Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-08-29
The Evening Star Newspaper Company
18th ST. and Pennsylvania Avenue
The Reply to Rome.

President Wilson's capacity for stat
ing great truths in few words has been
repeatedly demonstrated in the course
of the war, but it has been shown no
more foreibiy than in the reply to the
Pope's peace proposal, which has just
appeared. He. speaking for the United
States, rejects this plan as impraeticable,
as, despite the humane and generous
motives which prompted it. the result OF
its acceptance would be merely a eessa-
tion of arms and not a stable and en-
during peace.
That is the substance of the Presi-
dents reply, that peace cannot be based
upon restitution of the power of the
Hohenzollern government of the German
people or upon any word of honor 1t
could pledge in a treaty of settlement
and accommodation. The test of plan
of peace, he points out. is this: rs it
based upon the faith of all the peoples
involved, or merely upon the word of
an ambitious and intriguing govern
ment on the one hand and of a group
of free peoples on the othere'
In the most pointed language yet EN-
ployed by the American executive,
speaking for the American people, he in
this paper declares the German govern
ment responsible for the beginning of
the war and for its atrocities. This pas
sage from his reply to the Pope stands
- an Indictment of terrible severity:
'1The object of this war is to deliver
the free peoples of the world from the
menace and the actual power of a vast
military establishment controlled by an
irresponsible government which, having
secretly planned to dominate the world,
proceeded to carry the plan out without
regard either to the sacred obligations
of treaty or the long established prac-
tees and long-cherished principles of in
ternational action and honor; which
chose its own time for the war; deliver
ed its blow fercely and suddenly;
stopped at no barrier either of law or
Of mercy; swept whole continent with
in the tide of blood-not the blood of
soldiers only, but the blood of innocent
women and children also and of the
helpless poor; and now stands baked
but not defeated. the enemy of four
6fths of the world. This power is not
the German people. 1t is the ruthless
master of the German people. 1t is no
business of ours how that great people
came under its control or submitted with
temporary zest to the domination of its
purpose; but it is our business to see
to it that the history of the rest of the
world is NO longer left to its handling"
In this note we renew our declara-
tion that peace should not be gained
through and with the result Of political
or economic restrictions meant to bene-
1T some nations and cripple or embar-
rass others, upon yindictive action of
any sort or any kind of revenge or de-
iberate injury" The President avoids
specification against indemnities, though
he draws distinction between repara-
tions and punishments through the dis
memberment of empires and the estab-
ishment of selfish and exclusive eco
nomic leagues"
In plain terms the President points
the way to peace through a reputation
by the German people of the autocracy
that has misgeverned them. The world
cannot trust the present government at
Berlin to respect treaties, to honor OBJ
legations. 1t must be supplanted, if
peace is to be restored, by a govern
ment that will spring from and truly
represent and faithfully serve the peo-
pie of Germany.