-.7:-
The Commoner
vol; 18, NO. 3
6
w-
President Wilson Outlines Basis for
General Peace
President Wilson made the following address
at a joint session of congress, Feb. 11:
Gentlemen of the Congress: On the 8 th ft
January I had the honor of addressing you en
Iho objects of tho war as our people conceive
them. Tho prime minister of Great Britain had
npokon in similar terms on tho 5th of January.
To thoBO addresses the German chancellor re
plied on tho 24th and Count Czerin, for Austria,
on tho same day. It is gratifying to have our
dcslro so promptly realized that all exchanges
of vlow on this groat matter should bo made
In tho hearing of all tho world.
AUSTRIAN CHANCELLOR'S REPLY
Count Czerin'6 reply, .which is directed chiefly
. to my own address of tho 8th of January, Is ut
tered in a very friondly tono. Ho finds in my
statomont a sufficiently encouraging approach to
tho views of hiB own government to justify him
In believing that It furnishes a basis for a more
detailed discussion of purposes by the two gov
ernments; Ho is represented to have intimated
that tho views ho was expressing had been com
municated to mo beforehand and that I was aware
of them at tho time he was uttoring them, but
in this I am sure he was misunderstood. I had
rocoived no intimation of what ho intended 'to
say. There was, of course, no reason why ho
should communicato privately with me. I am
(IMito content to bo one of his public audience.
COUNT VON HERTLING'S REPLY VAGUE.
Count von Hertling's reply is, I must say, very
vaguo and very confusing. It is full of equivocal
phrases and leads it Is not clear where. But it
Is certainly In a vory different tono from that of
Count Czerin, and apparently of an opposite pur-
, poso. It confirms, I am sorry to say, rather than
romovos, tho unfortunate impression made lv
what wo had learned of tho conferences at Brest-
LitovBk. His discussion and acceptance of our
goneral principles load him to no practical con
clusions. Ho refuses to apply them to the sub
stantive Items which must constitute tho body
of any final settlement. Ho is jealous of inter
national action and of international counsel. Ho
. accepts, he says, the principle of public diplom
acy, but he appears to insist that it be confined,
at any rate in this case, to generalities and that
the several particular questions of territory and
sovereignty, the several questions "upon whose
settlement must dopond the acceptance of peace
by the twonty-throo states now engaged in the
war, must bo discussed and settled, not in gen
eral council, but severally by the nations most
Immediately concerned by interest or neighbor
hood. Ho agroes that tho seas should be free, but
looks askance at any limitation to that freedom
by International action in tho interest of common
ordor. Ho would without reserve be glad to see
economic barriers removed between nation and
nation, for that could In no way impode the am
bitions of tho military party with whom ho
seems constrained to keep on terms. Neither
does ho raise objection to a limitation of arma
ments. That matter will be settled of itself, he
thinks, by oconomic conditions whiph must fol
low the war. But the German colonies, he de
mands, must bo returned without debate. Ho
will discuss with(Jno one but the representatives
of Russia what dBlposition shall be made of the
pooplos and the lands of the Baltic provinces
with no one but the government of France the
conditions" under which French territory shall
be ovacuated; and only with Austria what shall
be done with Poland. In the determinat ion o
all questions affecting tho Balkan states he de
fers, as I understand him, to Austria and
Turkey; and with. regard to 'the agreements to
bo entered into concerning the non-Turkish peo
ples of tho present Ottoman Empire to the Tin
ish authorities themselves. After asetlement
all around, effected in this fashion, by indTviS
ual barter and concession, ho would hi
objection, if I correctly interpret U?E statement
to a league of nations which would undertake to
sdSsr of power &
CHANCELLOR'S METHOD IMPOSSIBLE
A"SL?'arS? & ESS ffs-js:
After all, the test of whether it is
possible for either government to go any-
further in this comparison of views is
simple and obvious. The principles to
be applied are these: .
First, that each part of the final set-
tlement must be based upon the essen-
tial justice of that particular case and
upon such adjustments as are most likely
to bring a peace that will be permanent;
Second, that peoples and provinces are
not to be bartered about from sovereign-
ty to sovereignty as if they were mere
chattels and pawns in a game, even the
great game, now forever discredited, of
the balance of power; but that
Third, every territorial settlement in-
volved in this war must be made in the
interest and for the bene.fit of the popu-
lations concerned, and not as a part of
any mere adjustment or compromise of
claims amongst rival states; and
Fourth, that all well-defined national
aspirations Bhall be accorded the utmost
satisfaction that can be accorded them,
without introducing new or perpetuating
old elements of discord and antagonism
that would be likely in ' ie to break the
peace of Europe and consequently of the
world. President Wilson.
4
ion and temper of the world that no general
peace, no peace worth the infinite sacrifices of
these years of tragical suffering, can possibly
be arrived at in any such fashion. The method
tho German Chancellor proposes is the method
of the Congress of Vienna. We can not and will
not return to that. What is. at stake now isthe
peace of the world. What we are striving for
is a .new international order based upon broad
and universal principles of right and justice
no mere peace of shreds and. patches. Is it
possible that Count von Hertling does not see
that, does not grasp it, is in fact living in his
thought in a world dead and gone? Has he
utterly -forgotten the Reichstag resolutions of
the 19th of July, or does he deliberately ignore
them? They spoke of the conditions of a gen
eral peace, not of national aggrandizement or of
arrangements between state and state.
