Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-09-17
||NCLE SAM TURNS
 DOWN PROPOSAL OF PEACE BY AUSTRIA
FcY LANSING AND PRES. WILSON SAY NO, DRAMATICALLY Y lNO DEFINITELY, TO PROPOSAL WHICH REACHED
 WASHINGTON MONDAY MORNING

By Associated Press.
 Washington, Sept. 16.-The United States, as was fully expected, has un- feeler.
 In doing so. the government has spoken for all the co-belligerents. Al- most immediately after receiving the Austrian government note from the minister from Sweden, Mir. .Eken- gren, secretary Lansing tonight issued the formal statement.
 This was announced tonight by sec- retary Lansing with the authority of president Wilson, after he had read the official text of the proposal.
 Mir. Lansing made this statement:
 ''I am authorized by the president to state that the following will be the reply of this government to the Aus tro-Hungarian note proposing an un- official conference of belligerents.
 ''The government of the U. s. feels that there is only one reply which it can make to the suggestion of the Im- perial Austria Hungarian govern ment.
 ''It has repeatedly and with entire candor stated the terms upon which the United States would consider peace and can and will entertain no proposal for conference upon mat ter concerning which it has made it's position and purpose so plain.'
 Mir. Lansing's statement was given out within an hour after he had re- ceived the Austrian proposal.
 It would have been forthcoming al most immediately upon the delivery of the Austrian note had it not been found necessary in order to avoid the possibility of grave error to make a comparison between the official text and that which was received in news despatches last night from Amster- dam
 Quick Reply.
 Thus, emphasis was added to the de- clination, if any were needed, the quckness of the reply indicating the existence of no shadow of doubt in the mind of the administration as to what it should be. As soon as MT. Lansing's reply can be put in form it will be handed tc the Swedish minis ter for transmission to Austria.
 The Swedish legation notified the state department early in the after noon that it had received the note and that it would be presented as soon as it could be decoded and trans lated from the French
 This consumed several hours and it was not until 6:20 o'clock that MT. Ekengren appeared.
 He remained with the secretary only two minutes.
 There is some reason to believe that the secretary acted with this unpre- cedented promptness in a matter of such great import with the design not only to indicate clearly the position of the United States government, but perhaps to anticipate and prevent as far as possible newspaper discussions of the Austrian proposition, which might convey to the enemy a mis- leading impression that there was any considerable element in the United States willing to consider negotiated peace, such as the non-binding" dis cussion, proposed by Austria, might develop.
 Also it is understood there was a purpose to sound the note which the entente powers might repeat in their own answers.
 All these powers had gone in record formally as accepting the conditions of peace laid down by president Will son as their own.
 | Too Much secrecy"
 While no reference to it was made in the reply which the U. s. gov ernment is making to Austria. it is known that one of the most ohjecc- tionable features of Baron Burian's proposition was the secrecy suggest 4 ed for the mon binding" conferecne. h It was realized by officials here 1Continued on page six-l