PRESIDENT WILSON'S SPEECH

Taranaki Daily News, 13 February 1918, Page 6

PRESIDENT WILSON'S SPEECH

HOW IT REACHED GERMANS. The American Committee on Public Information has a published document displaying in parallel columns the address of President Wilson in Congress on April 2 with a German translation, and indicating the passages suppressed by the'Wolff Telegraph iiureau, which is an actual publicity agency of the Imperial Government, both in the reception of news and imparting it to the German public. A memorandum, which introduces the texts, declares that the German Government "feared the influence which the unabridged text of this message might have upon the opinion of the people. Therefore, the official message of the President of the United States was presented to Germany in an abridged and distorted form" Some of the omissions seem to 9how a careless attempt to condense; others are vital to the serious meaning the President wishes to convey. Examples of the latter are the categorical enumeration of Germany's broken promises to April, lOl'O, made after the Sussex disaster; the President's expressed astonishment 'that a Jovernmlcnt liitherto considered civilised could so defy the laws of nations and of humanity; the President's repetition of his declaration of April, 101 C, in a note to the Imperial Government, that the submarine as a weapon of war against merchant ships «onld not possibly conform to the laws and customs of the seas; the President's description of "the wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life," and the foregoing passage itself; the history of the crisis both in diplomatic notes exchanged and the acts of Germany; and, finally, the last thousand words of the address, where the -President appeals directly to the German people, ending with a paraphrase of Luther's famous answer, "God helping li f *r (Ajncriea), she can do no other," (so Gott will, kstnn es nieht anders handein) are entirely suppressed.