Atlanta semi-weekly journal., 1918-02-05
Ex-PreSident Delivers Stirring
. Address in Liberty Theater
on "The Great War" Friday
Afternoon

Afternoon
Peace can only be possible when the
allies have driven Germany to her
knees, declared William Howard Taft
eN-president of the United States, in his
address Friday afternoon at Camp Cor
don on THE Great War"
The substance of Mr. Tafts speech,
which was delivered i'm the Liberty
theater to the members of the One Hun
dred and SiXty-fourth infantry and the
One Hundred and F'ifty-seventh depot
brigade was as follows:
England, France, Russia. Italy and
now the United States, as allies. are
engaged in the greatest war of history
to secure permanent world peace. With
twenty or more millions of men at the
colors with the losses in dead, wounded
and captured of more than % per cent,
with debts piling mountain-high and
reaching many, many billions, they are
fighting for a definite purpose. and that
is the defeat of German militarsm. If
the Prussian military caste retains its
power to control the military and for
eign policy of Germany after the war,
peace will not be permanent, and war
will begin again when the chauvinistic
advisors of the Hohenzollern dynasty
deem a conquest and victory possible.
The war has not been won. Germany
is in possession of Belgium and part of
northern France. She holdsr Serbia and
Rumania, Poland and the Baltic prov
inces of Russia. Peace now, even
though it be made on the basis of the
restoration of the status quo without
indemnities and without annexations."
would be a failure to achieve the great
purpose for which the allies have made
heartrending sacrifice. Armaments
would continue for the next war, and
this war would have been fought in
vain.
HE who proposes peace now, there
fore, either does not see the stake for
which the allies are fighting. or wishes
the German military autocracy still to
control the destinies of all of us as to
peace or war. Those who favor perma-
nent world peace must oppose with
might and main the proposals for peace
at this juncture in the war, whether
made in sOcialistic councils, in pro-
German conferences, or by Pope Bene-
dict
''The allies are lighting for a principle
the maintenance of which affects the
future of civilization. If they do not
achieve it they have sacrificed the
flower of their youth and mortgaged
their future for a century. The allies
cannot cOncede peace until they conquer
it. When they do so, it will be perma-
nent Otherwise they fail.
why, though anxious to promote
peace, do the members of the League to
Enforce Peace feel that any proposal
of peace in the present situation would
defeat permanent world peace, and
should be opposed by them with all the
energy they can command? The an
swer to this question must be found in
the causes of this war and the revela-
tions ii has made of Germany's purpose.
German Organization
Germany was long divided into little
states, kingdoms, duchies, and other
forms of one-man rule. All her we'll
wishers hoped for and looked forward
to her union. In the wars of the first
Napoleon, Prussia and other German
states were subjected to a great humila-
ton But the German youth rebelled,
organized themselves into military re-
serves and finally contributed much to
the defeat of the man whose lust for
universal power finds his counterpart IN
the aim of the Hohenzollerns of today.
In 1S4S democratic revolutions occur
red throughout Germany and in Aus
tria, but they were overcome.
Under the first William with his
Prime Minister Bismarck, who came to
power in 1862, the whole Prussian ma
became a machine with a power of con-
quer equaled by no other. The cynical,
INSCRIPTIONS, but effective, diplomacy
of Bismarck first united Prussia with
Austria to deprive Denmark of Schles-
wig-Holstein by force, then secured a
quarrel with Austria over spoils, and
deprived her of all influence over the
German states by humiliating defeat in
the six weeks war of 1866 After this
CT
ed forcibly to Prussia and offensive and
defensive alliances were made with
others.
Then in 1870 the occasion was seized.
when il was known that France was not
prepared to strike at her. France was
beaten, and Alsace and Lorraine were
taken from her. The German Empire
was established with a Prussian king
at its head. Then Germany settled
down to a period of peace to digest the
territory which by these wars had been
absorbed.
"The destiny of Germany grew larger
in the eyes of her emperor and her peo-
pie. and the blood and iron policy which
had been directed first to the achieve
ment of the unity of Germany expanded
into a dream of Germanizing the world.
cult of philosophy to spread the
propaganda developed itself in the uni
]
was that the state could do no wrong,
that the state was an entity that must
be sustained by force; that everything
else must be sacrificed to it's strength;
that the only sin the state could COM
NIT was neglect and failure to maintain
! its power.
Foreign Policy
This proposition easily led into the
| further conclusion that there could be
no international morality; that morality
and it's principles applied only to indi-
viduals but that when the action Of the
/ state was involved, considerations of
honor. of the preservation of obligations
solemnly made must yield If the inter
ssts of the state required.
And so Germany did not plan the
killing of the Austrian archduke and
/ his consort, but the minute that that
presented the likelihood of war. Ger
many accepted it as the opportunity for
her to strike down her neighbors, Rus
sia and France, and to enlarge her pow
| er. She gladly gave her consent to the
ult;matum of Austria to Serbia that
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