Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1916 — CONTENTION WITH GERMANY TEMPORARILLY RELIEVED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CONTENTION WITH GERMANY TE M PORARILLY RE LIEVED

The receipt of the official reply of Germany to ;lie ('. s. note on the submarine warfare as oonduc*-d lethal conn;in has relieved the tense situation temporarilly at least, after a careful study thereof and the determination by the President to accept the conditional promise of the, German empire to comply with international law and restrict its undersea warfare to warships of belligerent foes, etc. No matter where our sympathies may lie in this terribie world war, we must admit that the German contention is and has been absolutely wrong all the way through in this matter, and our government cannot bargain with our German friends or any other country over the wanton destruction of lives of its hitmens in its illegal warfare, The Indianapolis News puts the matter plainly in the following editorial in Monday's issue of that paper. It says: It must be remembered that in our recent note we did not ask Germany to make any sacrifices, and that in her answer she gave up nothing to which she could be said to have any right. We simply demanded that the German government

cease to violate international law aml t o affront t lie law of humanity, and that government gave assurances that it would cease to do these things. The imperial government never had the shadow of a right to do them, and there is. therefore, no sacrifice in giving up what was never possessed. ' Yesterday was the anniversary of the Lusitania tragedy. There is no sentiment in this country favorable to the theory that we ought to buy Germany by upholding even out: rights against Great Britain, much less the German theory of those rights, from sinking illegally another Lusitania. That would be a monstrous piopositibn. That awful May day has again become vivid in the minds of Americans. Nor have Americans forgotten that there has as yet been no atonement for it. The errible account ie yet to he settled. We refer to it now only for the purpose of making clear the absurdity of thinking that Germany has surrendered any right, or of imagining that "this government will bargain on the subject, or even admit that, in abondoning this mode of warfare there is any yielding of a. right for ’•chi'b compensation can be said to be due. The* fact that the German note is open to this construction—a con - 'structhit! tbit our government very wisely and charitably refuses to put

<•_» ii sronil-.: emliarasseß us in our; negotiation- with Great Britain. For, , not only Great Britain, but Germany ! herself, and all the world, might ' well conclude til at we were seeking to force a settlement of our disputes j ever merchandise with Great Britain j iii order to get from Germany a car- ! eying out oc the promises that she I has made to ro*;nect life. For this ! complication the German government ‘ is. of course, wholly responsible. Whatever Great Britain does or does not do about commerce and merchandise. Ger in any must cease dost royi n g nonrombatants on the high seas; We li 've. it may lie added, nothing to do with the effects on the German people of a lawful blockade. Our bn'.v concern a- a government is with the, illegal features of the blockade. And o f course our German friends will remember that there was no mercy shown by Bismarck to the starving people of Paris when Under eiege by the German armies 46 years ago. No neutral nation asked the (lefiirans to raise the sefgff of Paris because the hedrile of that city were forced to subsist on rats. iSo there can be no objection to ftte present blockade on the ground that it is starving the people subject to it—-we once imposed a blockade ourselves. Our only ground for objection is our own interest as traders. And even then, there can be no objection except in so far as the blockade is illegal. But the first thing we have to find out is whether the new- pledges of the German government will he kept, and kept without reference to what we may or may not do in regard to the blockade. We can not he put in the position of buying a right which is not only ours, hut humanity’s.