Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1918-04-12

cause. For we are asking nothing
that we are not willing to accord.
1t has been with this thought that
have sought to learn from those
who spoke for Germany whether 1t
was justice or dominion and the exc
cution of their own power upon the
nations of the world that the German
leaders were seeking. They have an
swered--answered in unmistakable
terms. They have avowed 1t is not
justice, but dominion and the un-
hindered execution of their will.
German Military Rule.
The avowal has not come from
Germans statesmen. 1t has come
from her military leaders, who are
her real rulers. Her statesmen have
said that they wished peace and were
ready to discuss it's terms whenever
their opponents were willing to sit
down at the conference table with
them.
| Her persent chancellor has said
in indefinite and uncertain terms, in
deed. and in phrases that often seem
to deny their own meaning, but with
as much plainness as he thought pru-
dent-that he believed that peace
should be based upon the principles
which we had declared would be our
own in the final settlement. At
Brest Litovsk her civilian delegates
spoke in similar terms, protested
their desire to conclude a fair peace
and accord to the peoples with whose
fortunes they were dealing the right
to choose their own allegiance. But
action accompanied and followed the
profession.
The German military masters, the
men who act for Germany and ex-
hibit her purpose in execution, pro-
claimed a very different conclusion.
We cannot mistake what they have
done-in Russia, in Finland, in the
Ukraine, in Rumania. The real test
of their justice and fair play has
come. From this we may Judge the
rest.
Enjoying Cheap Triumph.
They are enjoying in Russia a
cheap triumph in which no brave or
gallant nation can long take pride.
A great people, helpless by their own
act, lie for the time at their mercy.
Their fair professions are forgotten.
They nowhere set up justice but
everywhere impose their power and
exploit everything for their own use
and ACKNOWLEDGMENT, and the peoples
of conquered notions are invited to
be free under their dominion!
Are we not justified in believing
they would do the same things at
their western front II they were not
there face to face with armies whom
their countless divisions cannot over
come? II, when they have felt their
check to be final, they should pro-
pose favorable and equitable 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 a free hand in
Russia and the east?
Plan to Dominate Europe.
Their purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious nations of the
Baltic peninsula, all the lands that
Turkey has dominated and misruled,
subject to their will and ambition,
and build upon that dominion an en-
pire of force upon which they fancy
that they can erect an empire of gain
and commercial supremacy-an en-
pire as hostile to the Americans as to
the Europe which it will overawe-
an empire which will ultimately mas
ter Persia. India, and the peoples of
the Far East.
In such a 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 trade must follow the flag,
whether those to whom 1t is taken
welcome it or not. that the people of
the world are to be made subject to
the patronage and overlordship of
those who have the power to en-
force it,
Another Struggle for Freedom.
| That program once carried out,