Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1918-04-17

| fessed their desire to conclude fair
| peace and accord to the peoples with
| whose fortunes they were dealing the
| right to choose their own allegiances.
! 1--WE cannot mistake what they have
| done in Russia, in Finland, in the Uk-
| raine, in Roumania. The real ties. Of
| their Justice and fairness has come.
From this we may judge the rest.
"They are enjoying in Russia a
cheap triumph in which no brave or
| gallant nation can take a pride. A
great people, helpless by their own
| act, lies for the time at their mercy.
"Their fair professions are forgot
ten. They nowhere set up justice, but
everywhere impose their power and ex-
! plot everything for their own use and
| ACKNOWLEDGMENT; 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 thing at
their western front II they were not
| there face to face with armies whom
even their countless divisions cannot
| overcome.
| eff, when they have felt their check
to be final, they should propose ia
vorable and equitable terms with re-
gard to Belgium and France and Italy,
| could they blame us IL we concluded
that they did so only to assure them
selves of free hand in Russia and
| the east?
World Dominion Built In East.
"Their purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious peoples 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 that
they can then erect an empire Of gain
and commercial supremacy-an en-
| pire as hostile to the Americas as to
the Europe which it will overawe-an
empire which will ultimately master
| Persia, India, and the peoples of the
| far East.
"In such a program our ideals. the
ideals of justice and humanity and lib
erty, 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 trade
rust follow the flag, whether those
| to whom 1t Is taken welcome it or not,
that the peoples of the world are to
be made subject to the patronage and
! over-lordship of those who have the
power to enforce It.
Would Mean World Conflict.
"This 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 America has lived for
3
bring to glorious realization will
have fallen in utter ruin and the gates
of mercy once more pitilessly shut up
on mankind.
1.-THE thing Is preposterous and i'm
possible; and yet, is not that what the
| whole course and action of the Ger
rlan armies have meant wherever they
| II yich iY,
| this movement of utter establishment,
| to judge harshly or unrighteously.
| Judge only by what the German arms
! have accomplished with Implying
thoroughness throughout every fair re-
gion they have touched.
what, then, are We to do? For N.Y.
| SELF am ready, ready STILL ready even
now, TO discuss fair, just and honest
peace at any time that it is sincerely
| proposed-a peace in which the strong
! and the weak shall fare alike. But
the answer, when proposed such a
peace. came from the German comman-
| ders In Russia and l cannot mistake
the meaning of the answer.
"Force to Utmost" Only Answer.
81 accept the challenge.
81 know that you accept it. All the
world shall know that you accept it.
1t shall appear in the utter sacrifice
and self-fogetfulness 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 all that
we do. Let everything that we say,
my fellow countrymen, everything that
we henceforth plan and accomplish,
ring true to this response till the males
| ty and might of our concerted power
shall fill the thought and utterly defeat
the force of those who f1out and mis-
prize what we honor and hold dear.
Germany has once more said that