ast
military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which,
having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the
plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or
the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of
international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war;
delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either
of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of
blood--not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women
and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked but
not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This power is not
the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is
no business of ours how that great people came under its control or
submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose; but it
is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world
is no longer left to its handling.

To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by His
Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of
its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to
create a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German
people who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the
newborn Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and
the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the
malign influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed
the world. Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon
any word of honor it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and
accommodation?

Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before,
that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions
meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon
vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate
injury. The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the
hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal
upon the German people who have themselves suffered all things in this
war which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon
the rights of peoples, not the rights of Governments--the rights of
peoples great or small, weak or powerful--their equal right to freedom
and security and self-government and