The Elbert County tribune., 1918-04-12
Ukraine. in Rumania. The real test
of their Justice and fair play has come. |

OF their justice and fair play has come.
From this we may Judge the rest
They are enjoying in Russia cheap
triumph in which no brave or gallant
nation can long take pride. A great
people, helpless by their own act, lies
for the time at their mercy. Their
fair professions are forgotten. They
nowhere set up Justice. but every
where impose their power and exploit
everything for their own use and ag-
grandizement: and the peoples of con-
quered provinces are invited to be free
under their dominion.
Are we not justified in believing
that they would do the same things
at their western front If they were
not there face to face with armies
whom even their countless divisions
cannot overcome?
If, when they have felt their check
to be final, they should propose favor
able and equitable terms with regard
to Belgium and France and Italy,
could they blame us II we concluded
that they did SO only to assure them
selves of free hand in Russia and
the East?
Their purpose undoubtedly is to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious nations 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 they
can then erect an empire of gain and
commercial supremacy-an empire as
hostile to the Americas as to the Eu-
rope which 1t 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
liberty, the principle of the free self
determination of nations upon which
all the modern world insists, can play
10 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 it is taken welcome 1t
or not, that the peoples of the world
are to be made subject to the patron
age and oyerlordship Of those who
have the power TO enforce it.
That program once carried out, Am
erica and all who care or dare to
stand with her must arm and prepare
themselves to contest the mastery of
the world, a mastery in which the
rights of commen 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-lohg struggle for freedom and
right begin again at its beginning.
Everything that America has lived
for and loved and grown great to vim
dictate and bring to glorious realiza-
tion will have fallen in utter ruin and
the gates of mercy once more pitt
lessly shut upon mankind!
That program once carried out, Am
possible! And yet is not that what
the whole course and action of the
German armies has meant wherever
they have moved? / do not wish,
even in this moment of utter disillu-
sionment to Judge harshly or unright-
eously. l judge only what the Ger
man arms have accomplished with un-
plying thoroness thruout every fair
region they have touched
WHAT, then, arc we to do?
For myself, l am ready, ready still,
ready even now, to discuss fair and
just and honest peace at any time
that 1t is sincerely proposed-a peace
in which the strong and the weak
shall fare alike. but the answer when
l proposed such peace. came from
the German commanders in Russia,
the answer.
l accept the challenge!
know that you accept it. All the
world shall know that you accept it.
1t shall appear in the utter sacri-
flee and self-forgetfulness with
which we shall give all that we love
and all that we have to redeem the
world and make it 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, until the
majesty and might of our concerted
power shall fill the thought and ut
terly defeat the force of those who
flout and misprize what we honor
and hold dear.
Germany has once more said that
force, and force alone, shall decide
whether justice and peace shall
reign in the affairs of men, whether
right as America conceives it or
dominion as she conceives it shall
determine the destinies of mankind.
There is, therefore. but one re-
sponse possible from US: Force,
force to the utmost, force without
stint or limit, the righteous and tri-
umphant force which shall make
right the law of the world and cast
every selfish dominion down in the
dust!
Secretary McAdoo at Philadelphia.