THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Theodore Roosevelt WE REPRINT an editorial of ex-President Roosevelt herewith, appearing in the Kansas City Star, not to endorse it but to show the inequality in the enforcement of law. If some...
...Tha only way to make the world safe tor democracy is to free the people over whom Turkey and Austria tyrannize...
...Why stop thereT To their malign influence is also due the fact that water invariably runs downhill...
...And yet the poor deluded man would really do no harm because he would have no influence...
...In view of the last statement there is small wonder that the Austrian foreign minister says "It is to our interest to nail down" the statement in question, because it abandons the proposal, or, as the Austrian minister phrases it...
...A peace without a change of frontiers and without indemnification for brutal 'wrong-doing, a peace which doesn't create an independent and united Poland and a greater Bohemia and Jugo-Slovak commonwealth, as well as a greater Italy and a greater Roumania, and which does not free and indemnify Belgium, would leave every perilous problem of Europe unsolved...
...The president's proposal represents throe separate betrayals...
...Every day's delay in declaring war on Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria has represented and now represents a betrayal of democracy and of our allies...
...Either one statement or tha other must be unsparingly condemned by all honest men...
...it is the betrayal of tho Slavs to Austria, to whose cause our allies have pledged themselvei and who form a democratic population op...
...There is also no wonder that the Czech Slovaks feel with intense bitterness about his betrayal...
...Indeed, to prove false to it now, is to be guilty of peculiarly offensive hypocrisy...
...It is the betrayal of the free people everywhere to Germany, for Germany is now a world menace, chiefly because Austria and Turkey are her subject allies, and President Wilson's proposal is to leave them undisturbed...
...It is the betrayal of democracy, because we abandon the majority, who are our friends, into the hands of a minority who despise and hate us...
...pressed by a militaristic autocracy...
...If some poor oppressed or unbalanced socialist or I. W. W. should charge the president with betrayal of his countrymen aad our allies, think you that the secret service agents, or the defense councils would not pounce upon him at once...
...It would be timid and calamitous folly to refuse to touch the disputed questions which, if left unanswered are absolutely certain to invite a future war...
...One of their papers in this country describes how loyally they have supported America and the Allies, and describes the dreadful butcheries and persecutions of their men, women and children in Bohemia, and then ask* whether it can be true that America now really proposes to keep them "under the merciless tyranny of the Huns...
...Prussian Efficiency Secretary McAdoo charges that Germans are responsible for the fall in Liberty Bonds.—News Item...
...When President Wilson says, "We do not wish in any way to rearrange the Auslro-Hun-garian empire: it is no affair of ours what they do," he is engaged in the betrayal of democracy, and if his present words are to be taken seriously, then his declaration about making the world safe for democracy was false and empty rhetoric...
...It is hypocritical to shed crocodile tears over Armenia and not to declare war on Turkey...
...No wonder that thp leading Vienna paper contemptuously states that President Wilson wishes to act as "European peace intermediary," being on* of the leaders who "apparently consider a warlike noise the best overture to a peace conference...
...29, 1917...
...Either this declaration was worse than empty rhetoric or we are in honor bound to make it good...
...It is hypocritical to send encouraging messages to Roumania and not to declare war on Bulgaria...
...Read the statement carefully and tell us what you think of it: A BETKAYAX OF DEMOCRACY By Theodore Roosevelt (Copyright: 1917: By the Kansas City Star) PRESIDENT WILSON has announced that we are in this war to make, the world safe for democracy...
...How about an ex-president, the spokesman for big interests, » member of the loyal legion...
...This is precisely what President Wilson proposes when he says that it is no affair of ohm to rearrange the Austro-Hungarian empire, or, in other words, no affair of ours to free tha Czechs, Slovaks, .Tugo-Slavs, Italians and Roumanians who, together with the Poles, make up the majority of the Austro-Hungarian empire and who aro ground down by tyranny of the Germans and the Magyars...
...The control by the Germans of the law of gravitation is one of the most terrifying features of the war.—Collier's, Dec...
...the catch phrase," to allow all small states to determine their own destinies...
Vol. 10 • January 1918 • No. 1
