"Husband and wife serving in uniform meet for the first time on the continent--Lt. Jane I. Sunderbruch, Army Nurse Corps, assigned to an evacuation hospital, and her husband, Lt. Richard K. Sunderbruch, Davenport, Iowa. Signal Corps photographic officer. He was wounded in the Battle of Aachen, has since returned to duty. 6 November, 1944." They survived the war. He died in 1992, she in 2006. They are buried together in Scott County, Iowa.
Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, DSO & Bar, TD, PCk, British minister of state in the Middle East was assassinated by the Jewish terrorist group Lehi in Cairo.
The struggle over post war Palestine had begun.
Well, maybe begun again. British rule in Palestine had never been particularly easy.
The German garrison at Middleburg in the Netherlands surrendered to the Canadian Army.
The French government repealed Vichy anti Semitic laws, but implementation would prove to be difficult to implement in terms of restoring their possessions and occupations.
Penicillin began production in large scale in Liverpool.
The terroristic White League attacked and killed African American farmer Thomas Floyd in the first of a series of attacks on Republican Party members and freedmen in Louisiana. Ultimately several deaths occured, but nobody was brought to trial in spite of the arrest of 25 people.
The attacks were part of an overall effort to drive Republicans out of the state.
While it would anger some people for it to be noted, the Republican Party at the time was the liberal party in favor of expansive democracy, whereas the Democratic Party was the opposite. Just as Louisiana's Democrats of the time regarded the Republicans as unspeakable enemies, the opposite is true today. Likewise, as the Democratic Party was the party of the white South in 1874, the Republican Party is the same now.
European powers agreed to adopt the Dawes Plan, save for ratification of their parliaments.
The body of Italian opposition leader Giacomo Matteotti was found in a shallow ditch about 14 miles outside of Rome.
Boris Savinkov, Russian terrorist with the paramilitary wing of the outlawed Socialist Revolutionary Party, was arrested in Minsk by the Soviet secret police agency OGPU, because your opponents murdered is a murderer, while your own is a hero, apparently.
He was an anti communist and an admirer of Mussolini.
Turkey invaded Cyprus again, taking 37% of the country, establishing a republic recognized only by it, and dividing the capital Nicosia.
Greece withdrew from NATO"s military command structure as a result of the invasion. The Greek Cypriot paramilitary group EOKAB took Tochni and by the end of the day had murdered numerous people.
The Greek culture on Cyprus goes back to antiquity, although the island was never ruled by Greece. The Turkish presence to 1571 when the Ottomans took the island and began to partially settle it. The troubles of the 1970s, which have lasted to this day, were started by the Greek nationalist military junta, giving another example of the disastrous effects of Greek overreach in regard to Turkey.
The East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF) attempted to assassinate the Emperor Hirohito with a railroad bomb, but was the plot was discovered and disrupted. The terrorist group was Japanese, in spite of its name, but was in reaction to the Japanese history of aggression, as well as having a far left ideology.
Portugal's new government promised independence to Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea on the condition that ceasefires could be agreed upon in the ongoing wars and if democratic voting would be guaranteed on the form of post-colonial government.
Portugal had been one of Europe's first modern colonial powers, with an empire dating back to 1415.
Bill Clinton won the Democratic Party runoff for the Congressional nomination for the party in Arkansas. Then employed as a law professor, he'd lose in the fall.
William Cann, police chief of Union City, California, was assassinated at a public gathering by former members of the Brown Berets, a Chicano group, in retaliation for a police killing of a Hispanic man.
It was Memorial Day for 1974. Two days earlier President Nixon had issued this proclamation:
By the President of the United States Of America
A Proclamation
The defense of freedom and the search for peace cannot be separated. Together, they are an essential part of the American ideal. During the past two hundred years, our Nation has endured sacrifice in battle for the sake of this ideal. Americans died valiantly at Saratoga, King's Mountain, and Yorktown because they would not buy peace at the price of liberty. Americans died at Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg because a peace that cost the division of the Nation and the enslavement of a people could not be accepted.
We have occasion to show special gratitude this Memorial Day to those who fell in the cause of freedom in the longest and perhaps the most difficult war in our history. Because of their efforts, and the efforts of all our fighting forces, we can celebrate a year in which no American serviceman has fallen in the defense of his country.
