Winning a Cause | Page 5

ago." But the Americans, or most of them, did not believe that
in the twentieth century a nation classified among the civilized nations
could or would adopt Frightfulness as a policy. But when they read of
the devastation of Belgium and northern France; of the destruction of
Louvain; of whole villages of innocent men, women, and children
being wiped out; of the horrible crimes of the sinking of the Lusitania,
the Falaba, and the Laconia; of the execution of Edith Cavell; of the
carrying off into slavery, or worse than slavery, of the able-bodied
women and men from the conquered territory--when Americans
learned these horrors one after another, they at last were forced to
acknowledge that, like the brutal Assyrian kings who sought to terrify
their enemies into submission by standing as conquerors upon
pyramids of the slain, the modern Huns sought mastery by
Frightfulness.
When most Americans came to realize that Germany was fighting a
war to conquer the world, first Russia and France, then England, and
then the United States--for she had written Mexico that if she would
attack the United States, Germany and Mexico would make war and
peace together--when they came to know the German nature and the
idea of the Germans, that Might makes Right and that truth, honesty,
and square dealing like mercy, pity, and love are only words of
weaklings; that they were a nation of liars and falsifiers and the most
brutal of all people of recorded history; when, added to this, the
Americans realized that for over two years France and England had
really been fighting for everything for which the United States stood
and which her people held dear, for her very life and liberty, then
America almost as one man declared for war.
Meanwhile Germany had declined to recognize the laws of nations
which allowed America to sell munitions to the Allies. She had
scattered spies through the United States to destroy property and create
labor troubles. She had challenged the right of peaceful Americans to
travel on the high seas. She had sunk the Lusitania with a loss of one
hundred twenty-four American lives; the Sussex, the Laconia with a
loss of eight Americans, the Vigilancia with five, the City of Memphis,

the Illinois, the Healdton, and others. She had tried to unite Mexico and
Japan against us.
Not until then, after the American people had become fully aware of
the German character and purposes, did Congress on April 6, 1917,
declare a state of war existed between Germany and the United States.
On that day the outcome of the war was decided. Through her hideous
selfishness, her stupidity, and her brutality, Germany, after having
spent nearly fifty years in preparation, lost her opportunity for world
dominion. The resources and the fighting power of what she looked
upon as a nation of cowardly, money-loving merchants decided the
conflict.

AMERICA COMES IN
We are coming from the ranch, from the city and the mine, And the
word has gone before us to the towns upon the Rhine; As the rising of
the tide On the Old-World side, We are coming to the battle, to the
Line.
From the Valleys of Virginia, from the Rockies in the North, We are
coming by battalions, for the word was carried forth: "We have put the
pen away And the sword is out today, For the Lord has loosed the
Vintages of Wrath."
We are singing in the ships as they carry us to fight, As our fathers sang
before us by the camp-fires' light; In the wharf-light glare, They can
hear us Over There When the ships come steaming through the night.
Right across the deep Atlantic where the Lusitania passed, With the
battle-flag of Yankee-land a-floating at the mast We are coming all the
while, Over twenty hundred mile, And we're staying to the finish, to the
last.
We are many--we are one--and we're in it overhead, We are coming as
an Army that has seen its women dead, And the old Rebel Yell Will be
loud above the shell When we cross the top together, seeing red.

KLAXTON.

PERSHING AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE
They knew they were fighting our war. As the months grew to years
Their men and their women had watched through their blood and their
tears For a sign that we knew, we who could not have come to be free
Without France, long ago. And at last from the threatening sea The
stars of our strength on the eyes of their weariness rose; And he stood
among them, the sorrow strong hero we chose To carry our flag to the
tomb of that Frenchman whose name A man of our country could once
more pronounce without shame. What crown of rich words would he
set