The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-06-14


they would send to their death any
OF our people VINO ventured to ap
proach the costs of Europe. And many
of our people were corrupted. Men
began to look upon their own neigh
bors with suspicion and to wonder in
! their hot resentment and surprise
whether there was any community in
which hostile intrigue did not Turk
| What great nation in such circum-
stances would not have taken up
arms? Much as we had desired peace
| it was denied us, and not Of our own
choice this flag under which we serve
would have been dishonored had we
withheld our hand.
But that is only part of the story.
We know now as clearly as we knew
efOre we were ourselves engaged, that
we are not the enemies Of the Ger
man people and that they are not our
enemies. They did not originate or
! desire this hideous war or wish that
we should be drawn into it, and we
are vaguely conscious that we are
fighting their cause, as they will some
day see it, as we'll as our own. They
are themselves in the grip of the
same sinister power that has now at
last stretched it's ugly talons out
and drawn blood from us. The whole
world is at war because the whole
I urnr11 &c i, thu GRIN nj thot
and is trying out the great battle
which shall determine whether it is to
| be brought under it's mastery or fling.
Meant to Press Them
'They hoped those demands might
| not arouse Europe, but they meant
| to press them whether they did or not,
for they thought themselves ready for
the final issue of arms.
Their plan was to throw broad
belt of German military power and
political control across the very CEN
ter of Europe and beyond the Medi-
terraneOn into the heart of Asia, and
Austria-Hungary, indeed was to be-
come a part OF the central German
and influences that had it's heart at
Berlin. 1t could have had heart
nowhere else:'
1t rejected the idea of solidarity Of
race entirely. The choice of peoples
played no part in it at all. 1t con-
templated binding together social and
political units which could be kept to-
gether only by force-Czechs, May
gars, Orvate, Serbs, Roumanians,
Turks, Armenians. The proud states
of Bohemia and Hungary, the stout
little commonwealth of the Balkans,
the indomitable Turks ., @.
1T is not easy to understand the
eagerness for peace that has been
manifested from Berlin ever since the
snare was set and sprung? Peace,
peace, peace has been the talk of
her foreign office for now a year or
more, not peace upon her own init
iative, but upon the initiative of the
nations over which she now deems
herself to hold the advantage.
Intrigue for Peace
do you not now understand that
the new intrigue, the intrigue for
peace, and why the masters of Ger
many do not hesitate to use any
agency that promises to effect their
purpose, the deceit of the nations?
Their present particular aim is to
deceive all those who throughout the
world stand for the rights of peoples
and the self-government OF nations,
for they see what immense strength
the forces of justice and Of liberal
ism are gathering out Of this war.
They are employing liberals in their
enterprise. They are using men, in
Germany and without, as their spokes-
men, who they have hitherto despised
and oppressed, using them for their
own destruction-socialists, the lead
ers of labor, the thinkers they have
hitherto sought to silence. Let them
once succeed and the men, now their
tools, will be ground to powder be-
tary empire they will have set up. The
revolutionists in Russia will be cut
off from all succor or cooperation in
Western Europe and counter revo-
Mutton fostered and supported. Ger
many herself will lose her chance of
freedom, and all Europe will arm for
the next, the final struggle.
THE sinister intrigue is being no
less actively conducted in this coun-
try than in Russia and in every coun-
try in Europe, in which the agents
and dupes of the imperial German
government can get access. That gov
eminent has many spokesman here, in
places high and low. They have learn
ed discretion. They keep within the
law. 1t is opinion they utter now,
not sedition. They proclaim the lib.
eral purposes of their masters, de-,
clare this foreign war which can
touch America with no danger to
either her lands or her institutions,
set England at the center of the stage
and talk of her ambition to assert
economic dominion throughout the
world anneal TO our ancient tralli-