Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-04-08
PRESIDENT WILSON IN LIBERTY LOAN
SPEECH AT BALTIMORE GIVES ANSWER
OF AMERICA TO GERMAN CHALLENGE

were ready to discuss its terms
whenever their opponents were
willing to sit down at the confer
ence table with them. Her present
chancellor has said-in indefinite
and uncertain terms, indeed. and
il 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; protested
their desire to conclude fair peace
and accord to the peoples with
whose fortunes they were dealing
the right to choose their own alleg
fences. But action accompanied
and followed the profession. Their
military masters, the men who act
for Germany and exhibit her pur-
pose in execution, proclaimed a
very different conclusion. We can
not mistake what they have done
in Russia. in Finland, in the Tx
raine, in Rumania The real test
Of their justice and fair play has
come. From this we may Judge and
rest. They are enjoying in Russia
a 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 everywhere impose
their power and exploit everything
for their own use and aggrandize-
ment; and the peoples of conquered
provinces are invited to be free I'M
der their dominion.
Justified in Dfsbesieving Them.
Are we not justified in believ-
ing that they would do the same
thing on the 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 the
final, they should propose favorable
and equitable terms with regard to
Belgium and France and Italy,
could they blame US if we con-
oluded that they did so only to
assure themselves of a free hand in
Russia and the east?
Would Make Slavs Subject to Them
Their purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious nations of the
Baltic peninsula, all the lands that
Turkey has dominated and mis-
/ ruled, subject to their will and am
! bitiOn and build upon that dominion
an empire of force upon which they
| fancy that they can then erect an
/ empire of gain and commercial SUI
/ premacy-an empire as hostile to
/ the Americans as I'd the Europe
/ which it will overawe-an empire
! which will ultimately master Per-
! STA, India and the peoples of the far
east. In such program our ideals,
/ the ideals Of justice and humanity
! and liberty, the principle OF free
/ self-determination of nations upon
which all the modern world insists,
can play no part. They are re-
| jected for the ideals of power; for
the principle that the strong must
rule the weak, that trade must fol-
low flag, whether those to whom il
is taken welcome it or not, that the
peoples of the world are to be made
subject to the patronage and over
l0rdship of those who have the
power to enforce it.
Must Contest Mastery OF the World
That program once carried out
America 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 disre-
garded, and the old, age long
struggle for freedom and right be-
gin again at its beginning. Every
thing that America has lived for
and loved and grown great to vim
dictate and bring to a glorious rea-
liZation will have fallen in utter
ruin. and gates of mercy once more
pitilessly shut upon mankind.
I An Impossible Condition.
The thing is preposterous and
impossible; and yet is not that
what the whole course and action
of the German armies has meant
wherever they have moved? / dc
not wish, even in this moment OF
utter disillusionment to judge
harshly or unrighteously. 1 judge
only what the German arms have
accomplished with Implying thor
oughness throughout every fair re-
gion they have touched.
What then. are We to do? For
myself, I am ready. ready still
ready even now, to discuss a fair
and just and honest peace at any
time that is sincerely purposed-
peace in which the strong and the
weak shall fare alike. But the an
swer, when l proposed such a
/ peace, came from the German com
! manders in Russia. and I cannot