Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 251, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1918 — LODGE AGAINST ANY DISCUSSION [ARTICLE]

LODGE AGAINST ANY DISCUSSION

•A 1 1 1 ■" REPUBLICAN LEADER COMMENTS ON WILSON ' REPLY. Washington, October 24.—-Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, Republican leader in the senate, commenting on President Wilson’s reply to Germany, disapproved the President’s course in continuing the discussions with the German government and in transmitting the request for an armistice and peace to the allied governments. “The President,” said Senator Lodge, “says in his last sentence that if we must deal with 'the military masters and autocrats of Germany, we must demand not peace negotiations, but surrender. “With this I am in full accord, as I was with the President’s statement of September 27. In the first paragraph the President says that as the present government, which, as all the world knows, is controlled by the kaiser and the military party, represents through its ministers the majority,of the reiehstag and an overwhelming majority of the German people, he feels that he can not decline to take up with the allied governments the question of an armistice. “With this I am not in accord, for the German government described in the first paragraph and that described in the last sentence are one and the same. ,J My own view is a very simple one. There is no 'German government in existence with which I would discuss anything. I deplore at this stage, when we are advancing steadily to a complete victory, any discussion or exchange of notes with the German government. The only thing now is to demand unconditional surrender. I would leave that to Marshal Foch and the- generals of the armies; When they report that the German army ihas surrendered and ceased to exist as an army in being, then, and not until then, let the allies and the United States meet and agree what terms they will impose on Germany to insure the safety of civilization and mankind.”