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Show The President's Answer . President Wilson has answered the Hun lust as the allied world knew he would answer him. The supreme diplomacy of the -Hun has thus failed, just as his supreme military effort was crushed months ago on the Mame. In considering this, the most momentous document that has ever come from the White House, it is well to reflect upon the situation. No man in the world's history was ever before called upon to make such an all-powerful decision; the eyes of the world were focused upon the president, and he did not fail. Think hack and conjure what this war has already cobt, not In- dollars, for they are cheap, but In human souls, and you can realize the problem that was before the president. His word Could have brought peace; peace would have saved thousands of lives; it would have been a fairly victorious peace and the peace conference might have worked ojit terms that would have guaranteed the future safety to the world. But the risk was too great and so the president said no. He preferred, the sacrifice of more lives so that civilization might be guaranteed to future generations. He said no, and yet he knew the cost in human life! Statisticians, who have made a study of war casualties, declare that in killed alone the casualties of all belligerents will total more than 10,000,000. The majority of these were young. They were the; men who would have tilled the fields, worked in the shops, raided the families of tomorrow. It was an awful record to look back upon. T?n million lives cut' of st the time when they were broadening into usefulness to civilization. i And In the White House .there was a lone, quiet man, raised and trained as a student, with an undoubted horror for all that is horjible, and to him fate had assigned the duty of saying whether this slaughter should continue. He knew the price and he decided fothe good of civilization. - r. His decision means that this orgy of bloodshed, .of murder an$ rapine shall never be repeated. He says: I 9 "The nations associated against Germany cannot be expected! to Agree to a cessation of arms while acts of inhumanity, spoliation and desolation are being continued, which they justly look upon wiU horror and with burning hearts." J He cites further an excerpt from his address delivered at Mount Vernon on the Fourth of July, last. . It is as follows: 5 "The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that on separately, secretly and of its single choice disturb the peace of the world; or, if It cannot be presently destroyed, at least its reduction . to '. virtual Impotency. J "The power which has heretofore controlled the German na-tion na-tion is of the sort hce described. It is within the choice ot the German natton to alter it." '. There can be little consolation for the German militarists In thij statement; nor can the president's reply as a whole give even I h ej smallest consolation to the German diplomats. f The president in a few words has made it known that the Hun and the Hunnish system must admit defeat and error. He feels it a "duty to say that no arrangement can be accepted by tha government of the United States which does not provide absolutely abso-lutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the maintenance of the present military supremacy of the armies of the United States ani of the allies in the field." -? Summed up in two wordv this means unconditional surrender. And that is the ultimatum of the allied world. i W'e do not want to begin preparing for another war immediately immedi-ately after the peace conference, and that we must do if the Huns ara not beaten into unconditional surrender. We do not want to sit at the peace table and trade colonies or privileges to the Huns for Belgium's freedom, Serbia's, Rumania's, France's, Italy's, Russia's, Montenegro's. We do not want to talk then about the restoration of lands devastated by the Huns. ' That is not the time to barter with Germany over her paying the price for the war she started, that price being reparation to the peoples she has harmed for the damage she did them. 5 We do not want to have to treat with Germany on the sub-jeCl sub-jeCl of German militarism and Hun power lust. s Arid if we fight until the Huns surrender unconditionally we i will not have to do those things. r We can bury German militarism and greed without asking the kalfcr's permission. ' '5 We can compel Germany to free all soil she has taken by conquest and all people she has enslaved. ; h When Germany surrenders unconditionally the peoples who j loe liberty, who believe in the principles of democracy, who respect the right? of other peoples and other nations, will write the terms of peace and will dictate the things Germany must do and mast not do. j If the sllles sre unable to do this, the yar will have to be foiiRht all over ajjain. All the lives which have been sacrificed' i will have been given in vain. All that we have done our children j j will have to do and more. i |
