SEPTEMBER 4, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, Gov. Campbell, my fellow citizens, it is with very
profound pleasure that I find myself face to face with you. I have
for a long time chafed at the confinement of Washington. I have
for a long time wished to fulfill the purpose with which my heart
was full when I returned to our beloved country, namely, to go
out and report to my fellow countrymen concerning those affairs of
the world which now need to be settled. The only people I owe any
report to are you and the other citizens of the United States.
And it has become increasingly necessary, apparently, that I
should report to you. After all the various angles at which you have
heard the treaty held up, perhaps you would like to know what is in
the treaty. I find it very difficult in reading some of the speeches
that I have read to form any conception of that great document. It
is a document unique in the history of the world for many reasons,
and I think I can not do you a better service, or the peace of the
world a better service, than by pointing out to you just what this
treaty contains and what it seeks to do.
i ,
In the first place, my fellow countrymen, it seeks to punish one of
the greatest wrongs ever done in history, the wrong which Germany
sought to do to the world and to civilization ; and there ought to be
no weak purpose with regard to the application of the punishment.
She attempted an intolerable thing, and she must be made to pay
for the attempt. The terms of the treaty are severe, but they are not
unjust. I can testify that the men associated with me at the peace
conference in Paris had it in their hearts to do justice and not wrong.
But they knew, perhaps, with a more vivid sense of what had hap-
pened than we could possibly know on this side of the water, the
many solemn covenants which Germany had disregarded, the long
preparation she had made to overwhelm her neighbors, and the
utter disregard which she had shown for human rights, for the
5
G ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
rights of women, of children, of those who were helpless. They had
seen their lands devasted by an enemy that devoted himself not only
to the effort at victory, but to the effort at terror seeking to terrify
the people whom he fought. And I wish to testify that they ex-
ercised restraint in the terms of this treaty. They did not wish to
overwhelm any great nation. They acknowledged that Germany was
a great nation, and they had no purpose of overwhelming the Ger-
man people, but they did think that it ought to be burned into the
consciousness of men forever that no people ought to permit its
government to do what the German Government did.
”
In the last analysis, my fellow countrymen, as we in America
would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of
their government. If their government purposes things that are
wrong, thej r ought to take measures to see to it that that purpose is
not executed. Germany was self-governed; her rulers had not con-
cealed the purposes that they had in mind, but they had deceived
their people as to the character of the methods they were going to
use, and I believe from what I can learn that there is an aw r akened
consciousness in Germany itself of the deep iniquity of the thing
that was attempted. When the Austrian delegates came before the
peace conference, they in so many words spoke of the origination of
the war as a crime and admitted in our presence that it was a thing
intolerable to contemplate. They knew in their hearts that it had
done them the deepest conceivable wrong, that it had put their
people and the people of Germany at the judgment seat of mankind,
and throughout this treaty every term that was applied to Germany
was meant, not to humiliate Germany, but to rectify the wrong that
she had done.
Look even into the severe terms of reparation ‘for there was no
indemnity. No indemnity of any sort Avas claimed, merely repara-
tion, merely paying for the destruction done, merely making good
the losses so far as such losses could be made good which she had
unjustly Inflicted, not upon the governments, for the reparation is
not to go to the governments, but upon the people whose rights
she had trodden upon with absolute absence of everything that even
resembled pity. There was no indemnity in this treaty, but there is
reparation, and even in the terms of reparation a method is devised
by which the reparation shall be adjusted to Germany’s ability to
pay it.
I am astonished at some of the statements I hear made about this
treaty. The truth is that they are made by persons who have not
read the treaty or who, if they have read it, have not comprehended
its meaning. There is a method of adjustment in that treaty by
which the reparation shall not be pressed beyond the point which
Germany can pay, but which will be pressed to the utmost point that
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 7
Germany can pay which is just, which is righteous. It would have
been intolerable if there had been anything else. For r my fellow
citizens, this treaty is not meant merely to end this single war. It is
meant as a notice to every government which in the future will
attempt this thing that mankind will unite to inflict the same punish-
ment. There is no national triumph sought to be recorded in this
treaty. There is no glory sought for any particular nation. The thought
of the statesmen collected around that table was of their people, of
the sufferings that they had gone through, of the losses they had
incurred that great throbbing heart which was so depressed, so
forlorn, so sad in every memory that it had had of the five tragical
years that have gone. Let us never forget those years, my fellow
countrymen. Let us never forget the purpose the high purpose,
the disinterested purpose with which America lent its strength not
for its own glory but for the defense of mankind.
As I said, this treaty was not intended merely to end this war. It
was intended to prevent any similar war. I wonder if some of the
opponents of the league of nations have forgotten the promises we
made our people before we went to that peace table. We had taken
by processes of law the flower of our youth from every household,
and we told those mothers and fathers and sisters and wives and
sweethearts that we were taking those men to fight a war which
would end business of that sort; and if we do not end it, if we do
not do the best that human concert of action can do to end it, we
are of all men the most unfaithful, the most unfaithful to the loving
hearts who suffered in this war, the most unfaithful to those house-
holds bowed in grief and yet lifted with the feeling that the lad laid
down his life for a great thing and, among other things, in order that
other lads might never have to do the same thing. That is what the
league of nations is for, to end this war justly, and then not merely
to serve notice on governments which would contemplate the same
things that Germany contemplated that they will do it at their peril,
but also concerning the combination of power which will prove to
them that they will do it at their peril. It is idle to say the world
will combine against you, because it may not, but it is persuasive to
say the world is combined against you, and will remain combined
against the things that Germany attempted. The league of nations
is the only thing that can prevent the recurrence of this dreadful
catastrophe and redeem our promises.
The character of the league is based upon the experience of this
very war. I did not meet a single public man who did not admit
these things, that Germany would not have gone into this war if she
had thought Great Britain was going into it, and that she most cer-
tainly would never have gone into this war if she dreamed America
was going into it. And they all admitted that a notice beforehand
8 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
that the greatest powers of the world would combine to prevent this
sort of thing would prevent it absolutely. When gentlemen tell you,
therefore, that the league of nations is intended for some other pur-
pose than this, merely reply this to them : If we do not do this thing,
we have neglected the central covenant that we made to our people,
and there will then be no statesmen of any country who can there-
after promise his people alleviation from the perils of war. The
passions of this world are not dead. The rivalries of this world
have not cooled. They have been rendered hotter than ever. The
harness that is to unite nations is more necessary now than it ever
was before, and unless there is this assurance of combined action
before wrong is attempted, wrong will be attempted just so soon as
the most ambitious nations can recover from the financial stress of
this war.
Now, look w y hat else is in the treaty. This treaty is unique in the
history of mankind, because the center of it is the redemption of
weak nations. There never was a congress of nations before that
considered the rights of those who could not enforce their rights.
There never was a congress of nations before that did not seek to
effect some balance of power brought about by means of serving the
strength and interest of the strongest powers concerned; whereas
this treaty builds up nations that never could have won their freedom
in any other way; builds them up by gift, b}^ largess, not by obliga-
tions ; builds them up because of the conviction of the men who wrote
the treaty that the rights of people transcend the rights of govern-
ments, because of the conviction of the men who wrote that treaty
that the fertile source of war is wrong. The Austro-Hungarian
Empire, for example, was held together by military force and con-
sisted of peoples who did not want to live together, who did not
have the spirit of nationality as toward each other, who were con-
stantly chafing at the bands that held them. Hungary, though a
willing partner of Austria, w r as willing to be a partner because she
could share Austria’s strength to accomplish her own ambitions, and
her own ambitions were to hold under her the Jugo-Slavic peoples
that lay to the south of her; Bohemia, an unhappy partner, a partner
by duress, beating in all her veins the strongest national impulse that
was to be found anywhere in Europe; and north of that, pitiful
Poland, a great nation divided’ up among the great powers of
Europe, torn asunder, kinship disregarded, natural ties treated with
contempt, and an obligatory division among sovereigns imposed
upon her a part of her given to Russia, a part of her given to
Austria, a part of her given to Germany great bodies of Polish
people never permitted to have the normal intercourse with their
kinsmen for fear that that fine instinct of the heart should assert
itself which binds families together. Poland could never nave won
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 9
her independence. Bohemia never could have broken away from
the Austro-Himgarian combination. The Slavic peoples to the south,
running down into the great Balkan Peninsula, had again and again
tried to assert their nationality and independence, and had as often
been crushed, not by the immediate power they were fighting, but
by the combined power of Europe. The old alliances, the old bal-
ances of power, were meant to see to it that no little nation asserted
its right to the disturbance of the peace of Europe, and every time
an assertion of rights was attempted they were suppressed by com-
bined influence and force.
This treaty tears away all that : says these people have a right to
live their oAvn lives under the governments which they themselves
choose to set up. That is the American principle, and I was glad to
fight for it. When strategic claims were urged, it was matter of
common counsel that such considerations were not in our thought.
We were not now arranging for future wars. We were giving people
what belonged to them. My fellow citizens, I do not think there is
any man alive who has a more tender sympathy for the great people
of Italy than I have, and a very stern duty was presented to us when
we had to consider some of the claims of Italy on the Adriatic, be-
cause strategically, from the point of view of future wars, Italy
needed a militarv foothold on the other side of the Adriatic, but her
* f
people did not live there except in little spots. It was a Slavic
people, and I had to say to my Italian friends, ” Everywhere else in
this treaty we have given territory to the people who lived on it, and
I do not think that it is for the advantage of Italy, and I am sure
it is not for the advantage of the world, to give Italy territory where
other people live.” I felt the force of the argument for what they
wanted, and it was the old argument that had always prevailed,
namely, that they needed it from a military point of view, and I have
no doubt that if there is no league of nations, they will need it from
a military point of view; but if there is a league of nations, they
will not need it from a military point of view.
If there is no league of nations, the military point of view will
prevail ii* every instance, and peace will be brought into contempt,
but if there is a league of nations, Ital} T need not fear the fact that
the shores on the other side of the Adriatic tower above the lower
and sandy shores on her side the sea, because there will be no threat-
ening guns there, and the nations of the world will have concerted,
not merely to see that the Slavic peoples have their rights, but that
the Italian people have their rights as well. I had rather have every-
body on my side than be armed to the teeth. Every settlement that
is right, every settlement that is based on the principles I have al-
luded to, is a safe settlement, because the sympathy of mankind will
be behind it.
10 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
Some gentlemen have feared with regard to the league of nations
that we will be obliged to do things we do not want to do. If the
treaty were wrong, that might be so, but if the treat}^ is right, we
will wish to preserve right. I think I know the heart of this great
people whom I, for the time being have the high honor to represent
better than some other men that I hear talk. I have been bred, and
am proud to have been bred, in the old revolutionary school which
set this Government up, when it was set up as the friend of mankind,
and I know if they do not that America has never lost that vision
or that purpose. But I have not the slightest fear that arms will be
necessary if the purpose is there. If I know that my adversary is
armed and I am not, I do not press the controversy, and if any nation
entertains selfish purposes set against the principles established in
this treat c y and is told by the rest of the world that it must withdraw
its claims, it will not press them.
The heart of this treaty then, my fellow citizens, is not even that it
punishes Germany. That is a temporary thing. It is that it rectifies
the age-long wrongs which characterized the history of Europe.
There were some of us who wished that the scope of the treaty w r ould
reach some other age-long wrongs. It was a big job, and I do not
say that we wished that it were bigger, but there were other wrongs
elsewhere than in Europe and of the same kind which no doubt ought
to be rigrhted, and some day will be righted, but which we could not
*/
draw into the treaty because we could deal only with the countries
whom the war had engulfed and affected. But so far as the scope
of our authority went, we rectified the wrongs which have been the
fertile source of war in Europe.
Have you ever reflected, my fellow countrymen, on the real source
of revolution? Men do not start revolutions in a sudden passion.
Do vou remember what Thomas Carlisle said about the French
Revolution? He was speaking of the so-called Hundred Days Ter-
ror which reigned not only in Paris, but throughout France, in the
days of^the French Revolution, and he reminded his readers that
back of that hundred days lay several hundred years of agony and
of wrong. The French people had been deeply and consistently
wronged by their Government, robbed, their human rights dis-
regarded, and the slow agony of those hundreds of years had after
awhile gathered into a hot anger that could not be suppressed.
Revolutions do not spring up overnight. Revolutions come from the
long suppression of the human spirit. Revolutions come because
men know that they have rights and that they are disregarded ; and
when we think of the future of the Avorld in connection with this
treaty we must remember that one of the chief efforts of those who
made this treaty was to remove that anger from the heart of great
peoples, great peoples who had always been suppressed, who had
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 11
always been used, and who had always been the tools in the hands
of governments, generally alien governments, not their own. The
makers of the treaty knew that if these wrongs were not removed,
there could be no peace in the world, because, after all, my fellow
citizens, war comes from the seed of wrong and not from the seed
of right. This treaty is an attempt to right the history of Europe,
and. in my humble judgment, it is a measurable success. I say
”measurable,” my fellow citizens, because you will realize the diffi-
culty of this:
Here are two neighboring peoples. The one people have not
stopped at a sharp line, and the settlements of the other people or
their migrations have not begun at a sharp line. They have inter-
mingled.’ There are regions where you can not draw a national
line and say there are Slavs on this side [illustrating] and Italians
on that [illustrating]. It can not be done. You have to approxi-
mate the line. You have to come as near to it as you can, and then
trust to the processes of history to redistribute, it may be, the people
that are on the wrong side of the line. There are many such lines
drawn in this treaty and to be drawn in the Austrian treaty, where
there are perhaps more lines of that sort than in the German treaty.
When we came to draw the line between the Polish people and the
German people not the line between Germany and Poland; there
w T as no Poland, strictly speaking, but the line between the German
and the Polish people we were confronted by such problems as the
disposition of districts like the eastern part of Silesia, which is
called Upper Silesia because it is mountainous and the other part is
not. Upper Silesia is chiefly Polish, and when we came to draw the
line of what should be Poland it was necessary to include Upper
Silesia if we were really going to play fair and make Poland up of
the Polish peoples wherever we found them in sufficiently close
neighborhood to one another, but it was not perfectly clear that
Upper Silesia wanted to be part of Poland. At any rate, there were
Germans in Upper Silesia who said that it did not, and therefore
we did there what we did in many other places. We said, “Very
well. then, we will let the people that live there decide. We will
have a referendum. Within a certain length of time after the war,
under the supervision of an international commission which will have
;i sufficient armed force behind it to preserve order and see that
nobody interferes with the elections, we will have an absolutely free
vote and Upper Silesia shall go either to Germany or to Poland, as
the people in Upper Silesia prefer/’ That illustrates many other
case> where we provided for a referendum, or a plebiscite, as they
chose to call it. We are going to leave it to the people themselves, as
we should have done, what government they shall live under. It is
none of my prerogative to allot peoples to this government or the
12 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
other. It is nobody’s right to do that allotting except the people
themselves, and I want to testify that this treaty is shot through
with the American principle of the choice of the governed.
Of course, at times it went further than we could make a practical
policy of, because various peoples were keen upon getting back
portions of their population which were separated from them by
many miles of territory, and we could not spot the map over with
little pieces of separated States. I even reminded my Italian col-
leagues that if they were going to claim every place where there
was a large Italian population, we would have to cede New York
to them, because there are more Italians in New York than in anv
v
Italian city. But I hope, I believe, that the Italians in New York
City are as glad to stay there as we are to have them. But ‘I would
not have you suppose that I am intimating that my Italian col-
leagues entered any claim for New York City.
We of all peoples in the world, my fellow citizens, ought to be
able to understand the questions of this treaty without anybody
explaining them to us, for we are made up out of all the peoples of
the world. I dare say that in this audience there are representatives
of practically all the people dealt with in this treaty. You do not
have to have me explain national aspirations to you. You have been
brought up on them. You have learned of them since you were
children, and it is those national aspirations which we sought to
release and give an outlet to in this great treaty.
But we did much more than that. This treaty contains among
other things a Magna Charta of labor a thing unheard of until this
interesting year of grace. There is a whole section of the treaty
devoted to arrangements by which the interests of those who labor
with their hands all over the world, whether they be men or women
or children, are sought to be safeguarded ; and next month there is
to meet the first assembly under this section of the league. Let me
tell you, it will meet whether the treaty is ratified by that time or
not. There is to meet an assembly which represents the interests of
laboring men throughout the world. Not their political interests;
there is nothing political about it. It is the interests of men con-
cerning the conditions of their labor ; concerning the character of
labor which women shall engage in, the character of labor which
children shall be permitted to engage in; the hours of labor; and,
incidentally, of course, the remuneration of labor ; that labor
shall be remunerated in proportion, of course, to the maintenance
of the standard of living, which is proper, for the man who is ex-
pected to give his whole brain and intelligence and energy to a
particular task. I hear very little said about the Magna Charta of
labor which is embodied in this treaty. It forecasts the day, which
ought to have come long ago, when statesmen will realize that no
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 13
nation is fortunate which is not happy and that no nation can be
happy whose people are not contented; contented in their lives and
fortunate in the circumstances of their lives.
If I Avere to state what seems to me the central idea of this treaty,
it would be this : It is almost a discovery in international conventions
that nations do not consist of their governments but consist of their
people. That is a rudimentary idea. It seems to us in America to
go without saying, but, my fellow citizens, it was never the leading
idea in any other international congress that I ever heard of; that
is to say, any international congress made up of the representatives
of governments. They were always thinking of national policy, of
national advantage, of the rivalries of trade, of the advantages of
territorial conquest. There is nothing of that in this treaty. You
will notice that even the territories which are taken away from
Germany, like her colonies, are not given to anybody. There is not
a single act of annexation in this treaty. Territories inhabited by
people not yet to govern themselves, either because of economical or
other circumstances, are put under the care of powers, who are to
act as trustees trustees responsible in the form of the world at
the bar of the league of nations, and the terms upon which they are
to exercise their trusteeship are outlined. They are not to use those
people by way of draft to fight their wars for them. They are
not to permit any form of slavery among them, or of enforced labor.
They are to see to it that there are humane conditions of labor with
regard not only to the . women and children but to the men also.
They are to establish no fortifications. They are to regulate the
liquor and the opium traffic. They are to see to it, in other words,
that the lives of the people whose care they assume not sovereignty
over whom they assume are kept clean and safe and wholesome.
There again the principle of the treaty comes out, that the object
of the arrangement is the welfare of the people who live there, and
not the advantage of the trustee.
It goes beyond that. It seeks to gather under the common super-
vision of the league of nations the various instrumentalities by which
the world has been trying to check the evils that were in some places
debasing men, like the opium traffic, like the traffic for it was a
traffic in women and children, like the traffic in other dangerous
drugs, like the traffic in arms among uncivilized people who could
use arms only for their own detriment. It provides for sanitation,
for the work of the Red Cross. Why, those clauses, my fellow citi-
zens, draw the hearts of the world into league, draw the noble
impulses of the world together and make a team of them.
I used to be told that this was an age in which mind was monarch,
and mv comment was that if that was true, the mind was one of
^ *
1.4 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
those modern monarchs that reigns and does not govern; that, us a
matter of fact, we were governed by a great representative assembly
made up of the human passions, and that the best we could manage
was that the high and fine passions should be in a majority so that
they could control the baser passions, so that they could check the
things that were wrong. This treaty seeks something like that. In
drawing the humane endeavors of the world together it makes a
league of the fine passions of the world, of its philanthropic passions,
of its passion of pity, of its passion of human sympathy, of its
passion of human friendliness and helpfulness, for there is such a
passion. It is the passion which has lifted us along the slow road
of civilization. It is the passion which has made ordered govern-
ment possible. It is the passion which has made justice and estab-
lished it in the world.
That is the treaty. Did you ever hear of it before ? Did you ever
know before what was in this treaty ? Did anybody before ever tell
you what the treaty was intended to do? I beg, my fellow citizens,
that you and the rest of those Americans with whom we are happy
to be associated all over this broad land will read the treaty your-
selves, or, if you will not take the time to do that for it is a tech-
nical document that you will accept the interpretation of those who
made it and know what the intentions were in the making of it. I
hear a great deal, my fellow citizens, about the selfishness and the
selfish ambitions of other governments, and I would not be doing
justice to the gifted men with whom I was associated on the other
side of the water if I did not testify that the purposes that I have
outlined were their purposes. We differed as to the method very
often. We had discussions as to the details, but we never had any
serious discussion as to the principle. While we all acknowledged
that the principles might perhaps in detail have been better realized,
we are all back of those principles. There is a concert of mind and
of purpose and of policy in the world that was never in existence
before. I am not saying that by way of credit to myself or to those
colleagues to whom I have alluded, because what happened to us was
that we got messages from our people. We were under instructions,
whether they were written down or not, and we did not dare come
home without fulfilling those instructions. If I could not have
brought back the kind of treaty that I did bring back, I never would
have come back, because I would have been an unfaithful servant,
and you would have had the right to condemn me in any way that
you chose to use. So that I testify that this is an American treaty
not only, but it is a treaty that expresses the heart of the great
peoples who were associated together in the war against Germany.
I said at the opening of this informal address, my fellow citizens
that I had come to make a report to you. I want to add to that a
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 15
little bit. I have not come to debate the treaty. It speaks for itself,
if you will let it. The arguments directed against it are directed
against it with a radical misunderstanding of the instrument itself.
Therefore, I am not going anywhere to debate the treaty. I am going
to expound it, and I am going, as I do here, now, to-day, to urge
you in every vocal method that you can use to assert the spirit of
the American people in support of it. Do not let men pull it down.
Do not let them misrepresent it. Do not let them lead this Nation
away from the high purposes with which this war was inaugurated
and fought. As I came through that line of youngsters in khaki a
few minutes ago I felt that I could salute them because I had done
the job in the way I promised them I would do it, and when this
treaty is accepted, men in khaki will not have to cross the seas again.
That is the reason I believe in it.
I say ” when it is accepted,” for it will be accepted. I have never
entertained a moment’s doubt of that, and the only thing I have been
impatient of has been the delay. It is not dangerous delay, except
for the temper of the peoples scattered throughout the world who
are waiting. Do you realize, my fellow citizens, that the whole world
is waiting on America? The only country in the world that is
trusted at this moment is the United States, and the peoples of the
world are waiting to see whether their trust is justified or not. That
has been the ground of my impatience. I knew their trust was justi-
fied, but I begrudged the time that certain gentlemen wish to take in
telling them so. We shall tell them so in a voice as authentic as any
voice in history, and in the years to come men will be glad to remem-
ber that they had some part in the great struggle which brought this
incomparable consummation of the hopes of mankind.
ADDRESS FROM REAR PLATFORM, RICHMOND, IND.,
SEPTEMBER 4, 1919.
*
I am trying to tell the people what is in the treaty. You would
not know what was in it to read some of the speeches I read,
and if you will be generous enough to me to read some of the things
I say, I hope it will help to clarify a great many matters which
have been very much obscured by some of the things which have
been said. Because we have now to make the most critical choice
we ever made as a nation, and it ought to be made in all soberness
and without the slightest tinge of party feeling in it. I would be
ashamed of myself if I discussed this great matter as a Democrat
and not as an American. I am sure that every man who looks at it
without party prejudice and as an American will find in that treaty
more things that are genuinely American than were ever put into
any similar document before.
The chief thing to notice about it, my fellow citizens, is that it is
the first treaty ever made by great powers that was not made in
their own favor. It is made for the protection of the weak peoples
of the world and not for the aggrandizement of the strong. That is
a noble achievement, and it is largely due to the influence of such
great peoples as the people of America, who hold at their heart this
principle, that nobody has the right to impose sovereignty upon
anybody else ; that, in disposing of the affairs of a nation, that nation
or people must be its own master and make its own choice. The
extraordinary achievement of this treaty is that it gives a free choice
to people who never could have won it for themselves. It is for the
first time in the history of international transactions an act of sys-
tematic justice and not an act of grabbing and seizing.
If you will just regard that as the heart of the treaty for it is
the heart of the treaty then everything else about it is put in a
different light. If we want to stand by that principle, then we can
justify the history of America as we can in no other way, for that
is the history and principle of America. That is at the heart of it.
I beg that, whenever you consider this great matter, you will look
at it from this point of view: Shall we or shall we not sustain the
first great act of international justice? The thing wears a very big
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 2 17
18 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
aspect when you look at it that way, and all little matters seem to
fall away and one seems ashamed to bring in special interests, par-
ticularly party interests. What difference does party make when
mankind is involved? Parties are intended, if they are intended
for any legitimate purpose, to serve mankind, and they are based
upon legitimate differences of opinion, not as to whether mankind
shall be served or not, but as to the way in which it shall be served ;
and, so far as those differences are legitimate differences, party lines
are justified.
#ADDRESS AT COLISEUM, INDIANAPOLIS, IND.,
SEPTEMBER 4, 1919.
Gov. Goodrich, my fellow citizens, so great a company as this
tempts me to make a speech, and yet I want .to say to you in all
seriousness and soberness that I have not come here to make a speech
in the ordinary sense of that term. I have come upon a very sober
errand indeed. I have come to report to you upon the work which
the representatives of the United States attempted to do at the con-
ference of peace on the other side of the sea, because, my fellow
citizens, I realize that my colleagues and I in the task we attempted
over there were your servants. We went there upon a distinct errand,
which it was our duty to perform in the spirit which you had dis-
played in the prosecution of the war and in conserving the purposes
and objects of that war.
I was in the city of Columbus this forenoon. I was endeavoring
to explain to a body of our fellow citizens there just what it was that
the treaty of peace contained, for I must frankly admit that in most
of the speeches that I have heard in debate upon the treaty of peace
it would be impossible to form a definite conception of what that
instrument means. I want to recall to you for the purposes of this
evening the circumstances of the war and the purposes for which
our men spent their lives on the other side of the sea. You will
remember that a prince of the House of Austria was slain in one of
the cities of Serbia. Serbia was one of the little kingdoms of Europe.
She had no strength which any of the great powers needed to fear,
and as we see the war now, Germany and those who conspired with
her made a pretext of that assassination in order to make unconscion-
able demands of the weak and helpless Kingdom of Serbia. Not
with a view to bringing about an acquiescence in those demands, but
with a view to bringing about a conflict in which other purposes
quite separate from the purposes connected with those demands
could be achieved. Just so soon as those demands were made on
Serbia, the other Governments of Europe sent telegraphic messages
to Berlin and Vienna asking that the matter be brought into con-
ference, and the significant circumstance of the beginning of this war
19
20 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
is that the Austrian and German Governments did not dare to discuss
the demands of Serbia or the purposes which they had in view. It
is universally admitted on the other side of the water that if they
had ever gone into international conference on the Austrian demands,
the war never would have been begun. There was an insistent
demand from London, for example, by the British foreign minister
that the cabinets of Europe should be allowed time to confer with
the Governments at Vienna and Berlin, and the Governments at
Vienna and Berlin did not dare to admit time for discussion.
I am recalling these circumstances, my fellow citizens, because I
want to point out to you what apparently has escaped the attention
of some of the critics of the league of nations, that the heart of the
league of nations covenant does not lie in any of the portions which
have been discussed in public debate. The great bulk of the pro-
visions of that covenant contain these engagements and promises on
the part of the states which undertake to become members of it : That
in no circumstances will they go to war without first having done one
or other of two things, without first either having submitted the
question to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the
results, or having submitted the question to discussion by the council
of the league of nations, in which case they will allow six months for
the discussion and engage not to go to war until three months after
the council has announced its opinion upon the subject under dispute.
The heart of the covenant of the league is that the nations solemnly
covenant not to go to war for nine months after a controversy
becomes acute.
If there had been nine days of discussion, Germany would not
have gone to war. If there had been nine days xipon which to bring
to bear the opinion of the world, the judgment of mankind, upon the
purposes of those Governments, they never would have dared to
execute those purposes. So that what it is important for us to
rememlTer is that when we sent those boys in khaki across the sea we
promised them, we promised the world, that we would not conclude
this conflict with a mere treaty of peace. We entered into solemn
engagements with all the nations with whom we associated ourselves
that we would bring about such a kind of settlement and such a con-
cert of the purpose of nations that wars like this could not occur
again. If this war has to be fought over again, then all our high
ideals and purposes have been disappointed, for we did not go into
this war merely to beat Germany. We went into this war to beat all
purposes such as Germany entertained.
You will remember how the conscience of mankind was shocked by
what Germany did ; not merely by the circumstance to which I have
already adverted, that unconscionable demands were made upon a
little nation which could not resist, but that immediately upon the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 21
beginning of the war the solemn engagements of treaty were cast on
one side, and the chief representative of the Imperial Government of
Germany said that when national purposes were under consideration
treaties were mere scraps of paper, and immediately upon that decla-
ration the German armies invaded the territories of Belgium which
they had engaged should be inviolate, invaded those territories with
the half-avowed purpose that Belgium was to be permanently
retained by Germany in order that she should have the proper front-
age on the sea and the proper advantage in her contest with the
other nations of the world. The act which was characteristic of the
beginning of this war was the violation of the territorial integrity of
the Kingdom of Belgium.
We are presently, my fellow countrymen, to have the very great
pleasure of welcoming on this side of the sea the King and the
Queen of the Belgians, and I, for one, am perfectly sure that we are
going to make it clear to them that we have not forgotten the
violation of Belgium, that we have not forgotten the intolerable
wrongs which were put upon that suffering people. I have seen
their devastated country. Where it was not actually laid in ruins,
every factory was gutted of its contents. All the machinery by
which it would be possible for men to go to work again was taken
away, and those parts of the machinery that could not be taken
away were destroyed by experts who knew how to destroy them.
Belgium was a very successful competitor of Germany in some lines
of manufacture, and the German armies went there to see to it that
that competition was removed. Their purpose was to crush the
independent action of that little kingdom, not merely to use it as a
gateway through which to attack France. And when they got into
France, they not only fought the armies of France, but they put the
coal mines of France out of commission, so that it will be a decade
or more before France can supply herself with coal from her accus-
tomed sources. You have heard a great deal about Article X of the
covenant of the league of nations. Article X speaks the conscience
of the world. Article X is the article which goes to the heart of this
whole bad business, for that article says that the members of this
league (that is intended to be all the great nations of the world)
engage to respect and to preserve against all external aggression the
territorial integrity and political independence of the nations con-
cerned. That promise is necessary in order to prevent this sort of
war from recurring, and we are absolutely discredited if we fought
this war and then neglect the essential safeguard against it. You
have heard it said, my fellow citizens, that we are robbed of some
degree of our sovereign, independent choice by articles of that sort.
Every man who makes a choice to respect the rights of his neigh-
bors deprives himself of absolute sovereignty, but he does it by
22 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
promising never to do wrong, and I can not for one see anything that
robs me of any inherent right that I ought to retain when I promise
that I will do right, when I promise that I will respect the thing
which, being disregarded and violated, brought on a war in which
millions of men lost their lives, in which the civilization of mankind
was in the balance, in which there was the most outrageous exhibi-
tion ever witnessed in the history of mankind of the rapacity and
disregard for right of a great armed people.
We engage in the first sentence of Article X to respect and preserve
from external aggression the territorial integrity and the existing po-
litical independence not only of the other member States, but of all
States, and if any member of the league of nations disregards that
promise, then what happens? The council of the league advises
what should be done to enforce the respect for that covenant on the
part of the nation attempting to violate it, and there is no compul-
sion upon us to take that advice except the compulsion of our good
conscience and judgment. It is perfectly evident that if, in the judg-
ment of the people of the United States the council adjudged wrong
and that this was not a case for the use of force, there would be no
necessity on the part of the Congress of the United States to vote
the use of force. But there could be no advice of the council on
any such subject without a unanimous vote, and the unanimous vote
includes our own, and if we accepted the advice we would be accept-
ing our own advice. For I need not tell you that the representatives
of the Government of the United States would not vote without
instructions from their Government at home, and that what we
united in advising we could be certain that the American people
would desire to do. There is in that covenant not only not a sur-
render of the independent judgment of the Government of the
United States, but an expression of it, because that independent
judgment would have to join with the judgment of the rest.
But when is that judgment going to be expressed, my fellow
citizens? Only after it is evident that every other resource has
failed, and I want to call your attention to the central machinery
of the league of nations. If any member of that league, or any
nation not a member, refuses to submit the question at issue either
to arbitration or to discussion by the council, there ensues auto-
matically by the engagements of this covenant an absolute economic
boycott. There will be no trade with that nation by any member of
the league. There will be no interchange of communication by post
or telegraph. There will be no travel to or from that nation. Its
borders will be closed. No citizen of any other State will be allowed
to enter it, and no one of its citizens will be allowed to leave it. It
will be hermetically sealed by the united action of the most powerful
nations in the world. And if this economic boycott bears with un-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 23
equal weight, the members of the league agree to support one another
and to relieve one another in any exceptional disadvantages that may
arise out of it.
I want you to realize that this war was won not only by the armies
of the world. It was won by economic means as well. Without the
economic means the war would have been much longer continued.
What happened was that Germany was shut off from the economic
resources of the rest of the globe and she could not stand it. A nation
that is boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply
this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no
need for force. It is a terrible remedy. It does not cost a life out-
side the nation boycotted, but it brings a pressure upon that nation
which, in my judgment, no modern nation could resist.
I dare say that some of these ideas are new to you, because while
it is true, as I said this forenoon in Columbus, that apparently no-
body has taken the pains to see what is in this treaty, very few have
taken the pains to see what is in the covenant of the league of nations.
They have discussed, chiefly, three out of twenty-six articles, and the
other articles contain this heart of the matter, that instead of war
there shall be arbitration, instead of war there shall be discussion,
instead of war there shall be the closure of intercourse, instead of
war there shall be the irresistible pressure of the opinion of mankind.
If I had done wrong, I would a great deal rather have a man shoot
at me than stand me up for the judgment of my fellow men. I would
a great deal rather see the muzzle of a gun than the look in their eyes.
I would a great deal rather be put out of the world than live in the
world boycotted and deserted. The most terrible thing is outlawry.
The most formidable thing is to be absolutely isolated. And that
is the kernel of this engagement. War is on the outskirts. War is
a remote and secondary threat. War is a last resort. Nobody in
his senses claims for the covenant of the league of nations that it is
certain to stop war, but I confidently assert that it makes war vio-
lently improbable, and even if we can not guarantee that it will stop
war, we are bound in conscience to do our utmost in order to avoid
it and prevent it.
I was pointing out, my fellow citizens, this forenoon, that this
covenant is part of a great document. I wish I had brought a copy
with me to show you its bulk. It is an enormous volume, and most
of the things you hear talked about in that treaty are not the essential
things. This is the first treaty in the history of civilization in which
great powers have associated themselves together in order to protect
the weak. I need not tell you that I speak with knowledge in this mat-
ter, knowledge of the purpose of the men with whom the American
delegates were associated at the peace table. They came there, every
one that I consulted with, with the same idea, that wars had arisen
24 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
in the past because the strong took advantage of the weak, and that
the only way to stop wars was to bind ourselves together to protect
the weak ; that the example of this war was the example which gave
us the finger to point the way of escape : That as Austria and Ger-
many had tried to put upon Serbia, so we must see to it that Serbia
and the Slavic peoples associated with her, and the peoples of
Roumania, and the people of Bohemia, and the peoples of Hungary
and Austria for that matter, should feel assured in the future that
the strength of the great powers was behind their liberty and their
independence and was not intended to be used, and never should be
used, for aggression against them.
So when you read the covenant, read the treaty with it. I have no
doubt that in this audience there are many men which come from,
that ancient stock of Poland, for example, men in whose blood there
is the warmth of old affections connected with that betrayed and
ruined country, men whose memories run back to intolerable wrongs
suffered by those they love in that country, and I call them to witness
that Poland never could have won unity and independence for her-
self, and those gentlemen sitting at Paris presented Poland with a
unity which she could not have won and an independence which she
can not defend unless the world guarantees it to her. There is one
of the most noble chapters in the history of the world, that this war
was concluded in order to remedy the wrongs which had bitten so
deep into the experience of the weaker peoples of that great continent.
The object of the war was to see to it that there was no more of that
sort of wrong done. Now, when you have that picture in your mind,
that this treaty was meant to protect those who could not protect
themselves, turn the picture and look at it this way :
Those very weak nations are situated through the very tract of
country between Germany and Persia which Germany had meant
to conquer and dominate, and if the nations of the world do not main-
tain their v concert to sustain the independence and freedom of those
peoples, Germany will yet have her will upon them, and we shall wit-
ness the very interesting spectacle of having spent millions upon
millions of American treasure and, what is much more precious,
hundreds of thousands of American lives, to do a futile thing, to do
a thing which we will then leave to be undone at the leisure of those
who are masters of intrigue, at the leisure of those who are masters
in combining wrong influences to overcome right influences, of those
who are the masters of the very things that we hate and mean always
to fight. For, my fellow citizens, if Germany should ever attempt
that again, whether we are in the league of nations or not, we will
join to prevent it. We do not stand off and see murder done. We
do not profess to be the champions of liberty and then consent to see
liberty destroyed. We are not the friends and advocates of free
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 25
government and then willing to stand by and see free government
die before our eyes. If a power such as Germany was, but thank
God no longer is, were to do this thing upon the fields of Europe,
then America would have to look to it that she did not do it also
upon the fields of the Western Hemisphere, and we should at last be
face to face with a power which at the outset we could have crushed,
and which now it is within our choice to keep within the harness of
civilization.
I am discussing this thing with you, my fellow citizens, as if I
had a doubt of what the verdict of the American people would be. I
have not the slightest doubt. I just wanted to have the pleasure
of pointing out to you how absolutely ignorant of the treaty and
of the covenant some of the men are who have been opposing them.
If they do read the English language, they do not understand the
English language as I understand it. If they have really read this
treaty and this covenant they only amaze me by their inability to
understand what is plainly expressed. My errand upon this journey
is not to argue these matters, but to recall you to the real issues
which are involved. And one of the things that I have most at
heart in this report to my fellow citizens is that they should forget
what party I belong to and what party they belong to. I am mak-
ing this journey as a democrat, but I am spelling it with a little
” d,” and I do not want anybody to remember, so far as this errand
is concerned, that it is ever spelt with a big D. I am making this
journey as an American and as a champion of rights which America
believes in; and I need not tell you that as compared with the
importance of America the importance of the Democratic Party
and the importance of the Kepublican Party and the importance of
every other party is absolutely negligible. Parties, my fellow citi-
zens, are intended to embody in action different policies of govern-
ment. They are not, when properly used, intended to traverse the
principles which underlie government, and the principles which
underlie the Government of the United States have been familiar
to us ever since we were children. You have been bred, I have no
doubt, as I have been bred, in the revolutionary school of American
thought. I mean that school of American thought which takes its
inspiration from the days of the American Revolution. There were
only three million of us then, but we were ready to stand out against
the world for liberty. There are more than a hundred million of
us now, and we are ready to insist that everywhere men shall be
champions of liberty.
I want you to notice another interesting point that is never dilated
upon in connection with the league of nations. I am treading now
upon delicate ground and I must express myself with caution.
There were a good many delegations that visited Paris who wanted
to be heard by the peace conference who had real causes to present
26 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
which ought to be presented to the view of the world, but we had
to point out to them that they did not happen, unfortunately, to
come within the area of settlement, that their questions were not ques-
tions which were necessarily drawn into the things that we were de-
ciding. We were sitting there with the pieces of the Austro-Hun-
garian Empire in our hands. It had fallen apart. It never was nat-
urally cohesive. We were sitting there with various dispersed assets
of the German Empire in our hands, and with regard to every one of
them we had to determine what we were going to do with them, but
we did not have our own dispersed assets in our hands. We did not
have the assets of the nations which constituted the body of nations
associated against Germany to dispose of, and therefore we had often,
with whatever regret, to turn away from questions that ought some
day to be discussed and settled and upon which the opinion of the
world ought to be brought to bear.
Therefore, I want to call your attention, if you will turn to it when
you go home, to Article XI, following Article X, of the covenant
of the league of nations. That article, let me say, is the favorite
article in the treaty, so far as I am concerned. It says that every
matter which is likely to affect the peace of the world is everybody’s
business; that it shall be the friendly right of any nation to call
attention in the league to anything that is likely to affect the peace
of the world or the good understanding between nations, upon
which the peace of the world depends, whether that matter imme-
diately concerns the nation drawing attention to it or not. In other
words, at present we have to mind our own business. Under the
covenant of the league of nations we can mind other peoples’ busi-
ness, and anything that affects the peace of the world, whether we
are parties to it or not, can by our delegates be brought to the at-
tention of mankind. We can force a nation on the other side of
the globe to bring to that bar of mankind any wrong that is afoot
in that part of the world which is likely to affect good understanding
between nations, and we can oblige them to show cause why it should
not be remedied. There is not an oppressed people in the world
which can not henceforth get a hearing at that forum, and you
know, my fellow citizens, what a hearing will mean if the cause of
those people is just. The one thing that those who are doing injus-
tice have most reason to dread is publicity and discussion, because
if you are challenged to give a reason why you are doing a wrong
thing it has to be an exceedingly good reason, and if you give a
bad reason you confess judgment and the opinion of mankind goes
against you.
At present what is the state of international law and understand-
ing ? No nation has the right to call attention to anything that does
not directly affect its own affairs. If it does, it can not only be told
ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 27
to mind its own business, but it risks the cordial relationship between
itself and the nation whose affairs it draws under discussion; where-
as, under Article XI the very sensible provision is made that the
peace of the world transcends all the susceptibilities of_jiations and _^
governments, and that they are obliged to consent to discuss and ex-
C7> /
plain anything which does affect the understanding between nations.
Not only that, but there is another thing in this covenant which
cures one of the principal difficulties we encountered at Paris. I
need not tell you that at every turn in those discussions we came
across some secret treaty, some understanding that had never been
made public before, some understanding which embarrassed the
whole settlement. I think it will not be improper for me to refer to
one of them. When we came to the settlement of the Shantung mat-
ter with regard to China, we found that Great Britain and France
were under explicit treaty obligation to Japan that she should get
exactly what she got in the treaty with Germany, and the most that
the United states could do was to urge upon Japan the promise,
which she gave, that she would not take advantage of those portions
of the treaty but would return to the Republic of China, without
qualification, the sovereignty which Germany had enjoyed in Shan-
tung Province. We have had repeated assurances since then that
Japan means to fulfill those promises in absolute good faith. But
my present point is that there stood at the very gate of that settle-
ment a secret treaty between Japan and two of the great powers en-
gaged in this war on our side. We could not ask them to disregard
those promises. This war had been fought in part because of the re-
fusal to observe the fidelity which is involved in a promise, because
of the failure to regard the sacredness of treaties, and this covenant
of the league of nations provides that no secret treaty shall have any
validity. It provides in explicit terms that every treaty, every inter-
national understanding, shall be registered with the secretary of the
league, that it shall be published as soon as possible after it is there
registered, and that no treaty that is not there registered will be re-
garded by any of the nations engaged in the covenant. So that we
not only have the right to discuss anything, but we make everything
open for discussion. If this covenant accomplished little more than
the abolition of private arrangements between great powers, it would
have gone far toward stabilizing the peace of the world and securing
justice, which it has been so difficult to secure so long as nations
could come to secret understandings with one another.
When you look at the covenant of the league of nations thus, in the
large, you wonder why it is a bogey to anybody. You wonder what
influences have made gentlemen afraid of it. You wonder why it
is not obvious to everybody as it is to those who study it with dis-
interested thought, that this is the central and essential covenant of
28 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the whole peace. As I was saying this forenoon, I can come through
a double row of men in khaki and acknowledge their salute with a
free heart, because I kept my promise to them. I told them when
they went to this war that it was a war not only to beat Germany but
to prevent any subsequent wars of this kind. I can look all the
mothers of this country in the face and all the sisters and the wives-
and the sweethearts and say, ” The boys will not have to do this
again.”
You would think to hear some of the men who discuss this cov-
enant that it is an arrangement for sending our men abroad again
just as soon as possible. It is the only conceivable arrangement
which will prevent our sending our men abroad again very soon, and
if I may use a very common expression, I would say if it is not to be
this arrangement, what arrangement do you suggest to secure the
peace of the world ? It is a case of “put up or shut up.” Opposition
is not going to save the world. Negations are not going to construct
the policies of mankind. A great plan is the only thing that can
defeat a great plan. The only triumphant ideas in this world are
the ideas that are organized for battle. The only thing that wins
against a program is a better program. If this is not the way to se-
cure peace, I beg that the way will be pointed out. If we must re-
ject this way, then I beg that before I am sent to ask Germany to
make a new kind of peace with us I should be given specific instruc-
tions what kind of peace it is to be. If the gentlemen who do not
like what was done at Paris think they can do something better, I
beg that they will hold their convention soon and do it now. They
can not in conscience or good faith deprive us of this great work of
peace without substituting some other that is better.
So, my fellow citizens, I look forward with profound gratification
to the time which I believe will now not much longer be delayed,
when the American people can say to their fellows in all parts of the
world, ” ^e are the friends of liberty ; we have joined with the rest
of mankind in securing the guarantees of liberty ; we stand here with
you the eternal champions of what is right, and may God keep us in
the covenant that we have formed.”
#ADDRESS AT LUNCHEON AT HOTEL STATLER,
ST. LOUIS, MO.,
SEPTEMBER 5, 1919.
Mr. Johnson, your honor Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, it is
with great pleasure that I find myself in St. Louis again, because I
have always found it possible in St. Louis to discuss serious questions
in a way that gets mind in contact with mind, instead of that other
less desirable thing, passion in contact with passion. I am glad to
hear the mayor say, and I believe that it is true, that politics is ad-
journed. Party politics has no place, my fellow citizens, in the sub-
ject we are now obliged to discuss and to decide. Politics in the
wider sense has a great deal to do with it. The politics of the world,
the policy of mankind, the concert of the methods by which the
world is to be bettered, that concert of will and of action which will
make every nation a nobler instrument of Divine Providence that
is world politics.
I have sometimes heard gentlemen discussing the questions that
are now before us with a distinction drawn between nationalism and
internationalism in these matters. It is very difficult for me to fol-
low their distinction. The greatest nationalist is the man who wants
his nation to be the greatest nation, and the greatest nation is the
nation which penetrates to the heart of its duty and mission among
the nations of the world. With every flash of insight into the great
politics of mankind, the nation that has that vision is elevated to a
place of influence and power which it can not get by arms, which it
can not get by commercial rivalry, which it can get by no other way
than by that spiritual leadership which comes from a profound un-
derstanding of the problems of humanity. It is in the light of ideas
of this sort that I conceive it a privilege to discuss the matters that
I have come away from Washington to discuss.
I have come away from Washington to discuss them because ap-
parently it is difficult to discuss them in Washington. The whole
subject is surrounded with a mist which it is difficult to penetrate. I
brought home with me from the other side of the water a great docu-
ment, a great human document, but after you hear it talked about
29
30 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
in Washington for awhile you think that it has just about three or
four clauses in it. You fancy that it has a certain Article X in it,
that it has something about Shantung in it, that it has something
about the Monroe doctrine in it, that it has something about quitting,
withdrawing from the league, showing that you do not want to play
the game. I do not hear about anything else in it. Why, my fellow
citizens, those are mere details and incidents of a great human enter-
prise, and I have sought the privilege of telling you what I conceive
that human enterprise to be.
The war that has just been finished was no accident. Any man
who had followed the politics of the world up to that critical break
must have known that that was the logical outcome of the processes
that had preceded it, must have known that the nations of the world
were preparing for that very thing and were expecting it. One of
the most interesting things that I realized after I got to the other
side of the water was that the mental attitude of the French people
with regard to the settlement of this war was largely determined by
the fact that for nearly 50 years they had expected it, that for nearly
50 years they had dreaded, by the exercise of German force, the very
thing that had happened, and their constant theme was, ” We must
devise means by which this intolerable fear will be lifted from our
hearts. We can not, we will not, live another 50 years under the cloud
of that terror.” The terror had been there all the time and the war
was its flame and consummation. It had been expected, because the
politics of Europe were based upon a definite conception. That con-
ception was that the strong had all the rights and that all that the
weak could enjoy was what the strong permitted them to enjoy; that
no nation had any right that could not be asserted by the exercise of
force, and that the real politics of Europe consisted in determining
how many of the weak elements in the European combination of
families and of nations should be under the influence and control of
one set of nations and how many of those elements should be under
the influence and control of another set of nations.
One of the centers of all the bad business was in that town of Con-
stantinople. I do not suppose that intrigue was ever anywhere else
reduced to such a consummate art or practiced with such ardor and
subtlety as in Constantinople. That was because Constantinople was
the key to the weak part of Europe. That was where the pawns
were, not the kings and the queens and the castles and the bishops
and the rest of the chess game of politics, but the little pawns. They
made the openings for the heavier pieces. Their maneuvers de-
termined the arrangement of the board, and those who controlled
the pawns controlled the outcome of the whole effort to checkmate
and to match and to capture and to take advantage. The shrewdest
politicians in the diplomatic service of the several nations were put
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 31
at Constantinople to run the game, which consisted in maneuvering
the weak for the advantage of the strong, and every international
conference that preceded the conference at Paris, which is still in
process, was intended to complete and consummate the arrangements
for that game. For the first time in the history of mankind, the re-
cent conference at Paris was convened to destroy that system and
substitute another.
I take it, my fellow citizens, that when you look at that volume,
for it is a thick volume, that contains the treaty of peace with Ger-
many, in the light of what I have been saying to you, you will read
it with greater interest than you have hitherto attached to it. It is
the chart and constitution of a new system for the world, and that new
system is based upon an absolute reversal of the principles of the old
system. The central object of that treaty is to establish the inde-
pendence and protect the integrity of the weak peoples of the world.
I hear some gentlemen, who are themselves incapable of altruistic
purposes, say, ” Ah, but that is altruistic. It is not our business to
take care of the weak nations of the world.” No, but it is our busi-
ness to prevent war, and if we do not take care of the weak nations
of the world, there will be war. These gentlemen assume the role of
being very practical men, and they say, ” we do not want to get into
war to protect every little nation in the world.” Very well then, let
them show me how they will keep out of war by not protecting them,
and let them show me how they will prove that, having gone into an
enterprise, they are not absolute, contemptible quitters if they do
not see the game through. They joined with the rest of us in the pro-
fession of fine purpose when we went into the war, and what was
the fine purpose that they professed? It was not merely to defeat
Germany. It is not a handsome enterprise for any great nation to
go into a war merely to reduce another nation to obedience. , They
went in, and they professed to go in, to see to it that nobody after
Germany’s defeat should repeat the experiment which Germany had
tried. And how do they propose to do that? To leave the material
that Germany was going to make her dominating empire out of help-
less and at her mercy.
What was the old formula of Pan-Germanism? From Bremen to
Bagdad, wasn’t it? Well, look at the map. What lies between Bre-
men and Bagdad ? After you get past the German territory, there is
Poland. There is Bohemia, which we, have made into Czecho-
slovakia. There is Hungary, which is divided from Austria and
does not share Austria’s strength. There is Roumania. There is
Jugo-Slavia. There is broken Turkey ; and then Persia and Bag-
dad. The route is open. The route is wide open, and we have under-
taken to say, ” This route is closed !” If you do not close it, you have
no choice but some day or other to enter into exactly the same sort
32 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
of war that we have just gone through. Those gentlemen are dream-
ing. They are living in a past age which is gone and all but forgot-
ten when they say that we can mind our own business.
What is our own business? Is there any merchant present here
or any manufacturer or any banker who can say that our interests
are separate from the interest of the rest of the world, commercially,
industrially, financially ? There is not a man in any one of those pro-
fessions who does not admit that our industrial fortunes are tied up
with the industrial fortunes of the rest of the world. He knows that,
and when he draws a picture to himself, if he is frank, of what
some gentlemen propose, this is what he sees: America minding her
own business and having no other despised, suspected, distrusted;
and on the other side of the water the treaty and its operation inter-
rupted ? Not at all ! We are a great nation, my fellow citizens, but
the treaty is going to be applied just the same whether we take part
in it or not, and part of its application, at the center of its applica-
tion, stands that great problem of the rehabilitation of Germany in-
dustrially. I say the problem of her rehabilitation because unless
she is rehabilitated she can not pay the reparation. The repara-
tion commission created by the treaty is created for the purpose of
seeing that Germany pays the reparation, and it was admitted in all
our conferences that in order to do that steps must be taken to enable
Germany to pay the reparation, which means her industrial and com-
mercial rehabilitation. Not only that, but some of you gentlemen
know we used to have a trade with Germany. All of that trade is
going to be in the hands and under the control of the reparation com-
mission. I humbly asked leave to appoint a member to look after
our interests, and I was rebuked for it. I am looking after the indus-
trial interest of the United States. I would like to see the other men
who are. They are forgetting the industrial interests of the United
States, and they are doing things that will cut us off, and our trade
off, from the normal channels, because the reparation commission
can determine where Germany buys, what Germany buys, how much
Germany buys; the reparation commission can determine in what
instruments of credit she temporarily expresses her debt. It can deter-
mine how those instruments of credit shall be used for the basis of
the credit which must underlie international exchanges. It is going
to stand at the center of the financial operations of the world. Now,
is it minding our business to keep out of that? On the contrary,
it is handing our business over to people who are not particularly
interested in seeing that it prospers. These are facts which I can
appropriately address to a chamber of commerce because they are
facts which nobody can controvert and which yet seem often to be
forgotten. The broad aspects of this subject are seldom brought
to your attention. It is the little picayune details here and there.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 33
That brings me, my fellow citizens, to the guarantee of this whole
thing. We said that we were going to fight this war for the pur-
pose of seeing to it that the mothers and sisters and fathers of this
land, and the sweethearts and wives, did not have to send their lads
over on the other side of the sea to fight any more, and so we took
part in an arrangement by which justice was to be secured through-
out the world. The rest of the world, partly at our suggestion, said
” Yes ” and said it gladly ; said ” Yes, we will go into the partnership
to see that justice is maintained;” and then I come home and hear
some gentlemen say, ” But will we? ‘ Are we interested in justice?
The treaty of peace, as I have just said to you, is based upon the pro-
tection of the weak against the strong, and there is only one force that
can protect the weak against the strong, and that is the universal
concert of the strength of mankind. That is the league of nations.
But I beg that you will not conceive of the league of nations as a
combination of the world for war, for that is exactly what it is not.
It is a combination of the world for arbitration and discussion. I
was taking the pains the other day to make a sort of table of con-
tents of the covenant of the league of nations, and I found that two-
thirds of its provisions were devoted to setting up a system of arbi-
tration and discussion in the world. Why, these are the facts, my
fellow citizens : The members of the league agree that no one of them
will ever go to war about anything without first doing one or other
of two things: without either submitting the question to arbitration,
in which case they agree to abide by the decision of the arbitrators
absolutely, or submitting it to discussion by the council of the league
of nations, in which case they agree that, no matter what the opinion
expressed by the council may be, they will allow six months for the
discussion, and, whether they are satisfied with the conclusion or not,
will not go to war in less than three months after the rendering of the
opinion. I think we can take it for granted that the preliminaries
would take two or three months, in which case you have a whole
year of discussion even when you do not get arbitration ; and I want
to call you to witness that in almost every international controversy
which has been submitted to thorough canvass by the opinion of the
world it has become impossible for the result to be war. War is a
process of heat. Exposure is a process of cooling ; and what is pro-
posed in this is that every hot thing shall be spread out in the cool-
ing air of the opinion of the world and after it is thoroughly cooled
off, then let the nations concerned determine whether they are going
to fight about it or not.
And notice the sanction. Any member of the league which breaks
these promises with regard to arbitration or discussion is to be
deemed thereby to have committed an act of war against the other
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 3
34 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
members of the league; not merely to have done an immoral thing,
but by refusing to obey those processes to have committed an act of
war and put itself out of court. You know what then happens.
You say, ” Yes, we form an army and go and fight them.” Not at
all. We shut their doors and lock them in. We boycott them.
Just so soon as that is done they can not ship cargoes out or receive
them shipped in. They can not send a telegraphic message. They
can not send or receive a letter. Nobody can leave their territory
and nobody can enter their territory. They are absolutely boycotted
by the rest of mankind. I do not think that after that remedy it
will be necessary to do any fighting at all. What brought Germany
to her knees was, not only the splendid fighting of the incomparable
men who met her armies, but that her doors were locked and she
could not get supplies from any part of the world. There were a
few doors open, doors to some” Swedish ore, for example, that she
needed for making munitions, and that kept her going for a time ;
but the Swedish door would be shut this time. There would not be
any door open, and that brings a nation to its senses just as suffoca-
tion removes from the individual all inclination to fight.
That is the league of nations, an agreement to arbitrate or dis-
cuss, and an agreement that if you do not arbitrate or discuss, you
shall be absolutely boycotted and starved out. There is hardly a
European nation, my fellow citizens, that is of a fighting inclination
which has enough food to eat without importing food, and it will
be a very persuasive argument that it has nothing to eat, because you
can not fight on an empty stomach any more than you can worship
God on an empty stomach.
When we add to that some other very interesting particulars, I
think the league of nations becomes a very interesting thing in-
deed. You have heard of Article X, and I am going to speak about
that in a minute, but read Article XI, because, really, there are other
articles in the covenant ! Article XI says I am not quoting its
language, but its substance that anything that is likely to affect the
peace of the world or the good understanding upon which the peace
of the world depends shall be everybody’s business ; that any nation,
the littlest nation at the table, can stand up and challenge the right
of the strongest nation there to keep on in a course of action or policy
which is likely to disturb the peace of the world, and that it shall
be its ” friendly right ” to do so. Those are the words. It can not
be regarded as an hostile or unfriendly act. It is its friendly right
to do that, and if you will not give the secret away, I wrote those
words myself. I wanted it to be our friendly right and everybody’s
friendly right to discuss everything that was likely to affect the
peace of the world, because that is everybody’s business. It is every-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 35
body’s business to see that nothing happens that does disturb the
peace of the world.
And there is added to this particular this very interesting thing:
There can hereafter be no secret treaties. There were nations repre-
sented around that board I mean the board at which the commission
on the league of nations sat, where 14 nations were represented
there were nations represented around that board who had entered
into many a secret treaty and understanding, and they made not the
least objection to promising that hereafter no secret treaty should
have any validity whatever. The provision of the covenant is that
every treaty or international understanding shall be u registered,” I
believe the word is, with the general secretary of the league, that the
general secretary shall publish it in full just so soon as it is possible
for him to publish it, and that no treaty shall be valid which is not
thus registered. It is like our arrangements with regard to mort-
gages on real estate, that until they are registered nobody else need
pay any attention to them. So with the treaties: Until they are
registered in this office of the league, nobody, not even the parties
themselves, can insist upon their execution. You have cleared the
deck thereby of the most dangerous thing and the most embarrassing
thing that has hitherto existed in international politics.
It was very embarrassing, my fellow citizens, when you thought
you were approaching an ideal solution of a particular question to
find that some of your principal colleagues had given the whole
thing away. And that leads me to speak just in passing of what
has given a great many people natural distress. I mean the Shantung
settlement, the settlement with regard to a portion of the Province
of Shantung in China. Great Britain and, subsequently, France,
as everybody now knows, in order to make it more certain that Japan
would come into the war and so assist to clear the Pacific of the
German fleets, had promised that any rights that Germany had
in China should, in the case of the victory of the Allies, pass to
Japan. There was no qualification in the promise. She was to get
exactly what Germany had, and so the only thing that was possible
was to induce Japan to promise and I want to say in fairness, for
it would not be fair if I did not say it, that Japan did very hand-
somely make the promise which was requested of her that she would
retain in Shantung none of the sovereign rights which Germany had
enjoyed there, but would return the sovereignty without qualifica-
tion to China and retain in Shantung Province only what other
nationalities had alreadv had elsewhere, economic rights with re-
\j o
gard to the development and administration of the railway and of
certain mines which had become attached to the railway. That is her
promise, and personally I have not the slightest doubt that she will
fulfill that promise. She can not fulfill it right now because the
36 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
thing does not go into operation until three months after the treaty
is ratified, so that we must not be too impatient about it. But she
will fulfill that promise.
Suppose that we said that we would not assent. England and
France must assent, and if we are going to get Shantung Province
back for China and these gentlemen do not want to engage in
foreign wars, how are they going to get it back? Their idea of not
getting into trouble seems to be to stand for the largest possible num-
ber of unworkable propositions. It is all very well to talk about
standing by China, but how are you standing by China when you
withdraw from the only arrangement by which China can be assisted.
If you are China’s friend, then do not go into the council where you
can act as China’s friend ! If you are China’s friend, then put her
in a position where even the concessions which have been made need
not be carried out ! If you are China’s friend, scuttle and run ! That
is not the kind of American I am.
Now, just a word about Article X. Permit me, if you will, to
recur to what I said at the opening of these somewhat disjointed
remarks. I said that the treaty was intended to destroy one system
and substitute another. That other system was based upon the
principle that no strong power need respect the territorial integrity
or the political independence of any weak power. I need not confine
the phraseology to that. It was based upon the principle that no
power is obliged to respect the territorial integrity or the political
independence of any other power if it has the force necessary to
disregard it. So that Article X cuts at the very heart, and is the
only instrument that will cut to the very heart, of the old system.
Eemember that if this covenant is adopted by the number of nations
which it probably will be adopted by, it means that every nation
except Germany and Turkey, because we have already said we would
let Austria come in (Germany has to undergo a certain period of
probation to see whether she has really experienced a change of
heart and effected a genuine change of constitutional provision )-
it means that all the nations of the world, except one strong and
one negligible one, agree that they will respect and preserve against
external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political
independence of the other nations of the world. You would think
from some of the discussions that the emphasis is on the word
” preserve.”
We are partners with the rest of the world in respecting the terri-
torial integrity and political independence of others. They are all
under solemn bonds themselves to respect and to preserve those
things, and if they do not preserve them, if they do not respect them
or preserve them, what happens? The council of the league then
advises the several members of the league what it is necessary to do.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 37
I can testify from having sat at the board where the instrument was
drawn that advice means advice. I supposed it did before I returned
home, but I found some gentlemen doubted it. Advice means advice,
and the advice can not be given without the concurrent vote of the
representative of the United States. “Ah,” but somebody says,
‘ suppose we are a party to the quarrel ! ‘ I can not suppose that,
because I know that the United States is not going to disregard the
territorial integrity or the political independence of any other
nation, but for the sake of the argument suppose that we are a party.
Very well then, the scrap is ours anyway. For what these gentlemen
are afraid of is that we are going to get into trouble. If we are a
party, we are in trouble already, and if we are not a party, we can
control the advice of the council by our vote. To my mind, that is
a little like an open and shut game ! I am not afraid of advice which
we give ourselves; and yet that is the whole of the bugaboo which
these gentlemen have been parading before you.
The solemn thing about Article X is the first sentence, not the
second sentence. The first sentence says that we will respect and
preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and
existing political independence of other nations; and let me stop a
moment on the words “external aggression.” Why were they put in ?
Because every man who sat at that board held that the right of revo-
lution was sacred and must not be interfered with. Any kind of a
row can happen inside and it is nobody’s right to interfere. The
only thing that there is any right to object to or interfere with is
external aggression, by some outside power undertaking to take a
piece of territory or to interfere with the internal political arrange-
ments of the country which is suffering from the aggression; be-
cause territorial integrity does not mean that you can not invade
another country; it means that you can not invade it and stay
there. I have not impaired the territorial integrity of your backyard
if I walk into it, but I very much impair it if I insist upon staying
there and will not get out, and the impairment of integrity contem-
plated in this article is the kind of impairment as the seizure of
territory, as an attempt at annexation, as an attempt at continuing
domination either of the territory itself or of the methods of govern-
ment inside that territory.
When you read Article X, therefore, you will see that it is nothing
but the inevitable, logical center of the whole system of the covenant
of the league of nations, and I stand for it absolutely. If it should
ever in any important respect be impaired, I would feel like asking
the Secretary of War to get the boys who went across the water to
fight together on some field where I could go and see them, and I
would stand up before them and say, ” Boys, I told you before you
went across the seas that this was a war against wars, and I did
38 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
my best to fulfill the promise, but I am obliged to come to you in
mortification and shame and say I have not been able to fulfill the
promise. You are betrayed. You fought for something that you
did not get.” And the glory of the armies and the navies of the
United States is gone like a dream in the night, and there ensues
upon it, in the suitable darkness of the night, the nightmare of dread
which lay upon the nations before this war came; and there will
come sometime, in the vengeful Providence of God, another struggle
in which, not a few hundred thousand fine men from America will
have to die, but as many millions as are necessary to accomplish the
iinal freedom of the peoples of the world.
#ADDRESS AT COLISEUM, ST. LOUIS, MO.,
SEPTEMBER 5, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, Gov. Gardner, my fellow countrymen, this is much
too solemn an occasion to care how we look ; we ought to care how we
think. [The photographer had just asked the audience to sit still for
a picture.] I have come here to-night to ask permission to discuss
with you some of the very curious aberrations of thinking that have
taken place in this country of late. I have sought I think I have
sought without prejudice to understand the point of view of the
men who have been opposing the treaty and the covenant of the
league of nations. Many of them are men whose judgment and
whose patriotic feeling I have been accustomed to admire and respect,
and yet I must admit to you, my fellow countrymen, that it is very
hard for me to believe that they have followed their line of thinking
to its logical and necessary conclusion, because when you reflect upon
their position, it is either that we ought to reject this treaty altogether
or that we ought to change it in such a way as will make it necessary
to reopen negotiations with Germany and reconsider the settlements
of the peace in many essential particulars. We can not do the latter
alone, arid other nations will not join us in doing it. The only alter-
native is to reject the peace and to do what some of our fellow country-
men have been advising us to do, stand alone in the world.
I am going to take the liberty to-night of pointing out to you what
this alternative means. I know the course of reasoning which is
either uttered or implicit in this advice when it is given us by some
of the men who propose this course. They believe that the United
States is so strong, so financially strong, so industrially strong, if
necessary so physically strong, that it can impose its will upon the
world if it is necessary for it to stand out against the world, and they
believe that the processes of peace can be processes of domination and
antagonism, instead of processes of cooperation and good feeling, I
therefore want to point out to you that only those who are ignorant
of the world can believe that any nation, even so great a nation as the
United States, can stand alone and play a single part in the history of
mankind.
39
40 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
Begin with a single circumstance ; for I have not come here to-night
to indulge in any kind of oratory. I have come here to-night to
present to you certain hard facts which I want you to take home with
you and think about. I suppose that most of you realize that it is
going to be very difficult for the other nations that were engaged in
this war to get financially on their feet again. I dare say you read
the other day the statement of Mr. Herbert Hoover’s opinion, an
opinion which I always greatly respect, that it will be necessary for
the United States immediately to advance four or five billion dollars
for the rehabilitation of credit and industry on the other side of the
water, and I must say to you that I learned nothing in Paris which
would lead me to doubt that conclusion. I think the statement of the
sum is a reasonable and conservative statement. If the world is going
bankrupt, if credit is going to be destroyed, if the industry of the rest
of the world is going to be interrupted, our market is confined to the
United States. Trade will be impossible, except within our own
borders. If we are to save our own markets and rehabilitate our own
industries, we must save the financial situation of the world and
rehabilitate the markets of the world. Very well, what do these gen-
tlemen propose? That we should do that, for we can not escape
doing it.
