o be fulfilled before
we can honorably enter a conference on peace with the Imperial German
Government. The first is a legitimate inference from the statements of
the President. The second has been positively laid down by the
President. The third is drawn, purely on my own responsibility, from his
words.

First, Germany should frankly declare the aims with which she began this
war, and the purposes with which she continues it on the territories
which she has invaded.

Second, Germany must offer adequate guarantees that in any peace
negotiations her rulers shall speak only and absolutely with the voice
of the people behind them--in other words, with a democratic, not an
autocratic, sanction.

Third, Germany ought to give a pledge of good faith by the abandonment
of her illegal and inhuman submarine warfare on the merchant shipping of
the world.

Is it likely that the predatory Potsdam gang will be willing to accept
these three conditions soon?

I frankly confess that I do not know. Germany is in sore straits. That I
know from personal observation. But I know also that she is
magnificently organized, trained, and disciplined for obedience to the
imperial will. She will carry her fight for world empire to the last
limit.

When that limit is reached, when the German people know that the attempt
of their rulers to dominate the world by war has failed, then it will be
time to talk with them about the terms of peace.

III

THE TERMS OF PEACE

This is a long subject; and for that reason I mean to make it a short
chapter.

1. A discussion of peace terms with our enemy, the Imperial German
Government, is neither desirable nor safe under the present conditions.

Until that Government is disabused of the delusion that it has won, is
winning, or will win a substantial victory in this war, it is not likely
to say anything sane or reasonable about peace. A pax Germanica is what
it is willing to discuss.

But that is just what we do not want. To enter such a discussion now
would be both futile and perilous.

It would probably postpone the coming of that real pax humana for which
the Allies have already made such great sacrifices, and for which we
have pledged ourselves to fight at their side.

But meantime it is wise and right and useful to let the German people
know, by such means as we can find, that we have not entered this war in
the spirit of revenge or conquest, and that their annihilation or
enslavement is