Mexico Missouri message., 1918-04-25


he believed that peace should be based
upon the principles which we had de-
ciared would be our own in the final
settlement.
AT Brest-Litovsk her civilian dele
gates spoke I'm similar terms; pro-
fessed 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.
They are enjoying in Russia n
cheap triumph In which no brave or
gallant nation can take a pride. A
great people, helpless by their own
act, lies for the time at their mercy.
"Their fair professions are forgot
ten. They nowhere set up 9ustice, but
everywhere impose their power and ex-
plot everything for their own use and
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT; and the peoples of
conquered provinces are invited TO be
free under their dominion.
Are we not justified in believing
that they would do the same thing at
their western front II 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 IA
vorable and equitable terms with re-
gard to Belgium and France and Italy,
could they blame us II we concluded
that they did so only to assure them
selves Of free hand in Russia and
the east7
World Dominion Built In East.
"TheIr purpose is undoubtedly to
make all the Slavic peoples, all the
free and ambitious peoples of the Bal
| tic peninsula, all the lands that Tur-
key has dominated and misruled, sub
| iect to their will and ambition, and
| build upon that dominion an empire
| Of force upon which they fancy that
they can then erect an empire of gain
and commercial supremacy-an en-
pire as hostile to the Americas as to
the Europe which 1t will overawe-an
empire which will ultimately master
Persia, India, and the peoples of the
far East.
I'm such program our ideals, the
ideals of justice and humanity and lib
erty the principle of the free self
determination of nations upon 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 1t is taken welcome 1t or not,
that the peoples of the world are to
be made subject to the patronage and
OVer-lordship Of those who have the
| power to enforce 1t.
Would Mean World Conflict.
This program once carried out,
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 dlsregarded, and the old, age
long struggle for freedom and right
| dkdlu dl ltS
Everything America has lived for
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 up.
on mankind.
The thing is preposterous and i'm
| possible; and yet, is not that what the
| 81
man armies have meant wherever they
have moved? l do not wish, even in
this movement of utter establishment,
| to Judge harshly or unrlghteously. /
| judge only by what the German arms
have accomplished with IMPLYING
thoroughness throughout every fair re-
gion they have touched.
"What, then, are we to do? For my
I self, AIN ready, ready still, ready even
now, to discuss fair just and honest
| peace al any time that it Is sincerely
| prOposed-a peace in which the strong
and the weak shall fare alike. But
the answer, when I proposed such n
peace, came from the German comman.
ders in Russia and l cannot mistake
the meaning of the answer.
"Force to Utmost" Only Answer.
II accept the challenge.
81 know that you accept 1t. All the
world shall know that you accept it.
It shall appear 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
1t fit for free men like ourselves to
| live in.
"This now is the meaning of all that
we do. Let everything that we say,
my fellow countrymen, everything that
we henceforth plan and accomplish,
ring true to this response till the majes.