The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1918-04-05
Friday, April 5th, 1918
PEACE.

The United States did not
enter into this war unadvisedly,
hastily, under stress of heat or
passion. We took the step calm
ly, soberly, reluctantly, with a
full sense of the awful response
bilities involved, the sacrifices
demanded. the magnitude OF the
task.
President Wilson did not ad-
wise in his war message, nor did
Congress act in declaring a state
of war between the United
States and Germany without
giving the most solemn consider
alton to what the action meant.
They knew it meant the death
of thousands of brave Amerl-
cans; they knew it meant suffer-
ing and wounds and the dis
abling for life of hundreds OF
thousands of our young men.
They counted to the full the
human cost and the material
cost.
Every development since has
justified and proved the wisdom
and the imperative necessity of
Americas participation. Every
German success and every Ger
man failure have shown how
necessary to our own welfare
and peace, how necessary to the
safety and peace of the world
the defeat of Germany is.
Every foot of ground Germany
has been forced to give up, every
foot of land she has seized, have
demonstrated the imperative
necessity of defeating that sim
lister, intolerable thing called
Germanism.
Germanism is 5000 miles
away. 1t must never come any
nearer. Let this war result in
anything but the defeat of Ger
many, let her emerge with her
power unbroken and her kultur
still dominant, and it is but a
question of time until we alone
will be fighting Germany instead
of warning against her with our
Allies on our side.
Lincoln said that this country
could not exist half slave and
half free. All Americans now
recognize that truth. The
events of the last few years
have shown equally clearly that
this world can not exist half free
and half autocratic-half free
people loving liberty and just and
peace and half an autocracy
seeking to dominate the world,
caring nothing for liberty or
justice and nothing for humanity
and CIVILIZATION where they inter-
fere with its ambition.
There is no peace for Ameri-
ca except a just peace, a peace
that means world fit for free
people to live in. German ideals,
German purposes, and German
practices are the antitheses of
American. The beliefs we love
and honor and uphold are con-
temptible to them; the objects
for which they will to death
millions of their own men and
millions of their enemy are alb
horrent to our ideas of right and
justice; their methods and prac-
tees in warfare are an abomina-
ton and horror to US.
The American who now advo-
Gates or wishes for peace, except
a just peace, is either woefully
misguided or a traitor to Amer
ica's future and Americas past,
to all things American-the
things which have made our
country great and free, which
hundreds Of thousands of
Americans have died to main
tain, and for which Americans
now are dying in France.
There can be no peace with
honor or safety to ourselves or to
posterity, except just peace,
and there can and will be no
other peace. Work for peace
accomplishes nothing but the
hampering of our effort, the
delay of the real peace, and a
greater toll of death of Ameri-
cas- fighting men. Our duty is
to war for just and righteous
peace; to work or speak for any