weight of the great military empire they will have set up; the revolutionists in Russia will be cut off from all succor or coöperation in western Europe and a counter revolution fostered and supported; Germany herself will lose her 5 chance of freedom, and all Europe will arm for the next, the final, struggle.

The sinister intrigue is being no less actively conducted in this country than in Russia and in every country in Europe to which the agents and dupes of the Imperial 10 German Government can get access. That Government has many spokesmen here, in places high and low. They have learned discretion. They keep within the law. It is opinion they utter now, not sedition. They proclaim the liberal purposes of their masters, declare this a foreign 15 war which can touch America with no danger to either her lands or her institutions, set England at the center of the stage and talk of her ambition to assert economic dominion throughout the world, appeal to our ancient tradition of isolation in the politics of the nations and seek to under20 mine the Government with false professions of loyalty to its principles.

But they will make no headway. The false betray themselves always in every accent. It is only friends and partisans of the German Government whom we have 25 already identified who utter these thinly disguised disloyalties. The facts are patent to all the world, and nowhere are they more plainly seen than in the United States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts and not with sophistries; and the great fact that stands out 30 above all the rest is that this is a people's war, a war for freedom and justice and self-government among all the nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for the

the

peoples who live upon it and have made it their own, German people themselves included, and that with us rests the choice to break through all these hypocrisies and patent cheats and masks of brute force and help set the world free, or else stand aside and let it be dominated a long age 5 through by sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters, by the nation which can maintain the biggest armies and the most irresistible armaments a power to which the world has afforded no parallel and in the face of which political freedom must 10 wither and perish.

For us there is but one choice. We have made it. Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure 15 for the salvation of the nations. We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster. Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our people.

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WOODROW WILSON

26. TESTING A PLAN OF PEACE

THE REPLY TO THE POPE

WASHINGTON, D. C., August 27, 1917.

TO HIS HOLINESS BENEDICTUS XV, POPE:

In acknowledgment of the communication of your Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917, the President of the United States requests me to transmit s the following reply:

Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened by this terrible war must be touched by this moving appeal of his Holiness the Pope, must feel the dignity and force of the humane and generous motives which prompted 1oit, and must fervently wish that we might take the path of peace he so persuasively points out. But it would be folly to take it if it does not in fact lead to the goal he proposes. Our response must be based upon the stern facts, and upon nothing else. It is not a mere cessation of arms he desires; it is a stable and enduring peace. This agony must not be gone through with again, and it must be a matter of very sober judgment what will insure us against it.

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His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to 20 the status quo ante bellum and that then there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations Lased upon an acceptance of the principle of arbitration;

that by a similar concert freedom of the seas be established; and that the territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplexing problems of the Balkan states, and the restitution of Poland be left to such conciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new temper of such a 5 peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved.

It is manifest that no part of this program can be successfully carried out unless the restitution of the status 10 quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government, which, having secretly planned to dominate 15 the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the longestablished practices and long-cherished principles of international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; 20 stopped at no barrier, either of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of blood not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked, but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world.

It is the ruthless

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This power is not the German people. master of the German people. It is no business of ours how that great people came under its control or submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose; 30 but it is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world is no longer left to its handling.

To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by his Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to cre5 ate a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German people, who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the new-born Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and the certain counterrevolution which would be attempted by all the malign Io influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed the world.

Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon any word of honor it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and accommodation? 15 Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before, that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate 20 injury. The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal upon the German people, who have themselves suffered all things in this war, which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon 25 the rights of peoples, not the rights of governments

the

rights of peoples, great or small, weak or powerful — their equal right to freedom and security and self-government, and to a participation upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of the world, the German people, of course, 30 included, if they will accept equality and not seek domination.

The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is