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The Commoner
VOL 17, N0."3
. -
Lincoln, Nebraska, March, 1917
Whole Number 695 '
President Wilson's Second Inaugural Address
President Wilson's inaugural address
Washington, March 6, was as follows:
"My -fellow citizens: The four years which
have elapsed since .last I stood in this place have
been crowded .with counsel and action of the
most vital interest and consequence. Perhaps
no equal period in our history has been so fruit
ful of important reforms in our economic and
industrial life or so full of significant changes
in the spirit and purpose of our political action.
"Wo have sought very thoughtfully to set our
house in order, correct the grosser errors and
abuses of our industrial life, liberate and quick
en the processes of our national genius and en
ergy, and lift our politics to a broader view of
the people's essential interests.
"It is a record of' singular variety and singu
lar distinctions. But J shall not attempt to re
view it:- It speaks , for itself and will -be. -of in-creasing-4nfluence
as .tho years .go by. This is
not the time for retrospect. It is time, rather,
to speak our thoughts and purposes concerning
tho present and tho immediate future.
DRAWN INTO WORLD EVENTS
"Although we have centered counsel and ac
tion with such unusual concentration and suc
cess upon the great problems' of domestic legis
lation to which we addressed ourselves four
years ago, other matters have more and more
forced themselves upon our attention, matters
lying outside our own life as a nation and over
which we had no control, but which, despite our
wish to keep tree of them, have drawn us more
and more irresistibly into their own current and
influence.
"It has been impossible to avoid them. They
have affected the life of the whole world.
They have shaken men everywhere with a pas
sion and an apprehension they never knew be
fore. It has been hard to preserve calm coun
sel while the thought of our own people swayed
this way and that under their influence. We are
a composite and cosmopolitan people. We are
of the blood of all the. nations that are at war.
The currents of our thoughts as well as the cur
rents of our trade run quick at all seasons back
and forth between us and them. The war inev
itably set its mark from the first alike upon- our
minds, our industries, our commerce, our pol
itics and our social action. To be indifferent to
it or independent of it was out of the question.
DRAWN CLOSER TOGETHER
"And yet, all the while we have been conscious
that we were not part of it. In that iconsciousness,
despite many divisions, we have drawn closer
together. We havebeen deeply wronged upon
the seas.but we have not wished to wrong or
injure in return; have retained throughout the
consciousness of standing in some sort apart,
intent upon an interest that transcended the im
mediate issues of the war itself. As some of
at 0
.0 v
The first term of President Wilson has
passed into history. It presents an un-
precedented record of, economic reforms
and covers a period filled with interna-
tional problems of the first magnitude.
The President enters upon a second
term encouraged by popular approval
, expressod at the polls and supported by
a united people who pray that the na-
tion may be kopt out of tho war that is
devastating the Old World. May tho
Lord give him health and wisdom and
strength that his second term may prove
as successful as the first.
W. J. BRYAN.
rs)
the injuries donenuhave becomo, intolerable,
we have still been clear that we wished' nothing
for ourselves tliaf we were hot ready to demand
for all mankind fair dealing, justice, the free
dom to live and be at ease against organized
wrong.
"It is in this spirit and with this thought that
we have grown more and more aware, more and
more certain, that the part we wished to play
was the part of those who mean to vindicate and
fortify peace. We have been obliged to arm
ourselves to make good our claim to a certain
minimum of right and freedom of action. We
stand firm in armed neutrality, since it seems
thaj. in no other way we can demonstrate what
tfis we insist upon and can not forego. We
may even be drawn on, by circumstances, not by
our own purpose or desire, to a more active as
sertion of our rights as we see them and a more
immediate association with the great struggle
itself. But nothing will alter our thought or
CONTENTS
PRESIDENT WILSON'S SECOND INAU
GURAL ADDRESS
"STANDING BY THE PRESIDENT"
THE GOSPEL OP MARS
MAYOR CHARLES W. BRYAN NOT A
CANDIDATE
WANTED WEEKLY PAPERS
THE CHALLENGE OP PROHIBITION
TO COLLEGE STUDENTS
PRESIDENT WILSON'S INAUGURA
TION NEW YORK PEACE SPEECH
CONGRESSMAN SHALLENBERGER'S -SPEECH
CONGRESSMAN BAILEY'S SPEECH
GUARANTEED DEPOSITS
The forms of this issue of The Commoner
closed March 13, 1917.
our purpose. Thoy are too clear to be obscured.
Thoy afo too deoply rooted in tho principles of
our national life to bo altered. Wo deslro
neither conquest nor advantage. Wo wish noth
ing that can be had only at the cost of auothor.
people. Wo have always professed unselfish
purpose, and wo covet tho opportunity 10 piovo
that our professions aro sincere.
"There are many things still to do at home,
to. clarify our own politics and give new vitality
to the industrial processes of our own life, and
we shall do them as time and opportunity sorvo;
but wo realize that tho greatest things that re
main to bo dono must bo dono with tho wholo
world for a stage and in co-operation with tho
wide and universal forces of mankind, and wo
are making our spirits ready for thoso things.
Thoy will follow In tho Immediato wake of the .
war Itself, and will set civilization up. again. W,
aro provincials no longer. The tragical events '
of (ho thirty months of vital turmoil through
which we havo just passed mado us citizens of
tho world. Thero can be no turning hack. Our
own fortunes as a nation aro involved, whether
wo would havo it so or not.
THINGS U. S. STANDS FOR
"And yet we aro not the less Americans on
that account. Wo shall bo the more American
if we but remain trtlo to tho principles on which
wo havo been bred. They aro not tho principles
of a province of a singlo continent. Wo havo
known and boasted all along that thoy wero tho
principles of a liberated mankind. These, there
fore, are tho things we shall stand for, whether
In war or In peace:
"That all nations aro equally interested in tho
peace of the world and in tho political stability
of freo peoples,, and usually responsible, for their
maintenance;
"That the essential principle of peace is the
actual equality of nations in all matters of right
or privilege;
"That peace can not securely or justly rest
upon an armed balanco of power;
"That governments derive all their just pow
ers from the consent of the governed and that
no other powers should be supported by tho
common thought, purpose or power of tho fam
ily of nations;
' "That tho seas should be equally free and safe
for tho use of all peoples, under rules set up by
common agreement and consent, and that, so
tor as practicable, they should be accessible to
all upon equal terms;
"That national armaments should be limited
to tho necessities of national order and domestic
safety;
"That the community of interest and of power
upon which peace must henceforth depend im
poses upon each nation tho duty of seeing to, it
that all influences proceeding fro its' own citr
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