New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-27
70 ,h. Editor Of Tho Tribune.

To the Editor Of Tho Tribune.
Sir, President Wilson's address Of ycster-
day was founded upon the Presidents con-
victions % that the war cannot DO brought
10 n victorious conclusion BY either group oil
towers: (2) that the repetition Of such war
would make this world place hardly worth
living In.
He IA persuaded that tho plan OF the
League TO Enforce Peace, with possible modi-
ncations, offers the only hope for the future
Of international relations. Obviously the
rival alliances England, France, Russia and
the lesser Allies, as against Germany, Aus
tria, Bulgaria and Turkey-ofer no guarantee
Of peace. After this war, II IL ends in dead
lock or compromise, Germany Will be ieft
with control Of all Mittel Europa-the bag
dad Corridor" Economically this Greater
Germany (for in the years following such
declaration of peace Germany would absorb
her allies as Prussia, between 1871 and 1914,
absorbed and drew to herself and magnihed
the resources and power OF all the German
states) will be irresistible. Sometimes one
hears loose minded people talk about this
being the last great war. In the event OF
German victory or a qualified German VIC
tory this theory OF the optimists Is about as
veracious as the theory that one particular
thunderstorm is the last great thunderstorm.
As Walter Rathenau, head Of the Allge-
meme Electricians Gesellschaft, wrote
some DAYS ago in the Berlin "Lokal An
zeger,7 Germany will lay up in the years
of peace, which will bring her repose from
the present conflict and prepare her for the
next war, vast stocks of all necessary raw
materials, so that she may never again be en-
barrassed by the unexpected duration of a
German war, as she has been these last two
and a half years
II, by the forming of the League TO Enforce
Peace in which the various smaller European
nationalities arc admitted before being alb
sorbed and digested by the German system,
the process Of German ACKNOWLEDGEMENT is ar
rested before it has gone any further than it
has already gone, the various powers of the
New World and the Old can be lined up as
against the expansion of any great power at
the expense Of lesser nationalities. Such
peace might conceivably not prove German
peace. It may not be practicable to translate
this project into actually. 1t is, ali the
same, what the President plans. A careful
reading Of his speech last fall in regard to
the League to Enforce Peace a speech that
was promptly Endorsed by the Liberal press
in England and by Viscount Grey, of his
peace note of December IS and of his address
to the Senate on January % supports these
statements.
Germany, as represented b. Count Won
Bernstorff, is pleased by the Presidents ad.
dress yesterday, in spite of paragraphs in it
which are quite unmistakable attacks upon
Prussan policies and principles. ct is
German habit to care more about substances
than shadows.) The Washington embassies
Of the Entente are, on the other hand, draped
with gloom. Does any one ask why?
Briefly, because the British and French
wish TO continue the war until Germany has
been really thrashed. Their governments do
not yet accept the Presidents view, shared
by some members of our Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, that Germany cannot
be beaten. Therefore, they continue to think
ia terms of war and they wish their people at