St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1917-12-08

MESSAGE
(Contiuued from page II

(CO0tlOueV lTCW QdSS
peace, she threw them away, to es-
tablish in their stead what the world
will no longer permit to be estab-
lished, military and political domf-
nation by amrs, by which to Dust
where she could not excel the rivals
she most feared and hated.
The peace we make must remedy
that wrong. 1t must deliver the
once fair lands and happy peoples OF
Belgium and northern France from
the Prussian conquest and the Prus-
sian menace, but it must also denver
the peoples Of Austro-Hungary, the
peoples Of the Balkans and the peo-
piles Of Turkey, alike in Europe and
in Asia, from the impudent and alien
domination of the Prussian military
and commercial autocracy.
We owe it, however, to ourselves
to say that we do not wish any
way to impair or to rearrange the
Austro-Hungarian empire. 1t is no
affair Of ours what they do with their
own life, either industrially or po-
litically. We do not purpose or de-
sire to dictate to them in any may.
We only desire to see that their at
fairs are left in their own hands, in
all matters, great or small.
We shall hope to secure for the
peoples of the Balkan peninsula and
for the people of the Turkish empire
the right and opportunity to make
their own lives safe, their own for
tunes secure against oppression or
injustice and from the dictation Of
foreign courts or parties.
And our attitude and purpose with
regard to Germany herself are OF
like kind. We intend no wrong
against the German empire, no in
reference with her internal affairs.
We should deem either the one or
the other absolutely unjustifiable,
absolutely contrary to the principles
we have professed to live by and to
hold most sacred throughout our life
as a nation.
The people of Germany are being
told by the men whom they now
permit to deceive them to act as
their masters that they are fighting
for the very life and existence of
their empire, a war of desperate self
defense against deliberate aggres-
sion. Nothing could be more gross
ly or wantonly false, and we IL ust
seek by the utmost openness and
candor as to our real aims to con-
vince them Of its falseness. We are
in fact fighting for their emancipa
ton from fear, along with our own
from the fear as we'll as from the
fact of unjust attack by neighbors
or rivals or schemers after world
empire.
No one is threatening the eX-
istence or the independence or
the peaceful enterprise OF the
German empire.
The worst that can happen to the
detriment of the German people is
this, that il they should still, after
the war is over, continue to be oblig-
ed to live under ambitious and in
triguing masters interested to dis
turb the peace of the world, men OF
classes of men whom the other peo-
pies OF the world could not trust, il
might be impossible to admit them
to the partnership OF nations which
must henceforth guarantee the world
peace.
That partnership must be part
nership of peoples, not mere part
nership of governments. 1t might
be impossible, also, in such untoward
circumstances, to admit Germany tc
the free economic intercourse which
must inevitably spring out of the
other partnerships OF real peace
&ht there would be no aggression in
that; and such situation, inevitable
because Of distrust, would in the
very nature of things 'oner or later
cure itself, by processes which would
assuredly set in
The wrongs, the very deep wrongs