The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1919-05-14

Berlin, Monday, May l2.-Philipp
Scheidemann. the chancellor, in his
speech before the national assembly
here today said that the occasion was
the turning point in the life of the Ger
man people, as the assembly was to
decide the attitude toward what our
adversaries call peace conditions"
The representation of the nation"
he continued, meet here as the last
band of the faithful assemblies when
the fatherland is in the greatest dan,
ger. All have appeared except the
representatives of Alsace-Lorraine, who
have been deprived of the right to be
represented her just as you are to be
deprived of the right to exercise in a
free vote the right of self-determina.
ton.
And | see among you the representa-.
tiVes of all the German races and
lands. the chosen representatives of all
the Rhineland, the Saar, East Prussia,
West Prussia, Posen, Silesa, DanZig,
and cmel. Together with the deputies
of the menaced regions, | see the
deputies of the menacd provinces, who
if the will of our enemies becomes law,
are to meet for the last time as Ger
mans amongst Germans. l know | am
one in heart with you in the gravity ana
sanctity of this hour, which should be
ruled by only one idea-that we belong
to one another and must stand by one
another and that we are one flesh and
one blood and that whoever tries to
sever us in driving a murderous knife
into the living body of the German peo
pie.
ITO keep our nation alive-that and
nothing else-is our duty. We are pur
suing no nationalistic dreams. No
questions of prestige and no thirst for
power have a part in our deliberations
Bare life is what we must have for our
land, and nation today while every one
feels throatling hand at his throat.
Let me speak without tactical con.
siderations The thing which is at the
basis of our discussion is this thick
volume in which 100 sentences begin
Germany renounces." This dreadful
and murderous volume by which con
fession of our own unworthiness, our
consent to pitiess disruption, our
agreement to helotry ana slavery, are
to be eXorted-this book must not be-
come the future code of law"
The world has once again lost an
illusion. The nations have in this per
iod, which is so poor in ideals, again
lost q belief. What name on thousands
of bloody battlefields, in thousands OF
trenches, in orphan families and
among the despairing and abandoned
has been mentioned during these four
years with more devotion and belief
than the name of Wilson? Today the
picture of the peacebringer, as the
world pictured him, is paling beside the
dark forms of our jailers to one Of
whom, Premier Clemenceau, a French
man recently wrote The wild beast has
been put in u cage with bread ana
water, but is allowed to keep his teeth,
while claws are hardly cut
"All over Berlin we see posters in
tended to arouse a practical love for
our brothers in captivity They show
sad and hopeless faces behind the
prison bars-that is the right front
spiece for the so-called peace treaty,
true portrait of Germany's future.
sixty millions are behind the barbed
wire and the prison bars-siXty mil
loans at hard labor for whom the enemy
makes their own land a prison camp.
| Should the peace conditions be accepted,
Germany no longer could call anything
her own which lies outside these mar
raw bounds.
Germany has ceased to exist abroad,
but if that were not sifficient, her
cables have been taken from her and
her wireless stations can send
only commercial kilograms IN d
then only under control of
the allies. This would separate us
from the outer world, for what business
can be done under the control of com
petitors need not to be described.
But this is far from enough. The
council therefore determines treaties be
tween enemy countries to be null and
void except such treaties whose eXecu-
ton is in favor of a government of the
allied powers.
What does President Wilson so apt
" say? That the first principle of
peace itself is equality, equal partcipa-
| ton in common beliefs
Herr Scheidemann then argued that
this principle had been abrogated in
| the peace terms.