38. THE MELTING POT 252 39. BIRDMEN 256 40. ALAN SEEGER 271 41. CAN WAR EVER BE RIGHT? 275 42. WHAT ONE AMERICAN DID 293 43. RAEMAEKERS 301 44. THE GOD IN MAN 309 45. IN FLANDERS FIELDS _Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae_ 321 46. THE WORLD WAR 322 47. NATIONS AND THE MORAL LAW _John Bright_ 343 [Illustration: PRESIDENT WILSON ANNOUNCING TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS THE SEVERANCE OF OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY _Copyright by G.V. Buck. From Underwood & Underwood, N.Y._] LEST WE FORGET THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD On April 19, 1775, was fired "the shot heard round the world." It was the shot fired for freedom and democracy by the Americans at Lexington and Concord. In 1836, upon the completion of the battle monument at Concord, the gallant deeds of those early patriots were commemorated by Emerson in verse. By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. This is not the only shot for freedom fired by America and Americans. As President Wilson has said, "The might of America is the might of a sincere love for the freedom of mankind." The shots of the Civil War were fired for united democracy and universal freedom. The soldiers and sailors of the United States fired upon the Spaniards in the Spanish-American War, that an oppressed people might be released and given an opportunity to live and work and grow in liberty. That the Filipinos, like the Cubans, might learn to understand freedom, to safeguard it, and to use it wisely, has been the whole purpose of the United States in aiding them. On April 6, 1917, the shot was heard again. The whole world had been listening anxiously for it, and was not disappointed. Those against whom the first American shot for freedom was fired in 1775 have now become the strongest defenders of liberty and democracy. Their country is one of the three greatest democracies of the world. Shoulder to shoulder, the Americans and British fight for the freedom of mankind everywhere. They fight to defend the truth and to make this truth serve down-trodden peoples as well as the mighty. Indeed, President Wilson has wisely said, "The only thing that ever set any man free, the only thing that ever set any nation free, is the truth. A man that is afraid of the truth is afraid of life. A man who does not love the truth is in the way of failure."