Middletown transcript., 1917-06-23

further; it dare not go back. Il
wishes to close its bargain before il
is too late and it has little to offe'
for the pound of flesh it will demand
The military masters under whom
Germany is bleeding see very clearly
to what point Fate has brought them
If they fall back or are forced back
an inch, their power both abroad and
at home will fall to pieces like a
house of cards. 1t is their power at
home they are thinking about now
more than their power abroad. 1t is
that power which is trembling under
their very feet; and deep fear has
entered their hearts. They have but
one chance to perpetuate their mill
tary power or even their controlling
political influence If they can secure
peace now with the immense advan-
tages. still in their hands which they
have up to this point apparently
gained, they will have justified them.
selves before the German people: they
will have gained by force what they
promised to gain by it: an immense
expansion of German power, an i'm
enlargement of German indus
trial and commercial opportunities.
Their prestige will be secure, and with
their prestige their political power. II
they fail, their people themselves will
thrust them aside; a government &C.
countable to the people themselves
will be set up in Germany as it has
been in England, in the United States,
in France, and in all the great coun-
tries of the modern time except Ger
many. If they succeed they are safe
and the world are undone;
# they fail Germany is saved and the
world will be at peace. If they sue
coed, America will fall within the men
ace. We and all the rest of the world
must remain armed, as they will re-
main, and must make ready for the
next step in their aggression; if they
fail, the world may unite for peace
and Germany may be of the union.
Do you not now understand the new
intrigue, the intrigue for peace, and
why the masters of Germany do not
hesitate to use any agency that prom
ises to effect their purpose, the deceit
of the nations? Their present partic-
llar aim is to deceive all those who
the world stand for the
rights of peoples and the self govern
ment of nations; for they see what
immense strength the forces of JUS
lice and of liberalism are gathering
out of this war They are employing
liberals in their enterprise. They are
Using men, in Germany and without,
Is their spokesman whom they have
hitherto despised and oppressed, using
hem for their own destruction
the leaders of labor, the
thinkers they have hitherto sought to
silence. Let them once succeed and
hese men, now their tools, will be
ground to powder beneath the weight
# the great military empire they will
lave set up; the revolutionists in
Russia will be cut off from all succor
II cooperation in western Europe and
counter revolution fostered and sup
,orted; Germany herself will lose her
nance of freedom; and all Europe
will arm for the next, the final
truggle.
The sinister intrigue is being no less
.ctively conducted in this country
han in Russia and in every country in
europe to which the agents and dupes
# the Imperial German Government
an get access. That government has
many spokesman here, in places high
nd low. They have learned discre-
ion. They keep within the law. 1t is
opinion they utter now, not sedition.
they proclaim the liberal purposes of
heir masters; declare this a foreign
var which can touch America with no
LANCER to either her lands or her in
titutiens; set England at the centre
# the stage and talk of her ambition
O assert economic dominion through
ut the world; appeal to our ancient
tradition of isolation in the politics Of
he nations; and seek to undermine
he government with false professions
# loyalty to its principles.
But they will make no Roadway. The
alse betray themselves always in
very accent. 1t is only friends and
artisans of the German Government
whom we have already identified who
tier these thinly disguised disloyal-
les. The facts are patent to all the
lainly seen than in the United States,
where we are accustomed to deal with
acts and not with sophistries; and
he great fact that stands out above
II the rest is that this is Peoples
Var, a war for freedom and justice
nd self-government amongst all the
atoms of the world, a war to make
he world safe for the peoples who live
pom it and have made it their own,
he German people themselves in
luded; and that with us rests the
hoice to break through all these
ypocrisies and patent cheats and
masks of brute force and help set the
yorld free, or else stand aside and let
be dominated long age through by
heer weight of arms and the arbitrary
hoices of self-constituted masters, by
he nation which can maintain the big
est armies and the most irresistible
power to which the
,orld has afforded no parallel and in
he face OF which political freedom
lust wither and perish.
For us there is but one choice. We
ave made it. Woe be to the man
r group of men that seeks to stand in
ur way in this day of high resolution
,hen every principle we hold dearest
to be INDICATED and made secure