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The Cpmftioiier
8
PAcy nt's Sneech Pre
JL-.V JL VMIUV " "" r'
V
f
-
Treajy to
isentmg
the Senate
Peace
.' Prosidont Wilson, in presenting tlio peace
treaty and the League of Nations to the senate
at Washington, July 10, spoke as follows:
Gohtloraon of tho Senate: The treaty of peace
with Gorraany was signed at Versailles on the
twonty-oighth of Juno. I avail myself of. the
earliest opportunity to lay tho treaty heforo you
for ratification and to inform you with roeara
to the work of the conference by which um
treaty was formulated.
The treaty constitutes nothing less than world
settlement, It would not be possible for m&
olther to summarize or construe its manifold
provisions in an address which must of necessity
bo something less than a treatise. My services
and all the information I possoss will bo at your
disposal of your committee on foreign relations
at any time, either informally or in. session, as
you may prefer; and I hope that you will not
hesitate to make use of them. I shall at this
time, prior to your own study of tho document,
attompt only a general characterization of its
scope and purpose.
"YOU ARE AWARE OF PROBLEMS"
In one sense, no doubt, there is no need that
I should roport to you what was attempted and
dono at Paris. You have been daily cognizant
of tho difficulty of laying down straight lines
with which tho peace conference had to deal and
of the difficulty oy laying down straight lines
of. settlement anywhere on a field on which the
old lines of international relationship and the
new alike, followed so intricate a pattern and
were for the most part cut so deep by historical
circumstances which dominated .action where it
would have been best to ignore or reserve
them. Tho cross currents of politics and of in
terest must have been evident to you. It would
bo presuming in me to attempt to explain, he
questions which arose or the many diverse ele
ments that entered into them. I shall attempt
something less ambitious than that and more
clearly suggested by my duty to report to the
congress the part it seemed necessary for my
colleagues and me to play as tho representatives
of the government of the United States.
That part was dictated by the role America
had played in tho war and by tho expectations
that had been created in tho minds of the people
with whom wo had associated ourselves in that
great struggle.
Tho United States entered the war upon a
different footing from every other nation except
our associates on this side of the sea. We entered
it not bocauso our material interests were direct
ly threatened or because any"special treaty ob
ligations to which we were parties had been
violated, but only because we saw tho supremacy
and ovon, tho validity of right everywhere put
in joopardy and free government everywhere im
periled by tho intolerable aggression of a power
which respected neither right nor obligations
and whoso very system of government flouted
rights of the citizens as against the autocratic
authority of his governors. And in the settle
ments of tho peace we have sought no special
reparation for ourselves, but only tho restora
tion of right and tho assurance of liberty every
where that tho effects of the settlement were, to
be felt. We entered the war as the disinterested
champions of right and interested ourselves in
he terms of the peace in no other capacity.
Tho hopes of the nations allied against tho
central powers were at a very low ebb when our
Boldiors began to pour acros- the sea. Thero
woro everywhere among them, except in their
Btoutest spirits, a sombre foreboding of disaster.
The war ended in November eight montl.3 ago',
but you havo only to recall what was feared in
mid-summer last, four short months before the
armlstico, to realize what is was that'our timely
aid accomplished alike for their morale and their
physical safety. That first, never-to-be-forgotten
action at Chateau Thierry had already taken
place. Our redoutable soldiers and marines had
already closed the gap the enemy had succeeded
in opening for their advance upon Paris had
already turned the tide of battle back Wnwi
tho frontiers of France and began tho rout that
and women, leading spirits of Franco, attended
tho celebration of the Fourth in Paris last years1
out of generous courtesy with no heart for
festivity, little zest for hope. But they came
away with something new at their hearts. They
have themselves ..told us so. The mere sight of
our men of their vigor, of the confidence that
showed itself in every movement of their stal
wart figures and every turn of -their swinging
march, in their stead comprehending eyes and
easy discipline, in the indomitable aid that added
spirit to everything they did -made everyone
who saw thorn that memorable day realize that
something had happened that was much more
than a. more incident in the fighting, something
very different from the mere arrival of fresh
troops.
PROUD TO BE THEIR LEADER
A great moral force had flung Itself into the
struggle. The fine physical force of those spirited
men spoke of something more than bodily vigor.
They carried the great ideals of a free peoplo
at their hearts and with that vision were uncon
querable. Their very presence brought reassur
ance; their fighting made victory certain.
They were recognized as crusaders, and as
their goods swelled to millions their strength
was seen to mean salvation. And they were fit
men to carry such a hope and make good, tho
assurance it forecast. Finer men never went in
to battle and their officers were worthy of them.
This is not the occasion upon which to utter a
eulogy of the armies America sent to France,
but perhaps, since I am speaking of their mis
sion I may speak also of the pride I shared with
every American who saw or dealt with them
there. They were the sort of men America would
wish to be represented by, the sort of men every
American would wish to claim as fellow country
men and comrades in a great cause. They were
terrible in battle, and gentle and helpful out of
it, remembering the mothers and sisters, the
wives and the little children at home. They were
free men under arms, xo.t forgetting their
ideals of duty in the midst of tasks of violence.
I am proud to have had the privilege of being
associated with them and of calling myself their
leader.
ALL THAT AMERICA STANDS FOR
But I speak now of what they meant to the
men by whose side they fought and to the people
with whom they mingled with such utter sim
plicity as friends who asked only to be of service.
They vere for all the vitib'j embodiment of
America. What they did made America and all
that she stood for a living reality in the
thoughts not only of thevpeople of France, but
also of tens of millions of men and women
throughout all the toiling nations of a world
standing everywhere in peril of its freedom and
,of the loss of everything it held deaf, in deadly
fear tint its beads were never to be loosened,
its hopes forever to be mocked and dis
pointed, And the compulsion of what they stood for
was upon us who represented America at the
peace table. It was our duty to see to it that
every decision we took part in contributed, so
far as wo were able to influence it, to quiet the
fears and realize the hopes of the peoples who
have been living in that shadow, the nations that
had come by our assistance to their freedom.
