Joseph P. Tumulty to Woodrow Wilson

The German propaganda wears various disguises and the one now being worn with great effect is that of a separate peace in the spread of which the socialistic movement throughout the world is being daily utilized. The most dangerous thing about this whole movement is its insidious character, and its contagious effects threaten soon to touch our own shores. How best to handle this movement and thus retard its progress should now be challenging our best thought and attention, for peace is the principal plank in the socialistic platform and is the web and woof of its life as an international organization.
The demand for a separate peace is now most insistent in Russia, the weakest link in the whole line of the Allied cause. Russia is the very crux of the whole situation. Silence and indifference on the part of the Allied statesmen is the only answer to the socialistic demand throughout Russia and elsewhere for a separate peace. The Allied statesmen have insisted upon “subordinating political questions like that of a separate peace to military questions” because their statesmen insist that a “knockout” blow must precede negotiations. To retard this movement, therefore, some move by the President is necessary, for if the spread of this separate peace movement is not prevented, it will promote currents of peace throughout the world, much to our injury and embarrassment. It is admitted that any move on our part to retard the progress of this movement at this time would be dangerous but when one considers what the affect of a separate peace would be on our own fortunes, the alternative; i.E., of discussing the evils of a separate peace, might well be considered before the spread of the contagion touches us. With the situation in Russia as it is and with this movement looking to a separate peace gathering momentum with the hours, “daring diplomacy” on the part of the western Allies and especially the United States in handling this matter must be attempted.“Something needs to be done at once,” as the New Republic says, “which will strengthen the devotion of Russia to the cause of the Allies and will cause dissension in Central Europe. VonBethmann-Hollweg's refusal to speak has given the initiative to the Allies and the United States. The thing which is needed is a powerful re-affirmation of the international purposes for which the war is waged, so far as the cause of the United States embraces these purposes.” (See attached article from New York Times, May 21st, by Herbert Bailey.) “The statement should be aimed directly at Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the German Radicals in the same spirit and temper of the President's address to the Senate. No doubt such a statement will cause reaction among certain groups in France, England, and America, but the cost of this is not so great as the danger of the situation in the East. We cannot stand pat diplomatically speaking. We must give the discontented peoples of Central Europe material with which to answer the Chancellor's statement that we are aiming at the conquest and destruction of the German people. That same material could be used to reassure the Russian Revolution against the suspicion which they undoubtedly entertain,-- that we are in this war for the purpose of aggression and self-aggrandizement.”As the New Republic says, “The final victory must be won by diplomacy. The German government has been exhibiting a clearer understanding of this strategic condition than have the governments of France and Great Gritain. The strategy seems to be to fight the enemies which cannot be divided, and to divide those which it is unnecessary to fight. The submission of terms of peace which would have a fair chance of acceptance by eastern Europe as a prospectively permanent settlement would be worth more to the cause of the Allies than another two millions of trained soldiers and a new fleet of merchant shipping. If the Russians can be divided from one another and from their allies by German diplomacy, the Germans can at least to an equal extent be divided from one another and from their allies by a diplomacy of liberalism. Austria-Hungary is almost as disorganized and is probably as ripe for revolution as was Russia. These causes of internal dissension within and among the Central Powers have been fermenting for a long while and have been prevented from obtaining any overt expression chiefly because the diplomacy of the western Allies has insisted upon subordinating political to military considerations. Let them abandon their past insistence upon an absolute military decision as a condition of peace, and the result will be a rapidly progressive diminution of the military morale of Central Europe.” The initiative must come from the President rather than from the governments of France and Great Britain. This movement for a separate peace has been gaining momentum because there has been no clear expression by British and French statesmen. The responsibility is with the President. It is his business to obtain the consent of the Allies to the publication of a statement embodying the reasons which impelled us to take up arms against the autocratic forces of Germany. “The American people did not enter this war to add to the sum of human goods and beings which were being calamitously annihilated;” they entered it chiefly in order to make a promising and indispensable contribution to a scientific and just settlement. “Such a settlement cannot be obtained merely by working for victory. Victory itself can best be obtained by working for the settlement.”In this statement of the President reiterating the purposes of the United States, he should lay particular stress upon the dangerous character of a separate peace so far as Russia is concerned, warning the democratic and progressive forces of Russia that such a peace is one behind which lie the intrigues of autocratic governments. If the Germans triumph through separate peace, it means the triumph of a despotic order. (see the attached article by Mr. Herman Bernstein.)Emphasize the utter fatuity of a separate peace as a step toward premanent peace. Emphasize the purpose for which America engaged in this struggle; why she has ranged her forces with the other progressive forces of the world,–– to establish bases upon which permanent peace might be laid. Show that separate peace would lead only to a continuance of the war and would provoke other wars. It would lead to resentments and hatreds which experience has shown to be prolific breeders of war; that a separate peace now would only stifle and hold in check the energies of free peoples everywhere; that our goal is a permanent peace by striving to set up and to encourage and maintain democratic standards of government and to hold in check those influences in government which have been the breeders of war.
Re-state the fundamental purpose the Government of the United States had in mind in going into this war and in adding its forces to the other democratic forces of the world; that it could in this way best accomplish the great object of the Socialists, namely, permanent peace; that our great hope is for the establishment of a permanent world peace, based upon “democratic republicanism;” that the whole trend of events is toward a world peace, and that out of this war will come this great consummation and that the only thing a separate peace will do will be to offer resistance to that great movement. That the United States wishes no indemnity; wishes no annexation; has in her heart no purpose of aggression. The President's object should be to show that a separate peace would mean the continuing of autocracy. What we are fighting for is democracy. “My purpose is to warn the democratic peoples of the world against the evils of a separate peace.