Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-12-18
TheMOraie of the Allied Peoples.

4 new or QiS or Lnc HHLeU FGOpLeS.
There is a world of significance and cheer in
Colonel Houses statement that both in England
and France the morale is "splendid" best
have obser sed" he says. ION any of my three trips
abroad since the beginning of the war" AS the
Presidents confidential adviser problems
and his personal representative on weighty mis-
sions to Europe, Colonel House has proved pat
tern of all conservatism and generally as taciturn
as the Sphinx itself. Peculiarly impressive, there
fore. in his assurance that the French and Eng
lish peoples far from being dspiried at this cru
ciaI juncture, are more chan ever resolute. 81
mean the morale of the men in uniform and of the
people a whole" he said in emphasis OF his
first remark; their determination to win at any
cost is admirable"
The vast significance of this determination lies
in the fact that Germanys chief if not only chance
of getting peace before her militarism is over
whelmed is to wear down the morale of the Allied
peoples. 1t is extremely doubtful that she has
hope of defeating or of permanently withstanding
the Allied armies on the Western front, which is
commonly accepted as the one war area where
military decision can be obtained. She may make a
number of bold and locally successful thrusts as in
the recent counter-ofensive at Cambria With the
enormous achievements of men and guns which
the Russian detection enables to bring from the
East she may succeed even in carrying out an ex-
tensive drive Certainly it is to be expected that
within the next few months at latest by early
spring, she will put forth maximum effort to that
end, a reinforcement to her peace maneuvers
But unless the most competent military observers
whose opinion the public hears altogether de-
ceived, the utmost that could come of German
offensive in the West would be a temporary push
hooly Of tba nd tic
position applies, of course, to conditions as they
are now, not as they will be when the Americans
take the front in formidable numbers. But what
would such successes, purchased at calamitous
cost to her waning man-power, avail if at the end
of it all the Allied armies stood unbroken and the
Allied peoples unwavering in determination to
win?
Having learned, to her incalculable COST at the
Marine and Verdun and scores of lesser fields
that the French and British armies cannot be
broken, Germany now turns to a shrewdly timed
offensive against the French and British peoples,
and against the American people as well. She
hopes to accomplish in France and England and
the United States what her adroit agents, aided
by treason and tragic folly, have accomplished in
Russia. Whatever offensive she undertakes will
not be drive for victory but for an inconclusve
peace and while outwardly directed against men
in the trenches will be aimed fundamentally
against men and women in the shops and fields
and homes. Knowing the desperate straits to
which his own subjects reduced in this fourth
winter of the war, the Kaiser calculates that the
moral endurance of the Allied peoples has worn
so thin that series of sharp and skilful strokes
will pierce it through 1t is thus and thus only
that he hopes to end the war and escape justice
before Americas decisive strength is thrown fully
into the balance
Hence the capital significance of Colonel
Houses report concerning the morale of the
French and British public. In the iron stead
fastness of those free peoples reinforced by Amer
lean faith and power, lies the answer to Hohenzol-
lern craft 1t has long been manifest that this
fict of armies as a conflict of nations. 1t is a
war of ploughshares and FORCES, of principles and
ideals, of hearts and nerves and souls. 1t is
fight in which the plain people have more to do
and have more at stake than they had in any
other war of history. 1t is not simply test of
soIdiership but an allsearching test of character
too-the character of the American people and of
the British and the French people at grips with
the Huns. 1t is on that invisible field that the
mightiest of all armies mustered; it is there
that every patriot can take his stand and through
the humblest means strike for victory it is there
that Prussianism hopes to trick and conquer the
allied democracies; and it is there that Prussian-
ism will be blotted out.
Reversing the usual order, would suggest
one lump of sugar where two used to be taken.
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