Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1917-06-14

l
department here. Arrangements have
been made, it was learned today, for
precedence to be given his dispatches
and the department messages to
Pershing over the Atlantic cables
what purpose it is we seek to serve.
| "It is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The extraordin-
airy insults and aggression of the I'M
pcrial German government left us no
self respecting choice but to take up
arms in defense of our rights as free
people and of our honor as a sovereign
government. The military masters Of
Germany denied us the right to be neu-
tral. They filled our unsuspecting COM
munities with vicious spies and consip-
rators and sought to corrupt the opinion
of our people in their own behalf. When
they found they could not de that, their
agents diligently spread sedition
amongst us and sought to draw our own
citizens from their allegiance and
some Of these agents were men connect
ed with the official embassy Of the
German government itself in our own
capital. They sought by violence to
destroy our industries and arrest our
commerce. They tried to incite Mexico
to take up arms against us and to draw
Japan into hostile alliance with her
and that not by indirection, but by
direct suggestion from the foreign Of
flee in Berlin. They impudently denied
US the use of the high seas and repeat
edly executed their threats that they
would send to their death any of our
people who ventured to approach the
coasts of Europe. And many OF our
own people were corrupted Men began
to look upon their own neighbors with
suspicion and to wonder in their hot re-
sentiment and surprise whether there
was any community in which hostile
intrigue did not work. What great ma;
ton in such circumstances would not
have taken up armsf Much as we de-
sired peace, it was denied us and not Of
our choice. This flag under which we
serve would have been dishonored had
we withheld our hand.
Not Enemy of German People.
"But that is only part of the story.
We know naw as clearly as we knew
before we were ourselves engaged that
we were not the enemies of the Ger
man people and that they are not our
enemies. They did not originate. or de-
sire this hideous war or wish that we
should be drawn into it; and we are
vaguely conscious that we are fighting
their cause as they will some time sec,
as well as our own. They are themselves
in grip of the same sinister power
that has now at least stretched its ugly
talons out and drawn blood from u.s. 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 il is to be
brought under its mastery or fling itself
free.
"The war was begun by the military
masters of Germany who proved TO bt
also the masters of Austria Hungary.
"These men have never regarded ma
tions as peoples, men, women and chii-
dren of like blood and frame as them.
selves, for whom governments existed
and in whom governments had their
life. They have regarded them mere
ly as serviceable organizations which
they could by force or intrigue bend or
corrupt to their own purpose. They re-
oarded the smaller states in particular
and the peoples who could be over
wbelmed bv force as their neutral tools
and instruments of domination. Their
purpose has been long avowed. The
statesmen of other nations, to wnom
that purpose was incredible, paid little
attention; regarded what German pro-
fessors expounded in their class rooms
and German writers set forth to the
world as the goal Of German policy as
rather the dream of minds detached
from practical affairs, as preposterous
private conceptions of German destiny
then as the actual plans of responsible
rulers; but the rulers of Germany them |
selves knew all the while what concrete
plans, what well advanced intrigue lay
back OF what the professors and the
writers we're saying and were glad to go
unmolested, filling the thrones
of the Balkan states with German prln
res. putting German officers at the serv-
lee of Turkey to drill her armies and
make interest with her government, de-
velopine plans of sedition and rebellion
n India and Egypt setting their fires
IN Persia. The demands made by Aus
,ria upou Serbia were mere single
step in plan which compressed Europe
and s,u Asia from Berlin to Bagdad. They
honed these demands might not arouse
Europe, but they meant to press them
whether they did or not, for they
thought themselves ready for the final
issues Of arms.
planned to Control Asia
Their plan was to throw broad belt
Of German military power and political
control across the very center Of Europe
and beyond the Mediterranean into the
heart az Asia and Austria Hungary was
n be as much their tool and pawn as
serbia or Bulgaria or Turkey or the
ponderous states Of the east. Austria
Hungary, indeed, was to become part
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