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SAINT LOUIS REPUBLIC - 6- 11- 17

THE MESSAGE TO THE RUSSIANS.

President Wilson's restatement of the motives
of the United States when it entered the war,
which he addressed to the Russian people, is
framed particularly to meet that faction in Russia
which is possessed of the idea that this war may
be ended, immediately and benevolently, merely by
a general return to peace without annexations and
without indemnities.

He points out to them that, even if Germany
were willing to return to the conditions that prevailed
before the war and to make peace upon that
basis immediately, there would be no result except
a perpetuation of the very conditions which made
the war. From this it would follow that free
Russia, seeking to build up a representative government
out of the ruins of an autocracy, would
be bordered from end to end by a chain of allied
nations whose Governments would be hostile to the
freedom Russia aspires to establish and maintain.

For the sake of liberty and the security of free
institutions in Russia and everywhere else that
combination must be broken up and the autocrats
who formed it must be discredited and deprived of
power for further mischief. If this is not done,
then Russia, lacking the protective oceans which
guarded this nation's infancy, will be an easy prey
to machinations of its hostile neighbors.

To this argument, all of which is implicit in the
message, the President adds a more detailed
statement of American aims, which ought to assure
idealistic Russians that they have a safe ally in
the United States and one that will stand with
them in every reasonable demand for a settlement
of the war upon a basis which excludes greed and
lust for power.

In its tone of lofty idealism, its broad statesman-
ship and unimpeachable logic, the message is in
keeping with President Wilson's historic address
to Congress announcing a state of war to exist.

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