Face to face with a situation of this kind, we are not, let us assume,
partners in the execution of this treaty. What is one of the central
features of the execution of this treaty ? It is the application of the
reparation clauses. Germany can not pay for this war unless her
industries are revived, and the treaty of peace sets up a great com-
mission known as the Reparation Commission, in which it was in-
tended that there should be a member from the United States as well
as from other countries. The business of this commission will be in
part to see that the industries of Germany are revived in order that
Germany may pay this great debt which she owes to civilization.
That Reparation Commission can determine the currents of trade,
the conditions of international credit; it can determine how much
Germany is going to buy, where it is going to buy, how it is going to
pay for it, and if we must, to save ourselves, contribute to the financial
rehabilitation of the world, then without being members of this
partnership we must put our money in the hands of those who want
to get the markets that belong to us. That is what these gentlemen
call playing a lone hand. It is indeed playing a lone hand. It is
playing a hand that is frozen out ! We must contribute the money
which other nations are to use in order to rehabilitate their industry
and credit, and we must make them our antagonists and rivals and
not our partners ! I put that proposition to any business man, young
or old, in the United States and ask him how he likes it, and whether
he considers that a useful way for the United States to stand alone.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 41′
We have got to carry this burden of reconstitution whether we will
or not or be ruined, and the question is, Shall we carry it and be ruined
anyhow? For that is what these gentlemen propose, that at every
point we shall be embarrassed by the whole financial affairs of the
world being in the hands of other nations.
As I was saying at the luncheon that I had the pleasure of eating
with the chamber of commerce to-day, the whole aspect of the matter
is an aspect of ignorance. The men who propose these things do not
understand the selfish interests of the United States, because here
is the rest of the picture : Hot rivalries, burning suspicions, jealousies,
arrangements made everywhere if possible to shut us out, because if
we will not come in as equals we ought to be shut out. If we are
going to keep out of this thing in order to prey upon the rest of
the world, then I think we ought to be frozen out of it. That is
not the temper of the United States, and it is not like the United-
States to be ignorant enough to think any such thoughts, because we
know that partners profit and enemies lose the game. But that is
not all of the picture, my fellow citizens. If every nation is going to-
be our rival, if every nation is going to dislike and distrust us, and
that will be the case, because having trusted us beyond measure the 1 –
reaction will occur beyond measure (as it stands now they trust us,.
they look to us, they long that we shall undertake anything for their
assistance rather than that any other nation should undertake it)-
if we say, ” No, we are in this world to live by ourselves, and get what
we can out of it by any selfish processes,” then the reaction will
change the whole heart and attitude of the world toward this great,,
free, justice-loving people, and after you have changed” the attitude
of the world, what have you produced? Peace? Why, my fellow
citizens, is there any man here or any woman, let me say is there any
child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern
f *
world is industrial and commercial rivalry? The real reason that
the war that we have just finished took place was that Germany was
afraid her commercial rivals were going to get the better of her, and
the reason why some nations went into the war against Germany
was that they thought Germany would get the commercial advantage
of them. The seed of the jealousy, the seed of the deep-seated hatred
was hot, successful commercial and industrial rivalry.
Why, what did the Germans do when they got into Belgium? I
have just seen that suffering country. Most of the Belgian factories
are standing. You do not witness in Belgium what you witness in
France, except upon certain battlefields factories destroyed, whole
towns wiped out. No; the factories are there, the streets are clear,
the people are there, but go in the factories. Every piece of ma-
chinery that could be taken away has been taken away. If it was
42 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
too big to take away, experts directed the way in which it should be
injured so it could never be used again, and that was because there
were textile industries and iron industries in Belgium which the
Germans hated Belgium for having, because they were better than
the German and outdid them in the markets of the world. This war,
in its inception was a commercial and industrial war. It was not a
political war.
Very well, then, if we must stand apart and be the hostile rivals of
the rest of the world, then we must do something else. We must be
physically ready for anything that comes. We must have a great
standing army. We must see to it that every man in America is
trained to arms. We must see to it that there are munitions and
guns enough for an army that means a mobilized nation; that they
are not only laid up in store, but that they are kept up to date ; that
they are ready to ‘use to-morrow ; that we are a nation in arms ; be-
cause you can not be unfriendly to everybody without being ready
that everybody shall be unfriendly to you. And what does that
mean? Reduction of taxes? No. Not only the continuation of the
present taxes but the increase of the present taxes; and it means
something very much more serious than that. We can stand that, so
far as the expense is concerned, if we care to keep up the high cost
of living and enjoy the other luxuries that we have recently enjoyed,
but, what is much more serious than that, we have got to have the sort
of organization which is the only kind of organization that can
handle arms of that sort. We may say what we please of the Ger-
man Government that has been destroyed, my fellow citizens, but it
was the only sort of government that could handle an armed nation.
You can not handle an armed nation by vote. You can not handle an
armed nation if it is democratic, because democracies do not go to
war that way. You have got to have a concentrated, militaristic
organization of government to run a nation of that sort. You have
got to think of the President of the United States, not as the chief
counselor of the Nation, elected for a little while, but as the man
meant constantly and every day to be the Commander in Chief of
the Army and Navy of the United States, ready to order them to
any part of the world where the threat of war is a menace to his own
people. And you can not do that under free debate. You can not do
that under public counsel. Plans must be kept secret. Knowledge
must be accumulated by a system which we have condemned, because
we have called it a spying system. The more polite call it a system
of intelligence. You can not watch other nations with your unas-
sisted eye. You have got to watch them by secret agencies planted
everywhere. Let me testify to this, my fellow citizens: I not only
did not know it until we got into this war, but I did not believe it
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 43
when I was told that it was true, that Germany was not the only coun-
try that maintained a secret service. Every country in Europe main-
tained it, because they had to be ready for Germany’s spring upon
them, and the only difference between the German secret service and
the other secret services was that the German secret service found
out more than the others did, and therefore Germany sprang upon
the other nations unawares, and they were not ready for it.
And you know what the effect of a military government is upon
social questions. You know how impossible it is to effect social
reform if everybody must be under orders from the Government.
You know how impossible it is, in short, to have a free nation, if it
is a military nation and under military order. You may say, ” You
have been on the other side of the water and got bad dreams.” I
have got no dreams at all. I am telling you the things, the evidence
of which I have seen with awakened eyes and not with sleeping eyes,
and I know that this country, if it wishes to stand alone, must stand
alone as part of a world in arms. Because, ladies and gentlemen
I do not say it because I am an American and my heart is full of
the same pride that fills yours with regard to the power and spirit
of this great nation, but merely because it is a fact which I think
everybody would admit, outside of America, as well as inside of
America the organization contemplated by the league of nations
without the United States would merely be an alliance and not a
league of nations. It would be an alliance in which the partnership
would be between the more powerful European nations and Japan,
and the other party to the world arrangement, the antagonist, the
disassociated party, the party standing off to be watched by the
alliance, would be the United States of America. There can be no
league of nations in the true sense without the partnership of this
great people.
Now, let us mix the selfish with the unselfish. If you do not want
me to be too altruistic, let me be very practical. If we are partners,
let me predict we will be the senior partner. The financial leader-
ship will be ours. The industrial primacy will be ours. The com-
mercial advantage will be ours. The other countries of the world
are looking to us for leadership and direction. Very well, then, if
I am to compete with the critics of this league and of this treaty as
a selfish American, I say I want to get in and get in as quick as I can.
I want to be inside and know how the thing is run and help to run it.
You have the alternative, armed isolation or peaceful partnership.
Can any sane man hesitate as to the choice, and can any sane man
ask the question, Which is the way of peace? I have heard some
men say with an amazing ignorance that the covenant of the league
of nations was an arrangement for war. Very well, then, what
would the other arrangement be ? An arrangement for peace ? For
44 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
kindliness ? For cooperation ? Would everybody beckon us to their
markets ? Would everybody say, ” Come and tell us how to use your
money ? ‘ Would everybody come and say, ” Tell us how much of
your goods you want us to take ; tell us how much of what Germany
is producing you would like when we want it ? ‘ I can not bring
my credulity up to that point. I have reached years of discretion,
and I have met some very young men who knew a great deal more-
than some very old men.
I want you therefore, after seeing this very ugly picture that I
have painted for it is an ugly picture; it is a picture from which
one turns away with distaste and disgust and says, ” That is not
America ; it is not like anything that we have ever conceived ‘ -I
want you to look at the other side. I wonder if some of the gentle-
men who are commenting upon this treaty ever read it ! If anybody
will tell me which of them has not, I will send him a copy. It is
written in two languages. On this side is the English and on that
side is the French, and since it is evident that some men do not
understand English, I hope that they understand French. There
are excellent French dictionaries by which they can dig out the mean-
ing, if they can not understand English. It is the plainest English
that you could desire, particularly the covenant of the league of
nations. There is not a phrase of doubtful meaning in the whole
document.
And what is the meaning? It is that the covenant of the league
of nations is a covenant of arbitration and discussion. Had anybody
ever told you that before? I dare say that everybody you have
heard talk about thigfcliscusses Article X. Well, there are 25 other
articles in it, and all of them are about something else. They discuss
how soon and how quick we can get out of it. Well, I am not a
quitter for one. We can get out just so soon as we want to, but we
do not want to get out as soon as we get in. And they talk about
the Monroe doctrine, when it expressly says that nothing in that
document shall be construed as affecting in any way the validity of
the Monroe doctrine. It says so in so many words. And there are
all the other things they talk about to draw your attention away
from the essential matter. The essential matter, my fellow citizens,
is this: This league will include all the fighting nations of the world,
except Germany. The only nations that will not be admitted into
it promptly are Germany and Turkey. All the fighting nations of
the world are in it, and what do they promise ? This is the center of
the document. They promise that they never will go to war without
first either submitting the question at issue to arbitration and absolutely
abiding by the decision of the arbitrators, or, if they are not willing
to submit it to arbitration, submitting it to discussion by the council
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 45
of the league ; that they will give the council of the league six months
in which to consider it, and that if they do not like the opinion of the
council, they will wait three months after the opinion is rendered
before going to war. And I tell you, my fellow citizens, that any
nation that is in the wrong and waits nine months before it goes to
war never will go to war.
“Ah,” but somebody says, “suppose they do not abide by that? ‘
Because all the arguments you hear are based upon the assumption
that we are all going to break the covenant, that bad faith is the ac-
cepted rule. There has not been any such bad faith among nations
in recent times except the flagrant bad faith of the nation we have just
been fighting, and that bad faith is not likely to be repeated in the
immediate future. Suppose somebody does not abide by those engage-
ments, then what happens? War? No, not war. Something more
terrible than war absolute boycott of the nation violating the cove-
nant. The doors are closed upon her, so that she can not ship any-
thing out or receive anything in. She can not send a letter out or
receive one in. No telegraphic message can cross her borders. No
person can cross her borders. She is absolutely closed, and all the
fighting nations of the world agree to join in the boycott. My own
judgment is that war will not be necessary after that. If it is
necessary, then it is perfectly evident that the case is one of a nation
that wants to run amuck, and if any nation wants to run amuck in
modern civilization, we must all see that the outlaw is captured.
I was saying in one of the first speeches I made upon this little
expedition of mine that I was very happy in the circumstance that
there were no politics in this business. I meant no party politics, and
I invited that audience, as I invite you, to forget all about parties.
Forget that I am a Democrat. Forget that some of you are Repub-
licans. Forget all about that. That has nothing to do with it. This
afternoon a book I had forgotten all about, one of the campaign books
of the last political campaign, was put in my hands, and I found in
that book the platforms of the two parties. In both of those plat-
forms they advocate just such an arrangement as the league of
nations. When I was on the other side of the water I did not know
that I was obeying orders from both parties, but I was, and I am very
happy in that circumstance, because I can testify to you that I did not
think anything about parties when I was on the other side of the
water. I am just as much, my fellow citizens, in my present office
the servant of my Republican fellow citizens as I am the servant of
my Democratic fellow citizens. I am trying to be what some gentle-
men do not know how to be, just a simple, plain-thinking, plain-
speaking, out-and-out American.
I want you to understand, my fellow citizens, that I did not leave
Washington and come out on this trip because I doubted what was
46 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
going to happen. I did not. For one thing, I wanted to have the
pleasure of leaving Washington; and for another thing I wanted to
have the very much greater pleasure of feeling the inspiration that I
would get from you. Things get very lonely in “Washington some-
times. The real voices of the great people of America sometimes
sound faint and distant in that strange city ! You hear politics until
you wish that both parties were smothered in their own gas. I
wanted to come out and hear some plain American, hear the kind of
talk that I am accustomed to talk, the only kind of talk that I can
understand, get the only kind of atmosphere with which I can fill
my lungs wholesomely, and, then, incidentally, convey a hint in some
quarters that the American people had not forgotten how to think.
There are certain places where talk does not count for anything.
I am inclined to think that one of those places is the fashionable
dinner table. I have never heard so many things that were not so
anywhere else. In the little circles of fashion and wealth informa-
tion circulates the more freely the less true it is. For some reason
there is a preference for the things that are incredible. I admit
there is a certain intellectual excitement in believing the things that
are incredible. It is very much duller to believe only the things that
you know are so, but the spicy thing, the unusual thing, the thing
that runs athwart the normal and wholesale currents of society is
the thing that one can talk about with an unusual vocabulary and
have a lot of fun in expounding. But such are not the things that
make up the daily substance of thinking on the part of a wholesome
nation like this.
This Nation went into this war to see it through to the end, and
the end has not come yet. This is the beginning, not of the war but
of the processes which are going to render a war like this impossible.
There are no other processes than those that are proposed in this
great treaty. It is a great treaty, it is a treaty of justice, of rigorous
and severe justice, but do not forget that there are many other parties
to this treaty than Germany and her opponents. There is rehabili-
tated Poland. There is rescued Bohemia. There is redeemed Jugo-
slavia. There is the rehabilitated Roumania. All the nations that
Germany meant to crush and reduce to the status of tools in her own
hands have been redeemed by this war and given the guarantee of
the strongest nations of the world that nobody shall invade their
liberiy again. If you do not want to give them that guarantee, then
you make it certain that without your guarantee the attempt will be
made again, and if another war starts like this one, are you going to
keep out of it ? If you keep out of this arrangement, that sort of war
will come soon. If you go into it, it never will come. We are in the
presence, therefore, of the most solemn choice that this people was
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 47
ever called upon to make. That choice is nothing less than this:
Shall America redeem her pledges to the world? America is made
up of the peoples of the world. All the best bloods of the world flow
in her veins, all the old affections, all the old and sacred traditions
of peoples of every sort throughout the wide world circulate in her
veins, and she has said to mankind at her birth : ” We have come to
redeem the world by giving it liberty and justice.” Now we are
called upon before the tribunal of mankind to redeem that immortal
pledge.
#ADDRESS AT CONVENTION HALL, KANSAS CITY, MO.,
SEPTEMBER 6, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, my fellow countrymen, it is very inspiring to me
to stand in the presence of so great a company of my fellow citizens
and have the privilege of performing the duty that I have come to
perform. That duty is to report to my fellow citizens concerning
the work of the peace conference, and every day it seems to me to be-
come more necessary to report, because so many people who are talk-
ing about it do not understand what it was.
I came back from Paris bringing one of the greatest documents of
human history, and one of the things that made it great was that it
was penetrated throughout with the principles to which America
has devoted her life. Let me hasten to say that one of the most de-
lightful circumstances of the work on the other side of the water
was that I discovered that what we called American principles had
penetrated to the heart and to the understanding, not only of the
great peoples of Europe, but of the great men who were leading the
peoples of Europe, and when these principles were written into this
treaty, they were written there by common consent and common con-
viction. But it remains true, nevertheless, my fellow citizens, that
principles are written into that treaty which were never written into
any great international understanding before, and that they had
their natural birth and origin in this dear country to which we have
devoted our life and service.
I have no hesitation in saying that in spirit and essence it is an
American document, and if you will bear with me for this great
subject is not a subject for oratory, it is a subject for examination
and discussion I will remind you of some of the things that we have
long desired and which are at last accomplished in this treaty. T
think that I can say that one of the things that America has had
most at heart throughout her existence has been that there should be
substituted for the brutal processes of war the friendly processes of
consultation and arbitration, and that is done in the covenant of the
league of nations. I am very anxious that my fellow citizens should
realize that that is the chief topic of the covenant of the league of
141677 S. Doe. 120, 66-1 4 49
50 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
nations. The whole intent and purpose of the document is expressed
in provisions by which all the member States agree that they will
never go to war without first having done one or other of two things :
Either submitted the matter in controversy to arbitration, in which
case they agree to abide by the verdict, or submitted it to discussion
in the council of the league of nations, in which case they consent to
allow six months for the discussion and, whether they like the opin-
ion expressed or not, that they will not go to war for three months
after that opinion is expressed. So that you have, whether you get
arbitration or not, nine months’ discussion, and I want to remind you
/
that that is the central principle of some 30 treaties entered into be-
tween the United States of America and some 30 other sovereign na-
tions, all of which were confirmed by the Senate of the United States.
We have such an agreement with France. We have such an agree-
ment with Great Britain. We have such an agreement with practi-
cally every great nation except Germany, which refused to enter into
any such arrangement, because, my fellow citizens, Germany knew
that she intended something that did not bear discussion, and that if
she had submitted the purpose which led to this war to so much as
one month’s discussion, she never would have dared go into the enter-
prise against mankind which she finally did go into. Therefore, I
say that this principle of discussion is the principle already adopted
by America.
And what is the compulsion to do this? The compulsion is this,
that if any member state violates that promise to submit either to
arbitration or to discussion y it is thereby ipso facto deemed to have
committed an act of war against all the rest. Then, you will ask,
” Do we at once take up arms and fight them?” No, we do some-
thing very much more terrible than that. We absolutely boycott
them. It is provided in that instrument that there shall be no com-
munication even between them and and the rest of the world. They
shall receive no goods ; they shall ship no goods. They shall receive
no telegraphic messages ; they shall send none. They shall receive no
mail; no mail will be received from them. The nationals, the citi-
zens, of the member states will never enter their territory until the
matter is adjusted, and their citizens can not leave their territory. It
is the most complete boycott ever conceived in a public document, and
I want to say to you with confident prediction that there will be no
more fighting after that. Gentlemen talk to you as if the most prob-
able outcome of this great combination of all the fighting peoples of
the world was going to be fight; whereas, as a matter of fact, the
essence of the document is to the effect that the processes shall be
peaceful, and peaceful processes are more deadly than the processes
of war. Let any merchant put it to himself, that if he enters into a
covenant and then breaks it-and the people all around him absolutely
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 51
desert his establishment and will have nothing to do with him ask
him after that if it will be necessary to send the police. The most
terrible thing that can happen to an individual, and the most con-
clusive tiling that can happen to a nation, is to be read out of decent
society.
There was another thing that we wished to accomplish which is ac-
complished in this document. We wanted disarmament, and this
document provides in the only possible way for disarmament, by com-
mon agreement. Observe, my fellow citizens, that, as I said just now,
every great fighting nation in the world is to be a member of this
partnership except Germany, and inasmuch as Germany has accepted
a limitation of her army to 100,000 men, I do not think for the time
being she may be regarded as a great fighting nation. Here in the
center of Europe a great nation of more than 60,000,000 that has
agreed not to maintain an army of more than 100,000 men, and all
around her the rest of the world in concerted partnership to see that
no other nation attempts what she attempted, and agreeing among
themselves that they will not impose this limitation of armament
upon Germany merely, but that they will impose it upon themselves.
You know, my fellow citizens, what armaments mean : Great stand-
ing armies and great stores of war material. They do not mean burden-
some taxation merely, they do not mean merely compulsory military
service which saps the economic strength of the nation, but they mean
also the building up of a military class. Again and again, my fellow
citizens, in the conference at Paris we were face to face with this cir-
circumstance, that in dealing with a particular civil government we
found that they would not dare to promise what their general staff
was not willing that they should promise ; that they were dominated
by the military machine which they had created, nominally for their
own defense, but really, whether they willed it or not, for the provo-
cation of war. So soon as you have a military class, it does not make
any difference what your form of government is, if you are deter-
mined to be armed to the teeth, you must obey the orders and direc-
tions of the only men who can control the great machinery of war.
Elections are of minor importance, because they determine the
political policy, and back of that political policy is the constant pres-
sure of the men trained to arms, enormous bodies of disciplined
men, wondering if they are never going to be allowed to use their
education and their skill and ravage some great people with the force
of arms. That is the meaning of armaments. It is not merely the
cost of it, though that is overwhelming, but it is the spirit of it, and
America has never and I hope, in the providence of God, never will
have, that spirit. There is no other way to dispense with great
armaments except by the common agreement of the fighting nations
52 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
of the world. And here is the agreement. They promise disarma-
ment, and promise to agree upon a plan.
There was something else we wanted that is accomplished by this
treaty. We wanted to destroy autocratic authority everywhere in
the world. We wanted to see to it that there was no place in the world
where a small group of men could use their fellow citizens as pawns
in a game; that there was no place in the world where a small group
*>f men, without consulting their fellow^ citizens, could send their
fellow citizens to the battle fields and to death in order to accom-
plish some dynastic ambition, some political plan that had been con-
ceived in private, some object that had been prepared for by uni-
versal, world-wide, intrigue. That is what we wanted to accomplish.
The most startling thing that developed itself at the opening of our
participation in this war was, not the military preparation of Ger-
many we were familiar with that, though we had been dreaming
that she would not use it but her political preparation to find
every community in the civilized world was penetrated by her in-
trigue. The German people did not know that, but it was known on
Wilhelmstrasse, where the central offices of the German Government
were, and Wilhelmstrasse was the master of the German people.
And this war, my fellow citizens, has emancipated the German
people as well as the rest of the world. We do not want to see any-
thing like that happen again, because we know that democracies will
sooner or later have to destroy that form of Government-, and if we
do not destroy it now the job is still to be clone. And by a combina-
tion of all the great fighting peoples of the world, to see to it that the
aggressive purposes of such governments can not be realized, you
make it no longer worth while for little groups of men to contrive
the downfall of civilization in private conference.
I want to say something about that that has a different aspect, and
perhaps you -will regard it as a slight digression from the discussion
which Isam asking you to be patient enough to follow. My fellow
citizens, it does not make any difference what kind of a minority
governs you if it is a minority, and the thing we must see to is that no
minority anywhere masters the majority. That is at the heart, my
fellow citizens, of the tragical things that are happening in that great
country which we long to help and can find no way that is effective
to help. I mean the great realm of Russia. The men who are now
measurably in control of the affairs of Russia represent nobody but
themselves. They have again and again been challenged to call a
constitutional convention. They have again and again been chal-
lenged to prove that they had some kind of a mandate, even from a
single class of their fellow citizens, and they dare not attempt it.
They have no mandate from anybody. There are only 34 of them.
I am told, and there were more than 34 men who used to control the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 53
destinies of Europe from Wilhelmstrasse. There is a closer monopoly
of power in Petrograd and Moscow than there ever was in Berlin,
and the thing that is intolerable is, not that the Russian people are
having their way, but that another group of men more cruel than the
Czar himself is controlling the destinies of that great people.
I want to say here and now that I am against the control of any
minority anywhere. Search your own economic history and what
have you been uneasy about? Now and again you have said there
were small groups of capitalists who were controlling the industry
and therefore the development of the United States. Very well, my
fellow citizens ; if that is so, and sometimes I have feared that /it was,
we must break up that monopoly. I am not now saying that there is
any group of our fellow citizens who are consciously doing anything;
of the kind. I am saying that these allegations must be proved, but
if it is proved that any class, any group, anywhere, is, without the
suffrage of their fellow citizens, in control of our affairs, then I ant
with you to destroy the power of that group. We have got to be
frank with ourselves, however : If we do not want minority govern-
ment in Russia, we must see that we do not have it in the United
States. If you do not want little groups of selfish men to plot the
future of Europe, we must not allow little groups of selfish men to
plot the future of America. Any man that speaks for a class must
prove that he also speaks for all his fellow citizens and for mankind,
and then we will listen to him. The most difficult thing in a
democracy, my fellow citizens, is to get classes, where they unfortun-
ately exist, to understand one another and unite, and you have not
got a great democracy until they do understand one another and
unite. If we are in for seeing that there are no more Czars and no
more Kaisers, then let us do a thorough job and see that nothing
of that sort occurs anywhere.
Then there was another thing we wanted to do, my fellow citizens,
that is done in this document. We wanted to see that helpless peoples
were nowhere in the world put at tliS mercy of unscrupulous enemies
and masters. There is one pitiful example which is in the hearts of
all of us. I mean the example of Armenia. There a Christian
people is helpless, at the mercy of a Turkish government which
thought it the service of God to destroy them; and at this moment,
my fellow citizens, it is an open question whether the Armenian
people will not, while we sit here and debate, be absolutely destroyed.
When I think of words piled on words, of debate following debate,,
while these unspeakable things that can not be handled until the
debate is over are happening in this pitiful part of the world, I
wonder that men do not wake up to the moral responsibility of what
they are doing. Great populations are driven out upon a desert where
there is no food and can be none and there compelled to die, and the
54 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
men and women and children thrown into a common grave, so im-
perfectly covered up that here and there is a pitiful arm stretched
out to heaven and there is no pity in the world. When shall we wake
to the moral responsibility of this great occasion?
There are other aspects to that matter. Not all the populations
that are having something that is not a square deal live in Armenia.
There are others, and one oi the glories of the great document which
I brought back with me is this, that everywhere within the area of
settlement covered by the political questions involved in that treaty
people of that sort have been given their freedom and guaranteed
their freedom. But the thing does not end there, because the treaty
includes the covenant of the league of nations, and what does that
say? That says that is the privilege of any member state to call
attention to anything, anywhere, that is likely to disturb the peace
of the world or the good understanding between nations upon which
the peace of the world depends, and every people in the world that
has not got what it thinks it ought to have is thereby given a world
forum in which to bring the thing to the bar of mankind. An in-
comparable thing, a thing that never was dreamed of before ! A
thing that was never conceived as possible before, that it should not
be regarded as an unfriendly act on the part of the representatives
of one nation to call attention to something being done within the
confines of another empire which was disturbing the peace of the
world and the good understanding between nations. There never
before has been provided a world forum in which the legitimate
grievances of peoples entitled to consideration can be brought to the
common judgment of mankind, and if I were the advocate of any
suppressed or oppressed people, I surely could not ask any better
forum than to stand up before the world and challenge the other
party to make good its excuses for not acting in that case. That
compulsion is the most tremendous moral compulsion that could be
devised By organized mankind.
I think I can take it for granted, my fellow citizens, that you never
realized before what a scope this great treaty has. You have been
asked to look at so many little spots in it with a magnifying glass that
you did not know how big it is, what a great enterprise of the human
spirit it is, and what a thoroughly American document it is from cover
to cover. It is the first great international agreement in the history
of mankind where the principle adopted has been, not the power of
the strong but the right of the weak. To reject that treaty, to alter
that treaty, is to impair one of the first charters of mankind. Yet
there are men who approach the question with passion, with private
passion, with party passion, who think only of some immediate ad-
vantage to themselves or to a group of their fellow countrymen, and
who lock at the thing with the jaundice eyes of those who have some
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 55
private purpose of their own. When at last in the annals of mankind
they are gibbeted, they will regret that the gibbet is so high.
I would not have you think that I am trying to characterize those
who conscientiously object to anything in this great document. I take
on” my hat to any man’s genuine conscience, and there are men who are
conscientiously opposed, though they will pardon me if I say igno-
rantly opposed. I have no quarrel with them. It has been a- pleasure
to confer with some of them and to tell them as frankly as I wouM
have told my most intimate friend the whole inside of my mind and
of every other mind that I knew anything about that had been con-
cerned with the conduct of affairs at Paris, in order that they might
understand this thing and go with the rest of us in the confirmation
of what is necessary for the peace of the world. I have no intolerant
spirit in the matter, I assure you, but I also assure you that from the
bottom of my feet to the top of my head I have got a fighting spirit
about it. If anybody dares to defeat this great experiment, then they
must gather together the counsellors of the world and do something
better. If there is a better scheme, I for one will subscribe to it, but
I want to say now, as I said, the other night, it is a case of ” put up” or
shut up.” Negation \vill not serve the world. Opposition constructs
nothing. Opposition is the specialty of those who are Bolshevistically
inclined and again I assure you I am not comparing any of my re-
spected colleagues to Bolshevists; I am merely pointing out that the
Bolshevist spirit lacks every element of constructiveness. They have
destroyed everything and they propose nothing, and while there is a
common abhorrence for political Bolshevism, I hope there will not be
such a thing growing up in our country as international Bolshevism,
the Bolshevism which destroys the constructive work of men who
have conscientiously tried to cement the good feeling of the great
peoples of the world.
The majestic thing about the league of nations is that it is to in-
clude the great peoples of the world, all except Germany. Germany
is one of the great peoples of the world. I would be ashamed not to
say that. Those 60,000,000 industrious and inventive and accom-
plished people are one of the great peoples of the world. They have
been put upon. They have been misled. Their minds have been de-
based by a false philosophy. They have been taught things that the
human spirit ought to reject, but they will come out of that night-
mare, they will come out of that phantasm, and they will again be
a great people. And when they are out of it, when they have got over
that dream of conquest and of oppression, when they have shown
that their Government really is based upon new principles and upon
democratic principles, then we, all of us at Paris agreed that they
should be admitted to the league of nations. In the meantime, her
56 ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
one-time partner, Austria, is to be admitted. Hungary, I dare say,
will be admitted. The only nations of any consequence outside the
league unless we choose to stay out and go in later with Germany-
are Germany and Turkey, and we are just now looking for the pieces
of Turkey. She has so thoroughly disintegrated that the process of
assembling the parts is becoming increasingly difficult, and the chief
controversy now is who shall attempt that very difficult and perilous
job?
Is it not a great vision, my fellow citizens, this of the thoughtful
world combined for peace, this of all the great peoples of the world
associated to see that justice is done, that the strong who intend
wrong are restrained and that the weak who can not defend them-
selves are made secure ? We have a problem ahead of us that ought
to interest us in this connection. We have promised the people of
the Philippine Islands that w T e will set them free, and it has been one
of our perplexities how we should make them safe after we set them
free. Under this arrangement it will be safe from the outset. They
will become members of the league of nations, every great nation in
the world will be pledged to respect and preserve against external
aggression from any quarter the territorial integrity and political
independence of the Philippines. It simplifies one of the most per-
plexing problems that has faced the American public, but it does not
simplify our problems merely, gentlemen. It illustrates the triumph
of the American spirit. I do not want to attempt any flight of fancy,
but I can fancy those men of the first generation that so thoughtfully
set this great Government up, the generation of Washington and
Hamilton and Jefferson and the Adamses I can fancy their looking
on with a sort of enraptured amazement that the American spirit
should have made conquest of the world.
I wish you could have seen the faces of some of the people that talked
to us over there about the arrival of the American troops. At first
they did not know that we were going to be able to send so many,
but they got something from the first groups that changed the whole
aspect of the war. One of the most influential ladies in Paris, the
wife of a member of the cabinet, told us that on the Fourth of July
of last year she and others had attended the ceremonies with very
sad hearts and merely out of courtesy to the United States, because
they did not believe that the aid of the United States was going to
be effective, but she said, ” After we had been there and seen the faces
of those men in khaki, seen the spirit of their swing and attitude
and seen the vision that was in their eyes, we came away knowing
that victory was in sight.” What Europe saw in our boys was not
merely men under arms, indomitable men under arms, but men with
an ideal in their eyes, men who had come a long way from home to
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 57
defend other peoples, men who had forgotten the convenience of
everything that personally affected them and had turned away from
the longing love of the people who were dear to them and gone across
the broad sea to rescue the nations of the world from an intolerable
oppression.
I tell you, my fellow citizens, the war was won by the American
spirit. German orders were picked up on the battle field directing
the commanders not to let the Americans get hold of a particular
post, because you never could get them out again. You know what
one of our American wits said, that it took only half as long to train
an American army as any other, because you had only to train them
to go one way. It is true that they never thought of going any other
way. and when they were restrained, because they were told it was
premature or dangerous, they were impatient, they said, ” We didn’t
come over here to wait, we came over here to fight,” and their very au-
dacity, their very indifference to danger, changed the morale of the
battle field. They were not fighting prudently ; they were going to get
there. And America in this treaty has realized, my fellow countrymen,
what those gallant boys we are so proud of fought for. The men who
make this impossible or difficult will have a life-long reckoning with
the fighting forces of the United States. I have consorted with those
boys. I have been proud to call myself their Commander in Chief.
I did not run the business. They did not need anybody to run it.
All I had to do was to turn them loose !
And now for a final word, my fellow citizens. If anything that I
have said has left the impression on your mind that I have the least
doubt of the result, please dismiss the impression. And if you think
that I have come out on this errand to fight anybody any body-
please dismiss that from your mind. I have not come to fight or
antagonize anybody, or any body of individuals. I have, let me say
without the slightest affectation, the greatest respect for the Senate
of the United States, but, my fellow citizens, I have come out to fight
a cause. That cause is greater than the Senate. It is greater than
the Government. It is as great as the cause of mankind, and I intend,
in office or out, to fight that battle as long as I live. My ancestors
were troublesome Scotchmen, and among them were some of that
famous group that were known as the Covenanters. Very well, then,
here is the covenant of the league of nations. I am a Covenanter !
#ADDRESS AT DES MOINES, IOWA,
SEPTEMBER 6, 1919.
Mr. Chairman and fellow countrymen, you make my heart very
warm with your generous welcome, and I want to express my
unaffected gratitude to your chairman for having so truly struck the
note of an occasion like this. He has used almost the very words that
were in my thought, that the w y orld is inflamed and profoundly dis-
turbed, and we are met to discuss the measures by which its spirit can
be quieted and its affairs turned to the right courses of human life.
My fellow countrymen, the world is desperately in need of the settled
conditions of peace, and it can not wait much longer. It is waiting
upon us. That is the thought, that is the burdensome thought, upon
my heart to-night, that the world is waiting for the verdict of the
Nation to which it looked for leadership and which it thought would
be the last that would ask the world to wait.
My fellow citizens, the world is not at peace. I suppose that it is
difficult for one who has not had some touch of the hot passion of the
other side of the sea to realize how all the passions that have been
slumbering for ages have been uncovered and released by the tragedy
of this war. We speak of the tragedy of this war, but the tragedy
that lay back of it was greater than the war itself, because back of it
lay long ages in which the legitimate freedom of men was sup-
pressed. Back of it lay long ages of recurrent war in which little
groups of men, closeted in capitals, determined whether the sons of the
land over which they ruled should go out upon the field and shed their
blood. For what? For liberty? No; not for liberty, but for the
aggrandizement of those who ruled them. And this had been slumber-
ing in the hearts of men. They had felt the suppression of it. They
had felt the mastery of those whom they had not chosen as their
masters. They had felt the oppression of laws which did not admit
them to the equal exercise of human rights. Now, all of this is released
and uncovered and men glare at one another and say, “Now we are
free and what shall we do with our freedom V’
What happened in Russia was not a sudden and accidental thing.
The people of Eussia were maddened with the suppression of Czarism.
59
60 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
AVhen at last the chance came to throw off those chains, they threw
them off, at first with hearts full of confidence and hope, and then they
found out that they had been again deceived. There was no assembly
chosen to frame a constitution for them, or, rather, there was an
assembly chosen to choose a constitution for them and it was sup-
pressed and dispersed, and a little group of men just as selfish, just
as ruthless, just as pitiless, as the agents of the Czar himself, assumed
control and exercised their power by terror and not by right. And
in other parts of Europe the poison spread the poison of disorder,
the poison of revolt, the poison of chaos. And do you honestly think,
my fellow citizens, that none of that poison lias got in the veins of
this free people? Do you not know that the world is all now one
single whispering gallery? Those antenna 1 of the wireless telegraph
are the symbols of our age. All the impulses of mankind are thrown
out upon the air and reach to the ends of the earth; quietly upon
steamships, silently under the cover of the Postal Service, with the
tongue of the wireless and the tongue of the telegraph, all the sug-
gestions of disorder are spread through the world. Money coming
from nobody knows where is deposited by the millions in capitals like
Stockholm, to be used for the propaganda of disorder and discontent
and dissolution throughout the world, and men look vou calmlv in
‘
the face in America and say they are for that sort of revolution, when
that sort of revolution means government by terror, government by
force, not government by vote. It is the negation of everything that
is American; but it is spreading, and so long as disorder continues,
so long as the world is kept waiting for the answer to the question,
What kind of peace are we going to have and what kind of guaranties
are there to be behind that peace? that poison will steadily spread
more and more rapidly, spread until it may be that even this beloved
land of ours will be distracted and distorted by it.
That is what is concerning me, my fellow countrymen. I know the
splendid” steadiness of the American people, but. my fellow citizens,
the whole world needs that steadiness, and the American people are
the makeweight in the fortunes^of mankind. How long are we going
to debate into which scale we will throw that magnificent equipoise
that belongs to us ? How long shall we be kept waiting for the answer
w T hether the world may trust us or despise us? They have looked to
us for leadership. They have looked to us for example. They have
built their peace upon the basis of our suggestions. That great
volume that contains the treaty of peace is drawn along the specifica-
tions laid down by the American Government, and now the world
stands at amaze because an authority in America hesitates whether
it will indorse an American document or not.
You know what the necessity of peace is. Political liberty can
exist only when there is peace. Social reform can take place only
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 61
when there is peace. The settlement of every question that concerns
our daily life waits for peace. I have been receiving delegations in
Washington of men engaged in the service of the Government tem-
porarily in the administration of the railways, and I have had to say
to them, ” My friends, I can not tell what the railways can earn until
commerce is restored to its normal courses. Until I can tell what the
railroads can earn I can not tell what the wages that the railroads
can pay will be. I can not suggest W 7 hat the increase of freight and
passenger rates will be to meet these increases in wages if the rates
must be increased. I can not tell yet whether it will be necessary to
increase the rates or not, and I must ask you to wait.” But they are
not the only people that have come to see me. There are all sorts of
adjustments necessary in this country. I have asked representatives
of capital and labor to come to Washington next month and confer-
confer about the fundamental thing of our life at present ; that is to
say, the conditions of labor. Do you realize, my fellow citizens, that
all through the world the one central question of civilization is,
” What shall be the conditions of labor ? ‘ The profound unrest in
Europe is due to the doubt prevailing as to what shall be the condi-
tions of labor, and I need not tell you that that unrest is spreading to
America.
, In the midst of the treaty of peace is a Magna Charta, a great
guaranty for labor. It provides that labor shall have the counsels
of the world devoted to the discussion of its conditions and of its
betterment, and labor all over the world is waiting to know whether
America is going to take part in those conferences or not. The con-
fidence of the men who sat at Paris was such that they put it in the
document that the first meeting of the labor conference under that
part of the treaty should take place in Washington upon the invita-
tion of the President of the United States. I am going to issue that
invitation, whether we can attend the conference or not. But think
of the mortification ! Think of standing by in Washington itself and
seeing the world take counsel upon the fundamental matter of civili-
zation without us. The thing is inconceivable, but it is true. The
world is waiting, waiting to see, not whether we will take part but
whether we will serve and lead, for it has expected us to lead. I want
to testify that the most touching and thrilling thing that has ever
happened to me was what happened almost every day when I was in
Paris. Delegations from all over the world came to me to solicit the
friendship of America. They frankly told us that they were not
sure they could trust anybody else, but that they did absolutely trust
us to do them justice and to see that justice was done them. Why,
some of them came from countries which I have, to my shame, to
admit that I never heard of before, and I had to ask as privately as
possible what language they spoke. Fortunately they always had an
62 ADDRESSES OF PKESIDENT WILSON.
interpreter, but I always wanted to know at least what family of
languages they were speaking. The touching thing was that from
the ends of the earth, from little pocketed valleys, where I did not
know that a separate people lived, there came men men of dignity,
men of intellectual parts, men entertaining in their thought and in
their memories a great tradition, some of the oldest people of the
world and they came and sat at the feet of the youngest nation of
the world and said, ” Teach us the way to liberty.”
That is the attitude of the world, and reflect, my fellow country-
men, upon the reaction, the reaction of despair, that would come if
America said, ” We do not want to lead you. You must do without
our advice. You must shift without us.” Now, are we going to
bring about a peace, for which everything waits ? We can not bring
it about by doing nothing. I have been very much amazed and very
much amused, if I could be amused in such critical circumstances, to
see that the statesmanship of some gentlemen consists in the very
interesting proposition that we do nothing at all. I had heard of
standing pat before, but I never had before heard of standpatism
going to the length of saying it is none of our business and we do not
care what happens to the rest of the world.
Your chairman made a profoundly true remark just now. The iso-
lation of the United States is at an end, not because we chose to go
into the politics of the world, but because by the sheer genius of this
people and the growth of our power we have become a determining
factor in the history of mankind, and after you had become a deter-
mining: factor you can not remain isolated, whether you want to or not.
Isolation ended by the processes of history, not by the processes of
our independent choice, and the processes of history merely fulfilled
the prediction of the men who founded our Republic. Go back and
read some of the immortal sentences of the men that assisted to frame
this Government and see how they set up a standard to which they in-
tended tjiat the nations of the world should rally. They said to the
people of the world, “Come to us ; this is the home of liberty ; this is
the place where mankind can learn how to govern their own affairs
and straighten out their own difficulties,” and the world did come to
us.
Look at your neighbor. Look at the statistics of the people of your
State. Look at the statistics of the people of the United States.
They have come, their hearts full of hope and confidence, from prac-
tically every nation in the world, to constitute a portion of our
strength and of our hope and a contribution to our achievement.
Sometimes I feel like taking off mv hat to some of those immigrants.
CJ *’
I was born an American. I could not help it, but they chose to be
Americans. They were not born Americans. They saw this star in
the west rising over the peoples of the world, and they said, “That is
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 63
the star of hope and the star of salvation. .We will set our footsteps
toward the west and join that great body of men whom God has
blessed with the vision of liberty.” I honor those men. I say, “You
made a deliberate choice which showed that you saw what the drift
and history of mankind was.” I am very grateful, I may say in
parentheses, that I did not have to make that choice. I am grateful
that ever since I can remember I have breathed this blessed air of
freedom. I am grateful that every instinct in me, every drop of
blood in me remembers and stands up and shouts at the traditions of
the United States. But some gentlemen are not shouting now about
that. They are saying, ” Yes; we made a great promise to mankind,
but it will cost too much to redeem it.” My fellow citizens, that is
not the spirit of America, and you can not have peace, you can not
have even your legitimate part in the business of the world unless you
are partners with the rest. If you are going to say to the world,
” We will stand off and see what we can get out of this,” the world
will see to it that you do not get anything out of it. If it is your
deliberate choice that instead of being friends you will be rivals and
antagonists, then you will get exactly what rivals and antagonists
always get, just as little as can be grudgingly vouchsafed you.
Yet you must keep the world on its feet. Is there any business
man here who would be willing to see the world go bankrupt and the
business of the world stop? Is there any man here who does not
know that America is the only nation left by the war in a position to
see that the world does go on with its business? And is it your
idea that if we lend our money, as we must, to men whom we have
bitterly disappointed, that money will bring back to us the largess
to which we are entitled? I do not like to argue this thing on this
basis, but if you want to talk business, I am ready to talk business.
If it is a matter of how much you are going to get from your
money, I say you will not get half as much as antagonists as you
will get as partners. Think that over, if you have none of that
thing that is so lightly spoken of, known as altruism. And, be-
lieve me, my fellow countrymen, the only people in the world who are
going to reap the harvest of the future are the people who can enter-
tain ideals, who can follow ideals to the death.
I was saying to another audience to-day that one of the most beauti-
ful stories I know is the story that we heard in France about the first
effect of the American soldiers when they got over there. The
French did not believe at first, the British did not believe, that we
could finally get 2,000,000 men over there. The most that they hoped
at first was that a few American soldiers would restore their morale,
for let me say that their morale was gone. The beautiful story to
which I referred is this, the testimony that all of them rendered that
64 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
tliey got their morale back the minute they saw the eyes of those boys.
Here were not only soldiers. There was no curtain in front of the
retina of those eyes. They were American eyes. They were eyes
that had seen visions. They were eyes the possessors of which had
brought with them a great ardor for a supreme cause, and the reason
those boys never stopped was that their eyes were lifted to the hori-
zon. They saw a city not built with hands. They saw a citadel
toward which their steps were bent where dwelt the oracles of God
himself. And on the battle field were found German orders to com-
manders here and there to see to it that the Americans did not get
lodgment in particular places, because if they ever did you never
could get them out. They had gone to Europe to go the whole way
toward the realization of the teaching which their fathers had handed
down to them. There never were crusaders that went to the Holy
Land in the old ages that we read about that were more truly devoted
to a holy cause than these gallant, incomparable sons of America.
My fellow citizens, you have got to make up your minds, because,
after all, it is you who are going to make up the minds of this coun-
try. I do not owe a report or the slightest responsibility to anybody
but you. I do not mean only you in this hall, though I am free to
admit that this is just as good a sample of America as you can find
anywhere, and the sample looks mighty good to me. I mean you and
the millions besides you, thoughtful, responsible American men and
women all over this country. They are my bosses, and I am mighty
glad to be their servant. I have come out upon this journey not to
fight anybody but to report to you, and I am free to predict that if
you credit the report there will be no fighting. It is not only neces-
sary that we should make peace with Germany and make peace with
Austria, and see that a reasonable peace is made with Turkey and
Bulgaria that is not only not all of it, but it is a very dangerous
beginning if you do not add something to it. I said just now that the
peace with Germany, and the same is true of the pending peace
with Austria, was made upon American specifications, not un-
willingly. Do not let me leave the impression on your mind that
the representatives of America in Paris had to insist and force their
principles upon the rest. That is not true. Those principles were
accepted before we got over there, and the men I dealt with carried
them out in absolute good faith ; but they were our principles, and at
the heart of them lay this, that there must be a free Poland, for
example.
I wonder if you realize what that means. We had to collect the
pieces of Poland. For a long time one piece had belonged to Russia,
and we can not get a clear title to that yet. Another part belonged
to Austria. We got a title to that. Another part belonged to Ger-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 65
many, and we have settled the title to that. But we found Germany
also in possession of other pieces of territory occupied predominately
or exclusively by patriotic Poles, and we said to Germany, ” You will
have to give that up, too ; that belongs to Poland.” Not because it is
ground, but because those people there are Poles and want to be parts
of Poland, and it is not our business to force any sovereignty upon
anybody who does not want to live under it. When we had deter-
mined the boundaries of Poland we set it up and recognized it as an
independent Republic. There is a minister, a diplomatic representa-
tive, of the United States at Warsaw right now in virtue of our for-
mal recognition of the Republic of Poland.
BuX upon Poland center some of the dangers of the future. South
of Poland is Bohemia, which we cut away from the Austrian combi-
nation. Below Bohemia is Hungary, which can no longer rely upon
the assistant strength of Austria, and below her is an enlarged Rou-
mania. Alongside of Roumania is the new Slavic Kingdom, that
never could have won its own independence, which had chafed under
the chains of Austria-Hungary, but never could throw them off. We
have said, ” The fundamental wrongs of history center in these re-
gions. These people have the right to govern their own Government
and control their own fortunes.” That is at the heart of the treaty,
but, my fellow citizens, this is at the heart of the future : The business
men of Germany did not want the war that we have passed through.
The bankers and the manufacturers and the merchants knew that it
was unspeakable folly. Why? Because Germany by her industrial
genius was beginning to dominate the world economically, and all she
had to do was to wait for about two more generations when her credit,
her merchandise, her enterprise, would have covered all the parts of
the world that the great fighting nations did not control. The for-
mula of pan-Germanism, you remember, was Bremen to Bagdad
Bremen on the North Sea to Bagdad in Persia. These countries that
we have set up as the new home of liberty lie right along that road. If
we leave them there without the guaranty that the combined force of
the world will assure their independence and their territorial integ-
rity, we have only to wait a short generation when our recent experi-
ence will be repeated. We did not let Germany dominate the world
this time. Are we then? If Germany had known then that all the
other fighting nations of the world would combine to prevent her
action, she never would have dreamed. of attempting it. If Germany
had known this is the common verdict of every man familiar with
the politics of Europe if Germany .had known that England Would
go in, she never would have started it. If she had known that America
would come in, she never would have dreamed of it. And now the
only way to make it certain that there never will be another world war
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 5
66 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
like that is that we should assist in guaranteeing the peace and its
settlement.
It is a very interesting circumstance, my fellow countrymen, that
the league of nations will contain all the nations of the world, great
and small, except Germany, and Germany is merely put on probation.
We have practically said to Germany, ” If it turns out that you really
haA 7 e had a change of heart and have gotten nonsense out of your sys-
tem; if it really does turn out that you ha^e substituted a genuine
self-governing Kepublic for a Kingdom where a few men on Wilhelm-
strasse plotted the destiny of the world, then we will let you in as
partners, because then you will be respectable.” In the meantime,
accepting the treaty, Germany’s army is reduced to 100.000 men, and
she has promised to give up all the war material over and above what
is necessary for 100,000 men. For a nation of 60.000,000 ! She has
surrendered to the world. She has said, ” Our fate is in your hands.
We are ready to do what you tell us to do.” The rest of the world is
combined, and the interesting circumstance is that the rest of the
world, excluding us, will continue combined if we do not go into it.
Some gentlemen seem to think they can break up this treaty and pre-
vent this league by not going into it. Not at all.
I can give you an interesting circumstance. There is the settle-
ment, which you have heard so much discussed, about that rich and
ancient Province of Shantung in China. I do not like that settle-
ment any better than you do, but these were the circumstances: In
order to induce Japan to cooperate in the war and clear the Pacific of
the German power England, and subsequently France, bound them-
selves without any qualification to see to it that Japan got anything
in China that Germany had, and that Japan would take it away from
her, upon the strength of which promise Japan proceeded to take
Kiaocfcow and occupy the portions of Shantung Province, which hud
been ce,ded by China for a term of years to Germany. The most that
could be got out of it was that, in view of the fact that America had
nothing to do with it, the Japanese were ready to promise that they
would give up every item of sovereignty which Germany would other-
wise have enjoyed in Shantung Province and return it without re-
striction to China, and that they would retain in the Province only
the economic concessions such as other nations already had elsewhere
in China though you do not hear anything about that concessions
in the railway and the mines which had become attached to the rail-
way for operative purposes. But suppose that you say that is not
enough. Very well, then, stay out of the treaty, and how will that
accomplish anything? England and France are bound and can not
escape their obligation. Are you going to institute a war against
Japan and France and England to get Shantung back for China?
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 67
That is an enterprise which does not commend itself to the present
generation.
I am putting it in brutal terms, my fellow citizens, but that is the
fact. By disagreeing to that provision, we accomplish nothing for
China. On the contrary, we stay out of the only combination of the
counsels of nations in which we can be of service to China. With
China as a member of the league of nations, and Japan as a member
of the league of nations, and America as a member of the league of
nations, there confronts every one of them that now famous article
] 0. by which every member of the league agrees to respect and preserve
the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all the
other member States. Do not let anybody persuade you that you
can take that article out and have a peaceful world. That cuts at
the root of the German war. That cuts at the root of the outrage
against Belgium. That cuts at the root of the outrage against France.
That pulls that vile, unwholesome Upas tree of Pan Germanism up by
the roots, and it pulls all other ” pans ” up, too. Every land-grabbing
nation is served notice, ” Keep on your own territory. Mind your own
business. That territory belongs to those people and they can do with
it what they please, provided they do not invade other people’s rights
by the use they make of it.” My fellow citizens, the thing is going
to be done whether we are in it or not. If we are in it, then we are
going to be the determining factor in the development of civilization.
If we are out of it, we ourselves are going to watch every other
nation with suspicion, and we will be justified, too; and we are going
to be watched with suspicion. Every movement of trade, every rela-
tionship of manufacture, every question of raw materials, every mat-
ter that affects the intercourse of the world, will be impeded by the
consciousness that America wants to hold off and get something which
she is not willing to share with the rest of mankind. I am painting
the picture for you, because I know that it is as intolerable to you as
it is to me. But do not go away with the impression, I beg you, that
I think there is any doubt about the issue. The only thing that can
be accomplished is delay. The ultimate outcome will be the trium-
phant acceptance of the treaty and the league.
Let me pay the tribute which it is only just that I should pay to
some of the men who have been, I believe, misunderstood in this busi-
ness. It is only a handful of men, my fellow citizens, who are trying
to defeat the treaty or to prevent the league. The great majority, in
official bodies and out, are scrutinizing it, as it is perfectly legitimate
that they should scrutinize it, to see if it is necessary that they should
qualify it in any way, and my knowledge of their conscience, my
knowledge of their public principle, makes me certain that they will
sooner or later see that it is safest, since it is all expressed in the plain-
68 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
est English that the English dictionary affords, not to qualify it to
accept it as it is. I have been a student of the English language all
my life and I do not see a single obscure sentence in the whole docu-
ment. Some gentlemen either have not read it or do not understand
the English language ; but, fortunately, on the right-hand page it is
printed in English and on the left-hand page it is printed in French.
Now, if they do not understand English, I hope they will get a French
dictionary and dig out the meaning on that side. The French is a
very precise language, more precise than the English language, I am
told. I am not on a speaking acquaintance with it, but I am told that
it is the most precise language in Europe, and that any given phrase
in French always means the same thing. That can not be said of
English. In order to satisfy themselves, I hope these gentlemen will
master the French version and then be reassured that there are no
lurking monsters in that document; that there are no sinister pur-
poses ; that everything is said in the frankest way.
For example, they have been very much worried at the phrase
that nothing in the document shall be taken as impairing in any way
the validity of such regional understandings as the Monroe doctrine.
They say, ” Why put in ‘ such regional understandings as ‘ ? What
other understandings are there ? Have you got something up your
sleeve? Is there going to be a Monroe doctrine in Asia? Is there
going to be a Monroe doctrine in China ? ‘ Why, my fellow citizens,
the phrase was writen in perfect innocence. The men that I was
associated with said, ” It is not wise to put a specific thing that be-
longs only to one nation in a document like this. We do not know
of any other regional understanding like it; we never heard of any
other; we never expect to hear of any other, but there might some
day be some other, and so we will say c such regional understandings
as the Monroe doctrine,’ and their phrase was intended to give
right of way to the Monroe doctrine in the Western Hemisphere.
I reminded the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate the
other day that the conference I held with them was not the first con-
ference I had held about the league of nations. When I came back
to this our own dear country in March last I held a conference at
the White House with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
and they made various suggestions as to how the covenant should
be altered in phraseology. I carried those suggestions back to Paris,
and every one of them was accepted. I think that is a sufficient
guaranty that no mischief was intended. The whole document is
of the same plain, practical, explicit sort, and it secures peace, my
fellow citizens, in the only way in which peace can be secured.
I remember, if I may illustrate a very great thing with a very
trivial thing, I had two acquaintances who were very much addicted
to profanity. Their friends were distressed about it. It subordi-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 69
nated a rich vocabulary which they might otherwise have cultivated,
and so we induced them to agree that they never would swear inside
the corporate limits, that if they wanted to swear they would go out
of town. The first time the passion of anger came upon them they
rather sheepishly got in a street car and went out of town to swear,
and by the time they got out of town they did not want to swear.
That very homely illustration illustrates in my mind the value of dis-
cussion. Let me remind you that every fighting nation in the world
is going to belong to this league, because we are going to belong
to it, and they all make this solemn engagement with each other,
that they will not resort to war in the case of any controversy until
they have done one or other of two things, until they have either
submitted the question at issue to arbitration, in which case they
promise to abide by^the verdict whatever it may be, or, if they do not
want to submit it to arbitration, have submitted it to discussion by
the council of the league.
They agree to give the council six months to discuss the matter,
to supply the council with all the pertinent facts regarding it, and
that, after the opinion of the council is rendered, they will not
then go to war if they are dissatisfied with the opinion until three
more months have elapsed. They give nine months in which to
spread the whole matter before the judgment of mankind, and if
they violate this promise, if any one of them violates it, the covenant
prescribes that that violation shall in itself constitute an act of
war against the other members of the league. It does not provide
that there shall be war. On the contrary, it provides for something
very much more effective than war. It provides that that nation,
that covenant-breaking nation, shall be absolutely cut off from inter-
course of every kind with the other nations of the world; that no
merchandise shall be shipped out of it or into it; that no postal
messages shall go into it or come out of it; that no telegraphic
messages shall cross its borders; and that the citizens of the other
member States shall not be permitted to have any intercourse or
transactions whatever with its citizens or its citizens with them.
There is not a single nation in Europe that can stand that boycott
for six months. There is not a single nation in Europe that is self-
sufficing in its resources of food or anything else that can stand
that for six months. And in those circumstances we are told that
this covenant is a covenant of war. It is the most drastic covenant
of peace that was ever conceived, and its processes are the processes
of peace. The nation that does not abide by its covenants is sent
to Coventry, is taboo, is put out of the society of covenant-respecting
nations.
This is a covenant of compulsory arbitration or discussion, and
just so soon as you discuss matters, my fellow citizens, peace looks
70 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
in at the window. Did you ever really sit down and discuss matters
with your neighbor when you had a difference and come away in the
same temper that you went in? One of the difficulties in our labor
situation is that there are some employers who will not meet their
employees face to face and talk with them. I have never known an
instance in which such a meeting and discussion took place that both
sides did not come away in a softened temper and with an access
of respect for the other side. The processes of frank discussion are
the processes of peace not only, but the processes of settlement, and
those are the processes which are set up for all the powerful nations
of the world.
I want to say that this is an unparalleled achievement of thoughtful
civilization. To my dying day I shall esteem it the crowning privi-
lege of my life to have been permitted to put my name to a document
like that; and in my judgment, my fellow citizens, when passion is
cooled and men take a sober, second thought, they are all going to
feel that the supreme thing that America did was to help bring this
about and then put her shoulder to the great chariot of justice and of
peace which was going to lead men along in that slow and toilsome
march, toilsome and full of the kind of agony that brings bloody
sweat, but nevertheless going up a slow incline to those distant
heights upon which will shine at the last the serene light of justice,
suffusing a whole world in blissful peace.
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, OMAHA, NEBR.,
SEPTEMBER 8, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, my fellow citizens, I never feel more comfortable in
facing my fellow citizens than when I can realize that I am not
representing a peculiar cause, that I am not speaking for a single
group of my fellow citizens, that I am not the representative of a
party but the representative of the people of the United States. I
went across the water with that happy consciousness, and in all the
work that was done on the other side of the sea, where I was as-
sociated with distinguished Americans of both political parties, we
all of us constantly kept at our heart the feeling that we were ex-
pressing the thoughts of America, that we were working for the
things that America believed in. I have come here to testify that
this treaty contains the things that America believes in.
I brought a copy of the treaty along with me, for I fancy that, in
view of the criticisms you have heard of it, you thought it consisted
of only four or five clauses. Only four or five clauses out of this
volume are picked out for criticism. Only four or five phrases in it
are called to your attention by some of the distinguished orators who
oppose its adoption. Why, my fellow citizens, this is one of the great
charters of human liberty, and the man who picks flaws in it or,
rather, picks out the flaws that are in it, for there are flaws in it
forgets the magnitude of the thing, forgets the majesty of the thing,
forgets that the counsels of more than 20 nations combined and were
rendered unanimous in the adoption of this great instrument. Let
me remind you of what everybody admits who has read the docu-
ment. Everybody admits that it is a complete settlement of the mat-
ters which led to this war, and that it contains the complete ma-
chinery which provides that they shall stay settled.
You know that one of the greatest difficulties in our own domestic
affairs is unsettled land titles. Suppose that somebody were mis-
chievously to tamper with the land records of the State of Nebraska,
and that there should be a doubt as to the line of every farm. You
know what would happen in six months. All the farmers would be
sitting on their fences with shotguns. Litigation would penetrate
every community, hot feeling would be generated, contests not only
71
72 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
of lawyers, but contests of force, would ensue. Very well, one of
the interesting things that this treaty does is to settle the land titles
of Europe, and to settle them in this way, on the principle that every
land belongs to the people that live on it. This is actually the first
time in human history that that principle was ever recognized in a
similar document, and yet that is the fundamental American prin-
ciple. The fundamental American principle is the right of the
people that live in the country to say what shall be done with that
country? We have gone so far in our assertions of popular right that
we not only say that the people have a right to have a government
that suits them, but that they have a right to change it in any respect
at any time. Very well, that principle lies at the heart of this
treaty.
There are peoples in Europe who never before could say that the
land they lived in was their own, and the choice that they were to
make of their lives was their own choice. I know there are men in
Nebraska who come from that country of tragical history, the now
restored Republic of Poland, and I want to call your attention to the
fact that Poland is here given her complete restitution ; and not only
is she given the land that formerly belonged to the Poles, but she is
given the lands which are now occupied by Poles but had been per-
mitted to remain under other sovereignties. She is given those lands
on a principle that all our hearts approve of. Take what in Europe
they call High Silesia, the mountainous, the upper, portions of the
district of Silesia. The very great majority of the people in High
Silesia are Poles, but the Germans contested the statement that most
of them were Poles. We said, “Very well, then, it is none of our
business; we will let them decide. We will put sufficient armed
forces into High Silesia to see that nobody tampers with the processes
of the election, and then we will hold a referendum there, and those
people can belong either to Germany or to Poland, as they prefer,
and not as we prefer.” And wherever there was a doubtful district
we applied the same principle, that the people should decide and not
the men sitting around the peace table at Paris. When these
referenda are completed the land titles of Europe will be settled, and
every country will belong to the people that live on it to do with what
they please. You seldom hear of this aspect of this treaty, my fellow
citizens.
You have heard of the council that the newspaper men call the
“big four.” We had a very much bigger name for ourselves than
that. We called ourselves the “supreme council of the principal
allied and associated powers,” but we had no official title, and some-
times there were five of us instead of four. Those five represented,
with the exception of Germany, of course, the great lighting nations
of the world. They could have done anything with this treaty that
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 73
they chose to do, because they had the power to do it, and they chose
to do what had never been chosen before, to renounce every right of
sovereignty in that settlement to which the people concerned did not
assent. That is the great settlement which is represented in this
volume.
And it contains, among other things, a great charter of liberty
for the workingmen of the world. For the first time in history the
counsels of mankind are to be drawn together and concerted for the
purpose of defending the rights and improving the conditions of
working people men, women, and children all over the world.
Such a thing as that was never dreamed of before, and what you
are asked to discuss in discussing the league of nations is the matter
of seeing that this thing is not interfered with. There is no other
way to do it than by a universal league of nations, and what is pro-
posed is a universal league of nations. Only two nations are for the
time being left out. One of them is Germany, because we did not
think that Germany was ready to come in, because we felt that she
ought to go through a period of probation. She says that she made a
mistake. We now want her to prove it by not trying it again. She
says that she has abolished all the old forms of government by which
little secret councils of men, sitting nobody knew exactly where, de-
termined the fortunes of that great nation and, incidentally, tried
to determine the fortunes of mankind; but we want her to prove
that her constitution is changed and that it is going to stay changed ;
and then who can, after those proofs are produced, say ” No ” to a
great people 60,000,000 strong, if they want to come in on equal terms
with the rest of us and do justice in international affairs? I want
to say that I did not find any of my colleagues in Paris disinclined to
do justice to Germany. But I hear that this treaty is very hard on
Germany. When an individual has committed a criminal act, the
punishment is hard, but the punishment is not unjust. This nation
permitted itself, through unscrupulous governors, to commit a crim-
inal act against mankind, and it is to undergo the punishment, not
more than it can endure, but up to the point where it can pay it must
pay for the wrong that it has done.
But the things prescribed in this treaty will not be fully carried
out if any one of the great influences that brought that result about
is withheld from its consummation. Every great fighting nation in
the world is on the list of those who are to constitute the league of
nations. I say every great nation, because America is going to be
included among them, and the only choice, my fellow citizens, is
whether we will go in now or come in later with Germany ; whether
we will go in as founders of this covenant of freedom or go in as those
who are admitted after they have made a mistake and repented.
74 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
I wish I could do what is impossible in a great company like this.
I wish I could read that covenant to you, because I do not believe, if
you have not read it yourself and have only listened* to certain
///
speeches that I have read, that you know anything that is in it.
Why, my fellow citizens, the heart of that covenant is that there
shall b*e no war. To listen to some of the speeches that you may have
listened to or read, you would think that the heart of it was that it
was an arrangement for war. On the contrary, this is the heart of
that treaty: The bulk of it is concerned with arrangements under
which all the members of the league that means everybody but Ger-
many and dismembered Turkey agree that they never will go to
war without first having done one or other of two things either
submitted the question at issue to arbitration, in which case they
agree absolutely to abide by the verdict, or, if they do not care to
submit it to arbitration, submitted it to discussion by the council of
the league of nations, in which case they must give six months for
the discussion and wait three months after the rendering of the
decision, whether they like it or not, before they go to war. They
agree to cool off for nine months before they yield to the heat of
passion which might otherwise have hurried them into war.
If they do not do that, it is not war that ensues; it is something
that will interest them and engage them very much more than war ;
it is an absolute boycott of the nation that disregards the covenant.
The boycott is automatic, and just as soon as it applies, then this
happens : No goods can be shipped out of that country ; no goods can
be shipped into it. No telegraphic message may pass either way
across its borders. No package of postal matter no letter can
cross its borders either way. No citizen of any member of the league
can have any transactions of any kind with any citizen of that nation.
It is the most complete isolation and boycott ever conceived, and
there is not a nation in Europe that can live for six months without
importing goods out of other countries. After they have thought
about the matter for six months, I predict that they will have no
stomach for war.
All that you are told about in this covenant, so far as I can learn, is
that there is an article 10. I will repeat article 10 to you ; I think I
can repeat it verbatim, the heart of it at any rate. Every member of
the league promises to respect and preserve as against external
aggression not as against internal revolution the territorial integ-
rity and existing political independence of every other member of the
league, and if it is necessary to enforce this promise I mean, for the
nations to act in concert with arms in their hands to enforce it then
the council of the league shall advise what action is necessary. Some
gentlemen who doubt the meaning of English words have thought that
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 75
advice did not’ mean advice, but I do not know anything else that it
does mean, and I have studied English most of my life and speak it
with reasonable correctness. The point is this : The council can not
give that advice without the vote of the United States, unless it is
a party to the dispute ; but, my fellow citizens, if you are a party to
the dispute you are in the scrap anyhow. If you are a party, then the
question is not whether you are going to Avar or not, but merely
whether you are going to war against the rest of the world or with
the rest of the world, and the object of war in that case will be to
defend that central thing that I began by speaking about. That is
the guaranty of the land titles of the world which have been estab-
lished by this treaty. Poland, Czechoslavakia, Roumania, Jugo-
slavia all those nations which never had a vision of independent
liberty until now have their liberty and independence guaranteed
to them. If we do not guarantee them, then we have this interesting
choice: I hear gentlemen say that we went into the recent war
because we were forced into it, and their preference now is to wait to
be forced in again. They do not pretend that we can keep out ; they
merely pretend that we ought to keep out until we are ashamed not
to go in.
