The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1918-09-21
ENLIGHTEN lie cERMANs.

position has taken turn that might have been expected
Mr. Wilson's brusque rejection of Austrias proposal is
described stupid and brutal" and Mr. Balfours in
timation that Germany will get her colonies back
and that AlsaceLorrane must be surrendered to France
met with the unanimous statement that Germany now
faces victory destruction" "The entente evidently
intends to dismember the German empire" says one
newspaper The entire enemy press evidently inspired
sings the tune Germans you are now fighting
for your lives and the life Of your fatherland Your
enemy is trying to annihilate the empire"
It is well that the enemy should know that peace talk
is fruitless That the German military masters would
Immediately endeavor to convince the people that the
allies are bent upon the humiliation Of the German
nation to be expected and it is now the duty Of the
allies to do all in their power to counteract that false
hood. They could not afford to counter against that
fasehood by pretending that they were willing to dis
cuss peace when they were not wiling for that would
have been fasehood trying to offset another But
now that the truth has been told now that the allies
have made their determination Enthusiastically clear there
is every why they should employ intellectual
trying to dismember or annhilate the empire If the
statement should be accepted by the German people
whole it would merely intensifcaton Of the war
and increased difficulty in securing the victory that must
inevitably go to the allied cause
The allies have never employed the weapons Of prop
uganda with full effect Why should they not now get
busy? There means of reaching the brains Of the
German unsatisfactory means, it is true, Of
reaching brains poorly prepared to entertain the truth
and the occasion calls for active utilization of such
methods Of propaganda as may be available
There lights here and there in the midst Of Ger
intellectual darkness The socialist press is sym
warnings uttered by it against the Of abso
lutism in the two central empires. Among the most
outpoken Of the enemy newspapers is the Vienna Ar
better Zeitung which has had the hardihood to give its
fellow Teutons this piece of unadulterated truth:
From the beginning of the war the democratic
philosophy Of the entente has won friends in all
neutral countries while the philosophy Of national
selfshness, which the German universities have
PEELED all neutrals There are many reasons for
the fact that one neutral country after another
and above all America, the mightiest Of all the
neutral countries-has gone over into the camp
of our enemes but one of the reasons and not
the least effective, is assuredIy that the demo-
cratic philosophy drew the American masses to
the entente and mobized them against us. We
have how the idea wins adherents and takes
effect We have how it becomes force
when it takes hold of the masses. We are grad
ualy learning that there are other sources of
power than guns, and that the sense of justice
and the impulse of the toward freedom, the
love and hate Of the nations, determine the dis
tribution of power in the world. Recognition Of
these facts contains the only possibility of peace
for us.
Surely there is field for the dissemination of truth
in Germany and Austria, Notwithstanding the obduracy
Of the people and their savsh obedience to their masters
Germanys winnings helped to silence the discon-
tented and the wronged but now that Germanys win
nings eopardzed and the stability of the empire it.
self imperled the German people beginning to ex
press themselves openly in terms of pessimsm and
despair.
The entente should get word to every German that
the is not aimed at the humiliation of the German
nation but at the humiliation of the German military
power If the world to be made safe for democracy
it will be made safe for German democracy The Ger
mans may have any form of government they choose
except form that is designed to destroy other govern
ments, and inspired by soul of murder and greed No
one what the Germans organize for Germany.
The Germans sick of war; especially when it means
no loot for them Let them be made sieker of it by
proving to them that they have nothing to gain and
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