Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1918-04-11

military masters, the men who act for
Germany and exhibit her purpose in
execution, proclaimed a very different
conclusion. We cannot mistake what
they have done-in Russia, In Fin
land, in the Ukraine, in Rumania.
The real test OF their justice and
fair play has come. From this we
may judge the rest. They are enjoy
ing in Russia cheap triumph In
which no brave or gallant nation can
long take pride. A great people, help
less by their own act, lies for the
time at their mercy. The time for,
fair professions is forgotten. They
nowhere set up justice but every
where impose their power, and exploit
everything for their own use and
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT; and the peoples of
conquered provinces are invited to be
free under their dominion.
Are we not justified in believing
that they would do the same things
at their western front II they were
not there face to face with armies
whom even their countless divisions
cannot overcome? II, when they have
felt their check to be final, they
should propose favorable and equit-
able terms with regard to Belgium
and France and Italy, could they
blame US If we concluded that they
did so only to assure themselves OF
free hand in Russia and the east?
Their purpose undoubtedly Is to
make all the Slavic peoples. ali the
free and ambitious nations Of the Bal
tic peninsula, all the lands that Tur-
key has dominated and misruled, sub
ject to their will and ambition and
build upon that dominion an empire
of force upon which they fancy they
can then erect an empire Of gain and
commercial supremacy-an empire
as Hostile to the Americas as to The
Europe which 1t will oyerawe an EN-
pire which will ultimately master Per-
sia, India and the peoples Of the far
east.
In such q program our ideals, the
ideals of justice and humanity and
liberty, the principle Of the free self
determination Of nations upon which
all the modern world insists, can play
no part. They are rejected for the
ideals Of power; for the principle that
the strong must rule the weak, that
fv@oA do N,cf fha foo hat 11n
those to whom 1t is taken welcome it
or not, that the peoples Of the world
are to be made subject to the patron
age and overlordship OF those, who
have the power to enforce it.
That program once carried out,
America and all who care or dare to
stand with her must arm and prepare
themselves to contest the mastery OF
the world. mastery in which the
rights Of common men, the rights OF
women, and Of all who are weak,
must, for the time being, be trodden
under foot and disregarded, and the
old, age long struggle for freedom
and right begin again at its beginning.
Everything that America has lived
for and loved and grown great to
vindicate and bring to glorious re.
alization will have fallen in utter ruin
and the gates Of mercy once more
pitilessly shut upon mankindi!
The thing is prepostrous and i'm,
possible! And yet is that not what the
whole course and action Of the Ger.
man armies has meant wherever they
have moved?
do not wish, even in this moment
of utter establishment to judge
harshly or unrighteously. Judge on
ly what the German arms have &C.
complished with simplifying thorough.
ness throughout every fair region
they have touched.
What, then, are we to do?
For myself, am ready, ready still,
ready even now, to discuss fair and
Just and honest peace at any time
that 1t is sincerely purposed a peace
in which the, strong and the weak
shall fare alike, but the answer, when
/ proposed such q peace, came from
the German commanders in Russia,
and cannot mistake the meaning OF
the answer.
accept the challenge!
know that you accept 1t. All the
world shall know that you accept it.
1t shall appear in the utter sacrifice
and self forgetfulness with which we
shall give all that we love and all
that we have to redeem the world and
make 1t fit for free men like ourselves
to live in. This, now, is the meaning
OF that we do.
Let everything that we say, my fell
low countrymen, everything that we
henceforth plan and accomplish, ring
true to this response, until the males.
ty and might Of our concerted power
shall fill the thought and utterly de.
feat the force Of those who fout and
misprize what We honor and hold
dear.
Germany has once more said that
f0rce and force alma shodI Ano;Ja