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INTERNATIONAL SITUATION (Continued) (6)

could go to the people with a foreign policy of peace, i.e. with a pro-
gram consciously looking forward to preparing for the close of the war
just as governments are now mostly occupied with its conscious prosecution.
These men are of course very "advanced" and it may be urged by some that
it would not be best for Russia at the present time to retain sense of the
"liberties" which have been gained. We have a farsighted selfish as well
as charitable reason, however, to desire order and growth in Russia, and, if
there is any way to promote it we must act. Whenever the pendulum starts
to swing to the right again we ought to push and help all we can the con-
structive elements, whoever they are.

All parties in Russia are unanimous in their condemnation of the
Bolsheviks-- just as much so as they were in damning the Tear-- but the
latter have succeeded with the masses and have appealed to the simple minds.
Wh? Because they promised peace. -----Nov. 22. - This morning they have
appealed to the Allied embassies with a proposal for an amistice. It is
believed that the indirect (through the Press) reply to this propsal will
be a categorical and perhaps contemptuous refual. The opinion is expressed
that, after this refusal, the peace will not have been gained and the people
will turn upon Lenin and Trotsky. Then will follow anarchy, which the
"strong man" deliverer will have to put down by forceful and not too scrupu-
lous methods.

Because of selfishness and stiffnakedness the Allies ignored a
golden opportunity when, after the Revolution of February, they did not
clearly and distinctly in language understandable to the Russian peasant
restate their war aims in accordance with the spirit of "no annexations and
no indemnities." The fact that they did not was used by German agents and
radical agitators to convince the people that the Allies were imperialists
very little if any better than the Germans, and caused great emphasis to
be laid on the secret treaties, which ought to have been publiely abandoned
or shown to the people. This clear call was steadily ignored and we have
lost heavily by it.

------

With Russia out of active participation is the war more and more
we must work without her support. America is to take her place in a military
sense. The difficulty it seems is the great distance of America from the
scene of action: she cannot "get at" Germany with her force. The old
"orthodox" solution of the war by the crushing of Germany and the "march on
Berlin" will have to be abandoned and has been abandened by most people.
But there seems to be no definite policy of closing the war. We are now
going on hoping to secure in the next year victories which will make our
arguments stronger when the peace council meets and the pawns are laid on the
table and traded for. The ideals seem rather to be waning. Everybody has
the war habit and cannot stop. The end is to be a compromise-- after all
a "Peace without victory". Why not face these facts in the proper spirit
and, while fighting Germany on the fronts as hard as possible, fight her also
with a bold diplomatic stroke? The one argument the Prussian autocrat cannot
answer is that of ideals-the moral argument. Why not clearly and definitely
and openly state our minimum terms in a broad spirit, more daring than anything
thus far attempted, insisting upon the fundamentals, but editing the whole
in such a spirit as to disarm the extreme Socialist agitater and make the
German public wonder what an earth it is fighting for? As long as German
workmen think they are defending themselves they will fight. We ought to
work to break down that conviction in their minds, and we have done very little
along this line. America's aims are clean but those of her Allies are not
entirely so, and the cause is common.

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