therefore, not responsible.

This decimation must not be understood to mean that the German women do
not feel as keenly as the women of other countries the enormous
sacrifices and sorrows which this war has caused, or that they refuse to
recognize the good intentions that figure in the institution of this
congress. None can yearn more eagerly than we for an end of these
sacrifices and sorrows. But we realize that in our consciousness of the
weight of these sacrifices we are one with our whole people and
Government; we know that the blood of those who fall out there on the
field cannot be dearer to us women than to the men who are responsible
for the decisions of Germany. Because we know that, we must decline to
represent special desires in an international congress. We have no other
desires than those of our entire people: a peace consonant with the
honor of our State and guaranteeing its safety in the future.

The resolutions that are to be laid before the women's congress at The
Hague are of two kinds. One kind denounces war as such, and recommends
peaceful settlement of international quarrels. The other offers
suggestions for hastening the concluding of peace.

As concerns the first group of suggestions, there are in the German
woman's movement women who are in principle very much in sympathy with
the aims of the peace movement. But they, too, are convinced that
negotiations about the means of avoiding future wars and conquering the
mutual distrust of nations can be considered only after peace has again
been concluded. But we must most vigorously reject the proposition of
voting approval to a resolution in which the war is declared to be an
"insanity" that was made possible only through a "mass psychosis." Shall
the German women deny the moral force that is impelling their husbands