This is the covenant of the league of nations that you hear objected
to, the only possible guaranty against war. I would consider my-
self recreant to every mother and father, every wife and sweetheart
in this country, if I consented to the ending of this war without a
guaranty that there would be no other. You say, ” Is it an absolute
guaranty?” No; there is no absolute guaranty against human pas-
sion: but even if it were only 10 per cent of a guaranty, would not
you rather have 10 per cent guaranty against war than none? If it
only creates a presumption that there will not be war, would you not
rather have that presumption than live under the certainty that
there will be war? For, I tell you, my fellow citizens, I can predict
with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be
another world war’ if the nations of the world do not concert the
method by which to prevent it.
But I did not come here this morning, I remind myself, so much to
expound the treaty as to talk about these interesting things that we
hear about that are called reservations. A reservation is an assent
with a big but. We agree but. Now, I want to call your attention
to some of these buts. I will take them, so far as I can remember the
order, in the order in which they deal with clauses of the league
itself.
In the first article of the covenant it is provided that a nation can
withdraw from the league on two years’ notice, provided at the time
of its withdrawal, that is to say, at the expiration of the two years,
76 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
it has fulfilled all its international obligations and all its obligations
under the covenant. Some of our friends are very uneasy about that.
They want to sit close to the door with their hands on the knob, and
they want to say, ” We are in this thing but we are in it with infinite
timidity ; we are in it only because you overpersuaded us and wanted
us to come in, and we are going to try this thing every now and then
and see if it is locked, and just as soon as we see anything we don’t
like, we are going to scuttle.” Now, what is the trouble? What are
they afraid of? I want you to put this to every man you know who
makes this objection, what is he afraid of? Is he afraid that when
the United States withdraws it will not have fulfilled its interna-
tional obligations? Is he willing to bring that indictment against
this beloved country ? My fellow citizens, we never did fail to fulfill
an international obligation and, God guiding and helping us, we
never will. I for one am not going to admit in any connection the
slightest doubt that, if we ever choose to withdraw, we will then have
fulfilled our obligations. If I make reservations, as they are called,
about this, what do I do ? This covenant does not set up any tribunal
to judge whether we have fulfilled our obligations at that time or
not. There is only one thing to restrain us, and that is the opinion
of mankind. Are these gentlemen such poor patriots that they are
afraid that the United States will cut a poor figure in the opinion of
mankind ? And do they think that they can bring this great people
to withdraw from that league if at that time their withdrawal would
be condemned by the opinion of mankind ? We have always been at
pains to earn the respect of mankind, and we shall always be at
pains to retain it. I for one am too proud as an American to say that
any doubt will ever hang around our right to withdraw upon the
condition of the fulfillment of our international obligations.
I have already adverted to the difficulties under article 10 and will
not return to it. That difficulty is merely, as I repeated it just now r
that some gentlemen do not want to go in as partners, they want to
go in as late joiners, because they all admit that in a war which im-
perils the just arrangements of mankind, America, the greatest, rich-
est, freest people in the world must take sides. We could not live
without taking sides. We devoted ourselves to justice and to liberty
when we were born, and we are not going to get senile and forget it.
They do not like the way in which the Monroe doctrine is men-
tioned. Well, I would not stop on a question of style. The Monroe
doctrine is adopted. It is swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, and, be-
ing carefully digested into the central organism of the whole instru-
ment, I do not care what language they use about it. The language
is entirely satisfactory so far as I understand the English language.
That puzzles me, my fellow citizens. The English language seems
to have got some new meaning since I studied it that bothers these
ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 77
gentlemen. I do not know what dictionaries they resort to. I do
not know what manuals of conscience they can possibly resort to.
The Monroe doctrine is expressly authenticated in this document,
for the first time in history, by all the great nations of the world,
and it was put there at our request. When I came back to this dear
country in March I brought the first draft, the provisional draft, of
the covenant of the league. I submitted it to the Foreign Relations
Committee of the ‘Senate of the United States, and I spent an evening
discussing it with them. They made a number of suggestions.
I carried every one of those suggestions to Paris, and every one of
them was adopted. Now apparently they want me to go back to
Paris and say, “We are much obliged to you, but we do not like the
language.” I suggested the other night that if they do not like
that language there is another language in here. That page is
English [illustrating] ; this page is French [illustrating] the same
thing. If the English does not suit them, let them engage the inter-
est of some French scholar and see if they like the French better.
It is the same thing. It is done in perfect good faith. Nobody was
trying to fool anybody else. This is the genuine work of honest men.
The fourth matter that they are concerned about is domestic
questions, so they want to put in a reservation enumerating certain
questions as domestic questions which everybody on both sides of the
water admits are domestic questions. That seems to me, to say the
least, to be a work of supererogation. It does not seem to me neces-
sary to specify what everybody admits, but they are so careful I
believe the word used to be ” meticulous ‘ -that they want to put in
what is clearly implied in the whole instrument. ” Well,” you say,
“why not?’ : Well, why not, my fellow citizens? The conference
at Paris will still be sitting when the Senate of the United States has
acted upon this treaty. Perhaps I ought not to say that so confi-
dently. No man, even in the secrets of Providence, can tell how long
it will take the United States Senate to do anything, but I imagine
that in the normal course of human fatigue the Senate will have
acted upon this treaty before the conference in Paris gets through
with the Austrian treaty and the Bulgarian treaty and the Turkish
treaty. They will still be there on the job. Now every lawyer will
follow me in this if you take a contract and change the words, even
though you do not change the sense, you have to get the other parties
to accept those words. Is not that true? Therefore every reserva-
tion will have to be taken back to all the signatories of this treaty,
and I want you to notice that that includes Germany. We will have
to ask Germany’s consent to read this treaty the way we understand
it. I want to tell you that we did not ask Germany’s consent with
regard to the meaning of any one of those terms while we were in
Paris. We told her what they meant and said, ” Sign here.” Are
78 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
there any patriotic Americans who desire the method changed? Do
they want me to ask the assembly at Weimar if I may read the treaty
the way it means but in words which the United States Senate thinks
it ought to have been written in? You see, reservations come down
to this, that they want to change the language of the treaty without
changing its meaning and involve all the embarrassments. Because,
let me say, there are indications lam judging not from official dis-
patches but from the newspapers that people are not in as good a
humor over in Paris now as they were when I was there, and it is
going to be more difficult to get agreement from now on than it was
then. After dealing with some of those gentlemen I found that
they were as ingenious as any American in attaching unexpected
meanings to plain words, and, having gone through the mill on the
existing language, I. do not want to go through it again on changed
language.
I must not turn away from this great subject without adverting to
one particular in the treaty itself, and that is the provision with
regard to the transfer of certain German rights in the Province of
Shantung, China, to Japan. I have frankly said to my Japanese
colleagues in the conference, and therefore I can without impropriety
say it here, that I was very deeply dissatisfied with that part of the
treaty. But, my fellow citizens, Japan agreed at that very time, and
as part of the understanding upon which those clauses were put into
the treaty, that she would relinquish every item of sovereignty that
Germany had enjoj^ed to China, and that she would retain only what
other nations have elsewhere in China, certain economic concessions
with regard to the railway and the mines, which she was to operate
under a corporation and subject to the laws of China. As I say, I
wish she could have done more. But suppose, as some have sug-
gested, that we dissent from that clause in the treaty. You can not
sign all of the treaty but one part, my fellow citizens. It is like the
President’s veto. He can not veto provisions in a bill. He has got
either to sign the bill or veto the bill. We can not sign the treaty with
the Shantung provision out of it, and if we could, what sort of service
would we be doing to China ?
Let us state the facts with brutal frankness. England and France
are bound by solemn treaty, entered into before the conference at
Paris, before the end of the war, to give Japan what she gets in this
treaty in the Province of Shantung. They can not in honor withdraw
from that promise. They can not consent to a peace treaty which does
riot contain those provisions with regard to Shantung. England and
France, therefore, will stand behind Japan, and if we are not signa-
tories to the treaties and not parties she will get all that Germany
had in Shantung, more than she will get under the promises which
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 79
she made to us, and the only way we can get it away from her is by
going to war with Japan and Great Britain and France. Does that
look like a workable proposition? Is that doing China a service?
Whereas, if we do accept this treaty, we are members of the league of
nations, China is a member of the league, and Japan is a member of
the league, and under that much-criticized article 10 Japan promises
and we guarantee that the territorial integrity and political inde-
pendence of China will be respected and preserved. That is the way
to serve China. That is the only possible way in the circumstances to
serve China.
Therefore we can not rewrite this treaty. We must take it or leave
it, and gentlemen, after all the rest of the world has signed it, will
find it very difficult to make any other kind of treaty. As I took the
liberty of saying the other night, it is a case of ” put up or shut up.”
The world can not breathe in the atmosphere of negations. The
world can not deal Avith nations who say, “We won’t play!” The
world can not have anything to do with an arrangement in which
every nation says, ” We will take care of ourselves.” Is it possible, my
fellow citizens is it possible, for the sinister thing has been suggested
to me that there is a group of individuals in this country who have
conceived it as desirable that the United States should exercise its
power alone, should arm for the purpose, should be ready for the
enterprise, and should dominate the world by arms? There are
indications that there are groups of citizens in this country who do
not find that an unpalatable program. Are we going to substitute
for Pan Germanism a sinister Pan Americanism? The thing is
inconceivable. It is hideous. No man dare propose that in plain
words to any American audience anywhere. The heart of this people
is pure. The heart of this people is true. This great people loves
liberty. It loves justice. It would rather have liberty and justice
than wealth and power. It is the great idealistic force of history,
and the idealism of America is what has made conquest of the spirits
of men.
While I was in Paris men of every race, from every quarter of the
globe, sought interviews with us in order to tell us how absolutely
they believed in America and how all their thoughts, all their pleas
for help, all their hope of political salvation, reached out toward
America, and my heart melted within me. I said to some of the
simpler sort among them, ” I pray you that you will not expect the
impossible. America can not do all the things that you are expecting
her to do. The most that I can promise is that we will do everything
we can.” And we are going to redeem that promise, not because I
made it, but because when I made it I spoke the purpose and heart
of the United States. If I felt that I personally in any way stood
in the way of this settlement, I would be glad to die that it might be
consummated, because I have a vision, my fellow citizens, that if this
80 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
thing should by some mishap not be accomplished there would rest
forever upon the fair name of this people a stain which could never
be effaced, which would be intolerable to every lover of America,
inconceivable to any man who knew the duty of America and was
ready with stout heart to do it.
I said just now at the opening that I was happy to forget on a
campaign like this what party I belonged to, and I hope that you
will not think that I am recalling what party I belong to if I say
how proud I have been to stand alongside of Senator Hitchcock in
this fight. I would be just as glad to stand by Senator Norris if he
would let me. I refer to Senator Hitchcock because I know this is his
home town and because of my personal regard for him, and because I
wanted to make it the preface to say I want to be the brother and
comrade and coworker of every man who will work for this great
cause. It heartens me when I find, as I found in Des Moines and I
find here, that there are more Republicans on the committees that
meet me than Democrats. That may be in proportion to the popula-
tion, but nevertheless I judge from what I see of these gentlemen
that they are, at any rate, very favorable specimens and that I can
take it for granted, because of what I see in my dealing with them,
that they do represent some of the permanence and abiding influ-
ences of great communities like this. Why, the heart of America
beats in these great prairies and on these hillsides. Sometimes in
Washington you seem very far away. The voices that are most audi-
ble in Washington are not voices that anybody cares to listen to for
very long, and it is refreshing to get out among the great body of
one’s fellow citizens and feel the touch of hand and the contact of
shoulder and the impulse of mass movement which is going to make
spiritual conquest of the world.
#ADDRESS AT COLISEUM, SIOUX FALLS, S. DAK.,
SEPTEMBER 8, 1919.
Gov. Norbeck, my fellow citizens, I must admit that every time I
face a great audience of my fellow countrymen on this trip I am
filled with a feeling of peculiar solemnity, because I believe, my
fellow countrymen, that we have come to one of the turning points in
the history of the world, and what I as an American covet for this
great country is that, as on other great occasions when mankind’s
fortunes hung in a nice poise and balance, America may have the
distinction to lead the way.
In order to enable you to realize some part of what is in my
thought to-night, I am going to ask you to turn your thought back
to the tragedy through which we have just passed. A little incident
as we came along in the train to-day brought very close home to
me the things that have been happening. A very quiet lady came up
with a little crowd at a wav station to shake hands with me, and she
\j i
had no sooner taken my hand than she turned away and burst into
tears. I asked a neighbor what was the matter, and he said she
had meant to speak to me of her son who was dead in France, but
that the words would not come from her lips. All over this country,
my fellow citizens, there are women who have given up their sons,
wives who have given up their husbands, young women who have
given up their sweethearts, to die on the other side of the sea for a
great cause which was not the peculiar cause of America but the
cause of mankind and of civilization itself. I love to repeat what
the people on the other side of the water said about those boys of
ours. They told us that they did not look like any of the other
soldiers, that they did not seem to be merely soldiers, that they
seemed to.be crusaders, that there was something in their eyes that
they had never seen in the eyes of any other army, and I was re-
minded of what I had so often seen on former journeys across the
seas : Going over in the steerage, bright-eyed men who had been per-
meated with the atmosphere of free America; coming back, among
the immigrants coming from the old countries, dull-eyed men, tired-
looking men, discouraged-looking men. They were all of them going
both ways, men who had come from across the sea, but going out
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-3 -6 81
82 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
they were going with the look of America in their eyes to visit the
old people at home ; coming back they had the fatigue of Europe in
their eyes and had not yet got the feeling that penetrates every
American, that there is a great future, that a man can handle his
own fortunes, that it is his right to have his place in the world, and
that no man that he does not choose is his master. And that is
what these people saw in the eyes of the American boys who carried
their arms across the sea. There was America in every one of those
lively eyes, and America was not looking merely at the fields of
France, was not merely seeking to defeat Germany ; she was seeking
to defeat everything that Germany’s action represented, and to see
to it that there never happened such a thing again.
I want to remind you, my fellow countrymen, that that war was
not an accident. That war did not just happen. There was not
some sudden occasion which brought on a conflagration. On the
contrary, Germany had been preparing for that war for generations.
Germany had been preparing every resource, perfecting every skill,
developing every invention, which would enable her to master the
European world ; and, after mastering the European world, to domi-
nate the rest of the world. Everybody had been looking on. Every-
body had known. For example, it was known in every war office in
Europe, and in the War Department at Washington, that the Ger-
mans not only had a vast supply of great field guns but that they had
ammunition enough for every one of those guns to exhaust the gun.
Yet we were all living in a fool’s paradise. We thought Germany
meant what she said that she was armed for defense; and that
she never would use that great store of force against the rest of her
fellow men. Why, my friends, it was foreordained the minute
Germany conceived these purposes that she should do the thing
which she did in 1914. That assassination of the Austrian Crown
Prince in Serbia was not what started the war. They were ready
to start it and merely made that an occasion and an excuse. Before
they started it, Serbia had yielded to practically every demand they
made of her, and they would not let the rest of the world know that
Serbia had yielded, because they did not want to miss the occasion
to start the war. They were afraid that other nations would pre-
pare. They were afraid that they had given too much indication of
what they were going to do and they did not want to wait. What
immediately happened, when the other foreign offices of Europe
learned of what was going on, was that from every other foreign
office, so far as I have been able to learn, messages went to Berlin
instructing their representatives to suggest to the German Govern-
ment that the other Governments be informed and that an oppor-
tunity be obtained for a discussion, so as to see if war could not be
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 83
avoided. And Germany did not dare discuss her purpose for 24
hours.
I have brought back from Europe with me, my fellow citizens, a
treaty in which Germany is disarmed and in which all the other na-
tions of the world agree never to go to war without first of all having
done one or other of two things, either having submitted the question
in dispute to arbitration, in which case they will abide by the verdict,
or, if they do not care to submit it to arbitration, having submitted
it to discussion by the league of nations; that they will allow six
months for the discussion ; that they will publish all the facts to all
the world; and that not until three months after the expiration of
the six will they go to war. There is a period of nine months of
cooling off, and Germany did not dare cool off for nine days ! If Ger-
many had dreamed that anything like the greater part of the world
would combine against her, she never would have begun the war,
and she did not dare to let the opinion of mankind crystallize against
her by the discussion of the purposes which she had in mind. What
I want to point out to you to-night is that we are making a funda-
mental choice. You have either got to have the old system, of which
Germany was the perfect flower, or you have got to have a new system.
You can not have a new system unless you provide a substitute, an
adequate substitute, for the old, and when certain of our fellow citizens
take the position that we do not want to go into any combination at
all but want to take care of ourselves, all I have to say to them is that
that is exactly the German position.
Germany through the mouth of her Emperor Germany through
the mouths of her orators Germany through the pens of her writers
of all sorts said, ” Here we stand, ready to take care of ourselves.
We will not enter into any combination. We are armed for self-
defense and no nation dares interfere with our rights.” That, it
appears, is the American program in the eyes of some gentlemen;
and I want to tell you that within the last two weeks the pro-German
element in this country has lifted its head again. It is again heart-
ened. It again has air in its lungs. It again says, “Ah, now we
see a chance when America and Germany will stand outside this
league and take care of themselves.” Not take care of themselves
as partners, I do not mean to intimate that, but where America will
play the same role that Germany plays, under that old order which
brought us through that agony of bloody sweat, that great agony
in which the whole world seemed to be caught in the throes of a
crisis, when for a long time we did not know whether civilization
itself was going to survive or not. And do not believe, my fellow
countrymen, that civilization is saved now. There were passions
let loose upon the field of the world by that war which have not
84 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
grown quiet yet, which will not grow quiet for a long time, and
every element of disorder, every element of chaos, is hoping that
there may be no steadying hand from a council of nations to hold
the order of the world steady until we can make the final arrange-
ments of justice and of peace. The treaty of peace with Germany is
very much more than a treaty of peace with Germany. The Ger-
man part of it takes a good many words, because there are a great
many technical details to be arranged, but that is not the heart of the
treaty. The heart of the treaty is that it undoes the injustice that
Germany did; that it not only undoes the injustice that Germany
did but it organizes the world to see that such injustice will in the
future be impossible.
And not forgetting, but remembering with intense sympathy the
toiling mass of mankind, the conference at Paris wrote into the heart
of that treaty a great charter of labor. I think that those of us \vho
live in this happy land can have little conception of the conditions
of labor in some of the European countries up to the period of the out-
break of this war, and one of the things that that treaty proposes to
do is to organize the opinion of all nations to assist in the betterment
and the release of the great forces of labor throughout the world.
It is a laboring man’s treaty in the sense that it is the average man’s
treaty. Why, my fellow citizens, the thing that happened at Paris
was absolutely and literally unprecedented. There never was a gath-
ering of the leading statesmen of the world before who did not sit
clown to divide the spoils, to make the arrangements the most advan-
tageous that they could devise for their own strong and powerful
governments. Yet this gathering of statesmen sat themselves down
to do something which a friend of mine the other day very aptly
described as establishing the land titles of the w T orld, because the prin-
ciple underlying the treaty was that every land belonged to the native
stock that lived in it, and that nobody had the right to dictate either
the form of government or the control of territory to those people
who were born and bred and had their lives and happiness to make
there. The principle that nobody has the right to impose the sov-
ereignty of any alien government on anybody was for the first time
recognized in the counsels of international deliberation. In this
league of nations covenant, which some men ask you to examine in
a spot here and there with a magnifying glass, there lies at the heart
of it this great principle, nobody has the right to take any territory
any more.
You will see what our situation was: The Austrian Empire, for
example, had gone to pieces, and here we were with the pieces on
the table. The Austrian treaty is not yet completed, but it is being
made on the same principle as the German, and will serve as an
illustration. In the old days they would have compacted it between
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 85
armies. They did not do that this time. They said, “This piece
belongs to the Poles and to nobody else. This piece belongs to the
Bohemians and to nobody else. This piece belongs to Roumania,
though she never could have got it for herself ; we are going to turn
it over to her, though other people want it. This piece belongs to
the Slavs, who live in the northern Balkans the Jugo-Slavs as
we have come to know them to be and they shall have what belongs
to them.” When we turned to the property of Germany, which she
had been habitually misgoverning I mean the German colonies,
particularly the colonies in Africa there were many nations who
would like to have had those rich, undeveloped portions of the
world; but none of them got them. We adopted the principle of
trusteeship. We said, ” We will put you in charge of this, that, and
the other piece of territory, and you will make an annual report to us.
We will deprive you of your trusteeship whenever you administer
it in a way which is not approved by our judgment, and we will put
upon you this primary limitation, that you shall do nothing that
is to the detriment of the people who live in that territory. You
shall not enforce labor on it, and you shall apply the same principles
of humanity to the work of their women and children that you
apply at home. You shall not allow the illicit trade in drugs and in
liquors. You shall not allow men who want to make money out of
powder and shot to sell arms and ammunition to those who can use
them to their own disadvantage. You shall not make those people
fight in your armies. The country is theirs, and you must remember
that and treat it as theirs.” There is no more annexation. There
is no more land grabbing. There is no more extension of sov-
ereignty. It is an absolute reversal of history, an absolute revolu-
tion in the way in which international affairs are treated; and it is
all in the covenant of the league of nations.
The old system was, Be ready, and we can be ready. I have heard
gentlemen say, ” America can take care of herself.” Yes, she can take
care of herself. Every man would have to train to arms. We would
have to have a great standing army. We would have to have
accumulations of military material such as Germany used to have.
We would enjoy the luxuries of taxes even higher than we pay now.
We could accumulate our force, and then our force would have to be
directed by some kind of sufficiently vigorous central power. You
would have a military government in spirit if not in form. No use
having a fighting nation if there is not somebody to swing it! If
you do ^not want your President to be a representative of the civil
purposes of this country, you can turn him into merely a commander
in chief, ready to fight the world. But if you did nobody Avould
recognize America in those strange and altered circumstances. All
86 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the world would stand at amaze and say, ” Has America forgotten
* – O
everything that she ever professed ? ‘ The picture is one that every
American repudiates ; and I challenge any man who has that purpose
at the back of his thought to avow it. If he comes and tells you that
America must stand alone and take care of herself, ask him how it is
going to be done, and he will not dare tell you, because you would
show him the door and say, ” We do not know any such American.”
Yet we can not do without force. You can not establish land titles,
as I have expressed it, and not maintain them. Suppose that the land
titles of South Dakota were disturbed. Suppose the farm lines were
moved, say, 10 feet. You know what would happen. Along every
fence line you would see farmers perching with guns on their knees.
The only reason they are not perching now is that there are land deeds
deposited in a particular place, and the whole majesty and force and
judicial system of the State of South Dakota are behind the titles.
Very well, we have got to do something like that internationally. You
can not set up Poland, whom all the world through centuries has pitied
and sympathized with, as the owner of her property and not have
somebody take care that her title deeds are respected. You can not
establish freedom, my fellow citizens, without force, and the only
force vou can substitute for an armed mankind is the concerted force
V
of the combined action of mankind through the instrumentality of all
the enlightened Governments of the world. This is the only con-
ceivable system that you can substitute for the old order of things
which brought the calamity of this war upon us and would assuredly
bring the calamity of another war upon us. Your choice is between
the league of nations and Germanism. I have told you what I mean
by Germanism taking care of yourselves, being armed and ready,
having a chip on your shoulder, thinking of nothing but your own
rights and never thinking of the rights of anybody else, thinking that
you were put into this world to see that American might was asserted
and forgetting that American might ought never to be used against
the weak, ought never to be used in an unjust cause, ought never to be
used for aggression; ought to be used with the heart of humanity
beating behind it.
Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I
know I am an American. America, my fellow citizens I do not
say it in disparagement of any other great people America is the
only idealistic Nation in the world. When I speak practical judg-
ments about business affairs, I can only guess whether I am speaking
the voice of America or not, but when I speak the ideal purposes of
history I know that I am speaking the voice of America, because I
have saturated myself since I was a boy in the records of that spirit,
and everywhere in them there is this authentic tone of the love of
justice and the service of humanity. If by any mysterious influence
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 87
of error America should not take the leading part in this new enter-
prise of concerted power, the world would experience one of those
reversals of sentiment, one of those penetrating chills of reaction,
which would lead to a universal cynicism, for if America goes back
upon mankind, mankind has no other place to turn. It is the hope
of nations all over the world that America will do this great thing.
Yet I find some gentlemen so nervous about doing right that their eyes
rest very uneasily on the first article of the covenant of the league of
nations, and they say “That says that we can get out after two years’
notice, if we have fulfilled all our international obligations at that
time. Now, we want to make it perfectly clear that we will get out
when we want to.” You can not make it perfectly clear in the way
they want it, unless you make it perfectly clear at the outset that you
want to get out. You can not choose the seat by the door and keep
fumbling with the knob without creating the impression that you are
going to get out in a minute ; that you do not like the company you
are in; that you do not like the job; that you are by constitution and
disposition a s uttler ! If America goes into this thing, she is going
to stay in, and she is going to stay in in order to see that justice is
done. She can see to it, because if you read this covenant of the
league you will find that, America being one of the members of the
council of the league, nothing material can be done under that league
without a unanimous vote of the council. America can determine
what action is going to be taken. No action that is against her
policy or against her will can be taken, unless her judgment is ren-
dered in some case where she is one of the disputants, but, my fellow
citizens, if she is one of the disputants, she is in trouble anyhow. If
the war that they are trying to avert is her war, then I do not see
that she is any more benefited by being out of the league than in it.
On the contrary, if she is in the league, she has at least the good
offices of other friendly States to see that some accommodation is
reached.
And she is doing exactly what she has done already. Some gentle-
men forget that we already have nearly 30 treaties with the leading
nations of the world. Yes ; and to do the very thing that is in this
covenant, only we agree to take 12 months to discuss everything,
whereas the league gives 9 months. The American choice would be
12. We promise not to fight without first talking. I want to call a
great many here witness to this circumstance, for I am sure by looking
at you that you know something about it. What is the certain way to
have difficulty between capital and labor? It is to refuse to sit down
in the same room and talk it over. I can not understand why one
man or set of men should refuse to discuss claims or grievances with
another set of men, unless they know to begin with that they are
wrong. I am very averse from discussing anything when I know I
88 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
have got the wrong end, but when I think I have got either the right
end or as good an end as the other fellow, then I am perfectly willing
to discuss it. There is an old saying accredited to a rather cynical
politician of what I hope I may regard as the older school, who said
to his son, ” John, do not bother your head about lies ; they will take
care of themselves; but if you ever hear me denying anything, you
may be sure it is so.” The only thing we are afraid of, the only thing
we dodge, is the truth. If we see facts coming our way, it is just as
well to get out of the way. Always take this attitude, my friends,
toward facts ; Always try to see them coming first, so that they will
not catch you at unawares. So with all matters, grading up from the
smallest to the greatest. Human beings can get together by dis-
cussion, and it is the business of civilization to get together by dis-
cussion and not by fighting. That is civilization. The only reason
this country is civilized is because we do not let two men who have a
difference fight one another. We say, ” Wait a minute ; we have
arranged for that. Just around the corner there you will find a court-
house. On certain days the court is sitting. Go and state the matter
to those men, and neither before nor after the decision shall you touch
one another.” That is civilization. You have got the ordered proc-
esses of consultation and discussion. You have got to act by rule, and
justice consists in applying the same rule to everybody, not one rule
to the rich man and another to the poor ; not one rule to the employer
and another to the employee, but the same rule to the strong and to
the weak.
That is exactly what is attempted in this treaty. I can not under-
stand the psychology of men who are resisting it. I can not under-
stand what they are afraid of, unless it is that they know physical
force and do not understand moral force. Moral force is a great deal
more powerful than physical. Govern the sentiments of mankind
and you govern mankind. Govern their fears, govern their hopes,
determine their fortunes, get them together in concerted masses, and
the whole thing sways like a team. Once get them suspecting one
another, once get them antagonizing one another, and society itself
goes to pieces. We are trying to make a society instead of a set of
barbarians out of the governments of the world. I sometimes think,
when I wake in the night, of all the wakeful nights that anxious
fathers and mothers and friends have spent during those weary years
of this awful war, and I seem to hear the cry, the inarticulate cry of
mothers all over the world, millions of them on the other side of the
sea and thousands of them on this side of the sea, ” In God’s name,
give us the sensible and hopeful and peaceful processes of right and
of justice!”
America can stay out, but I want to call you to witness that the
peace of the world can not be established without America. America
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 89
is necessary to the peace of the world. And reverse the proposition :
The peace and good will of the world are necessary to America. Dis-
appoint the world, center its suspicion upon you, make it feel that
you are hot and jealous rivals of the other nations, and do you think
you are going to do as much business with them as you would other-
wise do? I do not like to put the thing on that plane, my fellow
countrymen, but if you want to talk business, I can talk business. If
you want to put it on the low plane of how much money you can
make, you can make more money out of friendly traders than out of
hostile traders. You can make more money out of men who trust
you than out of men who fear you. You can bring about a state of
mind where by every device possible foreign markets will be closed
to you, and men will say, ” No ; the wheat of America tastes bitter ;
we will eat the wheat of Argentina; we will eat the wheat of Aus-
tralia, for that is the wheat of friendship, and this is the wheat of
antagonism. We do not want to wear clothes made out of American
cotton; we are going to buy just as much cotton from India as we
can. We are going to develop new cotton fields. America is up to
something; we do not know just what, and we are going to S:in’: a:vl
lock every door we can against her.” You can get the world in that
temper. Do you think that would be profitable? Do you think there
is money in that ? But I am not going to dwell upon that side of it.
I am just as sure of what you are thinking as I am of what I am
thinking. We are not thinking of money. We would rather retain
the reputation of America than have all the money in the world. I
am not ready to die for money, and neither are you, but you are
ready and I am ready to die for America.
A friend of mine made a very poignant remark to me one day. He
said: “Did you ever see a family that hung its son’s yardstick or
ledger or spade up over the mantelpiece ? ‘ But how many of you
have seen the lad’s rifle, his musket, hung up ! Well, why ? A
musket is a barbarous thing. The spade and the yardstick and the
ledger are the symbols of peace and of steady business; why not
hang them up ? Because they do not represent self-sacrifice. They
do not glorify you. They do not dignify you in the same sense that
the musket does, because when you took that musket at the call of
your country you risked everything and knew you could not get any-
thing. The most that you could do was to come back alive, but after
you came back alive there was a halo about you. That boy was in
France! That boy served his country and served a great cause!
That boy risked everything to see that the weak peoples of the world
were redeemed from intolerable tyranny ! Here comes ah, how I
wish I were going to be in Washington on the 17th here comes, do
you not hear it, the tread of the First Division; those men, along
90 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
with their comrades, to whom the eyes of all Europe turn! All
Europe took heart when they saw that brilliant flag unfurled on
French soil.
Did you ever hear that thrilling song that is being sung so much
now of the blind Frenchman wishing to know if the Americans had
come, bidding his son watch at the window. ” Look, my lad, what
are they carrying ? What are the colors ? Are they red stripes upon
a field of white? Is there a piece of heaven in the corner? Is that
piece of heaven full of stars? Ah, the Americans have come!
Thank God, the Americans have come ! ‘ That is what we have at
our hearts, my fellow citizens, and we hang the musket up, or the
sworcl, over the mantelpiece. And if the lad is gone and dead, we
share the spirit of a noble lady, who said to me, without the glimmer
of a tear in her eye : ” I have had the honor of losing a son upon the
fields of France. I have had the honor, not the pain. I have had
the distinction of losing a son of mine upon the field of honor.” It is
that field of honor that we are going to redeem. We are not going to
redeem it with blood any more, but we are going to make out of the
counsels of the people of the world counsels of peace and of justice
and of honor.
ADDRESS BEFORE STATE LEGISLATURE, ST. PAUL,
MINN.,
SEPTEMBER 9, 1919.
Mr. Speaker, your excellency, gentlemen of the legislature, ladies
and gentlemen, I esteem it an unusual privilege to stand in this place
to-day and to address the members of this great body, because the
errand upon which I have left Washington is so intimate a matter of
the life of our own Nation as well as of the life of the world. Yet
I am conscious, standing in this presence, that perhaps the most ap-
propriate things I could allude to are those which affect us immedi-
ately. I know that you have been called together in special session
for special objects. One of those objects you have achieved, and I
rejoice with you in the adoption of the suffrage amendment. An-
other of the objects, I understand, is to consider the high cost of
living, and the high cost of living is one of those things which are
so complicated ; it ramifies in so many directions that it seems to me
we can not do anything in particular without knowing how the
particulars affect the whole. It is dangerous to play with a compli-
cated piece of machinery, piece by piece, unless you know how the
pieces are related to each other.
The cost of living at present is a world condition. It is due to
the fact that the man power of the world has been sacrificed in the
agony of the battle field and that all the processes of industry have
been either slackened or diverted. The production of foodstuffs, the
production of clothing, the production of all the necessaries of life
has either been slackened or it has been turned into channels which
are not immediately useful for the general civil population. Great
factories, as I need not tell you, in our own country which were de-
voted to the uses of peace have recently been diverted in such fashion
as to serve the purposes of war, and it will take a certain length of
time to restore them to their old adjustments, to put their machinery
to the old uses again, to redistribute labor so that it will not be con-
centra.ted upon the manufacture of munitions and the other stuffs
necessary for war, but will be devoted to the general processes of pro-
duction so necessary for our life.
Back of all that and I do not say this merely for an argumenta-
tive reason, but because it is true back of that lies the fact that we
91
92 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
have not yet learned what the basis of peace is going to be. The
world is not going to settle down, my fellow citizens, until it knows
what part the United States is going to play in the peace. And that
for a very interesting reason. The strain put upon the finances of
the other Governments of the world has been all but a breaking
strain. I imagine that it will be several generations before foreign
Governments can finally adjust themselves to carrying the over-
whelming debts which have been accumulated in this war. The
United States has accumulated a great debt, but not in proportion to
those that other countries have accumulated when you reckon our
wealth as compared with theirs. We are the only nation in the world
that “is likely in the immediate future to have a sufficient body of
free capital to put the industrial world, here and elsewhere, on its
feet again. Until the industrial world here and elsewhere is put on
its feet you can not finally handle the question of the cost of living,
because the cost of living in the last analysis depends upon the things
we are always talking about but do not know how to manage the
law of supply and demand. It depends upon manufacture and dis-
tribution. It depends upon all the normal processes of the industrial
and commercial world. It depends upon international credit. It
depends upon shipping. It depends upon the multiplication of
transportation facilities domestically. Our railroads at this moment
are not adequate to moving the commerce of this country. Every
here and there they run through a little neck for example, the
Pennsylvania system at Pittsburgh where everything is congested
and you are squeezing a great commerce through a little aperture.
Terminal facilities at the ports are not adequate. The problem
grows the more you think of it. What we have to put our minds to is
an international problem, first of all to set the commerce of the
world going again and the manufacture of the world going again.
And we have got to do that largely. Then we have got to see that
our OWR production and our own methods of finance and our own
commerce are quickened in every way that is possible. And then we,
sitting in legislatures like this and in the Congress of the United
States, have to see to it, if you will permit a vulgar expression, that
” nobody monkeys with the process.”
I understand that one of the excellent suggestions made by your
governor is that you look into the matter of cold storage. Well>
there are other kinds of storage besides cold storage. There are all
sorts of ways of governing and concentrating the reserve stocks of
goods. You do not have to keep everything cold, though you can
keep the cold hand of control on it; you can manage by a concert
that need not be put on paper to see to it that goods are doled out to
the market so that they will not get there so fast as to bring the price
down. The communities of the United States are entitled to see that
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 93
these dams are removed and that the waters that are going to fructify
the world flow in their normal courses. It is not easy. It is not
always pleasant. You do not like to look censoriously into the
affairs of your fellow citizens too much or too often, but it is neces-
sary to look with a very unsympathetic eye at some of the processes
which are retarding distribution and the supply which is going to
meet the demand.
Not onty that, but we have got to realize that we are face to face
with a great industrial problem which does not center in the United
States. It centers elsewhere, but which we share with the other
countries of the world. That is the relation between capital and
labor, between those who employ and those who are employed, and
we might as well sit up straight and look facts in the face, gentlemen.
The laboring men of the world are not satisfied with their relations
with their employers. Of course, I do not mean to say that there is
universal dissatisfaction, because here, there, and elsewhere, in
many cases fortunately, there are very satisfactory relations, but I
am now speaking of the general relationship which exists between
capital and labor. Everywhere there is dissatisfaction, with it much
more acute on the other side of the water than en this side, and one of
the things that have to be brought about for mankind can be brought
about by what we do in this country, because, as a matter of fact, if
I may refer for a moment to the treaty of peace, there is a part of
that treaty which sets up an international method of consultation
about the conditions of labor. It is a splendid instrument locked up
in that great document. I have called it frequently the Magna Charta
of labor, for it is that, and the standards set up, for standards are
stated, are the standards of American labor so far as they could be
adopted in a general conference. The point I wish to make is that
the world is looking to America to set the standards with regard to
the conditions of labor and the relations between labor and capital,
and it is looking to us because we have been more progressive than
other nations in those matters, though sometimes we have moved
very slowly and with undue caution. As a result of our progressive-
ness the ruling influences among our working men are conservative
in the sense that they see that it is not in the interest of labor to break
up civilization, and progressive in the sense that they see that a con-
structive program has to be adopted. By a progressive I do not
mean a man who is ready to move, but a man ‘,vho knows where he is
going when he moves. A man who has got a workable program is
the only progressive, because if you have not got a workable program
you can not make it good and you can not progress. Very well, then,
we have got to have a constructive program with regard to labor,
and the minute we get it we will relieve the strain all over the world,
because the world will accept our standards and follow our example.
I am not dogmatic about this matter. I can not presume that I know
94 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WIL&ON.
how it ought to be done. I know the principle upon which it ought
to be done. The principle is that the interests of capital and the
interests of labor are not different but the same, and men of business
sense ought to know how to work out an organization which will ex-
press that identity of interest. Where there is identity of interest
there must be community of interest. You can not any longer regard
labor as a commodity. You have got to regard it as a means of
association, the association of physical skill and physical vigor with
the enterprise which is managed by those who represent capital : and
when you do, the production of the world is going to go forward by
leaps and bounds.
Why is it that labor organizations jealously limit the amount of
work that their men can do? Because they are driving hard bar-
gains with you ; they do not feel that they are your partners at all,
and so long as labor and capital are antagonistic production is going
to be at its minimum. Just so soon as they are sympathetic and
cooperative it is going to abound, and that will be one of the means
of bringing down the cost of living. In other words, my fellow
citizens, we can do something, we can do a great deal, along the lines
of your governor’s recommendation and along the lines that I took
the liberty of recommending to the Congress of the United States,
but we must remember that we are only beginning the push, that we
are only learning the job, and that its ramifications extend into all
the relationships of international credit and international industry.
We ought to give our thought to this, gentlemen : America, though
we do not like to admit it, has been very provincial in regard to the
world’s business. When we had to engage in banking transactions
outside the United States we generally did it through English
bankers or, more often, through German bankers. You did not find
American banks in Shanghai and Calcutta and all around the circle
of the world. You found every other bank there ; you found French
banks and English banks and German banks and Swedish banks.
You did not find American banks. American bankers have not, as
a rule, handled international exchange, and here all of a sudden, as
if by the turn of the hand, because of the sweeping winds of this
war which have destroyed so many things, we are called upon to
handle the bulk of international exchange: We have have got t<5
learn it, and we have got to learn it fast. We have got to have
American instrumentalities in every part of the world if American
money is going to rehabilitate the world, as American money must.
If you say, “Why should we rehabilitate the world?” I will not
suggest any altruistic motive; but if you want to trade you have
got to have somebody to trade with. If you want to carry your
business to the ends of the world, there must be business at the ends
of the world to tie in with. And if the business of the world lags
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 95
your industries lag and your prosperity lags. We have no choice
but to be the servants of the world if we would be our own servants.
I do not like to put it on that ground because that is not the American
ground. America is ready to help the world, whether it benefits her
or not. She did not come into the world, she was not created by
the great men who set her Government up, in order to make money
out of the rest of mankind. She was set up in order to rehabilitate
the rest of mankind, and the dollar of American money spent to
free those who have been enslaved is worth more than a million dol-
lars put in any American pocket.
It is in this impersonal way that I am trying to illustrate to you
how the problem that we are facing in the high cost of living is the
end and the beginning and a portion of a world problem, and the
great difficulty, just now, my fellow citizens, is in getting some minds
adjusted to the world. One of the difficulties that are being en-
countered about the treaty and the league of nations, if I may be per-
mitted to say so and perhaps I can say so the more freely here be-
cause I do not think this difficulty exists in the mind of either Sen-
ator from this State the difficulty is, not prejudice so much but
that thing which is so common and so inconvenient just downright
ignorance. Ignorance, I mean, of the state of the world and of
America’s relation to the state of the world. We can not change
that relation. It is a fact. It is a fact bigger than anybody of us,
and one of the advantages that the United States has it ought not to
forfeit; it is made up out of all the thinking peoples of the world.
We do not draw our blood from any one source ; we do not draw our
principles from any one nation ; we are made up out of all the sturdy
stocks of the round world. We have gotten uneasy because some
other kinds of stocks tried to come in ; but the bulk remains the same ;
we are made up out of the hard-headed, hard-fisted, practical and
yet idealistic, and forward-looking peoples of the world, and we of
all people ought to have an international understanding, an ability
to comprehend what the problem of the world is and what part we
ought to play in that problem. We have got to play a part, and we
can play it either as members of the board of directors or as outside
speculators. We can play it inside or on the curb, and you know
how inconvenient it is to play it on the curb.
There is one thing that I respect more than any other, and ‘that is
a fact. I remember, when I was governor of the State of New Jer-
sey, I was very urgently pressing some measures which a particular
member of the senate of the State, whom I knew and liked very much,
was opposed to. His constituents were very much in favor of it, and
they sent an influential committee down personally to conduct his
vote ; and after he had voted for the me&sure they brought him, look-
96 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ing a little sheepish, into my office to be congratulated. Well, he and
I kept as straight faces as we could, and I congratulated him very
warmly, and then with a very heavy wink he said to me behind his
hand, ” Governor, they never get me if I see ’em coming first.” Now,
that is not a very high political principle, but I commend that prin-
ciple to you with regards to facts. Never let them get you if you see
them coming first ; and any man with open eyes can see the facts com-
ing, coming in serried ranks, coming in overwhelming power, not to
be resisted by the United States or any other nation. The facts are
marching and God is marching with them. You can not resist them.
You must either welcome them or subsequently, with humilia-
tion, surrender to them. It is welcome or surrender. It is accept-
ance of great world conditions and great world duties or scuttle now
and come back afterwards.
But I am not arguing this with you, because I do not believe it is
necessary in the State of Minnesota. I am merely telling you. It is
like the case of the man who met two of his fellow lawyers and asked
them what they were discussing. They said, “We were discussing
who is the leading member of the bar of this county,” and the other
said, “Why, I am.” They said, “How do you prove it?” He said,
” I don’t have to prove it ; I admit it.” I think that that is the state
of mind of the thoughtful persons of our country, and they, thank
God, are the chief portions of it, with regard to the great crisis that
we are face to face with now.
It has been a privilege, gentlemen, to be permitted in this informal
way to disclose to you some part of the thought which I am carrying
about with me as really a great burden, because I have seen the dis-
turbed world on the other side of the water. I know the earnest hope
and beautiful confidence with which they are looking toward us, and
my heart is full of the burden of it. It is a great responsibility for
us to carry. We will have to have infinite intelligence and infinite
diligence in business to fulfill the expectations of the peoples of the
world ; and yet that is our duty, our inescapable duty, and we must
concert together to perform it.
Everywhere I have been on this trip the majority of the committee
that has received me has consisted of Republicans, and nothing has
pleased me so much, because I should be ashamed of myself if I per-
mitted any partisan thought to enter into this great matter. If I
were a scheming politician and anybody wished to present me with
the peace of the world as a campaign issue, it would be very welcome,
because there could be no issue easier to win on ; but everybody knows
that that is not a worthy thought, everybody knows that we are all
Americans. Scratch a Democrat or a Republican and underneath it
is the same stuff. And the labels rub off upon the slightest effort not
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 97
the memories, the recollections ; some of them are very stubborn, but
it is the principle that matters. The label does not make much differ-
ence. The principle is just the same, and the only thing we differ
about is the way to carry out the principle. Back of all lies that won-
derful thing, that thing which the foreigner was amazed to see in
the faces of our soldiers, that incomparable American spirit which
you do not see the like of anywhere ; that universal brightness of ex-
pression, as if every man know there was a future and that he had
something to do with molding it, instead of that dull, expressionless
face which means that there is nothing but a past and a burdensome
present. You do not see that in the American face. The American
face mirrors the future, and, my fellow citizens, the American pur-
pose mirrors the future of the world.
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 7
#ADDRESS AT MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.,
SEPTEMBER 9, 1919.
Your honor, your excellency, my fellow countrymen, I have come
here to discuss a very solemn question, and I shall have to ask your
patience while you bear with me in discussing somewhat in detail the
very great matter which now lies not only before the consideration of
the people of the United States but before the consideration of the
people of the world. You have heard so many little things about the
treaty that perhaps you would like to hear some big things about it.
To hear some gentlemen you would think it was an arrangement for
the inconvenience of the United States, whereas, as a matter of fact,
my fellow citizens, it is a world settlement, the first ever attempted,
attempted upon broad lines which were first laid down in America.
For, my fellow citizens, what does not seem to me realized in this
blessed country of ours is the fact that the world is in revolution.
I do not mean in active revolution. I do not mean that it is in a
state of mind which will bring about the dissolution of governments.
I mean that it is in a state of mind which may bring about the
dissolution of governments if we do not enter into a world settlement
which will really in fact and in power establish justice and right.
The old order of things the rest of the world seemed to have got in
some sense used to. The old order of things was not to depend upon
the general moral judgment of mankind, not to base policies upon
international right, but to base policies upon international power.
So there were drawn together groups of nations which stood armed,
facing one another, which stood drawing their power from the
vitality of people who did not wish to be subordinated to them, draw-
ing their vitality from the energy of great peoples who did not wish
to devote their energy to force, but wished to devote their energy to
peace. The world thought it was inevitable. This group of nations
thought that it represented one set of principles; that group of
nations thought that it represented another set of principles and that
the best that could be accomplished in the world was this that they
used to call the balance of power.
Notice the phrase. Not the balance that you try to maintain in
a court of justice, not the scales of justice, but the scales of force;
99
100 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
one great force balanced against another force. Every bit of the
policy of the world, internationally speaking, was made in the interest
of some national advantage on the part of the stronger nations of the
world. It was either the advantage of Germany or the advantage of
Great Britain or the advantage of Italy or the advantage of Japan.
I am glad to say that I am not justified in adding that the policy of
the world was ever conceived by us upon the basis of the advantage
of America. We wished always to be the mediators of justice and of
right, but we thought that the cool spaces of the ocean to the east and
the west of us would keep us from the infections that came, arising like
miasmatic mists out of that arrangement of power and of suspicion
and of dread.
I believe, my fellow countrymen, that the only people in Europe
who instinctively realized what was going to happen and w T hat did
happen in 1914 was the French people. It has been my privilege to
come into somewhat intimate contact with that interesting and
delightful people, and I realize now that for nearly 50 years, ever since
the settlement which took Alsace-Lorraine away from them in 1871.
they have been living under the constant dread of the catastrophe
which at last came ; and their thought throughout this conference was
that they must concert some measure, must draw together some kind
of cooperative force, which would take this intolerable dread from
their hearts, that they could not live another 50 years, expecting what
would come at last. But the other nations took it lightly. There were
wise men in Great Britain, there were wise men in the United States,
who pointed out to us not only what they suspected, but what we all
knew r with regard to the preparations for the use of force in Europe.
Nobody was ignorant of what Germany was doing. What we shut
our eyes against deliberately was the probability that she would make
the use of her preparation that she did finally make of it. Her mili-
tary men published books and told us what they were going to do
with i^ but we dismissed them. We said, ” The thing is a nightmare.
The man is a crank. It can not be that he speaks for a great Gov-
ernment. The thing is inconceivable and can not happen.” Very
w r ell, could not it happen ? Did not it happen ? Are we satisfied now
what the balance of power means ? It means that the stronger force”
will sometimes be exercised or an attempt be made to exercise it to
crush the other powers.
The great nations of the world have been asleep, but God knows the
other nations have not been asleep. I have seen representatives of
peoples over there who for generations through, in the dumbness of
unutterable suffering, have known what the weight of those arma-
ments and the weight of that power meant. The great Slavic people,
the great Roumanian people, the people who were constantly under
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 101
the pressure of that power, the great Polish people they all knew,
but they were inarticulate ; there was no place in the world where they
dared speak out. Now the catastrophe has come. Blood has been
spilt in rivers, the flower of the European nations has been destroyed,
and at last the voiceless multitudes of men are awake, and they have
made up their minds that rather than have this happen again, if the
governments can not get together, they will destroy the governments.
I am not speaking revolution, my friends. I believe that the most
disastrous thing that can happen to the underman, to the man who is
suffering, to the man who has not had his rights, is to destroy public
order, for that makes it certain he never can get his rights. I am far
from intimating that, but I am intimating this, that the people of the
world are tired of every other kind of experiment except the one we
are going to try. I have called it an experiment ; I frankly admit that-
it is an experiment, but it is a very promising experiment, because
there is not a statesman in the world who does not know that his
people demand it. He is not going to change his mind. He is not
going to change his direction. He is not speaking what he wants, it
may be, but he is speaking what he knows he must speak, and that
there is no turning back ; that the world has turned a corner that it
will never turn again. The old order is gone, and nobody can build it
up again.
In the meantime what are men doing? I want you to reflect upon
this, my fellow countrymen, because this is not a speech-making
occasion ; this is a conference. I want you men to reflect upon what
I am about to call your attention to. The object of the war was to
destroy autocratic power ; that is to say, to make it impossible that
there should be anywhere, as there was on Wilhelmstrasse, in Berlin,
a little group of military men who could brush aside the bankers,
brush aside the merchants, brush aside the manufacturers, brush
aside the Emperor himself, and say, ” We have perfected a machine
with which we can conquer the world; now stand out of the way,
we are going to conquer the world.” There must not be that possi-
bility any more. There must not be men anywhere in any private
place who can plot the mastery of civilization. But in the meantime
look at the pitiful things that are happening. There is not a day
goes by, my fellow citizens, that my heart is not heavy to think of
our fellow beings in that great, pitiful kingdom of Russia, without
form, without order, without government. Look what they have
done. They have permitted a little handful of men I am told there
are only 34 of them constituting the real Bolshevist government to
set up a minority government just as autocratic and just as cruelly
unmerciful as the government of the Czar ever w 7 as. The danger to
the world, my fellow citizens, against which we must absolutely
102 ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
lock the door in this country, is that some governments of minorities
may be set up here as elsewhere. We will brook the control of no
minority in the United States. For my own part, I would as leave
live under one autocracy as another ; I would as leave obey one group
as another; I would as leave be the servant of one minority as
another, but I do not intend to be the servant of any minority. As I
have told you, the mass of men are awake. They are not going to let
the world sink back into that old slough of misused authority again.
Very well, then, what are we discussing? What are we debating
in the United States? Whether we will take part in guiding and
steadying the world or not. And some men hesitate. It is the only
country in the world whose leadership and guidance will be accepted.
If we do not give it, we may look forward, my fellow citizens, to
. something like a generation of doubt and of disorder which it will
be impossible to pass through without the wreckage of a very con-
siderable part of our slowly constructed civilization. America and
her determinations now constitute the balance of moral force in the
world, and if we do not use that moral force we will be of all peoples
the most derelict. We are in the presence of this great choice, in the
presence of this fundamental choice, whether we will stand by the
mass of our own people and the mass of mankind. Pick up the great
volume of the treaty. It is a great volume. ‘It is as thick as that
[illustrating]. You would think it just had three or four articles in
it to hear some men talk about it. It is a thick volume, containing
the charter of the new order of the world. I took the pains to write
down here some of the things that it provides for, and if you will be
patient I will read them, because I can make it more brief that way.
It provides for the destruction of autocratic power as an instru-
ment of international control, admitting only self-governing nations
to the league of nations. Had you ever been told that before? No
nation is admitted to the league of nations whose people do not con-
trol its government. That is the reason that we are making Germany
wait. She says that henceforth her people are going to control her
Government, but we have got to wait and see. If they do control it,
she is as welcome to the league as anybody else, because we are not
holding nations off. We are holding selfish groups of men off. We
are not saying to peoples, ” We do not want to be your comrades and
serve you along with the rest of our fellow beings,” but we are say-
ing, ” It depends upon your attitude ; if you take charge of your
own affairs, then come into the game and welcome.” The league of
nations sends autocratic governments to Coventry. That is the first
point.
It provides for the substitution of publicity, discussion and arbitra-
tion for war. That is the supreme thing that it does. I will not go
into details now, but every member of the league promises not to go
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 103
to war until there has been a discussion and a cooling off of nine
months, and, as I have frequently said on this tour, if Germany had
submitted to discussion for nine days she never would have dared go
to war. Though every foreign office in Europe begged her to do so,
she would not grant 24 hours for a meeting of the representatives of
the Governments of the world to ask what it was all about, because
she did not dare tell what it was all about. Nine months’ cooling off
is a very valuable institution in the affairs of mankind. And you
have got to have a very good case if you are willing that all your
fellow men should know the whole case, for that is provided for, and
talk about it for nine months. Nothing is more valuable, if you
think your friend is a fool, than to induce him to hire a hall. If you
think he is a fool the only way to prove it is to let him address a mass
of his fellow citizens and see how they like his ideas. If they like
them and you do not, it may be that you are the fools ! The proof is
presented at any rate.
Instead of using force after this period of discussion, something
very much more effective than force is proposed, namely, an abso-
lute boycott of the nation that does not keep its covenant, and when
I say an absolute boycott I mean an absolute boycott. There can not
be any kind of intercourse with that nation. It can not sell or buy
goods. It can not receive or send messages or letters. It can not
have any transactions with the citizens of any member of the league,
and when you consider that the league is going to consist of every
considerable nation in the world, except Germany, you can see what
that boycott will mean. There is not a nation in the world, except
this one, that can live without importing goods for nine months, and
it does not make any difference to us whether we can or not, be-
t/ ?
cause we always fulfill our obligations, and there will never be a
boycott for us.
It provides for placing the peace of the world under constant
international oversight, in recognition of the principle that the peace
of- the world is the legitimate and immediate interest of every nation.
Why, as it stands at present, my fellow citizens, if there is likely to
be trouble between two nations other than the United States it is
considered an unfriendly and hostile act for the United States to
intervene. This covenant makes it the right of the United States,
and not the right of the United States merely, but the right of the
weakest nation in the world to bring anything that the most
powerful nation in the world is doing that is likely to disturb the
peace of the world under the scrutiny of mankind. [Voice in audi-
ence, “And that is right ! “] My friend in the audience says that is
right, and it undoubtedly is, because the peace of the world is every-
body’s business. Yet this is the first document that ever recognized
104 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
that principle. We now have the attitude of the Irishman, you know,
who went into one of those antique institutions known as a saloon.
It was rather a large place, and he saw two men fighting over in the
corner. He went up to the bartender and he said, ” Is this a private
fight, or can everybody get in ? ‘ Now, in the true Irish spirit, we are
abolishing private fights, and we are making it the law of mankind
that it is everybody’s business and everybody can get in. The conse-
quence is that there will be no attempt at private fights.
It provides for disarmament on the part of the great fighting na-
tions of the world.
It provides in detail for the rehabilitation of oppressed peoples,
and that will remove most of the causes of war.
It provides that there shall be no more annexations of territory
anywhere, but that those territories whose people are not ready to
govern themselves shall be intrusted to the trusteeship of the nations
that can take care of them, the trustee nation to be responsible in
annual reports to the league of nations ; that is to say, to mankind in
general, subject to removal and restricted in respect to anything that
might be done to that population which would be to the detriment
of the population itself. So that you can not go into darkest Africa
and makes slaves of those poor people, as some governments at times
have done.
It abolishes enforced labor. It takes the same care of the women
and children of those unschooled races that we try to take of the
women and children of ours. Why, my fellow citizens, this is the
great humane document of all time.
It provides that every secret treaty shall be invalid. It sweeps the
table of all private understandings and enforces the principle that
there shall be no private understandings of any kind that anybody
is bound to respect. One of the difficulties in framing this treaty
was that after we got over there private secret treaties were
springing up on all sides like a noxious growth. You had to guard
your breathing apparatus against the miasma that arose from some
of them. . But they were treaties, and the war had been fought on
the principle of the sacredness of treaties. We could not propose
that solemn obligations, however unwisely undertaken, should be
disregarded, but we could do the best that was possible in the pres-
ence of those understandings and then say, “No more of this; no
more secret understandings.” And the representatives of every great
nation in the world assented without demur without the slightest
difficulty.
I do not think you realize what a change of mind has come over
the world. As we used to say in the old days, some men that never
got it before have got religion.
It provides for the protection of dependent peoples.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 105
It provides that high standards of labor, such as are observed in
the United States, shall be extended to the workingman everywhere
in the world.
It provides that all the great humane instrumentalities, like the
Red Cross, like the conventions against the opium trade, like the regu-
lation of the liquor traffic with debased and ignorant people, like the
prohibition of the selling of arms and ammunition to people who can
use them only to their own detriment, shall be under the common
direction and control of the league of nations. Now, did you ever
hear of all these things before? That is the treaty, my fellow citi-
zens ; and I can only conjecture that some of the men who are fighting
the treaty either never read it themselves or are taking it for granted
that you will not read it. I say without hesitation that no interna-
tional agreement has ever before been drawn up along those lines
of the universal consideration of right and the interest of humanity.
Now, it is said that that is all very well, but we need not go in.
Well, of course we need not. There is perfect freedom of the will.
I am perfectly free to go to the top of this building and jump off, but
if I do I will not take very much interest in human affairs. The
Nation is at liberty in one sense to do anything it pleases to discredit
itself ; but this is absolutely as certain as I stand here, that it never
will do anything to discredit itself. Our choice in this great enter-
prise of mankind that I have tried to outline to you is only this:
Shall we go in and assist as trusted partners or shall we stay out and
act as suspected rivals? We have got to do one or the other. We
have got to be either provincials or statesmen. We have got to be
either ostriches or eagles. The ostrich act I see being done all around
me. I see gentlemen burying their heads in something and thinking
that nobody sees that they have submerged their thinking apparatus.
That is what I mean by being ostriches. What I mean by being eagles
I need not describe to you. I mean leaving the mists that lie close
along the ground, getting upon strong wing into those upper spaces
of the air where you can see with clear eyes the affairs of mankind,
see how the affairs of America are linked with the affairs of men
everywhere, see how the whole world turns with outstretched hands
to this blessed country of ours and says, ” If you will lead, we will
follow.” God helping us, my fellow countrymen, we will lead when
they follow. The march is still long and toilsome to those heights
upon which there rests nothing but the pure light of the justice of
God, but the whole incline of affairs is toward those distant heights ;
and this great Nation, in serried ranks, millions strong presently
hundreds of millions strong will march at the fore of the great pro-
cession, breasting those heights with its eyes always lifted to the
eternal goal !
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, ST. PAUL, MINN.,
SEPTEMBER 9, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, my fellow countrymen, I am very happy that the
mayor sounded the note that he has just sounded, because by some
sort of divination he realized what was in my heart to-night. I do
not feel since I have left Washington this time that I am on an
ordinary errand. I do not feel that I am on a political errand, even
in the broad sense of that term. I feel rather that I am going about
to hold counsel with my fellow countrymen concerning the most
honorable and distinguished course which our great country can
take at this turning point in the history of the world. And the mayor
was quite right when he said that this is a conference concerning the
true interpretation of the American spirit. I believe, I hope without
an undue touch of national pride, that it is only the American spirit
that can be the true mediator of peace.
The theme that I find uppermost in my thought to-night is this:
We are all actuated, my fellow countrymen, by an intense conscious-
ness and love of America. I do not think that it is fancy on my part ;
it is based upon long experience that in every part of the world I
can recognize an American the minute I see him. Yet that is not
because we are all of one stock. We are of more varied origins and
stocks than any people in the world. We come from all the great
races of the world. We are made up out of all the nations and
peoples who have stood at the center of civilization. In this part
of the country it is doubtful whether in some of our great cities 50
per cent of the people come of parents born in America. One of the
somewhat serious jests which I allowed myself to indulge on the
other side of the water was with my Italian colleagues when they
were claiming the city of Fiume upon the Adriatic because of its
Italian population, and other cities scattered here and there whose
surrounding population was not Italian but in whom an Italian ele-
ment played an important part. I said, “That is not a sufficient
argument for the extension of Italian sovereignty to these people,
because there are more Italians in New York City than in any city
in Italy, and I doubt if you would feel justified in suggesting that
107
108 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the sovereignty of Italy be extended over the city of New York.”
I advert to this, my fellow citizens, merely as one illustration, that
could be multiplied a hundredfold, of the singular make-up of this
great Nation.
I do not know how it happens that we are all Americans ; we are so
different in origin ; we are so different in memories. The memory of
America does not go very far back as measured by the distances of
history, and great millions of our people carry in their hearts the
traditions of other people, the traditions of races never bred in
America ; yet we are all unmistakably and even in appearance Ameri-
cans, and nothing else. There is only one possible explanation for
that, my fellow citizens, and that is that there is in the practice and
in the tradition of this country a set of principles which, however
imperfectly, get into the consciousness of every man who lives in this
country.
One of the chief elements that make an American is this : In almost
every other country there is some class that dominates, or some govern-
mental authority that determines the course of politics, or some
ancient system of land laws that limits the freedom of land tenure, or
some ancient custom which ties a man into a particular groove in the
land in which he lives. There is none of that in America. Every man
in America, if he behaves himself, knows that he stands on the same
footing as every other man in America, and, thank goodness, we are
in sight of the time when every woman will know that she stands upon
the same footing. We do not have to ask anybody’s leave what we
shall think or what we shall do or how we shall vote. We do not have
to get the approval of a class as to our behavior. We do not have to
square ourselves with standards that have been followed ever since
our great-grandfathers. We are very much more interested in being
great-grandfathers than in having had great-grandfathers, because
our view is to the future. America does not march, as so many other
peoples” march, looking back over its shoulder. It marches with its
eyes not only forward, but with its eyes lifted to the distances of
history, to the great events which are slowly culminating, in the
Providence of God, in the lifting of civilization to new levels and new
achievements. That is what makes us Americans.
And yet I was mistaken a moment ago when I said we are noth-
ing else, because there are a great many hyphens left in America.
For my part, I think the most un-American thing in the world is
a hyphen. I do not care what it is that comes before the word
” American.” It may be a German- American, or an Italian- Ameri-
can, a Swedish- American, or an Anglo-American, or an Irish-
American. It does not make any difference what comes before
the ” American,” it ought not to be there, and every man who
comes to take counsel with me with a hyphen in his conversa-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 109
tion I take no interest in whatever. The entrance examination,
to use my own parlance, into my confidence is, ” Where do you put
America in your thoughts ? Do you put it first, always first, unques-
tionably “first ?’ ; Then we can sit down together and talk, but not
otherwise. Now, I want you distinctly to understand that I am not
quarreling with the affectionate memories of people who have drawn
their origin from other countries. I no more blame a man for
dwelling with fond affection upon the traditions of some great
race not bred in America than I blame a man for remembering with
reverence his mother and his father and his forebears that bred him
and that gave him a chance in the world. I am not quarreling with
those affections ; I am talking about purposes. Every purpose is for
the future, and the future for Americans must be for America.
We have got to choose now, my fellow citizens, what kind of future
it is going to be for America. I think that what I have said justifies
me in adding that this Nation was created to be the mediator of
peace, because it draws its blood from every civilized stock in the
world and is ready by sympathy and understanding to understand
the peoples of the world, their interests, their rights, their hopes,
their destiny. America is the only Nation in the world that has that
equipment. Every other nation is set in the mold of a particular
breeding. We are set in no mold at all. Every other nation has
certain prepossessions which run back through all the ramifications
of an ancient history. We have nothing of the kind. We know
what all peoples are thinking, and yet we by a fine alchemy of our
own combine that thinking into an American plan and an American
purpose. America is the only Nation which can sympathetically
lead the world in organizing peace.
Constantly, when I was on the other side of the water, delegations
representing this, that, and the other peoples of Europe or of Asia
came to visit me to solicit the interest of America in their fortunes,
and, without exception, they were able to tell me that they had kins-
men in America. Some of them, I am ashamed to say, came from
countries I had never heard of before, and yet even they were able to
point, not to a handful, not to a few hundreds, but to several thousand
kinsmen in America. I never before knew that they came, but they
are here and they are our interpreters, the interpreters on our behalf
of the interests of the people from whom they sprang. They came to
America as sort of advanced couriers of those people. They came in
search of the Golden West. They came in search of the liberty that
they understood reigned among that free and happy people. They
were drawn by the lure of justice, by the lure of freedom., out of lands
where they were oppressed, suppressed, where life was made im-
possible for them upon the free plane that their hearts had conceived.
They said, “Yonder is our star in the west,” and then the word went
110 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
home, “We have found the land. They are a free people that are
capable of understanding us. You go to their representatives in Paris
and put your case before them, and they will understand.” What a
splendid thing that is, my fellow countrymen ! I want you to keep
this in your minds as a conception of the question that we are now
called upon to decide.
To hear some men talk about the league of nations you would
suppose that it was a trap set for America ; you would suppose that it
was an arrangement by which we entered into an alliance with other
great, powerful nations to make war some time. Why, my fellow
countrymen, it bears no resemblance to such description. It is a great
method of common counsel with regard to the common interests of
mankind. We shall not be drawn into wars ; we shall be drawn inta
consultation, and we will be -the most trusted adviser in the whole
group. Consultation, discussion, is written all over the whole face
of the covenant of the league of nations, for the heart of it is that the
nations promise not to go to war until they have consulted, until they
have discussed, until all the facts in the controversy have been laid
before the court which represents the common opinion of mankind.
