New Britain herald., 1917-04-03

purpose and of action .As will hence- forth insure the obssrvancs Of those
 principles. :.
 .'Neutrality Is no longer fsaable sr
 desirable where the peace of the
 world is involved and the freedom of
 lts peoples, and the menace to that
 peace and freedom lies in the exist
 once of autocratfc governments sbacked by organized force which ts controlled wholly by their will, not
 by the will of their people.
 We are at the beginning of ar
 age in which it will be insisted that
 the same standards of conduct and
 of responsibility for wrong done shall
 be observed among nations and their
 governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized
 states.
 we have no quarrel with the Ger
 man people. We have no feeling
 towards them, but one of sympathy and friendship. 1t was not upon
 their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was
 not with their previous knowledge .or approval.
 ''1t was . war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in SesV OANs uAAAAekpQy U0y0 WA40I POOQAOO were nowhere hero consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or
 of little groups of ambitious men who wore accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.
 "Self-governed nations do not fill
 their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions.
 "Cunningly contrived plans of de- ception or aggression, carried, 1t may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded con- hdences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible 1 where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concern ing all the nations affairs.
 "A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a part
 nership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trust ed to keep faith within it or observe it's covenants. It must be a league of
 honor. a partnership of opinion. In- | trigue would eat its vitals away; the
 plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render acc count to no one would be corrup-
 ton seated at its very heart
 Only free people can hold their purposes and their honor steady to | a nYA y~A ests of mankind to any narrow inter-
 est of their own.
 Does not every American feel that
 assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by
 the wonderful and heartening things
 that have been happening within the
 last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact demo- l cratic at heart in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate re- latfonshipsa of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual
 attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her. po-
 litical structure, long as it had stood | and terri ible as was the reality of it's power, was not in fact Russian in
 origin, character. or purpose; and | now it has been shaken off and the ] great, generous Russian, people have
 been added, in all their naive majesty | and might to the. forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is 8 fit partner for League of Honor. one of the things that has served to convince us that the Rrussian au- tocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very out set of the present war 1t has filled our unsuspecting communities. and even II our offices of government. with spies and set criminal intrigles everywhere afoot asAinst our national unity of counsel, our peace within and with out, our induAtx1es and our com mercA Indeed, IL is now evident that it's spies wexp.here even before the war began; and # is unhappily not 8
 matter of cdf3scture. but fact proved In our courts of justice. that | the intrigues, which have more than once come perilously near to dis turbing the peace and dislQcating the industries of the country. have been carried on at the instigation. with the 1 support, and even under the personal kdirection of ohdcial agents of tho I'm l perial government. accredited to the government of the United States.
 '.Even in checking these things and ] trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous inter | pretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay. not in | any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us. (who were. no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ! ourselves were,) but only in the selfish designs of a government that did. what it pleased and told it's | people nothing. But they have played 1 their part in serving to convince us l at last that that goYernment enter