New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-21
For a Just Peace

apparently undertaken to maintain a poi
lev Of silence on all specific questions
such As Belgium and Serbia, we have 1T on
the authority OF the German Ambassador
that Germany is willing to discuss such
eencralitics as arbitration and diSarma-
mcnt
Now. the thing that Americans must
keep clearly in mind is the fact that 1t Will
be impossible for any nation on the Allied
side to discuss any peace with Germany
while Germany still declines to concede
the main points at issue in the war-the
rights of the Serbs and the Belgians to
independence and to indemnity for the in
iuries they have suffered.
American public sentiment was mobi-
lied when Belgium was invaded. The
moral sentiment Of the world was mobi-
lied when, following the Belgian invasons,
there were those crimes which remain a
landmark in human infamy. To-day one
more soiled page is added to history by the
deportation Of Belgians to become German
slaves.
If Germany proposes at the same mo-
mcnt 10 invite peace negotiations in the
name Of humanity and to infict upon hu-
mainly suferings and wrongs that can
have no paliation and no justification, the
Allies cannot dream Of discussing peace
with her. and the whole civilized world
must give the Allied nations moral sup
port.
In attacking Serbia Austria embarked
;pon the familiar Hapsburg policy Of en-
Shaving small people, of adding one more
to the subject peoples Of the Dual Mon
archy. I'm invading Belgium Germany
thrust her sword through all that inter
national good faith has meant when COM
mitted to paper.
We have a world at war because Of
these two things; they are symbols Of the
meaning Of the war. If Germany and Aus
ra maintain these acts by failure to
concede the just settlement Of the cases of
Belgium and Serbia in advance, then it is
as idle to think Of peace negotiations now
as it would be to think of discussing ma
tional political issues with a murderer still
at liberty and insisting upon the right to
murder
The German Ambassador says that Ger
many is prepared to evacuate Belgium; he
hints that if Russia will pay an indemnity
for Russian destruction in East Prussia
Germany may pay an indemnity to the Bel
gians But the German government at the
same time intimates that it will not even
hear Of putting its terms into concrete
form until the peace conference has met.
The Allies have fought a long war upon
a moral issue, upon the principle of human
liberty, upon the doctrine of international
faith. and now, when they are still pre-
pared to continue the fight, Germany sug-
geSts a gathering around a green table at
which bargain can be made, bargain
which may sacrifice every principle, as is
indicated by the Bernstorffian whisper
that Germany will insist that Austria be
permitted to annex Serbia.
Any American who is now prepared to
advocate human slavery should give aid
and assistance to the German effort to
have a peace made on the auction block.
Every American who believes that the
Declaration Of independence was rhetoric
that it was meaningless, should sympathize
with the German point of view that having
won some battles and occupied some terri
tory the Germans should now be permit
ted to bargain for the retention of what
they want at the price of evacuating what
is too expensive to hold now.
But those Americans who amidst all the
fog and confusion of this terrible struggle
which are American principles as they are
universal principles, principles of right
and justice. should do that which they can
to block any effort to create in this coun-
try a sentiment for the laying down of
arms at the expense Of the rights or liber-
ties of any portion Of the nations OF the
world.
Let the Germans tell the world that they
are prepared to evacuate and indemnify
Belgium, to evacuate and indemnify Ser
bia. to claim no increase of territory based
on the present position of their armies in
conquered territory, and there will be a
reason for peace negotiation, basis, a
concrete evidence of a German desire to
live within the Law, within the limits of
international right.
When the Germans have announced
their policy with reference to Belgium and
to Serbia, then the world will be inter
ested in their proposals in the matter of
disarmament and arbitration. But arbi-
tration based upon a condition in which
people had been reduced TO slavery would
be a mockery, and the very machinery con-
ceived TO protect civilization and fortify
justice would be perverted to defend
tyranny and to maintain slavery.
We Americans have been, IN sense.
transformed by the course of the German
propaganda into jury to pass upon Ger