That is the league of nations. Nothing can be discussed there that
concerns our domestic affairs. Nothing can be discussed there that
concerns the domestic affairs of any other people, unless something
is occurring in some nation which is likely to disturb the peace of
the world, and any time that any question arises which is likely to
disturb the peace of the world, then the covenant makes it the
right of any member, strong or weak, big or little, of that
universal concert of the nations to bring that matter up for clarifica-
tion and discussion. Can you imagine anything more calculated to
put war off, not only to put it off, but to make it violently improb-
able? When a man wants to fight he does not go and discuss the
matter with the other fellow. He goes and hits him, and then some-
body else has to come in and either join the fight or break it up. I
used a very homely illustration the other night, which perhaps it
may not be amiss for me to use again. I had two friends who were
becoming more and more habitually profane. Their friends did not
like it. They not only had the fundamental scruple that it was
wrong, but they also thought, as I heard a very refined lady say, .” It
was not only wrong but, what was worse, it was vulgar.” They did
not like to see their friends adjourning all the rest of their vocabu-
larly and using only those words. So they made them enter into a
solemn agreement I ought to say they lived in a large city that
they would not swear inside the corporate limits ; that if they got in
a state of mind which made it necessary to explode in profanity they
would get out of town and swear.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. Ill
The first time the passion came upon them and they recalled their
promise they got sheepishly on a street car and made for the town
limits, and I need hardly tell you that when they got there they no
longer wanted to swear. They had cooled off. The long spaces of
the town, the people going about their ordinary business, nobody
paying any attention to them, the world seeming to be at peace when
they were at war, all brought them to a realization of the smallness
of the whole business, and they turned around and came into town
again. Comparing great things with small, that will suffice as a
picture of the advantage of discussion in international matters as
well as in individual matters, because it was universally agreed on the
other side of the water that if Germany had allowed the other Gov-
ernments to confer with her 24 hours about the recent war, it could
not have taken place. We know why. It was an unconscionable war.
She did not dare discuss it. You can not afford to discuss a thing
when you are in the wrong, and the minute you feel that the whole
judgment of the world is against you, you have a different temper
in affairs altogether.
This is a great process of discussion that we are entering into,
and my point to-night it is the point I want to leave with you is
that we are the people of all people in the world intelligently to
discuss the difficulties of the nations which we represent, although
we are Americans. We are the predestined mediators of mankind.
I am not saying this in any kind of national pride or vanity. I be-
lieve that is mere historic truth, and I try to interpret circumstances
in some intelligent way. If that is the kind of people we are, it
must have been intended that we should make some use of the oppor-
tunities and powers that we have, and when I hear gentlemen say-
ing that we must keep out of this thing and take care of ourselves
I think to myself, “Take care of ourselves? Where did we come
from ? Is there nobody else in the world to take care of ? Have we
no sympathies that do not run out into the great field of human ex-
perience everywhere? Is that what America is, with her mixture
of bloods ? ‘ Why, my fellow citizens, that is a fundamental miscon-
ception of what it is to be an American, and these gentlemen are
doing a harm which they do not realize. I want to testify to you
here to-night, my fellow citizens, because I have the means of in-
formation, that since it has seemed to be uncertain whether we are
going to play this part of leadership in the world or not, this part
of leadership in accommodation, the old intrigues have stirred up in
this country again. That intrigue which we universally condemn
that hyphen which looked to us like a snake, the hyphen between
” German ‘ and “American r -has reared its head again, and you
hear the “his-s-s” of its purpose. What is that purpose? It is to
keep America out of the concert of nations, in order that America
112 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
and Germany, being out of that concert, may stand in their mis-
taken dream united to dominate the world, or, at any rate, the one
assist the other in holding the nations of the world off while its
ambitions are realized.
There is no conjecture about this, my fellow citizens. We know
the former purposes of German intrigue in this country, and they are
being revived. Why ? We have not reduced very materially the num-
ber of the German people. Germany remains the great power of central
Europe. She has more than 60,000,000 people now (she had nearly
70,000,000 before Poland and other Provinces were taken away).
You can not change the temper and expectations of a people by five
years of war, particularly five years of war in which they are not yet
conscious of the wrong they did or of the wrong way in which they
did it. They are expecting the time of the revival of their power,
and along with the revival of their power goes their extraordinary
capacity, their unparalleled education, their great capacity in com-
merce and finance and manufacture. The German bankers and the
German merchants and the German manufacturers did not want
this war. They were making conquest of the world without it, and
they knew it would spoil their plans, not advance them; and it
has spoiled their plans, but they are there yet with their capacity,
with their conception of what it is to serve the world materially and
so subdue the world psychologically. All of that is still there, my
fellow countrymen, and if America stays out then the rest of the
world will have to watch Germany and watch America, and when
there are two dissociated powers there is danger that they will have
the same purposes.
There can be only one intelligent reason for America staying out
of this, and that is that she does not want peace, that she wants war
sometimes and the advantage which war will bring her, and I want
to say now and here that the men who think that by that thought
they are interpreting America are making the sort of mistake upon
which It will be useful for them to reflect in obscurity for the rest
of their lives. This is a peaceful people. This is a liberty-loving
people, and liberty is suffocated by war. Free institutions can not
survive the strain of prolonged military administration. In order to
Jive tolerable lives you must lift the fear of war and the practice of
war from the lives of nations. America is evidence of the fact that
no great democracy ever entered upon an aggressive international
policy. I want you to know, if you will be kind enough to read the
covenant of the league of nations most of the people that are argu-
ing against it are taking it for granted that you have never read it-
take the pains to read it, and you will find that no nation is admitted
to the league of nations that can not show that it has the institutions
which we call free. Nobody is admitted except the self-governing
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 113
nations, because it was the instinctive judgment of every man who sat
around that board that only a nation whose government was its
servant and not its master could be trusted to preserve the peace of
the world. There are not going to be many other kinds of nations
long, my fellow citizens. The people of this world not merely the
people of America, for they did the job long ago have determined
that there shall be no more autocratic governments.
And in their haste to get rid of one of them they set up another.
I mean in pitiful Eussia. I wish we could learn the lesson of Russia
so that it would be burned into the consciousness of every man and
woman in America. That lesson is that nobody can be free where
there is not public order and authority. What has happened in
Russia is that an old and distinguished and skillful autocracy has
had put in its place an amateur autocracy, a little handful of men
exercising without the slightest compunction of mercy or pity the
bloody terror that characterized the worst days of the Czar. That
is what must happen if you knock things to pieces. Liberty is a thing
of slow construction. Liberty is a thing of universal cooperation.
Liberty is a thing which you must build up by habit. Liberty is
a thing which is rooted and grounded in character, and the reason I
am so certain that the leadership of the world, in respect of order
and progress, belongs to America is that I know that these principles
are rooted and grounded in the American character. It is not our
intellectual capacity, my fellow-citizens, that has given us our place
in the world, though I rate that as high as the intellectual capacity
of any other people that ever lived, but it is the heart that lies back
of the man that makes America. ‘ Ask this question of yourselves.
I have no doubt that this room is full of mothers and fathers and
wives and sweethearts who sent their beloved young men to France.
What did you send them there for? What made you proud that
they were going ? What made you willing that they should go ? Did
you think they were seeking to aggrandize America in some way?
Did you think they were going to take something for America that
had belonged to somebody else ? Did you think that they were going
in a quarrel which they had provoked and must maintain? The
question answers itself. You were proud that they should go because
they were going on an errand of self-sacrifice, in the interest of man-
kind. What a halo and glory surrounds those old men whom we now
greet with such reverence, the men who were the soldiers in our Civil
War ! They saved a Nation. Ah, when these youngsters grow old
who have come back from the fields of France, what a halo will be
around their brows ! They saved the world. They are of the same
stuff as those old veterans of the Civil War. Mind you, I was born
and bred in the South, but I can pay that tribute with all my heart
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 8
114 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
to the men who saved the Union. It ought to have been saved. It
was the greatest thing that men had conceived up to that time. Now
we come to a greater thing to the union of great nations in con-
ference upon the interests of peace. That is the fruitage, the fine
and appropriate fruitage, of what these men achieved upon the fields
of France.
I saw many fine sights in Paris, many gallant sights, many sights
that quickened the pulse; but my pulse never beat so fast as when
I saw groups of our boys swinging along the street. They looked as
if they owned something, and they did. They owned the finest thing
in the world, the thing that we are going to prove was theirs. They
owned the ideals and conceptions that will govern the world. And
on this errand that I am going about on I feel that I am doing what
I can to complete what they so gallantly began. I should feel recre-
ant, my fellow citizens, if I did not do all that is in my power to do
to complete the ideal work which those youngsters so gallantly began.
This was a war to make similar wars impossible, and merely to win
this war and stop at that is to make it certain that we shall have to
fight another and a final one. I hear opponents of the league of
nations say, ” But this does not guarantee peace.” No ; nothing
guarantees us against human passion and error, but I would like to
put this business proposition to you : If it increases the probability of
peace by, let us say, 10 per cent, do you not think it is worth while ?
In my judgment, it increases it about 99 per cent. Henceforth the
genius of the world will be devoted to accommodating the counsels of
mankind and not confusing them ; not supplying heat but supplying
light; not putting friction into the machine, but easing the friction
off and combining the parts of the great machinery of civilization
so that they will run in smooth harmony and perfection. My fellow
citizens, the tasks of peace that are ahead of us are the most difficult
tasks to which the human genius has ever been devoted. I will state
the fundamental task, for it is the fundamental task. It is the
relationship between those who toil with their hands and those who
direct that toil. I will not say the relationship between capital and
labor; that means something slightly different. I say the relation-
ship between those who organize enterprise and those who make
enterprise go by the skill and labor of their hands. There is at
present, to say the least, a most unsatisfactory relationship between
those two and we must devote our national genius to working out a
method of association between the two which will make this Nation
the nation to solve triumphantly and for all time the fundamental
problem of peaceful production. You ask, “What has that got to
do with the league of nations ? ‘ I dare say that you do not know
because I have never heard anybody tell you that the great charter,
the new international charter, of labor is in the treaty of peace and
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 115
associated with the league of nations. A great machinery of consul-
tation is set up there, not merely about international political affairs,
but about standards of labor, about the relationships between man-
agers and employees, about the standards of life and the conditions
of labor, about the labor of women and of children, about the humane
side and the business side of the whole labor problem. And the first
conference is going to sit in Washington next month ; not the confer-
ence which some of you may have heard of, which I have just called
of our own people, but an international conference to consider the
interests of labor all over the round world. I do not know nobody
knows whether the Senate will have stopped debating by that time
or not. I heard a Member of the Senate say that nobody knew that
except God Almighty ! But whether it has finished or not, the con-
ference is going to sit, and if it has not finished, the only question
that will be left unsettled is whether we are going to sit inside of it or
outside of it. The conference at Paris voted, in their confidence in
the American people, that the first meeting should be held in Wash-
ington and should be called by the President of the United States.
They supposed in their innocence that the President of the United
States represented the people of the United States. And in calling
this conference, as I have called it, I am confident that I am repre-
senting the people of the United States. After I have bidden the
delegates welcome, perhaps I can have a chair just outside the door
and listen.
I am jesting, my fellow citizens, but there is a little sadness in the
jest, Why do we wait to do a great thing? Why do we wait to ful-
fill the destiny of America ? Why do we make it possible that any-
body should think that we are not coming in now, but are going to
wait later and come in with Germany ? I suppose there is a certain
intellectual excitement and pleasure in debate, but I do not experience
any when great issues like this are pending, and I would be very
sad, indeed, if I did not have an absolute, unclouded confidence of
the result. I had the great good fortune to be born an American, I
have saturated myself in the traditions of our country, I have read
all the great literature that interprets the spirit of our country, and
when I read my own heart with regard to these great purposes, I
feel confident that it is a sample American heart. Therefore I have
the most unbounded confidence in the result. All that is needed is
that you should be vocal and audible. I know what you want. Say
it and get it. I am your servant ; all the men elected to go to Wash-
ington are your servants. It is not our privilege to follow our pri-
vate convictions ; it is our duty to represent your convictions and
execute your purposes, and therefore all that is needed is a conscious-
ness. Tell me that you do not want to do what I am urging and I
116 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
will go home; but tell me, as your faces and your voices tell me,
that you do want what I want, and I will be heartened for the rest
of my journey, and I will say to the folks all the way from here to
the Pacific, ” Minnesota is up and on her tiptoes and behind you.
Let’s all of us get in the great team which is to redeem the destinies
of mankind.”
Our fathers of the revolutionary age had a vision, my fellow citi-
zens. There were only 3,000,000 Americans then, in a little strip of
settlements on the Atlantic coast. Now the great body of American
citizens extends from ocean to ocean, more than a hundred millions
strong. These are the people of whom the founders of the Republic
were dreaming, those great hosts of free men and women who should
come in the future and who should say to all the world, ” Here are
the testaments of liberty. Here are the principles of freedom. Here
are the things which we must do in order that mankind may be re-
leased from the intolerable things of the past.” And there came a
day at Paris when the representatives of all the great governments of
the world accepted the American specifications upon which the terms
of the treaty of peace were drawn. Shall we have our treaty, or shall
we have somebody else’s ? Shall we keep the primacy of the world,
or shall we abandon it?
#ADDRESS AT BISMARCK, N. DAK.,
SEPTEMBER 10, 1919.
Gov. Frazier, my fellow countrymen, I esteem it a great privilege
to stand in your presence and to continue the discussion that I have
been attempting in other parts of the country of the great matter
which is pending for our determination. I say that it is pending for
our determination, because, after all, it is a question for the thought-
ful men and w T omen of the United States. I believe that the gentle-
men at Washington are trying to assess the opinion of the United
States and are trying to embody and express it.
It seems very strange from day to day as I go about that I should
be discussing the question of peace. It seems very strange that after
six months of conference in Paris, where the minds of more than 20
nations were brought together and where, after the most profound
consideration of every question and every angle of every question con-
cerned, an extraordinary agreement should have been reached that
while every other country concerned has stopped debating the
peace, America is debating it. It seems very strange to me, my fel-
low countrymen, because, as a matter of fact, we are debating the
question of peace or war. There is only one way to have peace, and
that is to have it by the concurrence of the minds of the world.
America can not bring about peace by herself. No other nation can
bring about peace by itself. The agreement of a small group of
nations can not bring about peace. The world is not at peace. It is
not, except in certain disturbed quarters, actually using military
means of war, but the mind of the world is not at peace. The mind
of the world is waiting for the verdict, and the verdict they are wait-
ing for is this, Shall we have in the future the same dangers, the same
suspicions, the same distractions, and shall we expect that out of
those dangers and distractions armed conflict will arise ? Or shall we
expect that the world will be willing to sit down at the council table
to talk the thing over; to delay all use of force until the world has
had time to express its judgment upon the matter at issue? If that
is not to be the solution, if the world is not to substitute discussion
and arbitration for war, then the world is not now in a state of mind
to have peace, even for the time being. While victory has been won,
my fellow countrymen, i has been won only over the force of a par-
117
118 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ticular group of nations. It has not been won over the passions of
those nations, or over the passions of the nations that were set against
them. This treaty which I brought back with me is a great world
settlement, and it tries to deal with some of the elements of passion
which were likely at any time to blaze out in the world and which
did blaze out and set the world on fire.
The trouble was at the heart of Europe. At the heart of Europe
there were suffering peoples, inarticulate but with hearts on fire
against the iniquities practiced against them; held in the grip of
military power and submitting to nothing but force; their spirits
insurgent ; and so long as that continued, there could not be the ex-
pectation of continued peace. This great settlement at Paris for the
first time in the world considered the cry of the peoples and did not
listen to the plea of governments. It did not listen to dynastic
claims. It did not read over the whole story of rival territorial am-
bitions. It said, ” The day is closed for that. These lands belong to
the stocks, the ancient stocks of people that live upon them, and we
are going to give them to those people and say to them, 4 The land
always should have been yours ; it is now yours, and you can govern
it as you please.’ That is the principle that is at the heart of this
treaty, but if that principle can not be maintained then there will
ensue upon it the passion that dwelt in the hearts of those peoples, a
despair which will bring about universal chaos. Men in despair do
not construct governments. Men in despair destroy governments.
Men whose whole affairs are so upset, whose whole systems of trans-
portation are so disordered that they can not get food, that they can
not get clothes, that they can not turn to any authority that can give
them anything, run amuck. They do not stop to ask questions. I
heard a very thoughtful pastor once preach a sermon which inter-
ested me very deeply, on the sequence of the petitions in the Lord’s
Prayer. He called attention to the fact that the first petition was,
” Give, us this day our daily bread,” and he pointed out that our
Saviour probably knew better than anybody else that a man can not
serve God or his fellow men on an empty stomach, that he has got to
be physically sustained. When a man has got an empty stomach,
most of all when those he loves are starving, he is not going to serve
any government; he is going to serve himself by the quickest way
he can find.
You say, “What has this got to do with the adoption by the
United States Senate of the treaty of peace ? ‘ It has this to do with
it, my fellow citizens, that the whole world is waiting upon us, and
if we stay out of it, if we qualify our assent in any essential way, the
world will say, ” Then there can be no peace, for that great Nation
in the west is the only makeweight which will hold these scales
steady.” I hear counsels of selfishness uttered. I hear men say,
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 119
” Very well, let us stay out and take care of ourselves and let the rest
of the world take care of itself.” I do not agree with that from the
point of view of sentiment. I would be ashamed to agree with it from
the point of view of sentiment, and I think I have intelligence enough
to know that it would not work, even if I wanted it to work. Are we
disconnected from the rest of the world? Take a single item. If
Europe if disordered, who is going to buy wheat? There is more
wheat in this country than we can consume. There is more food-
stuffs in this country of many sorts than we can consume. There is
no foreign market that anybody can count on wherein there is set-
tled peace. Men are not going to buy until they know what is going
to happen to-morrow, for the very good reason that they can not get
any money ; they can not earn any money amidst a disordered organ-
ization of industry and the absence of those processes of credit which
keep business going.
We have managed in the process of civilization, my fellow citizens,
to make a world that can not be taken to pieces. The pieces are dove-
tailed and intimately fitted with one another, and unless you assemble
them as you do the intimate parts of a great machine, civilization will
not work. I believe that, with the exception of the United States,
there is not a country in the world that can live without importation.
There are only one or two countries that can live without imported
foodstuffs. There are no countries that I know of that can live in
their ordinary way without importing manufactured goods or raw
materials, raw materials of many kinds. Take that great kingdom,
for example, for which I have the most intimate sympathy, the great
Kingdom of Italy. There are no raw materials worth mentioning in
Italy. There are great factories there, but they have to get all the
raw materials that they manufacture from outside Italy. There is
no coal in Italy, no fuel. They have to get all their coal from outside
of Italy, and at the present moment because the world is holding its
breath and waiting the great coal fields of Central Europe are not
being worked except to about 40 per cent of their capacity. The
coal in Silesia, the coal in Bohemia, is not being shipped out, and
industries are checked and chilled and drawn in, and starvation comes
nearer, unemployment becomes more and more universal. At this
moment there is nothing brought to my attention more often at
Washington than the necessity for shipping out our fuel and our raw
materials to start the world again. If we do not start the world again,
then we check and stop to that extent our own industries and our
exportations, of course. You can not disentangle the United States
from the rest of the world. If the rest of the world goes bankrupt,
the business of the United States is in a way to be ruined. I do not
like to put the thing upon this basis, my fellow citizens, because this is
not the American basis. America was not founded to make money ;
120 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
it was founded to lead the world on the way to liberty, and now,
while we debate, all the rest of the world is saying, ” Why does
America hesitate ? We want to follow her. We shall not know which
way to go unless she leads. We want the direction of her business
genius. We want the suggestions of her principles, and she hesi-
tates. She does not know whether she wants to go or not.” Oh, yes,
she does, my fellow citizens. Men among us do not know whether we
want to go in or not, but we know. There is no more danger of
America staying out of this great thing than there is of her reversing
all the other processes of her history and forgetting all the principles
that she has spilt so much precious blood to maintain. But, in the
meantime, the delay is injuring the whole world and ourselves, of
course, along with the rest, because we are a very big and, in my
opinion, an extremely important part of the world.
I have told many times, but I must tell you again, of the ex-
perience that I had in Paris. Almost every day of the week that I
was not imperatively engaged otherwise I was receiving delega-
tions. Delegations from where? Not merely groups of men from
France and other near-by regions, but groups of men from all over
the world as I have several times admitted, from some parts of
the world that I never heard the names of before. I do not think
they were in geography when I was at school. If they were, I had
forgotten them. Did you ever hear of Adjur-Bacljan, for example?
A very dignified group of fine-looking men came in from Adjur-
Badjan. I did not dare ask them where it was, but I looked it up
secretely afterwards and found that it was a very prosperous valley
region lying south of the Caucasus and that it had a great and
ancient civilization. I knew from what these men said to me that
they knew what they were talking about, though I did not know
anything about their affairs. They knew, above all things else, what
America stood for, and they had come to me, figuratively speaking,
with outstretched hands and said, “We want the guidance and the
help and the advice of America.” And they all said that, until my
heart grew fearful, and I said to one group of them, ” I beg that you
will not expect the impossible. America can not do the things that
you are asking her to do. We will do the best we can. We will
stand as your friends. We will give you every sort of aid that we
can give you, but please do not expect the impossible.” They believe
that America can work miracles merely by being America and
asserting the principles of America throughout the globe, and that
kind of assertion, my fellow citizens, is the process of peace; and
that is the only possible process of peace.
When I say, therefore, that I have come here this morning actually
to discuss the question with you whether we shall have peace or war,
you may say, ” There is no war ; the war is over.” The fighting is
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 121
over, but there is not peace, and there can not be peace without the
assistance of America. The assistance of America comes just at the
center of the whole thing that was planned in Paris. You have
heard some men talk about separating the covenant of the league
of nations from the treaty. I intended to bring a copy of the treaty
with me ; it is a volume as thick as that, and the very first thing in
it is the league of nations covenant. By common consent that was
put first, because by common consent that is the only thing that will
make the rest of the volume work. That was not the opinion at the
beginning of the conference. There were a great many cynics on
that side of the water who smiled indulgently when you spoke hope-
fully of drawing the nations together in a common consent of action,
but before we got through there was not a man who had not as a
hard, practical judgment, come to the conclusion that we could not
do without it, that you could not make a world settlement without
setting up an organization that would see that it was carried out, and
that you could not compose the mind of the world unless that set
tlement included an arrangement by which discussion should be
substituted for war.
If the war that we have just had had been preceded by discussion,
it never would have happened. Every foreign office in Europe urged
through its minister at Berlin that no action should be taken until
there should be an international conference and the other govern-
ments should learn what if any processes of mediation they might
interpose. And Germany did not dare delay it for 24 hours. If she
had, she never could have begun it. You dare not lay a bad case be-
fore mankind. You dare not kill the young men of the world for a
dishonest purpose. We have let thousands of our lads go to their
death in order to convince, not Germany merely, but any other nation
that may have in the back of its thought a similar enterprise, that the
world does not mean to permit any inquity of that sort, and if it had
been displayed as an iniquity in open conference for not less than
nine months, as the covenant of the league of nations provides, it
never could have happened.
Your attention is called to certain features of this league the only
features to which your attention ever is called by those who are op-
posed to it and you are left with the impression that it is an arrange-
ment by which war is just on the hair trigger. You are constantly
told about article 10. Now, article 10 has no operative force in it
unless we vote that it shall operate. I will tell you what article 10 is ;
I think I can repeat it almost verbatim. Under article 10 every
member of the league undertakes to respect and preserve as against
external aggression the territorial integrity and the existing political
independence of the other members of the league. So far so good.
The second sentence provides that in case of necessity the council of
122 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the league shall advise what steps are necessary to carry out the ob-
ligations of that promise; that is to say, what force is necessary if
any. The council can not give that advice without a unanimous vote.
It can not give the advice, therefore, without the affirmative vote of
the United States, unless the United States is a party to the controversy
in question. Let us see what that means. Do you think the United
States is likely to seize somebody else’s territory ? Do you think the
United States is likely to disregard the first sentence of the article ‘
And if she is not likely to begin an aggression of that sort, who is
likely to begin it against her? Is Mexico going to invade us and
appropriate Texas ? Is Canada going to come down with her nine or
ten millions and overwhelm the hundred millions of the United
States? Who is going to grab territory, and, above all things else,
who is going to entertain the idea if the rest of the world has said,
” No ; we are all pledged to see that you do not do that.” But sup-
pose that somebody does attempt to grab our territory or that we do
Attempt to grab somebody else’s territory. Then the war is ours
anyhow. Then what difference does it make what advice the council
gives ? Unless it is our war we can not be dragged into a war with-
out our own consent. If that is not an open and shut security, I do
not know of any. Yet that is article 10.
I do not recognize this covenant when I hear some other men talk
about it. I spent hours and hours in the presence of the representa-
tives of 13 other Governments examining every sentence of it, up and
down and crosswise, and trying to keep out of it anything that inter-
fered with the essential sovereignty of any member of the league. I
carried over with me in March all the suggestions made by the
Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, and they were all ac-
cepted, and yet I come back and find that I do not understand what
the document means. I am told that plain sentences which I thought
were unmistakable English terms mean something that I never heard
of and^hat nobody else ever intended as a purpose. But whatever
you may think of article 10, my fellow citizens, it is the heart of the
treaty. You have either got to take it or you have got to throw the
world back into that old conquest over land titles, which would upset
the State of North Dakota or any other part of the world. Suppose
there were no guaranty of any land title in North Dakota! I can
fancy how every farmer and every man with a city lot would go
armed. He would hire somebody, if he was too sleepy to sit up all
night, to see that nobody trespassed and took squatter posssession of
his unsecured land. We have been trying to do something amilagous
to that with the territories of Europe ; to fix the land titles, and then
having fixed them, we have got to have article 10. Under article
10 these titles are established, and we all join to guarantee their
maintenance. There is no other way to quiet the world, and if the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 123
world is not quieted, then America is sooner or later involved in the
melee. We boast, my fellow citizens but we sometimes forget
what a powerful Nation the United States is. Do you suppose we
can ask the other nations of the world to forget that we are out of the
arrangement ? Do you suppose that we can stay out of the arrange-
ment without being suspected and intrigued against and hated by
all the rest of them. And do you think that is an advantageous
basis for international transactions? Any way you take this ques-
tion you are led straight around to this alternative, either this treaty
with this covenant or a disturbed world and certain war. There is
no escape from it.
America recalls, I am sure, all the assurances that she has given to
the world in the years past. Some of the very men who are now op-
posing this covenant were the most eloquent advocates of an inter-
national concert which would be carried to a point w y here the exercise
of independent sovereignty would be almost estopped. They put it
into measures of Congress. For example, in one, I believe the last,
Navy appropriation bill, by unanimous vote of the committee, they
put in the provision that after the building program had been au-
thorized by Congress the President could cancel it if in the meantime
he had been able to induce the other Governments of the world to set
up an international tribunal which would settle international dif-
ficulties. They actually had the matter so definitely in mind that
they authorized the President not to carry out an act of Congress with
regard to the building of great ships if he could get an arrangement
similar to the arrangement which I have now laid before them, be-
cause their instinctive judgment is, my instinctive judgment and
yours is, that we have no choice, if we want to stop war, but to take
the steps that are necessary to stop war.
If we do not enter into this covenant, what is our situation ? Our
situation is exactly the situation of Germany herself, except that we
are not disarmed and Germany is disarmed. We have joined with
the rest of the world to defeat the objects that Germany had in mind.
We now do not even sign the treaty, let us suppose, that disarms Ger-
many. She is disarmed, nevertheless, because the other nations will
enter into the treaty, and there, planted in her heart, planted in the
heart of those 60,000,000 people, is this sense of isolation ; it may be
this sense that some day, by gathering force and change of circum-
stances, they may have another chance, and the only other nation that
they can look to is the United States. The United States has repu-
diated the guaranty. The United States has said, “Yes; we sent
2,000,000 men over there to accomplish this, but we do not like it now
that we have accomplished it and we will not guarantee the conse-
quences. We are going to stay in such a situation that some day we
may send 2,000,000 more over there. We promised the mothers and
124 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
fathers and the wives and the sweethearts that these men were fight-
ing so that this thing should not happen again, but we are now to
arrange it so that it may happen again.” So the two nations that
will stand and play a lone hand in the world would be Germany and
the United States.
I am not pointing this out to you, m}^ fellow citizens, because I
think it is going to happen. I know it is not. I am not in the least
troubled about that; but I do want you to share fully with me the
thought that I have brought back from Europe. I know what I am
talking about when I say that America is the only nation whose
guaranty will suffice to substitute discussion for war, and I rejoice
in the circumstance. I rejoice that the day has come when America
can fulfill her destiny. Her destiny was expressed much more in her
open doors, for she said to the oppressed all over the world, ” Come
and join us ; we will give you freedom ; we will give you opportunity ;
we have no governments that can act as your masters. Come and join
us to conduct the great government which is our own.” And they
came in thronging millions, and their genius was added to ours,
their sturdy capacity multiplied and increased the capacity of the
United States ; and now, with the blood of every great people in our
veins, we turn to the rest of the world and say, ” We still stand ready
to redeem you. We still believe in liberty. We still mean to exercise
every force that we have and, if need be, spend every dollar that is
ours to vindicate the standards of justice and of right.”
It is a noble prospect. It is a noble opportunity. My pulses
quicken at the thought of it. I am glad to have lived in a day when
America can redeem her pledges to the world, when America can
prove that her leadership is the leadership that leads out of these
age-long troubles, these age-long miseries into which the world will
not sink back, but which, without our assistance, it may struggle out
of only through a long period of bloody revolution. The peoples of
Europevare in a revolutionary frame of mind. They do not believe
in the things that have been practiced upon them in the past, and
they mean to have new things practiced. In the meantime they are,
some of them, like pitiful Russia, in danger of doing a most extraor-
dinary thing, substituting one kind of autocracy for another. Russia
repudiated the Czar, who was cruel at times, and set up her present
masters, who are cruel all the time and pity nobody, who seize every-
body’s property and feed only the soldiers that are fighting for them ;
and now, according to the papers, they are likely to brand every one
of those soldiers so that he may not easily, at any rate, escape their
clutches and desert. Branding their servants and making slaves of
a great and lovable people ! There is no people in the world fuller
of the naive sentiments of good will and of fellowship than the
people of Russia, and they are in the grip of a cruel autocracy that
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
125
dare not, though challenged by every friendly Government in
Europe, assemble a constituency ; they dare not appeal to the people.
They know that their mastery would end the minute the people took
charge of their own affairs.
Do not let us expose any of the rest of the world to the necessity
of going through any such terrible experience as that, my fellow
countrymen. We are at present helpless to assist Russia, because
there are no responsible channels through which we can assist her.
Our heart goes out to her, but the world is disordered, and while it
is disordered we debate !
ADDRESS FROM REAR PLATFORM, MANDAN, N. DAK.,
SEPTEMBER 10, 1919.
I am glad to get out to see the real folks, to feel the touch of their
hand, and know, as I have come to know, how the Nation stands to-
gether in the common purpose to complete what the boys did who
carried their guns with them over the sea. We may think that they
finished that job, but they will tell you they did not ; that unless we
see to it that peace is made secure, they will have the job to do over
again, and we in the meantime will rest under a constant apprehen-
sion that we may have to sacrifice the flower of our youth again.
The whole country has made up its mind that that shall not happen ;
and presently, after a reasonable time is allowed for unnecessary de-
bate, we will get out of all this period of doubt and unite the whole
force a*id influence of the United States to steady the world in the
lines of peace. It will be the proudest thing and finest thing that
America ever did. She was born to do these things, and now she is
going to do them.
I am very much obliged to you for coming out.
127
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, BILLINGS, MONT.,
SEPTEMBER 11, 1919.
Mr. Mayor, Judge Pierson, my fellow countrymen, it is with
genuine pleasure that I face this company and realize that I am in the
great State of Montana. I have long wanted to visit this great
State and come into contact with its free and vigorous population,
and I want to thank Judge Pierson for the happy word that he
used in speaking of my errand. He said that I had come to consult
with you. That is exactly what I have come to do. I have come to
consult with you in the light of certain circumstances which I want
to explain to you, circumstances which affect not only this great
Nation which we love, and of which we try to constitute an honor-
able part, but also affect the whole world. I wonder when we speak
of the whole world whether we have a true conception of the fact
that the human heart beats everywhere the same. Nothing impressed
me so much on the other side of the water as the sort of longing for
sympathy which those people exhibited. The people of France, for
example, feeling keenly as they do the terrors that they have suffered
at the hands of the enemy, are never so happy as when they realize
that we across the sea at a great distance feel with them the keen
arrows of sorrow that have penetrated their hearts and are glad
that our boys went over there to help rescue them from the terror
that lay upon them day and night.
What I have come to say to you to-day, my friends, is this : We
are debating the treaty of peace with Germany and we are making
the mistake, I take the liberty of saying, of debating it as if it were
an ordinary treaty with some particular country, a treaty which we
could ourselves modify without complicating the affairs of the
world; whereas, as a matter of fact, this is not merely a treaty with
Germany. Matters were drawn into this treaty which affected the
peace and happiness of the whole Continent of Europe, and not of
the Continent of Europe merely, but of forlorn populations in
Africa, of peoples that we hardly know about in Asia, in the Far
East and everywhere the influence of German policy had extended
and everywhere that influence had to be corrected, had to be checked,
%/
had to be altered. What I want to impress upon you to-day is that
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 9 129
130 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
it is this treat} 7 or none. It is this treaty because we can have no
other.
Consider the circumstances. For the first time in the world some
20 nations sent their most thoughtful and responsible men to consult
together at the capital of France to effect a settlement of the affairs
of the world, and I want to render my testimony that these gentle-
men entered upon their deliberations with great openness of mind.
Their discussions were characterized by the utmost candor, and they
realize, my fellow citizens, what as a student of history I venture
to say no similar body ever acknowledged before, that they were
nobody’s masters, that they did not have the right to follow the line
of any national advantage in determining what the settlements of
the peace should be, but that they were the servants of their people
and the servants of the people of the world. This settlement, my
fellow citizens, is the first international settlement that was intended
for the happiness of the average men and women throughout the
world. This is indeed and in truth a people’s treaty, and it is the
first people’s treaty, and I venture to express the opinion that it is
not wise for Parliaments or Congresses to attempt to alter it. It
is a people’s treaty, notwithstanding the fact that we call it a treaty
with Germany ; and while it is a treaty with Germany, and in some
senses a very severe treaty, indeed, it is not an unjust treaty, as some
have characterized it. My fellow citizens, Germany tried to com-
mit a crime against civilization, and this treaty is justified in making
Germany pay for that criminal error up to the ability of her pay-
ment. Some of the very gentlemen who are now characterizing this
treaty as too harsh are the same men who less than a twelvemonth
ago were criticizing the administration at Washington in the fear
that they would compound with Germany and let her off from the
payment of the utmost that she could pay in retribution for what
she had done. They were pitiless then; they are pitiful now.
It is very important, my fellow citizens, that we should not forget
what this war meant. I am amazed at the indications that we are
forgetting what we went through. There are some indications
that on the other side of the water they are apt to forget what they
went through. I venture to think that there are thousands of mothers
and fathers and wives and sisters and sweethearts in this country
who are never going to forget. Thousands of our gallant youth lie
buried in France, and buried for what? For the redemption of
America? America was not directly attacked. For the salvation
of America? America was not immediately in danger. No; for
the salvation of mankind. It is the noblest errand that troops ever
went on. I was saying the other day in the presence of a little
handful of men whom I revered, veterans of our Civil War, that
it seemed to me that they fought for the greatest thing that there
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 131
was to fight for in their day, and you know with what reverence
Ave have regarded all the men who fought in the ranks in the Civil
War for the Union. I am saying this out of a full heart, though I
was born on the other side of the Mason and Dixon line. We re-
vere the men who saved the Union. What are going to be our senti-
ments with regard to these boys in khaki and the boys who have
just been in khaki in this war? Do you not think that when they
are old men a halo will seem to be about them, because they were
crusaders for the liberty of the world? One of the hardest things
for me to do during this war, as for many another man in this
country, was merely to try to direct things and not take a gun and
go myself. When I feel the pride that I often have felt in having
been the Commander in Chief of these gallant armies and those,
splendid boys at sea, I think, “Ah, that is fine, but, oh, to have been
one of them and to have accomplished this great thing which has,
been accomplished ! ‘
The fundamental principle of this treaty is a principle never
acknowledged before, a principle which had its birth and has had
its growth in this country, that the countries of the world belong to
the people who live in them, and that they have a right to determine
their own destiny and their own form of government and their own
polic}^, and that no body of statesmen, sitting anywhere, no matter
whether they represent the overwhelming physical force of the world
or not, has the right to assign any great people to a sovereignty under
which it does not care to live. This is the great treaty which is being
debated. This is the treaty which is being examined with a micro-
scope. This is the treaty which is being pulled about and about
which suggestions are made as to changes of phraseology. Why, my
friends, are you going to be so nearsighted as to look that way at a
great charter of human liberty? The thing is impossible. You can
not have any other treaty, because you can never get together again
the elements that agreed to this treaty. You can not do it by dealing
with separate governments. You can not assemble the forces again
that were back of it. You can not bring the agreement upon which
it rests into force again. It was the laborious work of many, many
months of the most intimate conference. It has very, very few com-
promises in it and is, most of it, laid down in straight lines according
to American specifications. The choice is either to accept this treaty
or play a lone hand. What does that mean? To play a lone hand
means that we must always be ready to play by ourselves. That
means that we must always be armed, that we must always be ready
to mobilize the man strength and the manufacturing resources of the
country ; it means that we must continue to live under not diminishing
but increasing taxes ; it means that we shall devote our thought and
the organization of our Government to being strong enough to beat
132 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
any nation in the world. An absolute reversal of all the ideals of
American history. If you are going to play a lone hand, the hand
that A 7 ou play must be upon the handle of the sword. You can not
play a lone hand and do your civil business except with the other
hand one hand incidental for the business of peace, the other hand
constantly for the assertion of force. It is either this treaty or a lone
hand, and the lone hand must have a weapon in it. The weapon
must be all the young men of the country trained to arms, and the
business of the country must pay the piper, must pay for the whole
armament, the arms and the men. That is the choice. Do you sup-
pose, my fellow citizens, that any nation is going to stand for that?
We are not the only people who are sick of war. We are not the only
people who have made up our minds that our Government must
devote its attention to peace and to justice and to right. The people
all over the world have made up their minds as to that. We need
peace more than we ever needed it before. We need ordered peace, calm
peace, settled peace, assured peace for what have we to do? We
have to reregulate the fortunes of men. We have to reconstruct the
machinery of civilization. I use the words deliberately we have to
reconstruct the machinery of civilization.
The central fact of the modern world is universal unrest, and the
unrest is not due merely to the excitement of a recent war. The un-
rest is not due merely to the fact of recent extraordinary circum-
stances. It is due to a universal conviction that the conditions under
which men live and labor are not satisfactory. It is a conviction all
over the world that there is no use talking about political democracy
unless you have also industrial democracy. You know what this war
interrupted in the United States. We were searching our own hearts ;
we were looking closely at our own methods of doing business. A
great many were convinced that the control of the business of this
country was in too few hands. Some were convinced that the credit
of the country was controlled by small groups of men, and the great
Federal reserve act and the great land-bank act were passed in order
to release the resources of the country on a broader and more gen-
erous scale. We had not finished dealing with monopolies. We have
not finished dealing with monopolies. With monopolies there can be
no industrial democracy. With the control of the few, of whatever
kind or class, there can be no democracy of any sort. The world is
finding that out in some portions of it in blood and terror.
Look what has happened in Russia, my fellow citizens. I find
wherever I go in America that my ‘fellow citizens feel as I do, an
infinite pity for that great people, an infinite longing to be of some
service to them. Everybody who has mixed with the Russian people
tells me that they are among the most lovable people in the world, a
very gentle people, a very friendly people, a very simple people, and
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 133
in their local life a very democratic people, people who easly trust
you, and who expect you to be trustworthy as they are. Yet this
people is delivered into the hands of an intolerable tyranny. It came
out of one tyranny to get into a worse. A little group of some 30 or 40
men are the masters of that people at present. Nobody elected them.
They chose themselves. They maintain their power by the sword, and
they maintain the sword by seizing all the food of the country and let-
ting only those who will fight for them eat, the rest of them to go
starved ; and because they can command no loyalty we are told by the
newspapers that they are about to brand the men under arms for
them, so that they will be forever marked as their servants and slaves.
That is what pitiful Russia has got in for, and there will be many a
bloody year, I am afraid, before she finds herself again.
I speak of Russia. Hnve you seen no symptoms of the spread of
that sort of chaotic spirit into other countries? If you had been
across the sea with me you would know that the dread in the mind
of every thoughtful man in Europe is that that distemper will spread
to their countries, that before there will be settled order there will be
tragical disorder. Have you heard nothing of the propaganda of
that sort of belief in the United States? That poison is running
through the veins of the world, and we have made the methods of
communication throughout the world such that all the veins of the
world are open and the poison can circulate. The wireless throws it
out upon the air. The cable whispers it underneath the sea. Men
talk about it in little groups, men talk about it openly in great groups
not only in Europe but here also in the United States. There are
apostles of Lenin in our own midst. I can not imagine what it means
to be an apostle of Lenin. It means to be an apostle of the night,
of chaos, of disorder ; there can be no creed of disorganization. Our
immediate duty, therefore, my fellow countrymen, is to see that no
minority, no class, no special interest, no matter how respectable, how
rich, how poor, shall get control of the affairs of the United States.
The singular thing about the sort of disorder that prevails in
Russia is that while every man is, so to say, invited to take what ho
can get, he can not keep it when he gets it, because, even if you had
leave to steal, which is the leave very generously given in Russia at
present, you have got to get somebody to help you to keep what you
steal. Without organization you can not get any help, so the only
thing 3^011 can do is to dig a hole and find a cave somewhere. Dis-
ordered society is dissolved society. There is no society when there is
not settled and calculable order. When you do not know what is
going to happen to you to-morrow, you do not much care what is
going to happen to you to-day. These are the things that confront
us. The world must be satisfied of justice. The conditions of civilized
life must be purified and perfected, and if we do not have peace, that
134 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
is impossible. We must clear the decks of this matter we are now
discussing. This is the best treaty that can possibly be got, and, in
my judgment, it is a mighty good treaty, for it lias justice, the attempt
at justice at any rate, at the heart of it.
Suppose that you were feeling that there was a danger of a general
conflagration in your part of the country ; I mean a literal fire. Which
would you rather have, no insurance at all or 10 per cent insurance ?
Don’t you think some insurance is better than none at all ? Put the
security obtained by this treaty at its minimum, and it is a great deal
better than no security at all, and without it there is no security at all,
and no man can be sure what his business will be from month to
month, or what his life will be from year to year. The leisureliness of
some debates creates the impression on my mind that some men think
there is leisure. There is no leisure in the world, my fellow citizens,
with regard to the reform of the conditions under which men live.
There is no time for any talk, but get down to the business of what
we are going to do.
I dare say that many of you know that I have called a conference to
sit in Washington the first of next month, a conference of men in the
habit of managing business and of men engaged in manual labor, what
we generally call employers and employees. I have called them together
for the sake of getting their minds together, getting their purposes to-
gether, getting them to look at the picture of our life at the same time
and in the same light and from the same angles, so that they can see
the things that ought to be done. I am trying to apply there what is
applied in the great covenant of the league of nations, that if there is
any trouble, the thing to do is not to fight, but to sit around the table
and talk it over. The league of nations substitutes discussion for fight,
and without discussion there will be fight. One of the greatest difficul-
ties that we have been through in the past is in getting men to under-
stand that fundamental thing. There is a very interesting story and a
very charming story told of a great English writer of a past genera-
tion. He was a man who stuttered a little bit, and he stuttered out
some very acid comment on some man who was not present. One of
his friends said, “Why, Charles, I didn’t know you knew him.” “Oh,
n-h-no,” he said, “I-I d-d-don’t k-know him; I-I c-c-can’t hate a
m-man I-I know.” How much truth there is in that, my fellow coun-
trymen ! You can not hate a fellow you know. I know some crooks
that I can not help liking. I can judge them in cool blood and cor-
rectly only when they are not there. They are extremely fetching and
attractive f ellows ; indeed, I suspect that a disagreeable fellow can not
be a successful crook.
But, to speak seriously, conference is the healing influence of civili-
zation, and the real difficulty between classes, when a country is unfor-
tunate enough to have classes, is that they do not understand one
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 135
another. I sometimes think that the real barriers in life are the bar-
riers of taste, that some people like one way of doing things and that
other people do not like that way of doing things; that one sort of
people are not comfortable unless the people they are with are dressed
the way they are. I think that goes so much deeper than people
realize. It is the absence of the ability to get at the point of view and
look through the eyes of the persons with whom you are not accus-
tomed to deal. In order, therefore, to straighten out the affairs of
America, in order to calm and correct the ways of the world, the first
and immediate requisite is peace, and it is an immediate requisite.
We can not wait. It is not wise to wait, because we ought to devote
our best thoughts, the best impulses of our hearts, the clearest think-
ing of our brain, to correcting the things that are wrong everywhere.
I have been told, my fellow citizens, that this western part of the
country is particularly prevaded with what is called radicalism.
There is only one way to meet radicalism and that is to deprive it of
food, and wherever there is anything wrong there is abundant food
for radicalism. The only way to keep men from agitating against
grievances is to remove the grievances, and as long as things are
wrong I do not intend to ask men to stop agitating. I intend to beg
that they will agitate in an orderly fashion; I intend to beg
that they will use the orderly methods of counsel, and, it may be,
the slow processes of correction which can be accomplished in a self-
governing people through political means. Otherwise we will have
chaos ; but as long as there is something to correct, I say Godspeed to
the men who are trying to correct it. That is the only way to meet
radicalism. Radicalism means cutting up by the roots. Well,
remove the noxious growth and there will be no cutting up by the
roots. Then there will be the wholesome fruitage of an honest life
from one end of this country to the other.
In looking over some papers the other day I was reminded of a
very interesting thing. The difficulty which is being found with the
league of nations is that apparently the gentlemen who are discussing
it unfavorably are afraid that we will be bound to do something we
do not want to do. The only way in which you can have impartial
determinations to this world is by consenting to something you do
not want to do. Every time you have a case in court one or the other
of the parties has to consent to do something he does not want to do.
There is not a case in court, and there are hundreds of thousands of
them every year, in which one of the parties is not disappointed.
Yet we regard that as the foundation of civilization, that we will not
fight about these things, and that when we lose in court we will take
our medicine. Very well; I say that the two Houses of Congress
suggested that there be an international court, and suggested that
they were willing to take their medicine. They put it in a place
136 ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
where you would not expect it. They put it in the naval appropria-
tion bill, and, not satisfied with putting it there once, they put it
there several times ; I mean in successive years. This is the sum of it :
” It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to
adjust and settle its international disputes through mediation or
arbitration (that is, the league of nations), to the end that war may
be honorably avoided. It looks with apprehension and disfavor upon
a general increase of armament throughout the world, but it realizes
that no single nation can disarm and that without a common agree-
ment upon the subject every considerable power must maintain a
relative standing in military strength. In view of the premises, the
President is authorized and requested to invite at an appropriate
time, not later than the close of the war in Europe (this immediately
preceded our entry into the war) , all the great Governments of the
world to send representatives to a conference which shall be charged
with the duty of formulating a plan for a court of arbitration or
other tribunal to which disputed questions between nations shall be
referred for adjustment and peaceful settlement, and to consider the
question of disarmament and submit their recommendations to their
respective Governments for approval. The President is hereby
authorized to appoint,” etc. A provision for an appropriation to
pay the expenses is also embodied.
Now that they have got it, they do not like it. They also provided
in this legislation that if there could be such an assemblage, if there
could be such an agreement, the President was authorized to cancel the
naval building program authorized by the bill, or so much of it as he
thought was wise in the circumstances. They looked forward to it
with such a practical eye that they contemplated the possibility of its
coming soon enough to stop the building program of that bill. It
came much sooner than they expected, and apparently has taken them
so much by surprise as to confuse their minds. I suppose that this
would t^e a very dull world if everybody were consistent, but con-
sistency, my fellow citizens, in the sober, fundamental, underlying
principles of civilization is a very serious thing indeed.
If we are, indeed, headed toward peace with- the real purpose of
our hearts engaged, then we must take the necessary steps to secure it,
and we must make the necessary sacrifices to secure it. I repudiate the
suggestion which underlies some of the suggestions I have heard that
the other nations of the world are acting in bad faith and that only
the United States is acting in good faith. It is not true. I can testify
that I was cooperating with honorable men on the other side of the
water, and I challenge anybody to show where in recent years, while
the opinion of mankind has been effective, there has been the repudi-
ation of an international obligation by France or Italy or Great
Britain or by Japan. Japan has kept her engagements, and Japan
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 137
here engages to unite with the rest of the world in maintaining justice
and a peace based upon justice. There can be cited no instances where
these Governments have been dishonorable, and I need not add that
there is, of course, no instance where the United States has not kept
faith.
When gentlemen discuss the right to withdraw from the league of
nations and look suspiciously upon the clause which says that we can
withdraw upon two years’ notice, if at that time we have fulfilled our
international obligations, I am inclined to ask, ” What are you worried
about? Are you afraid that we will not have fulfilled our interna-
tional obligations?” I am too proud an American to believe anything
of the kind. We never have failed to fulfill our international obliga-
tions, and we never will, and our international obligations will always
look toward the fulfillment of the highest purposes of civilization.
When we came into existence as a Nation we promised ourselves and
promised the world that we would serve liberty everywhere. We were
only 3, ; 000,000 strong then, and shall we, when more than a hundred
million strong, fail to fulfill the promise that we made when we were
weak? We have served mankind and we shall continue to serve man-
kind, for I believe, my fellow men, that we are the flower of mankind
so far as civilization is concerned.
Please do not let me leave the impression on your mind that I am
arguing with you. I am not arguing this case; I am merely ex-
pounding it. I am just as sure what the verdict of this Nation is
going to be as if it had been already rendered, and what has touched
me and convinced me of this, my fellow citizens, is not what big
men have told me, not what men of large affairs have said to me I
value their counsel and seek to be guided by it but by what plain
people have said to me, particularly by what women have said to me.
When I see a woman plainly dressed, with the marks of labor upon
her, and she takes my hand and says, ” God bless you, Mr. President ;
God bless the league of nations,” I know that the league of nations
has gone to the heart of this people. A woman came up to me the
other day and grasped my hand and said, ” God bless you ! ‘ and
then turned away in tears. I asked a neighbor, ” What is the
matter?” and he said, “She intended to say something to you, sir,
but she lost a son in France.” That woman did not take my hand
with a feeling that her son ought not to have been sent to France.
I sent her son to France, and she took my hand and blessed me, but
she could not say anything more, because the whole well of spirit in
her came up into her throat and the thing was unutterable. Down
deep in it was the love of her boy, the feeling of what he had done,
the justice and the dignity and the majesty of it, and then the hope
that through such poor instrumentality as men like myself could
138 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
offer no other woman’s son would ever be called upon to lay his life
down for the same thing. I tell you, my fellow citizens, the whole
world is now in the state where you can fancy that there are hot tears
upon every cheek, and those hot tears are tears of sorrow. They are
also tears of hope. It is amazing how, through all the sorrows of
mankind and all the unspeakable terrors and injustices that have
been inflicted upon men, hope springs eternal in the human heart.
God knows that men, and governments in particular, have done
everything they knew how to kill hope in the human heart, but it has
not died. It is the one conquering force in the history of mankind.
What I am pleading for, therefore not with you, for I anticipate
your verdict but what I am pleading for with the Senate of the
United States is to be done with debate and release and satisfy the
hope of the world.
#ADDRESS AT OPERA HOUSE, HELENA, MONT.,
SEPTEMBER 11, 1919.
Gov. Stewart and my fellow countrymen: I very heartily echo
what Gov. Stewart has just said. I am very glad that an occasion
has arisen which has given me the opportunity and the pleasure of
coming thus face to face with, at any rate, some of the people of the
great State of Montana. I must hasten to say to you that I am
not come from Washington so much to advise you as to get in touch
with you, as to get the feeling of the purposes which are moving you,
because, my fellow citizens, I may tell you as a secret that some
people in Washington lose that touch. They do not know what
the purposes are that are running through the hearts and minds
of the people of this great country, and after one stays in Wash-
ington too long one is apt to catch that same remove and numbness
which seems to characterize others that are there. I like to come
out and feel once more the thing that is the only real thing in public
affairs, and that is the great movement of public opinion in the
United States.
I want to put the case very simply to you to-night, for with all
its complexity, with all the many aspects which it wears there is a
very simple question at the heart of it. That question is nothing more
nor less than this : Shall the great sacrifice that we made in this war
be in vain, or shall it not ? I want to say to you very solemnly that,
notwithstanding the splendid achievement of our soldiers on the
other side of the sea, who I do not hesitate to say saved the world,
notwithstanding the noble things that they did, their task is only half
done and it remains for us to complete it. I want to explain that to
you. I want to explain to you why, if we left the thing where it is
and did not carry out the program of the treaty of peace in all its
fullness, men like these would have to die again to do the work over
again and convince provincial statesmen that the world is one and
that only by organization of the world can you save the young men of
the world.
As I take up this theme there is a picture very distinct in my mind.
Last Memorial Day I stood in an American cemetery in France just
outside Paris, on the slopes of Surenes. The hills slope steeply to a
little plain, and when I went out there all the slope of the hill was
139
140 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
covered with men in the American uniform, standing, but rising tier
on tier as if in a great witness stand. Then below, all over this little
level space, were the simple crosses that marked the resting place of
American dead. Just by the stand where I spoke was a group of
French women who had lost their own sons, but, just because they
had lost their own sons and because their hearts went out in thought
c^
and sympathy to the mothers on this side of the sea, had made them-
selves, so to say, mothers of those graves, had every day gone to take
care of them, had every day strewn them with flowers. They stood
there, their cheeks wetted with tears, while I spoke, not of the French
dead but of the American boys who had died in the common cause y
and there seemed to me to be drawn together on that day and in that
little sunny spot the hearts of the world. I took occasion to say on
that day that those who stood in the way of completing the task
that those men had died for would some day look back upon it as
those have looked back upon the days when they tried to divide
this Union and prevent it from being a single Nation united in a
single form of liberty. For the completion of the work of those men
is this, that the thing that they fought to stop shall never be at-
tempted again.
I call you to mind that we did not go into this war willingly. I
w r as in a position to know ; in the providence of God, the leadership
of this Nation was intrusted to me during those early years of the
war when we were not in it. I was aware through many subtle
channels of the movements of opinion in this country, and I know
that the thing that this country chiefly desired, the thing that you
men out here in the West chiefly desired and the thing that of course
every loving woman had at her heart, was that we should keep out
of the war, and we tried to persuade ourselves that the European
business was not our business. We tried to convince ourselves that
no matter what happened on the other side of the sea, no obligation
of duty rested upon us, and finally we found the currents of humanity
too strong for us. We found that a great consciousness was welling
up in us that this was not a local cause, that this was not a struggle
which was to be confined to Europe, or confined to Asia, to which it
had spread, but that it was something that involved the very fate of
civilization ; and there was one 1 great Nation in the world that could
not afford to stay out of it. There are gentlemen opposing the rati-
fication of this treaty who at that time taunted the administration
of the United States that it had lost touch with its international con-
science. They were eager to go in, and now that they have got in,,
and are caught in the whole network of human conscience, they want
to break out and stay out. We were caught in this thing by the action
of a nation utterly unlike ourselves. What I mean to say is that the
German nation, the German people, had no choice whatever as to
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 141
whether it was to go into that war or not, did not know that it was
going into it until its men were summoned to the colors. I remember,
not once, but often, sitting at the Cabinet table in Washington I asked
my colleagues what their impression was of the opinion of the coun-
try before we went into the war, and I remember one day one of my
colleagues said to me, ” Mr. President, I think the people of the
country would take your advice and do what you suggested.”
” Why,” I said, ” that is not what I am waiting for ; that is not
enough. If they can not go in with a whoop, there is no use of their
going in at all. I do not want them to wait on me. I am waiting on
them. I want to know what the conscience of this country is speak-
ing. I want to know what the purpose is arising in the minds of the
people of this country with regard to this world situation.” When
I thought I heard that voice, it was then that I proposed to the Con-
gress of the United States that we should include ourselves in the
challenge that Germany was giving to mankind.
We fought Germany in order that there should be a world fit to
live in. The world is not fit to live in, my fellow citizens, if any
great government is in a position to do what the German Government
did secretly plot a war and begin it with the whole strength of its
people, without so much as consulting its own people. A great war
can not begin with public deliberation. A great war can begin only
by private plot, because the peoples of this world are not asleep, as
they used to be. The German people is a great educated people. All
the thoughtful men in Germany, so far as I have been able to learn,
who were following peaceful pursuits the bankers and the mer-
chants and the manufacturers deemed it folly to go into that war.
They said so then and they have said so since, but they were not
consulted. The masters of Germany were the general military staff;
it was these men who nearly brought a complete cataclysm upon
civilization itself. It stands to reason that if we permit anything
of that sort to happen again we are recreant to the men we sent across
the seas to fight this war. We are deliberately guilty then of pre-
paring a situation which will inevitably lead to what? What shall
I call it? The final war? Alas, my fellow citizens, it might be the
final arrest, though I pray only the temporary arrest, of civilization
itself; and America has, if I may take the liberty of saying so, a
greater interest in the prevention of that war than any other nation.
America is less exhausted by the recent war than the other bellig-
erents; she is not exhausted at all. America has paid for the war
that has gone by less heavily, in proportion to her wealth, than the
other nations. America still has free capital enough for its own
industries and for the industries of the other countries that have to
build their industries anew. The next war would have to be paid
for in American blood and American money. The nation of all
142 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
nations that is most interested to prevent the recurrence of what has
already happened is the nation which would assuredly have to bear
the brunt of that great catastrophe either have to bear it or stop
where we are. Who is going to check the growth of this Nation?
Who is going to check the accumulation of physical power by this
Nation if you choose to put it in that form? Who is going to
reduce the natural resources of this country? Who is going to
change the circumstance that we largely feed the rest of the world?
Who is going to change the circumstance that many of our resources
are unique and indispensable? America is going to grow more and
more powerful; and the more powerful she is the more inevitable
it is that she should be trustee for the peace of the world.
A miracle has happened. I dare say that many of you have in
mind the very short course of American history. You know, when
this Nation was born and we were just a little group 3,000,000 peo-
ple on the Atlantic coast how the nations on the other side of the
water and the statesmen of that day watched us with a certain con-
descension, looked upon us as a sort of group of hopeful children,
pleased for the time being with the conception of absolute freedom
and political liberty, far in advance of the other peoples of the world
because less experienced than they, less aware of the difficulties of
the great task that they had accomplished. As the years have gone
by they have watched the growth of this Nation with astonishment
and for a long time with dismay. They watched it with dismay
until a very interesting and significant thing happened. When wo
fought Cuba’s battle for her, then they said, ” Ah, it is the beginning
of what we predicted. She will seize Cuba and, after Cuba, what
she pleases to the south of her. It is the beginning of the history we
have gone through ourselves.” They ought to have known ; they set
us the example ! When we actually fulfilled to the letter our promise
that we would set helpless Cuba up as an independent government
and guarantee her independence when we carried out that great
policy we astounded and converted the world. Then began let me
repeat the word again then began the confidence of the world in
America, and I want to testify to you to-night that nothing was more
overpowering to me and my colleagues in Paris than the evidences
of the absolutely unquestioning confidence of the peoples of the world
in the people of America. We were touched by it not only, but I
must admit we were frightened by it, because we knew that they
were expecting things of us that we could not accomplish ; we knew
that they were hoping for some miracle of justice which would set
them forward the same hundred years that we have traveled on the
progress toward free government; and we knew that it was a slow
rosid ; we knew that you could not suddenly transform a people from
a people of subjects into a people of self-governing units. And I
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 143
perhaps returned a little bit to my own profession of teaching and
tried to point out to them that some of the things they were expecting
of us could not be done now; but they refused to be disabused of
their absolute confidence that America could and would do anything
that was right for the other peoples of the world. An amazing
thing ! What was more interesting still, my fellow citizens, was
this : It happened that America laid down the specifications for the
peace. It happened that America proposed the principles upon
which the peace with Germany should be built. I use the word
” happened ‘ because I have found, and everybody who has looked
into the hearts of some of the people on the other side of the water
has found, that the people on the other side of the water, whatever
may be said about their Governments, had learned their lesson from
America before, and they believed in those principles before we
promulgated them; and their statesmen, knowing that their people
believed in them, accepted them accepted them before the American
representatives crossed the sea. We found them ready to lay down
the foundations of that peace along the lines that America had sug-
gested, and all of Europe was aware that what was being done was
building up an American peace. In such circumstances we were
under a peculiar compulsion to carry the work to the point which
had filled our convictions from the first.
Where did the suggestion first come from? Where did the idea
first spread that there should be a society of nations? It was first
suggested and it first spread in the United States, and some
gentlemen were the chief proponents of it who are now objecting to
the adoption of the covenant of the league of nations. They went
further, some of them, than any principles of that covenant goes, and
now for some reason which I must admit is inscrutable to me they
are opposing the very thing into which they put their heart and their
genius. All Europe knew that we were doing an American thing
when we put the covenant of the league of nations at the beginning
of the treaty, and one of the most interesting things over there was
our dealing with some of the most cynical men I had to deal with,
and there were some cynics over there men who believed in what
has come to be known as the old Darwinian idea of the survival of
the fittest. They said : ” In nature the strong eats up the weak, and
in politics the strong overcomes and dominates the weak. It has al-
ways been so, and it is always going to be so.” When I first got to
Paris they talked about the league of nations indulgently in my
presence, politely. I think some of them had the idea, ” Oh, well,
we must humor Wilson along so that he will not make a public fuss
about it,” and those very men, before our conferences were over,
suggested more often than anybody else that some of the most diffi-
cult and delicate tasks in carrying out this peace should be left to
144 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the. league of nations, and they all admitted that the league of na-
tions, which the}’ had deemed an ideal dream, was a demonstrable,
practical necessity. This treaty can not be carried out without the
league of nations, and I will tell you some interesting cases.
