Scott County’s declaration of war on Germany
Scott County’s declaration of war against Germany was a proclamation adopted by leaders of Scott County at a meeting chaired by County Judge W.H. Potter on April 1, 1918, as World War I raged in Europe.
The petition read thusly:
“It is meet that the people of Tennessee should this day assemble in their several County Seats, and take counsel in respect to the world’s crisis now on, and in which, in the providence of God, we are to act our part. We are a peace loving people, and follow those pursuits that lead to high ideals; to temperance, justice and the right. If permitted, we seek no conquest by the sword, nor at the cannon’s mouth, nor by tramping armies; rather, we prefer to furrow the fields, to grow and gather in the fruitage of the soil; to burrow the mountains and compel nature to surrender the gifts of her store house. We love industrial development that gives employment to labor rather than blood-stained battle fields.
“Here one hundred millions of people, remote from the jealousies and contentions of Europe, and acknowledging no earthly master, follow the callings of their own choosing. But this was not to be always. Autocratic power envied our prosperity, denied our right to navigate the high seas and distribute the products of field, furnace, factory and shop in the marts of the world. Nay, it went further, and inhibited our ships from passing into or through a certain zone at their peril. Whence came such authority? Not from heaven, since the sea was made for man and nations by which to exercise commercial relations each with the other; not from the law of nations, since by that law such right has existed and been exercised from the beginning of time; not by the laws of war, since we were at peace with all the world; not by authority of the Reichtag, because no such authority was inherent in it. Then whence came such power? The answer is, from the Kaiser himself, a self constituted autocrat, which claims to wear his crown as the gift of God. as a nation and people, we deny his pretensions and assumptions. He has no powers save those he and his ancestors have wrung from the people by intrigue and by oppression.
“Here is a so called prince run mad with autocratic power that seeks to dominate our country by inhibiting our right to the freedom of the seas. If he does so, we are no longer a free people, nor can we exercise a soverign (sic) right inherent in and common to all nations.
“The die is cast — we make war to uphold and exercise this natural right, and appeal to the “God of Battles” as Arbiter in the contest now on.
“Germany seeks world power, and to dominate both land and sea. For fifty years she has made preparation for a world war. Where diplomacy fails she has threatened and bullied, she has entered conferences for peace, while she prepared for war. She has broken her word and violated her treaties without remorse of conscience.
“To illustrate: In the Hague Convention of 1907 she agreed to certain definite rules of war — among them were
1. No employment of deleterious gasses,
2. No bombardment of unfortified towns,
3. No pillaging,
4. No levying of illegal contributions in occupied territory,
5. No seizure of funds belonging to private persons,
6. No collective penalties for individual acts (prohibiting shooting of hostages.)
7. No terrorization of a country by outrages on its civil inhabitants. Every one of these provisions has been deliberately violated.
“The catalog of crime has been exhausted by her soldiery in Belgium and France. She has made slaves of the boys and girls and older men and women. In short, she has carried them into foreign lands, there to serve in field and shop, as so many slaves — without a word from the Kaiser in opposition. She has permitted nameless crimes to be committed against the purity of womanhood, and sunk them into the abysm of despair, with hope gone out forever.
“Rape, robbery, larceny and murder of both sexes, old and young, has been allowed to run their course without restraint or palliation, — a very hell of blackness and desolation has been committed in the name of German Kultur.
“Words fail to express our censure of the murder of Edith Cavell, an English woman of the Red Cross, — because she aided a young Belgian in making his excape (sic) through the line to his people. More than 700 women and children have been killed in London, besides men by bombs of flying zepperline, in controvention of Germany’s agreement before set out. But this is not all: She has laid tribute upon the people and citizens within the occupied territory of both France and Belgium, and compelled payment at the point of the bayonet, and when provisions have been sent from our own land to feed the starving, she has permitted her soldiers to appropriate the major part.
“Germany has done even more, — she has entered into an alliance with the cruel Turk, (for a consideration) to fight her battles, and has permitted him unrestrained to deport the Christian Armenians from their own country and corral them as so many beasts of burden, in a strange land of the Turk’s choosing, subjecting them to unsanitary conditions and other brutalities not mentionable, — where they have died by the thousands, thus wiping out practically a race of people that were christians in the days of the Apostles.
“Yea more, she has sunk our ships and murdered our fellow citizens, men, women and children, in mid ocean, and in watery graves has given their bodies as food for the fishes that inhabit the mighty deep.
“Cruel, relentless Turk! Brutal, savage Hun! When will their crimes upon the innocent receive just and proper retribution? — When the boys in khaki meet their armies on the gory field and try the quarrel hilt to hilt, then and not ’till then will retribution come.
“A word more. Much has been said of peace, and the terms of peace. Mr. Taft has recently said: ‘We cannot make progress by further debate with Germany and Austria — Blows are the only argument now possible to win permanent peace.’
“The Prime Minister of Great Britain knows of no way ‘by which we can make peace without betraying the great and sacred trust for which we entered the war.’
“The voice of labor, speaking through Mr. Gompers, says: ‘You can’t talk peace with us now, either you smash your autocracy, or, by the gods, we will smash it for you. Before you talk peace terms, get back from France, get back from Belgium into Germany and then we will talk peace.’
“The supreme war council of the allies meeting at Versailles has recently said: ‘Peace is loudly advertised, but under the disguise of verbal professions lurks the brutal realities of war, and the untempered rule of the lawless — *** We are fighting and mean to continue fighting, in order to finish once and for all with this policy of plunder, and to establish in its place the peaceful reign of organized justice.’
“And supplementing this thought your committee say, speaking for our county of Scott: ‘Whip Germany and peace afterwards.’
“Therefore in view of the premises, be it received:
“(1) That we pledge anew our unfaltering loyalty to our Government, now and hereafter, in the war against Germany and her allies, to the end that the right commence and travel on the high seas may remain free to us and our children forever.
“(2) That our sons shall answer every call to the colors, with assurance that they will acquit themselves like men in the line of duty and in the hour of battle.
“(3) That we will in so far as our means and capabilities permit, give our time, our energies and our money, to carry the war to a successful end.
“(4) That if need be, we favor not only thousands, but millions to constitute our armies, to the end that a force be organized and equipped to crush the Hun and his allies as Washington did the Hessians at Trenton, and win the war, to the further and that a lasting, enduring and speedy peace be ours.
“(5) We condemn Germany and her allies for bringing on the war, and for the wrong and brutality they have committed in its persecution.
“(6) We extend to France and Belgium our sympathies for the desolation wrought in their respective countries, and demand of the Central Powers heavy indemnities by way of remuneration.
“(7) We demand indemnity for sinking our ships, and murdering our people on the high seas, as well the expenses of the war.”
