Omaha daily bee., 1918-10-15
TO
CEASE BEFORE
PEACE CHANCE
Continued from Page One.)

WHICH Sne might Dredk ner WorQ 10
an armistice.
From that point the United States
and the allies might proceed to dis
pose OF all that remained of kaiser
ism if the German people have not
done it before, as President Wilson
in his note plainly invites them to
do.
While nowhere in the note does
the president openly join with the
entente statesmen on the demand
that the chief criminals" must be
delivered up for trial, the presidents
conhdants point out that he plainly
subscribes to the doctrine that the
guilt of bringing on the world war
is personal.
1t will be noted that the president
completely rejects the German sug-
gestion for mixed, commission to
arrange an evacuation and reminds
the militarists that they will &C
cept the terms laid down by
Marshal Foch and the associated
commanders; that they will have
no part in framing them. He makes
it plain he does not accept the new
German government headed by
Chancellor Macmillan as anything
less authentic, anything less a
creature of German militarism, than
its predecessors, and warns the
German people that unless they de-
stroy it the allied armies will do so.
One of the most important
points of his note is that in which
he acknowledges the present Ger
man governments unqualified ac-
ceptance of his peace terms and
then goes on to show that these
terms provide specifically for the
substitution of a government wholly
responsible to the German people
themselves for the present one
dominated by the German militar-
lists.
Autocracy Must Go.
Quoting his Mount Vernon speech
of July a, the president reminds Ger
many that his terms call for "the de-
struction of every arbitrary power
anywhere, that can separately, Sc
cretly and of its single choice dis
turb the peace of the world; or if it
cannot be presently destroyed, at
least its reduction to virtual i'm
potency"
Here then follows the words
which proclaim that the autocratic
of Germany must go,
and plainly invite the German peo-
pie to make the change which will
bring them peace.
"The power which hitherto has
controlled the German nation" says
the presidents reply, is of the sort
here described 1t is within the
choice of the German people to al
ter it. The presidents words just
quoted naturally constitute a condi-
ton precedent to peace, if peace is
to come by the action of the Ger
man people themselves. The presi-
dent feels bound to say that the
whole process of peace will, in his
depend upon definiteness
and the satisfactory character of the
guarantees which can be given in
this fundamental matter. 1t is in
despensable that the governments
associated against Germany should
know beyond peradventure with
whom they are dealing"
Fufills Predictions.
This announcement, the presi-
dents friends say, ful6lls the pre-
iictions of those who declared that
in his first reply to Prince Maxi
milan he was laying the foundations
Of proof that the new government
Of Germany is no less autocratic
than the governments of former
chancellors and for a final statement
to the German people themselves
that nothing but their autocratic
government stands between them
and the peace which they so fer
vently desire. This, the presidents
friends say, has been the whole
theory of his diplomacy,
The next move in the great i'll