Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1917-12-07

land peoples other than their own
over the great empire of Austria-H Hun
gary, over hitherto free Balkan states
over Turkey and within Asia-whic
must he relinquished.
"Germany's success by skill, by II
dustry, by knowledge, by enterprise
we did not grudge or oppose, but ad
|mired rather. She had built up TO
herself a real empire of trade and in
fluence, secured by the peace of tn
world.
| HUN MUST LOSE POWER.
1--WE we're content to abide til,
!rivalries of manufacture, science ant
commerce that were involved for u,
sin her success and stand or fall a.
VIC had or did not have the brains an(
the initiative to surpass her.
/ "But at the moment. when she hac
eonspicuousIy won her triumphs Of
! peace she threw them away to es
tabIish in their stead what the woric
will no longer permit to be estab
Iished, n..A'ary and political domino
/ ton by arms, by which to Gust where
she could not excel the rivals she
/ most feared and hated.
/, "The peace we make must remedy
I! that wrong. It 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 deliver
The peoples of Austria Hungary, the
peoples of the Balkans and the PEG.
pies of Turkey, alike, in, Europe and
i'll Asia, from tho inpudent and alien
domination of the Prussian military
and commercial autocracy.
NO DicTATioN TO AUSTRIA.
I'VE owe it to ourselves. however,
to say that we do not wish in 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 only desire to see that
their affairs are left in their own
han6H, in all matters, great or small.
I'VE 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 in
justice and from the dictation Of
foreign courts or parties.
'And our attitude and purpose with
regard to Germany herself are Of a
like kind. We intend no wrona
against the German empire, no inter-
ference with her internal affairs. We
should deem either the one or the
other absolutely unjustifabIe, abso-
.Iutely contrary to the principles we
have professed to live by and to hold
most sacred throughout our life as
nation.
GIVES LIE TO JUNkERs.
1.-THE people Of Germany are being
told by the men whom they now per.
NIT to deceive them and to act as their
masters that they are fighting for the
very life and existence Of their empire,
a war Of desperate >seIf-defense against
deliberate aggression. Nothing could
be more grossly or wantoniy false, and
we must seek by the utmost openness
and candor az to our real aims to con-
vince them Of its faIseness.
I'VE are in fact, fighting for their
emancipation from fear, along with our
own, from 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 existence or
the independence or the peaceful en-
terprisesof the German empire.
THE WORLD CONGRESS.
1.-THE worst that can happen to the
detriment of the German people is
this, that II they should still, after the
war is over, continue to be obliged to
live under ambitious and intriguing
masters interested to disturb the peace
of the world, men or classes of men
whom the other peoples of the world
could not trust, 1t might be impossible
to admit them to the partnership of
nations which must henceforth guar
antee the worlds peace.
"rhat partnership must be part
nership of peoples, not mere partner
ship Of governments. 1t might be inn
pos sible, also, in such untoward, cir
cumstances, to admit Germany to the
free economic intercourse which must
inevitab bly, spring out of the other part
nerships of a real peace.
HOPE FOR GERMAN PEOPLE.
but there would be no aggression
in that; and such a situation, newt
able because of distrust, would in the
very nature of things, sooner or later.
cure itself by processes which would
assuredly set in.
1.-THE wrongs, the very deep wrongs
committed in this war, will have to be
riqhted. But they cannot and must not
be rishted by the commission Of SINH
lar wrongs against Germany and her
allies. The world will not permit the
commission Of similar wrongs az a
means Of reparation and settlement.
No Representative Of any seif.governed
nation will dare disregard It by at
mpting any such covenants Of sell
fishness and compromise as were en-
tered into at the congress Of Vienna.
1.-THE thought Of the plain people
here and everywhere throughout the
world, the people who enjoy no privi-
lege and have very simple and unso-
phisticated standards Of right and
wrong, is the air improvements must
breathe II they would live
RESULT OF AUTOCRACY.
German rulers have been able to
upset the peace of the world only be-
cause the German people were not
suffered under their tutlege to share