New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-14

France. il will be necessary 10 DISMISS lhe
German proposals as idle-false in fact
however attractive in form.
But it is equally essential to recognize
that neutral sentiment cannot support the
prolongation Of the war after the main
issue has been decided, after the freedom
of Europe has been established. Punish
ING Germany is not justification for more
war; adding TO the already terrible burden
of international hatred is not worthy or
a satisfying motive for struggle. Already
we have it upon the testimony of many
witnesses that the desire to punish, the
anger and the passion Of the war arc
passing from the British trenches, and
that those who are actually fighting view
with surprise the violence Of passion
which they find among those who sit in
safety at home.
Because the world desires peace it will
hear the German proposals for peace; il
will not be deceived by them, and it will
not permit any hatred Of war to influence
it to accept conditions Of peace which do
not make for real peace and for the COM
plete defeat of those vicious and inhuman
purposes and practices which led Ger
many to provoke the war and to make it
the most terrible struggle in modern his
tory the most hideous blot upon the fame
Of a nation and a race that any race or ma
ton has had to bear since the days Of the
Spain of the Duke Of Alva and of the In
QUESTION.
There are many things worse than war.
A German victory in this conflict would
not only be worse for mankind than peace
it would also be the sure guarantee of
more wars. But the time has passed when
anger, passion, just moral indignation at
German offences should lead neutral opin-
ion to sanction by silence or by approval
the continuation of war whose just pur-
poses had been achieved and whose pres
ent purposes were not of the sort to enlist
neutral support.
The conditions Of peace are the condi-
tons Of Europe in 1914, save only as these
conditions can be modified by the abolition
of perils to permanent peace existing in
1914-above all, the peril of a German
Alsace-Lorraine. Even here it is ex-
tremely doubtful If the cause of human
happiness would be served by a settlement
based upon the sword. But The Tribune
does not believe that the Allies can crush
Germany, once their purpose to crush
Germany is disclosed to the German peo-
pie. 1t does not believe that the desire to
punish Germany for her very great crimes
is a just excuse for continuing the war.
It regards as wholly illusory the idea that
German militarism or Prussian supremacy
in Germany can be cured by Allied opera
tions, and it is satisfied that if the deter
mination to attempt these things leads
the Allies to prolong the war it will bring
to them bitter and terrible disappoint-
ments and destroy for mankind all that it
might derive of gain from the present
struggle.
The Tribune has fought every sugges-
ton of American Intervention to help re-
store peace; it has fought every sugges-
ton of q premature peace-that is, peace
that would leave Germany in possession of
any portion of her conquests; it has not
changed its view and it will not; it has
no hope or confidence in the present Ger
man proposal, but it feels, as a friend of
the Allied nations, as friend of the
principles that they have fought for and
which it believes to be just and altogether
right, that it should voice the warning, in
so many American minds to-day, against
permitting the loss of that moral advan-
tage which flows from the possession of a
just cause.
Any one who has seen French soldiers
marching to the guns in the present conflict
must have been struck with the fact that
they marched without passion, emotion,
above all without hate; that they went sad
ly, leaving life and all they loved with I'M
mistakable sorrow but with complete will
ingness born Of the clear recognition that
only out Of their sacrifices could there come
guarantee of the safety Of France. 1t is
the Germans who have fought the war In
hate, passion, bestiality. Their Hymn Of
Hate still resounds In the ears of aston
ished mankind, and their crimes remain to
confound and disgust future generations.
1t would be bitter thing for the world
if the Germans, in the hour when their in
ability to dominate the world was becom-
ing clear even 10 themselves, should sue
coed in imposing upon those who are fight
ing them their doctrine Of terribleness and
their gospel Of hate.
Dean Grosvenor
1t was entirely in keeping with the char