The Washington herald., 1917-03-02
Teutoni,m at Its Best.

ment has been soliciting Mexico, and
aimed to solicit Japan, to join in war
upon this nation.
s The Secretary of State of the
United States is authority for the an
nouncement that Germany, at the
very hour when she was enlisting the
good offices of this government in
behalf of peace, "to avert further
bloodshed," was planning to knife
this nation in the back.
The revelation has caused a shock
among Americans who believed that
some lingering impulse of decency,
some survival of national morality,
might still be found among those who
guide the destinies Of Prussianism. 1t
is hard for them to believe that a
whole nation has become morally in
sane. Even now they have difficulty
in grasping the ruffian spirit of the
Berlin foreign office.
1t is clear that this spirit of unbe-
lief exists in Congress. 1t was ex-
pressed in the tedious debate on the
floor of the Senate yesterday; a de-
bate which, unless we are greatly mis-
taken, will be referred to in later
years as a national disgrace. There
Is only one conceivable justification
for it; peevish feeling that the Pres
ident should have communicated such
vital information to Congress first
and to the press afterward. But the
proceeding was reversed, for reasons
which to the White House are doubt
less sufficient; and Congress is called
upon to subordinate minor matter
of pique to the crisis which confronts
the country unless it wishes to be
written down as the most pettifog-
ging and pin-headed aggregation oi
legislators that the present generation
has seen.
The Zimmerman dispatch-the
procuring" of which will, when pub
lishcd, form one of the most thrilling
Secret Service stories OF years-takes
the ground out from under William
Jennings Bryan and the other tawdry
pacihsts who are here fighting the
President. II they refuse to see the
handwriting on the wall now, then
their purblindness is less a matter of
personal fault and more a question of
national peril. Their Spokesmen
in Congress are making sorry show
of themselves, to use no harsher
words. When a man like Senator
William Alden Smith, OF Michigan,
can declare a document which has
the backing of the President an
obvious forgery. then it is indeed high
time to find out exactly where this
nation stands When Senator Stone,
chairman of the. Senate Foreign Re-
lations Committee, supposedly a
friend and ally of the President, can
make the pitiablc spectacle of him
self that he did yesterday, then we
can only exclaim, in the words of the
New York World of yesterday, God
save the republic"
1t is unthinkable that this situation
in Congress can continue. 1t is i'm
possible. Either the President must
dominate in the present crisis or he
must be overthrown. There is no
middle course compatible with Amer
lean dignity and honor. If the Pres
ident's policy is to be overthrown,
then again we say. God save the re-
public"
The grOtcsqueness OF the German
scheme-the sheer gauchcrie OF it
does not rob it OF mendacity or dam
ger. Japan has clean hands, and there
is every reason to believe the Zim-
mcrmann proposal did not reach her;
indeed, Secretary Lansing says he
has no evidence to show it ever reach
ed Carranza. That it did reach Bern
storf and the German Minister in
Mexico City is a matter of verified
evidence; and as to the recent Ger
man Ambassador to the United States
he must henceforward remain in
American memory as the true Machi-
avelli of Washington. diplomacy. as
more than one official of the State
Department will testify.
Americans arc cynical and, as re-
CARDS war >cares, Unconditional We
have been huirbugged too often by
our jingo"e in the past But at last
VIC have struck the real thing. Those
who make light OF it are simply dis
playing lamcntabie ignorance, those
who seek 10 discount it are actuated
by motives which would have a sinis-
ter color in the sunlight; those who
are unmoved by it are making ques-
tionable thcir status in the responsible
citizenry of republic.