THE TIES THAT BIND 



Our Natural Sympathy with English Traditions, the French 

 Republic, and the Russian Outburst for Liberty* 



By Senator John Sharp Williams 



1JOIN the President in having no 

 hostility to the German people. I 

 spent two and a half years of my life 

 with them and I love them — a whole lot 

 of them. The man who inhabits the bor- 

 ders of the Rhine, the man who inhabits 

 Bavaria and Wurttemberg — easily moved 

 to tears, and easily moved to laughter, 

 and easily moved to rage — is a man whom 

 I have learned to love ; and I have always 

 believed that this war in Europe, brought 

 on by the obstinate refusal of the Kaiser 

 to leave either to a tribunal of arbitration 

 or to a concert of Europe the question at 

 issue between Austria and Serbia, and 

 inspiring Austria to refusal, is a proof of 

 the truth of the adage, "Whom the gods 

 would destroy, they first make mad." 



I am a little tired, Mr. President, of 

 utterances like that of the Senator in de- 

 nouncing the Entente powers. Who are 

 the Entente powers? France, "La Belle 

 France," "Sunny France," sweet France — 

 the most companionable people on the 

 surface of the earth; the country- of La- 

 fayette and Rochambeau and De Grasse ; 

 the country of Victor Hugo and Moliere 

 and Racine ; the country of the men who 

 imitated our American example when 

 they flung to the breeze banners with 

 "Liberty, equality, fraternity" inscribed 

 upon them, although they carried the 

 banner to a bloody end that was not justi- 

 fied — to a Reign of Terror against those 

 whom they deemed traitors at home — 

 which has been exceeded by the German 

 Reign of Terror in Belgium, greater in 

 atrocity and less provoked. 



Then the gentleman undertakes to 

 "twist the British lion's tail." We have 

 had a whole lot of demagogues who habit- 

 ually do that. It started soon after the 



*An address to the U. S. Senate April 4, 

 1917, specially revised by Senator Williams for 

 the National Geographic Magazine. 



Revolution, but not with those of us 

 whose forefathers fought under George 

 Washington in the Continental line to es- 

 tablish American independence. 



The War of Independence was really 

 carried on against the will of the English 

 people by the German king, who happened 

 to be then the King of Great Britain, with 

 hired Hessians, who were also Germans, 

 against the leadership of that greatest 

 Englishman that America ever pro- 

 duced — George Washington. 



Edmund Burke, the elder Pitt, who was 

 then Lord Chatham, and Charles James 

 Fox came much nearer representing real 

 English sentiment than the Hanoverian 

 King George III. 



OUR DEBT TO ENGLAND 



I have a hearty contempt for the man 

 who does not know his environment and 

 his kindred and his friends and his coun- 

 try. It may be narrow, but I love my 

 plantation better than any other planta- 

 tion, my county better than any other 

 county, my State better than any other 

 State in the Union, and my country better 

 than any other country in the world, and 

 my race — the English - speaking race — 

 better than any other race. 



Whence do we get our laws ? Whence 

 do we get our literature ? Whence do we 

 get our ethical philosophy? Whence do 

 we get our general ideas of religion? 

 From the people who sired our fathers 

 before they came here. 



I am tired of men telling me — Welsh- 

 man, Scotchman, Englishman in blood, 

 as I am — that "the hereditary enemy of 

 the United States is England" or Wales 

 or Scotland — that it is Great Britain. 

 Magna Charta, the Declaration of Rights, 

 the Bill of Rights included in the Consti- 

 tution in its first ten amendments — the 

 very principles embodied in the Constitu- 



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