Louisville Courier-Journal: "As President Wilson stood before Congress he voiced the calm, indomitable power of the nation in words and in a spirit which finds an invincible response in every American heart and in every democratic brain throughout all the world that has called a halt on Kaiserdom. Truly, this man seems to have been raised up to lead us in this supreme crisis."

St. Louis Republic: "Sweeps away all the sophistries of the professional peacemaker."

Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Emphasizes anew his character as an international leader."

The Christian Science Monitor: "The President's message to Congress is one of those sane, statesmanlike and serene pronouncements which not only the United States, but the whole body of the Allies, have come to look to him for."

Boston Globe: "The people of the Entente countries will recognize the spokesman of their aspirations and exert great pressure on any reluctant leaders."

Boston Post: "The war will be ended the sooner by reason of it."

Boston Advertiser: "Peace terms on which the American people will stand pat. They fulfill the expectations of liberals the world over."

New York World: "A ringing note of leadership to all the nations.... A great war message and a great peace message."

London Daily Mail: "Whenever he speaks it is as though America, with its 100,000,000 people, blew a blast on a single trumpet."

London Evening Standard: "We have always thought that a great opportunity was missed by the European Allies when they failed to adopt heartily and without qualification the high aims set forth by the President, which will appeal to the best elements in every country and may possibly evoke some response even in Germany. If the Wilson policy had been accepted as that of all the Allies and blazoned forth in a joint declaration, there would have been less chance of that audacious and mendacious misrepresentation of which we see the vast results in Russia. The frank acceptance of the principles enunciated by all the governments and the peoples warring against Germany would contribute largely to their success in arms."

London Daily News: "If the President could have said earlier what he said today, and if in Britain and France and Italy the responsible leaders of these nations had made his language their own, Russia might today be driving the German armies from her

borders.... Another example of comprehension by which he clarified fundamental issues of the war.... It would be affectation to pretend that the speech echoes the declaration of Allied statesmen. His vision comprehends the world; theirs only half."

London Times: "President Wilson has restated the Allies' purpose with uncompromising force."

London Globe: "President Wilson's addresses come as a purifying breeze from the new world to the old."

Pall Mall Gazette: "The most direct appeal to a practical handling of the muddle of the eastern question yet made by any Allied statesman."

DECEMBER 10, 1917-BRITISH capture JERUSALEM.

DECEMBER 14, 1917-LLOYD GEORGE ENDORSES PRESIDENT WILSON'S ADdress to Congress.

DECEMBER 16, 1917-BOLSHEVIKI SIGN TRUCE OF 28 DAYS WITH GERMANY.

DECEMBER 18, 1917-PROHIBITION AMENDMENT PASSES CON

GRESS AND GOES TO THE STATES FOR RATIFICATION.

DECEMBER 20, 1917-LLOYD GEORGE STATES BRITISH PEACE TERMS IN HOUSE OF COMMONS.

DECEMBER 23, 1917-GERMANY AND RUSSIA OPEN PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AT BREST-LITOVSK.

DECEMBER 23, 1917-BETHLEHEM CAPTURED BY BRITISH. DECEMBER 25, 1917-ANOTHER GERMAN PEACE OFFENSIVE, LAUNCHED FROM BREST-LITOVSK.

(Germany, counting upon war-weariness amongst the Allied people, and knowing that the suggestions of peace had crept abroad through numerous channels from Brest-Litovsk, considered the time propitious for another attempt to gain by psychology what she had not been able to gain by arms. Her political spokesmen proposed, therefore, for all of Russia's allies, a peace without annexation or indemnity, and restoration of political independence to all nations suffering the loss of it through the war. Germany meanwhile had been busy at the conference making everything ready to despoil Russia of vast territory. The German device

AMERICANISM

for doing this was typical. Picking out figureheads as ostensible representatives of various Russian provinces, she insolently and cynically asserted upon the authority of these dummy representatives that such provinces desired autonomy from Russia, under German protection, and that they were entitled to it under the Wilson doctrine of self-determination, or the right of every people to determine for themselves how they should be ruled!)