I have several times said, and perhaps I may say again, that one
of the principal things about this treaty is that it establishes the
land titles of the world. It says, for example, that Bohemia shall
belong to the Bohemians and not to the Austrians or to the Hun-
garians: that if the Bohemians do not want to live under a inon-
<r^ archy, dual or single, it is their business and not ours, and they can do what they please with their own country. We have said of the Austrian territories south of Austria and Hungary, occupied by the Jugo-Slavs, ” These never did belong to Austria ; they always did belong to the Slavs, and the Slavs shall have them for their .own, and we will guarantee the title.” I have several times asked, ” Sup- pose that the land titles of a State like Montana were clearly enough stated and somewhere recorded, but that there was no way of enforc- ing them.” You know what would happen. Every one of you would enforce his own land title. You used to go armed here long ago, and you would resume the habit if there was nobody to guarantee your legal title. You would have to resume the habit. If society is not going to guarantee your titles, you have got to see to it your- selves that others respect them. That was the condition of Europe and w 7 ill be the condition of Europe again if these settled land titles which have been laid out are not guaranteed by organized society, and the only organized society that can guarantee them is a society of nations. It was not easy to draw the line. It was not a surveyor’s task. There were not well-known points from which to start and to which to go, because, for example, we were trying to give the Bohemians the lands where the Bohemians lived, but the Bohemians did not stop &t a straight line. If they will pardon the expression, they slopped over. And Germans slopped over into Poland and in some places there was an almost inextricable mixture of the two popula- tions. Everybody said that the statistics lied. They said the Ger- man statistics with regard to high Silesia, for example, were not true, because the Germans wanted to make it out that the Germans were in a majority there, and the Poles declared that the Poles were in the majority there. We said, “This is a difficult business. Sitting in Paris we can not tell by count how many Poles there are in high Silesia, or how many Germans, and if we could count them, we can not tell from Paris what they want. High Silesia does not belong to us, it does not belong to anybody but the people who live in it. We will do this: We will put that territory under the care of the league of nations for a little period ; we will establish a small armed ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 145 force there, made up of contingents out of the different allied nations so that no one of them would be in control, and then we will hold a referendum, and high Silesia shall belong either to Germany or to Poland as the people in high Silesia desire.” That is only one case out of half a dozen. In regions where the make-up of the popula- tion is* doubtful or the desire of the population is as yet unascer- tained, the league of nations is to be the instrumentality by which the goods are to be delivered to the people to whom they belong. No other international conference ever conceived such a purpose, and no earlier conference of that sort would have been willing to carry out such a purpose. Up to the time of this war, my fellow-citizens, it was the firm and fixed conviction of states- men in Europe that the greater nations ought to dominate and guide and determine the destiny of the weaker nations, and the American principle was rejected. The American principle is that, just as the weak man has the same legal rights that the strong man has, just as the poor man has the same rights as the rich, though I am sorry to say he does not always get them, so as between nations the principle of equality is the only principle of justice, and the weak nations have just as many rights and just the same rights as the strong nations. If you do not establish that principle, then this war is going to come again, because this war came by aggresion upon a weak nation. What happened, my fellow citizens? Don’t you remember? The Crown Prince of Austria was assassinated in Serbia. Not assassi- nated by anybody over whom the Government of Serbia had any control, but assassinated by some man who had at his heart the memory of something that was intolerable to him that had been done to the people that he belonged to, and the Austrian Govern- ment, not immediately but by suggestion from Berlin, where it was whispered, ” We are ready for the World War, and this is a good chance to begin it; the other nations do not believe we are going to begin it; we will begin it and overwhelm France, first of all, before the others can come to her rescue.” The Austrian Government sent an ultimatum to Serbia practically demanding of her that she sur- render to them her sovereign rights, and gave her 24 hours to decide. Poor Serbia, in her sudden terror, with memory of things that had happened before and might happen again, practically yielded to every demand, and with regard to a little portion of the ultimatum said she would like to talk it over with them, and they did not dare wait. They knew that if the world ever had the facts of that dis- pute laid before them the opinion of mankind would overwhelm anybody that took aggression against Serbia in such circumstances. The point is that they chose this little nation. They had always 141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 10 146 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. chosen the Balkans as the ground of their intrigue. German princes were planted all through the Balkans, so that when Germany got ready she could use the Balkan situation as pawns in her game. And what does the treaty of peace do? The treaty of peace sets all those nations up in independence again; gives Serbia back what had been torn away from her, sets up the Jugo- Slavic States and the Bohemian States under the name of Czechoslovakia; and if you leave it at that, you leave those nations just as weak as they were before. By giving them their land titles, you do not make them any stronger. You make them stronger in spirit, it may be, they see a new day, they feel a new enthusiasm, their old love of their country can now express itself in action, but physically they are no stronger than they were before, and that road that we heard so much of from Bremen to Bagdad is wide open. The Germans were traveling that road. Their general staff interrupted the game. The merchants and manufacturers and bankers of Germany were making conquest of ^the world. All they had to do was to wait a little while longer, and long German fingers would have been stretched all through that country which never could have been withdrawn. The war spoiled the game. German intrigue was pene- trating all those countries and controlling them. The dirty center of the intrigue, dirty in every respect, was Constantinople, and from there ramified all the threads that made this web, in the center of which was the venomous spider. If you leave that road open, if you leave those nations to take care of themselves, knowing that they can not take care of themselves, then you have committed the un- pardonable sin of undoing the victory which our boys won. You say, “What have we got to do with-it? ‘ Let us answer that ques- tion, and not from a sentimental point of view at all. Suppose we did not have any hearts under our jackets. Suppose we did not care for these people. Care for them? Why, their kinsmen are everywhere in the communities of the United States, people who love people over there are everywhere in the United States. We are made up out of mankind; we can not tear our hearts away from them. Our hearts are theirs, but suppose they were not. Suppose we had forgotten everything except the material, commercial, mone- tary interests of the United States. You can not get those markets away from Germany if you let her reestablish her old influence there. The 300,000,000 people between the Rhine and the Ural Mountains will be in such a condition that they can not buy any- thing, their industries can not start, unless they surrender them- selves to the bankers of Mittel-Europa, that you used to hear about; and the peoples of Italy and France and Belgium, some 80,000,000 strong, who are your natural customers, can not buy anything in ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 147 disturbed and bankrupt Europe. If you are going to trade with them, you have got to go partners with them. When I hear gentlemen talk about America standing for herself, I wonder where they have been living. Has America disconnected herself from the rest of the world ? Her ambition has been to connect herself with all the rest of the world commercially, and she is bank- / / rupt unless she does. Look at the actual situation right now, my fellow citizens. The war was a very great stimulation to some of the greatest of the manufacturing industries of this country, and a very interesting thing has been going on. You remember, some of you perhaps painfully remember, that the Congress of the United States put a very heavy tax on excess profits, and a great many men who were making large excess profits said, ” All right, we can manage this. These will not be profits ; we will spend these in enlarging our plants, advertising, increasing our facilities, spreading our agencies.” They have got ready for a bigger business than they can do unless they have the world to do it in, and if they have not the world to do it in, there will be a recession of prosperity in this country ; there will be unemployment ; there will be bankruptcy in some cases. The giant is so big that he Avill burst his jacket. The rest of the world is necessary to us, if you want to put it on that basis. I do not like to put it on that basis. That is not the American basis. America does not want to feed upon the rest of the world. She wants to feed it and serve it. America, if I may say it without offense to great peoples for whom I have a profound admiration on the other side of the water, is the only national idealistic force in the world, and idealism is going to save the world. Selfishness will embroil it. Narrow selfishness will tie things up into ugly knots that you can not get open except with a sword. All the human passions, if aroused on the wrong side, will do the world an eternal disservice. I remember somebody said to me one day, using a familiar phrase, that this was an age in which mind was monarch, and my reply was, “Well, if that is true, mind is one of those modern monarchs that reign and do not govern; as a matter of fact, we are governed by a great popular assembly made up of the passions, and the best that we can manage is that the handsome passions shall be in the ma- jority.” That is the task of mankind, that the handsome passions, the handsome sentiments, the handsome purposes, shall always have a dominating and working majority, so that they will always be able to outvote the baser passions, to defeat all the cupidities and mean- nesses and criminalities of the world. That is the program of civil- ization. The basis of the program of civilization, I want to say with all the emphasis that I am capable of, is Christian and not pagan, and in the presence of this inevitable partnership with the rest of the world, these gentlemen say, “We ‘will not sign the articles of 148 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. copartnership.” Well, why not? You have heard, I dare say, only about four things in the covenant of the league of nations. I have not heard them talk about anything else. It is a very wonderful document and you would think there were only four things in it. The things that they talk about are the chance to get out, the dangers of article 10, the Monroe doctrine, and the risk that other nations may interfere in our domestic affairs. Those are the things that keep them awake at night, and I want very briefly to take those things in their sequence. I do not like to discuss some of them. If I go to do a thing, I do not say at the beginning, ” My chief interest in this thing is how I am going to get out.” I will not be a very trusted or revered partner if it is evident that my fear is that I will continue to be a partner. But we will take that risk. We will sit by the door with our hand on the knob, and sit on the edge of our chair. There is nothing in the covenant to prevent our going out whenever we please, with the single limitation that we give two years’ notice. The gentlemen who discuss this thing do not object to the two years’ notice ; they say, ” It says that you can get out after two years’ notice if at that time you have fulfilled your international obligations,” and they are afraid somebody will have the right to say that they have not. That right can not belong to anybody unless you give it to somebody, and the covenant of the league does not give it to anybody. It is absolutely left to the conscience of this Nation, as to the conscience of every other member of the league, to determine whether at the time of its withdrawal it has fulfilled its international obligations or not; and inasmuch as the United States always has fulfilled its international obligations, I wonder what these gentlemen are afraid of ! There is only one thing to restrain us from getting ^out, and that is the opinion of our fellow men, and that will not restrain us in any con- ceivable circumstance if we have followed the honorable course which we always have followed. I would be ashamed as an American to be afraid that when we wanted to get out we should not have fulfilled our international obligations. Then comes article 10, for I am taking the questions in the order in which they come in the covenant itself. Let me repeat to you article 10 nearly verbatim ; I am not trying to repeat it exactly as it is written in the covenant. Every member of the league agrees to re- spect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial in- tegrity and existing political independence of the other members of the league. There is the guarantee of the land titles. Without that clause, there is no guarantee of the land titles. Without that clause the heart of the recent war is not cut out. The heart of the recent war was an absolute disregard of the territorial integrity and political independence of the smaller nations. If you do not cut the heart of ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 149 the war out, that heart is going to live and beat and grow stronger, and we will have the cateclysm again. Then the article adds that it shall be the duty of the council of the league to advise the members of the league what steps may be necessary from time to time to carry out this agreement; to adAase, not to direct. The Congress of the United States is just as free under that article to refuse to declare Avar as it is noAv ; and it is very much safer than it is now. The opinion of the world and of the United States bade it to declare war in April, 1917. It would have been shamed before all mankind if it had not declared Avar then. It was not given audible advice by any- body but its own people, but it knew that the whole world Avas wait- ing for it to fulfill a manifest moral obligation. This advice can not be given, my fellow citizens, Avithout the vote of the United States. The advice can not be given without a unanimous vote of the council of the league. The member of the council representing the United States has to vote -aye before the United States or any other country can be advised to go to war under that agreement, unless the United States is herself a party. What does that mean? Unless the United States is going to seize somebody else’s territory or somebody else is going to seize the territory of the United States. I do not contem- plate it as a likely contingency that we are going to steal somebody else’s territory, I dismiss that as not a serious probability, and I do not see anybody within reach who is going to take any of ours. But suppose we should turn highwayman, or that some other nation should turn highAvayman, and stretch its hands out for what belongs to us. Then what difference does it make what advice the council gives? We are in the scrap anyhow. In those circumstances Con- gress is not going to wait to hear what the council of the league says to determine whether it is going to Avar or not. The war will be its Avar. So that any way you turn article 10 it does not alter in the least degree the freedom and independence of the United States Avith regard to its action in respect of war. All of that is stated in such plain language that I can not for the life of me understand how anybody reads it any other way. I know perfectly well that the men AA 7 ho Avrote it read it the way I am interpreting it. I know that it is intended to be written that way, and if I am any judge of the English language, they succeeded in writing it that way. Then they are anxious about the Monroe doctrine. The covenant says in so many words that nothing in that document shall be taken as invalidating the Monroe doctrine. I do not see what more you could say. While the matter was under debate in what Avas called the commission on the league of nations, the body that dreAV the covenant up, in Avhich were representatives of 14 nations, I tried to think of some other language that could state it more unqualifiedly and I could not think of any other. Can you ? Nothing in that docu- 150 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. ment should be taken as invalidating the Monroe doctrine I can not say it any plainer than that and yet by a peculiar particularity of anxiety these gentlemen can not believe their eyes ; and from one point of view it is not strange, my fellow citizens. The rest of the world always looked askance on the Monroe doctrine. It is true, though some people have forgotten it, that President Monroe uttered that doctrine at the suggestion of the British cabinet, and in its initiation, in its birth, it came from Mr. Canning, who was prime minister of England and who wanted the aid of the United States in checking the ambition of some of the European countries to establish their power in South America. NotAvithstanding that, Great Britain did not like the Monroe doctrine as we grew so big. It was one thing to have our assistance and another thing for us not to need her assistance. And the rest of the world had studiously avoided on all sorts of interesting occasions anything that could be interpreted as an ac- knowledgment of the Monroe doctrine. So I am not altogether sur- prised that these gentlemen can not believe their eyes. Here the nations of Europe say that they are entering into an arrangement no part of which shall be interpreted as invalidating the Monroe doctrine. I do not have to say anything more about that. To my mind, that is eminently satisfactory, and as long as I am President I shall feel an added freedom in applying, when I think fit, the Monroe doctrine. I am very much interested in it, and I foresee occasions when it might be appropriately applied. In the next place they are afraid that other nations will interfere in our domestic questions. There, again, the covenant of the league distinctly says that if any dispute arises which is found to relate to an exclusively domestic question, the council shall take no action with regard to it and make no report concerning it, and the ques- tions that these gentlemen most often mention, namely the questions of the tariff and of immigration and of naturalization, are acknowl- edged by every authoritative student of international law without exception to be as, of course, domestic questions. These gentlemen want us to make an obvious thing painfully obvious by making a list of the domestic questions, and I object to making the list for this reason, that if you make a list you may leave something out. I remind all students of law within the sound of my voice of the old principle of the law that the mention of one thing is the exclusion of other things; that if you meant everything, you ought to have said everything; that if you said a few things, you did not have the rest in mind. I object to making a list of domestic questions, be- cause a domestic question may come up which I did not think of. Tn every such case the United States would be just as secure in her independent handling of the question as she is now. ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 151 Then, outside the covenant is the question of Shantung. Some gentlemen want to make a reservation or something that they clothe with a handsome name with regard to the Shantung provision, which is that the rights which Germany illictly got, for she got it by duress, from China shall pass to Japan. While the war is in progress, Great Gritian and France expressly in a written treaty, though a secret treaty, entered into an engagement with Japan that she should have all that Germany had in the Province of Shantung. If we re- pudiate this treaty in that matter Great Britain and France can not repudiate the other treaty, and they can not repudiate this treaty in- asmuch as it confirms the other. Therefore, in order to take away from Japan, for she is in physical possession of it now, what Ger- many had in China, we shall have to fight Japan and Great Britain and France; and at the same time do China no service, because one of the things that is known to everybody is that when the United States consented, because of this promise of Great Britain and France, to putting that provision in the treaty, Japan agreed that she would not take all of what was given to her in the treaty ; that, on the contrary, she would, just as soon as possible, after the treaty was carried out return every sovereign right or right resembling a sovereign right that Germany had enjoyed in Shantung to the Gov- ernment of China, and that she would retain at Shantung only those economic rights with regard to the administration of the railway and the exploitation of certain mines that other countries enjoy else- where in China. It is not an exceptional arrangement a very un- fortunate arrangement, I think, elsewhere as there, for China, but but not an exceptional arrangement. Under it Japan will enjoy privileges exactly similar and concessions exactly similar to what other nations enjoy elsewhere in China and nothing more. In addi- tion to that, if the treaty is entered into by the United States China will for the first time in her history have a forum to which to bring every wrong that is intended against her or that has been committed against her. When you are studying article 10, my fellow citizens, I beg of you that you will read article 11. I do not hear that very often referred to. Article 11- -I am not going to quote the words of it makes it the right of any member of the league to call attention to anything, anywhere, that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations upon which the peace of the world depends. Every aspiring people, every oppressed people, every people whose hearts can no longer stand the strain of the tyranny that has been put upon them, can find a champion to speak for it in the forum of the world. Until that covenant is adopted, what is the international law ? International law is that no matter how deeply the United States is interested in something in some other part of 152 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. the world that she believes is going to set the world on fire or dis- turb the friendly relations between two great nations, she can not speak of it unless she can show that her own interests are directly in- volved. It is a hostile and unfriendly act to call attention to it, and article 11 says, in so many words, that it shall be the friendly right of every nation to call attention to any such matter anywhere; so that if anybody contemplates anything that is an encroachment upon the rights of China he can be summoned to the bar of the world. I do not know when any nation that could not take care of itself, as unfortunately China can not, ever had such a humane advantage ac- corded it before. It is not only we, my fellow citizens, who are caught in all the implications of the affairs of the world ; everybody is caught in it now, and it is right that anything that affects the world should be made everybody’s business. The heart of the covenant of the league of nations is this: Every member of the league promises never to go to war without first hav- ing done one or other of two things, either having submitted the matter to arbitration, in which case it agrees absolutely to abide by the award, or having submitted it to discussion by the council of the league of nations. If it submits it for discussion by the council, it agrees to allow six months for the discussion and to lay all the docu- ments and facts in its possession before the council, which is author- ized to publish them ; and even if it is not satisfied with the opinion rendered by the council, it agrees that it will not go to war within less than three months after the publication of that judgment. There are nine months in which the whole matter is before the bar of man- kind, and, my fellow citizens, I make this confident prediction, that no nation will dare submit a bad case to that jury. I believe that this covenant is better than 95 per cent insurance against war. Suppose it was only 5 per cent insurance ; would not you want it ? If you can get any insurance against war, do not you want it? I ask any mother K any father, any brother, anybody with a heart, ” Do not you want some insurance against war, no matter how little?” And the experience of mankind, from the conferences between employers and employees, is that if people get together and talk things over, it becomes more and more difficult to fight the longer they talk. There is not any subject that has not two sides to it, and the reason most men will not enter into discussion with antagonists is that they are afraid the other fellows’ side will be stronger than theirs. The only thing you are afraid of, my fellow citizens, is the truth. A cynical old politician once said to his son, ” John, do not bother your head about lies; they will take care of themselves, but if you ever hear me denying anything you may make up your mind it is so.” The only thing that is formidable is the truth. I learned what I know about Mexico, which is not as much as I should desire, by hear- ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 153 ing a large number of liars tell me all about it. At first, I was very much confused, because the narratives did not tally, and then one */ t day, when I had a lucid interval, it occurred to me that that was because what was told me was not true. The truth always matches ; it is lies that do not match. I also observed that back of all these con- fusing contradictions there was a general mass of facts which they all stated, and I knew that that was the region into which their lying capacity did not extend. They had not had time to make up any lies about that, and the correspondences in their narratives consti- tuted the truth. The differences could be forgotten. So I learned a great deal about Mexico by listening to a sufficiently large number of liars. The truth is the regnant and triumphant thing in this world. You may trample it under foot, you may blind its eyes with blood, but you can not kill it, and sooner or later it rises up and seeks and gets its revenge. That is what it behooves us to remember, my fellow citizens, in these radical days. The men who want to cure the wrongs of govern- ments by destroying government are going to be destroyed them- selves ; destroyed, I mean, by the chaos that they have created, be- cause remove the organism of society and, even if you are strong enough to take anything that you want, you are not smart enough to keep it. The next stronger fellow will take it away from you and the most audacious group amongst you will make slaves and tools of you. That is the truth that is going to master society in Russia and in any other place that tries Russia’s unhappy example. I hope you will not think it inappropriate if I stop here to express my shame as an American citizen at the race riots that have occurred in some places in this country where men have forgotten humanity and justice and ordered society and have run amuck. That consti- tutes a man not only the enemy of society but his own enemy and the enemy of justice. I want to say this, too, that a strike of the police- men of a great city, leaving that city at the mercy of an army of thugs, is a crime against civilization. In my judgment, the obliga- tion of a policeman is as sacred and direct as the obligation of a soldier. He is a public servant, not a private employee, and the whole honor and safety of the community is in his hands. He has no right to prefer any private advantage to the public safety. I hope that that lesson will be burned in so that it will never again be forgotten, because the pride of America is that it can exercise self- control. That is what a self-governing nation is, not merely a na- tion that elects people to do its jobs for it, but a nation that can keep its head, concert its purposes, and find out how its purposes can b executed. One of the noblest sentences ever uttered was uttered by Mr. Gar- field before he became President. He was a Member of Congress, 154 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON”. as I remember it, at the time of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination. He happened to be in New York City, and Madison Square was filled with a surging mass of deeply excited people when the news of the murder came. Mr. Garfield was at the old Fifth Avenue Hotel, which had a balcony out over the entrance, and they begged him to go out and say something to the people. He went out and, after he had attracted their attention, he said this beautiful thing : ” My fel- low citizens, the President is dead, but the Government lives and God Omnipotent reigns.” America is the place where you can not kill your Government by killing the men who conduct it. The only way you can kill government in America is by making the men and women of America forget how to govern, and nobody can do that. They sometimes find the team a little difficult to drive, but they sooner or later whip it into harness. And, my fellow citizens, the underlying thought of what I have tried to say to you to-night is the organization of the world for order and peace. Our fortunes are directly involved, and my mind reverts to that scene that I painted for you at the outset that slope at Suresnes, those voiceless graves, those weeping women and I say. ” My fellow citizens, the pledge that speaks from those graves is demanded of us. We must see to it that those boys did not die in vain. We must fulfill the great mission upon which they crossed the sea.” #ADDRESS AT COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO, SEPTEMBER 12, 1919. Your excellency, my fellow citizens, it is with the greatest pleasure that I find myself facing an audience in this great State. I echo the wish of the governor that it might be our privilege to stay a long time in Idaho and know something more than her fame, know her people, come in contact with her industries, and see the things that we have all so long read about and admired from a dis- tance ; but, unfortunately, it is necessary for us to go back to Wash- ington as soon as we can, though it was a great pleasure to escape from Washington. Washington is a very interesting place, but it is a very lonely place. The people of the United States do not live there, and in order to know what the people of the United States are thinking about and talking about it is necessary to come and find out for yourself. That really is my errand. I have taken pains since I was a boy so to saturate myself in the traditions of America that I generally feel a good deal of confidence that the impulses which I find in myself are American impulses; but no matter how thoroughly American a man may be, he needs con- stantly to renew his touch with all parts of America and to be sure that his mind is guided, if he be in public station, by the thoughts and purposes of his fellow countrymen. It was, therefore, with the most earnest desire to get in touch with you and the rest of my fel- low countrymen that I undertook this trip, for, my fellow country- men, we are facing a decision now in which we can not afford to make a mistake. We must not let ourselves be deceived as to the gravity of that decision or as to the implications of that decision. It will mean a great deal now, but it will mean infinitely more in the future. America has to do at this moment nothing less than prove to the world whether she has meant what she said in the past. I must confess that I have been amazed that there are some men in responsible positions who are opposed to the ratification of the treaty of peace altogether. It is natural that so great a document, full of so many particular provisions, should draw criticism upon itself for this, that, or the other provision. It is natural that a world settlement, for it is nothing less, should give occasion for a great 155 156 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. many differences of opinion with regard to particular settlements of it, but I must admit that it amazes me that there should be any who should propose that the arrangement be rejected altogether, because, my fellow citizens, this is the issue : We went into this Great War from which we have just issued with certain assurances given ourselves and given the w^orld, and these assurances can not be ful- filled unless this treaty is adopted. We told the world and we as- sured ourselves that we went into this war in order to see to it that the kind of purpose represented by Germany in this war should never be permitted to be accomplished by Germany or anybody else. Do not let your thoughts dwell too constantly upon Germany. Ger- many attempted this outrageous thing, but Germany was not the only country that had ever entertained the purpose of subjecting the peoples of the world to its will, and when we went into this war we said that we sent our soldiers across the seas not because we thought this was an American fight in particular, but because we knew that the purpose of Germany was against liberty, and that where any- body was fighting liberty it was our duty to go into the contest. We set this Nation up with the profession that we wanted to set an example of liberty not only, but to lead the world in the paths of liberty and justice and of right; and at last, after long reflection, after long hesitation, after trying to persuade ourselves that this was a European war and nothing more, we suddenly looked our own consciences in the face and said, “This is not merely a European war. This is a war which imperils the very principles for which this Government was set up, and it is our duty to lend all the force that we have, whether of men or of resources, to the resistance of these designs.” And it was America never let anybody forget this it was America that saved the world, and those who propose the re- jection of the treaty propose that, after having redeemed the world, we should desert the world. It would be nothing less. The settlements of this treaty can not be maintained without the concerted action of all the great Governments of the world. I asked you just now not to think exclusively about Germany, but turn your thoughts back to what it was that Germany proposed. Germany did direct her first force against France and against Belgium, but you know that it was not her purpose to remain in France, though it was part of her purpose to remain in Belgium. She was using her arms against these people so that they could not prevent what she intended elsewhere, and what she intended elsewhere was to make an open line of dominion between her and the Far East. The formula that she adopted was Bremen to Bagdad, the North Sea to Persia to crush not only little Serbia, whom she first started to crush, but all the Balkan States, get Turkey in her grasp, take all the Turkish and Arabian lands beyond, penetrate the wealthy realms of Persia, open ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 157 the gates of India, and, by dominating the central trade routes of the world, dominate the world itself. That was her plan ; and what does the treaty of peace do ? For I want you to remember, my fel- low countrymen, that this treaty is not going to stand by itself. The treaty with Austria has now been signed; it will presently be sent over, and I shall lay that before the Senate of the United States. It will be laid down along exactly the same lines as the treaty with Germany; and the lines of the treaty with Germany suggest this, that we are setting up the very States which Germany and Austria intended to dominate as independent, self-governing units. We are giving them what they never could have got with their own strength, what they could have got only by the united strength of the armies of the world. But we have not made them strong by making them in- dependent. We have given them what I have called their land titles. We have said, ” These lands that others have tried to dominate and exploit for their own uses belong to you, and we assign them to you in fee simple. They never did belong to anybody else. They were loot. It was brigandage to take them. We give them to you in fee simple.” But what is the use of setting up the titles if we do not guarantee them? And that guaranty is the only guaranty against the repetition of the war we have gone through just so soon as the German nation, 60,000,000 strong, can again recover its strength and its spirit, for east of Germany lies the fertile field of intrigue and power. At this moment the only people who are dealing with the Bolshevist government in Russia are the Germans. They are frater- nizing with the few who exercise control in that distracted country. They are making all their plans that the financing of Russia and the commerce of Russia and the development of Russia shall be as soon as possible in the hands of Germans; and just so soon as she can swing that great power, that is also her road to the East and to the domination of the world. If you do not guarantee the titles that you are getting up in these treaties, you leave the whole ground fal- low in which again to sow the dragon’s teeth with the harvest of armed men. That, my fellow citizens, is what article 10, that you hear so much talked about in the covenant of the league of nations, does. It guar- antees the land titles of the world ; and if you do not guarantee the land titles of the world, there can not be the ordered society in which men can live. Off here in this beloved continent, with its great free stretches and its great free people, we have not realized the cloud of dread and terror under which the people of Europe have lived. I have heard men over there say, ” It is intolerable. We would rather die now than live another 50 years under the cloud that has hung over us ever since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, because we 158 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. have known that this force was gathering, we have known what the purpose was Ultimately to be, we have known that blood and terror lay ahead of us, and we can not and will not live under that cloud any more.” America, my fellow citizens, is necessary to the peace of the world. America is absolutely necessary to the peace of the world. Germany realizes that; and I want to tell you now and here I wish I could proclaim it in tones so loud that they would reach the world- Germany wants us to stay out of this treaty. Not under any decep- tion. Not under the deception that we will turn in sympathy toward her. Not under the delusion that we would seek in any direct or conscious way to serve Germany, but with the knowledge that the guaranties will not be sufficient without America, and that, inasmuch as Germany is out of the arrangement, it will be very useful to Ger- many to have America out of the arrangement. Germany knows that if America is out of the arrangement America will lose the confi- dence and cooperation of all the other nations in the world, and* fearing America’s strength, she wants to see America alienated from the peoples from whom she has been alienated. It is a perfectly reasonable program. She wants to see America isolated. She is isolated. She wants to see one great nation left out of this combina- tion which she never would again dare face. Evidences are not lacking nay, evidences are abounding that the pro-German propa- ganda has started up in this country coincidently with the opposition to the adoption of this treaty. I want those who have any kind of sympathy with the purposes with which we went into the war now to reflect upon this proposition : Are we going to prove the enemy of the rest of the world just when we have proved their savior? The thing is intolerable.” The thing is impossible. America has never been unfaithful and she never will be unfaithful. Do not let anybody delude you, my fellow citizens, with the pose of being an American. If I am an American I want at least to be an intelligent America. If I am a true American I will study the true interests of America. If I am a true American I will have the world vision that America has always had, drawing her blood, draw- ing her genius, as she has drawn her people, out of all the great con- structive peoples of the world. A true American conceives America in the atmosphere and whole setting of her fortune and her destiny. And America needs the confidence of the rest of the world just as much as other nations do. America needs the cooperation of the rest of the world to release her resources, to make her markets, above all things else to link together the spirits of men who mean to redeem the race from the Avrongs that it has suffered. This western country is par excellence the country of progressiveism. I am not now using it with a big ” P.” It does not make any difference whether you belong to the Progressive Party or not; you belong to the progres- ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 159 sive thought, and I hope every intelligent man belongs to the pro- gressive thought. It is the only thought that the world is going to tolerate. If you believe in progress, if you believe in progressive reform, if you believe in making the lot of men better, if you be- lieve in purifying politics and enlarging the purposes of public policy, then you have got to have a world in which that will be pos- sible; and if America does not enter with all her soul into this new world arrangement, progressives might as well go out of business, because there is going to be universal disorder, as there is now uni- versal unrest. Do not mistake the signs of the times, my fellow countrymen, and do not think that America is immune. The poison that has spread all through that pitiful nation of Russia is spreading all through Europe. There is not a statesman in Europe who does not dread the infection of it, and just so certainly as those people are disconcerted, thrown back upon their own resources, disheartened, rendered cyni- cal by the withdrawal of the only people in the world they trust, just so certainly there will be universal upsetting of order in Europe. And if the order of Europe is upset, do you think America is going to be quiet ? Have you not been reading in the papers of the intoler- able thing that has just happened in Boston? When the police of a great city walk out and leave that city to be looted they have com- mitted an intolerable crime against civilization; and if that spirit is going to prevail, where are your programs? How can you carry a program out when every man is taking what he can get? How can you carry a program out when there is no authority upon which to base it? How can you carry a program out when every man is looking out for his own selfish interests and refuses to be bound by any law that regards the interests of the others? There will be no reform in this world for a generation if the conditions of the world are not now brought to settled order, and they can not be brought to settled order without the cooperation of America. I am not speaking with conjecture, my fellow citizens. I would be ashamed of myself if upon a theme so great as this I should seek to mislead you by overstatement of any kind. I know what I am talking about. I have spent six months amidst those disturbed peo- ples on the other side of the water, and I can tell you, now and here, that the only people they depend upon to bring the world to settled conditions are the people of America. A chill will go to their heart, a discouragement will come down upon them, a cynicism will take possession of them, which will make progress impossible, if we do not take part not only, but do not take part with all our might and with all our genius. Everybody who loves justice and who hopes for programs of reform must support the unqualified adoption of this treaty. I send this challenge out to the conscience of every man in 160 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. America, that if he knows anything of the conditions of the world, if he knows anything of the present state of society throughout the world and really loves justice and purposes just reform, he must sup- port the treaty with Germany. I do not want to say that and have it proved by tragedy, for if this treaty should be refused, if it should be impaired, then amidst the tragedy of the things that would follow every man would be converted to the opinion that I am now uttering, but I do not want to see that sort of conversion. I do not want to see an era of blood and of chaos to convert men to the only practical methods of justice. My fellow citizens, there are a great many things needing to be reformed in America. We are not exempt from those very subtle in- fluences which lead to all sorts of incidental injustice. We ourselves are in danger at this present moment of minorities trying to control our affairs, and whenever a minority tries to control the affairs of the country it is fighting against the interest of the country just as much as if it were trying to upset the Government. If you think that you can afford to live in a chaotic world, then speak words of encourage- ment to the men who are opposing this treaty, but if you want to have your own fortunes held steady, realize that the fortunes of the world must be held steady; that if you want to keep your own boys at home after this terrible experience, you will see that boys elsewhere are kept at home. Because America is not going to refuse, when the other catastrophe comes, again to attempt to save the world, and, having given this proof once, I pray God that we may not be given occasion to prove it again! We went into this war promising every loving heart in this country who had parted with a beloved youngster that we were going to fight a war which would make that sacrifice unneces- sary again, and we must redeem that promise or be of all men the most unfaithful. If I did not go on this errand through the United States, if I did not do everything that was within my power that is honorable to get>this treaty adopted, and adopted without qualification, I never
could look another mother in the face upon whose cheeks there were
the tears of sorrowful memory with regard to the boy buried across
the sea. The moral compulsion laid upon America now is a compelling
compulsion, and can not be escaped. My fellow countrymen, because
it is a moral issue, because it is an issue in which is mixed up every sort
of interest in America, I am not in the least uneasy about the result.
If you put it on the lowest levels, you can not trade with a world
disordered, and if you do not trade you draw your own industries
within a narrower and narrower limit. This great State, with its
untold natural resources, with its great undeveloped resources, will
have to stand for a long generation stagnant because there are no
distant markets calling for these things. All America will have to
wait a long, anxious generation through to see the normal courses of
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 161
her life restored. So, if I were putting it upon the lowest conceiv-
able basis of the amount of money we could make, I would say, “We
have got to assist in the restoration of order and the maintenance of
order throughout the world by the maintenance of the morale of
the world.” You will say, “How? By arms?” That, I suspect, is
what most of the opponents of the league of nations, at any rate,
try to lead you to believe, that this is a league of arms. Why, my
fellow citizens, it is a league to bring about the thing that America
has been advocating ever since I was born. It is a league to bring it
about that there shall not be war, but that there shall be substituted
for it arbitration and the calm settlement of discussion. That is the
heart of the league. The heart of the league is this : Every member
of the league, and that will mean every fighting nation in the world
except Germany, agrees that it will never go to war without first
having done one or the other of two things either having submitted
the matter in dispute to arbitration, in which case it agrees abso-
lutely to abide by the result, or having submitted it to consideration
by the council of the league of nations, in which case it promises to
lay all the documents, all the facts, in its possession before the
council and to give the council six months in which to consider the
matter, and, if it does not like the opinion of the council at the end
of the six months, still to wait three months more before it resorts
to arms. That is what America has been striving for. That is what
the Congress of the United States directed me to bring about. Per-
haps you do not know where ; it was in an unexpected place, in the
naval appropriations bill. Congress, authorizing a great building
program of ships and the expenditure of vast sums of money to
make our Navy one of the strongest in the world, paused a moment
and declared in the midst of the appropriation bill that it was the
policy of the United States to bring about disarmament and that for
that purpose it was the policy of the United States to cooperate in
the creation of a great international tribunal to which should be
submitted questions of international difference and controversy, and
it directed the President of the United States, not later than the
close of this war, to call together an international conference for
that purpose. It even went so far as to make an appropriation to
pay the expenses for the conduct of such a conference in the city of
Washington. And that is a continuing provision of the naval ap-
propriations bill. When I came back with this covenant of the
league of nations, I had fulfilled the mandate of the Congress of the
United States ; and now they do not like it.
There is only one conceivable reason for not liking it, my fellow
citizens, and to me as an American it is not a conceivable reason;
that is that we should wish to do some nation some great wrong.
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 11
162 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
If there is any nation in the world that can afford to submit its pur-
poses to discussion, it is the American Nation. If I belonged to some
other nations, there are some things that I know that I would not
like to see submitted to the discussion of mankind, but I do not know
anything in the present purposes of the United States that I would
not be perfectly willing to lay upon any table of counsel in the world.
In carrying out the mandate of the Congress, I was serving the age-
long purpose of this great people, which purpose centers in justice
and in peace.
You will say, ” Well, why not go in with reservations?” I wonder
if you know what that means. If the Senate of the United States
passes a resolution of ratification and says that it ratifies on condition
that so and so is understood, that will have to be resubmitted to every
signatory of the treaty ; and what gravels me is that it will have to
be submitted to the German Assembly at Weimar. That goes against
my digestion. We can not honorably put anything in that treaty,
which Germany has signed and ratified, with Germany’s consent;
whereas it is perfectly feasible, my fellow countrymen, if we put
interpretations upon that treaty which its language clearly warrants,
to notify the other Governments of the world that we do understand
the treaty in that sense. It is perfectly feasible to do that, and per-
fectly honorable to do that, because, mark you, nothing can be done
under this treaty through the instrumentality of the council of the
league of nations except by a unanimous vote. The vote of the
United States will always be necessary, and it is perfectly legitimate
for the United States to notify the other Governments beforehand
that its vote in the council of the league of nations will be based upon
such and such an understanding of the provisions of the treaty.
The treaty is not susceptible of misunderstanding. I do not ob
ject to painting the rose or refining fine gold; there is not any
phrase in the covenant of the league of nations that can legitimately
be said to^be of doubtful meaning, but if the Congress of the United
States wants to state the meaning over again in other words and
say to the other nations of the world, ” We understand the treaty
to mean what it says,” I think that is a Avork of supererogation, but
I do not see any moral objection to it. But anything that qualifies
the treaty, anything that is a condition to our ratification of it, must
be submitted to all the others, and we must go over this process
again; this process which took six months of intensive labor, which
took six months of very difficult adjustment and arrangement, which
quieted jealousies, which allayed suspicions, which set aside contro-
versies, which brought about the most extraordinary union of minds
that was ever brought about in so miscellaneous an assembly, divided
by so many interests. All that must be gone over again, and in the
meantime the world must wait and its unrest grow deeper, and all
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 163
the pulses of life go slower, waiting to see what is going to happen,
all because the United States asks the other governments of the world
to accept what they have already accepted in different language.
That is all that it amounts to ; I means, all that the reasonable reser-
vations amount to. Some of them amount to staying out altogeher,
some of them amount to a radical change of the spirit of the instru-
ment, but I am speaking now of those which some men of high
conscience and of high public purpose are seriously pressing in order
that there may be no misunderstanding. You can avoid a misunder-
standing without changing the document. You can avoid a mis-
understanding without qualifying the terms of the document, be-
cause, as I have said and shall say again and again, America is at
liberty as one of the voting members of the partnership to state how
she understands the articles of copartnership.
I beg that these things may sink in your thoughts, my fellow coun-
trymen, because we are at a turning point in the fortunes of the world.
Out upon these quiet hills and in these great valleys it is difficult some-
times for me to remember the turmoil of the world in which I have
been mixing on the other side of the sea ; it is difficult for me to re-
member the surging passions which moved upon the face of the other
continents of the world ; it is difficult for me to remember the infinite
suffering that happened even in this beloved country; it is difficult
for me to remember the delegations from weak peoples that came to
me in Paris, figuratively speaking, with outstretched hands, pleading
that America should lead the way out of the darkness into the light ;
it is difficult out here in this great peace for anybody, even, I dare
say, for these fine fellows in khaki who were over there and saw some-
thing of it, to remember the whole strain and terror of the thing, but
we must remember it, my fellow citizens, and we must see to it that
that strain and terror never come upon the world again. It is with
this solemn thought, that we are at a turning point in the destinies
of mankind and that America is the makeweight of mankind, that I,
with perfect confidence, leave this great question to your unbiased
judgment.
#ADDRESS AT SPOKANE, WASH.,
SEPTEMBER 12, 1919.
Mr. Mayor, my fellow countrymen, I esteem it a real privilege to
stand face to face with a representative audience of this great city,
because I have come away from Washington, my fellow countrymen,
not to make speeches but to get into contact with just such bodies of
men and women as this, and feel that I have exchanged ideas with
them, and with the utmost frankness of which I was capable. I have
not come to paint pictures of the fancy. I have come to disclose to you
what I understand to be facts, and I want so much as possible to get
down to the very essence and marrow of the things that we are now
talking about.
I do not think I need tell you, my fellow citizens, that America and
the world have come to the point where they must make one of the
most critical choices ever made by great bodies of men or by nations.
They have now to determine whether they will accept the one chance
that has ever been offered to insure the peace of the world. I call it
frankly a chance to insure the peace of the world. Nobody can
guarantee the world against the ugly passions that sometimes get
abroad. Nobody can engage that the world will not again go mad
with blood ; but I want to put it frankly to you : Though the chance
should be poor, is it not worth taking a chance? Let men discount
the proposed arrangements as much as they will; let us regard it as
an insurance policy. If you could get 10 per cent insurance of your
fortunes in respect of peace, wouldn’t you rather take it than no in-
surance at all? As a matter of fact, I believe, after having sat in
conference with men all over the world and found the attitude of
their minds, the character of their purposes, that this is a 99 per cent
insurance against war. If the nations of the world will indeed and in
truth accept this great covenant of a league of nations and agree to
put arbitration and discussion always first and war always last, I say
that we have an immense insurance against war, and that is exactly
what this great covenant does.
I have found it necessary upon this trip, my fellow citizens I have
actually found it necessary to tell great audiences what the treaty
165
166 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
of peace contains. You never could divine it from the discussion of
the men who are opposed to it. Let me tell you some of the things
that this treaty does, apart from the covenant of the league of
nations which stands by common consent of those who framed it at
the beginning of it. Quite apart from the league of nations, it is the
first attempt ever made by an international congress to substitute
justice for national advantage. It is the first attempt ever made to
settle the a if airs of the world according to the wishes of the people
in the parts of the world that were being dealt with. It is a treaty
that deals with peoples and nations, and not with dynasties and
governments. Every representative of ever}^ great Government I
met on the other side of the sea acknowledged, as I, of course,
acknowledge, that he Avas master of nobody, that he was the servant
of the people whom he represented, and that the people he repre-
sented wanted what the people of the United States wanted; they
wanted a just and reasonable and permanent settlement, and that is
what this treaty tried to give them. If substitutes for the aggression,
Avhich always was the beginning of war, a settled title on the part
of the weak nations, along with the strong, to their own territories,
a settled right to determine their own policies, a settled right to
realize the national hopes so long suppressed, to free themselves from
the oppression so long endured. Europe was full of people under
the iron and relentless hand of military power, and that hand has
been removed and crushed. This treaty is the means of doing it.
The guaranty of this treaty is the part of the covenant of nations
which you have heard most criticized. I mean the now celebrated
article 10. Article 10 is an engagement of the most extraordinary
kind in history. It is an engagement by all the fighting nations of
the world never to fight upon the plan upon which they always
fought before. They, all of them, agree to respect and preserve
against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing
political independence of the others, and they agree that if there
should be any breach of that covenant, the council of the league
shall advise what steps shall be taken to make the promises good.
That is the covenant with which you have been frightened. Fright-
ened, my fellow citizens ? Why, it is the only possible or conceivable
guaranty against the wars that have ravaged the world, because
those war’s have habitually begun by territorial aggression, by the
seizure of territory that did not belong to the power that was ef-
fecting the seizure. How did this great war begin? It began by
the invasion of Belgium, and it was admitted by all German states-
men that they never meant to get out of Belgium. By guaranteeing
the territorial integrity of a country, you do not mean that you
guarantee it against invasion. You guarantee it against the invader
staying there and keeping the spoils. The integrity is the title, is
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 167
the ownership. You agree never to take territory away from the
people to whom it belongs, and you agree never to interfere with
the political independence of the people living in these territories
whose titles are now made clear by a universal international guar-
anty.
I want to discuss with you very frankly, indeed, just as frankly
as I know how, the difficulties that have been suggested, because I
say, not in the spirit of criticism, but in a spirit of entire intended
fairness, that not one of the qualifications which have been suggested
in this discussion is justified by the language of the instrument. Let
me take them one by one. In the first article of the covenant of the
league it is provided that any member State may withdraw from the
league upon two years’ notice, provided at the time of withdrawal it
has fulfilled its international obligations and its obligations under the
covenant. Gentlemen object that it is not said who shall determine
whether it has fulfilled its international obligations and its obligations
under the covenant or not. Having sat at the table where the instru-
ment was drawn, I know that that was not by accident, because that
is a matter upon which no nation can sit in judgment upon another.
That is left to the conscience and the independent determination of
the nation that is withdrawing, and there is only one jury that it need
fear and that is the great embodied jury expressing the opinion of
mankind. I want to differentiate myself, therefore, from the men
who are afraid of that clause, because I want to record my feeling
in the matter that, as an American, I am never afraid that the United
States will fail to perform its international obligations; and. being
certain that it will never fail in that respect, I have no fear that an
occasion will arise when we need be sensitive to the opinion of man-
kind. That is the only jury set up in the case, and I am ready to go
before that jury at any time. These gentlemen want to say what
the instrument says, that we can withdraw when we please. The
instrument does not say it in those words, but it says it in effect, and
the only limitation upon that is that we should not please unless we
have done our duty. We never will please, God helping us, to neglect
our duty.
The second difficulty taking them in the order in which they have
come in the covenant itself is the article I was a moment ago dis-
cussing, article 10. Article 10, as I told you, says that if the promise
to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial
integrity and existing political independence of the member States is
broken, then the council shall advise what is to be done. I do not
know any but one meaning for the word ” advise.” I have been very
curious and interested to learn how many other meanings have been
put into it. I, in my surprise, have looked in the dictionary to be sure
168 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
I was not mistaken, and so far as I can find out “advise’ means
” advise.” And more interesting than that, the advice can not be
given without the affirmative vote of the United States. There must
be a unanimous vote of the council before there is advice, and the
United States is a member of the council by the constitution of the
league itself, a member now and always a member, so that neither the
United States nor any other country can be advised to go to war for
the redemption of that promise without the concurrent affirmative
vote of the United States. Yet I hear gentlemen say that this is an
invasion of our sovereignty. My fellow citizens, if it is anything, it
is an exaggeration of our sovereignty, because it puts our sovereignty
in a way to put a veto on that advice being given to anybody. Our
present sovereignty merely extends to making choice whether we will
go to war or not, but this extends our sovereignty to saying whether
other nations shall go to war or not. If that does not constitute a
very considerable insurance against war, I would like somebody to
write a provision which would; because, at every point, my fellow
citizens, the position of these gentlemen who criticize this instrument
is either that they do not understand the covenant or that they can
suggest something better, and I have not heard one of them suggest
anything better. In fact, I have never heard of them suggest
anything. If the world is going to be at peace, it must be this or
something better, and I want to say again it is a case of ” put up or
shut up.”
Let me make a slight digression here, if I may, to speak about a
matter of some delicacy. I have had a great many men say to me,
” I am a Republican, but I am in favor of the league of nations.”
Why the ” but.” I want to tell you, my fellow citizens, that there
is one element in this whole discussion which ought not to be in it.
There is, though I say it myself, an element of personal bitterness.
One would suppose that this covenant of the league of nations was
first thought of and first invented and first written by a man named
Wilson. I wish it were. If I had done that, I would be willing to
have it recorded that I had done that and nothing else. But I did
not do it. I, along with thousands of my fellow countrymen, got the
idea 20 years ago, chiefly from Republican public men. Take men
like ex-Senator Burton, of Ohio. He has been preaching a league of
nations for 20 years. I do not want to mention names, because I do
” not want to record gentlemen against themselves, but go through the
list and you will find most of the leading, thinking minds on the Re-
publican side in favor of this very kind of thing, and I want to re-
mind every Republican of the criticism that he and his comrades
have usually made of the Democratic Party, and the boast that they
have generally made of their party. They said that the Democratic
Party was a party of negations and not a party of constructive
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 169
policies, and that the Republican Party was a party of constructive
policy. Very well, then, why that ” but.” ” I am a Republican, but I
am in favor of the greatest constructive thing that has ever been
suggested ! ‘ If I were a Republican, I would say, ” I am a Repub-
lican and therefore I am in favor of a league of nations.” My present
point is to dissociate the league of nations from the present speaker.
I did not originate it. It is not my handiwork. It has originated
out of the consciences and thought of men who wanted justice and
loved peace for generations, and my relationship to it is just what my
relationship ought to be to every public question, the relationship
which a man bears to his fellow citizens when he tries to interpret
their thought and their conscience. That is what I conceive to be
my part in the league of nations. I did have a part in some of
the phraseology, and every time I did it was to carry out the ideas
that these gentlemen are fighting for.
For example, there is one part of the covenant, the principal part
of it, where it speaks of arbitration and discussion, where it provides
that any member State, failing to keep these particular covenants,
shall be regarded as thereby ipso facto to have committed an act of
war against the other members. The way it originally read was,
” Shall thereby ipso facto be deemed at war with the other mem-
bers,” and I said, “No; I can not agree to that. That provision
would put the United States at war without the consent of the Con-
gress of the United States, and I have no right in this part of the
covenant or any other to assent to a provision which would deprive
the Congress of the United States of its free choice whether it makes
war or not.” There, and at every other point in the covenant where
it was necessary to do so, I insisted upon language which would leave
the Congress of the United States free, and yet these gentlemen say
that the Congress of the United States is deprived of its liberty. I
fought that battle and won it. It is not necessary for them to fight
it over again.
You will say, “It is all very” well what you say about the vote of
the United States being necessary to the advice provided the United
States is not one of the parties to the dispute. In that case it can
not vote.” That is very true; but in that case it has got the fight on
its hands anyhow, because if it is one of the parties to the dispute the
war belongs to it. It does not have to go into it, and therefore it
can not be forced by the vote of the United States in the council to
go into the war. The only thing the vote can do is to force it out
of the war. I want to ask you to think what it means when it is sug-
gested that the United States may be a party. A party to what?
A party to seizing somebody else’s territory ? A party to infringing
some other country’s political independence ? Is any man willing to
stand on this platform and say that the United States is likely to do
170 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
either of those things? I challenge any man to stand up before
an American audience and say that that is the danger. “Ah, but
somebody else may seek to seize our territory or impair our political
independence.” Well, who? Who has an arm long enough, who
has an audacity great enough to try to take a single inch of American
territory or to seek to interfere for one moment with the political
independence of the United States ? These gentlemen are dreaming
of things that can not happen, and I can not bring myself to feel
uneasy in the presence of things that I know are not so. The great
difficulty in this discussion, as in so many others, is in the number
of things that men know that are not so.
” But the Monroe doctrine.” I must admit to you, my fellow citi-
zens, I do not know how the Monroe doctrine could be any more ex-
plicitly accepted than it is in the covenant of the league of nations.
It says that nothing in the covenant shall be interpreted as impairing
the validity of the Monroe doctrine. What more could you say? I
did try while I was in Paris to define the Monroe doctrine and get it
written into the document, but I will confide to you in confidence that
when I tried to define it I found that it escaped analysis, that all that
you could say was that it was a principle with regard to the inter-
ference of foreign powers in the politics of the Western Hemisphere
which the United States felt at liberty to apply in any circumstances
where it thought it pertinent. That is not a definition. That means
that the United States means to play big brother to the Western
Hemisphere in any circumstances where it thinks it wise to play big
brother. Therefore, inasmuch as you could not or would not define
the Monroe doctrine at least I would not, because I do not know
how much we may want to extend it what more could you say than
that nothing in that instrument shall impair the validity of the Men-
roe doctrine ? I tell you, my fellow citizens, that is the most extraor-
dinary sentence in that treaty, for this reason : Up to that time there
was no^a nation in the world that was willing to admit the validity
of the Monroe doctrine. I have made a great many speeches in my
life, perhaps too many, but I do not think that I ever put so much
of what I hope was the best in me as I put in the speech in the con-
ference on the league of nations in favor of the Monroe doctrine, and
it was upon that occasion that it was embodied. And we have this
extraordinary spectacle, of the world recognizing the validity of the
Monroe doctrine. Yet these gentlemen seem to want something more.
What more could 3^011 get ? Shall we get them to express their belief
in the deity of the Monroe doctrine? They accept it for the first
time in the history of the world, and they say that they will do noth-
ing that will interfere with it. I must submit that it is absolutely
irrational to ask for anything more.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 171
But there is the question of somebody interfering with the domes-
tic policies of the United States immigration, naturalization, tariffs ;
matters of that sort. There, again, I can not understand or feel the
weight of the difficulty, because the covenant says that if any inter-
national difficulty is brought under discussion and one of the
parties claims and the council finds that it is a matter of domestic
jurisdiction, the council shall cease to discuss it and shall make no
report about it. The only way you could make the document more
clear would be b}^ enumerating the domestic questions you had in
mind. Very well. I ask any lawyer here if that would be safe?
Might you not be in danger of leaving out something ? Might you not
be in danger of not mentioning something that would afterwards
become important? The danger of making a list is that the mention
of the things you do mention constitutes the exclusion of the things
you do not mention. Inasmuch as there is no dispute of any authori-
tative students of international law that these matters that we are
most concerned about immigration, naturalization, tariff, and the
rest are domestic questions, it is inconceivable that the council
should ever seek to interfere with or to discuss such questions, unless
we had ourselves deliberately made them matters of international
agreement, and even the opponents of the league admit they would
be suitable and proper subjects for discussion.
Those are the matters upon which they are talking about reserva-
tions. The only reservations I can imagine are reservations which
say over again what the covenant itself says in plain language, and
make it necessary that we should go back to Paris and discuss new
language for things that we all have to admit, if we are frank, are
already in the document.
But there is another matter. Somebody has said that this covenant
was an arrangement for the dominance of Great Britain, and he
based that upon the fact that in the assembly of the council there are
six representatives of the various parts of the British Empire. There
are really more than that, because each member of the assembly has
three representatives, but six units of the British Empire are repre-
sented, whereas the United States is represented as only one unit.
Let me be didactic for a moment and tell you how the league is con-
stituted. There is an assembly made up of three members of each of
the constituent States, and there is a council. The council is the only
part of the organization that can take effective action. No powers
of action rest with the assembly at all, and it is only in the assembly
that the British Empire is represented as consisting of six units
for brevity’s sake I will say as having six votes. There is only one
case when the assembly can vote at all, and that is when the council
refers a matter in dispute to the assembly, in which case the assembly
can decide a matter by a majority, provided all the representatives
172 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
of the nations represented in the council vote 011 the side of the
majority. So that, alike in the assembly and in the council, the one
vote of the United States is an absolute veto. I have said that there
was only one case upon which the assembly could vote, and that is
literally true. The council of the league is made up of one repre-
sentative from each of the five principal allied and associated powers ;
that is to say, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and
Japan, and four other nations selected by the assembly of the league.
The present members are Spain, Brazil, Belgium, and Greece. In
the council is vested all the active powers of the league. Everything
that is done by the league is formulated and passed by the coun-
cil, and a unanimous vote is required. Indeed, my fellow citi-
zens, that is the only thing that seems to me weak about the league ;
I am afraid that a unanimous vote will sometimes be very difficult
to get. The danger is not action, but inaction. The danger is not
that they will do something that we do not like, but that upon some
critical occasion they will not do anything. If there is any weakness
in it, it is the safeguard that has been thrown around the sovereign
power of the members of the council. If a matter in controversy
arises and one of the parties demands that it shall be taken out of the
council and put into the assembly, the council is obliged so to refer it,
but in the final vote in the assembly the affirmative action is not valid
unless all the States represented in the council shall also in the assem-
bly vote in the affirmative. As we can always veto, always offset with
one vote the British six votes, I must say that I look with perfect
philosophy upon the difference in number.
The justification for the representation of more than one part of
the British Empire was that the British Empire is made up of semi-
independent pieces, as no other Empire in the world is. You know
how Canada, for example, passes her own tariff law, does what she
pleases to inconvenience the trade of the mother country. Canada’s
voice in^the assembly is merely a debating force. The assembly is
a great discussing body. It is a body in which some of the most
valuable things that the league is going to do can be done, for I
want to ask you, after you have read article 10 again, to read article
11. Article 11 makes it the right of any member of the league, however
weak and small, to call attention to anything, anywhere, that is
likely to disturb the peace of the world and to draw it into debate,
draw it into the open, draw it where everybody can get the facts and
talk about it. It is the only time, my fellow countrymen, in the
history of the world when weak and oppressed and restive peoples
have been given a hearing before the judgment of mankind. Noth-
ing is going to keep this world fit to live in like exposing in public
debate every crooked thing that is going on. If you suspect your
friend of being a fool, the best way you can prove it or disprove it is
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 173
by advising him to hire a hall. Then your judgment will be con-
firmed or reversed by the popular verdict. If you think a policy is
good, you will venture to talk about it. If you think it is bad, you
will not consent to talk about it. The league of nations takes every-
thing into the public. It makes every secret agreement of every kind
invalid; it provides that no treaty hereafter shall be valid unless
registered with the secretary of the league and published. And
after bringing everything into the open, it authorizes the assembly to
discuss anything that is likely to affect the peace and happiness of
the world. In every direction you look the safeguards of this treaty
are thrown around those who are oppressed.
Unless America takes part in this treaty, my fellow citizens, the
world is going to lose heart. I can not too often repeat to you how
deep the impression made upon me upon the other side of the water
is that this was the Nation upon which the whole world depended
to hold the scales of justice even. If we fail them, God help the
world ! Then despair will ensue. Despair is just 1 at the door on that
side of the water now. Men do not hope in Europe as they hope in
America. They hope tremblingly. They hope fearfully. They do
not hope with confidence and self-reliance as we do on this side of
the water. Everywhere in Europe there is that poison of disorder
and distrust, and shall we take away from this unsteady world the
only thing that reassures it? If we do, then where is the boasted
independence of America? Are we indeed independent in our life
of the rest of the world ? Then why did we go into the war ? Ger-
many had not directed her efforts immediately against us. We went
in because we were partners with mandkind to see that an iniquity
was not practiced upon it. You know how we regard the men who
fought the Civil War. They did the greatest thing that was to be
done in their day. Now, these boys here, and the others like them,
have done the greatest thing that it was possible to do in our day.
As their fathers saved the Union, they saved the world, and we sit
and debate whether we will keep true and finish the job or not ! My
friends, that debate can not last one minute longer than the moment
when this country realizes whatx it means. It means that, having
sent these men to risk their lives and having sent some, whose
mothers’ hearts can count, to die in France, in order to redeem the
world, we, in cool debate, in distant assemblies, say we will not
consent that the world should reap the fruit of their victory !
Nothing less than that hangs in the balance. I am ready to fight
from now until all the fight has been taken out of me by death to
redeem the faith and promises of the United States.
I leave the verdict with you, and I beg, my Republican fellow citi-
zens, that you will not allow yourselves for one moment, as I do not
174 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
allow myself for one moment, as God knows my conscience, to think
of 1920 when thinking about the redemption of the world. I beg that
you will cut that ” but ” out of your sentences, and that you will stand
up, as you are entitled to stand up by the history of your party, and
say, ” I am a Republican and therefore I am for the league of nations. ”
I do not admit the indictment which has been brought against the
Democratic Party, but I do admit the distinguished history of the
Kepublican Party ; I do admit that it has been the creator of great
constructive policies, and I should be very sorry to see it lose the
prestige which it has earned by such policies. I should be very sorry
to have any man feel that there was any embarrassment in supporting
a great world policy because he belonged to a great constructive party,
and that party a party of America the constructive force in the
world, the people who have done the most advanced thinking in the
world, and the people who, God helping them, will lead and save the
world.
#ADDRESS AT STADIUM, TACOMA, WASH.,
SEPTEMBER 13, 1919.
My friends and. fellow citizens, it is very delightful to find myself
in this beautiful spot and very thrilling to find myself surrounded
by so great a company of my fellow citizens. I can not in these cir-
cumstances make you a speech, but I can say something from my
heart. I can say that I am profoundly glad to see you and profoundly
touched by a welcome like this. I want to express my particular
interest in this charming circle of school children, because one of the
thoughts that has been most in my mind recently is that we are making
decisions now which will mean more to the children than they mean
to us and that as we care for the future generations we will be careful
to make the right decisions as to the policy of the United States as
one of the factors in the peace of the world. I give you my most
cordial geeting and my most profound thanks for this generous
welcome.
175
#ADDRESS AT ARMORY, TACOMA, WASH.,
SEPTEMBER 13, 1919.
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Chairman, your excellency, my fellow countrymen,
it is with very great pleasure that I find myself in your presence.
I have long wanted to get away from Washington and come into
contact with the great body of my fellow citizens, because I feel, as
I am sure you feel, that we have reached one of the most critical
periods in the history of the United States. The shadow of the war
is not yet lifted from us, my fellow countrymen, and we have just
come out of the depths of the valley of death. I thought that it
might be useful if this morning I reminded you of a few things, lest
we forget. It is so easy, with the strong tides of our life, to be swept
away from one situation into another and to forget the real depths of
meaning which lie underneath the things that we are merely touching
the surface of. Therefore I thought it would not be impertinent on
my part if I asked permission to read you the concluding passage of
the address in which I requested the Government of the United States
to accept Germany’s challenge of war :
” We shall fight,” I said, ” for the things which we have alw T ays
carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who
submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the
rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of
right by such a concert of free peoples as will bring peace and safety
to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task
we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are
and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that
the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and
her might for the principles that gave her birth and the happiness
and the peace which we have treasured. God helping her, she can
do no other.”
That is the program we started out on. That is the program
\vhich all America adopted without respect of party, and shall we
now hesitate to carry it out? Shall we now falter at the very critical
moment when we are finally to write our name to the standing
pledge which we then took? I want to remind you, my fellow citi-
141677 S. Doc. 120, 6G-1 12 177
178 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
zens, that many other nations were put under a deeper temptation
than we. It would have been possible for little Belgium at any time
to make terms with the enemy. Belgium was not prepared to resist.
Belgium knew that resistance was useless. Belgium knew that she
could get any term of advantage from Germany she pleased, if she
would only submit, and at the cost of everything that she had Bel-
gium did nothing less than underwrite civilization. I do not know
anywhere in history a more inspiring fact than that. I have seen the
fields of Belgium. I have seen great spaces swept of cities and
towns as clean as if there had never been anything there except piles
of stone ; and, farther in, in that beautiful country, the factories are
standing, the houses there, but everything that could be useful taken
out of the factories; the machinery taken out and shipped to Ger-
many, because Germany feared the competition of the skillful Bel-
gians, and where it was too bulky to take away it was destroyed
under the direction of experts not broken to pieces, but the very
part that made it impossible to use it without absolutely destroyed.
I have been over great plants there that seemed to the eye to have
much of the substantial machinery left, but experts showed me that
it could never work again. Belgium lies prostrated because she ful-
filled her pledge to civilization. Italy could have had her terms with
Austria at almost any period of the war, particularly just before she
made her final stand at the Piave River, but she would not compound
with the enemy. She, too, had underwritten civilization.’ And, my
friends, this passage that I have read you, which the whole country
accepted as its pledge, is an underwriting of civilization.
In order to let you remember what the thing cost, just let me read
you a few figures. If I did not have them on official authority I
would deem them incredible. Here is what the war cost. These
figures do not include what the different powers loaned each other;
they are direct war costs :
It cost Great Britain and her dominions $38,000,000,000 ; France,
$26,000,000,000; the United States, $22,000,000,000; Russia, $18,000,-
000,000 ; Italy, $13,000,000,000 ; a total, including Japan, Belgium, and
other countries, of $123,000,000,000. It cost the Central Powers:
Germany, $39.000,000,000 ; Austria-Hungary, $21,000,000,000; Tur-
key and Bulgaria, $3,000,000,000 ; a total of $63,000,000,000. A grand
total of direct war costs of $186,000,000,000 an incredible sum to
save civilization. Now, the question is, Are we going to keep it
saved? The expenditures of the United States were at the rate of
$1,000,000 an hour, including the nighttime, for two years.
The battle deaths and this is the cost that touches our hearts-
were: Russia, 1,700,000; Germany, 1,600,000; France, 1,380,000;
Great Britain, 900,000 ; Austria, 800,000 ; Italy, 364,000 ; the United
States, 50,300 dead. A total for all belligerents of 7,450,200 men dead
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 179
on the field of battle ! Seven and a half million ! The totals for the
wounded are not obtainable at present, but the number of torn and
wounded for the United States Army was 230,000, excluding, of
course, those who were killed. The total of all battle deaths in all
the w r ars of the world from the year 1793 to 1914 was something
under 6,000,000 ; in all the wars of the world for more than 100 years
fewer men died than have been killed upon the field of battle in the
last five years. These are terrible facts, my fellow citizens, and we
ought never to forget them. We went into this war to do a thing
that was fundamental for the world, and what I have come out upon
this journey for is to ascertain whether the country has forgotten it
or not. I have found out already. The country has not forgotten,
and it never will permit any man who stands in the way of the fulfill-
ment of these great pledges ever to forget the sorrowful day when he
made the attempt.
I read you these figures in order to emphasize and set in a higher
light, if I may, the substitute which is offered to us, the substitute for
war, the substitute for turmoil, the substitute for sorrow and despair.
That substitute is offered in the covenant of the league of nations.
America alone can not underwrite civilization. All the great free
peoples of the world must underwrite it, and only the free peoples of
the world can join the league of nations. The membership is open
only to self-governing nations. Germany is for the present excluded,
because she must prove that she is self-governing ; she must prove that
she has changed the processes of her constitution and the purposes of
her policy ; but when she has proved these things she can become one
of the partners in guaranteeing that civilization shall not suffer again
the intolerable thing she attempted. It is not only a union of free
peoples to guarantee civilization ; it is something more than that. It
is a league of nations to advance civilization by substituting some-
thing that will make the improvement of civilization possible.
I call you to witness, my fellow citizens, that our present civiliza-
tion is not satisfactory. It is an industrial civilization, and at the
heart of it is an antagonism between those who labor with their hands
and those who direct labor. You can not compose those differences
in the midst of war, and you can not advance civilization unless you
have a peace of which you make the peaceful and healing use of bring-
ing these elements of civilization together into a common partnership,
in which every man will have the same interest in the work of his com-
munity that those have who direct the work of the community. We
have got to have leisure and freedom of mind to settle these things.
This was a war against autocracy ; and if you have disorder, if you
have disquieted populations, if you have insurgent elements in your
population, you are going to have autocracy, because the strongest is
going to seize the power, as it has seized it in Russia. I want to de-
180 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
dare that I am an enemy of the rulership of any minority, however
consti tilted. Minorities have often been right and majorities wrong,
but minorities cease to be right when they use the wrong means to
make their opinions prevail. We must have peaceful means; we must
have discussion we must have frank discussion, we must have
friendly discussion and those are the very things that are offered to
us among the nations of the world by the covenant of the league of
nations.
I can not too often remind my fellow citizens of what the real heart
and center of that covenant is. It lies in the provisions by which every
member of the league and, mind you, that means every great nation
in the world, except, for the time being, Germany solemnly engages
never to go to war without first having either submitted the subject
to arbitration in which case it agrees to abide absolutely by the ver-
dict or submitted it for discussion to the council of the league of
nations, laying all the documents, all the facts, before that council;
consenting that the council shall publish all the facts, so as to take the
world into its confidence for the formation of a correct judgment con-
cerning it ; it agrees that it will allow six months for the deliberation
of the council upon the facts, and that, after those deliberations are
concluded, if the advice of the council is not acceptable, it will still not
go to war for three months after the rendering of that opinion. In
other words, we have the pledge of all the nations of the world that
they will sit down and talk everything over that is apt to make trouble
amongst them, and that they will talk it over in public, so that the
whole illuminating process of public knowledge and public discussion
may penetrate every part of the conference. I believe, for my part,
that that is a 99 per cent insurance against war. I take it you want
some insurance against war rather than none, and if it is not 99 per
cent, I dare say you would like 10 per cent. You would like some in-
surance rather than none at all, and the experience of the world
demonstrates that this is an almost complete insurance.
My fellow citizens, imagine what would have happened if there
had been a league of nations in 1914. What did happen was this:
Some time after the Crown Prince of Austria had been assassinated
in Serbia, after the world had begun to forget even so tragical an in-
cident, the Austrian Government was prompted by the Government
at Berlin to make that the occasion for war. Their thought was,
” We are ready. The others are not. Before they can mobilize, be-
fore they can bring this matter even under discussion, we will be at
their gates. Belgium can not resist. We have promised, solemnly
promised, not to cross her territories, but promises are scraps of
paper. We will get across her territories into France before France
can mobilize. We will make that assassination a pretext.” They
therefore made unconscionable demands of Serbia, and, not with-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 181
standing the fact that Serbia, with her sense of helplessness, prac-
tically yielded to all those demands, they would not even tell the
world that she had yielded; they went on with the war. In the
meantime every foreign office was telegraphing to its representative
at Berlin, begging that there might be an international conference
to see if a settlement could not be effected, and Germany did not
dare sit down in conference. It is the common judgment of every
statesman I met on the other side of the water that if this thing had
been delayed and discussed, not six months, but six days, it never
could have happened.
Here we have all the Governments of the world agreeing to discuss
anything that is likely to bring about war, because, after that famous
article 10 there is an article 11 there are 26 articles altogether, al-
though you are not told about any of them except article 10 and
article 11 says that it shall be the friendly right of any member of
the league, big or little, to bring to the attention of the league and,
therefore, to the attention of the world anything, anywhere, which
is likely to disturb the peace of the world or to disturb the good un-
derstanding between nations upon which the peace of the world de-
pends. Wherever there are oppressed nations, wherever there are
suffering populations, wherever there is a smoldering flame, the
trouble can be uncovered and brought to the bar of mankind, and the
whole influence of public opinion the world over will be brought to
bear upon it. It is the greatest process of international conference
and of international discussion ever conceived, and that is what we
are trying to substitute for war. That is what we must substitute
for war.
Then, not in immediate connection with the league of nations cove-
nant but in a later part of the treaty, there is what I have ventured
to call the Magna Charta of labor. There is the provision for the
constant regular international discussion of labor problems,” no mat-
ter where they arise in the world, for the purpose of lifting the whole
level of labor conditions ; for the purpose of safeguarding the health
of women and of children, for the sake of bringing about those in-
ternational comities with regard to labor upon which the happiness
of mankind so much depends. There is a heart in the midst of the
treaty. It is not only made by prudent men but it is made by men
with hearts under their jackets. I have seen the light of this thing
in the eyes of some men whom the world deemed cynical. I have
seen men over there, whose emotions are not often touched, with
suffused eyes when they spoke of the purposes of this conference, be-
cause they realized that, for the first time in the history of mankind,,
statesmen had got together, not in order to lay plans for the ag-
grandizement of governments but in order to lay plans for the libera-
tion of peoples ; and what I want everybody in every American audi-
182 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ence to understand is this: The first effective impulse toward this
sort of thing came from America, and I want to call your attention
to the fact that it came from some of the very men who are now op-
posing its consummation. They dreamed the dream that has now
been realized. They saw the vision 20, 25, 30 years ago which all man-
kind are now permitted to see. It is of particular importance to
remember, my fellow citizens, at this moment when some men have
dared to introduce party passion into this question, that some of the
leading spirits, perhaps I may say the leading spirits, in the con-
ception of this great idea were the leading figures of the great Re-
publican Party. I do not like to mention parties in this discussion.
I hope that there is not a real thoughtful, conscientious person in
the United States who will determine his or her opinion about this
matter with any thought that there is an election in the year 1920.
And, just because I want you to realize how absolutely nonpartisan
this thing is, I want you to forget, if you please, that I had anything
to do with it. I had the great privilege of being the spokesman of
this splendid Nation at this critical period in her history, but I was
her spokesman, not my own, and when I advocated the things that
are in this league of nations I had the full and proud consciousness
that I was only expressing the best thought and the best conscience
of my beloved fellow countrymen. The only things that I have any
special personal connection with in the league of nations covenant
are things that I was careful to have put in there because of the very
considerations which are now being urged. I brought the first draft
of the covenant of the league of nations over to this country in March
last. I then held a conference of the frankest sort with the Foreign
Relations Committee of the Senate. They made a number of sug-
gestions as to alterations and additions. I then took all of those
suggestions back to Paris, and every one of them, without exception,
was embodied in the covenant. I had one or two hard fights to get
them in.”
