16G 
July 4th, 1917 
PRESIDENT WILSON’S FLAG DAY ADDRESS, WASHINGTON, JUNE 14th, 1917. 
My fellow citizens: We meet 
to celebrate flag day because this 
flag which we honor and under 
which we serve is the emblem of 
unity, our power, our thought and 
purpose as a nation, ft . lias no 
other character than that which 
we give it from generation to 
generation. The choices are ours. 
It floats in majestic silence above 
the hosts, that execute these 
choices, whether in peace or in 
war. And yet, though silent, it 
speaks to us — speaks to us of the 
past, of the men and women who 
went before us and of the records 
they wrote upon it. We celebrate 
the day of its birth and from its 
birth until now it has witnessed a 
great history, has floated high in 
symbol of great events, of the 
great plan of life worked out by 
a great people. We are about to 
carry it into battle, to lift it 
where it will draw the .fire of our 
enemies. We are about to bid 
thousands, hundreds of thousands, 
it may be millions of our men, the 
young, the strong, the callable 
men of the nation to go forth and 
die beneath it in fields of blood 
far away, for what? For some 
unaccustomed thing? For some- 
thing for which it has never 
sought the fire before? American 
armies never before were sent 
across the sea. Why are they 
sent now? For some new pur- 
pose to which this flag has never 
been carried before, or for some 
old familiar, heroic purpose, for 
which it has seen men, its own 
men, die on every battle field on 
which Americans have borne 
arms since the revolution? 
These are questions which must 
be answered. We are Americans, 
we in our turn serve America and 
can serve her with no private pur- 
pose, We must use her flag as 
she has always used it. We are 
accountable at the bar of history 
and must plead in entire frank- 
ness what purpose we seek to 
serve. 
FORCED INTO WAR. 
It is plain enough how we were 
forced into the war. The extra- 
ordinary insults and aggressions 
of the imperial German govern- 
ment left us no self respecting 
choice but to take up arms in de- 
fense of our rights as a free peo- 
ple and of our honor as a sover- 
eign government. The military 
masters of Germany denied us the 
right to be neutral. They filled 
our unsuspecting communities 
with vicious spies and conspira- 
tors and sought to corrupt the 
opinion of our people in their own 
behalf. When they found they 
could not do that, their agents dil- 
igently spread sedition amongst 
us and sought to draw our own 
citizens from their allegiance and 
some of these agents were men 
connected with the official em- 
bassy of the German government 
itself in our own capital. They 
sought by violence to destroy our 
industries and arrest our com- 
merce. They tried to incite 
