Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/417

 body on this earth, high or low. If anybody steps on his toes, then they have got a fight on their hands, and it ain't over until the other fellow is licked.

Well, now we have got a war on our hands, and them crooks from the South are trying to do to us what they done to the poor coons. The question is whether this free country is going on or whether they are going to put the skids under it. On this very spot where we stand our boys went over the top, and the enemy took to the woods. A great many of them give their lives in that battle. Everyone was a hero. Nobody hung back when the bullets began to fly. Well, we will take care of those who got out of it alive, or maybe with only a leg cut off. No American business man will ever turn a hero away. There will be jobs for all, and plenty of them. But all we can do for the dead is to put up a monument to them, and see that their graves are kept green.

Well, a monument surely ain't much. The fact is, them heroes don't need no monument. Nobody will ever forget them. Schoolchildren will be studying about them long after all us here is gone. Nobody will ever ask what I said in my speech here, or what you said here, but everybody will want to know what our boys done here. The best thing we can do is to not forget what the battle was about that they fought in, and make up our minds to keep this a free country. Suppose we didn't do it? Then what sense would it of been for them heroes to go over the top? Who could look into the eyes of their little children and say "Your papa died for democracy, but now it has gone blooey"? No. This is the freest country in the whole world, and it is up to us to keep it free. Let each and everyone here today lift up their right hand and take an oath that they will never support no government withouten it is elected by the people, always remembers that who elected it, and never does nothing withouten it is sure the people want it.