Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-09-03
Austria Gets Peace
Treaty From Allies

ASout"ucu NASAsA
had been defeated in the field,
makes it clear, according to any
canon Of justice, they must be held
to bear their full measure Of respon-
sibility for a crime which has
brought such misery on the world.
There is, however, further fact
to which the allied and associated
powers feel bound to point. The
Hapsburg system became in its es-
sence a system maintaining the as
cendancy of the German and Mag
var peoples over a majority of the
inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy. This ancient and effete
autocracy, with its militarist tradi-
tons, was maintained in existence
through the vigorous support of the
inhabitants of Austria and Hungary,
because it gave to them position
of political and economic domina-
ton over their fellow subjects.
1T was a policy of racial ascen-
dency and oppression to which the
people of Austria gave their steady
support, which. was one OF the deep
er causes of the war. 1t led to those
iredentist movements along the
frontiers of Austria and Hungary.
which kept Europe in. a ferment OF
unrest; it led to the growing de-
pendence of Austro- Hungary on
Germany, and consequently to the
subordination of the Austro-Hun-
garian policy to the German plans
of domination, and, in the end, it
led to situation in which the rulers
of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy
could see no other way of preserv-
ing their own power than to set to
work deliberately to destroy the lib
erty of small and dependent ma
tons.
I'm the opinion, therefore, of the
allied and associated powers, it is
impossible to admit the plea of the
Austrian delegation that the people
of Austria do not share the re-
sponsibility of the government
which provoked the war or that
they. are to escape the duty of max
ing reparation to the utmost of their
capacity to those whom they and
the government they sustained have
so grievously wronged. The prin-
ciples upon which the draft treaty
is based must therefore stand.
Until the signing of peace, the
people of Austria are and will re-
main an enemy people; upon its
signature they will become state
with whom the allied and asso-
ciated powers hope and expect to
maintain friendly relations.
"(2) 1880 The Austrian delegation
have further protested against the
arrangements under the treaty gov
erning their relations with the new
states formed out of the late Aus.
tro-Hungarian monarchy.
THE allied and associated powers
feel bound to point out that the
disabilities from which Austria will
suffer will arise. not from the pro-
visions of the treaty, but mainly
from the policy of ascendency which
its people have pursued in the past.
MANY of these peoples protested
against the war and are now. one
and all, determined, and rightly de-
termined, to set themselves up as
independent states. They will
trust the empire no more. The pol
icy of ascendency has borne its in
evitable fruit in the fact of parti-
ton and it is this partition which
lies at the root of Austria's trou-
oles today.
"The dissolution of the monarchy
with its consequences is the direct
outcome of that fatal policy of
domination for which the people of
Austria are themselves principally
TO blame.
Won't Enlarge Hardships.
"(0-The allied and associated
powers, however, have no wish to
add to the hardships of Austria's
position. On the contrary, they are
anxious to do all in their power to |