Letter to Senator Dresselhuys 



government really proposes to restore Belgium or to evacuate 

 France, as a moral duty of any sort. The idea that these 

 districts are to be held as pawns with which to barter at the 

 peace table is detestable. 



The dismemberment of Austria-Hungary is not, I take it, 

 an absolute purpose of the United States. But it is incon- 

 ceivable that a nation can endure established on the basis of 

 the gross inequality before the law characteristic of this empire 

 " de convenance" under the Hapsburg dynasty. 



It is clear also that the Brest-Litovsk treaties cannot be 

 recognized by the civilized world, as they offer no basis on 

 which an orderly self-governing Russia can be built up, either 

 as a whole or in separate parts. The principle of federated 

 equality seems to be the only one which can bring final peace 

 to Austria-Hungary, to the Russias, or to the Balkans. But 

 the world as yet sees no indication that the Hohenzollerns or 

 the Hapsburgs, any more than the Romanoffs, are willing to 

 recognize the fundamental principle that the state belongs 

 to its people, and not primarily to its hereditary ruler. 



So far as the German colonies are concerned, it is my own 

 belief that they should not be retained by any of the Allied 

 powers, but that they with other regions should pass into the 

 control of Joint High Commissions devoted to their develop- 

 ment in equal relation to the commerce of all countries. How- 

 ever, it is impossible to overlook the fact that German colonial 

 administration has not in the past considered the rights or the 

 feelings of native peoples, and that negro slavery, elsewhere 

 happily abolished, has lingered too long in unfortunate districts 

 under German control. 



Personally I believe that no official economic war will follow 

 the conflict of arms. It is true, however, that individual buyers 

 in free countries will continue to control their own trade. The 

 war methods as well as the trade methods of Germany have 

 startled and alarmed the world. If the present influences re- 

 main dominant, it will be a generation before one American 

 in twenty will buy any article whatever known to be of German 

 origin. This condition is not a phase of international hate that 

 may soon pass. It is rather a sort of painful disillusionment, 

 a permanent feeling verging on contempt, in view of the base 

 composition and still baser uses of the famed German efficiency. 



c 823 :i 