During the past year, we have made progress toward the creation of a stable world order based on respect for the dignity and the larger interests of all nations. We have made this progress in part because America has pursued its tasks from a base of strength—not only military and economic strength, but strength of conviction and strength of purpose. We have been steadied in our resolve by the example of patience, self-sacrifice, and courage of our servicemen and women during the difficult years now past.
To our valiant dead we can pay no greater tribute than to emulate their dedication to a world free from the threat of force and the rule of fear. To them we dedicate our prayers for a new generation of peace and a new spirit of community among all the peoples of the world.
Now, Therefore, I, Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 1974, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at eleven o'clock in the morning of that day as a time to unite in prayer.
I urge the press, radio, television, and all other information media to cooperate in this observance.
I direct that the flag of the United States be flown at half-staff all day on Memorial Day on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the Federal Government throughout the United States and all areas under its jurisdiction and control.
I also call upon the Governors of the fifty States, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appropriate officials of all local units of government to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on all public buildings during that entire day, and I request the people of the United States to display the flag at half-staff from their homes for the same period.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-eighth.
RICHARD NIXON
A bomb went off in the car of lawyer Reyes Martinez at Chautauqua Park killing Martinez, his girlfriend Uma Jaakola and her friend Neva Romero were all killed in the blast.
Two days later, another car bomb went off in the parking lot of a Burger King which was closed for the evening, killing Florencio Granado, Heriberto Teran and Francisco Dougherty. Antonio Alcantar Jr., who was standing outside lost his leg.
No suspects have ever been arrested. The victims are known as the "Los Seis de Boulder", or "The Boulder Six". All involved, save for Reyes Martinez, were Hispanic activists protesting the conditions at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The FBI concluded that the bombs were made by the victims themselves and accidentally triggered, a thesis their supporters reject.
Monuments have been placed to them at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was inaugurated as President of France.
I had just turned eleven. I have no personal recollection of any of these events.
The Palestinian terrorists in Rome ordered a Lufthansa plane to fly to Kuwait, where the remaining hostages were freed. A year later, Kuwait turned them over to the PLO, which promised to put them on trial. Their fate is unknown.
Palestinian terrorists killed 32 people at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport near Rome by seizing a terminal and then throwing grenades in the open doors of a Boeing 707.
Because killing innocent people is a mature and rational way to get what you want . . .
Canada and Denmark signed a treating delineating their territorial waters.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Well, Part X wasn't up for long before the next edition was necessary.
Ugh.
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Kipling.
And so, the byproducts of the Great War continue to visit us, specter like. A war in Ukraine between a Slavic chauvinist empire, and one in the Middle East, sorting out the rubble of the Mandate.
So let us begin.
October 15, 2023
Hamas v. Israel.
Hamas infiltration attempts are continuing, but have dropped off on the West Bank.
Iran is warning the war could go regional, which it will not.
An Israeli ground offensive is imminent.
The US asked American citizens in Gaza (why on earth would anyone with American citizenship stay in Gaza?) to move closer to the Egyptian Rafah border crossing, which would likely suggest the U.S. has worked out some sort of deal with Egypt regarding Americans being displaced in the Gaza Strip (why on earth would anyone with American citizenship stay in Gaza?).
A bomb threat was levied against the Louvre yesterday, which is suspected to be related to this conflict in some fashion.
Russo Ukrainian War
Russian attacks on Avdiivka are continuing, but Ukrainian lines are holding. Apparently the offensive was anticipated.
October 16, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
From Twitter, and linked directly to what was put up there. Weapons displayed by the IDF that were used in the recent Hamas raid.
The really surprising one here is the ancient submachine gun. Apparently it is a Lanchester, which I've never even heard of. It looks like a German MP28 as it is in fact a version of it. They were actually produced, to my surprise, in large numbers during World War Two.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pizzaballa stated in an interview that he was willing to exchange himself as a hostage for the kidnapped children.
October 17, 2023
Hamas v Israel
Four Iranian nationals have been detained at the Del Rio crossing between the US and Mexico since October 1, with two Iranian nationals regarded as terrorist threats.
