Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 263, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1917 — World Shown Value of Liberty by the Brutal Power of Germany [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

World Shown Value of Liberty by the Brutal Power of Germany

By ELIHU ROOT.

Former Secretary of State and Head of Mission to Russia

—— The brutal power of Germany, W'hich has repudiated everything that civilization has accomplished for the century past, which has repudiated the law of morals and declared the German state to bo superior to all morality, which has repudiated the law of humanity, and has without quavering committed the most dreadful outrages in order that she might have the benefit of inspiring terror in the world—the brutal power of “Germany has revealed at last to our comfortlovfng jynple th** of Qptdtafifi. bare and naked, the, dreadful, horrid truth of human

nature unrelieved by morals or religion of humanity. It has shown to us as we never realized before what liberty and justice, what humanity and compassion, what morality and right really are. We need not talk about the whys and-wherefores of the war. It is here, and the issue is drawn so clearly that a cKiTd could see. It is for the American people to determine whether they have the manhood to maintain the liberty that their fathers gained for them through sacrifice, the manhood to maintain the-jnstice upon which we have prided ourselves, the manhood to defend those institutions of liberty and justice which we would hand down to our children, or whether we shall submit and aban- ■ don them,-, all The-issue is clear and distinct between the maintenance of the American republic, free and independent, American justice to the rich and poor alike, American opportunity for the boy and the girl —whether we are so that we will leave our children to be subjected to the power of evil that ravished Belgium and Serbia; whether falsehood and faithlessness and cynical contempt for morals, and cold-blooded disregard of humanity, and utter absence of mercy and compassion, and denial of human right shall be the portion of our children, or whether the liberty which our fathers won shall be handed down to them by the manhood of our fathers' sons -and the love of our children s fathers. It has come not too soon. It was at the eleventh hour that we came into the vineyard. The great opportunity of the American people was slipping away before they could grasp the opportunity to make themselves into the image of our fathers and of our Maker; the opportunity to die, ; f need ho, and to give our dearest ones to death that our country may live; that its liberty may live; that its justice may endure; that its opportunity for those who toil and endure may continue/ We have grasped the opportunity for that sacrifice and suffering through which we shall •find our souls again. . " 7 ~ ~~