Cleveland County herald., 1918-04-11

| even where it involves sharp skimp- ing and daily sacrifice to lend out of ], meager earnings. They will look with reproduction and contempt upon those who can and will not, upon those who demand higher rate of interest, upon mercial transaction. have not come, {! therefore, to urge the loan. 1 have come only to give you, if I can, a more vivid conception of what it is for.
 "The reasons for this great war, the to fight it through, and the issues that hang upon it's outcome are more clear ly disclosed now than ever before. It is easy to see just what this particular loan means because the cause we are fighting for stands more sharply re- yealed than at any previous crisis of the momentous struggle. The man who knows least can now see plainly how the cause of justice stands and what the imperishable thing is he is asked to invest in. Men in America may be more sure than they ever were before that the cause is their own, and that, if it should be lost, their own great nations place and mission in the world would be lost with it.
 q call you to witness, my fellow countrymen. that at no stage of this terrible business that judged the pur- purposes of Germany intemperately. I should be ashamed in the presence of 1 affairs to grave, so fraught with the 1 destinies of mankind throughout all the world, to speak with truculence, to use the weak language of hatred or l vindicatiye purpose. I have sought to 1 learn the objects Germany had in this war from the mouths of her own | spokesmen, and to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to deal with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes without re- serve or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as plainly what it is that they seek.
 Will Treat Germans Fairly.
 We have ourselves proposed no in- justice, no aggression. We are ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to the German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with all others. There can be no difference between peoples in the final judg ment if it is indeed to be righteous judgment. To propose anything but justice, even-handed and dispassionate justice, to Germany at any time. whatever the outcome of the war, would be to renounce and dishonor our own cause. For we ask nothing that we are not willing to accord.
 Tt has been with this thought that have sought to learn from those who spoke for Germany whether it is jus tice or dominion and the execution of their own will upon the other nations of the world that the German leaders were seeking. They have answered, answered in unmistakable terms. They have avowed that it was not justice, but dominion and the unhindered exc cution of their own will
 "The avowal has not come from Ger many's statesmen. It has come from her military leaders, who are her real rulers. Her statesmen have said that they wished peace and were ready to discuss it's terms whenever their op- ponents were willing to sit down at the conference table with them. Her present chancellor has said-in indefi- mite and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that often seem to deny their own meaning, but with as much plainness as he thought prudent-that he believed that peace should be based upon the principles which we had de- clared would be our own in the final william delegates spoke in similar terms; professed their desire to con clude a fair peace and accord to the people with whose fortunes they were dealing the right to choose their own allegianees. But action accomplished and followed the profession. The mili- tary masters, the men who act for Ger many and exhibit her purpose in exc eution, proclaimed 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.
 Enjoying Cheap Triumph.
 "They are enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph i'll 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 aggrandizement; and the peoples of conquered provinces are invited to l 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 face to face with armies whom even their countless divisions cannot over | come? If when they have felt their