July 4th, 1917 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTUR E 
SPECIAL EDITION 
Why Do We Fight Germany? 
Address by Franklin K. Lane, 
Secretary of the Interior, on 
June 4, 1917, before the Home 
Club of the Interior Department, 
Washington, D. C. 
Tomorrow is Registration day. 
It is the duty of all, their legal as 
well as their patriotic duty, to 
register if within the class called. 
There are some who have not 
clearly seen the reason for that 
call. To these I would speak a 
word. 
Why are we .fighting Germany? 
The brief answer is that ours is a 
war of self-defense. We did not 
wish to fight Germany. She 
made the attack upon us; not on 
our shores, but on our ships, our 
lives, our rights, our future. For 
two years and more we held to a 
neutrality that made us apologists 
for things which outraged man’s 
common sense of fair play and 
humanity. At each new offense 
— the invasion of Belgium, the 
killing of civilian Belgians, the at- 
tacks on Scarborough and other 
defenseless towns, the laying of 
mines in neutral waters, the fenc- 
ing off of the seas — and on and 
on through the months we said : 
‘‘This is war,— archaic, uncivil- 
ized war, but war! All rules have 
been thrown away; all nobility; 
man has come down to the primi- 
tive brute. And while we can 
not justify we will not intervene. 
It is not our war!” 
Then ' r hy are we in? Because 
we could not keep out. The in- 
vasion of Belgium, which opened 
the war, led to the invasion of the 
United States by slow, steady, log- 
ical steps. Our sympathies evolved 
into a conviction of self-interest. 
Our love of fair play ripened in- 
to alarm at our own peril. 
We talked in the language and 
in the spirit of good faith and 
sincerity, as honest men should 
talk until we discovered that our 
talk was construed as cowardice. 
And Mexico was called upon to 
cow us. We talked as men would 
talk who cared alone for peace 
and the advancement of their own 
material interests, until we dis- 
covered that we were thought to 
be a nation of mere money mak- 
ers, devoid of all character, — un- 
til indeed we were told that we 
could not walk the highways of 
the world without permission of 
a Prussian soldier, that our ships 
might not sail without wearing a 
striped uniform of humiliation 
upon a narrow path of national 
subservience. We talked as men 
talk who hope for honest agree- 
ment, not for war, until we found 
that the treaty torn to pieces at 
Liege was but the symbol of a 
policy that made agreements 
worthless against a purpose that 
knew no word but success. 
And so we came into this war 
for ourselves. It is a war to save 
America — to preserve self-respect, 
to justify our right to live as we 
have lived, not as some one else 
wishes us to live. In the name 
of Freedom we challenge with 
ships and men, money and an un- 
daunted spirit, that word, “Ver- 
boten” which Germany has writ- 
ten upon the sea and upon the 
land. For America is not the 
name of so much territory. It is 
a living spirit, born in travail, 
grown in the rough school of bit- 
ter experiences, a living spirit 
which has purpose and pride and 
conscience. — knows why it wishes 
to live and to what end, knows 
how it comes to be respected of 
the world, and hopes to retain 
that respect by living on with the 
light of Lincoln’s love of man and 
its old and new testament. It is 
more precious that this America 
should live than that we Ameri- 
cans should live. And this Amer- 
ica as we now see has been chal- 
lenged from the first of this war 
by the strong arm of a power that 
has no sympathy with our pur- 
pose, and will not hesitate to de- 
stroy us if the law we respect, the 
rights that are to us sacred, or the 
spirit that we have, stand across 
her set will to make this world 
bow before her policies, backed bv 
her organized and scientific mili- 
tary system. The world of Christ 
— a neglected but not a rejected 
Christ — has come again face to 
face with the world of Mahomet, 
who willed to win by Force. 
With this background of his- 
tory and in this sense, then we 
fight Germany — 
Because of Belgium— invaded, 
outraged, enslaved, impoverished 
Belgium. We can not forget 
Liege, Louvian and t aidinal 
Mercier. Translated into terms 
of American history these names 
stand for Bunker Hill, Lexington 
and Patrick Henry. 
Because of France — invaded, 
desecrated France, a million of 
whose heroic sons have died to 
save the land of Lafayette. Gloi- 
ious golden France, the preserver 
of the arts, the land of noble 
spirit. The first land to follow 
our lead into Republican liberty. 
Because of England f r o m 
whom came the laws, traditions, 
standards of life and inherent 
love of liberty which we call Ang- 
lo-Saxon Civilization. We de- 
feated her once upon the land 
and once upon the sea. But Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand, Africa and 
Canada are free because of what 
we did. And they are with us 
in the fight for the freedom of 
the seas. 
Because of Russia — New Rus- 
