The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-05-30
A TEST OF PATIENCE

The conduct Of the Germans in clustering over the terms
Of settlement is a test Of the patience of the peace conference.
They talk and act more like dictators than like a defeated nation.
In 1871, when Bismarck sat at the head Of the table debating
terms of peace to the French it was not so. France was defeated
at Sedan; knew it and admitted it. Germany had 100000
soldiers on French soil, and kept them there until complete set
tlement was made.
The Germans may know that they are defeated, but they
have not admitted it, and are not acting as if they believed it. If
they persist in their contumacy even laymen know what will
happen to them. Their country, that has escaped desolation,
will be overrun, their cities occupied and their industries
DESTROYED, while the cost bill will be so increased as to extend
the period of their economic slavery over several more genera
tons. They are playing with fire, but they seem willing to take
the risk. They are competent psychologists, but they may make
the tension too great and the cord will snap. Then the allies
will do what it now seems they should have done at first
put the Germans in a position where they cannot question or
resist any terms imposed upon them.
They are great sticklers for the integrity of Mr.. Wilson's
fourteen points, while on their part the most solemn covenants
were only scraps of paper.
One thing is plain as a pikestaff: the new German govern
ment is the same in arrogant spirit as was the Hohenzollern
dynasty. They seem determined to obey only force, not potential
or imminent force, but actual, active and remorseless force, that
will have in it no elements of consideration and very little of
conscience, They cannot understand anything gentler than their
own brutal philosophy, and they contemptuously regard as weak
ness any argument but the mailed fist.
But the bloodsoaked world is growing tired. and is fast los
ing patience with them and their methods. The days and weeks
and months are passing, and the precious time Of the world is
being wasted in suspense and waiting This magnanimity on
the part OF vctors, may be commendable, sentimentally, but it is
not business, it is not pragmatism.
The threats of the Germans that a peace that is unacceptable
forced on them will mean future trouble is the veriest tommy
rot-it is pure rhetoric. The Germans, we may be sure, are going
TO create all the future trouble they can, no matter what kind Of
a peace is imposed on them, and no peace will be acceptable
unless they are permitted to dictate it, This cannot be done
They are already asking for countervailing indemnties. being
encouraged by the anable complacency of the peace conference,
and unless summarily checked and firmly dealt with they will
bring the allies out in their debt, and insist that the victors
pay the losses and indemnities, as was their purpose when they
first started the war. .M
Demanding compensation for damages caused by an
embargo which they>forced upon themselves is a characteristic
exhibition of German %impudence, and the sooner they are given
a calldown the better. .
Another reason why there should be no mercy shown or
tme-wastlng temporizing is that when the Germans do sign the
terms 1t may mean nothing more than an addition to the scraps
OF paper already repudiated. Without national or persona
honor their word of promise means nothing unless the bayonet
IS pressing against them to compel performance.
They do not object to the twenty billion marks indemnity
levied on them, because that comes later, and if given a breath
ing spell they can resist or evade payment, or make its collec-
ton too expensive to be profitable.