The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-06-24
THE COMING OF PEACE.


Germany has signified that she will
sign. At no time has there been anv
serious doubt that she would do SO.
After months of bluffing, stalling and
palaver she has done what it was in
evitable from the beginning that she
must do.
The settlement is SO vast in scope
that it affects the remotest regions of
the earth and changes the destiny of
unnumbered millions. Volumes of in
depreciation will be written upon its
terms. the effect of which. only ex-
perience can prove and only history
will be able to assess.
Nearly five years ago Germany.
driven by a consuming lust of domin
ion and deluded by a monstrous doc
trine, undertook to destroy the insti-
buttons of world law and establish a
reign of force. For more than a gem
Grafton the willing instrument of 4
rapacious autocracy, it had devoted its
energies to preparing the means of
ruthless conquest. Intoxicating itself
with false philosophy and visions of
conquest. When the time seemed ripe
it struck, suddenly and remorselessly.
Open-eyed and eXultant, the German
people and their leaders chose the
path OF dishonor to reach the goal of
commanding political and CONNER
cial empire. World power or down
fall" was their challenge, and for
four years they maintained it with all
the fury of infatuation and all the
cruelty of bafned desire.
And the END is downfall, that dread.
full alternative which they proclaimed
only as a defiant taunt to destiny. Of
the towering structure of Prussian i'm
perialism there remains no fragment
of power or prestige. The German ma
ton exists, but only upon sufferance
and under drastic restraint. The out
lawry which 1t took upon itself has
been confirmed by the court of civil
ization. and the sentence runs until the
crime has been expiated
That the penalties laid upon Ger
many would be severe had been ex-
pected, but a persistent propaganda
had led the world TO believe that the
requirements of justice and safety
would b re modified to suit certain
ideals of altruistic compromise. OF
such result there is in the sum-
married. treaty no trace. If there be
any measure of precaution that has
been withheld, any demand for repa-
ration that has not been pressed, the
lack is not to be easily discovered.
Germany is required to surrender
all the territories stolen in her war
forays of the last fifty years. and to
deliver others. where alien populations
were held in subsection, to new nations
liberated from despotism. She is to
relinquish all possessions beyond her
narrowed borders. not because her til
tie to them was less sound than that
of other nations to their colonies and
dependencies, but because she abused
her trust and taught the world that
her control was a inenace to peace.
She is to be disarmed, so stripped of
military and naval power and the
means of rebuilding it that civiliza-
ton may safely reduce its own de-
lenses. She is to be held liable for all
the damages caused by her assault
upon law and the rights of nations and
by her inhuman practices by land and
sea. If the full toll cannot be exacted
from her. she must pay at least to
her capacity. She must proclaim her
guilt by delivering up to justice the
leaders whose monstrous policies she
supported and by whose crimes she
hoped to profit. And the terms are to
be fulfilled under the scrutiny of tri-
tunals to which she may remain sub
ject for a generation.