You are told, my fellow citizens it is amazing that anybody
should say it that the covenant does not satisfactorily recognize
the Monroe doctrine. It says in so many words that nothing in that
covenant shall be construed as impairing the validity of the Monroe
doctrine. The point is that up to that conference there was not a
nation in the world that could be induced to give official recogni-
tion to the Monroe doctrine, and here in this great turn of the tides
of the world all the great nations of the world are united in recog-
nizing the Monroe doctrine. It not only is not impaired, but it has
the backing of the world. And at every point where suggestions
were made they were accepted; and the suggestions came for the
most part from the Republican side of the committee. I say that
because I am particularly interested, my fellow citizens, to have you
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 183
realize that there is no politics in this business, except that pro-
foundly important politics, the politics of civilization. I have the
honor to-day of speaking under a chairman who, I understand, is
a member of the Republican Party, and every meeting that I have
spoken at on this trip, so far as I remember, has been presided over
by a Republican. I am saying these things merely because I want
to read the riot act to anybody who tries to introduce politics.
Some very interesting things happened while we were on the other
side of the water. One of the most distinguished lawyers in the
United States, Mr. Wickersham, of New York, who was the Attor-
ney General in Mr. Taft’s Cabinet, came over to Europe, I am told-
I did not see him while he was over there to oppose the things
that he understood the American peace commission was trying to
accomplish, and what happened to Mr. Wickersham? He was ab-
solutely converted, above all things else, to the necessity for a league
of nations not only, but for this league of nations. He came back
to the United States and has ever since, in season and out of season,
been preaching in public advocacy of the adoption of this covenant.
I need not tell you of the conspicuously fine work which his chief,
Mr. Taft, has been doing in the same cause. I am very proud, my
fellow citizens, to be associated with these gentlemen. I am very
proud to forget party lines, because there is one thing that is so
much greater than being a Republican or a Democrat that those
names ought never to be mentioned in connection with, and that
is being an American. There is only one way to be an American,
and that is to fulfill the pledges that we gave the world at our birth,
that we have given the world at every turn in our history, and that
we have just now sealed with the blood of some of our best young
men.
Ah, my fellow citizens, do not forget the aching hearts that are
behind discussions like this. Do not forget the forlorn homes from
which those boys went and to which they never came back. I have
it in my heart that if we do not do this great thing now, every woman
ought to w r eep because of the child in her arms. If she has a boy at
her breast, she may be sure that when he comes to manhood this
terrible task will have to be done once more. Everywhere we go, the
train when it stops is surrounded with little children, and I look at
them almost with tears in my eyes, because I feel my mission is to
save them. These glad youngsters with flags in their hands I pray
God that they may never have to carry that flag upon the battle field !
There have been, if I may make a slight digression, some very
amusing incidents on this journey. At Billings a number of boys
were chasing the train as it pulled slowly out with flags and yelling
all sort of pleasant things to their friend ” Woody.” On this occasion
one youngster in his enthusiasm insisted that I should take his flag
184 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
and he handed it up to me. The boy next to him did not have a flag’
and he looked a good deal disconcerted for a moment, but then he
put his hand in his pocket and said, ” Here, I will give you a dime.”
I would like to believe that that dime has some relation to the widow’s
mite others gave something; he gave all that he had. After all r
though that is merely a passing incident, it is illustrative of the spirit
of this country, my fellow citizens. There is something in this coun-
try that is not anywhere else in the world. There is a confident look-
ing forward to better times. There is a confidence that we can work
out the most difficult problems. There is none of that heavy leaden
discouragement that rests upon some other countries. Have you
never crossed the sea in times of peace and noticed the immigrants
who were going back to visit their folks, and then, on the return voy-
age, the immigrants who were coming in for the first time the ex-
traordinary contrast in the appearance of the two groups? The
group going out, having felt the atmosphere of America, their faces
bright, a sort of a sense of initiative about it, having been freed to-
be men and individuals ; and those coming back, bearing all sorts of
queer bundles, looking a bit anxious, just a little doubtful of the hope
with which they are looking forward to the new country. It is the
alchemy, the miracle of America, and it is the only country in the
world, so far as my observation goes, where that miracle is wrought,
and the rest of the world knows that. The rest of the world implores
America’s aid not her material aid; they are not looking for our
dollars ; they are not looking for our guns. They are saying, ” Show
us the road that led you out of the wilderness and made you great,
for we are seeking that road.” Now that the great treaty of peace
has established the oppressed peoples of the world who were affected
by this treaty on their own territory, given them their own freedom,
given them command of their own affairs, they are looking to
America to show them how to use that new liberty and that new
power.
When I was at that wonderful stadium of yours a few minutes
ago, a little child, a little girl in white, came and presented me with
some kind of a paper I have not had time to read it yet from the
Poles. I dare say that it is of the sort that I have received a great
many of just an expression of a sort of childlike and pitiful thanks
that America assisted to free Poland. Poland never could have
freed herself. We not only tore Germany’s hands away from where
she meant to make ravage of the rights of the others, but we
took those old peoples who had been under her power before and
said, ” You could not free yourselves, but we believe in liberty.
Here is your own land to do with as you please.” I wish that some
of the men who are opposing this treaty could get the vision in their
hearts of all it has done. It has liberated great populations. It
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 185
has set up the standards of right and of liberty for the first time,
where they were never unfurled before, and then has placed back of
them this splendid power of the nations combined. For without the
league of nations the whole thing is a house of cards. Just a breath
of power will blow it down. Whereas with the league of nations
it is as strong as Gibraltar. Let them catch this vision; let them
take in this conception; let them take counsel of weeping mothers;
let them take counsel of bereaved fathers who used to have their
sons at their sides and are now alone; let them take counsel of the
lonely farms where there used to be a boy to help the old man and
now he can not even get a hired man to help him, and yet he is trying
to feed the world; let them realize that the world is hungry, that
the world is naked, that the world is suffering, and that none of these
things can be remedied until the minds of men are reassured. That
is the fundamental fact, my fellow citizens.
If I wanted to have a joint debate with some man who wanted to
put our part in this business down on the lowest possible level of
how much money we were going to make out of it, I could silence
there will be nothing to pay for anything with, that unless its in-
dustries will not begin again, that unless its industries begin again,
there will be nothing to pay for any thing with, that unless its in-
dustries begin again there will be no market for the goods of Amer-
ica, and that we will have to rest content with our domestic markets
at the very time when we had enlarged our enterprises in order to
make peaceful conquest of the world. The very processes of war
have driven our industries to a point of expansion where they will
be chilled and ruined if they do not presently get a foreign outlet.
Therefore, on the lowest basis, you have got to guarantee and under-
write civilization or you have ruined the United States. But I do
not like to talk about that side of it. I believe in my heart that there
is hardly a man in America, if you get really back of his superficial
thoughts, who is not man enough to be willing to make the sacrifice
to underwrite civilization. It is only sacrifice that tells. Don’t you
remember what we used to cry during the Liberty loans,” ” Lend
until it hurts. Give until it hurts.” When I heard, in some Western
States, that people drew their savings out of banks that were giving
them 4 per cent on the savings and invested them in the first 1 Liberty
loan that was to yield them 3^ per cent, I said to myself, ” That is
America.” They were helping the Government at a sacrifice. They
were not thinking of dollars. They were thinking of the dignity
and might and majesty and destiny of the United States, and it is
only that vision, my fellow citizens, that will ever lift us out of the
slough in which men now are wading.
It is a pitiful spectacle that the great bodies of our fellow citi-
zens should be arrayed against each other. One of the most start-
186 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ling things that I ever realized was, months and months ago, when
I was trying to moderate and assist in settling some of the difficulties
between the railroads and their employees. I asked the representa-
tives of the railway brotherhoods to come to the White House, and I
asked the presidents of the great railway systems to come to the
White House, and I found that each side had a profound suspicion
of the other, that the railway presidents were not willing to trust
what their men said and the men were not willing to trust what the
railway presidents said. When I took over the railroads in the
name of the Government, I said to a group of fine-spirited men, a
group of railway presidents, who were trying to unify the adminis-
tration of the railroads for the purposes of the war I said, smil-
ingly, but with a little sadness, ” Well, at any rate, gentlemen, these
men will trust me, and they do not trust you.” I did not say it with
pride; I said it with sorrow. I did not know whether I could justify
their trust or not, but I did know that I was willing to talk things
over with them whenever anything was the matter, and that if we
were equally intelligent and equally conscientious we could get to-
gether whenever anything went wrong. I could not help suspecting
that this distrust, this mutual distrust, was the wedge that was being
driven into society, and society can not live with a great wedge at
the heart of it. Society can not get on industrially or socially with
any such wedge driven into its heart. We must see that the proc-
esses of peace, the processes of discussion, the processes of fairness,
the processes of equity, the processes of sympathy penetrate all our
affairs. I have never known anybody who had a good cause who
was unwilling to discuss it. Whenever I find a man standing out
stiffly against consulting with the other side, I know his case is bad.
The only unconquerable thing in the world is the truth, and. a man
who has the truth on his side need not be afraid of anybody. You
know what witty and eloquent old Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once
said. He said, ” You needn’t fear to handle the truth roughly ; she
is no invalid.” The truth is the most robust and indestructible and
formidable thing in the world. There is a very amusing story of a
distinguished lawyer at Charleston, S. C., of a very much older gen-
eration than ours, who was followed out of the court one day after
losing a civil suit by his client, who abused him. He called him a
thief and a liar and everything that was disagreeable, and Mr. Ped-
digrew paid not the slightest attention to him, until he called him a
Federalist, and then he knocked him down. A friend said to him,
“Why, Mr. Peddigrew; why did you knock him down for that?
That was the least offensive thing he said.” “Yes, damn him,”
Peddigrew said, “but it was the only true thing he said.”
Now, the nations of the world have declared that they are not
afraid of the truth; that they are willing to have all their affairs
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON . 187
that are likely to lead to international complications brought into
the open. One of the things that this treaty incidentally does is
absolutely to invalidate all secret treaties. Everything is to be open.
Everything is to be upon the table around which sit the representa-
tives of all the world, to be looked at from the point of view of
everybody the Asiatic, the African, the American, the European.
That is the promise of the future; that is the security of the future.
I hope that no attempts will be made to qualify or embarrass the
great process which is inevitable, and I confidently predict that some
day we shall look back with surprise upon the fact that men in
America, above all places, should ever have hesitated to do this
great thing.
It has been a privilege, my fellow citizens, to make this simple
presentation of a great theme to you, and I am happy in carrying
away with me recollections of the generous response you have made
to a plea which I can only characterize as a plea which has come
from the heart of a true American.
#ADDRESS AT HIPPODROME, SEATTLE, WASH,
SEPTEMBER 13, 1919.
Mr. Spangler, ladies, and gentlemen, it was agreed that I should
make no address on this occasion, and I am not going to inflict upon
you anything that can bear so dignified a name; but when Mr.
Spangler asked me if I would extend a word of greeting to you I
at once thought of the wonderful greeting that you and your fel-
low citizens have extended to me, and it would indeed be ungracious
if I did not say how much I have appreciated your welcome and
how delightful it is to be associated with you even for a few hours
in this great city of Seattle.
I have been in Seattle before, when I attracted less attention. I
admired the city then, as I admire it still, and I could see it better
then than I have seen it to-day. To-day I had too much of an escort
to be really able to see the new features of the city with which I
was not familiar. I was reminded of some of our experiences on
the other side of the water, when we had to be careful not to let
anybody know we were coming to a particular place for fear we
would be escorted by so many persons that we would not see the
place; and I have found in Washington that I am not to see the
interesting things in Washington until my term is over, because all
the officials in public buildings feel it necessary to escort me all over
the buildings, and I either see the things that I did not care to see,
because they insist upon it, or I see nothing.
But, jesting aside, my fellow citizens, it was very delightful to see
so many friendly faces on these beautiful streets. What I liked
about it was not so much the cheers as the facial expressions that
accompanied the cheers. They made me feel really welcome, and I
could only fancy and hope that it was the reflection in their faces
of the way I felt toward them. I suppose that a man in public life
must renew himself constantly by direct contact with his fellow
citizens, get the feel of the great power of opinion and of sentiment
in this country, and nothing else heartened me so much as I have
crossed the continent as to feel the uniformity of impulse and senti-
ment from one ocean to the other. There is no essential division in
the thought or purpose of the American people, and the interesting
thing to me is their steadiness. No amount of debate will set them
189
190 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
off their balance in their thinking, because their thinking is based
upon fundamental impulses of right, and what they want to know
is not the difficulties, but the duties ahead of them, and if you point
the duties out to them they have a contempt for the difficulties. It
is that consciousness which I have so often gained in moving from
one part of this beloved country to another that makes me so pro-
foundly proud to be an American. It was not, indeed, my choice to
be an American, because I was born here, and I suppose that I can
not ascribe any credit to myself for being an American; but I do
claim the profoundest pleasure in sharing the sentiments and in
having had the privilege for a few short years of trying to express
the sentiments of this free Nation, to which all the world looks for
inspiration and leadership.
That is the dominating thought that I have. I will not say the
dominating thought ; it is the controlling knowledge that I have, for
I learned to know on the other side of the water that all the world
was looking to us for inspiration and leadership, and we will not
deny it to them.
#ADDRESS AT ARENA, SEATTLE, WASH.,
SEPTEMBER 13, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, my fellow countrymen, I esteem it a privilege to
have the occasion to stand before this great audience and expound
some part of the great question that is now holding the attention of
America and the attention of the world. I was led to an unpleasant
consciousness to-day of the way in which the debate that is going
on in America has attracted the attention of the world. I read in
to-day’s papers the comment’s of one of the men who were recently
connected with the Imperial Government of Germany. He said that
some aspects of this debate seemed to him like the red that precedes
a great dawn. He saw in it the rise of a certain renewed sympathy
with Germany. He saw in it an opportunity to separate America
from the Governments and peoples with whom she had been asso-
ciated in the war against German aggression. And all over this
country, my fellow citizens, it is becoming more and more evident
that those who were the partisans of Germany are the ones who are
principally pleased by some of the aspects of the debate that is now
going on. The world outside of America is asking itself the ques-
tion, ” Is America going o stand by us now, or is it at this moment
of final crisis going to draw apart and desert us?” I can answer
that question here and now. It is not going to draw apart and it is
not going to desert the nations of the world. America responds to
nothing so quickly or unanimously as a great moral challenge. It is
much more ready to carry through what now lies before it than it
was even to carry through what was before it when we took up arms
in behalf of the freedom of the world. America is unaccustomed to
military tasks, but America is accustomed to fulfilling its pledges
and following its visions. The only thing that causes me uneasiness,
my fellow countrymen, is not the ultimate outcome, but the impres-
sions that may be created in the meantime by the perplexed delay.
The rest of the world believed absolutely in America and was ready
to follow it anywhere, and it is now a little chilled. It now asks,
” Is America hesitating to lead ? We are ready to give ourselves to
her leadership. Why will she not accept the gift?”
191
192 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
My fellow citizens, I think that it is my duty, as I go about the
country, not to make speeches in the ordinary acceptance of that word,
not to appeal either to the imagination or to the emotion of my fellow
citizens, but to undertake everywhere what I want to undertake
to-night, and I must ask you to be patient while I undertake it. I
want to analyze for you what it is that it is proposed we should do.
Generalities will not penetrate to the heart of this great question. It
is not enough to speak of the general purposes of the peace. I want
you to realize just what the covenant of the league of nations means.
I find that everywhere I go it is desirable that I should dwell upon
this great theme, because in so many parts of the country men are
drawing attention to little details in a way that destroys the whole
perspective of the great plan in a way that concentrates attention
upon certain particulars which are incidental and not central. I am
going to take the liberty of reading you a list of the things which the
nations adhering to the covenant of the league of nations undertake.
I want to say by way of preface that it seems to me, and I am sure it
will seem to you, not only an extraordinarily impressive list, but a
list which was never proposed for the counsels of the world before.
In the first place, every nation that joins the league, and that in
prospect means every great fighting nation in the world, agrees to
submit all controversies which are likely to lead to war either to
arbitration or to thorough discussion by an authoritative body, the
council of the league of nations. These great nations, all the most
ambitious nations in the world except Germany, all the most power-
ful nations in the world, as well as the weak ones all the nations
that we have supposed had imperialistic designs say that they will
do either one or other of two things in_ case a controversy arises
which can not be settled by ordinary diplomatic correspondence:
They will either frankly submit it to arbitration and absolutely abide
by the arbitral verdict or they will submit all the facts, all the
documents, to the council of the league of nations, will give the
council six months in which to discuss the whole matter and leave
to publish the whole matter, and at the end of the six months will still
refrain for three months more from going to war, whether they like
the opinion of the council or not. In other words, they agree to do
a thing which would have made the recent war with Germany abso-
lutely impossible. If there had been a league of nations in 1914,
whether Germany belonged to it or not, Germany never would have
dared to attempt the aggression which she did attempt, because she
would have been called to the bar of the opinion of mankind and
Avould have known that if she did not satisfy that opinion mankind
would unite against her. You had only to expose the German case
to public discussion and make it certain that the German case would
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 193
fall, Germany not dare attempt to act upon it. It was the universal
opinion on the other side of the water when I was over there that if
Germany had thought that England would be added to France and
Russia she never would have gone in, and if she had dreamed that
America would throw her mighty weight into the scale it would
have been inconceivable. The only thing that reassured the deluded
German people after we entered the war was the lying statement of
her public men that we could not get our troops across the sea, be-
cause Germany knew if America got within striking distance the
story was done. Here all the nations of the world, except Germany,
for the time being at any rate, give notice that they will unite against
any nation that has a bad case, and they agree that in their own case
they will submit to prolonged discussion.
There is nothing so chilling as discussion to a hot temper. If you
are fighting mad and vet I can induce vou to talk it over for half an
C- t. t>
hour, you will not be fighting mad at the end of the half hour. I
knew a very wise schoolmaster in North Carolina who said that if
any boy in that school fought another, except according to the rules,
he would be expelled. There would not be any great investigation;
the fact that he had fought would be enough; he would go home;
but if he was so mad that he had to fight, all he had to do was to
come to the head master and tell him that he wanted to fight. The
head master would arrange the ring, would see that the fight was
conducted according to the Marquis of Queensberry rules, that
an umpire and a referee were appointed, and that the thing was
fought to a finish. The consequence was that there were no fights
in that school. The whole arrangement was too cold-blooded. By
the time all the arrangements had been made all the fighting audac-
ity had gone out of the contestants. That little thing illustrates a
great thing. Discussion is destructive when wrong is intended;
and all the nations of the world agree to put their case before the
judgment of mankind. Why, my fellow citizens, that has been the
dream of thoughtful reformers for generation after generation.
Somebody seems to have conceived the notion that I originated the
idea of a league of nations. I wish I had. I would be a very proud
man if I had; but I did not. I was expressing the avowed aspira-
tions of the American people, avowed by nobody so loudly, so intelli-
gently, or so constantly as the greater leaders of the Republican
Party. When Republicans take that road, I take off my hat and
follow ; I do not care whether I lead or not. I want the great result
which I know is at the heart of the people that I am trying to serve.
In the second place, all these great nations agree to boycott any
nation that does not submit a perilous question either to arbitration
or to discussion, and to support each other in the boycott. There is
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 13
194 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
no ” if ‘ or ” but r about that in the covenant. It is agreed that
just so soon as that member State, or any outside State, for that
matter, refuses to submit its case to the public opinion of the world
its doors will be closed and locked; that nobody shall trade with it,
no telegraphic message shall leave it or enter it, no letter shall cross
its borders either way; there shall be no transactions of any kind
between the citizens of the members of the league and the covenant-
breaking State. That is the remedy that thoughtful men have ad-
vocated for several generations. They have thought, and thought
truly, that war was barbarous and that a nation that resorted to war
when its cause was unjust was unworthy of being consorted with by
free people anywhere. The boycott is an infinitely more terrible
instrument of war. Excepting our own singularly fortunate coun-
try, I can not think of any other country that can live upon its own
resources. The minute you lock the door, then the pinch of the
thing becomes intolerable ; not only the physical pinch, not only the
fact that you can not get raw materials and must stop your factories,
not only the fact that you can not get food and your people must
begin to starve, not only the fact that your credit is stopped, that
your assets are useless, but the still greater pinch that comes when
a nation knows that it is sent to Coventry and despised. To be put
in jail is not the most terrible punishment that happens to a con-
demned man; if he knows that he was justly condemned, what pene-
trates his heart is the look in other men’s eyes. It is the soul that
is wounded much more poignantly than the body, and one of the
things that the German nation has not been able to comprehend
is that it has lost for the time being the respect of mankind ; and as
Germans, when the doors of truth were opened to them after the
war, have begun to realize that they have begun to look aghast at
the probable fortunes of Germany, for if the world does not trust
them, if the world does not respect them, if the world does not want
Germans to come as immigrants any more, what is Germany to do?
Germany’s worst punishment, my fellow citizens, is not in the treaty ;
it is in her relations with the rest of mankind for the next genera-
tion. The boycott is what is substituted for war.
In the third place, all the members of this great association pledge
themselves to respect and preserve as against external aggression the
territorial integrity and existing political independence of the other
member States. That is the famous article 10 that you hear so much
about ; and article 10, my fellow citizens, whether you want to assume
the responsibility of it or not, is the heart of the pledge that we have
made to the other nations of the world. Only by that article can
we be said to have underwritten civilization. The wars that threaten
mankind begin by that kind of aggression. For every other nation
than Germany, in 1914, treaties stood as solemn and respected cove-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 195
nants. ‘For Germ any they were scraps of paper, and when her first
soldier’s foot fell upon the soil of Belgium her honor was forfeited.
That act of aggression, that failure to respect the territorial integrity
of a nation whose territory she was specially bound to respect,
pointed the hand along that road that is strewn with graves since
the beginning of history, that road made red and ugly with the strife
of men, the strife behind which lies savage cupidity, the strife behind
which lies a disregard for the rights of others and a thought con-
centrated upon what you want and mean to get. That is the heart of
Avar, and unless you accept article 10 you do not cut the heart of war
out of civilization.
Belgium did not hesitate to underwrite civilization. Belgium
could have had safety on her own terms if only she had not resisted
the German arms little Belgium, helpless Belgium, ravaged Bel-
gium. Ah, my fellow citizens, I have seen some of the fields of
Belgium. I rode with her fine, democratic king over some of those
fields. He would say to me, ” This is the village of so and so,” and
there was no village there, just scattered stones all over the plain,
and the plain dug deep every few feet with the holes made by explod-
ing shells. You could not tell whether it was the earth thrown up or
the house thrown down that made the debris which covered the
desert made by the war. Then we rode farther in, farther to the
east, where there had been no fighting, no active campaigning, and
there we saw beautiful green slopes and fields that had once been
cultivated, and towns with their factories standing, but standing
empty; not empty of workers merely, empty of machinery. Every
piece of machinery in Belgium that they could put on freight cars
the Germans had taken away, and what they could not carry with
them they had destroyed, under the devilishly intelligent direction
of experts great bodies of heavy machinery that never could be used
again, because somebody had known where the heart of the machine
lay and where to put the dynamite. The Belgians are there, their
buildings are there, but nothing to work with, nothing to start life
with again; and in the face of all that Belgium did not flinch for
a moment to underwrite the interests of mankind by saying to Ger-
many, ” We will not be bought.”
Italy could have had more by compounding with Austria in the
later stages of the war than she is going to get out of the peace set-
tlement now, but she would not compound. She also was a trustee
for civilization, and she would not sell the birthright of mankind for
any sort of material advantage. She underwrote civilization. And
Serbia, the fiurst of the helpless nations to be struck down, her armies
driven from her own soil, maintained her armies on other soil, and
the armies of Serbia were never dispersed. Whether they could be
196 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
on their own soil or not, they were fighting for their rights and
through their rights for the rights of civilized man.
I believe that America is going to be more willing than any other
nation in the world, when it gets its voice heard, to do the same
thing that these little nations did. Why, my fellow citizens, we
have been talking constantly about the rights of little nations. There
is only one way to maintain the rights of little nations, and that is by
the strength of great nations. Having begun this great task, we are
no quitters ; we are going to see the thing through. The red that this
German counsellor of state saw upon the horizon was not the red of
any dawn that will reassure the people who attempted the wrong that
Germany did. It was the first red glare of the fire that is going to
consume the wrong in the world. As that moral fire comes creeping
on, it is going to purify every field of blood upon which free men
sacrificed their lives ; it is going to redeem France, redeem Belgium,
redeem devastated Serbia, redeem the fair lands in the north of
Italy, and set men on their feet again, to look fate in the face and
have again that hope which is the only thing that leads men forward.
In the next place, every nation agrees to join in advising what shall
be done in case any one of the members fails to keep that promise.
There is where you have been misled, my fellow citizens. You have
been led to believe that the council of the’ league of nations could say
to the Congress of the United States, ” Here is a war, and here is
where you come in.” Nothing of the sort is true. The council of the
league of nations is to advise what is to be done, and I have not been
able to find in the dictionary any meaning of the word ” advise,”
except ” to advise.” But let us suppose that it means something else ;
let us suppose that there is some legal compulsion behind the advice.
The advice can not be given except by a unanimous vote of the council
and an affirmative vote of the United States. We will be a permanent
member of the council of the league of nations, and no such advice is
ever going to be given unless the United States votes ” aye,” with one
exception. If we are parties to the dispute, we can not vote ; but, my
fellow citizens, let me remind you that if we are parties to the dispute,
we are in the war anyhow, so that we are not forced into war by the
vote of the council, we are forced into war by our quarrel with the
other party, as we would be in any case. There is no sacrifice in the
slightest degree of the independent choice of the Congress of the
United States whether it will declare war or not. There is a peculiar
impression on the part of some persons in this country that the United
States is more jealous of its sovereignty than other countries. That
provision was not put in there because it was necessary to safeguard
the sovereignty of the United States. All the other nations wanted
it, and they were just as keen for their veto as we were keen for our
reto. There is not the slightest danger that they will misunderstand
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 197
that article of the covenant. There is only a danger that some of us
who are too credulous will be led to misunderstand it.
All the nations agree to join in devising a plan for general dis-
armament. You have heard that this covenant was a plan for
bringing on war. Well, it is going to bring on war by means of
disarmament and also by establishing a permanent court of interna-
tional justice. When I voted for that, I was obeying the mandate
of the Congress of the United States. In a very unexpected place,
namely, in a naval appropriation bill passed in 1915, it was de-
clared to be the policy of the United States to bring about a general
disarmament by common agreement, and the President of the United
States was requested to call a conference not later than the close of
the then present war for the purpose of consulting and agreeing upon
a plan for a permanent court of international justice; and he was
authorized, in case such an agreement could be reached, to stop the
building program provided for by that naval appropriation bill.
The Congress of the United States deliberately not only accepted but
directed the President to promote an agreement of this sort for dis-
armament and a permanent court of international justice. You
know what a permanent court of international justice implies. You
can not set up a court without respecting its decrees. You can not
make a toy of it. You can not make a mockery of it. If you, indeed,
want a court, then you must abide by the judgments of the court.
And we have declared already that we are willing to abide by the
judgments of a court of international justice.
All the nations agree to register every treaty, and they agree that
no treaty that is not registered and published shall be valid. All
private agreements and secret treaties are swept from the table, and
thereby one of the most dangerous instruments of international in-
trigue a/id disturbance is abolished.
They agree to join in the supervision of the government of helpless
and dependent people. They agree that no nation shall hereafter
have the right to annex any territory merely because the people that
live on it can not prevent it, and that instead of annexation there
shall be trusteeship, under which these territories shall be adminis-
tered under the supervision of the associated nations of the world.
They lay down rules for the protection of dependent peoples of that
sort, so that they shall not have enforced labor put upon them, so that
their women and children shall be protected from unwholesome and
destructive forms of labor, so that they will be kept away from the
opium traffic and the traffic in arms. They agree that they will never
levy armies there. They agree, in other words, to do what no nation
ever agreed to do before, to treat subject nations like human beings.
The} 7 agree also to accord and maintain fair and humane condi-
tions of labor for men, women, and children born in their own coun-
198 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
tries and in all other countries to which their commercial and indus-
trial relations extend, and for that purpose they agree to join in
establishing and maintaining the necessary international organiza-
tion. This great treaty, which we are hesitating to ratify, contains
the organization by which the united counsels of mankind shall
attempt to lift the levels of labor and see that men who are working
with their hands are everywhere treated as they ought to be treated,
upon principles of justice and equality. How many laboring men
dreamed, when this war began, that four years later it would be pos-
sible for all the great nations of the world to enter into a covenant
like that? They agree to intrust the league with the general super-
vision of all international agreements with regard to traffic in women
and children and traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs. They
agree to intrust the league with the general supervision of the trade
in arms and ammunition with the countries in which the control of
this traffic is necessary in the common interest. They agree to join
in making provision to secure and maintain freedom of communica-
tion and of transit and equitable treatment for commerce in respect
of all the members of the league. They agree to cooperate in the-
endeavor to take steps for the prevention and control of disease.
They agree to encourage and promote the establishment and co-
operation of duly authorized voluntary national Red Cross organi-
zations for the improvement of health, the prevention of disease,
and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world.
I ask you, my fellow citizens, is that not a great peace document
and a great human document? And is it conceivable that America,
the most progressive and humane nation in the world, should refuse
to take the same responsibility upon herself that all the other great
nations take in supporting this great covenant ? You say, ” It is not
likely that the treaty will be rejected. It is only likely that there will
be certain reservations.” Very well, I want very frankly to tell you
what I think about that. If the reservations do not change the treaty,,
then it is not necessary to make them part of the resolution of rati-
fication. If all that you desire is to say what you understand the
treaty to mean, no harm can be done by saying it; but if you want
to change the treaty, if you want to alter the phraseology so that the
meaning is altered, if you want to put in reservations which give the
United States a position of special privilege or a special exemption
from responsibility among the members of the league, then it will be
necessary to take the treaty back to the conference table, and, my
fellow citizens, the world is not in a temper to discuss this treaty over
again. The world is just now more profoundly disturbed about social
and economic conditions than it ever was before, and the world de-
mands that we shall come to some sort of settlement which will let
us get down to business and purify and rectify our own affairs. This
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 199
is not only the best treaty that can be obtained, but I want to say,
because I played only a small part in framing it, that it is a sound
and good treaty, and America, above all nations, should not be the
nation that puts obstacles in the way of the peace of nations and the
peace of mind of the world.
The world has not anywhere at this moment, my fellow citizens,
peace of mind. Nothing has struck me so much in recent months as
the unaccustomed anxiety on the face of people. I am aware that men
do not know what is going to happen, and that they know that it is
just as important to them what happens in the rest of the world, al-
most, as what happens in America. America has connections with
all the rest of the world not only, but she has necessary dealings with
all the rest of the world, and no man is fatuous enough to suppose that
if the rest of the world is disturbed and disordered, the disturbance
and disorder are not going to extend to the United States. The center
of our anxiety, my fellow citizens, is in that pitiful country to which
our hearts go out, that great mass of mankind whom we call the Rus-
sians. I have never had the good fortune to be in Russia, but I know
many persons who know that lovable people intimately, and they all
tell me that there is not a people in the world more generous, more
simple, more kindly, more naturally addicted to friendship, more
patiently attached to peace than the Russian people. Yet, after throw-
ing off the grip of terror that an autocratic power of the Czar had
upon them, they have come under a terror even greater than that ; they
have come under the terror of the power of men whom nobody knows
how to find. One or two names everybody knows, but the rest is
intrigue, terror, informing, spying, and military power, the seizure
of all the food obtainable in order that the fighting men may be fed
and the rest go starved. These men have been appealed to again and
again by the civilized Governments of the world to call a constituent
assembly, let the Russian people say what sort of government they
want to have ; and they will not, they dare not, do it. That picture
is before the eyes of every nation. Shall we get into the clutch of
another sort of minority ? My fellow citizens, I am. going to devote
every influence I have and all the authority I have from this time on
to see to it that no minority commands the United States. [Great and
continued applause.] It heartens me, but it does not surprise me, to
know that that is the verdict of every man and woman here ; but, my
fellow citizens, there is no use passing that verdict unless we are going
to take part, and a great part, a leading part, in steadying the counsels
of the world. Not that we are afraid of anything except the spread
of moral defection, and moral defection can not come except where
men have lost faith, lost hope, have lost confidence ; and, having seen
the attitude of the other peoples of the world toward America, I
200 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
know that the whole world will lose heart unless America consents to
show the way.
It was pitiful, on the other side of the sea, to have delegation
after delegation from peoples all over the world come to the house
I was living in in Paris and seek conference with me to beg that
America would show the way. It was touching. It made me very
proud, but it made me very sad ; proud that I was the representative
of a nation so regarded, but very sad to feel how little of all the
things that they had dreamed we could accomplish for them. But
we can accomplish this, my fellow citizens: We can, having taken a
pledge to be faithful to them, redeem the pledge. We shall redeem
the pledge. I look forward to the day when all this debate will seem
in our recollection like a strange mist that came over the minds of
men here and there in the Nation, like a groping in the fog, having
lost the way, the plain way, the beaten way, that America had made
for itself for generations together; and we shall then know that of a
sudden, upon the assertion of the real spirit of the American people,
they came to the edge of the mist, and outside lay the sunny coun-
try where every question of duty lay plain and clear and where the
great tramp, tramp of the American people sounded in the ears of
the whole world, which knew that the armies of God were on
their way.
#ADDRESS AT LUNCHEON, HOTEL PORTLAND, PORT-
LAND, OREG.,
SEPTEMBER 15, 1919.
Mr. Jackson, ladies and gentlemen, as I return to Portland I
can not help remembering that I learned a great deal in Oregon.
When I was a teacher I used to prove to my own satisfaction I
do not know whether it was to the satisfaction of my classes or not
that the initiative and referendum would not work. I came to Ore-
gon to find that they did work, and have since been apologizing
for my earlier opinion. Because I have always taken this attitude
toward facts, that I never let them get me if I see them coming
first. There is nothing I respect so much as a fact. There is noth-
ing that is so formidable as a fact, and the real difficulty in all po-
litical reform is to know whether you can translate your theories
into facts or not, whether you can safely pick out the operative
ideas and leave aside the inoperative ideas. For I think you will all
agree with me that the whole progress of human affairs is the prog-
ress of ideas ; not of ideas in the abstract form, but of ideas in the
operative form, certain conceptions of justice and of freedom and
of right that have got into men’s natures and led those natures to-
insist upon the realization of those ideas in experience and in
n ction.
The whole trouble about our civilization as it looks to me, is that
it has grown complex faster than we have adjusted the simpler ideas
to the existing conditions. There was a time when men would do in
their business what they would not do as individuals. There was a
time when they submerged their individual consciences in a corpora-
tion and persuaded themselves that it was legitimate for a corpora-
tion to do what they individually never would have dreamed of do-
ing. That is what I mean by saying that the organization becomes
complex faster than our adjustment of the simpler ideas of justice
and right to the developing circumstances of our civilization. I say
that because the errand that I am on concerns something that lies
at the heart of all progress. I think we are all now convinced that
we have not reached the right and final organization of our indus-
trial society; that there are many features of our social life that
201
202 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ought to undergo correction ; that while we call ourselves democrats
with a little ” d ‘ -while we believe in democratic government, we
have not seen yet the successful way of making our life in fact demo-
cratic ; that we have allowed classes to disclose themselves ; that we
have allowed lines of cleavage to be run through our community, so
that there are antagonisms set up that breed heat, because they breed
friction. The world must have leisure and order in which to see that
these things are set right, and the world can not have leisure and
order unless it has a guaranteed peace.
For example, if the United States should conceivably I think
it inconceivable stay out of the league of nations, it would stay
out at this cost : We would have to see, since we were not going to
join our force with other nations, that our force was formidable
enough to be respected by other nations. We would have to main-
tain a great Army and a great Navy. We would have to do some-
thing more than that : We would have to concentrate authority suf-
ficiently to be able to use the physical force of the Nation quickly
upon occasion. All of that is absolutely antidemocratic in its in-
fluence. All of that means that we should not be giving ourselves
the lesiure of thought or the release of material resources necessary
to work out our own methods of civilization, our own methods of in-
dustrial organization and production and distribution; and our
problems are exactly the problems of the rest of the world. I am
more and more convinced, as I come in contact with the men who
are trying to think for other countries as we are trying to think for
this one, that our problems are identical, only there is this differ-
ence : Peoples of other countries have lost confidence in their Gov-
ernments. Some of them have lost confidence in their form of gov-
ernment. That point, I hope and believe, has not’been reached in
the United States. We have not lost confidence in our Government.
I am not now speaking of our administration ; I am now thinking of
our method of government. We believe that we can manage our
own affairs and that we have the machinery through which we can
manage our own affairs, and that no clique or special interest is
powerful enough to run away with it. The other countries of the
world also believe that about us. They believe that we .are success-
fully organized for justice, and they therefore want us to take the
lead and they want to follow the lead. If we do not take the lead,
then we throw them back upon things in which they have no con-
fidence and endanger a universal disorder and discontent in the
midst of which it will be impossible to govern our own affairs with
success and with constant achievement, Whether you will or not,
our fortunes are tied in with the rest of the world, and the choice
that we have to make now is whether we will receive the influences
of the rest of the world and be affected by them or dominate the in-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 203
fluences of the world and lead them. That is a tremendous choice
to make, but it is exactly that tremendous choice that we have to
make, and I deeply regret the suggestions which are made on some
sides that we should take advantage of the present situation in the
world but should not shoulder any of the responsibility. Do you
know of any business or undertaking in which you can get the ad-
vantage without assuming the responsibility? What are you going
to be? Boys running around the circus tent and peeping under the
canvas? Men declining to pay the admission and sitting on the roof
and looking on the game? Or are you going to play your responsible
part in the game, knowing that you are trusted as leader and um-
pire both ?
Xothing has impressed me more, or impressed me more painfully, if
I may say so, than the degree in which the rest of the world trusts us
and looks to us. I say ” painfully ” because I am conscious that they
are expecting more than we can perform. They are expecting miracles
to be wrought by the influence of the American spirit on the affairs of
the world, and miracles can not be wrought. I have again and again
recited to my fellow citizens on this journey how deputations from
peoples of every kind and every color and every fortune, from all over
the world, thronged to the house in which I was living in Paris to ask
the guidance and assistance of the United States. They did not send
similar delegations to anybody else, and they did not send them to me
except because they thought they had heard in what I had been saying
the spirit of the American people uttered. Moreover, you must not
forget this, that almost all of them had kinsmen in America. You
must not forget that America is made up out of all the world and
that there is hardly a race of any influence in the world, at any rate
hardly a Caucasian race, that has not scores and hundreds, and some-
times millions, of people living in America with whom they are in
correspondence, from whom they receive the subtle suggestions of
what is going on in American life, and of the ideals of American life.
Therefore they feel that they know America from this contact they
have had with us, and they want America to be the leading force in
the world. Why, I received delegations there speaking tongues that
I did not know anything about. I did not know what family of
languages they belonged to, but fortunately for me they always
brought an interpreter along who could speak English, and one of
the significant facts was that the interpreter was almost always some
young man who had lived in America. He did not talk English to me ;
he talked American to me. So there always seemed to be a little link
of some sort tying them up with us, tying them up with us in fact,
in relationship, in blood, as well as in life, and the world will be
turned back to cynicism if America goes back on it.
204 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
We dare not go back on it. I ask you even as a business proposition
whether it is more useful to trade with a cynic or with an optimist.
I do not like to trade with a man with a grouch. I do not like to trade
with a man who begins by not believing anything I am telling him.
I like to trade with a man who is more or less susceptible to the
eloquence which I address to him. A salesman has a much longer job
if he approaches a grouch than if he approaches a friend. This
trivial illustration illustrates, my fellow citizens, our relation to the
rest of the world. If we do not do what the rest of the world expects
of us, all the rest of the world will have a grouch toward America,
and you will find it a hard job to reestablish your credit in the world.
And back of financial credit lies mental credit. There is not a bit of
credit that has not got an element of assessment of character. You do
not limit your credit to men who can put up the collateral, who have
the assets: vou extend it also to the men in whose characters and
7 */
abilities you believe ; you think they are going to make good. Your
credit is a sort of bet on their capacity, and that is the largest element
in the kind of credit that expands enterprise. The credit that merely
continues enterprise is based upon asset and past accomplishment, but
the credit that expands enterprise is based upon your assessment of
character. If you are going to put into the world this germ, I shall
call it, of American enterprise and American faith and American
vision, then you must be the principal partners in the new partnership
which the world is forming.
I take leave to say, without intending the least disrespect to any-
body, that, consciously or unconsciously, a man who opposes that
proposition either has no imagination or no knowledge, or is a quitter.
America -has put her hand to this great enterprise already, in the men
she sent overseas, and their part was the negative part merely. They
were sent over there to see that a malign influence did not interfere
with the just fortunes of the world. They stopped that influence,
but they did not accomplish anything constructive, and what is the
use clearing the table if you are going to put nothing on it ? What is
the use clearly the ground if you are not going to erect any building ?
What is the use of going to the pains that we went to, to draw up the
specifications of the new building and then saying, ” We will have
nothing to do with its erection “? For the specifications of this treaty
were American specifications, and we have got not only to be the
architects, drawing up the specifications, but we have got to be the
contractors, too. Isn’t it a job worth while? Isn’t it worth while,
now that the chance has at last come, in the providence of God, that
we should demonstrate to the world that America is what she claimed
that she was? Every drop of blood that I have in me gets up and
shouts when I think of the opportunity that America has.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 205
I come of a race that, being bred on barren hills and unfertile plains
in Scotland, being obliged to work where work was hard, somehow
has the best zest in what it does when the job is hard, and I was
repeating to my friend, Mr. Jackson, what I said the other day about
nry ancestry and about the implications of it. I come of a certain
stock that raised Cain in the northern part of the larger of the
British Isles, under the name of the Covenanters. They met in a
churchyard they were church people and they had a convention out
of doors and on the top of a flat tombstone they signed an immortal
document called the ” solemn league and covenant,” which meant that
they were going to stand by their religious principles in spite of the
Crown of England and the force of England and every other in-
fluence, whether of man or the Devil, so long as any of them lived,
^ow, I have seen men of all nations sit around a table in Paris and
sign a solemn league and covenant. They have become Covenanters,
and remain a Covenanter, and I am going to see this job through no
matter what influence of evil withstand. [Loud applause.] Nothing
has heartened me more on this journey than to feel that that really
is the judgment of our fellow r citizens. America is made up, as I
have just said, out of all sorts of elements, but it is a singularly
homogeneous people after all; homogeneous in its ideals, not in its
blood ; homogeneous in the infection which it has caught from a com-
mon light; homogeneous in its purpose. Every man has a sort of
consciousness that America is put into the world for a purpose that is
different in some respects from the purpose conceived by any other
national organization.
Throughout America you have got a conducting medium. You do
not put forth an American idea and find it halted by this man or
that or the other, except he be particularly asleep or cantakerous, but
it spreads, it spreads by the natural contact of similar ideas and
similar ambitions and similar hopes. For, my fellow citizens, the
only thing that lifts the world is hope. The only thing that can save
the world is such arrangements as will convince the world that hope
is not altogether without foundation. It is the spirit that is in it
that is unconquerable. You can kill the bodies of insurgent men
who are fighting for liberty, but the more of them you kill the more
you seem to strengthen the spirit that springs up out of the bloody
ground where they fell. The only thing in the world that is uncon-
querable is the thought of men. One looks back to that legendary
story of the Middle Ages, in which certain men who were fighting
under one of the semisavage chiefs of that obscure time refused to
obey the order of their chief because they considered it inconsistent
with the traditions of their tribe, and he said, ” Don’t you know that
I have the power to kill you? ‘ They said, “Yes; and don’t you
know that we have the power to die cursing you ? ‘ You can not cut
206 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
our spirits out. You can not do anything but lay our bodies low and
helpless. If you do, there will spring up, like dragon’s teeth out of
the earth, armed forces which will overcome you.
This is the field of the spirit here in America. This is the field of
the single unconquerable force that there is in the world, and when
the world learns, as it will learn, that America has put her whole
force into the common harness of civilization, then it will know that
the wheels are going to turn, the loads are going to be drawn, and men
are going to begin to ascend those difficult heights of hope which
have sometimes seemed so inaccessible. I am glad for one to
have lived to see this day. I have lived to see a day in which, after
saturating myself most of my life in the history and traditions of
America, I seem suddenly to see the culmination of American hope
and history all the orators seeing their dreams realized, if their
spirits are looking on ; all the men who spoke the noblest sentiments
of America heartened with the sight of a great Nation responding to
and acting upon those dreams, and saying, “At last, the world knows
America as the savior of the world ! ”
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, PORTLAND, OREG.,
SEPTEMBER 15, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Irvine, my fellow countrymen, Mr. Irvine has
very eloquently stated exactly the errand upon which I have come.
I have come to confer, face to face, with you on one of the most
solemn occasions that have ever confronted this Nation. As I have
come along through the country and stopped at station after station,
the first to crowd around the train have almost always been little
children, bright-eyed little boys, excited little girls, children all seem-
ing sometimes of the same generation, and I have thought as I looked
upon them from the car platform that, after all, it was they to whom
I had come to report ; that I had come to report with regard to the
safety and honor of subsequent generations of America, and I felt
that if I could not fulfill the task to which I had set my hand, I
would have to say to mothers with boy babies at their breast, ” You
have occasion to weep; you have occasion to fear. The past is only
a prediction of the future, and all this terrible thing that your
brothers and husbands and sweethearts have been through may have
to be gone through with again.” Because, as I was saying to some of
your fellow citizens to-day, the task, that great and gallant task,
which our soldiers performed is only half finished. They prevented
a great wrong. They prevented it with a spirit and a courage and
with an ability that will always be written on the brightest pages
of our record of gallantry and of force. I do not know when I have
been as proud, as an American, as when I have seen our boys deploy
on the other side of the sea. On Christmas Day last, on an open
stretch of country, I saw a great division march past me, with all the
arms of the service, walking with that swing which is so familiar to
our eyes, with that sense of power and confidence and audacity which
is so characteristic of America, and I seemed to see the force that had
saved the world. But they merely prevented something. They
merely prevented a particular nation from doing a particular, un-
speakable wrong to civilization, and their task is not complete unless
we see to it that it has not to be done over again, unless we fulfill
the promise which we made to them and to ourselves that this was
not only a war to defeat Germany, but a war to prevent the recur-
207
208 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
rence of any such wrong as Germany had attempted; that it was
a war to put an end to the wars of aggression forever.
There is only one means of doing that, my fellow citizens. I
found quoted in one of your papers the other day a passage so ap-
posite that I do not know that I can do better than read it as the
particular thing that it is now necessary to do :
” Nations must unite as men unite in order to preserve peace and
order. The great nations must be so united as to be able to say to
any single country, ‘ You must not go to war,’ and they can say
that effectively when the country desiring war knows that the force
which the united nations place behind peace is irresistible. In
differences between individuals the decision of a court is final, be-
cause in the last resort the entire force of the community is behind
the court decision. In differences between nations which go beyond
the limited range of arbitral questions, peace can only be maintained
by putting behind it the force of united nations determined to up-
hold it and prevent war.”
That is a quotation from an address said to have been delivered at
Union College in June, 1915, a year after the war began, by Mr.
Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts. I entirely concur in Senator
Lodge’s conclusion, and I hope I shall have his cooperation in bring-
ing about the desired result. In other words, the only way we can
prevent the unspeakable thing from happening again is that the
nations of the world should unite and put an irresistible force be-
hind peace and order. There is only one conceivable way to do that,
and that is by means of a league of nations. The very description
is a definition of a league of nations, and the only thing that we
can debate now is whether the nations of the world, having met in a
universal congress and formulated a covenant as the basis for a
league of nations, we are going to accept that or insist upon another.
I do not find any man anywhere rash or bold enough to say that he
does not desire a league of nations. I only find men here and there
saying that they do not desire this league of nations, and I want to
ask you to reflect upon what that means. And in order to do that
I want to draw a picture for you, if you will be patient with me, of
what occurred in Paris.
In Paris were gathered the representatives of nearly 30 nations
from all over the civilized globe, and even from some parts of the
globe which in our ignorance of them we have not been in the habit
of regarding as civilized, and out of that great body were chosen the
representatives of 14 nations, representing all parts of the great
stretches of the peoples of the world which the conference as a whole
represented. The representatives of those 14 nations were constituted
a commission on the league of nations. The first resolution passed by
the conference of peace in Paris was a resolution in favor of a league
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 209
of nations, setting up a commission to formulate a league of nations.
It was the thought foremost in the mind of every statesman there.
He knew that his errand was in vain in Paris if he went away with-
out achieving the formation of a league of nations, and that he
dared not go back and face his people unless he could report that
the efforts in that direction had been successful. That commission
sat day after day, evening after evening. I had the good fortune to
be a member of the commission, and I want to testify to the extraor-
dinary good temper in which the discussions were conducted. I
want to testify that there was a universal endeavor to subordinate
as much as possible international rivalries and conflicting interna-
tional interests and come out upon a common ground of agreement
in the interest of the world. I want to testify that there were many
compromises, but no compromises that sacrificed the principle, and
that although the instrument as a whole represented certain mutual
concessions, it is a constructive instrument and not a negative instru-
ment. I shall never lose so long as I live the impression of generous,
high-minded, statesmanlike cooperation which was manifested in that
interesting body. It included representatives of all the most power-
ful nations, as well as representatives of some of those that were less
powerful.
I could not help thinking as I sat there that the representatives
of Italy spoke as it were in the tones of the long tradition of Rome ;
that we heard the great Latin people who had fought, fought, fought
through generation after generation of strife down to this critical
moment, speaking now in the counsels of peace. And there sat the
prime minister of Greece the ancient Greek people lending his
singular intelligence, his singularly high-minded and comprehensive
counsel, to the general result. There were the representatives also
of France, our ancient comrade in the strife for liberty. And there
were the representatives of Great Britain, supposed to be the most
ambitious, the most desirous of ruling the world of any of the na-
tions of the world, cooperating with a peculiar interest in the result,
with a constant and manifestly sincere profession that they wanted to
subordinate the interests of the British Empire, which extended all
over the world, to the common interests of mankind and of peace.
The representatives of Great Britain I may stop to speak of for a
moment. There were two of them. One of them was Lord Robert
Cecil, who belongs to an ancient family in Great Britain, some of
the members of which particularly Lord Salisbury of a past gener-
ation had always been reputed as most particularly keen to seek
and maintain the advantage of the British Empire; and yet I never
heard a man speak whose heart was evidently more in the task of
the humane redemption of the world than Lord Robert Cecil. And
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 14
210 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
alongside of him sat Gen. Smuts, the South African Boer, the man
who had fought Great Britain so successfully that, after the war
was over and the Boers nominally defeated, Great Britain saw that
the wisest thing she could do was to hand the government of the
country over to the Boers themselves. Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts
were both members of the peace conference; both had been successful
generals in fighting the British arms. Nobody in the conference
was more outspoken in criticizing some aspects of British policy
than Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts, and Gen. Smuts was of the same
mind with Sir Robert Cecil. They were both serving the common
interests of free people everywhere. You seem to see a sort of
epitome of the history of the world in that conference. There were
nations that had long been subordinated and suffering. There were
nations that had been indomitably free but, nevertheless, not so free-
that they could really accomplish the objects that they had always
held dear. I want you to realize that this conference was made up
of many minds and of many nations and of many traditions, keen to
the same conclusion, with a unanimity, an enthusiasm, a spirit which
speaks volumes for the future hopes of mankind.
When this covenant was drawn up in its first form I had the occa-
sion for me the very happy occasion to return for a week or so to
this country in March last. I brought the covenant in its first draft.
I submitted it to the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate
and the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House. We discussed
all parts of the document. Many suggestions were made. I took all
of those suggestions with me back to Paris, and the conference on the
league of nations adopted every one of the suggestions made. No
counsels were listened to more carefully or yielded to more willingly
in that conference than the counsels of the United States. Some
things were put into the covenant which, personally, I did not think
necessary, which seemed to me to go without saying, but which they
had no objection to putting in there explicitly.
For example, take the Monroe doctrine. As a matter of fact, the
covenant sets up for the world a Monroe doctrine. What is the
Monroe doctrine ? The Monroe doctrine is that no nation shall come
to the Western Hemisphere and try to establish its power or interfere
with the self-government of the peoples in this hemisphere; that no
power shall extend its governing and controlling influence in any
form to either of the Americas. Very well ; that is the doctrine of
the covenant. No nation shall anywhere extend its power or seek to
interfere with the political independence of the peoples of the world ;
and inasmuch as the Monroe doctrine had been made the universal;
doctrine, I did not think that it was necessary to mention it particu-
larly, but when I suggested that it was the desire of the United
States that it should be explicitly recognized, it was explicitly recog-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 211
nizecl, for it is written in there that nothing in the covenant shall be
interpreted as affecting the validity of the Monroe doctrine. The
Monroe doctrine is left intact, and the United States is left free to
enforce it.
That is only a sample. The members of the Foreign Relations
Committee and of the Committee on Foreign Affairs did not see it
anywhere explicitly stated in the covenant that a member of the
league could withdraw. I told them that the matter had been dis-
cussed in the commission on the league and that it had been the uni-
versal opinion that, since it was a combination of sovereigns, any
sovereign had the right to withdraw from it; but when I suggested
that that should be explicitly put in, no objection was made what-
ever, and at the suggestion of the United States it was explicitly
provided that any member of the league could withdraw. Provision
was made that two years’ notice should be given, which I think
everybody will recognize as perfectly fair, so that no nation is at
liberty suddenly to break down this thing upon which the hope of
mankind rests; but with that limitation and with the provision that
when they withdraw they shall have fulfilled all their international
obligations they are perfectly fre:> to withdraw. When gentlemen
dwell upon that provision, that we must have fulfilled all our inter-
national obligations, I answer all their anxieties by asking them
another question. ” When did America ever fail to fulfill her inter-
national obligations? ‘ There is no judge in the matter Set up in the
covenant, except the conscience of the withdrawing nation and the
opinion of mankind, and I for one am proud enough American to
dismiss from 1113^ mind all fear of at any time going before the judg-
ment of mankind on the conduct of the United States, knowing that
we will go with clean hands and righteous purpose.
I am merely illustrating now the provisions that were put in at
the suggestion of the United ‘.States. Without exception, the sug-
gestions of the United States were adopted, and I want to say, be-
cause it may interest you, that most of these suggestions came from
Republican sources. I say that, my fellow citizens, not because it
seems to me to make the least difference among Americans in a great
matter like this which party such things came from, but because I
want to emphasize in every discussion of this matter the absolutely
nonpartisan character of the covenant and of the treaty. I am not
in favor of the ratification of this treaty, including the covenant
of the league of nations, because I am a Democrat/ I am in favor
of it because I am an American and a lover of humanity. If it will
relieve anybod} 7 ‘s mind, let me add that it is not my work, that prac-
tically every portion of the covenant of the league of nations ema-
nates from counsels running back 10, 20, 30 years, among the most
thoughtful men in America, and that it is the fulfillment of a dream
212 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
which five years ago, when the war began, would have been deemed
unattainable. What we are discussing ought not to be disfigured,
ought not to be tainted, with the least thought of domestic politics.
If anybody in this audience allows himself when thinking of this
matter to’ think of the elections of 1920 I want to declare that I
separate myself from him.
I draw all this picture of the care with which the covenant was
drawn up, every phrase scrutinized, every interest considered, the
other nations at the board just as jealous of their sovereignty as we
could possibly be of ours, and yet willing to harness all of these sover-
eignties in a single great enterprise of peace, and how the whole tning
was not the original idea of any man in the conference, but had grown
out of the counsels of hopeful and thoughtful and righteous men all
over the world; because just as there was in America a league to en-
force peace, which even formulated a constitution for the league of
peace before the conference met, before the conference was thought
of, before the war began, so there were in Great Britain and in
France and in Italy and, I believe, even in Germany similar associa-
tions of equally influential men, whose ideal was that some time there
might come an occasion when men would be sane enough and right
enough to get together to do a thing of this great sort. I draw that
picture in order to show you the other side of what is going on, and
I want to preface this part by saying that I hope you will not construe
anything that I say as indicating the least lack of respect for the men
who are criticizing any portion of this treaty. For most of them, I
have reason to have respect, for I have come into close contact and
consultation with them. They are just as good Americans as I claim
to be; they are just as thoughtful of the interests of America as I
try to be; they are just as intelligent as anybody w T ho could address
his mind to this thing ; and my contest with them is a contest of
interpretation, not a contest of intention. All I have to urge with
those men is that they are looking at this thing with too critical an
eye as to the mere phraseology, without remembering the purpose
that everybody knows to have been in the minds of those who framed
it, and that if they go very far in attempting to interpret it by reso-
lutions of the Senate they may, in appearance at any rate, sufficiently
alter the meaning of the document to make it necessary to take it back
to the council board. Taking it back to the council board means,
among other things, taking it back to Germany ; and I frankly tell
you, my fellow citizens, it would sit very ill upon my stomach to take
it back to Germany. Germany, at our request I may say almost at
our dictation signed the treaty and has ratified it. It is a contract,
so far as her part in it is concerned. I can testify that we tried to be
just to Germany, and that when we had heard her arguments and
examined every portion of the counterproposals that she made, we
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 213
wrote the treaty in its final form and then said, ” Sign here.” What
else did our boys die for? Did they die in order that we might ask
Germany’s leave to complete our victory? They died in order that
we might say to Germany what the terms of victory were in the
interest of justice and of peace, and we were entitled to take the course
that we did take. I can only beg these gentlemen in their criticism
of the treaty and in their action in the Senate not to go so far as to
make it necessary to ask the consent of the other nations to the
interpretations which they are putting upon the treaty. I have said
in all frankness that I do not see a single phrase in the covenant of the
league of nations which is of doubtful meaning, but if they want to
say what that undoubted meaning is, in other words that do not
change the undoubted meaning, I have no objection. If they change
the meaning of it, then all the other signatories have to consent ; and
what has been evident in the last week or two is that on the part of
some men, I believe a very few, the desire is to change the treaty, and
particularly the covenant, in a way to give America an exceptional
footing.
My fellow citizens, the principle that America went into this war
for was the principle of the equality of sovereign nations. I am just
as much opposed to class legislation in international matters as in
domestic matters. I do not, I tell you plainly, believe that any one
nation should be allowed to dominate, even this beloved Nation of
our own, and it does not desire to dominate. I said in a speech the
other night in another connection that so far as my influence and
power as President of the United States went, I was going to fight
every attempt to set up a minority government. I was asked after-
wards whom I was hitting at, what minority I was thinking of. I
said, “Never mind what minority I may have been thinking of at
the moment; it does not make any difference with me which minor-
ity it is; whether it is capital or labor. No sort of privilege will
ever be permitted in this country.” It is a partnership or it is a
mockery. It is a democracy, where the majority are the masters, or
all the hopes and purposes of the men who founded this Government
have been defeated and forgotten. And I am of the same principle
in international affairs. One of the things that gave the world a
now and bounding hope was that the great United States had said
that it was fighting for the little nation as well as the great nation ;
that it regarded the rights of the little nation as equal to its own
rights; that it would make no distinction between free men any-
where ; that it was not fighting for a special advantage for the United
States but for an equal advantage for all free men everywhere.
Let gentlemen beware, therefore, how they disappoint the world.
Let gentlemen beware how they betray the immemorial principles of
the United States. Let men not make the mistake of claiming a
214 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
position of privilege for the United States which gives it all the ad-
vantages of the league of nations and none of the risks and respon-
sibilities. The principle of equity everywhere is that along with a
right goes a duty; that if you claim a right for yourself you must
be ready to support that right for somebody else; that if you claim
to be a member in a society of any sort you must not claim- the right
to dodge the responsibilities and avoid the burden, but you must
carry the weight of the enterprise along with the hope of the enter-
prise. That is the spirit of free men everywhere, and that I know
to be the spirit of the United States.
Our decision, therefore, my fellow citizens, rests upon this : If we
want a league of nations, we must take this league of nations, because
there is no conceivable way in which any other league of nations is
obtainable. We must leave it or take it. I should be very sorry to
have the United States indirectly defeat this great enterprise by ask-
ing for something, some position of privilege, which other nations in
their pride can not grant. I would a great deal rather say flatly,
” She will not go into the enterprise at all.” And that, my fellow
citizens, is exactly what Germany is hoping and beginning to dare to
expect. I am not uttering a conjecture; I am speaking of knowledge,
knowledge of the things that are said in the German newspapers and
by German public men. They are taking heart because the United
States, they hope, is not going to stand with the other free nations of
the world to guarantee the peace that has been forced upon them.
They see the hope that there will be two nations standing outside the
league Germany and the United States. Germany because she
must ; the United States because she will. She knows that that will
turn the hostility and enmity of all the other nations of the world
against the United States, as their hostility is already directed
against her. They do not expect that now the United States will in
any way align themselves with Germany. They do not expect the
sympathy of the United States to go out to them now, but they do ex-
pect the isolation of the United States to bring about an alienation
between the United States and the other free nations of the world,
which will make it impossible for the world ever to combine again
against such enterprises as she was defeated in attempting. All over
this country pro-German propaganda is beginning to be active again,
beginning to try to add to the force of the arguments against the
league in particular and against the treaty and the several items of
the treaty. And the poison of failure is being injected into the
whole fine body politic of the united world, a sort of paralysis, a sort
of fear. Germany desires that we should say, ” What have we
created ? A great power which will bring peace, but will that power
be amiable to us? Can we control that power? ‘ We can not control
it for any but its proper purpose the purpose of righteousness and
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 215
peace but for that purpose we are invited to control it by the opin-
ion of mankind, for all over the world peoples are looking to us with
confidence, our rivals along with the weaker nations. They believe in
the honesty of purpose and the indomitable rectitude of purpose of
the United States, and they are willing to have us lead.
I pray God that the gentlemen who are delaying this thing may
presently see it in a different light. I fain would appeal to their
hearts. I wonder if they have forgotten what this war meant. I
wonder if they have had mothers who lost their sons take them by
the hand, as they have taken my own, and looked things that their
hearts were too full to speak, praying me to do all in my power to
save the sons of other mothers from this terrible thing again. I had
one fine woman come to me and say as steadily as if she were saying
a commonplace, ” I had the honor to lose a son in the war.” How
fine that is ” I had the honor to sacrifice a son for the redemption
of mankind ! ‘ And yet there is a sob back of the statement, there
is a tear brushed hastily away from the cheek. A woman came up to
the train the other day and seized my hand and was about to say
something when she turned away in a flood of tears. I asked a
standerby what was the matter, and he said, ” Why, sir, she lost a
son in France.” Mind you, she did not turn away from me. I
ordered her son overseas. I advised the Congress of the United
States to sacrifice that son. She came to me as a friend. She had
nothing in her heart except the hope that I could save other sons,
though she had given hers gladly, and, God helping me, I Avill save
other sons. Through evil report and good report, through resistance
and misrepresentation and every other vile thing, I shall fight my
way to that goal. I call upon the men to whom I have referred the
honest, patriotic, intelligent men, who have been too particularly
concerned in criticizing the details of that treaty to forget the
details, to remember the great enterprise, to stand with “me, and fulfill
the hopes and traditions of the United States.
My fellow citizens, there is only one conquering force in the world.
There is only one thing you can not kill, and that is the spirit of free
men. I was telling some friends to-day of a legendary story of the
Middle Ages, of a chieftain of one of the half-civilized peoples that
overran Europe commanding some of his men to do a certain thing
which they believed to be against the traditions of their tribe. They
refused, and he blazed out upon them, ” Don’t you know that I can
put you to death?” ” Yes,” they said, ” and don’t you know that we
can die cursing you ? ‘ He could not kill their spirits ; and they knew
perfectly well that if he unjustly slew them the whole spirit of their
tribe would curse him; they knew that, if he did an unjust thing, out
of the blood that they spilt would spring up, as it were, armed men,
like dragons’ teeth, to overwhelm him. The thing that is vindicated
216 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
in the long run is the right, and the only thing that is unconquerable
is the truth. America is believed in throughout the world, because
she has put spirit before material ambition. She has said that she is
willing to sacrifice everything that she is and everything that she has
not only that her people may be free but that freedom may reign
throughout the world.
I hear men say how often I heard it said on the other side of the
water ! how amazing it was that America went into this war. I
tell you, my fellow citizens I tell it with sorrow it was universally
believed on the other side of the water that we would not go into the
war because we were making money out of it, and loved the money
better than we loved j ustice. They all believed that. When we went
over there thev greeted us with amazement. Thev said, ” These men
/ ^j –
did not have to come. Their territories are not invaded. Their inde-
pendence is not directly threatened. Their interests were not imme-
diately attacked, only indirectly. They w r ere getting a great pros-
perity out of this calamity of ours, and we were told that they wor-
shipped the almighty dollar; but here come, tramping, tramping,
tramping, these gallant fellows with something in their faces we
never saw before eyes lifted to the horizon, a dash that knows no
discouragement, a knowledge only of how to go forward, no thought
of how to go backward 3,000 miles from home. What are they fight-
ing for ? Look at their faces and you will see the answer. They see
a vision. They see a cause. They see mankind redeemed. They see
a great force which would recall civilization. They love something
they have never touched. They love the things that emanate from
the throne of justice, and they have come here to fight with us and
for us, and thev are our comrades.”
/ /
We were told by certain people in France that they went to the
Fourth of July celebration last calendar year in Paris with sinking
hearts. Our men had just begun to come over in numbers. They did
not expect they would come soon enough or fast enough to save them.
They went out of courtesy ; and before the day was over, having been
in the presence of those boys, they knew that Europe was saved, be-
cause they had seen what that blind man saw in the song. You have
heard that spirited song of the blind Frenchman, his boy at the win-
dow, music in the streets, the marching of troops, and he says to the
lad, ” See what that is. What do you see, lad ? What are the colors ?
What are the men ? Is there a banner with red and white stripes upon
it? Is there a bit of heaven in the corner? Are there stars in that
piece of the firmament? Ah, thank God, the Americans have come ! ‘
It was the revelation to Europe of the heart of a great Nation, and
they believe in that heart now. You never hear the old sneers. You
never hear the old intimation that we will seek our interest and not
our honor. You never hear the old fear that we shall not stand bv
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 217
free men elsewhere who make common cause with us for justice to
mankind. You hear, on the contrary, confident prediction, confident
expectation, a confident hope that the whole world will be steadied
by the magnificent purpose and force of the United States. If I was
prcfud as an American before I went over there and I hope my pride
had just foundation I was infinitely more proud when I came back
to feel that I could bring you this message.
