JULY 24, 1917-EDWARD N. HURLEY PUT IN CHARGE OF SHIP

BUILDING.

JULY 29, 1917-GERMANY IN ANOTHER PEACE Offensive.

(Dr. Michaelis, German Chancellor, seizing upon the Reichstag peace resolutions of "no annexations, no idemnities," maintained that the refusal of the Allies to accept this formula at once as a basis for peace negotiations convicted them of hypocrisy and proved that they had not renounced conquest as their object in war. Count Czernin, Austrian Foreign Minister, contended that peace would be reached by negotiation sooner or later, and that any delay in bringing the war to an end was therefor due to England's determination to destroy the Central Powers.)

JULY 31, 1917-FRENCH AND BRITISH SMASH THE GERMAN LINES IN BELGIUM ON A FRONT OF 25 MILES, FROM DIxmude TO WARNETON.

AUGUST 8, 1917-FOOD CONTROL BILL PASSES.

AUGUST 10, 1917-PRESIDENT GIVES MR. HOOVER CONTROL OF

FOOD.

AUGUST 15, 1917-THE POPE SENDS A PEACE NOTE TO ALL

BELLIGERENTS.

(In his appeal to belligerents, the Pope suggested disarmament, withdrawal from occupied territories, restitution of German colonies, settlement of territorial and political questions in a conciliatory spirit, and a general condonation.)

AUGUST 23, 1917-RUSSIANS EVACUATE Riga.

AUGUST 23, 1917-CANADIANS ADVANCE SOUTH OF LENS.

AUGUST 27, 1917-PRESIDENT WILSON REPLIES TO THE POPE'S

PEACE PROPOSALS.

(The proposal for peace negotiations, coming from such a quarter, proved embarrassing to the Allies. The burden of replying was left to President Wilson. His answer to the suggestion, though courteous and respectful, left little unsaid that bore upon the question of destroying the power for evil existing in German autocracy. His reference to "selfish and exclusive economic leagues” was construed as a repudiation of an understanding reached by

France and England, at the Paris Conference, concerning an economic war to be waged on Germany after the conclusion of hostilities, and lead to a retirement from that plan. America and Allied Europe rallied behind the calm, firm, forceful assertion of principle contained in the reply, which proved final to the peace suggestion.) "PEACE IS IMPOSSIBLE NOW."

THE REPLY TO THE POPE.
(Complete)

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 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 it, 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.

His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status quo ante-bellum and that there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations based 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 peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved.

WE DEAL WITH A SECRET AND SINISTER POWER.

It is manifest that no part of this program can be successfully carried out unless the restitution of the status 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 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; 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.

This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless 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; 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 create 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 counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the malign 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?

PEACE MUST REST ON RIGHTS.

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 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 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, included, if they will accept equality and not seek domination.

The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved, or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing Government, on the one hand, and a group of free peoples, on the other? This is a test which goes to the root of the matter; and it is the test which must be applied.

The purposes of the United States in this war are known to the whole world-to every people to whom the truth has been permitted to come. They do not need to be stated again. We seek no material advantage of any kind. We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by the furious and brutal power of the Imperial German Government ought to be repaired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any people-rather a vindication of the sovereignty both of those that are weak and of those that are strong. Punitive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient, and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace. That must be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind.

GERMANY'S RULERS CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no, man, no nation, could now depend on.

We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers. God grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the possibility of a covenanted peace. ROBERT LANSING,

Secretary of State of the United States of America.

COMMENTS ON THE REPLY TO THE POPE.

London Daily Mail: "President Wilson's reply has the spirit and point of view the world has learned during the last six months to look for in all his utterances on the war."

London Times: "The answer of a practical statesman to the peace dreams of the Vatican."

Daily Telegraph: "It comes like an invigorating wind to blow away the cobwebs which pacifism and its dupes have been spinning about the central things in this great quarrel."

Morning Post: "Reveals a man who has his eye fixed on realities and his mind resolved unflinchingly on a great purpose. At the end of three years of unspeakable strain and anxiety it is an inestimable service to the Allies to find such leadership as this strong, clear-sighted, inflexible-inspiring new courage and faith, shaming the faint-hearted and silencing the disaffected."

New York World: "That President Wilson . . spoke for all the Allied Governments admits of no doubt, but what is more important-he spoke for the people of all the Allied Governments."

New York Post: "In his outline of peace terms, Mr. Wilson takes the lead."

New York Globe: "President Wilson . . has satisfied the conscience of the world that stands steadfast for war until real peace is possible."

New York Tribune: "The final word of western civilization to that system of barbarism which dominates and controls the German Empire. Mr. Wilson has demolished every edifice of peace founded upon the idea of preserving any portion of the German purpose and the German idea."

Evening Standard: "Mr. Wilson puts into plain English what our statesmen clothe in roundabout and unimpressive language." Philadelphia Enquirer: "It ought to clear the atmosphere not only in the United States but in Europe."

New York Herald: "In language that will ring round the world speaking for the people of all nations." Boston Post: "He shows in his most crystalline and effective fashion how futile and evanescent any peace would be backed only by the faith of the Hohenzollerns."

AUGUST 30, 1917-FRENCH BREAK GERMAN LINES NORTH OF VERDUN, ON A FRONT OF 11 MILES.

SEPTEMBER 3, 1917-PRESIDENT WILSON SENDS A MESSAGE TO THE NATIONAL ARMY.

(The first group (687,000) of the army selected by lot from the 10,000,000 registered June 5th, began to move toward their training stations two days later. The care taken of the army, and the high mental tone of the soldiers, are new in warfare.)