59. THE RED CROSS

(May 12, 1917)

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE RED CROSS BUILDING IN WASHINGTON

It gives me a very deep gratification as the titular head of the American Red Cross to accept in the name of that association this significant and beautiful gift, the gift of the Government and of private individuals who have conceived their duty in a noble spirit and upon a great scale. It seems to me that the architecture of the building, to which the secretary alluded, suggests something very significant.

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There are few buildings in Washington more simple in their lines and in their ornamentation than the beautiful building we are dedicating this evening. It breathes a spirit of modesty and seems to adorn duty with its proper garment of beauty. It is significant that it should be dedicated tɔ women who served to alleviate suffering and comfort those who were in need during our Civil War, because their thoughtful, disinterested, self-sacrificing devotion is the spirit which should always illustrate the services of the Red Cross.

The Red Cross needs at this time more than it ever needed before the comprehending support of the American people and all the facilities which could be placed at its disposal to perform its duties adequately and efficiently. I believe that the American people perhaps hardly yet realize the sacrifices and sufferings that are before them. We thought the scale of our Civil War was unprecedented, but in comparison with the struggle into which we have now entered the Civil War seems almost insignificant in its proportions and in its expenditure of treasure and of blood. And therefore it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should at the outset see to it that the American Red Cross is equipped and prepared for the things that lie before it.

It will be our instrument to do the works of alleviation and mercy which will attend this struggle. Of course, the scale upon which it shall act will be greater than the scale

of any other duty that it has ever attempted to perform. It is in recognition of that fact that the American Red Cross has just added to its organization a small body of men whom it has chosen to call its war council-not because they are to counsel war, but because they are to serve in this special war those purposes of counsel which have become so imperatively necessary. Their first duty will be to raise a great fund out of which to draw the resources for the performance of their duty, and I do not believe that it will be necessary to appeal to the American people to respond to their call for funds, because the heart of this country is in this war, and if the heart of the country is in the war, its heart will express itself in the gifts that will be poured out for these humane purposes. I say the heart of the country is in this war because it would not have gone into it if its heart had not been prepared for it. It would not have gone into it if it had not first believed that here was an opportunity to express the character of the United States. We have gone in with no special grievance of our own, because we have always said that we were the friends and the servants of mankind.

We look for no profit. We look for no advantage. We will accept no advantage out of this war. We go because we believe that the very principles upon which the American Republic was founded are now at stake and must be vindicated. In such a contest, therefore, we shall not fail to respond to the call to service that comes through the instrumentality of this particular organization. And I think it not inappropriate to say this: There will be many expressions of the spirit of sympathy and mercy and philanthropy, and I think that it is very necessary that we should not disperse our activities in those lines too much; that we should keep constantly in view the desire to have the utmost concentration and efficiency of effort, and I hope the most, if not all of the philanthropic activities of this war may be exercised if not through the Red Cross, then through some already-constituted and experienced organization.

This is no war for amateurs. This is no war for mere spontaneous impulse. It means grim business on every side of it, and it is the mere counsel of prudence that in our

philanthropy as well as in our fighting we should act through the instrumentalities already prepared to our hand and already experienced in the tasks which are going to be assigned to them. This should be merely the expression of the practical genius of America itself, and I believe that the practical genius of America will dictate that the efforts in this war in this particular field should be concentrated in experienced hands as our efforts in other fields will be.

There is another thing that is significant and delightful to my thought about the fact that this building should be dedicated to the memory of the women both of the North and of the South. It is a sort of landmark of the unity to which the people have been brought, so far as any old question which tore our hearts in days gone by is concerned; and I pray God that the outcome of this struggle may be that every other element of difference amongst us will be obliterated and that some day historians will remember these momentous years as the years which made a single people out of the great body of those who call themselves Americans. The evidences are already many that this is happening. The divisions which were predicted have not occurred and will not occur. The spirit of this people is already united, and when effort and suffering and sacrifice have completed the union, men will no longer speak of any lines either of race or of association cutting athwart the great body of this Nation. So that I feel that we are now beginning the processes which will some day require another beautiful memorial erected to those whose hearts uniting united America.

Congressional Record, LV, 2500.

60. OBJECTS IN GOING TO WAR.

(May 22, 1917)

LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE HEFLIN

It is incomprehensible to me how any frank or honest person could doubt or question my position with regard to

the war and its objects. I have again and again stated the very serious and long-continued wrongs which the Imperial German Government has perpetrated against the rights, the commerce, and the citizens of the United States. The list is long and overwhelming. No nation that respected itself or the rights of humanity could have borne those wrongs any longer.

Our objects in going into the war have been stated with equal clearness. The whole of the conception which I take to be the conception of our fellow countrymen with regard to the outcome of the war and the terms of its settlement I set forth with the utmost explicitness in an address to the Senate of the United States on the 22d of January last. Again, in my message to Congress on the 2d of April last those objects were stated in unmistakable terms. I can conceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and making the part which the United States is to play in this great struggle for human liberty an inefficient and hesitating part. We have entered the war for our own reasons and with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither the reasons nor the objects. There is no hate in our hearts for the German people, but there is a resolve which cannot be shaken even by misrepresentation to overcome the pretensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon purposes to which the German people have never consented.

Official Bulletin, May 23, 1917.

61. NEED OF A CENSORSHIP LAW

(May 22, 1917)

LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE WEBB

I have been very much surprised to find several of the public prints stating that the administration had abandoned the position which it so distinctly took, and still holds, that authority to exercise censorship over the press to the extent that that censorship is embodied in the recent action of the

House of Representatives is absolutely necessary to the public safety. It, of course, has not been abandoned, because the reasons still exist why such authority is necessary for the protection of the Nation.

I have every confidence that the great majority of the newspapers of the country will observe a patriotic reticence about everything whose publication could be of injury, but in every country there are some persons in position to do mischief in this field who can not be relied upon and whose interests or desires will lead to actions on their part highly dangerous to the Nation in the midst of a war. I want to say again that it seems to me imperative that powers of this sort should be granted.

Congressional Record, LV, 3144.

62. FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA

(May 26, 1917)

CABLEGRAM TO RUSSIA

In view of the approaching visit of the American delegation to Russia to express the deep friendship of the American people for the people of Russia and to discuss the best and most practical means of coöperation between the two peoples in carrying the present struggle for the freedom of all peoples to a successful consummation, it seems opportune and appropriate that I should state again, in the light of this new partnership, the objects the United States has had in mind in entering the war. Those objects have been very much beclouded during the past few weeks by mistaken and misleading statements, and the issues at stake are too momentous, too tremendous, too significant for the whole human race to permit any misinterpretations or misunderstandings, however slight, to remain uncorrected for a moment.

The war has begun to go against Germany, and in their desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using every pos