overnments has
already been manifested in a very practical way. Their representatives
in the supreme war council at Versailles have by unanimous resolution
assured the people of the central empires that everything that is
possible in the circumstances will be done to supply them with food and
relieve the distressing want that is in so many places threatening their
very lives; and steps are to be taken immediately to organize these
efforts at relief in the same systematic manner that they were organized
in the case of Belgium.

"For, with the fall of the ancient governments which rested like an
incubus upon the people of the central empires, has come political
change not merely, but revolution; and revolution which seems as yet to
assume no final and ordered form.

"Excesses accomplish nothing. Unhappy Russia has furnished abundant
recent proof of that. Disorder immediately defeats itself. If excesses
should occur, if disorder should for a time raise its head, a sober
second thought will follow and a day of constructive action, if we help
and do not hinder.

"To conquer with arms is to make only a temporary conquest; to conquer
the world by earning its esteem is to make permanent conquest. I am
confident that the nations that have learned the discipline of freedom
and that have settled with self-possession to its ordered practice are
now about to make conquest of the world by the sheer power of example
and of friendly helpfulness.

"The peoples who have but just come out from under the yoke of arbitrary
government and who are now coming at last into their freedom will never
find the treasures of liberty they are in search of if they look for
them by the light of the torch. They will find that every pathway that
is stained with the blood of their own brothers leads to the wilderness,
not to the seat of their hope.

"They are now face to face with their initial tests. We must hold the
light steady until they find themselves. And in the meantime, if it be
possible, we must establish a peace that will justly define their place
among the nations, remove all fear of their neighbors and of their
former masters, and enable them to live in security and contentment when
they have set their own affairs in order.

"If they do we shall put our aid at their disposal in every way that
we can. If they do not we must await with patience and sympathy the
awakening and recovery that will assuredly come at last."

GERMAN MALTRE