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Show and in morals rightfully theirs. Instead of driving Russia into Germany's mailed arms President Wilson strives to hold its friend- I ship and confidence by proving that we deserve it. If, after what I he has now said, a misguided Russia should conclude a separate t peace with Germany by a surrender to imperial aggression it will be through no fault of our own. And if Russia is encouraged to stand to the end, and at whatever cost, manfully for the right, it will be thanks largely to the friendly and sympathetic attitude so fully revealed in the President's address. I i Equally important, pei'haps even more important, is the President's Presi-dent's renewed appeal to German liberalism. He makes it clear , that it is a divided Germany which today confronts the world. jOn the one hand there is the liberal element which dictated the rtOl-stag's rtOl-stag's formula of peace without annexations or indemnities. And on the other hand is the junker element which, in the negotiations with Russia, betrays the reichstag's mandate by demanding the right to impose a conqueror's terms. Who, the President forcefully inquires, is entitled to speak for Germany? What is the voice of Germany? For what is it that Germany really stands. The reichstag speaks with oj voice. The imperial government speaks with another. The reicjvg speakes for peace on fair terms. The militarists will consetVto peace on no such terms and demand imperial plunder. If there was a germany competent to speak and act, he makes clear, unddP the direction of the reichstag, animated by its purposes and ideals, peace would not be far distant. But the German negotiators at ; Brest-Livotsk spurned the reichstag formula and fastened the whole German empire to the dead body of war of war which ! must continue as long as German militarism is permitted to veto the expressed will of the people. To the great commercial and industrial interests of Germjtoiy, hungry for peace and a restored place in the world, this apfeal, we may well believe, must come with telling effect. And so it i must come to the masses of Germany, the plain people, the laborers, labor-ers, whose hunger for peace is even keener, just as is the hunger of the plain people the world over. And the President re-enforces the appeal by clearing away any misunderstanding that may have existed as to our purposes i with respect to the German constitution and the German government. govern-ment. We do not "presume to suggest any alteration or modification modifi-cation of her institutions." We do not say that, as the price of peace, she must become a democracy, or a modified monarchy, or any sort of government other than what she is. We must know . only that when her spokesmen come to us they speak with the voice of the reichstag, the representative of the German people, and not with the voice of the minority military party. With such spokesmen we can conclude a peace of justice, a peace that will assure Germany its full rights, its place in the world, its free and unrestricted share in the world's commerce and industry. In a word, we are ready to day to treat for peace with Germany Ger-many with the terms laid down by its own parliamentary body as a working basis. It is this that Mr. Wilson offers the German people, and this assurance of our unselfish and democratic attitude that he holds out to the Russian people. Wrhen we consider the misearble state of the world today, t Germany along with the rest, we are entitled to hope and belief that Mr. Wilson and Lloyd George have brought the day of peace appreciably nearer. Russia has spoken, Britain has spoken, the United States has spoken, essentially with nn vVp Tf ia the voice, in effect, of the German reichstag as well. It is the voice of peace with justice. It is now incumbent on the German governmentthe gov-ernmentthe imperialism that has dared to override the reichstag to answer it. If the answer is defiant it means the assumption of an indefensible position that brazenly gives the lie to everything every-thing Germany has heretofore professed. Such an answer would multiply the Kaiser's domestic troubles, already gravely serious If, on the other hand, the answer is reasonable, then the serioOte-discussion serioOte-discussion of peace terms will be under way, and once such a d cusssion is entered upon there will be no turning back. ONE STEP NEARER. It is again as a leader and spokesman of liberal and progressive progress-ive thought that President Wilson has addressed Congress. He has met, as Lloyd George met last week, the reasonable and righteous demand of the Russian people that the nations at war with Germany should state definitely their war aims and the terms on which they would be ready to conclude peace. In a general way President Wilson had stated those terms before. be-fore. He repeats them now, with greater precision and particularity, particu-larity, and applies them definitely to the map of the world. Interest In-terest does not attach especially to this part of the President's discussion, since it covers ground already familiar and covers it, for the most part, in a familiar way. As to the essential ends to be accomplished the President stands where he has stood since the beginning of the war, without yielding or compromise. Deep interest and great importance, however, attaches to his discussion of the situation as it exists between Germany and Russia. Rus-sia. Mr. Wilson attacks and finishes handsomely a task too long deferred when he sets us right with the Russian people. He places us in sympathy and spirit squarely by their side. He pays high tribute to the ideals that animate them and to the loyalty and simple-minded courage with which they have stood by those ideals. Of that carping, querulous, unsympathetic criticism of I hem and their conduct witli which we have all grown familiar there is not a suggestion in the President's address. Rather there is sympathy, understanding, faith and support. There is the promise to uphold their hands in the fight for what is in law |