New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-30
The Final Word


speaks the word and the purpose Of the
united American people, but it is also the
final word of Western civilization to that
system of barbarisnl- which. do-si1atess asn :
controls the German Empire. If one were
to seek an historical parallel it might be
found in the ultimate decision of the ma
tions allied against Napoleon in 1914 to
make no war upon the French people and
to make no peace with Napoleon. Then
Europe recognized that peace with Ma
poleon still powerful was futile. Now the
Western world clearly perceives that
reace with those who control Germany at
present, as they have controlled 1T In all
the terrible recent years, will be a mock
cry and truce.
When Germany assaulted the world three
years ago, after forty-three years of prep
aration, she tore up treaties which bound
her national honor; she deied the re-
straints of humanity and the conventions
of civilization; she murdered the weak
nation and the helpless child with equal
readiness; and she sought by every crime
and by every utilization of force to achieve
world power and world domination and
to found magnified German Empire upon
the ruin of European liberty and the de-
struction of Western civilization.
This assault was halted at the Marine
snd broken at Verdun. Thereafter it be-
came the single purpose of those who
dominated Germany to achieve a peace
which should leave their prestige I'M
shaken, permit them to harvest some
fruits from their initial victories and,
above all, to prepare for that next time
when all mistakes should be avoided, all
miscalcuations rectified and what was
lost at the Marine and at Verdun be won
in newer struggles with more fortunate
erdings. This was the purpose and in
tent of the Kaiser's peace proposal year
ago; this has been the underlying pur-
pose of German policy ever since. In Mr..
Wilson's wise and opposite phrase, the
world to-day faces Germany baff1ed but
not defeated, still dedicated to the prac-
tice and the methods of barbarism and
still devoted to the doctrines which have
turned Western Europe into a field of
carnage and brought destruction to gen.
Grafton of youth and to the monuments of
centuries.
To-day this German system is at bay.
To-day those who sought to conquer by
unrestricted violence, by unfettered ruth
lessness, stand in the shadow of defeat,
fatal to their power and their prestige,
which can be avoided only if premature
peace interrupts the slow but certain
processes of justice and the steady march
Of right.
1t is the enduring merit of Mr.. Will
sons letter to the Pope that it has set
forth simply, clearly and unhesitatingly
the purpose of Western civilization to
have done now and decisively with that
German system still dominant at home
and still diabolical abroad. Certain jour
nails are wont to tell US that we must
hasten to make peace now lest bitterness
and hatred be stimulated, because, after
all, we shall have to continue in this world
TO live with the German people. But this
is q strange misleading Of the facts. 1t is
because we shall have to continue TO live
with the German people that we must
now fight on until the German people are
willing TO recognize basis on which there
can be a resumption of peaceful inter-
course.
For forty years those who controlled
German destinies planned to destroy the
lives Of the nations about them. They
plotted against the security the integrity,
the liberty Of Belgium, Of France, Of Eng
land and Of the United States. At one
moment they sought TO arm themselves
as no nation ever armed for struggle in
the field and to disarm their enemies by
;reacherous methods, by vicious intrigue.
by every course that was at once dishon-
cradle and deadly. Once the war came
Germany burst upon the world like a
man-eating tiger, sparing neither sex nor
condition. That which the Germans had
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