THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD

Friday, May 17, 1918. “There are very few persons either in a private or an official capacity in any of the allied or associated countries at war with the central powers who do not wish a speedy termination of the great struggle,” The Record reports. “Why, then, some will ask, do these governments seem so averse even to discussion of peace terms with representatives or agents of Berlin and Vienna?” German, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey make up the Central Powers, against whom the U.S. is fighting in association with “the Entente” or “the Allies”: France, Great Britain, Italy and smaller nations. Despite joining the war in 1917, the U.S., as our editors remind their readers, is “proverbially a peace-loving nation.” The problem, of course, lies with the enemy. “There is a vast difference between an honest endeavor to negotiate for peace and a hypocritical peace offensive,” our editorial writer observes. German peace feelers are hypocritical, the Allies claim, because Kaiser Wilhelm II wants to end the war while keeping his territorial gains since it began in 1914. “Germany wants a victorious peace that shall secure her at least in her eastern spoliations and in her Balkan hegemony. Such a peace the United States and its associates can not honorably negotiate inasmuch as vital principles rather than territorial aggrandizement are their concern in the conflict. “Germany knows this, and to make her victory as com- plete as is humanly possible she seeks to undermine public sentiment in the entente countries and in the United States. “

Our writer suspects that the Germans want to divide the Allies and achieve another separate peace like that recently secured with the new Bolshevik government in Russia. To defend against that possibility, “complete confidence between the entente governments and the United States” requires “joint examination of all peace overtures and concerted action in regard to all such overtures, if action is warranted.”

In simplest terms, readers shouldn’t expect an early end to the war unless Germany is willing to make more concessions than they’ve offered to date.

Steppin’ Out

At the Lyceum Theatre on Federal Street, Arthur Guy Empey, an American veteran of the British Army, stars in a film adaptation of his own war memoir, “Over the Top.”

At Rand’s Theatre, “The Sign Invisible” is “A Drama of Men, Supermen and Magnificent Women Staged Midst Mighty Mountains in Nature’s Greatest Fastnesses.”

At the Griswold, Dorothy Dalton stars in the Paramount release, “The Price Mark.” One of moviedom’s popular “vampires,” i.e. seductresses, Dalton tries a change of pace by playing a sympathetic artist’s model. A ten-piece symphony orchestra accompanies the picture and performs an overture.

--Kevin Gilbert