The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-04

We owe it, however, to ourselves,
! to say that we net wish in any way to
impair or to rearrange the Austro-
Hungarian empire. 1t is no affair Of
! ours what they do with their own
| life, either industria4ly or politically.
/ We do not purpose or desire to die
tate to them in any way. We only
! desire to see that their affairs are
| left in their own hands, in all mat
! tiers, great or small. We shall hope
i to secure for the peoples of the
Balkan peninsula and for the people
Of the Turkish empire the right and
opportunity to make their own lives,
their own fortunes secure 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
like kind. We intend no wrong
against the German empire, no inter-
ference with her internal affairs. We
should deem either the one or the
other absolutely unjustifable, abso-
lutely contrary to the principles we
have protested to live by and to hold
most sacred throughout our life as a
nation,
The people of Germany are being
| told by the men whom they now per-
nit to deceive them and to act as
their masters that they are fighting
for the vary life and existence of
their empire, a war of desperate self
defense against deliberate agrees
sion Nothing could be more grossly
| or Wantonly false, and we must seek
by the utmost openness and candor
as to our real aims to convince them
| Of its falseness, We are in fact
| fighting for their emancipation from
fear, along with our own, from the
fear as we'll as from the fact of un-
Just attack by neighhprs or rivals ar
schemers after world empire. No
ane Ia threatening the existence or
the peaceful ENTERPRISE of the German
empire.
The worst that can happen to the
detrimeRt eff the German people is
this, that If they should still, after
the war is over, continue to be Obliged
to live under ambitious and intrigu-
Ing masters interested to disturb the
peace of the werld, men or classes of
men whom the ether peoples of the
world could net trust, it might be inns
possible to admit them to the part
neFship Of nations which must
heneeferth guarantee the worlds
4 peace. That partnership must be a
partnership of peoples, not a mere
partnership of governments. II
might be impossible also, in such un-
toward circumstances, to admit Ger
many to the free economic intercourse
which must inevitably spring out OF
the other PAL -nerships of a real
peace. But there would be no ag-
erosion in that; and such a situation
Inevitable because Of distrust, would
In the very nature Of things sooner, OF
later cure itself, by processes which
would asguredly set in.
The wrongs, the very deep wrengs
committed in this war will have to be
righted. That, of course. But they
cannot and must not be righted by
the commission OF similar wrongs
against Germany and her allies. This
world will not permit the commission
of similar wrongs as a means of rep:
aratien and settlement. Statesmen
must by this time have learped thai
the opinion Of the world ia every,
where wide-aWake and fully cempre.
bends the issues invnlved, No repre-:
J sentative Of any self=geYerned nation
will dare disregard it by attempting
any such covenants of ae+fshpess and
eomprnmisa as were antered into al
the congress of Vienna.
The thought of the plain people
here and everywhere throughout tht
world, the people who enjoy no priv
'ilege and have very simple and IN
sophisticated standards of right and
wrong, is the air all government
: must henceforth breathe if they
would live, It is in the full disclosing
light of that thought that all policies
must be conceived and exer1tef II
this midday hour of the worlds life
German rulers have been able to up
set the peace of the world only be
cause the German people were mo-
suffered under their tutelage to share
the comradsship of the other people.
Of the world either in thought or II