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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

AMERICA WILL SHOW THE WORLD SHE WAS BORN TO SERVE MANKIND

JFK+50:  Volume 7, No. 2325

PRESIDENT WILSON HONORS GAR VETS 

Arlington National Cemetery (JFK+50) One hundred years ago today, May 30, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic* on Memorial Day at Arlington.  Arthur Sears Henning wrote that the President "invoked the spirit of the generation that saved the union to lead the nation to victory in the war on German autocracy."

Mr. Wilson emphasized that the United States was not only fighting for American honor and American rights but also to establish liberty across the globe.

The President said he did not pity the fallen heroes who lie here at Arlington but envied them because they died fighting for liberty.

Mr. Wilson said... 

"These men...died to preserve the instrument which we are using to save the world of free nations espousing the cause of human liberty.  America once more will have an opportunity to show the world that she was born to serve mankind."

*Grand Army of the Republic (1866-1956) was founded by Benjamin Stephenson in 1866 in Decatur, IL.  The GAR was a fraternal organization of veterans of the United States Army & Navy, Marines, & US Revenue Cutter Service who served in the Civil War.  The GAR dissolved with the death of its last surviving member in 1956.

SOURCE

"'Wilson Calls Spirit of '63 To Lead on Today", by Arthur Sears Henning, The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 31, 1917.


Stephenson GAR Memorial
7th & C Sts at Penn Ave
Washington, D.C.
Photo by AgnositcPreachersKid (2009)