Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1917 — Work for All Before Peace Comes [ARTICLE]

Work for All Before Peace Comes

By GEN. FRANCIS V. GREEN

What a privilege it is to live in this age, when the greatest contest since the world began is in progress to establish the principle that might shall not prevail over rigtit, and that the will of a brutal conqueror shall not destroy the foundations on which modern civilization rests. And what a privilege" it is for us to take our part in that great struggle, each doing his allotted task! Be assured that there will be work for all of> us, young and old, rich and poor, before the desired result of a just and lasting decision is reached. It is probably {rue that the end of the war is not yet wi sight. 3he opinion is expressed in certain quarters abroad as well as in this country, that the magnificent address of President Wilson, by far tHe. greatest utterance of the war, is a trumpet blast before which the walls of the German Jericho will fall. This opinion, I fear, is not well founded. More probable is it that we have entered upon a task the magnitude of which* we do not yet, with all our imagination, fully appreciate. The terms of peace which apparently Germany would now accept are the surrender of all captured territory and the neutralization of Constantinople, but on condition that German garrisons are to be permanently maintained in Antwerp, Brussels and Lille, German naval stations in Dunkirk and Calais, and the receipt of an indemnity of $3,000,000,000. .The terms which apparently France and Great Britain would now accept are the restoration at German expense of the property destroyed in captured territory, the surrender of all such territory and of Alsace-Lorraine in addition, the delivery of Constantinople to the allies, and the pledge of the German navy and commercial marine as security for their undertaking. With views so widely divergent on the part of the belligerents, no peace is possible until one or the other side is completely exhausted; and this is by no means the case at present. Moreover, there is an especial reason why Germany will not now make peace. Her financial plans have all been based upon the confident belief that she would dictate the terms of peace, which would necessarily include a huge indemnity. Acting on this belief, Germany has not (as Great Britain and France have) added any considerable amount of current taxation, but has pyramided her obligations, paying interest out of new loans, until she has piled up a debt so out of proportion to her wealth and resources that repudiation or bankruptcy in some form seems to be inevitable —unless the indemnity can somehow be collected.