It was-our duty to do everything that was 1n
our power to do to make the triumph of freedom
and of right a lasting triumph In the assurance
i. wmu xueu nugut everywhere livo without
4Ti4 m wT Mi. . in.
.Aired. as sincerely as we dido lTlW
the bad influence. tii mw, A0 .eet aay from
'Amnmii.t; ,A;"r """waiQ DUrnoeo. nT
Vij-auv!!!!; uiuuiuonB, tile lntrrnolVi '
sels and expedients out of whiXtK11?1
signs of Germany had sprung
growth. It had been our privi We L mm
the principles, which were accepted as Sft
of. tho nannA ."hut fcA,, - wrfsyita as tho basii
act because we had otatota
one another
fear.
OLD ENTANGLEMENTS IN WAY
Old entanglements -f every kind stood in Cue"
""J iiuuuacH wmen EOVernmfinte 1to,1 w,.i
lother in the days when nmi,t a "rii
plate: any disposition of trvtv ":?-
Jions of sovereignty that might seem to be to
the interest of those who had the powe? to in
sist upon them had been entered fnto without
thought Of What the peoples COnnprno " 25
days when might and right
..w.v, vuuiuocu twiu tuts uuwer nr riia irf ..
rULr?,8inh,-etB which cintZ-
xno irouuura ui rruuee una uegan the rout that wish of nrnfit hv nwi riT u.""uueu migiit
was to save Europe and tLq world. ThereafteL Cnorably Pushed aid t not always
tho Germans were ta.be forced back, back, were graft So new Irflt It ??1 Xt as no$ easy to
never to thrust successfully .toward a .28 ETS 5 ;Lll50Wir??. of as on the old, as some
no confident hope. Anxious men time be hill J ' UnJ? ' may. J ar, for a
the victory indTnsUteTupoa" CbJ&
where had been bred. They spoke the conS
liov xxrixvi ioall1w r,i.i
towhiShn;;hf."j
"i," ,.Zrwriu"6,,lcu,!(1 mmasi
of tho world as well as the conscience of AnS
and I am happy to pay my tribute of resnechS
grautucie to the able, forward-looking men it&
whom it was my privilege to co-operate with r
the unfailing spirit of co-operation, their en
stanfeffort to accomodate the interests they rec
resented to the principles wo were all agreed
upon. Tho difficulties, which were many, lay h
the circumstances, not often L. the men. Almost
without exception the men who led had caught
the true and full vision of the problem of peace
as an indivisable whele, a problem, not of mere
adjustments of interests, but of justice and right
action.
The atmosphere in .riiick the conference
worked seemed created, not by the ambitions o!
strong governments, but by the hopes and aspl
rations of small nations and of peoples hitherto
under bondage to the power that victory had
shattered and destroyed. Two great empires
had-been forced into political bankruptcy and we
were the receivers. Our task was not only to
make peace with the central empires and remedy
the wrongs their armies had done. Tho central
empires had lived in open violation of many o!
the very rights for which the war had been
fought, dominating alien peoples over whom
they had no natural right to rule, enforcing, not
obedience, but veritable bondage, exploiting
those who were weak for the benefit of those
who were masters and over-lords only by force
of arms.
There could be no peace until the whole order
of central Europe was set right.
That meant that new nations were to be
created Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary It
self. No part of ancient Poland had ever, In any
true sensed become a part of Germany, or of
Austria, or of Russia. Bohemia was alien to
every thought and hope to the monarchy oi
which she had so long been an artificial part;
and the uneasy partnership between Austria ana
Hungary had been one rather of interest than
of kinship or sympathy. The Slavs whom Austria
had chosen to force into her empire on the soma
were kept to their obedience by nothing but tear.
Their hearts were with their kinsmen in w
Balkans. These were all arrangements of power,
not arrangements of natural union or assoca
tion. It was the, imperative tasic oi iu
would make peace and make it Intelligently to
establish a new order whlcn wouiu ru -
the
the arbl
yet, there was no
i. irt Kotiior tiin.n unon
trary authority of Hapsburgs or JHohenMueni
More than that, great populations bouna
sympathy and actual kin to Rumania, jeM
linked against their will to the coStom
Austro-Hungarian monarchy or to ou m rf
sovereignties, and it was part of tne i
peace to make a new Rumania as wen as
Slavic state clustering about Serbia. tj
And no natural frontiers could be founu
these new fields of adjustment and rjw tfl
It was necessary to look constantly ion
other related tasks. The rman colonies.
to be disposed pf; they had n-t been g u
they had been exploited merely, wi thout 1 1
of the interest or even the ordinary
rights of their inhabitants. , alien
Tho Turkish empire, moreover, da ui
apart, as the Austro-Hungarian ua ,
never nad any real unity. It had i Been pe0.
gether only by pitiless, inhuman i force. fl.
pie cried aloud for release, for succor of
speakable distress, for all that tne i n
hope seemed at last to bring withm i ,rf
Peoples, hitherto in darkness, were
out into the same light and given at . lj
ing hand. Undeveloped peoples an
ready for recognition, but ot eflatrellood, vera
sumo the full responsibilities of stole no
tQ be given adequate guarantees of in flf tte
tection, guidance and assistance. , Anu mi1
execution of these great enterpfes
sprang- opportunities to attejnpt J-n dfl. an
,men-nVnover;found the way before
10.)
Ufc "ilu overy iew exceptions,
(Continued on page
ii!&