The Cordova daily times., 1921-04-29
|Ls World Safe for Dem0crucu?

That's what we said when America sailed away for France two millions strong:
 Let us make the world safe for democracy" By democracy we meant the right of people to govern themselves, each man with a vote and no man with any other power over his fellows than his natural ability enabling him to exercise Lovers of democracy, we knew it could not live side by side with it's enemies, au- tocracy and militarism, and we pro- posed to die fighting for democracy in order that it might be made safer.
 There was high need for our eff forts; for the fate of self-government hung in the balance. If Germany won the war there would be no peaceful living in the world with her. Through having defied the united might of her enemies for two and a half years, her people had come to think they were invincible. They always fought on the inside lines, and they had the benefit of start at the time that suited them most. If they carried on until they forced France, Britain and Italy to bite the dust they would con- sider themselves the strongest na- tion in the world, able to dictate their form of government to the rest of humanity.
 There was every reason to believe that a victorious Germany would con- sider herself an enemy of democracies wherever they existed. It is the na- ture of autocracy to war on democ- racy. The two cannot live peacefully side by side. The greatest peril to the autocrat is that the people over whom he rules will come to repudiate his rule. If they see democracy is successful operation around them, they will ever threaten the overthrow L., and he must feel the essential neces- sity from his point of view for find ing grounds for quarrel and war with the nations in which the seat of power is the will of the people.
 But to Germany there would have been one sure means of recupera- tion-the wealth of the United States. Her navy was intact, stronger than when the war began. Our navy was weaker than hers, and our trade and our seaboard were exposed.
 For all that, I do not think the United States would have tamely sub- mitted to Germany. In the war that would have followed, our navy might have been defeated at first, and our commerce might have been swept from the ocean. But the spirit of the United States is to get ready for war after it begins, and to fight on until the war is won. That is probably what we should have done if we had been so foolish as to think in 1917 that we could afford to stay out of the war altogether. The final re- suit would have been that we should have got navy built at last and de- feated Germany on the sea, or forced her into her ports. We should have escaped defeat at great expense of life and money.
 In fighting the war for the over- throw of autocracy, we were really fighting in behalf of the great mass of German people, though that was not in our minds at the time. The German militarists were a welI-united class, ruling their people by fear and by an ably devised system of rewards for those who obeyed. He who sought to break their hold on the peoples throat received so mercy. He who toadied sufficiently was re- warded.
 When we broke down the war, we broke down the war party. We made, we and those who fought with us, the German people free from their domestic tyrants. The day will come when Germany will realize, as the south has come to realize since the Civil war, that it was a blessing that she did not win the victory in her long and disastrous struggle.
 When the. war was over the world was so full of joy at the coming of peace that we forgot to pay much attention to that which had given us most anxiety before the victory-the fate of democracy. Before we had recovered from the era of rejoicing we had the long and difficult prob lem to solve of the peace conditions, and then came the threatened wave