The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1918-04-09

other nations of the world, that the
German leaders were seeking. They
have answered, answered in unmis-
taxable terms. They have avowed
that it was not justice, but dominion
and the unhindered execution OF
their own will
Enemy Exploits Russia.
THE avowal has not come from
Germany statesmen. 1t has com.
from her military leaders, who are
her real rulers. Her statesmen
have said that they wished peace.
and were ready to discuss it's terms
whenever their opponents were will
ing to sit down at the conference ta-
BILE with them. Her present chan
"ellor has said-in definite and un-
certain terms, indeed, and in phrases
that often seem to deny their own
Gaming, but with as much plain
ness as he thought prudent-that he
believed that peace should be used
upon the principles which we had
declared would be our own in the
final settlement. At Brest Litcvsk
her civilian delegates spoke in SINH
lar terms; professed their desire TO
conclude a fair peace and accord {,
the peoples with whose fortunes they
were dealing the right TO choose
their own allegiance. But action ac-
companied and followed the profess
sion. Their military masters. the
men who act for Germany and en-
hibit her purpose in execution, pro-
claimed a very different conclusion.
We cannot mistake what they have
done-in Russia, in farmland, in the
Ukraine, in Rumania. The real test
of their justice and fair. play has
come. From this we Judge the rest.
They are enjoying in Russia a cheap
triumph in which no brave or gal
liant nation can long take pride A
great people, hopeless by their own
act lies for the time at their mercy.
Their fair professions are forgotten.
They now here set up justice. but
everywhere impose their power and
exploit everything for their own use
and agrandizement; and the peoples
of conquered provinces are invited
to be free under their dominion.
Bent on World Conquest.
Are 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 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?
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 then erect an empire
of gain and commercial supremacy-.
an empire as hostile to the Americas
as to the Europe which it will over
awe-an empire which will Ultimately
master Persia. Indi and the peoples
of the far east. In such a program
our ideals, the ideals OF justice and
humanity and liberty, the principle
OF the free self-determinationo OF ma
tions 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 II is taken welcome il 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,
Struggle for Freedom and Right.
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 or
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 begin
ming; everything that America has
lived for and lover and grown great