Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-06-14

ing Americans well of the Government itself
when he says:
I'VE must go on with the war This task
must not be left half done We must not trans
NIT to posterity legacy of blood and misery.
We may in this great conflict go down in the
valley of shadows because our foe is powerful
and Injured to war. We must be prepared to
meet disappointment and temporary reverse
we must rise above them with American spirit.
With courageous hearts we must go forward
until the is won
If do not go forward the full distance to
victory, we may as well count ourselves defeated.
There can be no compromise with Prussianism. No
pledge the German Government might make, no
treaty it might sign while its mitaristic spirit
manned uncrushed would be of any significance or
effect. The moment it suited German ambition and
avarice to break faith, the treaty would be tossed
to the winds and brutal Uhlans would sweep forth
in another raid upon civilization. We know that
this would be the event because know from one
glazing demonstration after another how wholly
A and then is a good thing to pull us
back to the essentials.
perfdious is the character of Prussianism. Secre-
tary Lansing discloses new and particularly apt
instance in telling of Count Bernstor's request to
Berlin just six weeks after the Imperial Govern
ment had given the United States solemn promises,
in OF the Sussex that there should be no more
submarine murder. Bernstorf, then German am
bassador at Washington, knowing that his Govern
ment had intention of keeping its word asked
the Berlin foreign office to advise him we'll in ad-
of the resumption of U-boat ruthlessness in
order that he might direct the German merchant
ships in American ports to destroy their machinery
in anticipation of the United States entering the
Our Secretary of State we'll observes that the
very buntness with which the ambassador asked
for the information shows he sure his superb
ors would not take offense at the assumption that
their word valueless and had been given only
gain time, and that when an increase of the sub
marine fleet warranted, the promise would be
broken without hesitation or conjunction"
1t is this tricky, sneaking, constituencies charac
ter of Prussianism that precudes the possibility of
safe dealing with it's agents. Count Bernstorff and
his superiors were supposed to be men of integrity
They represented the height of German statesman
ship, German culture German ideals. Yet in their
dealings, not with an enemy but with neutral
whose honor stood above reproach, they proved
themselves common crooks and thugs. The Kaiser
himself exemplifed this national trait when a num-
Der of years ago he presented trophy of sports
manship to American a cup which supposed
to be of pure gold, but which upon being broken to
pieces the other day turned out to be glded pewter
There we have the character of the Hohenzollern
tiousness and crawling dishonesty. There is
proverbiaI honor among thieves, but not among
Prussians. This cad who gave away pewter cup
with royal fanfare is the same brutal despot who
dreams of conquering the world. And likewise the
record of Prussanized Germany is a clustering sue
cession of crimes, from the meanest to the most
enormous.
No freedom or righteous peace for the world is
possible until this criminal spirit is stripped OF its
power to harm Not merely the strutting Kaiser
and his foolish prncelets, not merely the person
ages of Prussianism, but the spirit itself must be
conquered once for all. 1t must be extirpated from
people and rulers alike. We learned long ago that
it is in the people we'll as in the rulers this
consuming desire to domineer, this readiness TO
break faith and conscience at hint from sordid
seIf-interest The German people rang church bells
and made merry holiday when the Lusitanla, with
its helpless women and children, was sunk by an
assassin U-boat The German people condoned the
murder of Edith Cavell and repeatedly have visited
upon the war prisoners in their midst outrages as
mean If not as brutal as those which German SOL
diers have inflicted upon civilians in Belgium and
France. The German people, the German
Socialists the selfavowed liberals and radicals OF
the Kaiser's empire have approved tde perfidious
treatment of Russia. They made loud protestations
of good faith toward Russia, did these German So
ciaists before the Brest-Litovsk peace conference
and declared that the Slavs should have justice.
But as soon as Russia gagged and bound and
robbed and the spols held up for the German popu-
lace to view the Socialists accepted the situation
as complacently as the Kaiser himself. There is no
hope. then of dealing safely with the German Gov
eminent or the German people until their system
and their spirit of ruthless miltarism IS crushed
Therefore must the war go on in order that we may
transmit legacy not of blood and misery" but
f-oo5or, apd honor and enduring peace.