The whole incident is full of significance. It is also full of
perplexity. With whom are the Russian representatives dealing? For
whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are
they speaking for the majorities of their respective parliaments, or
for the minority parties--that military and imperialistic minority
which has so far dominated their whole policy and controlled the
affairs of Turkey and the Balkan states, which have felt obliged to
become their associates in this war? The Russian representatives have
insisted, very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modern
democracy, that the conferences they have been holding with the
Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held within open, not
closed, doors, and all the world has been audience, as was desired.
To whom have we been listening, then? To those who speak the spirit
and intention of the resolution of the German Reichstag of the 9th of
July last, the spirit and intention of the Liberal leaders and
parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit and
intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or are we
listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled and in open and hopeless
contradiction? These are very serious and pregnant questions. Upon
the answer to them depends the peace of the world.
But, whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk, whatever
the confusions of counsel and of purpose in the utterances of the
spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have again attempted to
acquaint the world with their objects in the war and have again
challenged their adversaries to say what their objects are and what
sort of settlement they would deem just and satisfactory. There is no
good reason why that challenge should not be responded to and
responded to with the utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not
once, but again and again, we have laid our whole thought and purpose
before the world, not in general terms only, but each time with
sufficient definition to make it clear what sort of definitive terms
of settlement must necessarily spring out of them.