Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1917 — A UNITED SENTIMENT [ARTICLE]

A UNITED SENTIMENT

It is gratifying to note the unanimity of the endorsement given President Wilson in breaking off diplomatic- relations with Germany because of her announced . intention of resuming a ruthless submarine | warfare. The following editorial from the Indianapolis Star, the Republican state organ, is l>#t one of the more, mild endorsements given the President by the Republican press of the country: No matter what terrible events may follow the present decisive action of our government, history will note that our entrance upon this phase of the world war has been forced upon us by inescapable circumstances find not sought by any act of ours. If anything, we have been too patient. If we have erred at all, it has been on the side of forbearance. Even now the truth is that ah a nation we do not desire war ’with Germany. If we can honorably keep out of it, we shall. It is also true that Germany does not desire war with us. The difference is that the course .Germany has determined on may drive her to war with us or us to war with her, without either power seeking war as its definite object. Future generations of Americans may he thankful, moreover, that the reins of power at this time are in the hands of a man of dispassionate thought and circumspect act. • Violent .speech has raged around him, and even echoed through the halls of congress, but it has passed (him by. His course has been laid in calm reflection, solicitous for the forms of law and the amity of international intercourse. The nation stands loyally behind him; and one reason is because he has made our record with such restraint, such magnanimity, such extreme care. On its part, Germany has gone great lengths to avoid giving offense to the United States. It is only the most hotheaded and the least reflective who have found in every outbreak of German violence a studied insult to us. Even now the aim of the central powers is not the alienation of neutral sympathy. blit the destruction of the British power. We all know to what extremities the Teutonic nations are reduced, though, of course, neutral intelligence is at the mercy of interested misrepresentations on both sides. In the last extremity of isolation, Germany takes up such weapons as lie to her hand, and the use she proposes to make of them puts them under the ban of international law, as it stood at the *

outset of the war. She elects to break the law rather than lose the fight; and however we may apprehend her extremity, we have ho choice but to withdraw from diplomatic fellowship with her. It is upon this plain record of inevitable conduct on pur part that the United States expects all citizens. including its German-Ameri-can citizens, to support the government. In the presence of,this appalling wrench to their racial an® national ties, great as the sacrifice must be to immense numbers .ftf them, the expectation is reasonableand necessary. From, this act of patriotic devotion few of them, we fancy, will shrink, for if they have had to suffer much from unkind suspicions and invidious acts by pro-ally sympathizers, nevertheless they must remember that much has been borne from the more violent members of their own ranks, as well as from the sometimes inexplicably savage methods of German arms across the sea. It is, above all. fortunate that there is in the White House at -this supreme crisis of our international relations a man who will exhaust every means to preserve the peace between the United States and Germany. Neither does Germany seek war with uh: yet no thoughtful man can watch the trend of events without grim foreboding that this awful conflagration, from which we have so earnestly, and perhaps top patiently striven to escape, may have at last caught the Stars and Stripes in its . consuming flame. Where shall civilization look for safety, if the republic of the West is drawn into thq, vortex of universal war and all-devouring wrath?