The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-06-14
GERMANY TRYING PEACE INTRIGUE
 SAYS PRESIDENT
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<unsuspecting communities with Vfct- &ous spies and conspirators and sought sto corrupt the opinion of our people ffn their own behalf. When they Hound that they could not do that, their agents diligently spread sedition ahmongst us and sought to draw our &eEn citizens from their allegiance and some of these agents were men |connected with the official embassy of the German government itself here in our own capital. They sought by violence to destroy our industries and arrest our commerce. They tried to lincite Mexico to take up arms against Jus and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance with her.-and that, not by hndirection. but by direct suggestion from the foreign office in Berlin. They tmpudently denied us the use Apf the high seas and repeatedly eke- 4cuted their threat that they would tsend to their, death any of our people lwho ventured to approach the coasts of Europe. And many of our own people were Corrupted. Men began ito look upon their own neighbors with suspicion and to wonder in their shot resentment and surprise whether there was any community in which hostile intrigue did not Turk. What great nation in such circumstances would not have taken up arms? Much as we had desired peace, 1t was de- tnied us, and not of our own choice. This Flag under which we serve would have been dishonored had we with held our hand.
 "But that is only part of the story. We know now as clearly as we knew ebefore we were ourselves engaged Ihat we are not the enemies of. the Herman people and that they are not [. vl,oxr nnt nvip pi nj aor desire this hideous war or wish that we should be drawn into it; and we are vaguely conscious that we are lighting their cause, as they will some day see 1t, as we'll as our own. They are themselves in the grip of the same sinister power that has now at last stretched it's ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. The whole world is at war because the whole world is in the grip of that power and is trying out the great battle which shall determine whether it is to be brought under its mastery or fling itself free.
 '"The war was begun by the mil1- fary masters of Germany. who proved to be also the masters of Austria Hungary. These men have never re- sgarded nations as peoples. men. wom- .en, and children of like blood and frame as themselves. for whom gov / \ ernments existed and in whom gov ernments had their life. They have regarded them merely as serviceable organizations which they could by force or intrigue bend or corrupt to their own purpose. They have re- garded the smaller states, in pardcu- lar, and the peoples who could be Overwhelmed by force, as their na- tural tools and instruments of dom- ination. Their purpose has long been nvowed. The statesmen of other na- Hons, to whom that purpose was in- credible, paid little attention; re- pounded in their classrooms and German writers set forth to the world as the goal of Ger man policy as rather the dream of minds. detached from practical affairs, as preposterous private conceptions of Herman destiny, than as the actual plans of responsible rulers; but the :. rulers of Germany themselves knew all the while what concrete plans what well advanced intrigues lay back of what the professors and the writers were saying, and were glad to go forward unmolested, filling the thrones of Balkan states with German princes, putting German officers al the service of Turkey to drill heI armies and make interest with hel governmept. developing plans of se- dition and rebellion in India and Egypt, setting their fires in Persia Ehe demands made by Austria upor &ervia were a mere single step in g 8lan which compassed Europe and Asia, from Berlin to Bagdad. They Noped those demands might not arous. Europe, but they meant to press then whether they did. or not, for the. thought themselves ready for the fl nal issue of arms.
 & Their plan was to throw broas : Relt of German military power ant politicaI control across the very cen Ire of Europe and beyond the Medi terranean into the heart of Asia; ant Austria-Hungary was to be as mucl hheir tool and pawn as Servia ol Bulgaria or Turkey or the ponderou states of the East Austria Hungary indeed. was to become part of tn Central German Empire, absorbed an dominated by the same forces and in fluences that had originally cement Cd the German states themselves. Tn dream had it's heart at Berlin. could have had a heart nowhere else It rejected the idea of solidarity c race entirely. The choice of people played no part in it at all. It cor Templ1LeO DlnO1uS LOScIucT TdCidA cu political units which could be kept tt gether only by force-Czechs, Mas Iyars, Croats. Serbs, Roumanian Turks, Armenians-the proud state Of Bohemia and Hungary, the stol little commonwealths of the Balkan the indomitable Turks, the subti
 peoples of the East. These people did not wish to be united They a. Identity desired to direct their own a
 fairs, would be, satisfied only by Ill disputed independence. They cou be kept quiet only by the presence lfhe constant threat of armed me lThey would live under a common poy Ter only by sheer compulsion and ava Ifhe day of revolution But the Ge man military statesmen had recko
 led with all that and were ready
 Ideal with it in their own way.
 'sAnd they have actually carried u bgreater part of that amazing plan 1
 Eto execution. Look how things stan kAustria is at their mercy It has al led, not upon it's own initiative or u kon the choice of its own people, b
 lat Berlin's dictafion ever since t
 twar began. Its people now desi kpeace, but cannot have it until lea
 lis granted from Berlin The so-ca