The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1917-04-06
to be effective there.

partmentS of the government for the
consideration of your committees
measures for the accomplishment of
the several objects l have mentioned.
l hope that it will be your pleasure
to deal with them as having been
framed after very careful thought by
the branch of the government upon
which the responsibility of conduct
ing the war and safeguarding the ma
tion will most directly fall.
"While we do these things, these
deeply momentous things, let us be
very clear and make very clear to all
the world what our motives and our
objects are. My own thought has not
been driven from it's habitual and
normal course by the unhappy events
of the last two months and | do not
believe that the thought of the nation
has been altered or clouded by
them.
81 have exactly the same things in
mind now that l had in mind when /
addressed the senate on the 22nd of
January last; the same that had in
mind when l addressed the congress
on the 3rd of February and on the
,26th of February. Our object now,
as then, is to vindicate the principles
of peace and the justice in the life of
the world as against selfish and auto
cratic power and to set up amongst
the really free and self-governed peo-
pies of the world such concert of
purpose and of action as will hence
forth insure the observance of thos,
principles.
Neutrality is no longer feasible or
desirable where the peace of the
world is invaded and the freedom of
its peoples and the menace to that
peace and freedom lies in the exist
ence of autocratic governments backed
by organized force which is controlled
wholly by their will, not by the will
of their people. We have seen the last
of neutrality in such circumstances.
Beginning New Age.
1--WE are at the beginning of an
age in which it will be insisted that
the same standards of conduct and
of responsibility for wrong done shall
be observed among nations and their
governments that are observed among
the individual citizens of civilized
states.
eve have no quarrel with the Ger
man people. We have no feeling to-
ward them but one of sympathy and
friendship. 1t was not upon their i'm
pulse that their government acted in
entering this war. 1t was not with
their previous knowledge or approval.
1t was war determined upon as wars
used to be determined upon in the old
unhappy days when peoples were no.
where consulted by their rulers and
wars were provoked and waged in the
interest of dynasties or of little groups
of ambitious men who were accustom-
ed to use their fellow men as pawns
and tools.
"Self-governed nations do not fill
their neighbor states with spies or set
the course of intrigue to bring about
some critical posture of affairs which
will give them an opportunity to make
conquest. Such designs can be sue
cessfully worked only under cover and
where no one has the right to as.
questions.
"Cunningly contrived plans of de-
ception or aggression, carried, it may
be, from generation to generation,
can be worked out and kept from the
light only within the privacy of courts
or behind the carefully guarded conf
dences of a narrow and privileged
class. They are happily impossible
where public opinion commands and
insists upon full information concern
ing all the nations affairs.
"a steadfaSt concert for peace can
never be maintained except by a part
nership of democratic nations. No
autocratic government could be trust
ed to keep faith within it or observe
its covenants. 1t must be a LEAGUE
of honor, a partnership of opinion.
Intrigue would eat its vitals awav:
the plottings of inner circles VINO
could plan what they would and rem
der account to no one would be cor
ruption seated at its very heart. Only
free peoples can hold their purpose
and their honor steady to common
end and prefer the interests Of man
kind to any narrow interest of their
own.
Hone for the Future.
docs not every American feel tha.
assurance has been added to our hone
for the future peace of the world by
the wonderful and heartening things
that have been happening within the
last few weeks in Russia? Russia was
known by those who knew it best to
have been always in fact democratic
at heart, in all the vital habits of hcr
thought, in all the intimate relation
ships of her people that spoke their
natural instinct, their habitual atti-
tude towards life.
"The autocracy that crowned the
summit Of her political structure long
as had stood and terrible was the re-
ality of IFS noWor wac NOT in f,c+