Research: Military: Records Relating to World War I
Records Relating to World War I
Messages from President Woodrow Wilson and Governor Charles S. Whitman
TO THE SOLDIERS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY:
You are undertaking a great duty. The heart of the whole country is with you. Everything that you do will be watched with the deepest interest and with the deepest solicitude, not only by those who are near and dear to you, but by the whole Nation besides. For this great war draws us all together, makes us all comrades and brothers, as all true Americans felt themselves to be when we first made good our national independence. The eyes of all the world will be upon you, because you are in some special sense the soldiers of freedom.
Let it be your pride, therefore, to show all men everywhere not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you are, keeping yourselves fit and straight in everything and pure and clean through and through. Let us set for ourselves a standard so high that it will be a glory to live up to it and then let us live up to it and add a new laurel to the crown of America. -- President Woodrow Wilson (1917)
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK:
New York's pride is in the pride of things done. Her leadership is no more due to her great wealth or her large population than to the patriotism of her citizens and the uses to which her wealth is put. In every war in which this country has engaged, she has shown a spirit of sacrifice that has made her preeminent among the States.
In this war, New York has outdone her own history.
Over one hundred and seventy-five thousand of her citizens have gone into the fighting forces of the country.
To the Red Cross, our citizens have given over thirty millions of dollars.
One-third of the two previous Liberty Loans, or $2,457,832,100., was subscribed within this State.
On the battlefields of France, the Frontier of Civilization, our men are to-day fighting that this country may endure as a great nation. They are fighting for us. On us is the sacred obligation to meet sacrifice with sacrifice. I call on every citizen of this State to do his duty, and by subscribing to the Third Liberty Loan, prove to the men at the front that we are doing our part in the world fight against savagery.
-- Governor Charles S. Whitman (April 6, 1918)
