Life — September 20, 1917 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ne 1X se SS alt Ue = 463 Head Waiter: PLEASE DON'T ULAME US, SIR, THE COOK KEFUSES TO GIVE US ANY MORE FOOD they can to impede and embarrass the government in the prosecution of the war, Let them have it, then, in the neck, not as agitators, but as plain pub- lic enemies, Firebugs have rights to counsel, jury trials and all the refine- ments of justice, but when they get in the way of the fire company that is speeding the engine to the fire they are mighty likely to get run over. A nation at war is not safe to fool with. War is made with weapons, and does not stop even by injunction. /iter arma leges silent, thereby setting a good example to the apostles of sabo- tage. Leonard Abbott, Max Eastman, John Reed and their like may have «iseretion enough to abstain even from unnecessary noise until it is safe again to hoot. Others have to be shown, Te papers say that Herr Ballin, once the Kaiser's next friend, has spoken so unkindly about the war that the Kaiser let his birthday pass this year without notice. Poor Ballin! He was one of the lest of the makers of the new Ger- Now he has to wait to see what sort of pieces will be left when the Kaiser gets through. There are reports of new German- government peace proposals; stulus quo proposals in the main, but a litle better in some particulars, There are also reports of prospective changes in the German government of a sort that would help it to qualify under the terms suggested by President Wilson to the Pope, to negotiate a peace. “The test of every plan of peace,” dour President, “is this: Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples in- many, volved, or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing government on the one hand and of a group of free peoples on the other? This is the test that goes to the root of the matter, and it is the test which must be sup- plied.” Hence we may see which is the chief tooth that must he knocked out of the status quo ante before it can figure as part of the basis of a peace. The first requisite is a drastic change in the German government, a change that ought to be emphasized by hanging a good many conspicuous persons, and which doubtless will be emphasized hy their retirement from posts of power. When that is accomplished or on the way to certain accomplishment, other details will be worth considering, and there will be other teeth of the status quo to be knocked out. Meanwhile the surest sign of peace, next to a much greater military success for the Allies than anyone expects, will be a serious German effort to make a German gov- ernment that will look trustworthy to the Alli And they ought to hurry up about it, for the remnants of German reputa- tion are fast disappearing. This use of Sweden, just disclosed, does not help it any. Every mile of territory that the French recover brings its ter- rible revelations of German brutish- ness, while here an effect of such Ger- man exploits as the recent bombing of American hospitals is to dispose Amer- ‘ans who have long done business with “German-American” insurance com- panies or banks to request those insti- tutions to weed the German out of their names.