Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1918 — TAKE IT ON FAITH. [ARTICLE]

TAKE IT ON FAITH.

Nothing could be more unreasonable or less profitable than -to seek for objections to the form or substance of the President’s reply to Germany; for the simple reason that no one outside .his immediate confidence can possibly have requisite knowledge upon which to base an opinion. • If we incline to impatience because the answer is not a categorical NO in the shortest space that diplomatic dignity can tolerate, it must be borne in mind that we are not fighting this war alone and that the desires of our allies rest upon us with heavy obligationthat this tender is a definite offer from the imperial German government, instead of a mere ministerial camouflage, and above all that inasmuch as our reply will be spread before the people of Germany and Austria, it would be the worst possible mistake to neglect the opportunity to plant in the German general mind the real purposes and aspirations of the civilized world, as distinguished from the false attitude with which we are charged by the military masters of Germany. It g->es without saying that the reply is not what we have all expected and hoped for. Neither in matter nor in manner does it reflect and interpret the universal moodof angry impatience with which the American people and, to judge from the press cables, the allied peoples generally view this proposal. Most of us would wish to see the sincerity of Germany frankly indicted and our minimum demands set out in naked simplicity and severity. It is the part of wisdom, however, as well as of justice, to conclude that the President is right, knowing more than we can know, and at least to suspend judgment till the effects of his course of action begin to appear. On the side of strategy, the President’s move must appear to all as exceedingly shrewd; for it not only exacts from Berlin a definition of the sense in which it offers to accept our previous proposals, such as ■withdrawal of invaded regions, but also deftly interposes the wedge of discerning and illuminative inquiry as to the extent to which the imperial government represents the German people as distinguished from the Prussian war machine. It is hard to see any alternatives here except unequivocal submission to the allied requirements or else complete discovery of Prussian duplicity. At least there is no armistice; and so long as our allied armies keep the field with such effective results as now characterizes their activities, the best and perhaps the only answer to German peace offensives goes on apace.—lndianapolis Star.