The twice-a-week Twin Falls times. (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1916-1918, 1917-12-04
PRESIDENT ASKS WAR Be
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tions. But when that has been done
as, God willing, it assuredly will
be-we shall at last be free to do an
unprecedented thing, and this is the
time to avow our purpose to do it
We shall be free to base peace or
generosity and justice, to the exclus-
ion of all selfish claims to advantage
even on the part of the victors
Let there be no misunderstanding
Our present and immediate task is
to win the war and nothing shall turn
us aside from it until it is accom-
plished. Every power and resource
we possess, whether Of men, of money
or of materials, is being devoted and
will continue to be devoted to that
purpose until it is achieved. Those
who desire to bring peace about be-
fore that purpose is achieved I coun-
sci to carry their advice elsewhere
We will not entertain it. We shall re-
gard the war as won only when the
German people say to us through
properly accredited representatives.
that they are ready to agree to a set
Element based upon justice and the
reparatiOn Of the wrongs their rulers
have done. They have done a wrong
to Belgium which must be repaired
They have established power over
other lands and peoples than their
own-over the great empire of AustrO-
Hungary, other hitherto free Balkan
states, over Turkey, and within Asia
which must be relinquished
"Germany's success by skill, by in
dustry by knowledge, by enterprise.
we did not grudge or oppose. but adj
mired, rather She had built up for
herself a real empire of trade and in
fluence, secured by the peace of the
world. We were content to abide the
rivalries of manufacture. science and
commerce that were involved for us
in her success and stand or fall as we
had or did not have the brains and
the initiative to surpass her. But
at the moment when she had conspicu-
ously 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 domination by arms, by which
to GUST where she could not excel the
rivals she most feared and hated. The
peace we make must remedy that
wrong. 1t must deliver the once fair
lands and happy people of Belgium
and northern France from the Prus-
sian conquest and the Prussian men
ace, but it must also deliver the peo-
pies of Hungary, the peoples
of the Balkans and the peoples of
Turkey, alike in Europe and in Asia
from the impudent and alien domina-
ton of the Prussian military and com
mercial autocracy.
Eve owe it, however, to ourselves to
say that we do not wish in any way
to impair or to rearrange the Austro-
-.
ours what they do with their own life,
either industrially or politically. We
do not propose 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 Balkan peninsula
and for the peoples of the Turkish en-
pire the right and opportunity to make
their own lives safe; their own for
tunes secure against oppression or in
justice and from the dictation of fore
ign courts or parties.
And our attitude and purpose with
regard to Germany herself are of a
like kind. We intend no wrong against
Germany; no interference with her in
ternal affairs. We should deem either
the one of the other absolutely unjus-
tifiable, absolutely contrary to the
principles we have professed to live
by and to hold most sacred through
out 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
very life and existence of their en-
pire, a war of desperate self defense
against deliberate aggression Moth
ing could be more grossly or wanton-
ly false. We must seek by the utmost
ONENESS and candour as to our real
aims to convince them of its falseness.
We are in fact fighting for their eman-
cipation 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 en-
pire. No one is threatening the ex-
istence or independence or the peace
full enterprise of the German empire.
"The worst that can happen to the
detriment of the German people is
this that if they should still, after the
war is over. continue to be obligated
to live under ambitious and intriguing
masters interested to disturb the peace
of the world, men or classes of men
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 guar
antee the worlds peace. That part
nership must be partnership Of peo-
pies, not mere partnership Of gov
ernments. 1t might be impossible, al
so, in such untoward circumstances,
to admit Germany to the free econom-
ic Intercourse which must inevitably