Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1917 — AMERICAN AIMS [ARTICLE]

AMERICAN AIMS

The American people and their government have but two objects, in this ’ war—the! crushing defeat of the German rule, and'the abso-. lute overthrow of the house Ci ilolienzollern and its theory es autocracy. We have no interest whatever in the distribution of territory after the war except that it shall be made in such a way as to satisfy the' jieople inhabiting the territory, and to make more probable the future peace of the world. It is much too early to begin tbs discussion of peace terms in detail. All that is necessary 'is that the world shall know that we are absolutely disinterested. We expect to get nothing material oat of the war except an enormous burden of debt. Indemnities we do not seek —-and would scorn if they were offered to us. We have more territory now than we know what to do with. There is no . chance whatever for us to*. “make -anything'' out of the war. But we do demand that the Prussian spirit be humbled and that the government and people of Germany be made to realize that they are defeated. In no other 'way can the world be made “safe for democracy.” As peace was made forty and more years ago at Versailles,, so now it must be made at Potsdam. We cap have no dealings of any sort with the present German government which, as the President has very truly said, can never be our friend. This is. a case in which there must be, destruction before there can be the remotest possibility of- reconstruction. Napoleon was more dangerous than the kaiser only because he was a man compared with whom in ability the kaiser is a~ch|ldBut he was a much mdre modern man. He was the product of forces that worked for freedom, whfxe the A-aiser is the product of medievalism.

We Amerfca ns need not bother ourselves about peace programs, for our job is to win ‘this war for liberty and democracy, it may not be won till the allied armies march through the streets of Berlin. For we are fighting, not people, but an intellectual temper, a state of mind. Those who set out

to impose laws on. the world must be made to realize that the world is greater than they. Our great mission in this war is to make that fact so clear that even Von Reventlow can not' mistake or misinterpret it.—lndianapolis News.