The Church of Saint Porphyrius, built in 1150 through 1160, a Greek Orthodox Church, is now housing Palestinian refugees of all religions.
2,000 U.S. troops are being readied to deploy to the region in support roles to Israel.
The Diocese of Cheyenne is asking Catholics in the Diocese to pray for Peace in the Holy Land, and has issued this prayer.
Pray for Peace in the Holy Land
Lord God, merciful and strong,
who crush wars and cast down the proud,
who extend mercy and tenderness to all,
we pray to you for the Holy Land, for the people of Israel and Palestine
who are under the grip of unprecedented violence,
for the victims, especially the children and their families.
Be pleased to grant healing for the wounded, the release of hostages,
protection for the innocent, and eternal peace to the dead.
To all those affected by war, grant healing, consolation, and the grace to forgive.
Almighty God,
guide the minds of world leaders to act with wisdom, prudence, and justice,
and to promote the common good.
Lord of Justice, help us to commit ourselves to building a fraternal world
so that these peoples and all those suffering similar conditions of
conflict, instability, and violence may walk together as sisters and brothers.
Help us to be peacemakers by practicing justice, dialogue, and reconciliation.
O God of Peace, who are peace itself,
grant that those in conflict may forget evil and so be healed.
Help those who have experienced violence to forgive their enemies,
as Christ taught us and after his example on the cross.
We pray that the whole of humanity may be reconciled as one family,
without violence, without absurd wars, and with a fraternal spirit,
and live united in peace and concord.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
cont:
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine struck Russian airbases deep within Russian occupied Ukraine with ATACMS missiles acquired from the United States
October 18, 2023
Hamas v Israel.
President Biden is in Israel.
Democrat Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib's accused Israel of bombing a Christian's hospital in the Gaza stating "Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that," in a tweet.
Israel replied within an hour that Islamic Jihad was responsible for the strike with an errant missile.
China v Taiwan and everyone else
The U.S. has accused China of increasingly dangerous actions with its fighter aircraft.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine made small gains around Bakhmut and Russians tiny gains around Avdiivka.
The US completed deliveries of M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
October 29, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine raided across the Dnipro near Kherson.
Iran v. United States
October 20, 2023
Hamas v. Israel, Iran v. The West
DOD assets in the Red Sea, Iraq and Syria responded to missile and drone attacks over the past two days, as U.S. service members look to deter groups from using the Israel-Hamas war as an opportunity to launch conflict that could engulf the region, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said today.
Department of Defense.
Effectively, Iran, often acting through its militias, is in a low grade war with the United States right now.
October 23, 2023
Hamas v. Israel, Iran v. The West
The weekend news shows were absolutely frighting on this topic, this weekend. A bill is being introduced in Congress to authorize the use of force under the War Powers Act, for instance.
October 24, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War.
The Chinese ship Newnew Polar Bear has entered the Port of Arkhangelsk with a missing anchor. Finnish investigators suspect it lost the anchor by dragging it into the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. It will take six months to repair.
cont:
Congo
The Allied Democratic Forces killed people in the city of Oicha in North Kivu province on Monday. The group has ties to the Islamic State.
The Administration reports that Russia has executed its own soldiers for refusing to carry out orders.
Hamas v. Israel
Israel killed the deputy head of Hamas’s intelligence directorate, Shadi Barud, in a strike in the Gaza today.
Iranian backed forces have targeted US sites in Israel and Iraq.
October 27, 2023
Iran v US
The US struck two Iranian backed militia sites in Syria in an air raid earlier today.
Hamas v. Israel
Israel has raided into Gaza.
October 28, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Slovakia's right wing populist government is ceasing aid to Ukraine.
Ireland has called for increased European support for Ukraine.
October 29, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
The IDF has entered Gaza.
November 1, 2023
North Korea
North Korea is closing a large number of embassies, apparently due to financial concerns.
Hamas v. Israel
From Yemen's Houthi militia:
Our armed forces launched a large batch of ballistic missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Israeli enemy
The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm that this operation is the third operation in support of our oppressed brothers in Palestine and confirm that we will continue to carry out more qualitative strikes with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops.
Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stated, in response to reports that millions of Palestinians could cross into Egypt, that Egypt was “prepared to sacrifice millions of lives to ensure that no one encroaches upon our territory”.
November 2, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
President Biden has called for a pause in the war to aid in removing refugees. It's unlikely to occur.
Nigeria
Thirty-seven have been killed in a Boko Haram terrorist attack.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi stated in an essay in The Economist yesterday that the has taken on a positional nature. His article is entitled. "Modern Positional Warfare and How to Win It".
It's odd for a commander to write such an op ed during a time of war, but that the war has become static is pretty obvious. This needs to be overcome if Ukraine is to achieve victory. If it does not, Western nations will ultimately lose interest in funding the Ukrainian effort.
November 4, 2023
China v. Everyone
Japan and the Philippines are moving towards a troop cooperation agreement.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken engaged in a round of regional shuttle diplomacy yesterday.
The IDF has split the Gaza Strip in two.
November 7, 2023
Sudan
Jihadi militias have murdered over 800 Massalit tribe members in Darfur, Sudan over the past few days. Like their oppressors, the Massalit are Muslims, but they are generally somewhat relaxed in their observance and retain some pre conversion practices in spite of having long been Muslims. Over recent decades they have become more orthodox in their observance.
I frankly don't know what this conflict is about.
November 8, 2023
Hamas v. Israel War
U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib was censured for her "river to the sea" comment. Tlaib is of Palestinian extraction and has a vocal critic of Israel.
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman claimed n a television interview that Palestinian protests in the US were due to Palestinian infiltration of the U.S. government.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian's seem to have crossed the Dnipro in some force and to have ferried armored vehicles across the river.
November 9, 2023
Myanmar
Myanmar has lost control of much of its border with China due to attacks by three ethnic rebel armies in Shan State.
Iran v the West
The U.S. has attacked an Iranian backed militia's weapon storage facility in Syria via the air.
November 10, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
Israel agreed to pause its offensive actions periodically for humanitarian reasons but not to provide for a ceasefire or ceasefires.
Headline in the British newspaper The Telegraph:
‘Queers for Palestine’ must have a death wish
Truly.
The Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and Gaza, have one of the world's worst records for intolerance of this topic in the world. Homosexual Palestinians fairly frequently flee to Israel.
Russo Ukrainian War
Russian forces have nearly encircled Avdiivka.
November 12, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
Israel has rejected calls for a cease fire and has indicated that it will retain security control of Gaza fater the war.
Russo Ukrainian War
Russian offensive activities in recent days have been resulting in huge casualties to their army.
November 16, 2023
Iran v. the West
The U.S. navy shot down a drone launched from Yemen aimed at a ship yesterday.
November 18, 2023
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian forces have established bridgeheads on the east bank of the Dnipro and are pushing Russian forces back beyond artillery range of the west bank.
November 20, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
Houthi rebels have taken a cargo ship in a helicopter raid on the same. They have asserted this is legitimate as the ship had Israeli connections.
November 22, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
Israel has agreed to a four-day cease fire for humanitarian reasons. Hostages are to be released during that time period.
Iranian backed militias launched missiles at a US base in Iraq, causing the US to retaliate with an airstrike.
November 23, 2023
India v. Sikh separatists.
The US has announced that it foiled a plot on the life of a Sikh seperatist living in the US. A successful attempt on the life of a Sikh figure in Canada has lead to tension between those two countries. India denies being involved.
November 25, 2023
Hamas v. Israel
A prisoner exchange (Palestinian prisoners for Israeli and multinational hostages) took place yesterday as scheduled. Twenty four hostages were releaed, including 13 Israelis, 10 Thai citizens, and one Filipino citizen.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, the Countess Sophia, were buried at Artstetten,
He'd been unpopular in his empire and was chosen due to the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolph. Emperor Franz Joseph did not attend his funeral.
Kaiser Wilhelm II declared that he was “settling accounts with Serbia”.
Germany had no "accounts" to settle with Serbia at all.
So the world inched towards war over the assassination of an unpopular archduke by a deluded Bosnian nationalist.
