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PAGE TWO
Why are We Condemning
“ Millions ” of American Sol
diers “ To Die on Far Away
Fields of Blood?”
(continued from page one.)
■whistles, all opened on the trail, like a well
trained pack following the pelt that Morgan,
Gary. Schwab. Rockefeller, Vanderlip & Co.
had dragged. *
Preparedness! Get ready to tight! More
men for the Army! More for the Navy!
More battleships! More submarines! More
training camps ! More guns, more chaplains !
In vain did the unexcited editors ask for
specifications! The Militarists could not tell
us what enemy threatened.
They could not name the nation that we
feared. They could not give one single
reason why we should enter upon immense
military expenditure.
Very wisely and truly, President AA ilson
said that we did not need it. lie set his face
against it. lie opposed that turbulent war
rior, Col. Roosevelt. He opposed all the Jin
goes.
He said that the European AVar was no
concern of ours.
He said that no reason existed for a change
of policy on our part.
Is it not so? You know that it is. Tn his
Indianapolis speech and others, he put him
self squarely against the Militarists, the Pre
paredness hullaballoo, and the intermeddling
with foreign affairs.
Such was the President's attitude in 1914
and 15: afterwards, he completely changed’
and then he went farther the other way, than
Roosevelt had gone —and thus he took the
wind out of Theodore’s disappointed sails.
In other words, AVilson opposed Roosevelt,
until after it seemed that Roosevelt had the
country with him; and then Wilson put
Theodore's nose out of joint, by “seeing" his
bid. and going him a few chips “better.”
Isn't tliis exactly true? Didn't it. in 1915,
seem that the main issue, in the Presidential
race of 191(5. would be this very question of
P> spared ucxs?
Didn't Woodrow AA ilson change the whole
political situation, in the twinkle of an eye,
by suddenly and completely reversing his own
position ?
Yoh certainly cannot have forgotten, that
it <AW.
f rom his attitude of stand-pat-ism on Pre
paredness. Mr. AVilson abruptly announced,
in a public speech, that he favored an en
largement of our military establishment, until
we should ha ve the biggest Navy in the world!
In this spectacular purloinage of Roose
velt's thunder, he left Theodore to a rear seat
on ITenaredness.
1.
As you will remember, (he Presidential
campaign opened up. between AVilson and
Hughes, with so slight a difference between
the two. that Hughes at first directed his at
tacks on AVilson to some minor matters of
patronage ami Civil Service.
Tlier? was so little to talk about, that AVil
son declined to talk.
Then Roosevelt pitched in, and he spurred
Hugiio- up. ami they began to lambaste AA’il
son for not declaring war on Germany.
This i sue gained ground, became the topic
of general discussion, and brought Wilson to
the front, as one of the campaign speakers.
lie took the position that we had nothing
to do with the European AVar, and that there
was no sufficient provocation for us to become
embroiled.
The women and the pacifists took up the
cry, “lie kept us out of war;” and AATlson's
speeches emphasized that idea, down to the
very day of the election.
Everybody who kept up with the news-
THE JEFFERSONIAN
paper reports, knows that this is strictly
true.
See how 7 shocking a change has come over
the spirit of his dream.
At his instance, a submissive Congress has
declared a fiction to be a truth: it has declared
that in April w 7 e were at war with Germany,
when w’e were not.
Nearly ten millions of our young men are
under conscription, and about to be deprived
of their blood-bought liberties.
The jails are being crowded with citizens
who are not charged with any crime, except
that they refused to recognize the right of
Congress to forfeit their lives, “without the
due process of law’,” guaranteed in Magna
Charta, and repeatel in every American Bill
of Rights.
A million American fathers are harassed
and tormented by the prospective loss of their
sons; and millions of American mothers are
frantic w’ith maternal fears and grief.
My god ! AATiat is all this for?
AA'hat awful change of actual conditions
has taken place, since the November election?
AVhat horrible provocation has been given
us, since AVilson kissed the Book, four months
ago ?
Tell the plain fathers and mothers, whose
sons are practically condemned to servitude
and foreign sacrifice, what is the reason for
all this !
In December last, the President proposed
to act as mediator, in the ending of the War;
on January 7th, he was sending the German
Emperor messages of good will; on January
22. he went before the Senate and repeated
his preachment for peace, saying, that there
should not be a victory for any of the na
tions, but a peace w’hich should be the agree
ment of equals, leaving “no stings, no re
sentments, and no bitter memories” to here
after disturb the tranquility of nations.
Let us get our facts straight now, for the
time sw’iftly approaches when passion will
overflow’ the truth.
