Der Deutsche correspondent. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1841-1918, 1917-05-17
"IF WE ARE TO WAGE WAR IN
TELLIGENTLY WE MUST KNOW
OUR WAR AIMS AND OUR
PEACE TERMS"

In a page editorial in it's issue of
| May 16, the New York American is
asking the Congress of the United
States to inform the people what
are our war aims and our peace
| terms. In part the American says:
The only thing approaching a
statement of our object in making
war is a declaration in many quar-
ters that our purpose is to overthrow
monarchy--or autocracy, as the cant
is and establish democracy all over
the world, and more particularly to
overthrow the Imperial Government
Of Germany and set up a democratic
form of government in that great
and powerful empire.
Gentlemen of the Congress, this
nation of ours, in potential strength,
is the most powerful nation the
world has ever seen; and with all
our resources and with all our num-
hers eXerted to the limit in war, we
think that we could beat any other
nation or combination of nations in
the long run of a desperate and pro-
longed conflict.
But, gentlemen of the Congress,
we are not powerful enough to beat
down Germany and Austria-Hungary
and Bulgaria and Turkey and COM
PEI THEM TO ACCEPT FORMS OF
GOVERNMENT THAT WE CHOOSE
TO GIVE THEM.
The people of the German Empire
number seventy millions. They are
devotedly loyal to their Government.
They are ready and resolved to die
for their Government. In the person
of their Kaiser is the visible repre-
sentative, to their eyes, of their
fatherland They are a brave, in
telligent, martial race, led both in
peace and in war with consummate
skill and foresight They will die in
the last ditch, men and women to-
gether, before they will consent to
foreign nation imposing upon them
any form of government.
Gentlemen, consider the facts of
this great war, as history must write
them down.
The three Entente Powers, the
month war broke out, had under
arms 100000 men against the Cen
tral Empires total of 100000, and
had 6,15O,000 trained reserves
against the Central Empires total of
2,5O0,000 trained reserves, while the
combined Entente navies outnum-
bered the Central Empires navies
about three to one.
We know right well the reiterated
English complaint that Germany pre-
pared in the dark and caught the
Entente nations unprepared does not
tally with these figures, but, unfor-
tunately for the reiterated tale. we
are compelled by the duty of jour
! nalism to print real facts and not
explanatory excuses.
Now, the point we have to make is
that with such odds as this, and
against far greater odds Of popula-
tion, wealth and territory, Germany
has whipped these three Entente
Powers, practically singlehanded,
leaving Austria-Hungary to look af-
ter Italy and the southeastern from
tier
If it is, indeed, our national purpose
to compel such a powerful and mar
tial people as that to order their in
ternal affairs as we direct, and to
accept he substitution of another
form of government for that which
suits them, then we have started to
achieve an impossible object
Certainly, no ten nations could inn
pose any such conditions on us, and
we feel sure that no ten nations can
impose any such conditions upon
Germany.
Gentlemen of the Congress, you
have put us into the war-now do
your duty and tell us what you want
us to fight for and what Germany
must grant before we will make
peace
AS matters stand. we are only
more and more confused with each
days utterances.
For instance, a London dispatch
says that General Jan Smuts was
loudly cheered when he repeated
President Wilson'S peace terms to a
| public gathering But what are
President Wilson's peace terms? We
confess that we do not know
In his address at the dedication Of
the Red Cross Memorial Building in
Washington last week, President
Wilson told the audience:
1--WE have gone into this war
with no special grievance of our
own"
He then added
1--WE look for no profit, we
look for no advantage, we will
accept no advantage out of this
, war"
And about the same time Wash
ington dispatches reported Secretary
Lansing as saying that the United
States would Indignantly repudiate
any suggestion of peace from Ger
many that did not include the allies
and the allies objects
We ask you, in all seriousness,
what man is to make out of such a
welter of vague and indefinite state
monts as these.
How are we to wage war intelli-
! gently or to make peace intelligently
in such confusion of mind as this?
Publish TO the world a plain dec
laration of our objects and purposes.
The only final purpose of war is to
obtain peace on the terms of one side
or the other.
Your people want to achieve peace
just as soon as it is possible to do so;