New-York tribune., 1917-07-17


peace founded upon the recognition OF the
right Of men of all races to follow their
own ideals and live their own lives. 1t
will be time to. consider peace when Ger
many not merely renounces the right to
gubiugate the Belgian, to dominate the
Slav, to destroy the Serb, but also re-
nounces the right to do within what was
her empire before 1914 what she has
sought to do without. Peace without an
nexation and without indemnity IS not
itself a mere empty formula. ltwas not an
empty formula when it was adopted by Rus
sia. which had purged itself by revolution.
The world could believe that Kerensky and
those who stood with Kerensky came with
clean hands and in good faith to the pro-
rosal of peace, because the spirit which
they sought to carry outside of Russian
frontiers they had given ultimate express
sion to within the Russian boundaries.
There are thousand questions now
standing which can be settled around the
Green table. There are certain questions
which never can be settled by negotiation
and must be settled by battle. No nation
now fighting Germany can make peace
until Germany has renounced not alone
her conouests. but the spirit and the doc
trine which were expressed in those con
quests and permitted her to attack the
peace of the world. The questions OF
AlsaceI lorraine. Of the Italian lrredenta,
of Macedonia, Of Poland are not questions
Of territorial significance primarily. That
is wbv there can be no world settlement
which does not carry with it the righting
Of ancient wrongs expressed by these
terms. Mankind will not ask that the
German cities shall be plundered and
ravaeed as Germans have plundered and
ravaped the cities of France, of Belgium,
e Poland. They will not ask that the
women and children of Germany shall be
subjected to that violence and that crime
to which German soldiers at the word of
command have subjected French women,
Belgian women and women of all the con-
ouered lands. It is not in the spirit of
the Mosaic law that the liberal-minded
people of the world will look forward to a
settlement with Germany. The doctrine
of rcprisal falls on deaf ears wherever
men and women are thinking of the future,
But not less definite is the determination
that these things shall not happen again
and that war shall go on with Germany
until it is plain to the world that the Ger
man people have renounced barbarism
which borrowed the weapons Of science but
preserved the spirit of the brute.
We must now, here in America, have no
Illusions, just as we have no rancor and
no spirit of vindictiveness. If Germany
shall finally renounce the past, as Russia
has renounced hers; if out of the storm
and tumult there should presently emerge
a day as clear and unmistakable as the day
which followed the Russian Revolution,
then we must, and we shall, talk peace.
But nothing of that sort has yet come, and
cnly hope and faith can translate what has
happened into such a promise. The task
which was undertaken at the beginning of
this war may be nearing the end. We
must not permit our eyes to be darkened
or our ears to be dcafened by what has
happened in the past. But we must not
less certainly remember how much evil has
flowed from the German spirit and Ger
man purpose, recognizing that until that
spirit has been conquered on the battle
field or been abandoned at home peace will
be an illusion and delusion.
To-day our volunteer militia is gather
ing in all its camps from one end of this
country to the other. In all human proba-
bility these troops will 90 to France. It
may be that when there is a clear per
ception in Germany that following the
Russian democracy, the American democ-
racy is resolved to fight on to a complete
defeat of the system of autocracy and of
the spirit of terribleness the end will
come But now it is for us to perceive
that we shall delay the end we seek by
pausing in our efforts; that we may defeat
the cause we serve by mistaking the fact
and that however terrible to us must seem
the sacrifice of those we love, we shall
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