New Britain herald., 1918-05-30
TEDDY OPPOSES
 PREMATURE PEACE
German Military Power Must Be
 Smashed, He Says

(Theodore Roosevelt sounds the following forceful warning on the dangers of a premature peace in the Kansas City Star Permission for publication here was granted by the Star through the National Security League.)
 If, as now seems likely, the great German drive fails, it is at least pos sble that directly or indirectly, the Germans will then start a peace drive In such case they will probably en- deavor to make such seeming conces- sons as to put a premium upon pacl- fist agitation for peace in the Tree countries of the west against winch they are fighting. To yield to such peace proposals would be fraught with the greatest danger to the Allies, and especially to our own country Tn the future. Let us never forget that no promise Germany makes can be trusted The Kultur developed under the Hohenzollerns rests upon shame less treachery and duplicity no less than upon ruthless violence and bar parity.
 For example, there are strong in dications that Germany may be pre- nared if she now fails on the western front, to abandon all that for which she has fought on her western front, provided that in Middle Europe and in the East there is no interference with her. In other words, she would
 be prepared to give back Alsace anu Lorraine to France, to give ltahan
 Austria to Italy, to give Luxem mbourg to Belgium, and to let the Allies keep the colonies they have conquered, on
 condition that her dominance in Rus-
 sia and in the Balkans, her doml- nance of the subject peoples of Aus tria through the Austrian Hapsburgs, and her dominance of Western Asia through her vassal state, Turkey, should be left undisturbed. TO the average American, and probaply to the average Englishman and French man, there is much that is alluring in such a program. 1t might De urged as a method of stopping the frightful slaughter of war while securing every
 purpose for which the free peoples
 who still fight are fighting. Yet it would be infinitely better that this war were carried on to the point of ex- haustion than that We yield to such terms.
 Such terms would mean the definite establishment of Germanys military ascendancy on a scale never hitherto approached in the civilized world. It would mean that perhaps within a dozen years, certainly within the lifetime of the very men now nghtlnS this war, this country and the other free countries would have to choose between lowing their necks to the German yoke or else going into an- other war under conditions far more disadvantageous to them. A prema- ture and inconclusive peace now would spell ruin for the world; Juse | as in 1864 a premature and lncon- elusive peace would have spelled rum | to the United States-and in the pres | ent instance the United States would ] share the ruin of the rest of the free peoples of mankind.
 On the face of it, Germany would not become a giant empire; Just ex- act1y as on the face of 1t at present. Germany, Austria, Turkey and Bull | garia call themselves simply four al | lied nations, standing on equal terms But in reality those four powers are merely Germany and her three Vassa 1 states, whose military and economic and political powers are all disposed l of bv the Hohenzollerns. A peace such as that above outlined would