The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-06-03
PEOPLE ASSUME
RESULT OF WAR,
STATES RENNER
War Inheritance From Fallen
Empire Anxiety Of Nation
for Peace Expressed.
tBy Associated Press)

ST. GERMAN, Monday. June q
Upon receiving the treaty from the
allies here today, DR.. Karl Renner,
chairman OF the Austrian delegation,
outlined briefly the history of the es-
tablishment Of the German-Austrian
republic and declared it had no rela-
ton with the former Hapsburg en-
pire. He spoke as follows:
For a long time the people of Ger
man-Austria were waiting in distress
for this present day to come, which
shall relieve the tension caused by the
uncertainty as to that peoples future
state. We were longing for the hour
Of decision, because 1t was to render
peace at last to our hard-tried country
and to offer us an opportunity to pro-
claim before this illustrious tribunal,
the worlds highest authority. what our
country is, and what the conditions
are under which we may hope to Or
ganize the possibilities for the exist
ence of an Independent common
wealth
The Danube monarchy against
which the allied and associated powers
have waged war and with which they
have concluded an armistice, has now
ceased to exist. The twelfth of No
vember, 1918, may be considered the
day Of it's death. From this day on
there was no monarch any more, nor
big power over which he could hold
Io
fatal dualism, neither an Austrian nor
Hungarian government; no army or
any other recognized institution vest
ed with public power.
Assumes Obligations
There remained only eight nation.
| alities deprived Of any public organ
| ization and overnight they created
their own parliaments, their own gov
ernments and their own armies; in
short their own independent states
In the same way as the other national
| states, our new republic, too, has
sprung into life. Consequently she
can no more than the former be con
archy. From this very point arises the
fundamental contradiction under
which we are laboring the most an6
i
this high assembly.
"On the one hand no one could, from
the tudictous statement recently pro
claimed by the chairman of this con
| ference, reason that a modification o.
| the political form Of government OF
a change Of its leading persons woule
suffice to release a nation from as
sumed obligations. This entails the
conclusion that all territories of the
| ancient monarchy and their peoples
could be made responsible for the con
sequences Of the war, which wa!
forced upon them by their former gov
ernments.
This is weighing upon us as upol
| all the other nationalities established
on the territory Of the former Aus
trian-Hungarian monarchy, a portion
OF the dreadful inheritance left US b.
the fallen empire, the inheritance o
war, the inheritance Of exhaustion an
the inheritance of the more cumbeI
some economic obligations.
But the new republic has freed he1
self from all these imperialistic aspi
rations which have become SO fata
to the existence of the ancient mon
archy. She has rid herself once an
forever of all the reactionary trad!
tons which had turned the forme
monarchy into a prison for its people
She is, alas, the unfortunate victim G
that horrible crime Of 1914-a Grim
committed by the former governmen
however, and not by the people"