Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1917-12-13

Every power and resource we possess,
whether Of men, of money, or of mate
rails, is being devoted and will continue
to be devoted TO that purpose until it is
achieved. Those who desire to brin 9
peace about before that purpose is
achieved / counsel to carry their adj
vice elsewhere. We will not entertain it.
We hall regard the war as won only
when the German people say to us,
through properly accredited represent
atives, that they are ready to agree to a
settlement based upon justice and the
PREPARATION of the wrongs their rulers
have done. They have done a wrong
10 Belgium, which must be repaired.
Thew have established a power over
other lands and peoples than their own
over the great empire of Austria
Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan
states, over Turkey and within Asia
which must be r~elinquished.
Germany's Exploits Reviewed.
"Germany's success by skill, by in
'dustry, by knowledge, by enterprise, we
did not grudge or oppose but admired
rather. She had built up for herself a
real empire of trade and influence, Sc
cured by the peace of the world. We
were content TO abide the rivalries of
manufacture, science, and
that We're involved for us I'm her sue
cess n stand or fall as we had or did
not have the brains and the initiative
to surpass her. But at the moment
when III had conspicuously won her
triumphs of peace she threw them
away to establish in their stead what
the world will no longer permit to be
established, military and political DOM
nation by arms. by which to oust
where should could not excel the rivals
she most feared INC hated. The peace
we make must remedy that wrong. 1T
must deliver the once fair lands and
happy peoples of Belgium and northern
France from the Prussian conquest and
the PruSSian menace, out it must also
deliver the peoples Of Austria Hungary,
the peoples of the Balkans and the peo-
pie of Turkey, alike in Europe and in
Asia, from the impudent and alien DOM
lnation of the prussian military and
commercial autocracy.
I'VE owe it, however, to our
selves to say that we do not wish
in any way to impair or to rear
range the Austro-Hungarian N.
pire. II is no affair Of ours what
they do with their own life, either
industriaily or politically. We do
not purpose or desire to dictate to
them in any way. We only desire
to see that their affairs are left in
their own hands, in all matters,
great or small. We shall hope to
secure for the peoples Of the Bal.
kan peninsula and for the people Of
Turkish empire the right and OPP
p~ortunity to make their WI lives
safe, their own fortunes secure
from the dictation of foreign courts
or parties. And our attitude and
purpose with regard to Germany
herself are of a like kind. We in
tend no wrong against the German
empire, no Interference with her
either the one or the other abso-
lutely unjussifiabIe, absolutely con-
trary to the principles we have
protested to live by and to hold
most sacred throughout our life
as a nation.
Nc Threat Against Germany.
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 Very life and existence of their
empire: a war of desperate self de-
Tense against deliberate aggression.
Nothing could be more grossly or wan
tonly false n we must seek by the
utmost onenness n candor as to our
rec 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 unjust attack by
neighbors or rivals or schemers after
world empire. No one is threatening
the existence or the independence of
the peaceful enterprise of tn German
empire.
The worst that can happen TO the
detrlment of the German people is this,
that If they should still, after the war
IS over, continue to be obliged to live
under ambitious and intriguing mas
ters interested to disturb the peace of
whom the other peoples of the. world
could not trust, it might be impossible
to admit them to the partnership of
nations which must henceforth guaran-
tee the worlds peace. That partnership
must be a partnership Of peoples, no
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 partnerships OF Il real peace. But
there would be no aggression in that;
and such a situation, inevitable because
OF distrust. would in the very nature
OF things one or later cure itself by
processes which would assuredly set in
Germany IL Protected.
The wrongs, the very deer wrongs
committed in this war will have to be
righted. That. OF course. But the,
cannot and must not be righted by Tho
commission of similar wrongs agains1
Germany n her allies. The world
viii not permit the Commission of sim.
liar wrongs as a means of PREPARATION
and settlement. Statesmen must b,
this time have learned that the opinion
OF the world is everywhere wide awake
and fully c~omprehends the issues in
volved. No representative of any self