On Jan. 22, 1917, President AVilson was
more than GO years old, only 3 months younger
than myself: if he and I have not yet reached
the age of wisdom, we never will.
AVhat dij he say, in his carefully prepared
address to the U. S. Senate —and to “man
kind"—months ago?
I use the word “mankind." because Mr.
AVilson has filled my head w ith it.
It is Wilson's pet word: the subject of all
his oratory is, “mankind.”
Sometimes, I am almost persuaded that
AA'oodrow AVilson considers himself a sort of
Universal Guardian for the Human Race.
lie is not a mere Presidential Limited, con
fined to American road-beds, and carrying
passenger intra State and inter-State in this
Union; but he is a kind of International
Pedagogue, commissioned from on High to
regulate the world-w’ide a Hairs of “mankind.”
Let me beg you to take a little time and
patience for refreshing your memory as to
what the President said to the Senate—and
to mankind—On the shank of January,
year.
The President began as follow's—
Gentlemen of the Senate: On the 18th of De
cember last I addressed an identic note to the
Governments of the nations now at war request
ing them to state, more definitely than they had
yet been stated by either group of belligerents,
the terms upon which they would deem it possible
to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity
and of the rights of all neutral nations like our
own, many of whose most vital interests the war
puts in constant jeopardy.
The Central Powers united in a reply which
stated merely that they were ready to meet their
antagonists in conferences to discuss terms of
peace.
The Entente Powers have replied much more
definitely, and have stated, in general terms, in
deed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply de
tails, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts Os
reparation which they deem to be the indispensa
ble conditions of a satisfactory settlement, *
We are that much nearer a definite discussiofli
of the peace which shall end the present war.
We are that much nearer the discussion of the
international conceit which must therefore hold
the world at peace.
Consider that!
The President goes in person to tell th©
Senate, that in December 1916, he had taken
it upon himself, on behalf of all the neutral
nations, (and mankind) to write the same
note to all the belligerents—Germany, Aus
tria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, as well as Eng
(land, France, and Italy—asking them “to
state . . . the terms upon w’hich they would
deem it possible to make peace.”
Stop a moment, right there!
In w’riting this “identic note” to all th©
belligerents, the President must necessarily
have been honest, in his professions of a de
sire to act as peacemaker.
You must likewise take it for granted that
he had an honest desire to make peace, els©
his action was incredibly impertinent and un
justifiable. \
But see what you do to the President’s
present attitude, when you credit him for,
honesty and earnestness, in January.
If he could have succeeded with his peace
efforts, in December and January, he would
have left mankind in the lurch, unredeemed*
unregenerated, unemancipated from univer*
sal Militarism and other thralldoms.
On January 22, 1917, the President had
not consecrated billions of American dollars
and millions of American lives, “to fight for
the ultimate peace of the world and for thq
liberation of its peoples; for the rights of
nations, great and small, and the privilege
of men everywhere to choose their way or
life and obedience.”
(“Men everywhere,” does not include the
ten million American conscripts, or
American freemen who are in jail, for having
presumed to think that they were free “to
choose their way of life and obedience.”)
On January 22, 1917, the President w’as
honestly intent upon leaving the Kaiser and
Germans to settle it between themselves, as to
what sort of government Germany should
have, dynastic, militaristic, or otherwise.
Tn Jan., 1917, he was not willing to send,
armies to Europe in the interest of*England.
and to prevent the Germans from completing
the Berlin to Bagdad railroad.
In January, 1917, we were not frightened
by the spectre of German invasion, and we
were not concerned about the books which
German writers had published.
In short, had England been willing to meet
Germany in a Peace Congress, five months
ago, our President was willing to let by-gones
be by-gones, and to let Militarism, in Ger
many and elsewdiere, remain on its throne!
To express the same thought another way— *
the Germans were not then guilty of any
crime against us, against humanity, or against
democracy, that the President then con
sidered a necessary cause of war.
AATiat has happened to change the Presi
dent’s mind, since January 22nd?
Name it!
You cannot do it: nobody can: there is
something hidden from our view 7 , and w’e are
groping in the dark.
But let me call your attention to another
portion of the President's January speech:
Is the present war a struggle for a just and
secure peace or only for a new balance of power?
If it be only a struggle for a new balance of
power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee,
the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement?
Only a tranquil Europe can boa stable Europe.
There must be not only a balance of power, but
a community of power; not organized rivalires,
but an organized common peace.
Fortunately we have received very explicit as
surances on this point. The statesmen of both
of the groups of nations now arrayed against one
another have said, in terms that could not he mis
interpreted, that it was no part of the purpose
they had in mind to crush their antagonists. But
Thursday, Juris s#,