Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1919-05-30
LET HIM PAY FOR HIS WAR

While the beaten Hun RACES and
weeps over the terms of the peace pact
and while the pacifist press in America
plays Boche second fiddle with its crit
icisms of the "harshness" of the terms,
it is well for Americans to remember
conditions as they were exactly one
year gao.
For in May last year, the shadow of
impending disaster was black across
the world. The spring drive of the
Germans had broken through the allies
line time and again. France and Eng
land and Italy were bled white, the
United States, with its laggard war
adnV nVnistration, was struggling into
the battle line,its air and ordnance
supplies tragfcally insufficient with
strength as a fighting nation delayed
by the past folly of unpreparedness.
In Germany, the kaiser. plumed and
bedecked, was charging from post to
pots shouting threats of the punish
ment to come to his enemies. In Ber-
lin, fat professors and big bellied
statesmen were writing essays and
making speeches about the destruction
of Berlin, the annexation of Flanders
the exaction of indemnities and hum
iliations of the American republic.
In the Hun state papers made pub
lie since the armistice was signed, over
and over again occur discussions of the
terms of peace which were to follow
Germany's victory. And never once in
all that discussion was there any hint
or suggestion of the mercy for the van
quished for which Berlin and our own
pacifist publicists now weep in chorus.
A German peace was to be a German
ff.irr n i1l1 fn Iaax bn Or-l6
PROSTATE at the feet of the conqueror.
And the allied nations crippled and
bound, were to pay the war bills of the
war lord to the last penney.
Scattered through the training camps
across the seas a year ago were thous-
ands of brave young Americans going
to their death. From coast to coast
American men and women were giving
their sons and Their dollars and their
prayers for the winning of desperate
cause. And day by day over the cables
were coming the arrogant taunts and
the mounting threats of the all but
victorious Beast of Perrin
knowing these things, remembering
tl.fse things it is almost inconceivaSle
that anywhere in America a voice
should be lifted in 1eiense of the Hun
or in criticism of a peace which strips
him of his power for evil and demands
that he pay a price all too small for
his crimes. It is Il shame that states
men, calling themselves Americans. are
permitted to betray the spirit of the |
republic or that newspapers, fattening
on the land, are allowed so grossely |
to misrepresent the solid, sober sense
of the American people And it is the
vital duty of every one of us to make /
it plain to representatives in Wash |
ington and in Paris that such cowardly /
pacifist talk i'm no wise and in no de- /
gree portriys the spirit or the ideals /
or the judgme Il Of The AH5erican
people
The United states knows all too well
what would have happened if the Hun
had won the war 1T Knows just Is
well what VIII happen if he is left "a
shred Of military or economic strength f
to wage another.
And knowing this, the United states,
from sea to sea and line to line APP
,ears and endorses the terms of the
Paris pact she stands ready with
ler hundred million of sturdy citizens
o back that pact from its first word
% its last period. America won thei
var. And she intends to keep it won
Toledo Blade.