Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-06-15

half. When they found that they could
not do that, their agents diligently
spread sedtion amongst us and sought
to draw our own citizens from their
! allegiance-and some of these agents
| We're men connected with the official
embassy Of the German government it
, self here in our own capital. They
sought by violence to destroy our in
dustries and arrest our commerce.
They tried to incite Mexico to take up
arms against us and to draw Japan in
to hostile alliance with her,-and that
not by indirection, but by direct sug-
gestion from the foreign office in Ber-
lin. They impudently denied us the
use Of the high seas and repeatedly ex-
ecuted their threat that they would
ecuted their threat that they would
send to their death any of our people
who ventured to APPROACH the coasts Of
Europe. And many of our own people
were corrupted. Men began to look
upon their own neighbors with suspi-
cion and to wonder in their hot resent
| ment and surprise whether there was
any community in which hostile in
| trigue did not Turk. What great ma
ton in such circumstances would not
have taken up arms? Much as we had
desired peace, it was denied us, and
and rot Of our own choice. This flag
under which we serve would have been
Gishonoured had we withheld our hand.
! But that is only part of the story.
We know now as clearly as we knew
| before we were ourselves engaged that
we are not the enemies Of the German
| people and that they are not our en-
, emies. They did not originate or de-
| sire this hideous war or wish that we
| should be drawn into it: and we are
| vaguely conscious that we are fighting
their cause. as they will some day see
it. as we'll as our own. They are them
selves in the grip Of the same sinister
power that has now at last stretched
its ugly talons out and drawn blood
from US. The whole world is at war
because the whole world is in the grip
of that power and is trying out the
great battle which shall determine
whether it is to be brought under its
mastery or fling 'itself free.
The war was begun by the military
masters of Germany, who proved to
be also the masters Of Austria Hun
gary. These men have never regarded
nations as peoples. men. women. and
children of like blood and frame as
themselves, for whom governments ex-
listed and in whom governments had
their life. They have regarded them
merely as serviceable. organizations
which they could by force or intrigue
bend or corrupt to their own purpose.
They have regarded the smaller states.
in particular. and the peoples who
could be overwhelmed by force, as their
| n nd in n tC nf
nation. Their purpose has long been
avowed. The statesmen Of other ma
tons, to whom that purpose was in
credible, paid little attention; regarded
what German professors expounded in
their class rooms and German writer's
set forth to the world as the goal of
German policy as rather the dream OF
minds detached from practical affairs.
as preposterous privates conceptions OF
German destiny, than as the actual
plans of responsible rulers; but the
rulers Of Germany themselves knew all
the while what concrete plans what
we'll advanced intrigues lay back OF
what the professors and the writer's
were saying, and were glad to go for
ward unmolested. filling the thrones of
! Balkan states with German princes.
I putting herman OlflCeTS at tnc service
of Turkey to drill her armies and make
interest with her government. develop
ing plans of sedition and rebellion in
India and Egypt. setting their fires
in Persia. The demands made by Aus
tria and Servia were a mere single
step in a plan which comprised Eu-
rope and Asia. from Berlin to England.
They hoped those demands might not
arouse Europe. but they meant to press
them whether they did or not. for they
thought themselves ready for the final
| issue of arms.
{ Their plan was to throw a broad
belt Of German military power and po-
litical control across the very centre
OF Europe and beyond the Mediterran-
can into the heart Of Asia: and Aus
| tria Hungary was to be as much their
tool and pawn as Servia or Bulgaria or
Turkey or the ponderous states Of the
East. Austria Hungary. indeed. was to
become part OF the Central German
Empire, absorbed and dominated by
the same forces and influences that
had originally cemented the German
states themselves. The dream had its
| heart at Berlin. II could have had q
heart nowhere else 1t rejected the
! idea Of solidarity OF race entirely. The
fehoice of peoples played no part in 1t
at all. 1t contemplated binding togeth-
err racial and political units which
could be kept together only by force
Czechs. Magyars. Croats, Serbs. Rou-
manians. Turks. Armenians.--the proud
states Of Bohemia and Hungary. the
stout little commonwealths OF the Balk
ans, the indomitable Turks. the subtitle
peoples of the East These peoples did
not wish to be united. They ardentiy
desired to direct their own affairs. and
would be satisfied only by undisputed
independence They could be kept quiet
only by the presence or the constant
threat Of armed men. They would live