Middletown transcript., 1918-04-13

honor our own cause. For we ask
nothing that we are not willing to
accord.
1t has been with this thought that
I have sought to learn from those who
spoke for Germany whether it was
Justice or dominion and the execution
of their own will upon the other ma.
tons Of the world that the German
leaders were seeking. They have an
swered, answered in unmistakable
terms. They have avowed that it was
not justice, but dominion, and the un:
hindered execution of their own will.
Statesmen W. Military Leaders.
The avowal has not come from Ger
nany's statesmen. Il has come from
her military leaders, who are her res:
rulers. Her statesmen have said that
they wished peace. and we're ready to
discuss its terms, whenever their Op-
ponents were willing to sit down at
the conference table with them. Her
present Chancellor has said-in in
definite and uncertain terms, indeed.
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; professed their de-
sire to conclude fair peace and &C
cord to the people with whose for
tunes they were dealing the right to
choose their own auegiances. But
action accompanied and followed the
profession. Their 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 Roumania. The real test
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 NATHAN 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
everywhere impose their power and
exploit everything for their own use
and aggrandfzement; 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 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 favorable and equi-
table 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?
The Objects Of Germany In Plain
Their purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious nations Of che
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 then erect an empire
of gain and commercial supremacy
an empire as hostile to the Americans
as to the Europe which it will over
awe-an empire which will ultimately
master Persia. India and the peoples
of the Far East. In such program
our 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 princi-
pie that the strong must rule the
weak, that trade must follow the flag.
whether those to whom it Is taken
welcome it or not, that the peoples OF
the world are to be subject to the
patronage and overlordship of those
who have the power to enforce it.
That program, once carried out,
American 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 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 at its beginning. Everything
that America has lived for and loved
and grown great to vindicate and
bring to a glorious realization will
have fallen in utter ruin, and the
gates of mercy once more pitilessly
shut upon mankind!
The thing is preposterous and i'm
possible, and yet it is not that what
the whole course and action of the
German armies has meant wherever
thew have moved? do not wish,
even in this moment of utter disillu-
sionment, to judge harshly or upright
eously. l judge only what the Ger
man arms have accomplished with
unpitving thorOughness throughout
every fair region they have touched.
Still Ready to Discuss Honest Peace.
What, then, are we to do? For
myseh I am ready, ready still, ready
even now, to discuss fair and just
and honest peace at any time that 1t