The Detroit times., 1917-06-30
Cards On the Table
BY DR.. FRAhklcRANE
Copyright. 1915. by Frank Crane)

The time has come when the two par
ties, or one of them. in the present world
war should lay the cards face up on the
table.
In other words, each contestant should
declare, in plain terms, exactly what he's
fighting for, and what he intends TO do If
he is victorious.
Germany and Company will not do this,
because it is a coalition of autocracies,
the central principle of whose theory Of
government Is that superior, official,
hereditary class. and not the whole peo-
pie, is responsible and supreme in direct
ing the affairs of a nation.
England, France and Company ought,
however, to do it, because they advertiye
themselves as democracies; and in a
democracy the people ought to know
what's going on and what their rulers
aim to do.
One of the first phenomena of the Rus
sian revolution was popular movement
to induce the government to state its
precise peace terms, whether il was 60
ing to grab territory, exact indemnities,
and the like. Whether this movement
was ill-advised and automatically man.
aged or not, it was an indication of the
proper temper of a democracy. The peo-
pie are not disposed, when they are in
control, to suffer, become impoverished,
and die, all for something they don't un-
derstand, for issues that in the end are
to be decided in a secret chamber by
the chess play of few diplomats.
America, thru her president, has stated
clearly enough what she wants. She
wants the freedom of the seas. she wants
to break Germanys power and will to rob
and Stay, and she does not want any other
nations land or money. France has done
likewise
We oppose Germany because she rep
resents an intolerable national egotism;
she proposes to do business upon the
theory of Germany first; and the only
alternative to that is the theory of the
world first, humanity first, with every
small nation guaranteed its existence.
There is a deal Of talk in America, and
still more in Russia and the neutral
countries of Europe, that British patri-
otism is equally egotistic. and its purpose
in this war parallel to the German pur-
pose" Great Britain is declared to be
grasping at Mesopotamia and the Ger
man colonies. France at Syria, Italy at
Austrian provinces, and so on. Why not
come out plainly and declare just what
an allied victory will mean?
II. G.. Wells, in a recent letter to the
London Chronicle, urges such statements,
not mere discussions and diplomatic UNI
derstandings, but "such full and plain
statements as will be spread thru the
whole world and grasped and assimilated
by ordinary people everywhere-state-
ments by which we as a people will be
prepared to stand or fall. Great Britain
has to table her world policy. It Is .
thing overdue. No doubt we have already
a literature of liberal imperialism and
considerable accumulation of declara-
tions by this statesman or that but what
| is neeueu is IOfIlluldLiOn HluSH iiOic
representative, official, and permanent
than that-something that can be put
beside President Wilson's clear rendering
Of the American ideal. We want all our
peoples to understand that our empire is
not a net about the world in which the
progress of mankind is entangled, but
self-conscious political system, working
side by side with the other democracies
of the earth, preparing the way for, and
preparing to sacrifice and merge itself
in. world confederation of free and
equal peoples"