Anonymous

“ We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the Nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. ”

“ 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 only 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.
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 no common wrongs ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the third of February and on the twenty-sixth of February.
Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst 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. ”

“ 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 communities and even our offices of Government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of council, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. ”

“ We are at the beginning of an age in which 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. ”

“ With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional 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 ”

“ Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions.
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. ”

“ It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people nor with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. ”

“ To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. ”

“ You don’t know, you can’t know, just how much good you are doing and just how it makes us feel when stationed at a remote camp, where we know no one, to get a letter from friends at home, who are interested in us. It makes us feel as though nothing on earth could prevent us from winning this war—and we shall win. ”

“ 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 governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not the will of their people. ”

“ 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 dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor 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 conquest. ”

“ I am proud to be a soldier and I hope that it won’t be long before I can go over sea to do my part. I feel like we are fighting for a cause that God would have us fight for. I had much rather go over the top than have it always said of me, ‘He was a slacker’. ”

“ 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 natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward life. ”

“ Six weeks like a rat, three of which is like a whirlwind sweeping through Hades day or night, no rest, but forever watching, waiting, working by candle light deep down in a dug-out, or no light at all. This certainly cannot last much longer. It does us good to know there is one place where everything is like it used to be. I certainly am glad SHAWMUT is still natural and hope someday soon to get back there and take up my work where I left off.”
A. C. S. ”

“ This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity, and because it had no 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. ”

“ We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. ”

“ In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment 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 assistance. ”

“ I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. ”

“ The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. ”

“ Isn’t it strange how easily and how swiftly we put a serious crimp into the great German mass? I can’t realize it—it seems a long dream.”
“I have been in England, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, and on the line of Germany since I have been in Europe.”
“Since the Armistice we have been on quite a long hike; followed the great and final retreat of the Kaiser’s grand army. We are stationed now a few kilometers beyond the River Rhine, on a hill overlooking the city of Coblenz.”
“Sorry that the other boys didn’t get to see France; they missed the real fun, a trip that they wouldn’t ever forget.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. ”

“ Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed 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. ”

“ Extracts of Appreciation
“It’s a tough proposition; it’s a terrible thing, but we know that some blood has to be spilled and we are willing to let it flow for the cause and the best country on earth.”
“I am always overjoyed to hear or receive news from my dear friends at home.”
“The French people go wild over the U. S. boys. One can’t get lonesome or homesick, they treat you too good.” ”

“ Just because we fight without rancor, without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. ”

“ The people here are different from any other section of France. Their customs and dress are very peculiar, in fact, reminds me very much of the people of Holland. They wear wooden shoes and have a dialect all their own. French people from the more up-to-date parts of France have difficulty in speaking to and understanding them. The country is flat and marshy, and windmills like those of Holland can be seen. ”

“ September 23, 1918
“If there is one thing that stands out preeminently in a soldier’s daily schedule across the sea, as to helpfulness it is ‘that letter’ or little bit of news from home (America) . If you good people who are carrying on the work of the ‘Home Guards’ could see the eager faces of the Yanks at mail time, as they congregate for mail distributions, I am sure you would agree that time spent in writing to ‘Over There’ boys, is at least appreciated to the fullest.”
J. H. S.
September 22, 1918
“I appreciate having my name on the list at the War Service Station very much. ”

“ I must say that the old U. S. boys are making it hot for those Dutchmen just now. I have been transferred to the band, so I am hoping to play a piece for the boys to march through Berlin soon.”
Waymon C. Anthony
“I want to say that if all the boys in the Service appreciate, as I do, what the folks of Riverview are doing for our benefit, the work is a great success. The letters you send certainly are interesting to me. They keep me in very close touch with what is going on at home.”
Waymon C. Anthony
“I think this is one of the grandest lives a boy can live if he will do his best. ”

“ It is the wonderful and unselfish spirit of the folks back home, which has made the men of the A. E. F. willing and eager to ‘carry on’.”
J. S. D.
December 22, 1918
“I was sitting on my bunk trying to write these few lines, when my bunkie jumped up all at once and said a few words (I can’t tell you what he said) . ”