525 )25 >py 1 A WAR DOCUMENT t..A.J>^^-'''^ A NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1918, WASHINGTON. I HAVE PRIVATELY PRINTED AS A WAR DOCUMENT THE ADDRESS OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL AND DISTRIBUTED A LIMITED NUM- BER OF COPIES AMONG CERTAIN OF MY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES. BLACKBUBN ESTERLINE. " ADDRESS OF HONORABLE JOHN W. DAVIS SOLICITOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES AT *«THE ELLIPSE," WASHINGTON, D. C. ON THE LAST DAY FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE SECOND LIBERTY LOAN OCTOBER 27, 1917 ;? LI OCTOBER 27, 1917, was the last day for subscriptions to the Second Liberty Loan. At four o'clock P. M. a demon- stration was held in Washington under the auspices of the Liberty Loan Committee of Washington, consisting of Mr. John Poole, Chairman, Mr. Corcoran Thorn, Mr. Eugene E. Thompson, Mr. Eugene E. Ailes, and Mr. B. Frank Saul. Several of the Departments had declared a half holiday. Large bodies of employees of the Government, led by bands, marched in parades from their respective offices to ''The Ellipse," where approximately 100,000 people gathered. In the parades and gathering there appeared banners displaying the total amounts of the subscriptions of the employees of De- partments, viz : War Department, $2,389,800, average per capita, $313; Interior Depart- ment, $1,554,850; Indian Office, $306,450. On the grandstand there were many distin- guished guests, including the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. William G. McAdoo; the Sec- retary of War, Mr. Newton D. Baker ; the Sec- retary of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels, and the Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. David F. Houston. Secretary McAdoo, who had just returned from a thirty days' tour to the Pacific Coast, during which he made eighty speeches for the Second Liberty Loan, made a stirring address. Chairman Poole, who presided, then intro- duced — HONORABLE JOHN W. DAVIS, of West Virginia, Solicitor General of the United States. In deliberate manner, with a clear and steady voice which carried even to those on the outskirts of the multitude, the Solicitor General spoke as follows : Mk. Chairman^ Ladies and Gentlemen : If this meeting were called for the purpose of inducing subscriptions to the Liberty Loan, it would in my judgment be unnecessary ; for, all questions of patriotic duty aside, I cannot believe that anyone within the sound of my voice has not already possessed himself ac- cording to the limit of his means of the best and safest interest-bearing securities in the world — endorsed by one hundred millions of people and secured by a first mortgage upon half a continent. It would seem also that if this meeting is held to celebrate the success of the loan it is premature. Not because there is the slighest doubt that this loan will be subscribed and over-subscribed. The American people have made up their minds about that. You may rest assured, Mr. Secretary, that neither this loan nor any of those which will surely follow it runs any risk of failure. But no good gen- eral halts his troops to celebrate a victory, no matter how fully assured, until the sun has gone down on the final day of battle. But there is a service to be performed by this gathering which is neither unnecessary nor premature. The true reason for this vast assemblage is that we may send out from this place a message to our fellow citizens and allies; and a message to our enemy as well. This is a city set upon a hill, whose light cannot be hid. The people of the United States have a right to ask as they put their armor on whether the pulse of the Nation's Capital beats in unison with their own. Let us make them know that, prompt as they are to answer the call of our great President, -we are no less ready ; that, firm as they are in their devotion to our cause, we are no less steadfast; and, willing as they are to make sacrifice of their all for justice and for liberty, they shall not outrun us in self-surrender. And to the Kaiser and his minions let the word be sent that when we authorized our Commander-in-Chief to use against them and their insolent aggression all the resources of this Nation we meant in solemn and in deadly earnest exactly what we said. When on the first of February last the Im- perial German Government declared its in- tention to enter upon a campaign of unre- stricted murder, to deny to American citizens the right to travel in security upon the open seas — the immemorial highway of the na- tions — and to make indiscriminate war upon all mankind, it turned to us and asked the sneering question: ^*What are you going to do about it r' To fully catch the weight and import of that insulting challenge we should remember that we were not the first to whom it had been ad- dressed. It had been flung at tiny Serbia ; and that nation of patriots replied by hurling from her soil in ruin and confusion an invading army larger than her own. And when at last, attacked in front and rear, overwhelming num- bers drove her soldiers through the icy rigors of the Albanian mountains, they went not in surrender but only that they might rest and refit themselves and return to the attack once more. Belgium faced it when in reply to the de- mand for the surrender of her honor she re- torted that ''Belgium is a country, not a road"; and she made her answer good with the thunder of her guns at Liege, albeit at the cost of her own martyrdom. It was the same challenge which was ad- dressed to Russia; and upon hearing it the Great Bear stirred himself and took toll of more than a million and a half of German and Austrian prisoners. It came to Italy in the form of a demand upon her as a member of the Triple Alliance that she join the Central Empires in their war. But it was the Italy of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, of Mazzini and Cavour, of Ma- genta and Solferino, which responded: "I became your ally for defense and not for ag- gression, and in your plans for criminal plunder and rapine I will have no lot or part." And the men who today are performing prodi- gies of valor upon the Eoof of the World, among the Alpine snows and glaciers, are the lineal descendants in blood and spirit of the legions who under Caesar turned back the Ger- man hordes and saved the Europe of an earlier day. German soldiers, drunk with the thought of easy triumph, shouted this challenge as they rushed on Paris. And all the spirit of im- mortal France breathed itself out in the order of her great Field Marshal that ushered in the day of the Marne. Can it ever be forgotten? ''Soldiers of France," said he, ''the moment has arrived! On tomorrow you will advance against the enemy. When you can no longer advance you will hold the ground which you have gained. When you can no longer hold the ground which you have gained you will die upon the spot ! " And, when lost to all sense of honor or of shame, Germany said to that nation which shares not only our language, but our tradi- tions and ideals of liberty as well: "I shall no longer keep the ancient and solemn cove- nant between us made for Belgiiini's neutral- ity ; what will you do about it ? ' ' — to her lasting- glory great England answered: **You may break your pledges as you will ; I shall keep mine. ' ' And into the scales of justice she flung all the weight of Britain's battleships, five mil- lions of armed men, and guns that *Houch limbers from the Somme to the sea." Because our wrongs, no less intolerable, come later in time than theirs, shall we be less ready to resent them'? Shall not we, too, an- swer like men who are freemen and propose freemen to remain? Shall we not with all our will and all our power make defense to the end against this brutal and bloody assault upon all that we hold most dear? Ah, when Germany comes to stand at the bar of history, as stand she surely must, to answer for her crimes against mankind, what a cloud of witnesses will confront her in that reckoning. Belgium will tell of her ruined homes and looted cities, her outraged women and her mutilated children. Poland will point to the bones of the starved that whiten all her highways. Serbia from her ashes will cry out in accusation ; and the very sea itself will cast up its dead that they may speak in her con- demnation. Ours be the task to join with the other free peoples of the world in leading her by force of arms to that solemn judgment bar. Nor can we forget, my friends, that in this day we, too, are being weighed in the balances of God. I take a hint from you, Mr. Secretary, and recall the words which President Lincoln addressed to Congress in the fateful year 1862, and which might well have been written of this time. Said he : ^^Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance will save the one or the other of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope on earth.'' Shall not we of this later date, with that solemn admonition sounding in our ears, re- solve without shrinking to lay all that we have ; aye, all that we are, on the altar of human liberty and freedom ! Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: |gp 2ttK PreservationTechnologies A WOaUO tEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 r7?41 779-2111 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021 547 770 8