The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-12-04


Let there be no misunderstanding.
Our present and immediate task is TO
win the war and nothing shall turn us
aside from it until it is accomplished.
Every power and resource We possess
| whether Of men, Of money or Of ma
terials, is being devoted and will con-
| tinue to be devoted to that purpose
| until it is achieved. Those who de-
sire to bring peace about before that
purpose is achieved, counsel to carry
! their advice elsewhere. We will not
| entertain it.
| 1--WE shall regard the war as won on
| ~ when the German people say to us,
! through properly accedited representa-
| tives that they are ready to agree to
settlement based upon justice and
| the reparation of the wrongs their rul-
ers have done. They have done a
wrong to Belgium which must be re-
paid. They have established a power
over other lands and peoples than
their own-over the great empire Of
Austria-Hungary, over hitherto free
Balkan states, over Turkey and within
Asia, which must be relinquished.
"Germany's success by skill by In
dustry, by knowledge, by enterprise
we did not grudge or oppose, but ad'
mired rather. She had built up for
herself real empire of trade and in
! fluence, secured by the peace Of the
| world. We are content to abide the
rivalries of the manufacturers, science
and commerce that were involved for
US in her success and stand or fall
as we had or did not have the brains
and the initiative to surpass her
! DIT ~ oh H. u
conspicuously won her triumphs of
peace she threw them away to estab-
lish in their stead what the world
will no longer permit to be establish
ed, military and political domination
by arms, by which to GUST where she
could not excel, the rivals she most
feared and hated.
Must Deliver All Peoples
1.-THE peace we make must remedy
that wrong. 1t must deliver the once
! fair lands and happy peoples Of Bel
| GUM and northern France from the
Prussian conquest and the Prussian
menace, but 1t must also deliver the
peoples of Austria-Eungary, the peo-
! pies of the Balkans and the peoples
of Germany, and in Asia, from the i'm
prudent and alien domination of the
Prussian military and commercial
autocracy."
1--WE owe it, however, to ourselves
| to say that we do not wish In any
way to impair or to re-arrange the
Austro-Hungarian empire. 1t is no at
| fair of ours What they do with their
own lives. either industrially or po-
| litically. We do not propose or desire
to distate to them in any way. We
only desire to see that their affairs are
left in their own hands, In all nations,
great or small.
1--WE shall hope to secure for the
peoples Of the Balkans peninsula and
for the people Of the Turkish empire a
right and opportunity to make their
own lives safe, their own fortunes Sc
cure, against oppression or injustice
and from. the dictation of foreign
courts or parties.
and our attitude and purpose with
regard to Germany herself are Of a
| like kind We intend 10 wrongs
against the German empire, no inter
ference with her internal affairs. We
shall deem either the one or the other
absolutely unjustiiable absolutely con
trary to the principles we have pro
fessed to live by and to hold most
sacred throughout our life as nation
Germans Are Deceived
| "The people of Germany are being
| told by the men whom they now per
init to deceive them and to act as their
masters that they are fighting for the
very life and existence Of their EN-
pire, a war of desperate sclf-defense
against deliberate aggression. Moth
ing could be more grossly or wantonly
false, and we must seek by the utter
most openness and candor,> as to oul
real aim, to convince them of its false
ness. We are in fact fighting for theil
emancipation from fear, along witt
our own, from the fear as we'll as IRON
the fact of unjust attack by nelghbors
or rivals or schemers after world EN-
pire. No one is threatening the ex
istence or the independence OF the
peaceful enterprises Of the German
empore.
! THE worst that can happen to the
detriment of the German people Is
this. that if they should still, after
the war is over, continue to be Obliged
to live under vicious and intriguing
masters. interested to disturb the
peace of the world, man or classes Of
men, whom the other people of the
world could not trust, 1t might be i'm
possible to admit them to the partner
ship of nations which much hence
forth guarantee the worlds peace
That partnership must be partner
ship of people, not mere partnership
of governments.
1T might be impossible also, II
such untoward circumstances to ad
NIT Germany to the free economic IN
tercourse which must inevitably
spring out of the partnerships of
real peace. But there would be nc
aggression in that; and such situa
ton inevitable because OF distrus
would in the very nature of things
sooner or later cure itself, by process
ses which would assuredly set in.
The wrong, the very deep wrong
committed in this wrong will have tc
be righted.
That of course. But 1t cannot and
must not be righted by the commits
sion of a similar wrong against Ger
many and her allies. The world will
not permit the commission of similar
wrongs as a means of PREPARATION and
settlement. Statesmen must by this
time have learned that the opinion o.
the world is everywhere wide awake
and fully comprehend the Issues in
volved. No representative of any self