not be proud to fight for a selfish purpose, but I can be proud to fight for mankind. If they wish peace, let them come forward through accredited representatives and lay their terms on the table. We have laid ours, and they know what they are.

But behind all this grim purpose, my friends, lies the opportunity to demonstrate not only force, which will be demonstrated to the utmost, but the opportunity to demonstrate character, and it is that opportunity that we have most conspicuously in the work of the Red Cross. Not that our men in arms do not represent our character, for they do; and it is a character which those who see and realize appreciate and admire, but their duty is the duty of force. The duty of the Red Cross is the duty of mercy and succor and friendship.

Have you formed a picture in your imagination of what this war is doing for us and for the world? In my own mind I am convinced that not a hundred years of peace could have knitted this Nation together as this single year of war has knitted it together, and, better even than that if possible, it is knitting the world together. Look at the picture: In the center of the scene four nations engaged against the world, and at every point of vantage showing that they are seeking selfish aggrandizement; and against them twenty-three Governments representing the greater part of the population of the world drawn together into a new sense of community of interest, a new sense of community of purpose, a new sense of unity of life.

The Secretary of War told me an interesting incident the other day. He said when he was in Italy a member of the Italian Government was explaining to him the many reasons why Italy felt near to the United States. He said, "If you want to try an interesting experiment go up to any one of these troop trains and ask in English how many of them have been in America, and see what happens." He tried the experiment. He went up to a troop train and he said, "How many of you boys have been in America," and he said it seemed to him as if half of them sprang up and said: "Me from San Francisco," "Me from New York-all over." There was part of the heart of America in the Italian Army-people that had been knitted to us by association, who knew us, who had lived among us, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with us, and now, friends of America, were fighting for their native Italy.

Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together. And this intimate contact of the

great Red Cross with the peoples who are suffering the terrors and deprivations of this war is going to be one of the greatest instrumentalities of friendship that the world ever knew, and the center of the heart of it all, if we sustain it properly, will be this land that we so dearly love.

My friends, a great day of duty has come, and duty finds a man's soul as no kind of work can ever find it. May I say this? The duty that faces us all now is to

serve one another,

and no man can afford to make a

There are

fortune out of this war. men amongst us who have forgotten that, if they ever saw it. Some of you are old enough I am old enough to remember men who made fortunes out of the Civil War, and

tion of favors to come in this kind of giving. These things are bestowed in order that the world fitter place to live in, that men may be succored, that homes may be restored, that suffering may be re

their fellow-citizens. That was a war to save one country; this is a war to save the world. And your relation to the Red Cross is one of the relations which will relieve you of the stigma. You can not give anything to the Government of the United States, it will not accept it. There is a law of Congress against accepting even services without pay. The only thing that the Government will accept is a loan, and duties performed; but it is a great deal better to give than to lend or to pay, and your great channel for giving is the American Red Cross. Down in your hearts you can not take very much satisfaction in the last analysis in lending money to the Government of the United States, because the interest which you draw will burn your pockets. It is a commercial transaction, and some men have even dared to cavil at the rate of interest, not knowing the incidental commentary that constitutes upon their attitude. But when you give, something of your heart, something of your soul, something of yourself goes with the gift, particularly when it is given in such form that it never can come back by way of direct benefit to yourself. You know, there is the old cynical definition of gratitude, as "the lively expectation of favors to come." Well, there is no expecta

And when you give, give absolutely all that you can spare, and do not consider yourself liberal in the giving. If you give with self-adulation, you are not giving at all-you are giving to your own vanity. But if you give until it hurts, then your heart blood goes into it.

Think what we have here! We call it the American Red Cross, but it is merely a branch of a great international organization, which is not only recognized by the statutes of each of the civilized governments of the world, but it is recognized by international agreement and treaty as the recognized and accepted instrumentality of mercy and succor. And one of the deepest stains that rests upon the reputation of the German army is that they have not respected the Red Cross. That goes to the root of the matter. They have not respected the instrumentality they themselves participated in setting up as the thing which no man was to touch because it was the expression of common humanity. We are members, by being members of the American Red Cross, of a great fraternity and comradeship which extends all over the world, and this cross which

these ladies bore to-day is an emblem of Christianity itself.

