Excerpt from Otter Tail County, Minnesota, in the World War
For nearly three years the United States of America suffered gross injustices through the trickery and hypocrisy of the Imperial German government, and yet had upheld its strict neutrality. But, when the German government inaugurated her policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, conditions became so unbearable that America, a peace and liberty loving nation, was compelled to take action to protect herself. On April 6th, 1917, news that Congress had declared that a state of war existed between the United States and Germany was flashed to Otter Tail County and to the world. Immediately the fighting blood of America"s one hundred million rose to a raging fire of determination. Patriotism was kindled in every section of the country as overnight, and the United States became a sober work-shop, her citizens gravely determined that every ounce of her energy should be used to crush the biggest foe to democracy and mankind that had ever existed on the face of the earth.
To raise an army of several millions and to send it three thousand miles across the sea; to clothe and to feed and to furnish munitions of war to an army of such huge proportions on active duty across the broad Atlantic, was no small task. Critics in this country as well as abroad, predicted failure on the part of our democratic form of government to successfully manage the gigantic undertaking which lay before it. While the Hohenzollerns, the Junker War Lords of Germany were jokingly referring to our declaration of war as a "bluff" and belittling the "lightning-trained" soldiery of this country, America was earnestly laying her foundations, massing up her huge resources of men, of money and of food, preparatory to her accomplishing the greatest feat in military history. That imperious and domineering autocrat of Germany who has lived to regret his words: "I will take no more nonsense from America," had serenely overslept and woke to find that the "lightning-trained" had, indeed, struck like a bolt from the sky.
Just as the colonies at the time of the Revolutionary War had been aroused by Paul Revere in his perilous midnight ride, so America was awakened to the responsibilities of the world that lay before her. Thousands of sturdy, red-blooded young men responded to the nation"s call, forming an endless stream to the training camps, across the sea and to the active battlefronts. Yes, America was awake to the situation. She realized that this was "a people"s war, a war for freedom and justice and self-government amongst all the nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for the peoples who live upon it, and have made it their own, the German people themselves included."
With the united co-operation and steadfast loyalty of everyone this huge task progressed with marvelous rapidity, despite the serious handicaps that were encountered on every side. When finally America and the Allies stemmed the tide of the Teutonic invasion and the Central Powers yielded and signed the Armistice on November 11th, 1918, the American Army numbered more than two million men-two million of the gamiest, snappiest fighting men that had ever stepped on any field of battle.
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