The Monticellonian., 1918-01-25

HleHtaI ana IeP1SldIlfe speeches dHu writings-a voice whose import is a thousand times confirmed, day after day and year after year, throughout this age of slaughter by the actions of the Germans and their government. Here and there German cry of pro- test is heard; there is a sound as of something human wailing for human ity on the vast wind of Germanism. Sometimes for a moment name is heard out of the fatuous hurricane-a name like HaaSe or Liebknecht or Harden-and there seems to come the murmur as of q troubled multitude who do not ride the wind; but the sounds are uncertain and come to us but weakly. We can only hope that there is some one there." Woodrow Wilson has called to them in loud voice, but they have not known how to answer if they would-or could.
 Would Divide United States.
 The German kaiser has really thought consistently of all non-Teuton- ic countries in terms of destruction, anu NlitD IG IuS CBphtA iliS lIIIAdlC thoughts, his speech has always been :: Let us find the best way to weaken and injure them." Those real thoughts of his came out characteristically when, on his yacht at Kiel, he said that Europe had made a great mistake in not strongly fayoring the South during our Civil war, for thus two weak countries might have been created to take the place of the powerful Union. Something might be hoped for even yet, he went on, if the East and West could be sufficiently stirred up against each other. There is the kaisers for eign policy and the order of his mind and of his heart. What he meant was that it would be a good and beneficial thing if the people of our Eastern and Western states could be brought to kill one another in great numbers and thus the Union yet be divided.
 The kaiser twice played wantonly and without the slightest provocation on the verge of war with the United States-once on the coast of Venezuela and once in Manila bay. While Ger many was in state of friendship with England, he proposed to Russia that Russia and Germany attack England :; and while Germany was in a state of friendship with the United States he proposed to England that England and Germany seize Mexico and destroy the Monroe doctrine. His agent Zimmer- Fo 4,.aa aJ, cry to Japan, that the two together might dismember and plunder the United States. His diplomatic agent, resident in Buenos Aires by courtesy of the Argentine government, makes treaeherous use of the Swedish lega- tion to send word to Germans how to destroy Argentine ships and leave no trace" This phrase, with which we are familiar mainly through the im- possible 'villains'' of the movies" and of old-time dime novels and melodramas-"leave no trace" mean ing .sink the ships and murder every soul on board'-this message is not that of stage pr movie villain" Not at all It is German govern mental message regarding ships be- longing to citizens of a friendly power, and is sent by q German nobleman in the German diplomatic service to other officials of the German government. More, it is a characteristic work of the German governmental kind. And it is an actual snapshot of the person. ality of the German government.
 The government of the United States and the governments of the world are literally unable to make peace with the people thus revealed.
 Why We Entered War.
 The people of the United States would have borne almost anything from Germany if they could have be- lieved that the Germans cause was originally d good one or that the war was forced upon Germany" But, knowing what we did, when the Ger mans, after mUrdering great numbers of our fellow citizens and quibbling for many, many months about these murders-when they told us to keep our ships in port or they would sink them; we found that Germany's con- duct toward us was not to be dis tinguished from making war upon us, and we decided that our citizens should not be killed continuously by coun- try which was "at peace" with us, and we would not take orders from Germany to remain in port and away from the high seas. Germany does not make and enforce the laws of and for the United States-not without en- countering some resistance from Amer jeans. So we disobeyed Germany, and would not paint the commanded vel low stripes upon the hulls of the one ship week which was to be permit ted upon the Atlantic ocean.
 We found ourselves in state of war because the German government, having forced a war upon Europe with the object of dominating that conti- rent and subsequently the world. in- clUding the United States, and having carried on the war with unnecessary cruelty and the employment of treach- cry whenever it considered treachery useful, we found ourselves in a state of war because the German govern ment was killing our citizens as a means of enforcing its will upon us. That would seem to be war-killing us to make us obey-no? American citi- zens have their own government and