Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1917-12-05

trary to the principles we have pro-
fessed to live by and to hold most
sacred throughout our life as a ma
ton.
German People Deceived.
"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. Nothing
could be more grossly or wantOnly
false, and we must seek by the ut
most openness and candOr as to our
real aims to convince them of its false
ness. We are in fact fighting for their
emancipation from fear, along with
from the fact of unjust attack by
neighbOrs or rivals or Schemers after
world empire. No one Is threaten
ing the existence of or the indepen-
dence or the peaceful enterprise of
tn German empire.
Not Again to Be Trusted.
"The worst that can happen to 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 in
terested to disturb the peace of the
world, men or classes of men whom the
or ns Af thn .nr11
trust. II might be impossible to admit
them TO the partnership of nations
which must henceforth guarantee the
worlds peace. That partnership must
be partnership of peoples, not mere
partnership Of governments. 1t might
be impossible, also, in such untoward
circumstances, to admit Germany to
the free economic intercourse which
must inevitably spring out Of the other
partnerships Of q real peace. But
there would be no aggression in that;
and such a situation, inevitable be-
cause of distrust, would in the very
nature of things sooner or later cure
itself, by processes which would as
suredly set In.
Wrongs Must Be RIshted.
1.-THE wrongs, the very deep wrongs,
committed in this war will have to be
righted. That of course. But they
cannot and must not be righted by the
commission of similar wrongs against
Germany and her allies.
ssrTha xuorId will not y,ov,,it tho cpr,N-
mission of similar wrongs as a means
Of reparation and settlement. States
men must by this time have learned
that the opinion Of the world is every
where wide awake and fully cOmpre-
hends the issues involved. No repre-
sentative Of any self-governed nation
will dare disregard it by attempting
any such covenants of selfishness and
compromise as were entered into at the
congress of Vienna. The thought Of
the plain people here and everywhere
throughout the world, the people wh'
enjoy no privilege and have very sim
pie and unsophisticated standards of
right and wrong. is the air all govern
ments must henceforth breathe if they
would live. 1t is in the full disclos
ing light of that thought that all poll
cies must be conceived and executed In
this midday hour of the worlds life.
People Have No Say.
German rulers have been able to up
set the peace of the world only because
the German people We're not suffered
under their tutelage to share the com
radeship of the other peoples of the
world either in thought or in purpose.
They were allowed TO have no opinion
of their own which might be set up as
a rule of conduct for those who exer-
cised authority over them. But the
congress that concludes this war will
feel the full strength of the tides that
run now in the hearts and consciences
of freedom everywhere. It's conclu-
sionS will run with these tides.
"All these things have been true
from the very beginning 'of this stu
pendous war; and cannot help think
ing that if they had been made plain
at the very outset the sympathy and
enthusiasm of the Russian people
might have been once for all enlisted
on the side of the, allies, suspicion and
distrust swept away, and real and
lasting union of purpose effected. Had
they believed these things at the very
moment of their revolution and had
they been confirmed in that belief
since, the sad reverses which have re-
Gently marked the progress of their
affairs towards an ordered and stable
government of freemen might have
been avoided.
'The Russian people have been
poisoned by the very same falsehoOds
that have kept the German people in
the dark, and the poison has been ad-
by the very same hands.
The only possible antidote Is the truth.
1t cannot be uttered too plainly or too
often.
Freedom Of the Seas.
"From every point of view, there
fore. ii has seemed TO be my duty to
speak these declarations Of purpose, to
add these specific interpretations to
what / took the liberty of saying to the
Il, Jonuary Our entrance info