The US, which had recently seen itself act against Mexico in the name of honor, saw President Wilson deliver an address in the context of the eve of a European war on the meaning of liberty.
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens:
We are assembled to celebrate the one hundred and thirty-eighth anniversary of the birth of the United States. I suppose that we can more vividly realize the circumstances of that birth standing on this historic spot than it would be possible to realize them anywhere else. The Declaration of Independence was written in Philadelphia; it was adopted in this historic building by which we stand. I have just had the privilege of sitting in the chair of the great man who presided over the deliberations of those who gave the declaration to the world. My hand rests at this moment upon the table upon which the declaration was signed. We can feel that we are almost in the visible and tangible presence of a great historic transaction.
Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence or attended with close comprehension to the real character of it when you have heard it read? If you have, you will know that it is not a Fourth of July oration. The Declaration of Independence was a document preliminary to war. It was a vital piece of practical business, not a piece of rhetoric; and if you will pass beyond those preliminary passages which we are accustomed to quote about the rights of men and read into the heart of the document you will see that it is very express and detailed, that it consists of a series of definite specifications concerning actual public business of the day. Not the business of our day, for the matter with which it deals is past, but the business of that first revolution by which the Nation was set up, the business of 1776. Its general statements, its general declarations cannot mean anything to us unless we append to it a similar specific body of particulars as to what we consider the essential business of our own day.
Liberty does not consist, my fellow-citizens, in mere general declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action. Therefore, standing here where the declaration was adopted, reading its businesslike sentences, we ought to ask ourselves what there is in it for us. There is nothing in it for us unless we can translate it into the terms of our own conditions and of our own lives. We must reduce it to what the lawyers call a bill of particulars. It contains a bill of particulars, but the bill of particulars of 1776. If we would keep it alive, we must fill it with a bill of particulars of the year 1914.
The task to which we have constantly to readdress ourselves is the task of proving that we are worthy of the men who drew this great declaration and know what they would have done in our circumstances. Patriotism consists in some very practical things—practical in that they belong to the life of every day, that they wear no extraordinary distinction about them, that they are connected with commonplace duty. The way to be patriotic in America is not only to love America but to love the duty that lies nearest to our hand and know that in performing it we are serving our country. There are some gentlemen in Washington, for example, at this very moment who are showing themselves very patriotic in a way which does not attract wide attention but seems to belong to mere everyday obligations. The Members of the House and Senate who stay in hot Washington to maintain a quorum of the Houses and transact the all-important business of the Nation are doing an act of patriotism. I honor them for it, and I am glad to stay there and stick by them until the work is done.
It is patriotic, also, to learn what the facts of our national life are and to face them with candor. I have heard a great many facts stated about the present business condition of this country, for example—a great many allegations of fact, at any rate, but the allegations do not tally with one another. And yet I know that truth always matches with truth and when I find some insisting that everything is going wrong and others insisting that everything is going right, and when I know from a wide observation of the general circumstances of the country taken as a whole that things are going extremely well, I wonder what those who are crying out that things are wrong are trying to do. Are they trying to serve the country, or are they trying to serve something smaller than the country? Are they trying to put hope into the hearts of the men who work and toil every day, or are they trying to plant discouragement and despair in those hearts? And why do they cry that everything is wrong and yet do nothing to set it right? If they love America and anything is wrong amongst us, it is their business to put their hand with ours to the task of setting it right. When the facts are known and acknowledged, the duty of all patriotic men is to accept them in candor and to address themselves hopefully and confidently to the common counsel which is necessary to act upon them wisely and in universal concert.
I have had some experiences in the last fourteen months which have not been entirely reassuring. It was universally admitted, for example, my fellow-citizens, that the banking system of this country needed reorganization. We set the best minds that we could find to the task of discovering the best method of reorganization. But we met with hardly anything but criticism from the bankers of the country; we met with hardly anything but resistance from the majority of those at least who spoke at all concerning the matter. And yet so soon as that act was passed there was a universal chorus of applause, and the very men who had opposed the measure joined in that applause. If it was wrong the day before it was passed, why was it right the day after it was passed? Where had been the candor of criticism not only, but the concert of counsel which makes legislative action vigorous and safe and successful?
