New-York tribune., 1918-08-26
The Only Peace

words are as a shaft of pure white light
piercing the confusion of many phrases.
The peace he sees is not the "clean
peace" of the British Labor party, sub
stituted for the white peace" It is not
the democratic" peace of the American
liberal. 1t is not the 'peace of media
ton" gently urged by daring pacifsts.
1t is not the peace by diplomacy with
the thought of which "The New Repub
lie" school of emotion was recently so in
fatuated. 1t is not, and cannot be, ne
gotiated peace, nor peace in which
Germany has anything to stipulate. 1t
cannot be a peace of bargains and ar
rangements. 1t must be utterly different
from any peace the world has ever
known. 1t must be peace by the sword,
dictated on the enemy's soil.
The victory, says Senator Lodge,
"must be won inside, not outside the Ger
man frontier. 1t must be won finally
and thoroughly on German territory, and
can be so won nowhere else"
And when this victory is achieved,
when Germany is beaten on her own soil,
when the enemy has surrendered-then
there shall be "a complete peace" die
tated by the Allies.
The reduction of Gerrany's power is
the first aim. The position reserved for
her in the world shall be one in which
she can do no more harm. And unless
we mean to achieve that end, says Sena-
tor Lodge, we are fighting and wasting
our strength and treasure for vain
thing.
We are not the saviors of the Ger
man people. We are not in this war to
arrange a government for them. They
will get the kind of government they de-
serve-"just as they now have the gov
ernment they prefer, whose purposes and
ambitions and barbarisms they sus-
tain"
Our task is to free the world from this
lntolerable German thing. It cannot be
destroyed utterly, but it can be locked up.
Senator Lodge is not of those who hold
that a criminal nation has economic
rights in the means to further frightful-
ness-i. e. coal and iron. To disarm
modern nation you do not search its
pockets. You limit it's resources in raw
materials. Therefore, says Senator
Lodge, Germany shall give up Alsace-
Lorraine mot merely because sentiment
and eternal justice demand it, but be-
cause the iron and coal of Lorraine must
be forever taken from Germany"
Besides causing Germany to surrender
everything she has taken by conquest.
he would throw Jugo-Slav and Czecho-
Slav states across her pathway to the
East, put the Turk out of Europe. re-
store to Italy all that is racially Italian.
including Trieste, and make the Darda-
nelles common thoroughfare.
There are many who say-with what
secret or unconscious emotions we do NOT
know-that the doctrine of peace by the
sword is wrong and unwise, because if
the enemy hears that he is to surrender
or perish he will be made desperate and
unreasonable, which would tend to pro-
long the war. The answer to this is that
those who fear for the effect of this doc
trlne upon the German mind and upon
tho length Of the war have never them
selves believed the phrase they glibly
speak, namely, peace by victory" To
great many people that is vague
phrase, meaning victory by any "honor-
able means To Senator Lodge, victory
means the reduction Of the enemy and his
unconditional surrender That will be
ITS meaning increasingly from this time
forward. We wish that were already its
meaning to the whole country, and we
earnestly wish the Republican party
would adopt as its own Senator LODGES
logical and unequivocal statement of war
aims, with the slogan:
No peace but one dictated By the
allies ON the other side Of the Rhine.