The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1917-12-08

we had or did not have the brains
ana the initiative to surpass her. But
at the moment when she had con-
spicuously won her triumphs of peace
she threw them away, to establish In
their stead what the world will no
longer permit to be established, mill
tary and political domination by arms,
by which to GUST 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
Prussian menace, but it must Also
deliver the people Of Austria Hun
gary, the peoples Of the Balkans and
the peoples of Turkey alike in Eu-
rope and in Asia, from the impudent
and alien domination Of the Prussian
military and commercial autocracy.
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 politi-
cally. we do not purpose or desire to
dictate to them in any way. We only
desire to see that their affairs are
left in their own hands. in all matters,
g.eat or small. We shall hope to Sc
cure for the peoples of the Balkan
peninsula and for the people of the
Turkish empire the right and oppor-
tunity to make their own lives safe,
their own fortunes secure against OPP
preston or injustice 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 wrong
against the German empire, no inter-
ference with her internal affairs. We
should deem either the one or the
other absolutely unjustifiable, abso-
lutely contrary to the principles we
have professed to live by and to hold
most sacxed throughout our life as a
nation.
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 self de
fcnse against deliberate aggression
Nothing could be moro grossly or
wantonly false. and we must seek by
the utmost openness and candor as ~
our real aims to convince them of its
falseness. We are, in fact, fighting
for their emancipation from fear,
along with our own--from the fear
as well as from the fact of unjust at-
tack By ineighbors or rivals or schcna-
ers after world empire No one is
threatening the existence or the indie
pendence or the peaceful enterprise
OF the German empire.
THE worst that can happen to the
detrimcnt Of the German people is
this. that IL they should still, after
the war is over, continue to be OBJ
liged to live under ambitious and in
triguing masters interested to disturb
the peace Of the world. men or class
es Of men whom the other peoples of
the world cannot trust, it might be inn
possible to admit them to the part
nership of nations which must hence
forth guarantee the worlds peace. The
partnership must be a partnership OF
peoples. not q mere partnership of
governments. 1t might be impos-
sible. also in such untoward circum-
stances to admit Germany to the
free economic intercourse which must
inevitably spring out OF the other
partnerships Of real peace. But
there would be no aggression i'm that;
and such a situation, inevitable be-
cause or distrust, would in the very
nature Of things sooner or later cure
itself, by process which would as
suredly set in.
THE wrongs the very deep wrongs
committed i'm this war Will have to be
righted. That OF course. But they can
not and must not be righted by the
commission Of similar wrongs against
Germany and her allies, The world
Will not permit tho commission OF
similar wrongs az a means or repara
tion and settlement. Statesmen must
by this time have learned that the
opinion OF the world Is everywhere