River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1918-04-11

ment.
"At Brest-Litovsk her civilian dele
gates spoke in similar terms; profess
sed their desire to conclude a fair
peace and accord to the peoples with
whose fortunes they were dealing the
right to choose their own allegiances.
But action accompanied and followed
the profession Their military mas
tiers, the men who act for Germany
and exhibit her purpose in execution,
proclaimed very different conclus-
ion. We cannot mistake what they
have done in Russia, in Finland, in the
Ukraine, in Rumania The real test
of their justice and fair play has
come. From this we may judge the
rest
Cheap Triumph in Russia.
'They are enjoying in Russia q
cheap triumph in which no brave or
gallant nation can long take pride. A
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 ev-
erywhere impose their power and ex-
plot everything for their own use and
ACKNOWLEDGMENT, and the peoples OF
conquered provinces are invited to
be free under their dominion.
care we not justified in believing
that they would do the same things at
their Western front if they were not
there 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 equitable terms
with regard to Belgium and France
and Italy, could they blame us il wa
concluded that they did so only to
assure themselves of free hand in
Russia and the East?
Would Dominate Europe.
Their purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious nations of the Bal
tic peninsula, all the lands that
Turkey has dominated and misruled,
subject to their will and aIlbition and
build upon that dominion an empire
of gain and commercial supremacy
an empire as hostile to the Americans
as to the Europe which it will over
awe-an empire which will ultimately
master Persia, India and the peoples
Of the Far East.
SIN such a program our ideals, the
ideals Of justice and humanity and
liberty, the principle Of the free SELF
determination of nations uopn which
all the modern world insists, can
play no part They are rejected for
the ideals of power, for the principle
that the strong must rule the weak,
that trade must follow the flag,
whether those to whom it 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.
Freedom Would Fall.
"That program, once carried out,
America and all who care or dare to
stand with her must arm and prepare
themselves to contest the mastery of
the world, a mastery in which the
rights of common men, 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 its beginning:
Everything that America has lived
for and loved and grown great to vim
dictate and bring to a glorious realiza-
ton will have fallen in utter ruin and
the gates OF mercy once more pitt
lessly shut upon mankind.
What, then, what are we to do?
For myself, | am ready, still ready,
even now, to discuss fair and just
and honest peace at any time it els
sincerely proposed-a peace in which
the strong and the weak shall fare
alike. But the answer, when | props
ed such a peace, came from the Ger
man commanders in Russia, and
cannot mistake the meaning of the
answer.
81 accept the challenge. I know
that you accept it. All the world shall
know that you accept it. 1t shall ap-
pear in the utter sacrifice and self
forgetfulness with which we shall give
all that we love and all that we have
to redeem the world and make it fit
for free men like ourselves to live in.
This now is the meaning of all that
we do.
LET everything we say, my fell
low countrymen, everything that we
henceforth plan and accomplish, ring
true to this response till the majesty
and might of our concerted power
shall fill the thought and utterly de-
feat the force of those who flout and
misprize what we honor and hold
dear.
Force Alone to Decide.
Germany has once more said that
force, and force alone, shall decide
whether justice and peace shall reign
in the affairs of men, whether right as
onceives it or domion as
she conceives it shall determine the
destinies of mankind. There is, there
In frs0Y