Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1918-04-10

whenever their opponents were will
ing to sit down at the conference ta-
Bile with them. Her present chancel-
lor has said--in indefinite and un-
certain terms, indeed, and in phrases
that often seem to deny their own
meaning, but with as much Dlainness
as he thought prudent-that { i've be-
lieved that peace should be ba:Gd
upon the principles which he had de-
clared would be our own in the final
settlement. At Brest-Litovsk her
civil delegates spoke In similar
clude fair peace and accord to the
peoples with whose fortunes they
were dealing the right to choose their
own allegiance. But action accom-
panied and followed the profession.
Their military masters, the men who
act for Germany and exhibit her pur-
| pose in execution, proclaimed very
different conclusion. We cannot mis-
take what they have done-in Rus
! sia, in Finland, In the Ukraine, in
Rumania. The real test of their JUS
tice and fair play has come. From
this we may judge the rest. They
are enjoying in Russia cheap tri-
umph in which no brave or gallant
nation can long take pride. 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 every
where impose their power and ex-
plot everything for their own use
and aggrandizement; and the peO-
pies Of conquered provinces are In
vited to be free under their domin-
! ion.
"Are we not justified in believing
! that they would do the same things
/ at their western front if they we're
not face to face with armies whom
! even their countless divisions cannot
| overcome? If. when they have felt
! their check to be final, they should
propose favorable and equita BILE
! terms with regard to Belgium and
France and Italy, could they blame
us if we concluded that they did so
only to assure themselves Of a free
hand in Russia and the east?
Gcrmany's Purpose to Rule World
''Their purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples. all the
free and ambitious nations of the
Baltic peninsula, all the lands that
Turkey has dominated and misruled
subject to their will and ambition
and build upon that dominion an en-
pire Of force upon. which they fancy
that they can erect an empire OF gain
and commercial supremacy-an en-
pire as hostile to the. Americas as to
the Europe which it will overawe---
an empire which will ultimately mas
ter Persia, India and the peoples of
the Far East. In such a program our
ideals, the ideals Of justice and hu-
manity and liberty, the principle Of
the FREQ self-determination of nations
upon which all the modern world
rejected for the ideals Of power, for
the principle that the strong must
rule the weak, that trade must fol-
low the flag, whether those to whom
1t Is taken welcome it or not, that
the peoples of the world are to be
made subject to the patronage and
| overlordship Of those who have the
power to enforce it.
| THAT program once carried ont.
| America and all who care or dare to
stand with her must arm and pre-
pare themselves to contest the mas
terry Of the world, mastery in which
the rights Of common man, the
rights Of women and of all who are
weak, must for the time being be
| trodden under foot and disregarded,
and the old age-long struggle for
freedom and right begin again at it's
beginning. Everything that America
has lived for, and loved. and grown
great to vindicate and bring to a
glorious realization will have fallen
in utter ruin and the gates of mercy
once more pitilessly shut upon man
kind.
"The thing is preposterous and
| impossible; and yet is not that what
the whole course and action Of the
German armies has meant wherever
| they have moved? | do not wish,
sionment, to Judge harshly or un-