The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for
human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength,
their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.
FORCE TO THE UTMOST
[Speech at the Opening of the Third Liberty Loan Campaign, delivered in
the Fifth Regiment Armory, Baltimore, April 6, 1918.]
FELLOW-CITIZENS:
This is the anniversary of our acceptance of Germany's challenge to
fight for our right to live and be free, and for the sacred rights of
freemen everywhere. The nation is awake. There is no need to call to it.
We know what the war must cost, our utmost sacrifice, the lives of our
fittest men, and, if need be, all that we possess.
The loan we are met to discuss is one of the least parts of what we are
called upon to give and to do, though in itself imperative. The people
of the whole country are alive to the necessity of it, and are ready to
lend to the utmost, even where it involves a sharp skimping and daily
sacrifice to lend out of meagre earnings. They will look with
reprobation and contempt upon those who can and will not, upon those who
demand a higher rate of interest, upon those who think of it as a mere
commercial transaction.
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