It merely makes such a peace worse to try to hide the shame of the defeat behind the empty pretense of forging a league of nations, including Germany, to secure future peace. Such a peace would mean that Germany saw her unspeakable brutality and treachery crowned by essential triumph and therefore would put a premium upon her repeating the brutality and treachery at the earliest convenient moment. It is mere hypocrisy to promise to put a stop to wrongdoing in the future unless we are willing to undergo the labor and peril necessary to stop wrongdoing in the present. In our own country nothing but harm was done by the worthy persons who, a couple of years ago, formed a league to enforce peace in the future, while at the same time they nervously declared that they would have nothing to do with enforcing peace by stopping international wrong in the present. Lord Lansdowne’s proposal to hide the admission of present defeat behind the camouflage of pretended international peace agreements for the future is unworthy of his distinguished services and reputation.
Our people ought never to forget that Germany respects nothing but strength and the readiness and ability to use it. Germany has made a fetish of able brutality. She regards with utter derision the pacifists and pro-Germans in this country. She will use them as her tools and pay them when necessary, but if through this aid she was able to conquer this country after previously separating us from our allies, she would with utter indifference break these tools and throw them on the scrap-heap with the rest of the American people.
There is but one safe course to follow, and that is to fight this war through to victory at no matter what cost. This Nation should declare war on Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, this week. Let us definitely announce that our aims include restoring and indemnifying Belgium, giving back Alsace and Lorraine to France, creating a Poland which shall include all the Poles and a greater Bohemia and a great Jugo-Slav commonwealth and restoring Rumanian Hungary to Rumania, and Italian Austria to Italy, and driving the Turk from Europe and freeing Armenia and Syria and Arabia. After victory let us join in any arrangement to increase the likelihood of future international peace, but let us treat this as an addition to, and never as a substitute for, the preparedness which is the only sure guarantee against either war or measureless disaster. Therefore let us at once introduce as our permanent national policy the system of universal obligatory military training of all our young men.
THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
December 5, 1917
The President has in admirable language set forth the firm resolve of the American people that the war shall be fought through to the end until it is crowned by the peace of complete victory. He states unequivocally that our task is to win the war, that nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is accomplished, and that every power and resource we possess will be used to achieve this purpose. He states that there shall be no peace until the war is won. He says that this peace must deliver, not only Belgium and Northern France, but the peoples of Austria-Hungary, of the Balkan Peninsula, and of Turkey in Europe and Asia from “the impudent and alien dominion of the Prussian military and commercial autocracy.” He emphatically states that we have no purpose to wrong the German people or subject them to oppression, but merely to prevent others from being oppressed by them. He states that if Germany persists in adherence to her present rulers and their policies, it will be impossible, even after the war, to treat her as other nations are treated, but that, although we intend to right the wrongs inflicted by Germany on other nations, we have no intention to inflict similar wrongs on Germany in return. He says that the mind of the Russian people has been poisoned by the rulers of Germany, exactly as the latter have poisoned the minds of their own people.
To all of this the heart of the American people will answer a devout amen. The message is a solemn pledge on behalf of this Nation that we shall use every energy we possess to win the war, and that we shall accept no peace not based on the complete overthrow of Germany. The American people must now devote themselves with grim resolution and whole-hearted purpose to the effective translation of this pledge into action, for, of course, the sole value of such a promise lies in the manner in which it is actually made good. The people must back the Government in every step to carry into effect this pledge and must tolerate no failure in any official charged with the duty of carrying it into effect.
I shall shortly discuss the proposals of the President in reference to Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. But in this editorial I wish merely, as one among the countless Americans to whom the honor and welfare and high ideals of America are dear, to say amen to the President’s expressed purpose to wage this war through to the end with all our strength and to accept no peace save that of complete victory.
FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY
December 7, 1917