DECEMBER 25, 1917-ANOTHER GERMAN PEACE OFFENSIVE LAUNCHED FROM BREST-LITOVSK.

DECEMBER 26, 1917-THE GOVERNMENT TAKES OVER THE RAILROADS.

(President Wilson proclaimed all railroads under Government control, with William G. McAdoo as Director-General.)

JANUARY 3, 1918-German Demands ObstruCT PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE BOLSHEVIKI.

JANUARY 3, 1918-GERMANY BREAKS TRUCE AGREEMENT BY REFUSING TO WITHDRAW TROOPS FROM RUSSIAN SOIL.

JANUARY 5, 1918-LLOYD GEORge restates BritiSH WAR AIMS. (This was England's counter to the latest peace offensive. The British Premier insisted upon restoration and reparation, but denied an intention of destroying the Central Empires as political states.)

JANUARY 8, 1918-President Wilson restates war aims.

(This was President Wilson's answer to the Brest-Litovsk peace offensive. Germany had again shown her intriguing, hypocritical duplicity in the negotiations for a separate peace with Russia. President Wilson found in the situation another occasion offering an opportunity to announce to the world, in terms not to be misinterpreted or misunderstood, the Allied war aims. Three days before, Lloyd George had made a similar announcement, less definite and lucid, but so much to the same purpose that no suggestion of a lack of unity could creep in. In this speech President Wilson lays down categorically a definite peace platform of 14 planks.)

"A PLATFORM OF WORLD PEACE."

PRESIDENT WILSON'S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS, STATING THE WAR AIMS AND PEace Terms of THE UNITED States.

Gentlemen of the Congress:

(Complete)

Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the objects of the war and the possible basis of a general peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between Russian representatives and representatives of the Central Powers to which the attention of all the belligerents has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with regard to terms of peace and settlement.

The Russian representatives presented not only a perfectly definite statement of the principles upon which they would be willing to conclude peace but also an equally definite program of the concrete application of those principles. The representatives of the Central Powers, on their part, presented an outline of settlement which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpretation until their specific program of practical terms was added. That program proposed no concessions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the preferences of the populations with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires were to keep every foot of territory their armed forces had occupied-every province, every city, every point of vantageas a permanent addition to their territories and their power.

WHOSE WAS THE GERMAN VOICE WE HEARD?

It is a reasonable conjecture that the general principies of settlement which they at first suggested originated with the more liberal statesmen of Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of their own people's thought and purpose, while the concrete terms of actual settlement came from the military leaders who have no thought but to keep what they have got. The negotiations have been broken off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest. They cannot entertain such proposals of conquest and domination.

The whole incident is full of significance. It is also full of perplexity. With whom are the Russian representatives dealing? For whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the majorities of their respective parliaments or for the minority parties, that military and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their whole policy and controlled the 95

the ⚫ been ..on of ly last, Germany, : and insist

in fact, to tion? These answer to them

'UR AIMS.

s at Brest-Litovsk, purpose in the utterpires, they have again r objects in the war and to say what their objects would deem just and satisAny that challenge should not with the utmost candor. We

again and again, we have laid before the world, not in general sufficient definition to make it clear of settlement must necessarily spring week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken In admirable spirit for the people and ain.

ion of counsel among the adversaries of uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of recy of counsel, the only lack of fearless ilure to make definite statement of the objects th Germany and her allies. The issues of life pon these definitions. No statesman who has on of his responsibility ought for a moment to > continue this tragical and appalling outpouring sure unless he is sure beyond a peradventure that vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very at the people for whom he speaks think them e as he does.

THE VOICE OF RUSSIA Calls.

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of principle and of purpose which is, it sems to me, more thrilling and more compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their power, apparently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what is humane and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound their ideals or desert others that they themselves may be safe.

They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in anything, our purpose and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that the people of the United States would wish me to respond, with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace.

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow now or at any other time the objects it has in view.

Here Is What We Are Fighting For.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world made secure once for all against their recurrence.

What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar

to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving ration