It is not patriotic to concert measures against one another; it is patriotic to concert measures for one another.
In one sense the Declaration of Independence has lost its significance. It has lost its significance as a declaration of national independence. Nobody outside of America believed when it was uttered that we could make good our independence; now nobody anywhere would dare to doubt that we are independent and can maintain our independence. As a declaration of independence, therefore, it is a mere historic document. Our independence is a fact so stupendous that it can be measured only by the size and energy and variety and wealth and power of one of the greatest nations in the world. But it is one thing to be independent and it is another thing to know what to do with your independence. It is one thing to come to your majority and another thing to know what you are going to do with your life and your energies; and one of the most serious questions for sober-minded men to address themselves to in the United States is this: What are we going to do with the influence and power of this great Nation? Are we going to play the old role of using that power for our aggrandizement and material benefit only? You know what that may mean. It may upon occasion mean that we shall use it to make the peoples of other nations suffer in the way in which we said it was intolerable to suffer when we uttered our Declaration of Independence.
The Department of State at Washington is constantly called upon to back up the commercial enterprises and the industrial enterprises of the United States in foreign countries, and it at one time went so far in that direction that all its diplomacy came to be designated as "dollar diplomacy." It was called upon to support every man who wanted to earn anything anywhere if he was an American. But there ought to be a limit to that. There is no man who is more interested than I am in carrying the enterprise of American business men to every quarter of the globe. I was interested in it long before I was suspected of being a politician. I have been preaching it year after year as the great thing that lay in the future for the United States, to show her wit and skill and enterprise and influence in every country in the world. But observe the limit to all that which is laid upon us perhaps more than upon any other nation in the world. We set this Nation up, at any rate we professed to set it up, to vindicate the rights of men. We did not name any differences between one race and another. We did not set up any barriers against any particular people. We opened our gates to all the world and said, "Let all men who wish to be free come to us and they will be welcome." We said, "This independence of ours is not a selfish thing for our own exclusive private use. It is for everybody to whom we can find the means of extending it." We cannot with that oath taken in our youth, we cannot with that great ideal set before us when we were a young people and numbered only a scant 3,000,000, take upon ourselves, now that we are 100,000,000 strong, any other conception of duty than we then entertained. If American enterprise in foreign countries, particularly in those foreign countries which are not strong enough to resist us, takes the shape of imposing upon and exploiting the mass of the people of that country it ought to be checked and not encouraged. I am willing to get anything for an American that money and enterprise can obtain except the suppression of the rights of other men. I will not help any man buy a power which he ought not to exercise over his fellow-beings.
You know, my fellow-countrymen, what a big question there is in Mexico. Eighty-five per cent of the Mexican people have never been allowed to have any genuine participation in their own Government or to exercise any substantial rights with regard to the very land they live upon. All the rights that men most desire have been exercised by the other fifteen per cent. Do you suppose that that circumstance is not sometimes in my thought? I know that the American people have a heart that will beat just as strong for those millions in Mexico as it will beat, or has beaten, for any other millions elsewhere in the world, and that when once they conceive what is at stake in Mexico they will know what ought to be done in Mexico. I hear a great deal said about the loss of property in Mexico and the loss of the lives of foreigners, and I deplore these things with all my heart. Undoubtedly, upon the conclusion of the present disturbed conditions in Mexico those who have been unjustly deprived of their property or in any wise unjustly put upon ought to be compensated. Men's individual rights have no doubt been invaded, and the invasion of those rights has been attended by many deplorable circumstances which ought sometime, in the proper way, to be accounted for. But back of it all is the struggle of a people to come into its own, and while we look upon the incidents in the foreground let us not forget the great tragic reality in the background which towers above the whole picture.
A patriotic American is a man who is not niggardly and selfish in the things that he enjoys that make for human liberty and the rights of man. He wants to share them with the whole world, and he is never so proud of the great flag under which he lives as when it comes to mean to other people as well as to himself a symbol of hope and liberty. I would be ashamed of this flag if it ever did anything outside America that we would not permit it to do inside of America.
