Bisbee daily review., 1918-06-27
German Boundaries

rule in national policy these days from Germany, and new codes of honor, and new precepts founded upon the rights and happiness of humanity alone. First came the kaiser, in little speech the other day before his general staff, and said, Either German principles of rig ght and honor and morality must be upheld, or Anglo-Saxon principles with their idolatry of mammon must be victorious" Is this not a most beautiful and righteous sentiment, coming from the kaiser, and frank, too. He ad- mits for the first time the cause of the war and makes a declaration of the principles that now divide the world into two armed camps. German honor and freedom and principle of right versus the Anglo-Saxon ideal Angels and ministers of grace de- fend usl Butchery, plunder, murder rape, rapine and ruthlessness versus democracy, where right alone is might.
 And now comes Won Keuhlmann, the German foreign minister, and declares that poor, cowed, half crazy Russia started the war and that Germany IS now fighting for "a free, strong, indeDendent existence with in the boundaries drawn for them by his tory If the angels ever wept, they have no occasion to smile over these words from nations official spokesman. Let us con suit the keeper of the record and the seals and see what history has drawn for Ger many in the way of boundaries? Natural German boundaries were gradually shaped during that period between the defeat of the Roman legions by Arrninius and the rise and fall of Charlemagne When ancient conquerors had turned to dust and the na- tions of Europe emerged from the shadows of barbarism into the light of Christian civ ilization, each tribe and race adjusted itself to land and boundaries in keeping with their size, their strength and their intel ligence. Destiny marked these lines more than a thousand years ago, and while they have been changed often since then by an Edward of England and Charles of Spain and Charles of Sweden and Louis and Napoleon of France yet the changes have always been vain and fleeting and the bal ance of power, based upon some immutable law of the supply and demand that implac- ably controls distinctive races in their pos session of lands, has always resumed its original sway.
 The group of Germanic races occupied Prussia Thuringia, Wurtemburg, Bavaria. Saxony and the Rhine provinces. The boundaries drawn by history" for this group were pretty close. Not until the time of Frederick the Great did the Ger mans begin to carve territory from Europe. Frederick siezed Silesia from the unfort- unate Maria Louisa Prussia had domin- ated the German provinces, dutchies and states and Prussian boundaries were elastic, spreading out until all teutonic peoples were united under Prussian rule except Austria-l1ungary, and this nation was soundly beaten by Prussia and half dozen or so of her provinces to the west taken from her and made part of Germany proper.
 History and fate have drawn boundaries shrank on the Prussian until he had noth- ing but Prussia proper left. But there IS nothing in history that gives Prussia any title to Belgium. On the contrary, it was in Belgium and with Belgian and English aid that Prussia won her freedom from the Napoleonic yoke Therefore her histcrial associations with Belgium as a free and independent nation were sacred and scnti- mental as we'll as most friendly and bound by pledges and treaties History, therefore drew an impossible boundary line between Germany and Belgium.
 History and fate have drawn boundaries between Prussia and the Russian provinces EIistorys boundary lines decreed that AlsaceL Lorraine were French lands and French blood History has always decreed that her immutable lines that allot so much land to a tribe; nation shall not be dis torted by power and conquest for long at a time.
 And with each century of civilization