My fellow citizens, let us every one of us bind ourselves in a
solemn league and covenant of our own that we will redeem this ex-
pectation of the world, that we will not allow any man to stand in
the way of it, that the world shall hereafter bless and not curse us,
that the world hereafter shall follow us and not turn aside from us,
and that in leading we will not lead along the paths of private ad-
vantage, we will not lead along the paths of national ambition, but
we will be proud and happy to lead along the paths of right, so that
men shall always say that American soldiers saved Europe and
American citizens saved the world.
#ADDRESS AT LUNCHEON, PALACE HOTEL, SAN FRAN-
CISCO, CALIF.,
SEPTEMBER 17, 1919.
Mrs. Mott and my felloAv citizens, Mrs. Mott has very happily
interpreted the feeling with which I face this great audience. I have
come to get a consciousness of your support and of your sentiment,
at a time in the history of the world, I take leave to say, more critical
than has ever been known during the history of the United States.
I have felt a certain burden of responsibility as I have mixed
with my fellow countrymen across the continent, because I have
feared at times that there were those amongst us who did not realize
just what the heart of this question is. I have been afraid that their
thoughts were lingering in a past day when the calculation was
always of national advantage, and that it had not come to see the
light of the new day in which men are thinking of the common ad-
vantage and safety of mankind. The issue is nothing else. Either
we must stand apart, and in the phrase of some gentlemen, ” take
care of ourselves,” which means antagonize others, or we must join
hands with the other great nations of the world and with the weak
nations of the world, in seeing that justice is everywhere maintained.
Quite apart from the merits of any particular question that may
be raised about the treaty itself, I think we are under a certain moral
compulsion to accept this treaty. In the first place, my fellow citi-
zens, it was laid down according to American specifications. The
initial suggestions upon which this treaty is based emanated from
America. I would not have you understanding me as meaning that
they were ideas confined to America, because the promptness with
which they were accepted, the joy with which they were hailed in
some parts of the world, the readiness of the leaders of nations that
had been supposed to be seeking chiefly their own interest in adopt-
ing these principles as the principles of the peace, show that they
were listening to the counsels of their own people, that they were
listening to those who knew the critical character of the new age
and the necessity we were under to take new measures for the peace
of the world. Because the thing that had happened was intolerable.
The tiling that Germany attempted, if it had succeeded, would have
219
220 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
set the civilization of the world back a hundred years. We have
prevented it, but prevention is not enough. We have shown Ger-
many and not Germany only, but the world that upon occasion
the great peoples of the world will combine to prevent an iniquity,
but we have not shown how that is going to be done in the future
with a certainty that will make every other nation know that a simi-
lar enterprise must not be attempted.
Again and again, as I have crossed the continent, generous women r
women I did not know, have taken me by the hand and said, ” God
bless you, Mr. President.” Some of them, like many of you, had
lost sons and husbands and brothers in the war. Why should they
bless me? I advised Congress to declare war. I advised Congress
to send their sons to their death. As Commander in Chief of the
Army, I sent them over the seas, and they were killed. Why should
they bless me? Because in the generosity of their hearts they want
the sons of other women saved henceforth, and they believe that
the methods proposed at any rate create a very hopeful expectation
that similar wars will be prevented, and that other armies will not
have to go from the United States to die upon distant fields of bat-
tle. The moral compulsion upon us, upon us who at the critical
stage of the world saved the world and who threw in our fortunes
with all the forward-looking peoples of the world the moral com-
pulsion upon us to stand by and see it through is overwhelming.
We can not now turn back. We made the choice in April, 1917. We
can not with honor reverse it now.
Not only is there the compulsion of honor, but there is the com
pulsion of interest. I never like to speak of that, because, notwith-
standing the reputation that we had throughout the world before
we made the great sacrifice of this war, this Nation does love its
honor better than it loves its interest. It does yield to moral com-
pulsion more readily than to material compulsion. That is the glory
of America. That is the spirit in which she was conceived and born.
That is the mission that she has in the world. She always has lived
up to it, and, God helping her, she always will live up to it. But
if you want, as some of our fellow countrymen insist, to dwell upon
the material side of it and our interest in the matter, our commercial
interest, draw the picture for yourselves. The other nations of the
world are drawing together. We who suggested that they should
draw together in this new partnership stand aside. We at once
draw their suspicion upon us. We at once draw their intense hos-
tility upon us. We at once renew the thing that had begun to be
done before we went into the war. There was a conference in Paris
not many months before we went into the war in which the nations
then engaged against Germany attempted to draw together in an
exclusive economic combination where thev should serve one an-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 221
other’s interest and exclude those who had not participated in the
\var from sharing in that interest, and just so certainly as we stay
out, every market that can possibly be closed against us will be
dosed. If you merely look at it from the point of view of the ma-
terial prosperity of the United States, we are under compulsion to
stay in the partnership. I was asking some gentlemen the other
day who were engaged in commerce of various sorts, ” Can you sell
more easily to a man who trusts you or to a man who distrusts you? 1
There can be but one answer to that question. Can you sell more
easily to a man who takes your goods because he can not do without
them or to a man who wants them and believes them the best? The
thing demonstrates itself. You make all the lines of trade lines of
resistance unless you prove true to the things that you have at-
tempted and undertaken.
Then, there is a deeper compulsion even than those, the compulsion
of humanity. If there is one thing that America ought to have
learned more promptly than any other country it is that, being made
up out of all the ranks of humanity, in serving itself it must serve
the human race. I suppose I could not command the words which
would exaggerate the present expectations of the world with regard
to the United States. Nothing more thrilling, nothing more touch-
ing, happened to me on the other side of the water than the daily
evidences that, not the weak peoples merely, not the peoples of coun-
tries that had been allowed to shift for themselves and had always
borne the chief burden of the world’s sufferings, but the great peoples
as well, the people of France as well as the people of Serbia, the peo-
ple of all the nations that had looked this terror in the face, were
turning to the United States and saying, ” We depend upon you to
take the lead, to direct us how to go out of this wilderness of doubt
and fear and terror.” We can not desert humanity. We are the
trustees of humanity, and we must see that we redeem the pledges
which are always implicit in so great a trusteeship.
So, feeling these compulsions, the compulsion of honor, the com-
pulsion of interest, and the compulsion of humanity, I wonder what
it is that is holding some minds back from acquiescence in this great
enterprise of peace. I must admit to you, my fellow citizens, that I
have been very much puzzled. I can not conceive a motive adequate
to hold men off from this thing, and when I examine the objections
which they make to the treaty I can but wonder if they are really
thinking, or if, on the other hand, there is some emotion coming
from fountains that I do not know of which are obliging them to take
this course.
Let me take the point in which my initial sympathy is most with
them, the matter of the cession to Japan of the interests of Germany-
in Shantung, in China. I said to my Japanese colleagues on the
222 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
other side of the sea, and therefore I am at liberty to say in public,
I am not satisfied with that settlement, I think it ought to have been
different, but when gentlemen propose to cure it by striking that
clause out of the treaty or by ourselves withholding our adherence
to the treaty, they propose an irrational thing. Let me remind you
of some of the history of this business. It was in 1898 that China
ceded these rights and concessions to Germany. The pretext was
that some German missionaries had been killed. My heart aches, I
must say, when I think how we have made an excuse of religion
sometimes to work a deep wrong. The central Government of China
had done all that they could to protect those German missionaries:
their death was due to local disturbances, to local passion, to local
antipathy against the foreigner. There was nothing that the Chi-
nese Government as a whole could justly be held responsible for:
but suppose there had been. Two Christian missionaries are killed,
and therefore one great nation robs another nation and does a thing
which is fundamentally un-Christian and heathen! For there was
no adequate excuse for what Germany exacted of China. I read
again only the other day the phrases in which poor China was made
to make the concessions. She was made to make them in words dic-
tated by Germany, in view of her gratitude to Germany for certain
services rendered the deepest hypocrisy conceivable! She was
obliged to do so by force.
Then, what happened, my fellow citizens? Then Russia came in
and obliged China to cede to her Port Arthur and Talien Wan, not
for quite so long a period, but upon substantially the same terms.
Then England must needs have Wei-Hai-Wei as an equivalent con-
cession to that which had been made to Germany ; and presently cer-
tain ports, with the territory back of them,- were ceded upon similar
principles to France. Everybody got in, except the United States,
and said, ” If Germany is going to get something, we will get some-
thing.” Why? None of them had any business in there on such
terms.
Then when the Japanese-Russian War came, Japan did what she
has done in this war. She attacked Port Arthur and captured Port
Arthur, and Port Arthur was ceded to her as a consequence of the
war. Not one official voice was raised in the United States against
that cession. No protest was made. No protest was made by the
Government of the United States against the original cession of this
Shantung territory to Germany. One of the highest minded men of
our history was President at that time I mean Mr. McKinlev. One
/
of the ablest men that we have had as Secretary of State, Mr. John
Hay, occupied that great office. In the message of Mr. McKiuley
bout this transaction, he says I am quoting his language that
inasmuch as the powers that had taken these territories had agreed
ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 223
to keep the door open there for our commerce, there was no reason
why we should object. Just so we could trade with these stolen
territories we were willing to let them be stolen. Which of these
gentlemen who are now objecting to the cession of the German rights
in Shantung to Japan were prominent in protesting against the orig-
inal cession or any one of those original cessions? It makes my
heart burn when some men are so late in doing justice.
In the meantime, before we got into this war, but after the war
had begun, because they deemed the assistance of Japan in the
Pacific absolutely indispensable, Great Britain and France both
agreed that if Japan would enter and cooperate in the war she could
do the same thing with regard to Shantung that she had done with
regard to Port Arthur ; that is she would take what Germany had in
China she could keep it. She took it. She has it now. Her troops
are there. She has it as spoils of war. Observe, my fellow citizens,
we are not taking this thing away from China ; we are taking it from
Germany. China had ceded it for 99 years, and there are 78 of those
99 to run yet. They were Germany’s rights in Shantung, not
China’s, that were ceded by the treaty to Japan, but with a differ-
ence a difference which never occurred in any of these other cases
a difference which was not insisted upon at the cession of Port
Arthur upon a condition that no other nation in doing similar
things in China has ever yielded to. Japan is under solemn promise
to forego all sovereign rights in the Province of Shantung and to
retain only what private corporations have elsewhere in China, the
right of concessionaires with regard to the operation of the railway
and the exploitation of the mines. Scores of foreign corporations
have that right in other parts of China.
But it does not stop there. Coupled with this arrangement is the
league of nations, under which Japan solemnly undertakes, with the
rest of us, to protect the territorial integrity of China, along with the
territorial integrity of other countries, and back of her promise lies
the similar promise of every other nation, that nowhere will they
countenance a disregard for the territorial integrity or the political
independence of that great helpless people, lying there hitherto as an
object of prey in the great Orient. It is the first time in the history
of the world that anything has been done for China, and sitting
around our council board in Paris I put this question : ” May I ex-
pect that this will be the beginning of the retrocession to China of
the exceptional rights which other Governments haA^e enjoyed there?”
The responsible representatives of the other great Governments said,
“Yes; you may expect it.” Expect it?
Your attention is constantly drawn to article 10, and that is the
article the heart of the covenant which guarantees the territorial
integrity and political independence not only of China, but of other
224 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
countries more helpless even than China ; but besides article 10, tliere
is article 11, which makes it the right of every member of the league,
big or little, influential or not influential, to draw attention to any-
thing, anywhere, that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or
the good understanding between nations upon which the peace of the
world depends. Whenever formerly anything was done in detriment
of the interests of China, we had to approach the Government that
did it with apologies. We had, as it were, to say, ” This is hone of
our business, but we would like to suggest that this is not in the in-
terest of China.” I am repeating, not the words but the purport of
notes that I have signed myself to Japan, in which I was obliged to
use all the genuflections of apology and say, ” The United States be-
lieves that this is wrong in principle and suggests to the Japanese
Government that the matter be reconsidered.” Now, when you have
the league of nations the representative of the United States has the
right to stand up and say, ” This is against the covenants of peace ;
it can not be done,” and if occasion arises we can add, ” It shall not
be done.” The weak and oppressed and wronged peoples of the
world have never before had a forum made for them in which thev
\J
can summon their enemies into the presence of the judgment of man-
kind, and if there is one tribunal that the wrongdoer ought to dread
more than another it is that tribunal of the opinion of mankind.
Some nations keep their international promises only because they
wish to obtain the respect of mankind. You remember those immor-
tal words in the opening part of the Declaration of Independence.
I wish I could quote them literally, but they run this way, that out of
respect for the opinion of mankind the leaders of the American Revo-
lution now state the causes which have led them to separate them-
selves from Great Britain. America was the first to set that example,
the first to admit that right and justice and even the basis of revolu-
tion was a matter upon which mankind was entitled to form a judg-
ment.
If we do not take part in this thing, what happens? France and
England are absolutely bound to this thing without any qualifica-
tions. The alternative is to defend China in the future with im-
portant concessions to begin with, or else let the world go back to its
old methods of rapacity; or else take up arms against France and
England and Japan, and begin the shedding of blood over again,
almost fratricidal blood. Does that sound like a practical program?
Does that sound like doing China a service? Does that sound like
anything that is rational?
Go to other matters with which I have less patience, other objec-
tions to the league. I have spoken of article 10. Those who object
to article 10 object to entering the league with any responsibilities
whatever. They want to make it a matter of opinion merely and not
ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.. 225
a matter of action. They know just as well as I know that there is
nothing in article 10 that can oblige the Congress of the United
States to declare war if it does not deem it wise to declare war. We
engage with the other nations of the world to preserve as against
external aggression not as against internal revolution the terri-
torial integrity and existing political independence of the other mem-
bers of the league; and then, in the next sentence, it is said that the
council of the league of nations shall advise with regard to the meas-
ures which may be necessary to carry out this promise on the part
of the members. As I have said several times in my speeches, I have
in vain searched the dictionary to find any other meaning for the
word ” advise ” than ” advise.” These gentlemen would have you be-
lieve that our armies can be ordered abroad by some other power or
by a combination of powers. They are thinking in an air-tight com-
partment. America is not the only proud nation in the world. I
can testify from my share in the counsels on the other side of the
sea that the other nations are just as jealous of their sovereignty as
we are of ours. They would no more have dreamed of giving us
the right of ordering out their armies than we would have dreamed
of giving them the right to order out our armies. The advice can
come from the United States only after the United States representa-
tive votes in the affirmative.
We have got an absolute veto on the thing, unless we are parties to
the dispute, and I want again to call attention to what that means.
That means unless we want to seize somebody’s territory or invade
somebody’s political independence, or unless somebody else wants
to seize our territory and invade our political independence. I re-
gard either of those contingencies as so remote that they are not
troubling me in the least. I know the people of this country well
enough to know that we will not be the aggressors in trying to execute
a wrong, and in looking about me I do not see anybody else that
would think it wise to try it on us. But suppose we are parties.
Then is it the council of the league that is forcing war upon us?
The war is ours anyhow. We are in circumstances where it is neces-
sary for Congress, if it wants to steal somebody’s territory or pre-
vent somebody from stealing our territory, to go to war. It is not
the council of the league that brings us into war at that time, in such
circumstances ; it is the unfortunate circumstances which have arisen
in some matter of aggression. I want to say again that article 10
is the very heart of the covenant of the league, because all the great
wrongs of the world have had their root in the seizure of territory or
the control of the political independence of other peoples. I believe
that I speak the feeling of the people of the United States when I
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 15
226 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
say that, having seen one great wrong like that attempted and hav-
ing prevented it, we are ready to prevent it again.
Those are the two principal criticisms, that we did not do the
impossible with regard to Shantung and that we may be advised to
go to war. That is all there is in either of those. But they say,
” We want the Monroe doctrine more distinctly acknowledged.”
Well, if I could have found language that was more distinct than
that used, I should have been very happy to suggest it, but it says in
so many words that nothing in that document shall be construed as
affecting the validity of the Monroe doctrine. I do not see what
more it could say, but, as I say, if the clear can be clarified, I have
no objection to its being clarified. The meaning is too obvious to
admit of discussion, and I want you to realize how extraordinary
that provision is. Every nation in the world had beeji jealous of
the Monroe doctrine, had studiously avoided doing or saying any-
thing that would admit its validity, and here all the great nations of
the world sign a document which admits its validity. That consti-
tutes nothing less than a moral revolution in the attitude of the rest
of the world toward America.
What does the Monroe doctrine mean in that covenant ? It means
that with regard to aggressions upon the Western Hemisphere we
are at liberty to act without waiting for other nations to act. That
is the Monroe doctrine. The Monroe doctrine says that if anybody
tries to interfere with affairs in the Western Hemisphere it will be
regarded as an unfriendly act to the United States not to the rest of
the world and that means that the United States will look after it,
and will not ask anybody’s permission to look after it. The document
says that nothing in this document must be construed as interfering
with that. I dismiss the objections to the Monroe doctrine all the
more because this is what happened : I brought the first draft of the
covenant to this country in March last. I then invited the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the House and the Foreign Relations Commit
tee of the Senate to the White House to dinner, and after dinner we
had the frankest possible conference with regard to this draft. When
I went back to Paris I carried every suggestion that was made in that
conference to the commission on the league of nations, which con-
sisted of representatives of 14 nations, and every one of the sug-
gestions of those committees was embodied in the document. I sup-
pose it is a pride of style. I suppose that, although the substance
was embodied, they would rather write it differently, but, after all,
that is a literary matter. After all, that is a question of pride in the
command of the English language, and I must say that there Avere a
great many men on that commission on the league of nations who
seemed perfectly to understand the English language and AV!IO wished
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 227
to express, not only in the English text but in its French equivalent,
exactly what we wanted to say.
One of the suggestions I carried over was that we should have the
right to withdraw. I must say that I did not want to say, ” We are
going into this if you promise we can scuttle whenever we want to.”
That did not seem to me a very handsome thing to propose, and I
told the men in the conference at the White House, when they raised
the question, that it had been raised in the commission on the league
of nations and that it was the unanimous opinion of the international
lawyers of that body that, inasmuch as this was an association of
sovereigns, they had the right to withdraw. But I conceded that if
that right was admitted there could be no harm in stating it, and so
in the present draft of the covenant it is stated that any member may
withdraw upon two years’ notice, which, I think, is not an unreason-
able length of time, provided that at the end of the two years all the
international obligations of that power under the covenant shall have
been fulfilled. Would you wish any other condition? Would you
wish the United States alknved to withdraw without fulfilling its
obligations ? Is that the kind of people we are ? Moreover, have we
ever failed to fulfill our international obligations? It is a point of
pride with me, my fellow citizens, not to debate this question. I will
not debate with anybody whether the United States is likely to with-
draw without fulfilling its obligations or not, and if other gentlemen
entertain that possibility and expectation, I separate myself from
them.
But there is another matter. They say that the British Empire has
six votes and we have only one. It happens that our one is as big as
the six, and that satisfies me entirely. Let me explain what I mean.
It is only in the assembly that the British Empire has six votes not
in the council and there is only one thing that the assembly votes
on in which it can decide a matter without the concurrence of all the
States represented on the council, and that is the admission of new
members to the league of nations. With regard to every other mat-
ter, for example, amendments to the covenant, with regard to cases
referred out of the council to the assembly, it is provided that if a
majority of the assembly and the representatives of all the States
represented on the council concur, the vote shall be valid and con-
clusive, which means that the affirmative vote of the United States
is in every instance just as powerful as the six votes of the British
Empire. I took the pains yesterday, I believe it was, on the train, to
go through the covenant almost sentence by sentence again, to find if
there was any case other than the one I have mentioned in which that
was not true, and there is no other case in which that is not true. Of
course, you will understand that wherever the United States is a
party to a quarrel and that quarrel is carried to the assembly, we
228 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
can not vote ; but, similarly, if the British Empire is a party her six
representatives can not vote. It is an even break any way you take
it, and I would rather count six as one person than six as six persons.
So far as I can see, it makes me a bigger man. The point to remem-
ber is that the energy of the league of nations resides in the council,
not in the assembly, and that in the council there is a perfect equality
of votes. That settles that matter, and even some of my fellow
countrymen who insist upon keeping a hyphen in the middle of
their names ought to be satisfied with that. Though I must admit
that I do not care to argue anything with a hyphen. A man that puts
anything else before the word “American’ is no comrade of mine,
and yet I am willing even to discomfit him with a statement of fact.
Those are the objections to yielding to these compulsions of honor,
interest, and humanity, and it is because of the nature of these objec-
tions, their flimsiness, the impossibility of supporting them with con-
clusive argument that I am profoundly puzzled to know what is back
of the opposition to the league of nations. I know one of the results,
and that is to raise the hope in the minds of the German people that,
after all, they can separate us from those who were our associates in
the war. I know that the pro-German propaganda which had there-
tofore not dared to raise its head again has now boldly raised its head
and is active all over the United States. These are disturbing and
illuminating circumstances. Pray understand me ; I am not accusing
some of the honorable men whose objections I am trying to answer
with trying to draw near to Germany. That is not my point ; but I
am saying that what they are attempting to do is exactly w r hat
Germany desires, and that it would touch the honor of the United
States very near if at the end of this great struggle we should seek
to take the position which our enemies desire and our friends deplore.
I am arguing the matter only because I am a very patient man. I
have not the slightest doubt as to what the result is going to be. I have
felt the>temper and high purpose of this great people as I have crossed
this wonderful land of ours, and one of the things that make it most
delightful to stand here is to remember that the people of the Pacific
coast were the first to see the new duty in its entirety. It is a remark-
able circumstance that you people, who were farthest from the field
of conflict, most remote from that contact of interests which stirred
so many peoples, yet outdid the rest of the country in volunteering for
service and volunteering your money. As I came through that won-
derful country to the north of us it occurred to me one day that the
aspiring lines of those wonderful mountains must lead people’s eyes
to be drawn upward and to look into the blue serene and see things
apart from the confusions of affairs, to see the real, pure vision of
the interests of humanity ; and that, after all, the spirit of America
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 229
was best expressed where people withdrew their thoughts from the
entangling interests of everyday life, purified their motives from all
that was selfish and groveling and based upon the desire to seize and
get and turned their thoughts to those things that are worth living for.
The only thing that makes the world inhabitable is that it is
sometimes ruled by its purest spirits. I want to leave this illustration,
which I have often used, in your minds of what I mean. Some years
ago some one said to me that the modern world was a world in which
the mind was monarch, and my reply was that if that was true it must
be one of those modern monarchs that reigned and did not govern;
that, as a matter of fact, the world was governed by a great popular
assembly made up of the passions and that the constant struggle of
civilization was to see that the handsome passions had a working
majority. That is the problem of civilization, that the things that
engage the best impulses of the human spirit should be the prevailing
things, the conquering things, the things that one can die comfortably
after achieving. How do men ever go to sleep that have conceived
wrong? How do men ever get their own consent to laugh who have
not looked the right in the face and extended their hand to it? If
America can in the future look the rest of the world in the face, it
will be because she has been the champion of justice and of right.
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.
SEPTEMBER 17, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rolph, my fellow countrymen, you have
given me a very royal welcome, and I am profoundly appreciative
of the greeting that you have extended me. It is a matter of grati-
fication to me to be permitted to speak to this great audience repre-
senting as it does one of the most forward-looking States of the
Union, representing as it does a great body of people who are accus-
tomed to look and plan to the future. As I picture to myself the
history of this great country which we love, I remember the surging
tides of humanity moving always westward, over the eastern moun-
tains and the plains, deploying upon the great further slopes of the
Rockies, then overflowing into these fertile and beautiful valleys by
the Pacific ; and that is a picture to me of the constant forward, con-
fident, hopeful movement of the American people. I feel that it is
not without significance that this was the portion of the country
which responded with the most extraordinary spirit to the call to
arms, responded with the utmost spontaneity and generosity to the
call for the money of the people to be loaned to the Government for
the conduct of the Great War, responded to all those impulses of
purpose and of freedom which underlay the great struggle we have
just passed through.
As I have passed through your streets to-day, and through others
in the many generous communities north of you and east of you, you
have made me feel how the spirit of the American people is coming
to a single vision, how the thought of the American people is back
of a single purpose. I have come before you, my fellow citizens, to
discuss a very serious theme. I want to analyze for you the very
important issue with which this Nation is now face to face. It is
by far the most important question that has ever come before this
people for decision, and the reason I have come out upon this long
journey is that I am conscious that it is the people, their purpose,
their wish, that is to decide this thing, and not the thought of those
who are planning any private purpose of their own.
What I first want to call your attention to, my fellow citizens, is
this: You know that the debate in which we are engaged centers
first of all upon the league of nations, and there seems to have arisen
an idea in some quarters that the league of nations is an idea recently
conceived, conceived by a small number of persons, somehow origi-
251
232 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
nated by the American representatives at the council table in Paris.
Nothing- could be further from the truth than that. I would not feel
the confidence that I feel in the league of nations if I felt that it was
so recent and novel a growth and birth as that. On the contrary,
it is the fruit of many generations of thoughtful, forward-looking
men, not only in this country but in the other countries of the world,
who have been able to look forward to the combined fortunes of man-
kind. The men who have conceived this great purpose are not men
who through these generations, w r hen they were concerting counsel in
this great matter, thought of the fortunes of parties, thought of the
fortunes of individuals. I would be ashamed of myself, as I am
frankly ashamed of any fellow countryman of mine who does it, if
I discussed this great question with any portion of my thought de-
voted to the contest of parties and the elections of next year.
Some of the greatest spirits, some of the most instructed minds of
both parties have been devoted to this great idea for more than a gen-
eration. It has some before the Paris conference out of the stage of
ideal conception. It had long before that begun to assume the shape
of a definite program and plan for the concert and cooperation of the
nations in the interest of the peace of the world, and when I went to
Paris I was conscious that I was carrying there no plan which was
novel either to America or to Europe, but a plan which all statesmen
who realized the real interests of their people had long ago hoped
might be carried out in some day when the world would realize what
the peace of the world meant and what were its necessary founda-
tions. When I got to Paris I was not conscious of presenting anything
that they had not long considered, and I felt that I was merely the
spokesman of thoughtful minds and hopeful spirits in America. I
was not putting forward any purpose of my own. So that I beg you
will dismiss any personal appearance or personal relationship which
this great plan may bear. I would indeed be a very proud man if I
had personally conceived this great idea, but I can claim no such
honor. I can only claim the privilege of having been the obedient
servant of the great ideals and purposes of beloved America.
I want you to realize, my fellow countrymen, that those Ameri-
cans who are opposing this plan of the league of nations offer no
substitute. They offer nothing that they pretend will accomplish
the same object. On the contrary, they are apparently willing to
go back to that old and evil order which prevailed before this war
began and which furnished a ready and fertile soil for those seeds
of envy which sprung up like dragon’s teeth out of the bloody soil
of Europe. They are ready to go back to that old and ugly plan of
armed nations, of alliances, of watchful jealousies, of rabid antago-
nisms, of purposes concealed, running by the subtle channels of in-
trigue through the veins of people who do not dream what poison is
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 233
being injected into their systems. They are willing to have the
United States stand alone, withdraw from the concert of nations;
and what does that mean, my fellow citizens? It means that we
shall arm as Germany was armed, that we shall submit our young
men to the kind of constant military service that the young men of
Germany were subjected to. It means that we shall pay not
lighter but heavier taxes. It means that we shall trade in a world
in which we are suspected and watched and disliked, instead of in a
world which is now ready to trust us, ready to follow our leadership,
ready to receive our traders, along with our political representatives
as friends, as men who are welcome, as men who bring goods and
ideas for which the world is ready and for which the world has been
waiting. That is the alternative which they offer.
It is my purpose, fellow citizens, to analyze the objections which
are made to this great league, and I shall be very brief. In the first
place, you know that one of the difficulties which have been ex-
perienced by those who are objecting to this league is that they do
not think that there is a wide enough door open for us to get out.
For my own part, I am not one of those who, when they go into
a generous enterprise, think first of all how they are going to turn
away from those with whom they are associated. I am not one of
those who, when they go into a concert for the peace of the world,
want to sit close to the door with their hand on the knob and con-
stantly trying the door to be sure that it is not locked. If we want
to go into this thing and we do want to go into it we wilf^go in
it with our whole hearts and settled purpose to stand by the great
enterprise to the end. Nevertheless, you will remember some of
you, I dare say that when I came home in March for an all too
brief visit to this country, which seems to me the fairest and dearest
in the world, I brought back with me the first draft of the covenant
of the league of nations. I called into consultation the Committees
on Foreign Affairs and on Foreign Relations of the House and
Senate of the United States, and I laid the draft of the covenant
before them. One of the things that they proposed was that it
should be explicitly stated that any member of the league should
have the right to withdraw. I carried that suggestion back to Paris,
and without the slightest hesitation it was accepted and acted upon ;
and every suggestion which was made in that conference at the
White House was accepted by the conference of peace in Paris.
There is not a feature of the covenant, except one, now under debate
upon which suggestions were not made at that time, and there is not
one of those suggestions that was not adopted by the conference of
peace.
The gentlemen say, ” You have laid a limitation upon the right to
withdraw. You have said that we can withdraw upon two years’
234 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
notice, if at that time we shall have fulfilled all oar international
obligations and all our obligations under the covenant.” ” Yes,” I
reply ; ” is it characteristic of the United States not to fulfill her
international obligations? Is there any fear that we shall wish to
withdraw dishonorably? Are gentlemen willing to stand up and
say that they want to get out whether they have the moral right to
get out or not? r I for one am too proud as an American to debate
that subject on that basis. The United States has always fulfilled
its international obligations, and, God helping her, she always will.
There is nothing in the covenant to prevent her acting upon her own
judgment with regard to that matter. The only thing she has to
fear, the only thing she has to regard, is the public opinion of man-
kind, and inasmuch as we have always scrupulously satisfied the
public opinion of mankind with regard to justice and right, I for
my part am not afraid at any time to go before that jury. It is a
jury that might condemn us if we did wrong, but it is not a jury
that could oblige us to stay in the league, so that there is absolutely
no limitation upon our right to withdraw.
One of the other suggestions I carried to Paris was that the com-
mittees of the two Houses did not find the Monroe doctrine safe-
guarded in the covenant of the league of nations. I suggested that
to the conference in Paris, and they at once inserted the provision
which is now there that nothing in that covenant shall be construed
as affecting the validity of the Monroe doctrine. What is the
validity of the Monroe doctrine? The Monroe doctrine means that
if any outside power, any power outside this hemisphere, tries to
impose its will upon any portion of the Western Hemisphere the
United States is at liberty to act independently and alone in repel-
ling the aggression; that it does not have to wait for the action of
the league of nations; that it does not have to wait for anything but
the action of its own administration and its own Congress. This is
the first time in the history of international diplomacy that any
great government has acknowledged the validity of the Monroe
doctrine. Now for the first time all the great fighting powers of
the world except Germany, which for the time being has ceased to be
a great fighting power, acknowledge the validity of the Monroe doc-
trine and acknowledge it as part of the international practice of the
world.
They are nervous about domestic questions. They say, ” It is
intolerable to think that the league of nations should interfere with
domestic questions,” and whenever they begin to specify they speak
of the question of immigration, of the question of naturalization, of
the question of the tariff. My fellow citizens, no competent or
authoritative student of international law would dream of main-
taining that these were anything but exclusively domestic questions,
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 235
and the covenant of the league expressly provides that the league
can take no action whatever about matters which are in the practice
of international law regarded as domestic questions. We did not
undertake to enumerate samples of domestic questions for the very
good reason, which will occur to any lawyer, that if you made a list
it would be inferred that what you left out was not included. No-
body with a thoughtful knowledge of international practice has the
least doubt as to what are domestic questions, and there is no ob-
scurity whatever in this covenant with regard to the safeguarding
of the United States, along with other sovereign countries, in the
control of domestic questions. I beg that you will not fancy, my fel-
low citizens, that the United States is the only country that is jealous
of its sovereignty. Throughout these conferences it was necessary at
every turn to safeguard the sovereign independence of the several
governments who were taking part in the conference, and they were
just as keen to protect themselves against outside intervention in
domestic matters as we were. Therefore the whole heartiness of
their concurrent opinion runs with this safeguarding of domestic
questions.
It is objected that the British Empire has six votes and we have
one. The answer to that is that it is most carefully arranged that
our one vote equals the six votes of the British Empire. Anybody
who will take the pains to read the covenant of the league of nations
will find out that the assembly and it is only in the assembly that
the British Empire has six votes is not a voting body. There is a
very limited number of subjects upon which it can act at all, and I
have taken the pains to write them down here, after again and again
going through the covenant for the purpose of making sure that
I had not omitted anything, in order that I might give you an ex-
plicit account of the thing. There are two things which a majority
of the assembly may do without the concurrent vote of the United
States. A majority of the assembly can admit a new member to the
league of nations. A majority of the assembly can recommend to any
nation a member of the league a reconsideration of such treaties as
are apparently in conflict wth the provisions of the covenant itself ; it
can advise any member of the league to seek a reconsideration of any
international obligation which seems to conflict with the covenant
itself, but it has no means whatever of obliging it to reconsider even
so important a matter as that, which is obviously a moral duty on
the part of any member of the league. All the action, all the energy,
all the initiative, of the league of nations is resident in the council,
and in the council a unanimous vote is necessary for action, and no
action is possible without the concurrent vote of the United States.
I would rather, personally, as one man count for six than be six men
and count only six. The United States can offset six votes. Here are
236 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the cases : When a matter in dispute is referred by the council to the
assembly its action must be taken by a majority vote of the assembly,
concurred in by the representatives of all the governments repre-
sented in the council, so that the concurrence of the vote of the United
States is absolutely necessary to an affirmative vote of the assembly
itself. In the case of an amendment to the covenant it is necessary
that there should be a unanimous vote of the representatives of the
nations which are represented in the council in addition to a majority
vote of the assembly itself. And there is all the voting that the
assembly does
Not a single affirmative act or negative decision upon a matter of
action taken by the league of nations can be validated without the
vote of the United States of America. We can dismiss from our
dreams the six votes of the British Empire, for the real underlying
conception of the assembly of the league of nations is that it is the
forum of opinion, not of action. It is the debating body; it is the
body where the thought of the little nation along with the thought
of the big nation is brought to bear upon those matters which affect
the peace of the world, is brought to bear upon those matters which
affect the good understanding between nations upon which the peace
of the world depends ; where this stifled voice of humanity is at last
to be heard, where nations that have borne the unspeakable sufferings
of the ages that must have seemed to them like aeons will find voice
and expression, where the moral judgment of mankind can sway the
opinion of the world. That is the function of the assembly. The
assembly is the voice of mankind. The council, where unanimous
action is necessary, is the only means through which that voice can
accomplish action.
You say, ” We have heard a great deal about article 10.” I just
now said that the only substitute for the league of nations which is
offered by the opponents is a return to the old system. What was
the old system? That the strong had all the rights and need pay
no attention to the rights of the weak; that if a great powerful
nation saw what it wanted, it had the right to go and take it;
that the weak nations could cry out and cry out as they pleased and
there would be no hearkening ear anywhere to their rights. I want
to bring in another subject connected with this treaty, but not with
the league of nations, to illustrate what I am talking about. You
have heard a great deal about the cession to Japan of the rights
which Germany had acquired in Shantung Province in China.
What happened under the old order of things, my fellow citizens?
The story begins in 1898. Two German missionaries were killed
in China by parties over whom the Central Government of China
was unable to exercise control. It was one of those outbreaks, like
the pitiful Boxer rebellion, where a sudden hatred of foreigners
ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 237
wells up in the heart of a nation uninformed, aware of danger,
aware of wrong, but not knowing just how to remedy it, not know-
ing just what was the instrumentality of right. And, my fellow
citizens, why should not the Chinaman hate the foreigner ? The
foreigner has always taken from him everything that he could get.
When by irresponsible persons these German missionaries were
murdered, the German Government insisted that a great part of
the fair Province of Shantung should be turned over to them for
exploitation. They insisted that the accessible part of Kaiochow
Bay, the part where trade entered and left, should be delivered over
to them for sovereign control for 99 years, and that they should be
given a concession for a railway into the interior and for the right
to exploit mines in that rich mineral country for 30 miles on either
side of the railway.
This was not unprecedented, my fellow countrymen. Other civi-
lized nations had done the same thing to China, and at that time what
did the Government of the United States do ? I want to speak with
the utmost respect for the administration of that time, and the respect
is unaffected. That very lovable and honest gentleman, William
McKinley, was President of the United States. His Secretary of
State was one of the most honorable and able of the long series of
our Secretaries of State, the Hon. John Hay. 1 believe Mr. Hay, if
he had seen any way to accomplish more than he did accomplish,
would have attempted to accomplish it, but this is all that the admin-
istration of Mr. McKinley attempted: They did not even protest
against this compulsory granting to Germany of the best part of a
rich Province of a helpless country, but only stipulated that the Ger-
mans should keep it open to the trade of the United States. They
did not make the least effort to save the rights of China ; they only
tried to save the commercial advantages of the United States. There
immediately followed upon that cession to Germany a cession to Rus-
sia of Port Arthur and the region called Talien-Wan for 25 years,
with the privilege of renewing it for a similar period. When, soon
afterwards, Japan and Russia came to blows, you remember what
happened. Russia was obliged to turn over to Japan Port Arthur
and Talien-Wan, just exactly as Japan is now allowed to take over
the German rights in Shantung. This Government, though the con-
ference which determined these things was held on our own soil, did
not, so far as I have been able to learn, make the slightest intimation
of objecting. At the time Germany got Kiaochow Bay, England
came in and said that since Germany was getting a piece of Shantung
and Russia was getting Port Arthur and Talien-Wan, she would insist
upon having her slice of China, too, and the region of Wei-Hai-Wai
was ceded to her. Immediately upon that France got into the un-
handsome game, and there was ceded to France for 99 years one of the
238 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ports of China with the region lying behind it. In all of those
transactions there was not a single attempt made by the Government
of the United States to do anything except to keep those regions open
to our traders.
You now have the historic setting of the settlement about Shan-
tung. What I want to call your attention to is that the treaty of
peace does not take Shantung from China ; it takes it from Germany.
There are 78 years of the 99 of that lease still to run, and not only do
we not take it from China, but Japan promises in an agreement
which is formally recorded, which is acknowledged by the Japanese
Government, to return all the sovereign rights which Germany en-
joyed in Shantung without qualification to China, and to retain
nothing except what foreign corporations have throughout China,
the right to run that railroad and exploit those mines. There is not
a great commercial and industrial nation in Europe that does not
enjoy privileges of that sort in China, and some of them enjoy
them at the expense of the sovereignty of China. Japan has promised
to release everything that savors of sovereignty and return it to
/ cy o tf
China itself. She will have no right to put armed men anywhere
into that portion of China. She will have no right to interfere with
the civil administration of that portion of China. She will have no
rights but economic and commercial rights. Xow, if we choose to
say that we will not assent to the Shantung provision, what do we do
for China? Absolutely nothing. Japan has Avhat Germany had in
China in her military possession now. She has the promise of Great
Britain and France that so far a they are concerned she can have it
without qualification, and the only way we can take it away from
Japan is by going to war with Japan and Great Britain and France.
The league of nations for the first time provides a tribunal in which
not only the sovereign rights of Germany and of Japan in China,
but the sovereign rights of other nations can be curtailed, because
every member of the league solemnly covenants to respect and pre-
serve the territorial integrity and existing political independence of
the other members, and China is to be a member. Never before, my
fellow citizens, has there been a tribunal to which people like China
could carry the intolerable grievances to which they have been sub-
jected. Now a great tribunal has been set up in which the pressure
of the whole judgment of the world will be exercised in her behalf.
That is the significance of article 10. Article 10 is the heart of
the whole promise of peace, because it cuts out of the transactions
of nations all attempts to impair the territorial integrity or invade
the political independence of the weak as well as of the strong. Why
did not Mr. Hay protest the acquisition of those rights in Shantung
by Germany ? Why did he not protest what England got, and what
France got, and what Russia got? Because under international law.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 239
as it then stood, that would have been a hostile act toward those
governments. The laAv of the world was actually such that if you
mentioned anybody else’s wrong but your own, you spoke as an
enemy. After you have read article 10, read article 11. Article 11
says that it shall be the friendly right of any member of the league,
strong or weak, to call the attention of the league to any matter,
anywhere, that affects the peace of the world or the good under-
standing between nations upon which the peace of the world de-
pends; so that for the first time it affords fine spirits like Mr. Mc-
Kinley and Mr. John Hay the right to stand up before mankind
and protest, and to say, ” The rights of China shall be as sacred as
the rights of those nations that are able to take care of themselves
by arms.’ 1 It is the most hopeful change in the law of the world
that has ever been suggested or adopted.
But there is another subject upon which some of our fellow citizens
are particularly sensitive. They say, ” What does the league of na-
tions do for the right of self-determination?” I think I can answer
that question: if not satisfactorily, at any rate very specifically. It
was not within the privilege of the conference of peace to act upon
the right of self-determination of any peoples except those which
had been included in the territories of the defeated empires that is
to say, it was not then within their power but the moment the
covenant of the league of nations is adopted it becomes their right.
If the desire for self-determination of any people in the world is
likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding be-
tween nations, it becomes the business of the league; it becomes the
right of any member of the league to call attention to it ; it becomes
the function of the league to bring the whole process of the opinion
of the world to bear upon that very matter. Where before, and
when before, may I ask some of my fellow countrymen who want a
forum upon which to conduct a hopeful agitation, were they ever
offered the opportunity to bring their case to the judgment of man-
kind? If they are not satisfied with that, their case is not good.
The only case that you ought to bring with diffidence before the
great jury of men throughout the world is the case that you can
not establish. The only thing I shall ever be afraid to see the league
of nations discuss, if the United States is concerned, is a case which
I can hardly imagine, where the United States is wrong, because I
have the hopeful and confident expectation that whenever a case in
which the United States is affected is brought to the consideration
of that great body we need have no nervousness as to the elements
of the argument so far as we are concerned. The glory of the
United States is that it never claimed anything to which it was not
justly entitled.
240 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
I look forward with a quickened pulse to the days that lie ahead
of us as a member of the league of nations, for we shall be a member
of the league of nations I look forward with confidence and with
exalted hope to the time when we can indeed legitimately and con-
stantly be the champions and friends of those who are struggling for
right anywhere in the world, and no nation is likely to forget, my
fellow citizens, that behind the moral judgment of the United States
resides the overwhelming force of the United States. We were re-
spected in those old Revolutionary days when there were three mil-
lions of us. We are, it happens, very much more respected, now that
there are more than a hundred millions of us. Now that we command
some of the most important resources of the world, back of the
majesty of the United States lies the strength of the United States.
If Germany had ever dreamed, when she conceived her ungodly en-
terprise, that the United States would have come into the war, she
never would have dared to attempt it.
But now, my fellow citizens, the hope of Germany has revived.
The hope of Germany has revived, because in the debates now taking
place in the United States she sees a hope of at last doing what her
arms could not do dividing the United States from the great na-
tions with which it was associated in the war. Here is a quotation
from a recent utterance of one of her counsellors of state:
“All humanity, Germany particularly, is tensely awaiting the de-
cision of the American Senate on the peace treaty,” ex-Minister of
State von Scheller-Steinwartz said to-day. “Apparently” -out of
respect for him I will not mention the name that that ex-Minister
Steinwartz mentions ” apparently Senator Blank is the soul of the
opposition. The Senator is no German hater. He hates all non-
Americans equally, and he is absolutely a just man of almost Quaker-
like moral strength.” How delightful to receive such praise from
such a source ! ” When he and other important Senators fight the
peace treaty, their course means that the treaty displeases them be-
cause rn-the excessive enslavement of Germany, for which America
would be forever responsible, they see grave danger of future com-
plications. That course is thus to be hailed like the morning red of
a new dawn.” A new dawn for the world? Oh, no ; a new dawn for
Germany. “There is promise of a still better realization of conditions
in the prospect that America, in all seriousness, may express the
wish for a separate peace with the Central Powers.”
A separate peace with the Central Empires could accomplish noth-
ing but our eternal disgrace, and I would like, if my voice could
reach him, to let this German counsellor know that the red he sees
upon the horizon is not the red of a new dawn, but the red of a
consuming fire which will consume everything like the recent pur-
poses of the Central Empires. It is not without significance, my
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON”. 241
fellow citizens, that coincidentally with this debate with regard
to the ratification of this treaty the whole pro-German propaganda
has shown its head all over the United States. I would not have you
understand me to mean that the men who are opposing the ratifica-
tion of the treaty are consciously encouraging the pro-German
propaganda. I have no right to say that or to think it, but I do say
that what they are doing is encouraging the pro-German propa-
ganda, and that it is bringing about a hope in the minds of those
whom we have just spent our precious blood to defeat that they may
separate us from the rest of the world and produce this interesting
spectacle, only two nations standing aside from the great concert
and guaranty of peace beaten Germany and triumphant America.
See what can be accomplished by that. By that the attitude of the
rest of the world toward America will be exactly what its recent
attitude was toward Germany, and we will be in the position abso-
lutely alien to every American conception of playing a lone hand in
the world for our selfish advantage and aggrandizement. The thing
is inconceivable. The thing is intolerable. The thing can and will
never happen.
I speak of these things in order that you may realize, my fellow
citizens, the solemnity and the significance of this debate in which
we are engaged; its solemnity because it involves the honor of the
United States and the peace of humanity, its significance because
whether gentlemen plan it or not, not only refusal on our part, but
long hesitation on our part to cast our fortunes permanently in with
the fortunes of those who love right and liberty will be to bring
mankind again into the shadow of that valley of death from which
we have just emerged. I was saying to some of your fellow citizens
to-day how touching it had been to me as I came across the continent
to have women whom I subsequently learned had lost their sons or
their husbands come and take my hand and say, ” God bless you,
Mr. President.” Why should they say “God bless” me? I advised
the Congress of the United States to take the action which sent their
sons to their death. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy,
I ordered their sons to their death. Why should they take my hand
and with tears upon their cheeks say, ” God bless you ” ? Because
they understood, as I understood, as their sons who are dead upon the
fields of France understood, that they had gone there to fight for a
great cause, and, above all else, they had gone there to see that in
subsequent generations women should not have to mourn their dead.
And as little children have gathered at every station in playful light-
heartedness about the train upon which I was traveling, I have felt as
if I were trustee for them. I have felt that this errand that I am
going about upon was to save them the infinite sorrows through
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 16
242 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
which the world has just passed, and that if by any evil counsel or
unhappy mischance this great enterprise for which we fought should
fail, then women with boys at their breasts ought now to weep, be-
cause when those lads come to maturity the great battle will have to
be fought over again.
And, my fellow citizens, there is another battle of which we are
now upon the eve. That is the battle for the right organization of
industrial society. I do not need to tell an audience in this great pro-
gressive State what I mean by that. We can not work out justice in
our communities if the world is to continue under arms and ready for
war. We must have peace, we must have leisure of mind and detach-
ment of purpose, if we are going to work out the great reforms for
which mankind is everywhere waiting. I pray God that normal times
may not much longer be withheld from us. The world is profoundly
stirred. The masses of men are stirred by thoughts which never
moved them before. We must not again go into the camp. We must
sit down at the council table and, like men and brethren, lovers of lib-
erty and justice, see that the right is done, see that the right is done
to those who bear the heat and burden of the day, as well as to those
who direct the labor of mankind. I am not a partisan of any party to
any of these contests, and I am not an enemy of anybody except the
minority that tries to control. I do not care where the minority is
drawn from, I do not care how influential or how insignificant, I do
not care which side of the labor question it has been on, if the power
of the United States under my direction can prevent the domination
of a minority, it will be prevented. I am a champion of that sort of
peace, that sort of order, that sort of calm counsel out of which, and
out of which alone, can come the satisfactory solutions of the prob-
lems of society. You can not solve the problems of society amidst
chaos, disorder, and strife. You can only solve them when men have
agreed to be calm, agreed to be just, agreed to be conciliatory, agreed
that the right of the weak is as majestic as the right of the strong;
and when we have come to that mind in the counsels of nations we
can then more readily come to that mind in our domestic counsels,
upon which the happiness and prosperity of our own beloved people
so intimately and directly depend.
I beg, my fellow citizens, that you will carry this question home
with you, not in little pieces, not with this, that, and the other detail
at the front in your mind, but as a great picture including the whole
of the Nation and the whole of humanity, and know that now is the
golden hour when America can at last prove that all she has promised
in the day of her birth was no dream but a thing which she saw in its
concrete reality, the rights of men, the prosperity of nations, the
majesty of justice, and the sacredness of peace.
#ADDRESS AT LUNCHEON, PALACE HOTEL, SAN FRAN-
CISCO, CALIF.,
SEPTEMBER 18, 1919.
Mr. Toastmaster, my fellow countrymen, I stood here yesterday,
but before a very different audience, an audience that it was very de-
lightful to address, and it is no less delightful to ‘\ find myself face
to face with this thoughtful group of citizens of one of the most
progressive States in the Union. Because, after all, my fellow citi-
zens, our thought must be of the present and the future. The men
who do not look forward now are of no further service to the Nation.
The immediate need of this country and of the world is peace not
only, but settled peace, peace upon a definite and well-understood
foundation, supported by such covenants as men can depend upon,
supported by such purposes as will permit of a concert of action
throughout all the free peoples of the world. The very interesting
remarks of your toastmaster have afforded me the opportunity to
pay the tribute which they earn to the gentlemen with whom I was
associated on the other side of the water. I do not believe that we
often enough stop to consider how remarkable the peace conference
in Paris has been. It is the first great international conference
which did not meet to consider the interests and advantages of the
strong nations. It is the first international conference that did not
convene in order to make the arrangements which would establish
the control of the strong. I want to testify that the whole spirit of
the conference was the spirit of men who do not regard themselves
as the masters of anybody, but as the servants of the people whom
they represent. I found them quick with sympathy for the peoples
who had been through all these dolorous ages imposed upon, upon
whom the whole yoke of civilization seemed to have been fastened
so that it never could be taken off again.
The heart of this treaty, my fellow citizens, is that it gives liberty
and independence to people who never could have got it for them-
selves, because the men who constituted that conference realized
that the basis of war was the imposition of the will of strong na-
tions upon those who could not resist them. You have only to
take the formula of the recent war in order to see what was the mat-
ter. The formula of Pan-Germanism was Bremen to Bagdad.
243
244 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
What is the line from Bremen to Bagdad? It leads through par-
titioned Poland, through prostrated Roumania, through subjugated
Slavia, down through disordered Turkey, and on into distressed
Persia, and every foot of the line is a line of political weakness.
Germany was looking for the line of least resistance to establish
her power, and unless the world makes that a line of absolute re-
sistance this war will have to be fought over again. You must
settle the difficulties which gave occasion to the war or you must ex-
pect war again. You know what had happened all through that
territory. Almost everywhere there were German princes planted on
thrones where they did not belong, where they were alien, where
they were of a different tradition and a different people, mere agents
of a political plan, the seething center of which was that unhappy
city of Constantinople, where, I dare say, there was more intrigue
to the square inch than there has ever been anywhere else in the
world, and where not the most honest minds always but generally
the most adroit minds were sent to play upon the cupidity of the
Turkish authorities and upon the helplessness of the Balkan States,
in order to make a field for European aggression. I am not now
saying that Germany was the only intriguer. I am not now saying
that hers was the only plans of advantage, but I am saying that
there was the field where lay the danger of the world in regard to
peace. Every statesman in Europe knew it, and at last it dawned
upon them that the remedy was not balances of power but liberty
and right.
An illumination of profound understanding of human affairs
shines upon the deliberations of that conference that never shone
upon the deliberations of any other international conference in his-
tory, and therefore it is a happy circumstance to me to be afforded
the opportunity to say how delightful it was to find that these
gentlemen had not accepted the American specifications for the
peace for you remember they were the American specifications-
because America had come in and assisted them and because America
was powerful and they desired her influence and assistance, but be-
cause they already believed in them. When we uttered our prin-
ciples, the principles for which we were fighting, they had only to
examine the thoughts of their own people to find that those were
also the principles for which their people were fighting as well as
the people of the United States; and the delightful enthusiasm
which showed itself in accomplishing some of the most disinterested
tasks of the peace was a notable circumstance of the whole confer-
ence. I was glad after I inaugurated it that I drew together the
little body which was called the big four. We did not call it the
big four; we called it something very much bigger than that. We
called it the supreme council of the principal allied and associated
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 245
powers. We had to have some name, and the more dramatic it was
the better; but it was a very simple council of friends. The inti-
macies of that little room were the center of the whole peace con-
ference, and they were the intimacies of men who believed in the
same things and sought the same objects. The hearts of men like
Clemenceau and Lloyd-George and Orlando beat with the people of
the world as well as with the people of their own countries. They
have the same fundamental sympathies that we have, and they
know that there is only one way to work out peace and that is to
work out right.
The peace of the world is absolutely indispensable to us, and im-
mediately indispensable to us. There is not a single domestic prob-
lem that can be worked out in the right temper or opportunely and
in time unless we have conditions that we can count on. I do not
need to tell business men that they can not conduct their business if
they do not know what is going to happen to-morrow. You can not
make plans unless you have certain elements in the future upon
which you can depend. You can not seek markets unless you know
whether you are going to seek them among people who suspect you
or people who believe in you. If the United States is going to stand
off and play truant in this great enterprise of justice and right then
you must expect to be looked upon with suspicion and hostile rivalry
everywhere in the world. They will say, ” These men are not intend-
ing to assist; they are intending to exploit us.” You know what
happened just a few months before we went into the war. There
was a conference at Paris consisting of representatives of the princi-
pal allied powers for the purpose of concerting a sort of economic
league in which they would manage their purchasing as well as their
selling in a way which would redound to their advantage and make
use of the rest of the world. That was because they then thought
what they will be obliged to think again if we do not continue our
partnership with them that” we were standing off to get what we
could out of it, and they were making a defensive economic arrange-
ment. Very well; they will do that again. Almost of instinct they
will do it again, not out of a deliberate hostility to the United States
but by the general instinctive impulse of their own business interest
and their own business men. Therefore we can not arrange a single
element of our business until we have settled peace and know
whether we are going to deal with a friendly world or an unfriendly
world.
We can not determine our own internal economic reforms until
then, and there must be some very fundamental economic reforms in
this country. There must be a reconsideration of the structure of our
economic society. Whether we will or no, the majority of mankind
demand it, in America as well as elsewhere, and we have got to sit
246 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
down in the best temper possible, in times of quiet, in times permit-
ting conciliation and not hostility, and determine what we are going
to do. We can not do it until we have peace. We can not release the
great industrial and economic power of America and let it run free
until there are channels that are free in which it can run. And the
channels of business are mental channels as well as physical channels.
In an open market men’s minds must be open. It has been said so
often that it is a very trite saying, but it remains nevertheless true,
that a financial panic is a mere state of mind. There are no fewer
resources in a country at the time of a panic than there were the day
before it broke. There is no less money, there is no less energy, there
is no less individual capacity and initiative, but something has
frightened everybody and credits are drawn in and everybody builds
a fence around himself and is careful to keep behind the fence and
wait and see what is going to happen. That is a panic. It is a
waiting, a fearAil expecting of something to happen. Generally it
does not happen. Generally men slowly get their breath again and
say, “Well, the world looks just the same as it did; we had better get
to work again.” Even when business is absolutely prostrate they
are at least in the condition that a friend of mine described. He was
asked at the time of one of our greatest panics, some 25 years ago, if
business was not looking up. He said, ” Yes ; it is so flat on its back
that it can not look any other way.” Even if it is flat on its back, it
can see the world ; it is not lying on its fact, and it will presently sit
up and begin to take a little nourishment and take notice, and the
panic is over. But while the whole world is in doubt what to expect,
the whole world is under the partial paralysis that is characteristic of
a panic. You do not know what it is safe to do with your money
now. You do not know what plans it is safe to make for your
business now. You have got to know what the world of to-morrow is
going to be, and you will not know until we have settled the great
matter of peace.
I want to remind you how the permanency of peace is at the heart
of this treaty. This is not merely a treaty of peace with Germany.
It is a world settlement; not affecting those parts of the world, of
course, which were not involved in f the war, because the conference had
no jurisdiction over them, but the war did extend to most parts of the
world, and the scattered, dismembered assets of the Central Empires
and of Turkey gave us plenty to do and covered the greater part of
the distressed populations of the world. It is nothing less than a
world settlement, and at the center of that stands this covenant for
the future which we call the covenant of the league of nations.
Without it the treaty can not be worked, and without it it is a mere
temporary arrangement with Germany. The covenant of the league
of nations is the instrumentality for the maintenance of peace.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 247
How does it propose to maintain it? By the means that all for-
ward-looking and thoughtful men have desired for generations to-
gether, by substituting arbitration and discussion for war. To hear
some gentlemen talk you would think that the council of the league of
nations is to spend its time considering when to advise other people
to fight. That is what comes of a constant concentration of atten-
tion upon article 10. Article 10 ought to have been somewhere
further down in the covenant, because it is in the background; it
is not in the foreground. I am going to take the liberty of ex-
pounding this to you, though I assume that you have all read the
covenant. At the heart of that covenant are these tremendous ar-
rangements : Every member of the league solemnly agrees and let
me pause to say that that means every fighting nation in the world,
because for the present, limited to an army of 100,000, Germany is
not a fighting nation that it will never go to w T ar without first hav-
ing done one or another of two things, without either submitting
the matter in dispute to arbitration, in which case it promises abso-
lutely to abide by the verdict, or, if it does not care to submit it to
arbitration, without submitting it to discussion by the council of the
league of nations, in which case it promises to lay all the documents
and all the pertinent facts before that council ; it consents that
that council shall publish all the documents and all the pertinent
facts, so that all the world shall know them ; that it shall be allowed
six months in which to consider the matter; and that even at the
end of the six months, if the decision of the council is not acceptable,
it will still not go to war for three months following the rendering
of the decision. So that, even allowing no time for the prelimi-
naries, there are nine months of cooling off, nine months of discus-
sion, nine months not of private discussion, not of discussion between
those who are heated, but of discussion between those who are disin-
terested except in the maintenance of the peace of the world, when the
purifying and rectifying influence of the public opinion of mankind
is brought to bear upon the contest. If anything approaching that
had been the arrangement of the world in 1914, the war would have
been impossible; and I confidently predict that there is not an ag-
gressive people in the world who w r ould dare bring a wrongful pur-
pose to that jury. It is the most formidable jury in the world.
Personally, I have never, so far as I know, been in danger of going
to jail, but I would a great deal rather go to jail than do wrong and
be punished merely by the look in the eyes of the men amongst whom
I circulated. I would rather go to jail than be sent to Coventry.
I would rather go to jail than be conscious every day that I was
despised and distrusted. After all, the only overwhelming force in
the world is the force of opinion.
248 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
If any member of the league ignores these promises with regard
to arbitration and discussion, what happens? War? No; not war,
but something more tremendous, I take leave to say, than war. An
absolute isolation, a boycott. It is provided in the covenant that any
nation that disregards these solemn promises with regard to arbitra-
tion and discussion shall be thereby deemed ipso facto to have com-
mitted an act of war against the other members of the league, and
that there shall thereupon follow an absolute exclusion of that nation
from communication of any kind with the members of the league.
No goods can be shipped in or out; no telegraphic messages can be
exchanged, except through the elusive wireless perhaps; there shall
be no communication of any kind between the people of the other
nations and the people of that nation. There is not a nation in
Europe that can stand that for six months. Germany could have
faced the armies of the world more readily than she faced the boy-
cott of the world. Germany felt the pinch of the blackade more than
she felt the stress of the blow ; and there is not, so far as I know, a
single European country I say European because I think our own
country is an exception* which is not dependent upon some other
part of the world for some of the necessaries of its life. Some of
them are absolutely dependent, some of them are without raw mate-
rials practically of any kind, some of them are absolutely without
fuel of any kind, either coal or oil; almost all of them are without
that variety of supply of ores which are necessary to modern indus-
try and necessary to the manufacture of munitions of war. When you
apply that boycott, you have got your hand upon the throat of the
offending nation, and it is a proper punishment. It is an exclusion
from civilized society.
Inasmuch as I have sometimes been said to have been very dis-
regardful of the constitutional rights of Congress, may I not stop
to speak just for a moment of a small matter that I was punctilious
to attend to in regard to that article? You will notice the language
that any member of the league that makes breach of its covenants
shall be regarded thereby “ipso facto to have committed an act of
war.” In the original draft it read, “Shall thereby be ipso facto re-
garded as at war with the other nations of the world.” I said,
“No; I can not subscribe to that, because I am bound to safeguard
the right of Congress to determine whether it is at war or not. I
consent to its being an act of war by the party committing it, but
whether Congress takes up the gage thus thrown down or not is
another matter which I can not participate in determining in a doc-
ument of this sort.” Germany committed several acts of war against
us before we accepted the inevitable and took up her challenge, and
it was only because of a sort of accumulation of evidence that Ger-
many’s design was not merely to sink American ships and injure
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 249
American citizens, that was incidental to her design, but that her
design was to destroy free political society. I remember saying to
Congress before we went into the war that if Germany committed
some act of war against us that was intolerable. I might have to
give them different advice, and I remember a newspaper correspon-
dent asked me what I thought would constitute such an act. I said,
“I don’t know, but I am perfectly certain I will know it when I
see it. I can not hypothetically define it, but it will be perfectly
obvious when it occurs.” And if Congress regards this act by some
other member of the league as such an act of war against it as neces-
sitates the maintenance of the honor of the United States, then it
may in those circumstances declare war, but it is not bound to de-
clare war under the engagement of the covenant. What I am em-
phasizing, my fellow citizens, is this : That the heart of this covenant
is arbitration and discussion, and that is the only possible basis for
peace in the future.
It is a basis for something better than peace. Civilization proceeds
on the principle of understanding one another. You know peace
between those who employ labor and those who labor depends upon
conference and mutual understanding. If you do not get together
with the other side, it will be hostility to the end; and after you
have heard the case of the other fellow it sometimes becomes a
little awkward for you to insist upon the whole of your case, because
the human mind does have this fine quality that it finds it em-
barrassing to face the truth and deny it. Moreover, the basis of
friendship is intercourse. I know I am very fond of a very large
number of men whom I know to be crooks. They are very engaging
fellows, and when I form a judgment against’ them I have to be in
another room. I can not, because of my personal attitude toward
them, form a harsh judgment; indeed, I suppose the very thing that
gives some men the chance to be crooks is their fascinating person-
ality. They put it over on you. You remember that very charming
remark of Charles Lamb. One night, in company with some friends
who were speaking of some person not present, Lamb, in his stutter-
ing fashion, said, “I I I h hate that fellow.” Some one said,
” Why, Charles, I didn’t know you knew him.” ” Oh, I -I d d
don’t,” he said, “I- -I c cant h h hate a m man I I know.”
That is one of the most genial utterances of the human spirit I have
ever read, and one of the truest. It is mighty hard to hate a fellow
you know, and it is mighty hard to hate a nation you know. If you
had mixed, as I have had the good fortune to mix, with scores of
people of other nations in recent months, you would have the same
feeling that I do if, after you got over superficial matters like
differences of language and some differences of manner, they were
the same kind of folks.
250 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
As I have said to a number of audiences on this trip, the most
thrilling thing that happened to me over there was the constant inter-
course I was having with delegations of people representing nations
from all over the globe, some of which, I had shamefacedly to admit,
I had never heard of before. Do you know where Adjur-Badjan is?
Well, one day there came in a very dignified and interesting group
of gentlemen from Adjur-Badjan. I did not have time until they
were gone to find out where they .came from, but I did find this out
immediately, that I was talking to men who talked the same language
that I did in respect of ideas, in respect of conceptions of liberty, in
respect of conceptions of right and justice, and I did find this out,
that they were, with all the other delegations that came to see me,
metaphorically speaking, holding their hands out to America and
saying, ” You are the disciples and leaders of the free peoples of the
world; can’t you come and help us?” Until we went into this war,
my fellow citizens, it was the almost universal impression of the
world that our idealism was a mere matter of words; that what we
were interested in was getting on in the world and making as much
as we could out of it. That was the sum and substance of the usual
opinion of us outside of America ; and in the short space that we were
in this war that opinion was absolutely reversed.
Consider what they saw : The flower of our youth sent three and
four thousand miles away from their home, a home which could not
be directly touched by the flames of that war, sent to foreign fields
to mix with foreign and alien armies to fight for a cause which they
recognized as the common cause of mankind, and not the peculiar
cause of America. It caused a revulsion of feeling, a revulsion
of attitude which, I dare say, has never been paralleled in the world :
and at this moment, unless the cynical counsels of some of our ac-
quaintances should prevail which God forbid they are expecting
and inviting us to lead the civilized world, because they trust us-
they really and truly trust us. They would not believe, no matter
where we sent an army to be of assistance to them, that we would
ever use that army for any purpose but to assist them. They know
that when we say, as we said when we sent men to Siberia, that we
are sending them to assist in the distribution of food and clothing
and shoes so that brigands will not seize them, and that for the rest
we are ready to render any assistance which they want us to render,
and will interfere in absolutely nothing that concerns their own
affairs, we mean it, and they belieA r e us. There is not a place in this
world now, unless we wait a little while longer, where America’s po-
litical ambitions are looked upon with suspicion. That was frankly
admitted in this little conference that J have spoken of. Not one of
those gentlemen thought that America had any ulterior designs
whatever. They were, therefore, in all our conferences, in consult-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 251
ing our economical experts, in consulting our geographical experts,
constantly turning to America to act as umpire; and in nine cases
out of ten, just because America was disinterested and could look at
the thing without any other purpose than reaching a practicable
solution, it was the American solution that was accepted.
In order that we may not forget, I brought with me the figures
as to what this war meant to the world. This is a body of business
men. and you will understand these figures. They are too big for
the imagination of men who do not handle big things. Here is the
cost of the Avar in money, exclusive of what we loaned one another:
Great Britain and her dominions, $38,000,000,000; France, $26,000,-
000,000; the United States, $22,000,000,000 (this is the direct cost
of our operations) ; Russia, $18,000,000,000; Italy, $13,000,000,000;
and the total, including Belgium, Japan, and other countries,
$123,000,000,000. This is what it cost the Central Powers : Germany,
$39,000,000,000, the biggest single item; Austro-Hungary, $21,000,-
000,000: Turkey and Bulgaria, $3,000,000,000; a total of $63,000,-
000,000, and a grand total of direct war costs of $186,000,000,000
almost the capital of the world. The expenditures of the United
States were at the rate of $1,000,000 an hour for two years, including
nighttime with daytime. The battle deaths during the war were as
follows: Russia lost in dead 1,700,000 men, poor Russia that got
nothing but terror and despair out of it all; Germany, 1,600,000;
France, 1,385,000; Great Britain, 900,000; Austria, 800,000; Italy,
364,000; the United States, 50,300 dead. The total for all the bellig-
erents, 7,450,200 men just about seven and a half million killed be-
cause we could not have arbitration and discussion, because the world
had never had the courage to propose the conciliatory methods which
some of us are now doubting whether we ought to accept or not.
