Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1918-04-13
hess as he thought prudent-that he

hess as he thought prudent-that he
believed that peace should be based
upon the principles which we had de-
clared would be our own in the final
settlement. At Brest-Litovsk her civil
ian delegates spoke ip similar terms
professed their desire TO conclude a
fair peace and accord to the peoples
with whose fortunes they were dealing
the right TO choose their own allegi-
ances. But action accompanied and
followed the profession. Their mill
tary masters, the meh who act for Ger
many and exhibit her purpose in exc
cution, proclaimed'a very different con-
clusiOn. We can not 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. They are enjoying in Russia a
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 everywhere
impose their power and exploit every
thing for their own use and aggran-
dizement; and the peoples of con-
quered provinces are invited to be free
under their dominion.
Purpose of Teutons Plain.
"Are we not JUSTIFIED in believing
thaf thnu xpntI1H n "a Oh
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 pro-
pose favorable and equitable terms
with regard to Belgium and France and
Italy, could they blame us if we con-
cluded that they did so only to assure
themselves of a free hand in Russia
and the east?
Their purpose undoubtedly is 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 ambition, and build
upon that dominion an empire of force
upon which they fancy they can then
erect an empire of gain and CONNER
cial supremacy-an empire hostile to
the Americas as to the Europe which
it will overawe-an empire which will
ultimately master Persia, India and the
peoples of the far east In such a pro-
gram our ideals of justice and human
ity and liberty, 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, wheth-
err those to whom 1t Is taken welcome it
or not, that the peoples of the world
are to be made subject to the patron
age and overlordship of those who have
the power to enforce it.
Freedom of World at Stake.
'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, 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 be-
gin again at it's 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 pftilessly
shut upon mankindi
1.-THE thing is preposterous and i'm
possible! And yet, is not that what
the whole course and action of the Ger
man armies has meant wherever they
have moved? l do not wish, even in
this moment of utter disillusionment,
to judge harshly or unrighteously. 1
Judge only what the German arms have
accomplished with IMPLYING thorough
ness throughout every fair region they
have touched.
what, then, are we to do!
No Mistakng Meaning.
"For myself, l am ready, ready still,
ready even now, to discuss fair and
Just and honest peace at any time that
1t is sincerely purposed-a peace in
which the strong and the weak shall
fare alike; but the answer, when pro-
posed such a peace, came from the
German commanders in Russia, and 1
cannot mistake the meaning of the an
swer.
81 accept the challenge! | know
that you accept it. All the world shall
know that you accept 1t.
ut shall appear in the utter s9cri-
fee 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 fell
low cOuntrymen, everything that We
henceforth plan and accomplish, con-
tinue to this response, until the ma
jesty and might of our concerted power
shall fill the thought and utterly defeat
the force of those who flout and mis-
prize what we honor and hold dear.
Germany has once more said that
force, and force alone, shall decide
,B,ll