The world is becoming more complicated every day, my fellow-citizens. No man ought to be foolish enough to think that he understands it all. And, therefore, I am glad that there are some simple things in the world. One of the simple things is principle. Honesty is a perfectly simple thing. It is hard for me to believe that in most circumstances when a man has a choice of ways he does not know which is the right way and which is the wrong way. No man who has chosen the wrong way ought even to come into Independence Square; it is holy ground which he ought not to tread upon. He ought not to come where immortal voices have uttered the great sentences of such a document as this Declaration of Independence upon which rests the liberty of a whole nation.
And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to prefer the honor of the country to its material interest. Would you rather be deemed by all the nations of the world incapable of keeping your treaty obligations in order that you might have free tolls for American ships? The treaty under which we gave up that right may have been a mistaken treaty, but there was no mistake about its meaning.
When I have made a promise as a man I try to keep it, and I know of no other rule permissible to a nation. The most distinguished nation in the world is the nation that can and will keep its promises even to its own hurt. And I want to say parenthetically that I do not think anybody was hurt. I cannot be enthusiastic for subsidies to a monopoly, but let those who are enthusiastic for subsidies ask themselves whether they prefer subsidies to unsullied honor.
The most patriotic man, ladies and gentlemen, is sometimes the man who goes in the direction that he thinks right even when he sees half the world against him. It is the dictate of patriotism to sacrifice yourself if you think that that is the path of honor and of duty. Do not blame others if they do not agree with you. Do not die with bitterness in your heart because you did not convince the rest of the world, but die happy because you believe that you tried to serve your country by not selling your soul. Those were grim days, the days of 1776. Those gentlemen did not attach their names to the Declaration of Independence on this table expecting a holiday on the next day, and that 4th of July was not itself a holiday. They attached their signatures to that significant document knowing that if they failed it was certain that every one of them would hang for the failure. They were committing treason in the interest of the liberty of 3,000,000 people in America. All the rest of the world was against them and smiled with cynical incredulity at the audacious undertaking. Do you think that if they could see this great Nation now they would regret anything that they then did to draw the gaze of a hostile world upon them? Every idea must be started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to start anything. Yet if it is in you, you must start it if you have a man's blood in you and if you love the country that you profess to be working for.
I am sometimes very much interested when I see gentlemen supposing that popularity is the way to success in America. The way to success in this great country, with its fair judgments, is to show that you are not afraid of anybody except God and his final verdict. If I did not believe that, I would not believe in democracy. If I did not believe that, I would not believe that people can govern themselves. If I did not believe that the moral judgment would be the last judgment, the final judgment, in the minds of men as well as the tribunal of God, I could not believe in popular government. But I do believe these things, and, therefore, I earnestly believe in the democracy not only of America but of every awakened people that wishes and intends to govern and control its own affairs.
It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that may be called the original fountain of independence and liberty in American and here drink draughts of patriotic feeling which seem to renew the very blood in one's veins. Down in Washington sometimes when the days are hot and the business presses intolerably and there are so many things to do that it does not seem possible to do anything in the way it ought to be done, it is always possible to lift one's thought above the task of the moment and, as it were, to realize that great thing of which we are all parts, the great body of American feeling and American principle. No man could do the work that has to be done in Washington if he allowed himself to be separated from that body of principle. He must make himself feel that he is a part of the people of the United States, that he is trying to think not only for them, but with them, and then he cannot feel lonely. He not only cannot feel lonely but he cannot feel afraid of anything.
My dream is that as the years go on and the world knows more and more of America it will also drink at these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also will turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis of all freedom; that the world will never fear America unless it feels that it is engaged in some enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of humanity; and that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.
What other great people has devoted itself to this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can all eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their rights? I do not know that there will ever be a declaration of independence and of grievances for mankind, but I believe that if any such document is ever drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, and that America has lifted high the light which will shine unto all generations and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of justice and liberty and peace.
500 Zayanes attacked a French convoy south of Khenifra, Morocco. The French successfully repulsed the attack.
A bomb built by a member of the IWW intended for John D. Rockefeller blew up in the maker's apartment, killing him, and three other people.
The French Yiddish language newspaper The Jewish Worker ceased publication, having failed for its pacifist stance, causing it to break with the French labor movement.
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