The Washington times., 1917-01-23
THE PRESIDENTS PEACE
ADDRESS


great American peril. If we are des-
tined to be entangled in the near fu-
ture in war or in minor embodiment
with any or all of the powers now at
war, it may be set down as certain
that the catastrophe will be the out
come of his amazing indiscretion.
His address is calculated to give
greater or less offense to every coun-
try now at war except Germany and
Austria, and it must convey small
satisfaction to these latter. 1t is in
fact so vague in its conceptions and
so indefinite in its expressions that
almost any meaning may be read
into its more or less flowing periods
and every government or people that
chooses may take umbrage at some
one or other of the implied proposals.
The truth of this will become more
and more apparent as the views Of
the European newspapers are ma
tured and recorded-probably in
day or two, when they sufficiently
overcome their establishment to size
up the real purport Of this strange
upwelling of inchoate humanitarian
ism.
Perhaps the strangest sentence of
all is that in which Mr.. Wilson says,
81 am speaking as an individual"
How can the President Of the United
States speak on world politics as an,
individual He seems to see the
point in the next sentence, but the
perception of his responsibility as
'the head of a great government"
does not check him. He goes on to
settle the affairs of the universe in
the first person singular with rapt
conviction characteristic rather Of
Peter the Hermit or John of Leyden,
than of a serious twentieth century
statesman. Indeed the speech as a
whole is rather a dithyramb than a
political thesis. So far as it means
anything it is epileptiform in its
faulty, but for the most part it
battles all serious Interpretation in
the complicated beauties of its own
verbiage.
Its essential vacuity does not pre-
vent it from being full of injurious
possibilities. There is the passage,
for instance, regarding "a united, in
dependent, and autonomous Poland;"
what does it mean? Is it an i.I-
dorsement of Germany's impudent
hoax, the erection out Of Russian
territory of a buffer state under
Prussian domination for the protec-
ton and ACKNOWLEDGMENT of the cen
trail powers? If so, how will Eng
land, France, and Italy receive the
idea? Or is it an Endorsement of
the Russian plan for Poland built
up out of Prussian, Austrian, and
Russian conquests If the latter,
what will they say of it in Vienna
and Berlin?
Then there is the procurement
on that sounding but absolutely hol-
low and meaningless phrase, "the
freedom of the SEAS" What is Mr..
Wilson's idea of such freedom? Does
he contemplate giving over the Bos-
phorus and Dardanelles to Russia?
Or does he mean driving England
out of Suez and Gibraltar? Does he
contemplate excluding Italian and
Austrian warships from the Adriatic
or to forbid Britain to blockade the
Ems and the outlet of the Skager-
Rack? May Germany bind England
in a ring of submarines or may Rus
STA blockade the Baltic ports Of Ger
many? And what of the Panama |
canal? Are we to give up all juris-
diction over it?
1t makes the average mans head
swim to regard the various possibili-
ties of "the freedom of the seas"
"free access to the open paths of
the worlds commerce" These
phrases are a German invention,
dating back to the end of 1914 or be-
ginning of 1915, when the economic
pressure of the British feet began |
to tell in the war. They mean the
disarmament of England simply
this and nothing more. How are we
to expect England will receive Mr..
Wilson's solemn Endorsement of the
proposition, uttered in the august
presence of the United States
Senate?
Besides, there are so many things
left unsaid in the Presidents ha-
rangue. Poland, indeed! But what
word is there of Belgium or Serbia?
What allusion is there to the martyr
ization of Armenia? To the new
threat against Switzerland? There
is to be no victory in the war; only
a peace between equals! Mankind is
looking now for freedom of life, not
for equipoises of power" We con-
fess to inability to get any distinct
from this portion of the
remarks. His ideas seem
to us to belong to the realm Of
dream inland where eyervthinO iS