AMERICA IN THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1721, 5 June 1917, Page 1

AMERICA IN THE WAR.

Discussing President Wilson’s historic message to Congress advising a declaration of war against Germany, Air James M. Beck, who has taken a lead in the pro-ally campaign in America, says; —“The sole defect of this great and noble message is its dale. It comes as the world war draws to its end, for it must be obvious to all discerning men that unless Germany can win an almost immediate victory by the use of its submarines, it is in a military sense beaten to its knees by the victorious allies. Had the message of April 2nd, H 1.17, swiftly followed the crime of the Lusitania, its moral glory, great as it event now is, would have been immeasurably grcaler, for then the United Slates would have taken its stand with (ho forces of righteousness, when the result was still in doubt, and before the victory of the right was so reasonably assured. I appreciate (hat this suggestion is not free from doubt and admits of reasonable debate, but 1 believe that the response, to President Wilson’s appeal, if it had been made in May, Hilo, would have been more vigorous and insistent than it is to-day. All men now applaud the spirit of our groat decision, but our minds have been so accustomed to acquiescence in intolerable wrong that I fail (o note the same evidence of intense indignation as on that Alay day when the news of the sinking of the Lusilania thrilled and horrified our people. In spirit we were heller prepared for war in May, 31)15, than now, for' our spirit had not been ‘sickbed o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ although in material preparedness our postilion to-day is greatly improved, a fact that may hereafter he regarded as Air Wilson’s practical justification for his policy of delay for nearly three years. True Americans, who now at last breathe more freely and again. feel an almost extinguishedsense of national self-respect, may in the generous exultation of present awakening well forget the blunders, the banalities, and the platitudes of the past and the even more regrettable inaction, when the, whole world was in flames. Let the dead past bury its dead!”