere. And men hero have asked me with concern about the attitude v of the Middle West. Wo have our sectional jealousies as vou have. And men who live on the prairies do not get together so quickly and in such'large groups as in large cities. But the Middle West has never been lacking when a national duty called us. It fought one war after peace had'keen declared. It sent more than its proportion of men to our Civil War. It has more men now in your Canadian Army in Trance than any other part of the Union. lam told that theso inland States contribute proportionately more men to our Navy than the States on the seaboard. The United iStates is one to this doep stirring that now moves its people. If I may inoffensively say so. I have heard more about tho differences between England, Scotland and Wales, and between English and Scottish and Welsh these four years thau I had heard in tho Unite'd States, about similar differences there for tho preceding half-cen-tury. I have not yet wholly recovered from the shock I received when I discovered that there is a journal in London whoso purpose is to prove that all the great men of this island have been English, and another journal whose aim is flio independence of Scotland, and one of yotir poets recently wrote n volume of verse to prove that your ruling class is to this day—and has been since 10GG—the Normans. . Now there are no. corresponding phenomena in the United States. Wo como 'into this struggle all American. One of our poets, in celebrating tho changes that our democracy makes in men,, wrote /this:—

"i'wns glory once to be a Roman, "I'is glory now to be a man. (Cheers.) ' High spiritual exaltation does not come by direct seeking; it is an exhaltation of noble effort, '.['lie most enduring companionship does not come of expressing mutual regards, but of a common struggle in some high aud dangerous task. Winning a righteous war together is worth moro than most, other experiences, by revealing rc«l men to real men, to bind them together in all common, high aims.

The American fathers indulged the hope that, following theii* example, all nations would soon become democracies. The Americans of every generation have had this same dream. During this century and ii half Ihere has, indeed, been a great extension of liberalism and freedom. But even during that long period all countries did not become democratic;some of (hem have been disastrously slow about it. . But the tumbling of autocracies docs seem at last to be at hand; and if the abysmal crash of them could not come except through war, that makes war more welcome. The war supplies both an occasion and a necessity for their passing from the earth with other great historic wrongs. This, too, makes it the more in the judgment of th"G-..Hepublic. (Loud cheers.)