It fills my imagination, ladies and gentlemen, to think of the women all over this country who are busy tonight and are busy every night and every day doing the work of the Red Cross, busy with a great eagerness to find out the most serviceable thing to do, busy with a forgetfulness of all the old frivolities of their social relationships, ready to curtail the duties of the household in order that they may contribute to this common work that all their hearts are engaged in, and in doing which their hearts become acquainted with each other. When you think of this, you realize how the people of the United States are being drawn together into a great intimate family whose heart is being used for the service of the soldiers not only, but for the service of civilians where they suffer and are lost in a maze of distresses and distractions. And you have, then, this noble picture of justice and mercy as the two servants of liberty. For only where men are free do they think the thoughts of comradeship; only where they are free do they think the thoughts of sympathy; only where they are free are they mutually helpful; only where they are free do they realize their dependence upon one another and their comradeship in a common interest and common necessity.

I heard a story told the other day that was ridiculous, but it is worth repeating, because it contains the germ of truth. An Indian was en

listed in the Army. He returned to the reservation on a furlough. He was asked what he thought of it. He said: "No much good. Too much salute, not much shoot." Then he was asked: "Are you going back?" "Yes." "Well, do you know what you are fighting for?" "Yes, me know; fight to make whole damn world Democratic Party." He had evidently misunderstood some innocent sentence of my own. But after all, although there is no party purpose in it, he got it right as far as the word "party"; to make the whole world democratic in the sense of community of interest and of purpose; and if you ladies and gentlemen could read some of the touching dispatches which come through official channels (for even through those channels there come voices of humanity that are infinitely pathetic); if you could catch some of those voices that speak the utter longing of oppressed and helpless peoples all over the world, to hear something like the Battle Hymn of the Republic, to hear the feet of the great hosts of Liberty coming to set them free, to set their minds free, set their lives free, set their children free-you would know what comes into the heart of those who are trying to contribute all the brains and power they have to this great enterprise of Liberty. I summon you to the comradeship. I summon you in this next week to say how much and how sincerely and how unanimously you sustain the heart of the world.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

It is with unaffected reluctance that I come to ask you to prolong your session long enough to provide more adequate resources for the Treasury for the conduct of the war. I have reason to appreciate as fully as you do how arduous the session has been. Your labors have been severe and protracted. You have passed a long series of measures which required the debate of many doubtful questions of judgment and many exceedingly difficult questions of principle as well as of practice. The summer is upon us, in which labor and counsel are twice as arduous and are constantly apt to be impaired by lassitude and fatigue. The elections are at hand, and we ought as soon as possible to go and render an intimate account of our trusteeship to the people who delegated us to act for them in the weighty and anxious matters that crowd upon us in these days of critical choice and action. But we dare not go to the elections until we have done our duty to the full. These are days when duty stands stark and naked, and even with closed eyes we know it is there. Excuses are unavailing. We have either done our duty or we have not. The fact will be as gross and plain as the duty itself. In such a case lassitude and fatigue seem negligible enough. The facts are tonic, and suffice to freshen the labor.

ADDITIONAL REVENUES NECESSARY

And the facts are these: Additional revenues must manifestly be provided for. It would be a most unsound policy to raise too large a proportion of them by loan, and it is evident that the four billions now provided for by taxation will not of themselves sustain the greatly enlarged budget to which we must immediately look forward.

We can not in fairness wait until the end of the fiscal year is at hand to apprise our people of the taxes they must pay on their earnings of the present calendar year, whose accountings and expenditures will then be closed. We can not get increased taxes unless the country knows what they are to be and practices the necessary economy to make them available. Definiteness, early definiteness, as to what its tasks are to be is absolutely necessary for the successful administration of the Treasury. It can not frame fair and workable regulations in haste; and it must frame its regulations in haste if it is not to know its exact task until the very eve of its performance. The present tax laws are marred, moreover, by inequities which ought to be remedied. Indisputable facts, every one; and we can not alter or blink them. To state them is argument enough.

ESSENTIAL TO PREVENT INFLATION

And yet perhaps you will permit me to dwell for a moment upon the situation they disclose. Enormous loans freely spent in the stimulation of industry of almost every sort produce inflations and extravagances which presently make the whole economic structure questionable and insecure and the very basis of credit is cut away. Only fair, equitably distributed taxation, of the widest incidence and drawing chiefly from the sources which would be likely to demoralize credit by their very abundance, can prevent inflation and keep our industrial system free of speculation and waste. We shall naturally turn, therefore, I suppose, to war profits and incomes and luxuries for the additional taxes. But the war profits and incomes upon which the increased taxes will be levied will be the profits and incomes of