The peace of the world depends upon the just
settlement of each of the several problems to
which I adverted in my recent address to the
congress. I, of course, do not mean that the
peace of the world depends upon the acceptance
of any particular set of suggestions as to the
way in which those problems are to be dealt
with. I mean only that those problems each
and all affect the whole world; that unless they
are dealt with in a spirit of unselfish and un
biased justice, with a view to the wishes the
natural connections, the racial aspirations! the
security, and the peace of mind of. the peoples
involved, no permanent peace will have been at
tained. They can not be discussed separately
or in corners. None of them constitutes a pri
vate or separate interest from which the onin-
ion of the world may bo shutuout. Whatever
affects the peace affects mankind, and nothine
sett ed by military force, if settled wrong is
settled at all. It will presently have to be re
opened. 1U
SPEAKING IN THE COURT OF MANKIND
Is Count von Hertling not awarp that he is
speaking in the court of mankind, that all the
awakened nations of the world now sit in iude
ment on what every public man, of whatever
nation, may say on the issues of a conflict which
has spread to every egion of the world The
reichstag resolutions of July themselves frank?
accepted the decisions of that court? There
shall be no annexations, no contribution 11
Punitive damages. Peoples are not to behandeS
about from one sovereignty to another bv L .
e.wUBU umy oy ineir own
sent. "Self-determination" Is not a mere
phrase. It is an imperative principle of action
which statesmen- will henceforth ignore at their
peril. We can not have general peace for the
asking, or by the mere arrangements of a peace
conference. It can not be pieced together out
of individual understandings between powerful
states. All the parties of this war must join In
the settlement of every issue anywhere involved
in it; because what we are seeking is a peace
that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain
and every item of it must be submitted to the
common judgment whether it be right and fair,
an act of justice, rather than a. .bargain between
sovereigns. .
NO DESIRE TO INTERFERE IN EUROPE'S
AFFAIRS:
The United States has no desire to interfere
in European affairs or to act as arbiter in Eu
ropean territorial disputes. Sho would disdain
to take advantage of any internal weakness or
disorder to impose her own will upon another
people. She ig quite ready to be shown that
the settlements she has suggested are not the
best or the most enduring. They are only her
own provisional sketch of, principles, and of the
way in which they should be applied. But she
entered this war because she was made a part
ner, whether she would or not,, in the sufferings
and indignities inflicted by the military masters
of Germany, against the peace and security of
'mankind; and the conditions of peace will touch
her as nearly as they will touch any other na
tion to which is entrusted a leading part in the
maintenance of civilization. She can not seo
her way to peace until the causes of this war
are removed, its renewal rendered as nearly as
may be impossible.
RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS.
This war has its roots in the disregard of the
rights of small nations and of nationalities
which lacked the union and the force to make
good their claim to determine their own allegi
ances and their own forms of political life. Cove
nants must now be entered into which will Ten
der such things impossible for the future; and
those covenants must be backed by the united
force of all the nations that love justice and are
willing to maintain it at any cost. If territorial
settlements and the political relations of great
populations which have not the organized pow
er to resist are to be determined by the con,
tracts of the powerful governments which con
sider themselves most directly affected, as
Count von Hertling proposes, why may not
economic questions also? It has come about
in the altered world in which we now find our
selves that justice and the rights of peoples
affect the whole field of international-dealing as
much as access to raw materials and fair and
equal conditions of trade. Count yon Hertling
wants the essential bases of commercial and
industrial life to be safeguarded by common
agreement and guarantee, but he can not expect
that to be concededhim if the other matters to
be determined by the articles of peace are not
handled in the same way, items, in the final
accounting. He can not ask the benefit of com
mon agreement in the one field without accord
ing it in the other. I take it for granted that
he sees that separate and selfish compacts with
regard to trade and the essential materials of
manufacture would afford no foundation for'
peace. Neither, he may rest assured, will sep
arate and selfish compacts with .regard to prov
inces and peoples.
Count Czerin seems to see the fundamental
elements of peace with clear eyes and doe's not
seek to obscure them. He sees that an inde
pendent Poland, made up of all the indisputably
Polish peoples who lie contiguous to one an
other, Is a matter of European cpneern and
must of course be conceded; that Belgium must
be evacuated and restored, no matter what sac
rifices and concessions that may involve; and
that national aspirations must he satisfied, even
-within his own Empire, in the common interest
of Europe and mankind. If he is silent about
questions which touch the interest and purpose
of his allies more nearly than they touch those
of Austria only, it must of course be because
he feels constrained, I suppose, to defer to Ger
many and Turkey in the circumstances. See
ing and conceding, as he does the essential
principles involved and the necessity of can
didly applying them, he naturally feels that
Austria -can respond .to. tho purpose of peace
as expressed by the United States with less em
barrassment that could Germany. He would
.. .
JTrfVA,