Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 17 [PAGE 8]

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i freedom from legal interference, We ' e i m i n f to .ee that that is only a .mall of lir>crty. Liberty \t something pospart and not negative. Kconomic liberty, atve llicctual liberty, spiritual liberty are as l l necessities of a life spent in pursuit of happiness as political liberty itself. A society in which every man is free to ahead as rapidly as he can without reference to his neighbors, except to get ahead of them, is necessarily a society in which the vigorous, able, keen, alert, strong may ultimately reduce their brethren less favorably endowed with brains, nerves, and muscles to the position of a thoroughly exploited class—and such a society can not be called a democratic society in any true sense even though political liberty be fully established and protected. Now, this war, in my opinion, is going to change the face of human society in many important respects, through the agencies it will create or energize to protect and foster the rights of the great mass of the people. And as you will he the people or a part of them you will profit by all such development. As a concrete illustration of what this may mean, take the attitude of the EngHsh Labor Party toward this war. "We are willing," their leaders declared, -to mobilize labor to the limit in prosecution °f this just undertaking. But you should n ot ask us to sacrifice more, relatively speaking, than other classes. And you must therefore guarantee to us that we 8 nall be left at the end of the war in the same position of relative advantage in fixing wages, hours, and the terms of em1tr ployment as we occupy now. No such demand was ever made before m any war. The Government made this Promise. The fact that it can never really *™y out this promise fully and explicitly *• not of nearly as much significance as c * fact that it really made the promise m good faith; nor as the fact that giving ,u ch a promise indicates a new attitude 0,1 the part of the British Government toward the demands of organized and un7

organ ?d Itbof. The action of our own Federal Government in 1 such ntattTi from the passage of the Adamion 1 , w to the present is equalh striking and *ignificant. It will be a new world in which you will live and move and have ur being. Your burdens will be heavy w tasks enormous, but your opportunities wonderI UI•

And it is on these opportunities I would congratulate jrott You ; : re privileged to liv « and work in one of the greatest eras of human history and to become a part of this country's life and of this era's

movement

I know not how other men think about ^ but as for myself I thank God I was born in the United States of America. None yield more honor than I to those nia11 * nations like Athens and Switzerland and Holland and Belgium which have written their names high in the list of those have which deserved well of mankiml Bllt T rejoice in our.boundless prairies, in our mighty rivers, our lofty mountains, our endless stretch of sea coast. I ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m.t ] < ™w a fuller breath in contemplation of this mighty realm of which I am a part. I *™ exalted in spirit as I move over these never-ending railway lines and see these infinite harvests-and dream of what this people will be and do when it finally awakes to its opportunities and to its obligations to mankind. My heart thrills with pride as I reflect that I am a citizen of the country which produced Washington and Lincoln and which, having produced them, knew how to honor and magnify their names. I glory in the recollection that it was my country which produced a Grant and a Sherman, a Lee and a Stonewall Jackson. I rejoice in that long list of victories, military, moral, and spiritual, by which my ancestors helped to settle and conquer and civilize the wilderness. No victories at golf or billiards or lawn tennis, or even football or baseball—no pleasure in fine horses or automobiles or