Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1918 — People of United States Must All Belong to the Party of Victory [ARTICLE]

People of United States Must All Belong to the Party of Victory

By LIEUTENANT PAUL PERIGORD

of the French Amy

America is in need of a united, loyal people. You are the hope and energy of mankind. You are the United States, but you are not as yet the united people of the United States. We know in France we are all soldiers of righteousness. There is only one party and that is the party of victory. All must belong to it as long as the war lasts. There is the duty of self-sacrifice. You haven’t practiced it much yet. I heard a man actually boasting because he'had invested in two Liberty bonds at 4 per cent—a good business investment. Don’t tell me that you have not a boy to send—are they not all your boys? As we are still willing to believe in the redemption of the German people. We must not hate them—we must be greater and broader than Prussian aristocracy. Americans of German descent should be the first to enlist because they would be fighting against what their forefathers fled from. German people in the United States should be first to help free their kinsmen from autocracy and militarism. If America had failed to enter this war she would have been dishonored forever. The Stars and Stripes—the symbol of justice and freedom not only for the United States but for all nations —would have been handed down to the next generation defiled, stained and dishonored. Now it can still remain the purest and most beautiful flag in the world, an, Americans can sing of the “home of the brave and the land of the free truthfully.