July 4th, 1917 
U R E 
167 
WISCONSI N 11 O R T I C U L r 
SPECIAL EDITION 
Mexico to take up arms against 
us and to draw Japan into hostile 
alliance with her and that not by 
indirection, but by direct sugges- 
tion from the foreign office in 
Berlin. They impudently denied 
us the use of the high seas and 
repeatedly executed their threats 
that they would send to their 
death any of our people who ven- 
tured to approach the coast of 
Europe. And many of our own 
people were corrupted. Men be- 
gan to look upon their own neigh- 
bors with suspicion and to won- 
der in their hot resentment and 
surprise whether there was any 
community in which hostile in- 
trigues did not work. What 
great nation in such circum- 
stances would not have taken up 
arms ? 
PEACE DENIED US. 
Much as we desired peace it 
was denied us and not of our own 
choice. This flag under which ive 
serve would have been dishonored 
had we withheld our hands. 
But that is only part of the 
story. We know now, as clearly 
as we knew before we were our- 
selves engaged that we are not 
the enemies of the German peo- 
ple and that they are not our 
enemies. They did not originate 
or desire this hideous war or wish 
that we should be drawn into it. 
and we are vaguely conscious that' 
we are fighting their cause as 
they will some day see it, as well 
as our own. They are themselves 
in the grip of the same sinister 
power that has now at last 
stretched its ugly talons out and 
drawn blood from us. 
The whole world is at war be- 
cause the whole world is in the 
grip of that power and is trying 
out the great battle which shall 
determine whether it is to be 
brought under its mastery or fling 
itself free. 
GERMANS MASTERS OF AUSTRIA. 
The war was begun by the mili- 
tary masters of Germany who 
proved also to be the masters of 
Austria-Hungary. These men have 
never regarded nations as peo- 
ples, men, women and children of 
like blood and frame as them- 
selves, for whom governments ex- 
isted and in whom governments 
had their life. They had re- 
garded them merely as service- 
able organizations which they 
could by force or intrigue bend or 
corrupt to their own purposes. 
They have regarded the smaller 
states in particular and the peo- 
ples who could be overwhelmed 
by force as their natural tools and 
instruments of domination. Their 
purpose has been long avowed. 
The statesmen of other nations, 
to whom that purpose was incred- 
ible, paid little attention; regard- 
ed what German professors ex- 
pounded in their class rooms and 
German writers set forth to the 
world as the goal of German pol- 
icy, as rather the dream of minds 
detached from practical affairs, as 
preposterous private conceptions 
of Germany destiny, than as 
the actual plans of responsible 
rulers ; but the rulers of Ger- 
many themselves knew all the 
while that concrete plans, that 
well advanced intrigues lay back 
of what the professors and the 
writers were saying and were 
glad to go forward unmolested, 
filling the thrones of Balkan 
states with German princes, put- 
ting German officers at the serv- 
ice of Turkey to drill her armies 
and make interest with her gov- 
ernment developing plans of sedi- 
tion and rebellion in India and 
Egypt, setting their fires in Per- 
sia. 
AUSTRIA AND SERBIA. 
The demands made by Austria 
upon Serbia were a mere single 
step in a plan which compassed 
Europe rnd Asia from Berlin to 
Bagdad. They hoped these de- 
mands might not arouse Europe, 
but they meant to press them 
whether they, did or not for they 
thought themselves ready for the 
final issue of arms. 
Their plan was to throw Ger- 
man military and power and es- 
tablish power across the very 
center of Europe and beyond the 
Mediterranean into the heart of 
Asia and Austria-Hungary was 
to be as much their tool and pawn 
as much as Bulgaria and Turkey 
or the ponderous states of the 
east. Austria-Hungary, indeed 
was to become part of the central 
German empire, absorbed and 
dominated by the same forces and 
influences that has ordinarily 
cemented the German states 
themselves. The dream had its 
heart at Berlin. It could have 
had a heart nowhere else. It re- 
jected the idea of solidarity of 
race entirely. The choice of peo- 
ples played no part in it at all. It 
contemplated binding together 
material and political units which 
could be kept together only by 
force — Czechs, Maygars, Great, 
Serbs, Rumanians, Turks, Arme- 
nians — the proud states of Bo- 
hemia and Hungary, the stout 
little commonwealth of the Balk- 
ans; the indomitable Turks, the 
subtle peoples of the east. These 
peoples did not wish to be united. 
They earnestly desired to direct 
their own affairs, would be satis- 
fied only by undisputed indepen- 
