The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-06-14

tie of the talk has been public. but most of it has been private. Through all sorts of channels it has come to me, and in all sorts of guises, but never with the terms disclosed which the German government would be willing to accept. That govern ment has other valuable pawns in its hands besides those I have mentioned. It still holds valuable part of France, though with slowly relaxing grasp, and practically the whole of Belgium. Its armies press close upon Russia and overrun Pc land at their will It cannot go fur ther; it dare not go back. It wishes t1 close it's bargain before it is too late and 1t has little left to offer for the pound of flesh it will demand.
 'sThe military masters under whom Germany is bleeding see very clearly to what point Fate has brought them. If they fall back or are forced back an inch, their power both abroad and at home will fall to pieces like a house of cards. It is their power at
 home they are thinking about now more than their power abroad. It is that power which is trembling under their very feet; and deep fear has entered their hearts. They have but
 one chance to perpetuate their mili- tary power or even their controlling
 political influence. If they can secure tages still in their hands which they
 have up to this point apparently gained, they will have justified them
 selves before the German people; they will have gained by force what they promised to gain by it; an inn
 mense expansion of German power, an immense enlargement of German in- dustrial and commercial opportunities. Their prestige will be secure, and with their prestige their political power. If they fail, their people will thrust them aside; a government accountable to the people themselves will be set up in Germany as it has been in England, in the United States, in France. and in all the great $ountrfes of the modern time except Germany. If they suc- ceed they are safe and Germany and the world are undone: if they fail
 Germany is saved and the world will be at peace. If they succeed, America will fall within the menace. We and all the rest of the world must remain armed, as. they will remain and must make ready for the next step in their aggression; if they fail the world may unite for peace and Germany may be of the union.
 Do you not now understand the new intrigue, the intrigue for peace, and why the masters of Germany do not hesitate to use any agency that promises to effect their purpose, the deceit of the nations? Their present particular aim is to deceive all those who throughout the world stand for the rights of peoples and the self gov ernment of nations; for they see what immense strength the forces of jus tice and of liberalism are gathering out of this war. They are employing liberals in their enterprise. They are using men, in Germany and without. as their spokesmen whom they have hitherto despised and oppressed, us- ing them for their own destruction,- Socialists, the leaders of labor, the thinkers they have hitherto sought to
 silence. Let them once succeed and these men, now their tools, will be ground to powder beneath the weight of the great military empire they will have set up; the revolutionists in
 Russia will be cut off from all suc- cor or cooperation in Western Eu- l rope and a counter revolution foster I ed and supported; Germany herself will lose her chance of freedom, and | all Europe will arm for the next. the final struggle.
 ."The sinister intrigue is being less actively conducted in this country than in Russia and in every country
 ir Europe to which the agents and dupes of the Imperial German gov ernment can access. That govern
 ment has many spokesmen here, 1T
 places high and low. They have
 learned discretion. They keep with l in, the law It is opinion they uttel
 now, not sedition. They proclaim tht liberal purposes of their masters; de clare this a foreign war which car touch America with no danger tt either her lands or her institutions ! set England at the center of thu
 stage and talk of her ambition to as sert economic dominion throughou the world; appeal to our ancient tradi ton of isolation in the politics of tn nations; and seek to undermine tn government with false professions O Loyalty to it's principles.
 l '.But they will make no headway The false betray themselves always il
 every accent It is only friends am
 partisans Of the German governmen whom we have already identified wh
 utter these thinly disguised disloyali
 ties The facts are patent to all tn world, and nowhere are they nor
 plainly seen than in the United States , where we are accustomed to deal wit | facts and not with sophistries; and tn great fact that stands out above a the rest is that this is peoples wal l. a war for freedom and justice an t self government amongst all the na ! tions of the world, B war to mak f the world safe for the peoples wh 8 live upon it and have made it thei : own, the German people themselve q included; and that with us rests tn = choice to break through all these hJ = ipocrises and patent cheats and mask }. of brute force and help. set the worl s free, or else stand aside and let it | t dominated a long age through b ,. sheer weight of arms and the arb e trary choices of self-constituted ma, s tters, by the nation which can mali - tain the biggest armies and the mo ' irresistible armaments,-a power l. which the world has afforded no pa d allel and in the face of which polite IT freedom must wither and perish. I. For us there is but one choic r. We have made it. Woe be to the ms it or group of men that seeks to star r. in our way in this day of high resol l. ton when every principle we ho 70 dearest is to be vindicated and ma'
 for xt,n walton of ha n