Norwich bulletin., 1917-09-04

II favorite form of this sort of polem1c trickery is obscurinE the issue by de. Fj clarfng your opponent has mo policy \ Lincoln, the openest of reasoners. he who at every point in an argument took almost Quixotic pains to make
 his meaning and policy clear. was this particular outtle fish trick. 1t was played on him constantly in the Civil War by the Northern pacihsts. They wanted his terms!-He had stat ed them repeatedly from the start the Union--that was his object and that alone. Whatever he did or said he did and said because he believed 1t would help save the Union. What he did not say or do he ali dnot say or do because he did not believe the doing and saying woul help save the Union.
 But the North was sprinkled with people who were not satisfied with that one clear aim. They wanted him to set down in writing what he meant to do with the Confederates should they be defeated, what kind of gov ernment he proposed to establish in the revoiting states; whether or no he would give the negro a vote; that is, they were busy from morning until night obscuring the end-the saving Of the Union.
 Every great contest breeds a school | of this pestiferous cutte-fish. We have them now-darkening our trou- l bled waters with their "We-don't know | -Wny -We-dTo~ lHA ! hcy "d1AS 'terms' and threaten to hinder the war in every way possible until they get them.
 l There are two ways of explaining the people who today declare that we have been "hurried' into this war and that we don't know what we are fight | ing for-one is that intellectual blind iness-that ability to think what you want to think, to see no more than you want to see-engendered by lana | tical devotion to a particular formula, | or scheme-Often very good in itself; 1.-the other is plain intellectual dishon- Festy
 | If ever the reason for a war was clear, if ever a people came to a war by solid if slow argument, it is now. | If ever the aim of a conflict was stated fully and unanswerably it was so stat ed by the President of the United | States in his message of April 2, de- remain our Justification and our aim. claring war. That message is and must i We are in war because the wheel of | civilization is blocked by stick Of such prodigious and hideous toughness 1 that 1t never again will revolve in the path of free democratic progress unless 1 that part of the world which has chos- | en that path frees the wheel.
 l Three years of experience in which 1 every opportunity was given the I'm perial Government of Germany to clear | itself of the charges of being at war with freedom, with Jaw and with hu- 1 naHlCy lNSL nave PIONSo "AIAiOot C. question that it is upon these deepest | aspirations of the world that it does 1 war.
 1 Prussianism as we have come to 1 cali the doctrine on which Germany bases its attack on the world, believes l in itself and it's superiority to the rest l of us. It believes itself called to spread l itself over the rest of us in spite Of our I liking 1t or not. 1t believes in war as | the divineIy appointed instrument for I io,, Relieving this ii made good and ready for it's great crusade. I It developed a great. healthy busy. ! trained, obedient people-people who, 1 for the sake of the security they en- 1 toyed in the perfectly adjusted machine l were willing to accept war which was 1 to make them richer, more powerful, rulers of the earth. This was is but | the first campaign in the series which was to Prussianize the earth. Study Germany's own teachings, follow the patient intelligent worming into every nook and cranny of the earth and you cannot escape her intention, fantastic as it seems, hard as it has been to be- Heve it. Germany struck a group of nations l groping towards an entirely different ideal-nations only half heartedly mili- sense of necessity. These nations wanted only their own. They were coming more and more to feel that every little land should have its chance.
 
 visions of the possibilities for peoples
 who lived and worked honestly, visions still dim but yet unmistakable-migh
 be realized.
 of war it has become clearer that eith- CT Prussianism or Democracy must go down. What was true of slavery in this country sixty year ago-"We must become all one thing or the other is true today We must become all Prus- sitn or all Democrat There is no peace in the world with both. The stick must come out of the wheel or we must take the road to a world Inn
 What folly to talk of boundaries now to prate of indemnities and an nexations. They are not the question, nor can they be until the one question is settled. Free the wheel and all these matters will be adjusted by a world free to be just, free so to arrange things that each shall get the chance and that all nations-GerIs any itself included-shal1 have a free play for peaceful democratic ambition.
 To talk of terms now is to play the game of autOcracy. What greater help within Germany-with the German peop1e-could this autocracy ask than enable it to say to them-"You see they must sue for peace. They're beaten.-As always we are omnipotent. "Gott init uns." And with thas curl ous mental abtuseness which goes with belief in autocracy the people would believe though the terms the govern ment accepted were as severe as the most intolerant ally might name.
 The German people have believed their government impregnable. They still believe it so. The only possible way to break the superstition is to break autocracy in Germany. Break it until it is on it's knees suing for peace. Then and only then will that great and wonderful people come to it. self. And then only will civilization, as those of us who now call ourselves democrats understand it, have a chance.
 Makinq . Democrat of Him.
 Ex-Czar Nicholas will miss the inn | nerial hailHt while h,s is in Siheria h1It |