The totals for wounded are not obtainable except our own. Our own
wounded were 230.000, excluding those who were killed. The total
of all battle deaths in all the wars of the world from the year 1793
to 1914 was something under 6,000,000 men, so that about a million
and a half more men were killed in this war than in all the wars of
something more than 100 preceding years. We really can not realize
that. Those of us who lost sons or brothers can realize it. We
know what it meant. The women who have little children crowding
about their knees know what it means; they know that the world
has hitherto been devoted to brutal methods of settlement, and that
every time a w r ar occurs it is the flower of the manhood that is de-
stroyed; that it is not so much the present generation as the next
generation that goes maimed off the stage or is laid away in obscure
graves upon some battle field; and that great nations are impaired
in their vitality for two generations together and all their life em-
252 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
bittered by a method of settlement for which we could find, and
have now found, a substitute.
My fellow citizens, I believe in Divine Providence. If I did not,
I would go crazy. If I thought the direction of the disordered
affairs of this world depended upon our finite intelligence, I should
not know how to reason my way to sanity, and I do not believe
that there is any body of men, however they concert their power or
their influence, that can defeat this great enterprise, which is the
enterprise of divine mercy and peace and good will.
v
#ADDRESS AT BERKELEY, CALIF.
SEPTEMBER 18, 1919.
Dean Jones, Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, I feel an old feeling
come over me as I stand in this presence, and my great danger and
temptation is to revert to type and talk to you as college men and
women from a college man. I was reminded as I received your very
generous welcome of a story told of Mr. Oliver Her ford, a very
delightful wit and artist. He was one day sitting in his club, and
a man came by who did not know him very well, but who took many
liberties. He slapped him on the back and said, ” Hello, Ollie, old
boy, how are you ? ‘ Herf ord writhed a little under the blow, looked
at him a little coldly, and said : ” I don’t know your name ; I don’t
know your face; but your manners are very familiar.” I can say
to you young ladies and gentlemen, I do not know your names or
your faces, but your manners are very familiar, and very delight-
fully familiar. I think also of a rebuke I used often to address to
my classes. I used to say that the trouble about the college youth
of America was that it refused to grow up ; that the men and women
alike continued to be schoolboys and schoolgirls. I used to remind
them that on the continent of Europe revolutions often began in the
universities, and statesmen were nervous of nothing so much as of
the concerted movements of opinion at the centers of learning; and
I asked them what Cabinet at Washington ever cared a peppercorn
what they were thinking about. It is your refusal, my fellow stu-
dents, to grow up. One reason I am glad to- see that the boys who
have been at the front come back is that they have grown up ; they
have seen the world; seen it at its worst, but nevertheless seen it in
action; seen it with its passions in action; seen it with its savage
and its liberal passions in action. They have come back to know
what they are preparing for, to know the kind of world that they
are going to go out in, not to do physical fighting, but to do the
kind of thinking that is better than fighting, the kind of thinking
that makes men conscious of their duties, the kind of thinking that
purifies the impulses of the world and leads it on to better things.
The burden that is upon my heart as I go about on this errand
is that men are hesitating to give us the chance. We can not do any
effective thinking for the world until we know that there is settled
peace. We can not make any long plans for the betterment of man-
253
254 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
kind until these initial plans are made, and we know that there is
going to be a field and an opportunity to make the plans that will
last and that will become effective. That is the ground of my impa-
tience with the debate. I admit that there are debatable things,
but I do not admit that they need be debated so long. Xot only that,
but I do insist that they should be debated more fairly. A remark
was repeated to me that was made after the address I made in San
Francisco last night. Some man said that after hearing an exposi-
tion of what was really in the treaty he was puzzled ; he wondered
what the debate was about; it all seemed so simple. That was not,
I need not assure you, because I was misleading anybody or telling
what was not in the treaty, but because the men he had heard de-
bate it, some of the newspapers he had heard debate it, had not told
him what was in the treaty. This great document of human rights,
this great settlement of the world, had been represented to him as
containing little traps for the United States. Men had been going
about dwelling upon this, that, and the other feature and distort-
ing the main features and saying that that was the peace proposed.
They are responsible for some of the most serious mistakes that have
ever been made in the history of this country ; they are responsible
for misleading the opinion of the United Sttaes. It is a very dis-
tressing circumstance to me to find that when I recite the mere
facts they are novel to some of my fellow citizens. Young gentle-
men and young ladies, what we have got to do is to see that that
sort of thing can not happen. We have got to know what the truth
is and insist that everybody shall know what the truth is, and, above
all things else, we must see that the United States is not defeated
of its destiny, for its destiny is to lead the world in freedom and
in truth.
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, OAKLAND, CALIF.,
SEPTEMBER 18, 1919.
Dr. Rinehart, my fellow citizens, you have indeed warmed my
heart with your splendid welcome and I esteem it a great privilege
to stand here, before you, to-night to look at some of the serious as-
pects of the great turning point in the history of this Nation and the
history of the world which affairs have brought us to. Dr. Rinehart
expressed my own feeling when she said that in my own consciousness
those great ranks of little children seemed to me my real clients,
seemed to be that part of my fellow citizens for whom I am plead-
ing. It is not likely, my fellow citizens, that with the depleted re-
sources of the great fighting nations of Europe, there will be another
war soon, but unless we concert measures to prevent it, there will be
another and a final war, at just about the time these children come
to maturity ; and it is our duty to look in the face the real circum-
stances of the world in order that we may not be unfaithful to the
great duty which America undertook in the hour and day of her
birth.
One thing has been impressed upon me more than another as I
have crossed the continent, and that is that the people of the United
States have been singularly and, I sometimes fear deliberately, mis-
led as to the character and contents of the treaty of peace. Some one
told me that after an address I delivered in San Francisco last night
one of the men who had been present, a very thoughtful man I was
told, said that after listening to what I had said he wondered what
the debate was about, it all seemed so simple, so obvious, so natural.
I was at once led to reflect that that was not the cause of any gift of
exposition that I have, but because I had told that audience what the
real character and purpose of the covenant of nations is. They had
been led to look at certain incidental features of it, either on the as-
sumption that they had not read the document or in the hope that
they would not read it and would not realize what the real contents
of it were. I have not come out from Washington, my fellow citi-
zens, on a speech-making tour. I do not see how anybody could get
his own consent to think of the way in which he was saying the things
255
256 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
that it is necessary for me to say. I should think that every man’s
consciousness would be fixed, as my own is, upon the critical destiny
of the world which hangs upon the decision of America. I am con-
fident what that decision is going to be because I can see the tide
of sentiment and the tide of conviction rising in this country in such
a manner that any man who tries to withstand it will be overwhelmed.
But we are an intelligent and thoughtful people; we want to know
just what it is that we are about, and if you will be patient with me
I am going to try to point out some of the things I did not dwell
upon last night that are the salient and outstanding characteristics
of this treaty.
I am not going to speak to-night particularly of the covenant of
the league of nations. I am going to point out to you what the
treaty as a whole is. In the first place, of course, that treaty imposes
upon Germany the proper penalty for the crime she attempted to
commit. It is a just treaty in spite of its severity. It is a treaty
made by men who had no intention of crushing the German people,
but who did mean to have it burnt into the consciousness of the
German people, and through their consciousness into the apprehen-
sion of the world, that no people could afford to live under a Govern-
ment which was not controlled by their purpose and will and which
was at liberty to impose secret ambitions upon the civilization of the
world. It was intended as notice to all mankind that any Govern-
ment that attempted what Germany attempted would meet with the
same concerted opposition of mankind and would have meted out to
it the same just retribution. All that this treaty amounts to, so far
as Germany is concerned, is that she shall be obliged to pay every
dollar that she can afford to pay to repair the damage that she did ;
except for the territorial arrangements which it includes, that is
practically the whole of the treaty so far as it concerns Germany.
What has not been borne in upon the consciousness of some of our
people is that, although most of the words of the treaty are devoted
to the settlement with Germany, the greater part of the meaning of
its provisions is devoted to the settlement of the world.
The treaty begins with the covenant of the league of nations, which
is intended to operate as a partnership, a permanent partnership, of
the great and free self-governing peoples of the world to stand
sponsor for the right and for civilization. Notice is given in the very
first articles of the treaty that hereafter it will not be a matter of con-
jecture whether the other great nations of the world will combine
against a wrongdoer, but a matter of certainty that hereafter nations
contemplating what the Government of Germany contemplated will
not have to conjecture whether Great Britain and France and Italy
and the great United States will join hands against them, but will
know that mankind, in serried ranks, will defend to the last the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 257
rights of human beings wherever they are. This is the first treaty
ever framed by such an international convention, whose object
was not to serve and defend governments but to serve and defend
peoples. This is the first people’s treaty in the history of international
dealings. Every member of that great convention of peace was
poignantly aware that at last the people of the world were awake,
that at last the people of the world were aware of what wrong had
been wrought by irresponsible and autocratic governments, that at
last all the peoples of the world had seen the vision of liberty, had
seen the majesty of justice, had seen the doors thrown open to the
aspirations of men and women and the fortunes of children every –
where, aiid they did not dare assume that they were the masters of
the fortunes of any people, but knew that in eA^ery settlement they
must act as the servants not only of their own people but of the
people who were waiting to be liberated, the people who could not
win their own liberty, the people who had suffered for centuries to-
gether the intolerable wrongs of misgovernment. This is a treaty not
merely for the peoples who were represented at the peace table but
for the people w r ho were the subjects of the governments whose
wrongs were forever ended by the victory on the fields of France.
My fellow citizens, you know and you hear it said every day, you
read it in the newspapers, you hear it in the conversation of your
friends, that there is unrest all over the world. You hear that in
eevry part of the world, not excluding our own beloved country,
there are men who feel that society has been shaken to its founda-
tions, and that it ought to have been shaken to its foundations, in
order that men might be awakened to the wrongs that had been done
and were continuing to be done. When you look into the history,
not of our own free and fortunate continent, happily, but of the re^t
of the world, you will find that the hand of pitiless power has been
upon the shoulders of the great mass of mankind since time began,
and that only with that glimmer of light which came at Calvary,
that first dawn which came with the Christian era, did men begin to
wake to the dignity and right of the human soul, and that in spite
of professions of Christianity, in spite of purposes of reform, in
spite of theories of right and of justice, the great body of our fellow
beings have been kept under the will of men who exploited them and
did not give them the full right to live and realize the purposes that
God had meant them to realize. There is little for the great part of
rhe history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot
tears of wrath, and when you look, as we were permitted to look in
Paris, into some of the particular wrongs which the peoples of Cen-
tral Europe, the peoples upon whom the first foundations of the
ne*w German power were to be built, had suffered for generations
141677 S. I >oc. 120. 60-1- -17
258 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
together, you wonder why they lay so long quiet, you wonder why
men, statesmen, men who pretended to have an outlook upon the
world, waited so long to deliver them. The characteristic of this
treaty is that it gives liberty to peoples who never could have won it
for themselves. By giving that liberty, it limits the ambitions and
defeats the hopes of all the imperialistic governments in the world.
Governments which had theretofore been considered to desire do-
minion, here in this document forswore dominion, renounced it, said>
” The fundamental principle upon which we are going to act is this,
that every great territory of the world belongs to the people who
live in it and that it is their right and not our right to determine the
sovereignty they shall live under and the form of government they
shall maintain.” It is astonishing that this great document did not
come as a shock upon the world. If the world had not already been
rent by the great struggle which preceded this settlement, men would
have stood at amaze at such a document as this ; but there is a subtle
consciousness throughout the world now that this is an end of gov-
erning people who do not desire the government that is over them.
And, going further than that, the makers of the treaty proceeded
to arrange, upon a cooperative basis, those things which had always
been arranged before upon a competitive basis. I want to mention
a very practical thing, which most of you, I dare say, never thought
about. Most of the rivers of Europe traverse the territory of several
nations, and up to the time of this peace conference there had been
certain historic rights and certain treaty rights over certain parts of
the courses of those rivers which had embarrassed the people who
lived higher up upon the streams; just as if the great Mississippi, for
example, passed through half a dozen States and the people down at
New Orleans lived under a government which could control the navi-
gation of the lower part of the Mississippi and so hamper the com-
merce of the States above them to the north which wished to pass to
the sea by the courses of the Mississippi. There were abundant in-
stances of that sort in Europe, and this treaty undertakes to inter-
nationalize all the great waterways of that continent, to see to it that
their several portions are taken out of national control and put under
international control, so that the stream that passes through one
nation shall be just as free in all its length to the sea as if that
nation owned the whole of it, and nobody shall have the right to put
a restriction upon their passage to the sea. I mention this in order
to illustrate the heart of this treaty, which is to cut out national
privilege and give to every people the full right attaching to the
territory in which they live.
Then the treaty did something more than that. You have heard
of the covenant of the league of nations until, I dare say, you sup-
pose that is the only thing in the treaty. On the contrary, there is a
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 259
document almost as extensive in the latter part of the treaty which is
nothing less than a great charter of liberty for the working men and
women of the world. One of the most striking and useful provisions
of the treaty is that every member of the league of nations undertakes
to advance the humane conditions of labor for men, Avomen, and
children, to consider the interests of labor under its own jurisdiction,
and to try to extend to every nation with which it has any dealings
the standards of labor upon which it itself insists; so that America,
which has by no means yet reached the standards in those matters
which we must and shall reach, but which, nevertheless, is the most
advanced in the world in respect of the conditions of labor, under-
takes to bring all the influence it can legitimately bear upon every
nation with which it has any dealings to see that labor there is put
upon as good a footing as labor in America. Perhaps some of you
have not kept in mind the seamen’s act which was passed in a recent
session of Congress. Under the law before that act, seamen could be
bound to the service of their ship in such fashion that when they
came to the ports of the United States, if they tried to leave their
ship, the Government of the United States was bound to arrest them
and send them back to their ship. The seamen’s act abrogates that
law and practically makes it necessary for every ship that would take
away from the United States the crew that it brings to it shall pay
American wages to get it. Before this treaty was entered into the
United States had entered upon the business of trying to extend to
laboring men elsewhere the advantages which laboring men in the
United States enjoy, and supplementing that promise in the covenant
of the league there is an elaborate arrangement for a periodic inter-
national conference in the interest of labor. It provides that that
conference shall be called next month in the city of Washington by
the President of the United States, and the President of the United
States has already called it. We are awaiting to learn from the Sen-
ate of the United States whether we can attend it or not. We can at
least sit and listen and wonder how long we are going to be kept out
of membership of this great humane endeavor to see that working
men and women and children everywhere in the world are regarded
as human beings and taken care of as they ought to be taken care of.
This treaty does not stop there. It attempts to coordinate all tftc
great humane endeavors of the world. It tries to bring under inter-
national cooperation every effort to check international crime. I
mean like that unspeakable traffic in women, like that almost equally
unspeakable traffic in children. It undertakes to control the dealing
in deadly drugs like opium. It organizes a new method of coopera-
tion among all the great Red Cross societies of the world. I tell you,
my fellow citizens, that simple red cross has come to mean to the
world more than it ever meant before. Everywhere in the remotest
260 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
recesses of the world there are people who wear that symbol, and
every time I look at it I feel like taking off my hat, as if I had seen
a symbol of the world’s heart. This treaty is nothing less than an
organization of liberty and mercy for the world. I wish yon would
get a copy of it and read it. A good deal of it is technical and you
could skij) that part, but read all of it that you do not need an expert
to advise you with regard to the meaning of. The economic and
financial clauses which particularly affect the settlements with Ger-
many are, I dare say, almost unintelligible to most people, but you
do not have to understand them; they are going to be worked out by
experts. The rest of it is going to be worked out by the experience
of free self-governed peoples.
One of the interesting provisions of the covenant of the league of
nations is that no nation can be a member of that league which is not
a self-governing nation. No autocratic government can come into its
membership ; no government which is not controlled by the will and
vote of its people. It is a league of free, independent peoples, all over
the world, and when that great arrangement is consummated there
is not going to be a ruler in the world that does not take his advice
from his people. Germany is for the present excluded, but she is
excluded only in order that she may undergo a period of probation,
during which she shall prove two things first, that she has really
changed her constitution permanently, and. second, that she intends
to administer that constitution in the spirit of its terms. You read
in the newspapers that there are intrigues going on in Germany for
the restoration of something like the old government, perhaps for
the restoration of the throne and placing upon it some member of
the family of Hohenzollern. Very well, if that should be accom-
plished Germany is forever excluded from the league of nations. It
is not our business to say to the German people what sort of govern-
ment they shall have; it is our fundamental principle that that is
their business and not ours, but it is our business to say whom we will
keep company with, and if Germany wishes to live in respectable
society she will never have another Hohenzollern. The other day,
you will notice, Hungary for a little while put one of the Austrian
princes upon her throne, and the peace conference, still sitting in
Paris, sent word that they could not deal with a government which
had one of the Hapsburgs at its head. The Hapsburgs and the
Hohenzollerns are permanently out of business. I dare say that
they personally, from what I can learn, feel antiquated and out of
date. They are out of date because, my fellow citizens, this Great
War. with its triumphant issue, marks a new day in the history of
the world. There can no more be any such attempts as Germany
made if the great leading free people of the world lends its counte-
nance and leadership to the enterprise. I say if, but it is a mere
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 261
rhetorical if. There is not the least danger that America, after a
treaty has been drawn up exactly along the specifications stipulated
by America, will desert its associates. We are a people that redeems
its honor. We are not, and never will be. quitters.
You notice that one of the grounds of anxiety of a small group of
our felloAv citizens is whether they can get out of the league if they
ever get in, and so they want to have the key put in their pockets;
they want to be assigned a seat right by the door; they want to sit
on the edge of their chairs and say, “If anything happens in this
meeting to which I am in the least sensitive, I leave.” That, my fel-
low citizens, is not the spirit of America. What is going to happen
is this: We are not going to sit by the door; we are going to sit in
the high seats, and if the present attitude of the peoples of the world
toward America is any index of what it will continue to be, the
counsels of the United States will be the prevailing counsels of the
league. If we were humbly at the outset to sit by the door, we would
be invited to go up and take the chair. I, for one, do not want
to be put in the attitude of children who, when the game goes against
them, Avill not play, because I have such an unbounded confidence in
the rectitude of the purpose of the United States that I am not
afraid she will ever be caught proposing something which the other
nations will defeat. She did not propose anything in Paris which
the other nations defeated. The only obstacles, the only insuperable
obstacles, met there were obstacles w r hich were contained in treaties
of which she had no notice, in secret treaties which certain great
nations were bound in honor to respect, and the covenant of the
league of nations abolishes secret treaties. From this time forth all
the world is going to know what all the agreements between nations
are. It is going to know, not their general character merely, but
their exact language and contents, because the provision of the league
is that no treaty shall be valid which is not registered with the gen-
eral secretary of the league, and the general secretary of the league
is instructed to publish it in all its details at the earliest possible
moment. Just as you can go to the courthouse and see all the mort-
gages on all the real estate in your county, you can go to the general
secretariat of the league of nations and find all the mortgages on all
the nations. This treaty, in short, is a great clearance house. It is
very little short of a canceling of the past and an insurance of the
future.
Men have asked me, ” Do you think that the league of nations is
an absolute guaranty against war ? ‘ Of course it is not ; no human
arrangement can give you an absolute guaranty against human pas-
sion, but I answer that question with another, ” If you thought you
had 50 per cent insurance against war, would not you jump at it?
If you thought you had 30 per cent insurance against war. would
262 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
not you take it? If you thought you had 10 per cent insurance
against war, would not you think it better than nothing? ‘ Whereas,
in my judgment, this is 99 per cent insurance, because the one thing
that a wrong cause can not stand is exposure. If you think that you
have a friend who is a fool, encourage him to hire a hall. The par-
ticular thing that this treaty provides in the covenant of the league
of nations is that every cause shall be deliberately exposed to the
judgment of mankind. It substitutes what the whole world has
long been for, namely, arbitration and discussion for war. In other
words, all the great fighting nations of the world for Germany for
the time being, at any rate, is not a great fighting nation promise
to lay their case, whatever it may be, before the whole jury of hu-
manity. If there had been any arrangement comparable with this
in 1914, the calamitous war which we have just passed through would
have been inconceivable.
Look what happened. The Austrian crown prince was assas-
sinated inside the Austrian dominions, in Bosnia, which was under
the Empire of Austria-Hungary, though it did not belong to it, and
Austria had no business to have it; and because it was suspected
that the assassination was connected with certain groups of agitators
and certain revolutionary societies in Serbia war was made on
Serbia, because the Austrian crown prince was assassinated in Aus-
tria ! Just as if some great personage were to be assassinated, let us
say, in Great Britain, and because the assassin was found to have so-
ciety connections I mean certain connections with a society that
had an active membership in the United States, Great Britain
should declare war on the United States. That is a violently im-
probable supposition, but I am merely using it as an illustration.
Every foreign office in Europe, when it got sudden news of what was
afoot, sent messages to its representative in Berlin asking the Ger-
man Government to hold an international conference to see if the
matter could not be adjusted, and the German Government would
not wait 24 hours. Under the treaty of the league of nations every
fighting nation is bound to wait at least nine months, and to lay all
the facts pertinent to the case before the whole world. There is
nothing so overpowering and irresistible, my fellow citizens, as the
opinion of mankind. One of the most interesting and, I think, in
one way, one of the most moving sentences in the great Declaration
of Independence, is one of the opening sentences ” that out of re-
spect to the opinion of mankind the causes which have led the people
of the American Colonies to declare their independence are here set
forth.” America was the first country in the world which laid be-
fore all mankind the reason why it went to war, and this treaty is
the exaltation and permanent establishment of the American prin-
ciple of warfare and of right. Why, therefore, do we hesitate to
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 263
I
redeem the destiny of America? Why do we hesitate to support
the most American thing that has ever been attempted? Why do
we debate details when the heart of the thing is sound? And the
beauty of it, my fellow citizens, is. that the heart of America is
sound.
We sent our boys across the sea to beat Germany, but that was
only the beginning. We sent them across the sea to assure the world
that nothing such as Germany attempted should ever happen again.
That is the halo that is going to be about the brows of these fine boys
that have come back from overseas. That is the light that is going
to rest upon the graves oversea of the boys we could not bring back.
That is the glory that is going to attach to the memories of that
great American Army, that it made conquest of the armies of Ger-
many not only, but made conquest of peace for the world. Greater
armies than sought the Holy Grail, greater armies than sought to
redeem the Holy Sepulchre, greater armies than fought under that
visionary and wonderful girl, Joan of Arc, greater than the armies
of the American Revolution that sought to redeem us from the un-
just rule of Britain, greater even than the armies of our Civil War
which saved the Union, will be this noble army of Americans who
saved the world !
#ADDRESS AT STADIUM, SAN DIEGO, CALIF.,
SEPTEMBER 19, 1919.
Mr. Mayor, my fellow countrymen, as you know, I have come from
Washington on a very serious errand, indeed, and I need not tell you
with Avhat a thrill the sight of this great body of my fellow citizens
fills my heart, because I believe that one of the most important ver-
dicts of history has now to be rendered by the great people of the
United States. I believe that this is a choice from w 7 hich we can not
turn back. Whether it be the choice of honor or of dishonor, it will
be a final choice that we shall make in this great hour of our history.
One of the most unexpected things that I have found on my journey
is that the people of the United States have not been informed as to
the real character and scope and contents of the great treaty of peace
with Germany. Whether by omission or by intention, they have been
directed in all of the speeches that I have read to certain points of
the treaty which are incidental, and not central, and their attention
has been drawn away from the real meaning of this great human
document. For that, my fellow citizens, is just what it is. It not
only concludes a peace with Germany and imposes upon Germany
the proper penalties for the outrage she attempted upon “mankind,
but it also concludes the peace in the spirit in which the war was
undertaken by the nations opposed to Germany. The challenge of
war was accepted by them not with the purpose of crushing the
German people but with the purpose of putting an end once and for
all to such plots against the free governments of the world as had
been conceived on Wilhelmstrasse, in Berlin, unknown to the people’
of Germany, unconceived by them, advised by little groups of men
who had the military power to carry out private ambitions.
We went into this war not only to see that autocratic power of that
sort never threatened the world again but we went into it for even
larger purposes than that. Other autocratic powers may spring up.
but there is only one soil in which they can spring up, and that is
the wrongs done to free peoples of the world. The heart and center
of this treaty is that it sets at liberty people all over Europe and in
Asia who had hitherto been enslaved by powers which were not their
rightful sovereigns and masters. So long as wrongs like that exist in
265
266 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the world, you can not bring permanent peace to the world. I go
further than that. So long as wrongs of that sort exist, you ought
not to bring permanent peace to the world, because those wrongs
ought to be righted, and enslaved peoples ought to be free to right
them. For my part, I will not take any part in composing difficulties
that ought not to be composed, and a difficulty between an enslaved
people and its autocratic rulers ought not to be composed. We in
America have stood from the day of our birth for the emancipation
of people throughout the world who were living unwillingly under
governments which were not of their own choice. The thing which
we have held more sacred than any other is that all just government
rests upon the consent of the governed, and all over the world that
principle has been disregarded, that principle has been flouted by the
strong, and only the weak have suffered. The heart and center of
this treaty is the principle adopted not only in this treaty but put
into effect also in the treaty with Austria, in the treaty with Hun-
gary, in the treaty with Bulgaria, in the treaty with Turkey, that
every great territory in the world belongs to the people who are
living on it, and that it is not the privilege of any authority any-
where certainly not the privilege of the peace conference at Paris-
to impose upon those peoples any government which they accept
unwillingly and not of their own choice.
Nations that never before saw the gleam of hope have been lib-
erated by this great document. Pitiful Poland, divided up as spoils
umong half a dozen nations, is by this document united and set free.
Similarly, in the treaty with Austria, the Austrian power is taken off
of every people over whom it had no right to reign. You know that
the great populations of Bosnia and Herzigovina, which lay between
Austria and the Balkan Peninsula, were unjustly under the power of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it was in a city of Bosnia that
the Crown Prince of Austria was assassinated Bosnia which was
under the power of Austria. Though Bosnia was part of Austrian
territory, Austria had the audacity to hold Serbia, an outside neigh-
bor, responsible for an act of assassination on Austrian territory, the
Austrian Government choosing to believe that certain societies with
which it connected the assassin, societies active in Serbia, had
planned and executed the assassination. So the world was deluged
in blood, and 7,400,000 men lie dead not to speak of the pitiful
wounded, not to speak of the blinded, not to speak of those with dis-
tracted brain, not to speak of all the pitiful, shattered nerves of mil-
lions of men all over the word because of an insurgent feeling in a
great population which was ruled over by rulers not of their own
-choice. The peace conference at Paris knew that it would not go to
the root of this matter unless it destroyed power of that kind. This
treaty sets those great peoples free.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 267
But it does not stop with that. In the heart of the treaty you
will find a new charter for those who labor men, women, and chil-
dren all over the world. The heart of the world is depressed, my
fellow citizens, the heart of the world is uneasy. The heart of the
world is a little despairful of its future, because the economic ar-
rangements of the world have not been just, and the people who are
having unjust conditions imposed upon them are, of course, not con-
tent to live under them. When the whole world is at unrest you may
be sure that there is some real cause for the unrest. It is not whim-
sical. Men do not disturb the foundations of their lives just to
>atisfy a sudden impulse. All these troubles, whatever shape they
may take, whether the action taken is just or unjust, have their root
in age-long wrongs which ought to be, must be, and will be righted,
and this great treaty makes a beginning in that great enterprise of
humanity. It provides an arrangement for recurrent and periodic
international conferences, the main and sole object of which will be
to improve the conditions of labor, to safeguard the lives and the
health of women and children who work and whose lives w^ould
otherwise be impaired or whose health rendered subject to all the
inroads of disease. The heart of humanity beats in this document.
It is not a statesman’s arrangement. It is a liberation of the peo-
ples and of the humane forces of the world, and yet I never hear the
slightest intimation of any of these great features in the speeches
of the gentlemen who are opposing this treaty. They never tell
you what is really in this treaty. If they did your enthusiasm would
sweep them off their feet. If they did they would know that it was
an audacity which they had better not risk to impair the peace and
the humane conditions of mankind.
At the very front and heart of the treaty is the part which is most
criticized, namely, the great covenant for a league of nations. This
treaty could not be executed without such a powerful instrumen-
tality. Unless all the right-thinking nations of the world are going
to concert their purpose and their power, this treaty is not worth
the paper that it is written on, because it is a treaty where peace
rests upon the right of the weak, and only the power of the strong
can maintain the right of the weak. If we as a nation indeed mean
what we have always said, that we are the champions of human
right, now r is the time when we shall be brought to the test, the acid
test, as to whether we mean what we said or not. I am not saying
that because I have the least doubt as to the verdict. I am just as
sure of it as if it had been rendered already. I know this great
people among whom I was born and bred and whom I have had the
signal honor to serve, whose mouthpiece it has been my privilege
to be on both sides of the water, and I know that I am speaking their
268 AUDKKSSKS OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
conscience, when I speak in the name of my own conscience that that
is the duty of America and that it will be assumed and performed.
You have been led to believe that the covenant of the league of
nations is in some sense a private invention. It is not always said
of whom, and I need not mention who is suspected. It is supposed
that out of some sort of personal ambition or party intention an
authorship, an origination is sought. My fellow countrymen, I
wish that I could claim the great distinction of having invented
this great idea, but it is a great idea which has been growing in the
minds of all generous men for several generations. Several genera-
tions? Why, it has been the dream of the friends of humanity
through all the ages, and now for the first time a great body of pr.ac
tical statesmen, immersed in the business of individual nations, get>
together and realizes the dream of honest men. I wish that I could
claim some originative part in so great an enterprise, but I can not.
I w y as the spokesman in this matter, so far as I was influential at all,
of all sorts and kinds of Americans and of all parties and factions
in America. I would be ashamed, my fellow countrymen, if I treated
a matter of this sort with a single thought of so small a matter as
the national elections of 1920. If anybody discusses this question on
the basis of party advantage, I repudiate him as a fellow American.
And in order to validate what I have said, I want to make one or
two quotations from representatives of a party to which I do not
belong. The first I shall make from a man who has for a long time
been a member of the United States Senate. In May, 1916, just about
two years after the Great War began, this Senator, at a banquet at
which I was myself present, uttered the following sentences :
” I know r , and no one I think can know better than one who has
served long in the Senate, which is charged with an important share
of the ratification and confirmation of all treaties, no one can, I
think, feel more deeply than I do the difficulties which confront us
in the w r ork which this league that is, the great association extend-
ing throughout the country know r n as the League to Enforce Peace-
undertakes, but the difficulties can not be overcome unless we try to
/
overcome them. I believe much can be done. Probably it will be
impossible to stop all wars, but it certainly w r ill be possible to stop
some wars, and thus diminish their number. The way in which this
problem is to be worked out must be left to this league and to those
who are giving this great subject the study which it deserves. I
know the obstacles. I know how 7 quickly we shall be met with the
statement that this is a dangerous question which you are putting
into your agreement, that no nation can submit to the judgment
of other nations, and we must be careful at the beginning not to
attempt too much. I know the difficulties which arise when we
speak of anything which seems to involve an alliance, but I do not
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSOX. 269
believe that when Washington warned us against entangling alliances
he meant for one moment that we should not join with the other
civilized nations of the world if a method could be found to diminish
war and encourage peace.
” It was a year ago,” he continues, ” in delivering the chancellor’s
address at Union College, I made an argument on this theory, that if
we were to promote international peace at the close of the present ter-
rible war, if we were to restore international law as it must be re-
stored, we must find some way in which the united forces of the na-
tions could be put behind the cause of peace and law. I said then
that my hearers might think that I was picturing a Utopia, but it is
in the search for Utopias that great discoveries have been made.
Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. This league certainly has the
highest of all aims for the benefit of humanity, and because the path-
way is sown with difficulties is no reason that we should turn from it.”‘
The quotation is from the Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge. I read
another quotation from one of the most energetic, practical, and dis-
tinguished leaders of the Republican Party, uttered in an article
published in the New York Times in October, 1919:
” The one permanent move for obtaining peace which has yet been
suggested with any reasonable chance of obtaining its object is by an
agreement among the great powers, in which each should pledge itself
not only to abide by the decisions of a common tribunal, but to back
with force the decision of that common tribunal. The great civilized
nations of the world which do possess force, actual or immediately
potential, should combine by solemn agreement in a great world
league for the peace of righteousness/’ A very worthy utterance by
Theodore Roosevelt. I am glad to align myself with such utterances
; as those. 1 subscribe to every word of them. And here in concrete
form is the fulfillment of the plan which they advocate. We can not
in reason, we can not as lovers of liberty, we can not as supporters
of right turn away from it.
What are those who advise us to turn away from it afraid of?
In the first place, they are afraid that it impairs in some way that
long traditional policy of the United States which was embodied in
the Monroe doctrine, but how they can fear that I can not conceive,
for the document expressly says in words which I am now 7 quoting
that nothing in this covenant shall be held to affect the validity of
the Monroe doctrine. The phrase was inserted under my own eye,
at the suggestion not of the phrase but the principle of the For-
eign Relations Committees of both Houses of Congress. I think
I am justified in dismissing all fear that the Monroe doctrine is in
the least impaired. And what is the Monroe doctrine? It is that
no outside power shall attempt to impose its will in any form upon
.the- Western Hemisphere, and that if it does the United States, act-
270 ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
ing upon its own initiative and alone, if it chooses, can resist and
will resist the attempt. Could anything leave the United States
freer as a champion of the independence of the Western Hemisphere
than this world acknowledgment of the validity and potency of the
Monroe doctrine?
They are afraid that the league will in some way deal with our
domestic affairs. The covenant expressly says that it will have no
right to deal with the domestic affairs of any member of the league,
and I can not imagine anything more definite or satisfactory than
that. There is no ambiguity about any part of this covenant, for
the matter of that, but there is certainly no ambiguity about the
statement concerning domestic affairs, for it is provided that if any
matter brought before the council is found to be a matter which,
under international law, lies within the exclusive jurisdiction of the
State making the claim, the council shall dismiss consideration of
it and shall not even make a report about it. And the subjects which
are giving these gentlemen the most concern are agreed by all
students of international law to be domestic questions; for example,
immigration, naturalization, the tariff these are the subjects most
frequently spoken of. No one of those can be dealt with by the
league of nations, so far as the sovereignty of the United States is
concerned. We have a perfectly clear field there, as we have in re-
gard to the Monroe doctrine.
o
It is feared that our delegates will be outvoted, because I am con-
stantly hearing it said that the British Empire has six votes and we
have one. I am perfectly content to -have only one when the one counts
six, and that is exactly the arrangement under the league. Let us
examine that matter a little more particularly. Besides the vote of
Great Britain herself, the other five votes are the votes of Canada, of
South Africa, of Australia, of New Zealand, and of India. We our-
selves were champions and advocates of giving a vote to Panama, of
giving a vote to Cuba both of them under the direction and pro-
tectorate of the United States and if a vote was given to Panama
and to Cuba, could it reasonably be denied to the great Dominion of
Canada? Could it be denied to that stout Republic in South Africa,
that is now living under a nation which did, indeed, overcome it at
one time, but which did not dare retain its government in its hands,
but turned it over to the very men whom it had fought? Could we
deny it to Australia, that independent little Republic in the Pacific,
which has led the world in so many liberal reforms? Could it be
denied New Zealand ? Could we deny it to the hundreds of millions
who live in India? But, having given these six votes, what are the
facts ? For you have been misled with regard to them. The league can
take no active steps without the unanimous vote of all the nations
represented on the council, added to a vote of the majority in the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 271
assembly itself. These six votes are in the assembly, not in the
council. The assembly is not a voting body, except upon a limited
number of questions, and whenever those questions are questions of
action, the affirmative vote of every nation represented on the council
is indispensable, and the United States is represented on the council.
The six votes that you hear about can do nothing in the way of action
without the consent of the United States. There are two matters in
which the assembly can act, but I do not think we will be jealous of
those. A majority of the assembly can admit new members into the
league. A majority of the assembly can advise a member of the
league to reconsider any treaty which in the opinion of the assembly
of the league is apt to conflict with the operation of the league itself,
but that is advice which can be disregarded, which has no validity of
action in it, which has no compulsion of law in it. With the single
exception of admitting new members to the league, there is no energy
in the six votes which is not offset by the energy in the one vote of the
United States, and I am more satisfied to be one and count six than to
be six and count only six. This thing that has been talked about is a
delusion. The United States is not easily frightened, and I dare say
it is least easily frightened by things that are not true.
It is also feared that causes in which we are interested will be
defeated. Well, the United States is interested in a great many
causes, for the very interesting and compelling reason that the United
States is made up out of all the civilized peoples of the world. There
is not a national cause, my fellow citizens, which has not quickened
the heartbeat of men in America. There is not a national cause which
men in America do not understand, because they come of the same
blood, they come of the same traditions, they recollect through long”
tradition the wrongs of their peoples, the hopes of their peoples, the
passions of their peoples, and everywhere in America there are kins-
men to stand up and speak words of sympathy for great causes. For
the first time in the history of the world, the league of nations pre-
sents a forum, a world forum, where any one of these ambitions or
aspirations can be brought to the consideration of mankind. Never
before has this been possible. Never before has there been a jury of
mankind to which nations could take their causes, whether they were
weak or strong. You have heard a great deal about article 10 of the
covenant. Very well, after you have read it suppose you read article
11. Article 11 provides that it shall be the friendly right of any
member of the league, big or little, strong or weak, to call attention
to anything, anywhere, which is likely to disturb the peace of the
world or the good understanding between nations upon which the
peace of the world depends. When anybody of kin to us in America
is done wrong by any foreign government, it is likely to disturb the
good understanding between nations upon which the peace of the
272 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSOX.
world depends, and thus 1 any one of the causes represented in the
hearts of the American people can be brought to the attention of
the whole world. One of the most effective means of winning a good
cause is to bring it before that great jury. A bad cause will fare ill,
but a good cause is bound to be triumphant in such a forum. Until
this, international law made it an unfriendly act for any nation to
call attention to any matter which did not immediately affect its own
fortunes and its own right. I am amazed that so many men do not
see the extraordinary change which this will bring in the transaction
of human affairs. I am amazed that they do not see that now, for
the first time, not selfish national policy but the general judgment
of the world as to right is going to determine the fortunes of peoples,
whether they be weak or whether they be strong, and I myself glory
in the provisions of article 11 more than I glory in any other part
of the covenant, for it draws all men together in a single friendly
court, where they may discuss their own affairs and determine the
issues of justice just exactly what was desired in the hearts of the
men from whom I have read extracts of opinion.
But what disturbs me, perhaps the only thing that disturbs me, nr\
fellow countrymen, about the form which the opposition to the league
is taking is this : Certain reservations, as they are called, are proposed
which in effect–! am not now stopping to form an opinion as to
whether that is the intention or not; I have no right to judge the
intention of a man who has not stated what his intention is which
in effect amount to this, that the United States is unwilling to assume
the same obligations under the covenant of the league that are as-
sumed by the other members of the league; that the United States
wants to disclaim any part in the responsibility which the other mem-
bers of the league are assuming. I want to say with all the emphasis
of which I am capable that that is unworthy of the honor of the
United States. The principle of justice, the principle of right, the
principle of international amity is this, that there is not only an
imaginary but a real equality of standing and right among all the
sovereign peoples of the world. I do not care to defend the rights
of a people if I must regard them as my inferiors, if I must do so
with condescension, if I must do so because I am strong and they are
weak. You know the men, and the women, too, I dare say, who are
respectful only to those whom they regard as their social equals or
their industrial equals and of whom they are more or less afraid, who
will not exercise the same amenities and the same consideration for
those whom they deem beneath them. Such people do not belong in
democratic society, for one thing, and, for another, their whole
point of view is perverted; they are incapable of justice, because the
foundation of justice is that the weakest has the same rights as the
strongest. I must admit, my fellow citizens, and you can not deny-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 273
and I admit it with a certain profound regret not only but with a
touch of shame that while that is the theory of democratic institu-
tions it is not always the practice. The weak do not always fare
as well as the strong, the poor do not always get the same advantage
of justice that the rich get; but that is due to the passions and im-
perfections of human nature. The foundation of the law, the glory
of the law, is that the weakest is equal to the strongest in matter of
right and privilege, and the goal to which we are constantly though
stumblingly and with mistakes striving to go forward is the goal of
actual equality, of actual justice, upon the basis of equality of rights,
and unless you are going to establish the society of nations upon the
actual foundation of equality, unless the United States is going to
assume the same responsibility and just as much responsibility as the
other nations of the world we ought not to commit the mockery of
going into the arrangement at all.
I will not join in claiming under the name of justice an unjust
position of privilege for the country I love and honor. Neither
am I afraid of responsibility. Neither will I scuttle. Neither will
I be a little American. America, in her make-up, in her purposes,
in her principles, is the biggest thing in the world, and she must
measure up to the measure of the world. I will be no party in be-
littling her. I will be no party in saying that America is afraid of
responsibilities which I know she can carry and in which in carrying
I am sure she shall lead the world. Why, if we were to decline to go
into this humane arrangement we would be declining the invitation
which all the world extends to us to lead them in the enterprise of
liberty and of justice. I, for one, will not decline that invitation. -I,
for one, believe more profoundly than in anything else human in
the destiny of the United States. I believe that she has a spiritual
energy in her which no other nation can contribute to the liberation
of mankind, and I know that the heart of America is stronger than
her business calculations. That is what the world found out when
we went into the war. When we went into the war there was not a
nation in the world that did not believe we were more interested in
making money out of it than in serving the cause of liberty. And
when we went in, in those few months the whole world stood at amaze
and ended with an enthusiastic conversion. They now believe that
America will stand by anybody that is fighting for justice and for
right, and we shall not disappoint them.
The age is opening, my fellow citizens, upon a new scene. We
are substituting in this covenant and this is the main purpose of it-
arbitration and discussion for war. Senator Lodge says if we can
stop some wars it is worth while. If you want insurance against war,
I take it you would rather have 10 per cent insurance than none; I
141677 S. Doc. 120, 66-1 18
274 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
take it that you would be delighted with 50 per cent insurance; and
here I veril/ believe is 99 per cent insurance against war. Here are
all the great fighting nations of the world, with the exception of
Germany because for the time being Germany is not a great fight-
ing nation solemnly covenant with one another that they will never
go to war without first having either submitted the matter in dispute
to arbitration and bound themselves to abide by the verdict, or, hav-
ing submitted it to discussion by the council of the league of nations
in which case they will lay all the facts and documents by publication
before the world, wait six months for the opinion of the council, and
if they are dissatisfied with that opinion for they are not bound by
it they will wait another three months before they go to wau
There is a period of nine months of the process which is absolutely
destructive of unrighteous causes exposure to public opinion.
When I find a man who in a public matter will not state his side of
the case, and state it fully, I know that his side of the case is the
losing side, that he dare not state it.
At the heart of most of our industrial difficulties, my fellow citi-
zens, and most of you are witness to this, lies the unwillingness of
men to get together and talk it over. Half of the temper which now
exists between those who perform labor and those who direct labor
is due to the fact that those who direct labor will not talk differences
over with the men whom they employ, and I am in every such
instance convinced that they are wrong and dare not talk it over.
Not only that, but every time the two sides do get together and
talk it over they come out of the conference in a different temper
from that with which they went in. There is nothing that softens
the attitude of men like really, frankly laying their minds alongside
of each other and their characters alongside of each other and mak-
ing a fair and manly and open comparison. That is what all the
great fighting nations of the world agree to with every matter of
difference between them. They put it either before a jury by whom
they are bound or before a jury which will publish all the facts to
mankind and express a frank opinion regarding it.
You have here what the world must have, what America went
into this war to obtain. You have here an estoppel of the brutal,,
sudden impulse of war. You have here a restraint upon the pas-
sions of ambitious nations. You here have a safeguard of the liberty
of weak nations, and the world is at last ready to stand up and in
calm counsel discuss the fortunes of men and women and children
everywhere. Why, my fellow citizens, nothing brings a lump into
my throat quicker on this journey I am taking than to see the
thronging children that are everywhere the first, just out of childish
curiosity and glee, no doubt, to crowd up to the train when it stops,
because I know that if by any chance we should not win this great
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 275
right for the league of nations it would be their death warrant.
They belong to the generation which would then have to fight the
final war, and in that final war there would not be merely seven and
a half million men slain. The very existence of civilization would
be in the balance, and I for one dare not face the responsibility of
defeating the very purpose for which we sent our gallant men over-
seas. Every mother knows that her pride in the son that she lost
is due to the fact, not that he helped to beat Germany, but that he
helped to save the world. It was that light the other people saw
in the eyes of the boys that went over there, that light as of men who
see a distant horizon, that light as of men who have caught the
gleam and inspiration of a great cause, and the armies of the United
States seemed to those people on the other side of the sea like bodies
of crusaders come out of a free nation to give freedom to their fel-
lows, ready to sacrifice their lives for an idea, for an ideal, for the
only thing that is wovth living for, the spiritual purpose of redemp-
tion that rests in the I earts of mankind.
#ADDRESS AT SAN DIEGO, CALIF.
SEPTEMBER 19, 1919.
Mr. Mayor, ladies, and gentlemen, it is very agreeable to have
been indirectly introduced by my friend Mr. Gage, for whom I have
so affectionate a regard. I know he will not mind my saying that I
first met him when we were both “lame ducks.” I had just come
out of the hospital after an operation and he had one arm out of
commission from neuritis, and we met sitting, rather helplessly and
perhaps hopelessly, on one of the broad piazzas of one of the hotels
at Palm Beach. Being fellow sufferers and comrades in misery, we
were drawn toward each other and drawn into confidences which I
greatly enjoyed, and which I now recall with peculiar pleasure in
seeing Mr. Gage without his hand bound up and in the sort of health
I would wish to see him in. What he has said has reminded me of
one of the thoughts which has been prominent in my mind of late.
He has spoken of our dealings with the Philippine Islands. One of
the perplexities under which we have suffered is that, although we are
leading the Philippine Islands toward independence, we were in
doubt of what would happen to them when they obtained their inde-
pendence. Before this conference at Paris, the only thing that could
be suggested was that we should get a common guaranty from all
the nations of the world that the Philippines should be regarded
as neutral, just as Belgium was once regarded as neutral, and that
they should guarantee her inviolability, because it was certainly to
be expected that she would not be powerful enough to take care of
herself against those who might wish to commit aggression against
her. That serves as a very useful illustration of one of the purposes
for which the league of nations has been established, for do you not
observe that the moment we are ready to give independence to the
Philippines her independence is already guaranteed, because all the
great nations of the world are under engagement of the most solemn
sort to respect and preserve her territorial integrity and her exist-
ing political independence as against external aggression? Those
words ” external aggression ” are sometimes left out of the exposition
of article 10. There was not a member of that peace conference with
whom I conferred who did not hold the same opinion that I hold
277
278 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
as to the sacred right of self-determination and did not hold the
principle which all Americans hold, that it was not the right of any
nation to dictate to another nation what sort of government it should
have or under what sort of sovereignty it would live.
For us the problem of the future of the Philippines is solved by
the league of nations. It is the first time that the world has come
to this mind about matters of that sort, and what brought it to that
mind? The breakdown of the neutrality of Belgium. You know
you can not establish civil society if anybody is going to be a neutral
with regard to the maintenance of the law. We are all bound in
conscience, and all public officers are bound in oath, not to remain
neutral with regard to the maintenance of the law and the vindica-
tion of the right, and one of the things that occurred in this confer-
ence, as a sort of practical joke on myself, was this: One of the prin-
ciples that I went to Paris most insisting on was the freedom of the
seas. Now, the freedom of the seas means the definition of the right
of neutrals to use the seas when other nations are at war, but under
the league of nations there are no neutrals, and, therefore, what I
have called the practical joke on myself was that by the very thing
that I was advocating it became unnecessary to define the freedom
of the seas. All nations are engaged to maintain the right, and in
that sense no nation can be neutral when the right is invaded, and,
all being comrades and partners in a common cause, we all have an
equal right to use the seas. To my mind it is a much better solution
than had occurred to me, or than had occurred to anyone else with
regard to that single definition of right.
We have no choice, my fellow citizens, in this matter except be-
tween these alternatives: We must go forward with this concert of
nations or we must go back to the old arrangement, because the
guaranties of peace will not be sufficient without the United States,
and those who oppose this covenant are driven to the necessity of
advocating the old order of balances of power. If you do not have
this universal concert, you have what we have always avoided, neces-
sary alignment of this or that nation with one other nation or with
some other group of nations. What is disturbing me most about the
present debate not because I doubt its issue, but because I regret
its length is that it is heartening the representatives of Germany
to believe that at last they are going to do in this way what they were
not able to do by arms, .separate us in interest and purpose from our
associates in the war. I am not suggesting, I have no right to sug-
gest, that the men who are opposing this covenant have any thought
of assisting Germany in their minds, but my point is that by doing
what they are doing they are assisting Germany, whether they want
to do so or not. And it is not without significance, my fellow coun-
trymen, that coincidentally with this debate there has been a revival
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 279
of the pro- German propaganda all over the United States, for this
is Germany’s calculation that, inasmuch as she is obliged to stand
apart and be for the time suspected and have other nations come
slowly to accommodation with her, if we hold off other nations will
be similarly alienated from us, as they will be, and that there will
be, whether we design it or not, a community of interest between the
two isolated nations. It is an inevitable psychological result. We
must join this arrangement to complete the psychology of this war.
The psychology of this war is this, that any nation that attempts
to do what Germany did will certainly have the world combined
against it. Germany not only did not know she would have the
world combined against her, but she never dreamed she would. Ger-
many confidently expected that Great Britain would not go into the
war ; she never dreamed that America would go into the war, and in
order not absolutely to dishearten her people she had continuously
to lie to them and tell them that the submarine warfare was so effec-
tive that American troops could not be sent to Europe. Friends of
mine who, before we went into the war, conversed with Germans on
the other side and told them that they had come over since the sub-
marine warfare began were not believed. The Germans said, ” Why,
you can not cross the sea.” The body of the German people actually
thought that the sea was closed, and that we could send 2,000,000
men over there without losing any of them, except on a single trans-
port, was incredible to them. If they had ever dreamed that that
would happen they never would have ventured upon so foolish an
attack upon the liberties of mankind.
What is impressed upon my mind by my stay on the other side
of the water more than any one thing is that, while old rivalries and
old jealousies and many of the intricate threads of history woven in
unhappy patterns have made the other nations of the world suspect
one another, nobody doubts or suspects America. That is the amaz-
ing and delightful discovery that I made on the other side of the
water. If there was any place in our discussions where they wanted
troops sent, they always begged that American troops might be sent,
because they said none of the other associated powers would suspect
them of any ulterior designs, and that the people of the country
itself would know that they had not gone there to keep anything
that they took, that they had not gone there to interfere with their
internal affairs; that they had gone not as exploiters but as friends.
That is the reputation of American soldiers throughout Europe, and
it is their reputation because it is true. That is the beautiful back-
ground of it. That is the temper in which they go ; that is the princi-
ple upon which they act and upon which the Government back of
them acts, and the great people whom that Government represents.
There is something more than the choosing between peace and armed
280 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
isolation, for that is one aspect of the choice. We are choosing
between a doubtful peace and an assured peace, guided and led by
the United States of America.
I was very much interested to scan the names on a very beautifully
engrossed communication that was put in my hands to-day by Mr.
Gage, a communication from the representatives of the League to
Enforce Peace. I found upon it the names of many of the principal
and most representative citizens and professional men of San
Diego, and it happened, I believe, unless I am misinformed, that
practically all the signers were Republicans. There is one thing
against which I wish to enter a protest. I have had, I do not
know how many, men come to me and say, ” Mr. President, I am
a Republican, but I am for the league of nations.” Why but? For
as a Democrat you will permit me to remind you who are Republicans
that you have always boasted that your party was the party of con-
structive programs. Here is the most constructive, the greatest con-
structive, program ever proposed. Why should you say but? If I
were in your place and had in my heart the pride which you very
properly entertain because of the accomplishments of your party,
I would say, ” I am a Republican, and for that reason I am in favor
of the league of nations.” But I am not going to say that I am a
Democrat, and therefore in favor of the league of nations, because
I am not in favor of it because I am a Democrat. I am in favor of
it because I am an American and a believer in humanity, and I be-
lieve in my heart that if the people of this country, as I am going
about now, were to suspect that I had political designs they would
give me evident indication that they wanted me to go back to Wash-
ington right away. They would not give me the splendid and de-
lightful welcomes they are giving me. Men and women would not
come up to me as they are doing now and take my hand in theirs
and say, ” Mr. President, God bless you ! ‘ I wonder if you realize,
as I have tried to realize, what that gracious prayer means. I have
had women who had lost their dearest in the war come up to me with
tears upon their cheeks and say, ” God bless you ! ‘ Why did they
bless me? I advised the Congress to go into the war and to send
their sons to their death. As Commander in Chief of the Army and
Navy, I sent their sons to their death, and they died, and their
mothers come and say “God bless you ! ‘ There can be only one
explanation. They are proud of the cause in which their sons died ;
and, my friends, since we all have to die, the way those fellows died
is the best way after all. There was nothing in it for them, no pos-
sible personal gain, nothing except the noble performance of a dis-
interested duty, and that is the highest distinction that any man
can achieve.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 281
I remember years ago reading an essay that left a permanent im-
pression on my mind. It was entitled ” Christmas : Its Unfinished
Business.” It was a discourse upon what was then a very common
occurrence the meeting of assemblies to promote peace. You know,
we used to be always having conventions to promote peace, and most
of the men who sat on the platform were men who were doing every-
thing they could to bring on war by unjustly exploiting other coun-
tries and taking advantages that they should not take, that were
sure to exasperate the feeling of people elsewhere. But they did not
realize that they were really bringing on wars ; they, in their minds,
were trying to bring on peace, and the writer of the essay called
attention to this. His thesis was, ” There will be peace when peace
is as handsome as war.” He hurried to explain that what he meant
was this: That leaving aside the men who may have unjustly and
iniquitiously plotted war like the general staff in Germany
men in the ranks gave everything that they had, their lives included,
for their country, and that while you would always hang the boy’s
musket or the boy’s sword up over the mantelpiece, you never would
hang up his ledger or his yardstick or his spade; not that civil
employments meant to support yourself are dishonorable, but that
they are centered upon yourself, whereas the sword and the gun mean
that you had forgotten yourself and remembered only the call of
your country. Therefore, there was a certain sacredness about that
implement that could not attach to any implement of civil life.
” Now,” said my essayist, ” when men are devoted to the purposes
of peace with the same self-forgetfulness and the same thought for
the interest of their country and the cause that they are devoted to
that they display under arms in war, then there will be no more
war. When the motives of peace are as disinterested and as hand-
some as the motives of war for the common soldier, then we will all
be soldiers in an army of peace and there will be no more wars.”
Now, that comes about when there is a common conception of peace,
and the heart of this covenant of peace is to bring nations together
into consultation so that they will see which of their objects are com-
mon, so that they will discuss how they can accommodate their in-
terests, so that their chief objective will be conciliation and not
alienation ; and when they understand one another, they will cooper-
ate with one another in promoting the general interest and the com-
mon peace. It is the parliament of nations at last, where everyone
is under covenant himself to do right, to respect and preserve the
territorial integrity and existing political independence of the others,
and where everyone engages never to go to war without first trying
to settle the matter by the slow-cooling, disinterested processes of
discussion. It is what we have been striving for for generation after
generation, and now some men hesitate to accept it when the golden
282 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
thing is placed in their hand. It would be incredible to me if I did
not understand some of them, but it is not permitted to one occupy-
ing my present office to make personal remarks. After all, personal
remarks are neither here nor there. What does any one of us matter
in so great a thing as this? What difference does it make whether
one man rises and another falls, or we all go down or go up together ?
We have got to serve humanity. We have got to redeem the honor
of the United States. We have got to see this thing through to its
great end of justice and peace.
#ADDRESS AT HOTEL ALEXANDRIA, LOS ANGELES,
CALIF.,
SEPTEMBER 20, 1919.
Mr. Toastmaster and ladies and gentlemen, may I not first thank
you, Mr. Toastmaster, for your very generous introduction? It
spoke in the same delightful tone of welcome that I have heard in
the voices on the street to-day, and, although I do not accept for
myself the praise that you have so generously bestowed upon me, I
nevertheless do recognize in it that you have set just the right note
for the discussion which I wanted for a few moments to attempt.
There is only one thing, my fellow citizens, that has daunted me
on this trip. My good father used to teach me that you can not
reason out of a man what reason did not put in him, and, suspect-
ing may I not say knowing that much of the argument directed
against the league of nations is not based upon reason, I must say I
have sometimes been puzzled how to combat it, because it is true,
as your toastmaster has said, that there is a great constructive plan
presented, and no man in the presence of the present critical situa-
tion of mankind has the right to oppose any constructive plan except
by a better constructive plan. I will say now that I am ready to take
ship again and carry back to Paris any constructive proposals which
appear a suitable and better substitute for those which have been
made.
There is a peculiarity about this constructive plan which ought, I
think, to facilitate our acceptance of it. It is laid out in every part
upon American principles. Everybody knows that the principles of
peace proposed by America were adopted, were adopted as the basis
of the armistice and have been acted upon as the basis of the peace,
and there is a circumstance about those American principles which
gives me absolute confidence in them. They were not principles
which I originated. They would have none of the strength in them
that they have if they had been of individual origination. I remem-
ber how anxiously I watched the movements of opinion in this coun-
try during the months immediately preceding our entrance into the
war. Again and again I put this question to the men who sat around
the board at which the Cabinet meets. They represented different
parts of the country, they were in touch with the opinion in different
283
284 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
part of the United States, and I would frequently say to them,
” How do you think the people feel with regard to our relation to this
war? ‘ And I remember, one day, one of them said, ” Mr. President,
I think that they are ready to do anything you suggest.” I said,
” That is not what I am waiting for. That is not enough. If they
do not go in of their own impulse, 110 impulse that I can supply will
suffice, and I must wait until I know that I am their spokesman. I
must wait until I know that I am interpreting their purpose. Then
I will know that I have got an irresistible power behind me.” And
that is exactly what happened.
That is what is now appreciated as it was not at first appreciated
on the other side of the sea. They wondered and wondered why we
did not come in. They had come to the cynical conclusion that we
did not come in because we were making money out of the war and
did not want to spoil the profitable game ; and then at last they saw
what we were waiting for, in order that the whole plot of the Ger-
man purpose should develop, in order that we might see how the
intrigue of that plot had penetrated our own life, how the poison
was spreading, and how it was nothing less than a design against the
freedom of the world. They knew that when America once saw
that she would throw her power in with those who were going to
redeem the world. And at every point of the discussion I was at-
tempting to be the mouthpiece of what I understood right-thinking
and forward-thinking and just- thinking men without regard to
party or section in the United States to be purposing and conceiving,
and it was the consciousness in Europe that that was the case that
made it possible to construct the peace upon American principles.
The American principles were not only accepted. They were acted
upon, and when I came back to this country with that plan I think
you will*bear me out that the Nation was prepared to accept it.
have no doubt, and I have not met anybody who had any well-
reasoned doubt, that if immediate action could have been secured
upon the “treaty at that time only a negligible percentage of our
people would have objected to its acceptance, without a single
change in’ : either the wording or the punctuation. But then some-
thing intervened, and, my fellow citizens, I am not only not going
to try to analyze what that was, I am not going to allow my own
judgment to be formed as regards what it was. I do not under-
stand it, but there is a certain part of it that I do understand. It
is to the immediate interest of Germany to separate us from our
associates in the war, and I know that the opposition to the treaty
is most acceptable in those quarters of the country where pro-Ger-
man sentiment was strongest. I know that all over the country Ger-
man propaganda has lifted its hideous head again, and I hear the
hiss of it on every side.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 285
When gentlemen speak of isolation, they forget we would have a
companion. There would be another isolated nation, and that is Ger-
many. They forget that we would be in the judgment of the world
in the same class and at the same disadvantage as Germany. I mean
sentimental disadvantage. We would be regarded as having with-
drawn, our cooperation from that concerted purpose of mankind
which was recently conceived and exercised for the liberation of man-
kind, and Germany would be the only nation in the world to profit
by it. I have no doubt there are scores of business men present. Do
you think we would profit materially by isolating ourselves and cen-
tering upon ourselves the hostility and suspicion and resistance of all
the liberal minds in the w^orld ? Do you think that if, after having
won the absolute confidence of the world and excited the hope of the
world, we would lead if we should turn away from them and say,
“No; we do not care to be associated with you any longer; we are’
going to play a lone hand; we are going to play it for our single ad-
vantage”? Do you think after that there is a very good psychology
for business, there is a very good psychology for credit? Do you
think that throws foreign markets open to you? Do you remember
what happened just before w r e went into the war? There was a
conference in Paris, the object of which was to unite the peoples
fighting against Germany in an economic combination which would
be exclusively for their own benefit. It is possible now for those powers
to organize and combine in respect of the purchase of raw materials,
and if the foreign market for our raw 7 materials is united, we will
have to sell at the price that they are willing to pay or not sell at
all. Unless you go into the great economic partnership with the
world, you have the rest of the world economically combined against
you. So that if you bring the thing down to this lowest of all bases,
the bases of material self-interest, you lose in the game, and, for my
part, I am free to say that you ought to lose.
We are told that we are strong and they are weak; that we still
have economic or financial independence and they have not. Why,
my fellow citizens, what does that mean? That means that they
went into the redemption of the freedom of the world sooner than
we did and gave everything that they had to redeem it. And now we,
because we did not go in so soon or lose so much, want to make profit
of the redeemers ! The thing is hideous. The thing is unworthy of
every tradition of America. I speak of it not because I think that
sort of thing takes the least hold upon the consciousness or the pur-
pose of America but because it is a pleasure to condemn so ugly a
thing.
When we look at the objections which these gentlemen make, I
have found in going about the country that the result has been that
in the greater part of the United States the people do not know
286 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
what is in the treaty. To my great surprise, I have had to stand up
and expound the treaty tell the people what is in it and I have
had man after man say, ” Why, we never dreamed that those thing*
were in the treaty. We never heard anything about that.” Xo; you
never heard anything about the greater part of the enterprise; you
only heard about some of the alleged aspects of the method in which
the enterprise was to be carried out. That is all 3^011 have heard
about. I remember saying and I believe it was the thought of
America that this was a people’s war and the treaty must be a.
people’s peace. That is exactly what this peace treaty proposes. For
the first time in the history of civilized society, a great international
convention, made up of the leading statesmen of the \vorld, has pro-
posed a settlement which is for the benefit of the weak and not for
the benefit of the strong. It is for the benefit of peoples who could
not have liberated themselves, whose weakness w^as profitable to the
ambitious and imperialistic nations, whose weakness had been traded
in by every cabinet in Europe; and yet these very cabinets repre-
sented at the table in Paris were unanimous in the conviction that
the people’s day had come and that it was not their right to dispose
of the fort ines of people without the consent of those people
themselves.
At the front of this great settlement they put the only thing that
will preserve it. You can not set weak peoples up in independence
and then leave them to be preyed upon. You can not give a false
gift. You can not give to people rights which they never enjoyed
before and say, ” Now, keep them if you can.” That is an Indian
gift. That is a gift which can not be kept. If you have a really
humane purpose and a real knowledge of the conditions of peace in
the world, you will have to say, ” This is the settlement and we guar
antee its continuance.” There is only one honorable course when you
have won a cause, to see that it stays won and nobody interferes with
or disturbs the results. That is the purpose of the much-discussed
article 10 in the covenant of the league of nations. It is the Monroe
doctrine applied to the world. Ever since Mr. Monroe uttered his
famous doctrine we have said to the world, ” We will respect and
preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and
the political independence of every State in the Western Hemi-
sphere,” and those are practically the words of article 10. Under
article 10 all the members of the league engage to respect and pre-
serve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and ex-
isting political independence of the other member States, and if that
guaranty is not forthcoming the whole structure of peace will crum-
ble, because you can not point out a great war that has not begun
by a violation of that principle ; that has not begun by the intention ,
to impair the territorial integrity or to interfere with the political
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 287
independence of some body of people of some nation. It was the
heart of the Pan-German plan. It is the heart of every imperialistic
plan, because imperialism is the design to control the destinies of
people who did not choose you to control them. It is the principle
of domination. It is at the opposite extreme from the principle of
self-determination and self-government, and in that same covenant
of the league of nations is the provision that only self-governing
States shall be admitted to the membership of the league. No in-
fluence shall be injected there which is not sympathetic with the
fundamental principle, namely, that ancient and noble principle that
underlies our institutions, that all just government depends upon the
consent of the governed.
You have no choice, my fellow citizens, because the peoples of the
world, even those that slept, are awake. There is not a country in the
world where the great mass of mankind is not now aware of its rights
and determined to have them at any cost, and the present universal
unrest in the world, which renders return to normal conditions impos-
sible so long as it continues, will not stop until men are assured by
some arrangement they can believe in that their rights will be pro-
tected and that they can go about the normal production of the neces-
saries of life and begin to enjoy the ordinary pleasures and privileges
of life without the constant shadow of some cloud of terror over them,
some threat of injustice, some tyranny of control. Men are not going
to stand it. If you want to quiet the world, you have got to reassure
the world, and the only way in which you can reassure it is to let it
know that all the great fighting powers of the world are going to
maintain that quiet, that the fighting power is no longer to be directed
toward aggression, but is to be directed toward protection. And every
great fighting nation in the world will be in the league because Ger-
many for the time being is not a great fighting power. That great
nation of over 60,000,000 people has consented in the treaty to reduce
its standing armed force to 100,000 men and to give up all the war
material over and above what is necessarv to maintain an armv of
. t;
100,000 men; so that for the time being we may exclude Germany
from the list of the fighting nations of the world. The whole power
of the world is now offered to mankind for the maintenance of peace,
and for the maintenance of peace by the very processes we have all
professed to believe in, by substituting arbitration and discussion for
war, by substituting the judgment of mankind for the force of arms.
I say without qualification that every nation that is not afraid of the
judgment of mankind will go into this arrangement. There is nothing
for any nation to lose whose purposes are right and whose cause is
just. The only nations that need fear to go into it are those that have
designs which are illegitimate, those which have designs that are
inconsistent with justice and are the opposite of pea achievement above bargain and sale, into a great method of coopera-
tion by which men, purposing the same thing and justly organizing
the same thing, may bring about a state of happiness and of pros-
perity such as the world has never known before. We want to be
friends of each other as well as friends of mankind. W T e want Amer-
ica to be united in spirit as well as the world. We want America
to be a body of brethren, and if America is a body of brethren, then
you may be sure that its leadership will bring the same sort of com-
radeship and intimacy of spirit and purity of purpose to the counsels
and achievements of mankind.
#ADDRESS AT CHEYENNE, WYO.
SEPTEMBER 24, 1919.
Gov. Carey, my fellow countrymen, it is Avith genuine satisfaction
that I find myself in this great State, which I have only too seldom
visited, and I appreciate this close contact with a body of its citizens
in order that I may make clear some of the matters which have
emerged in the discussion in the midst of which we now find our-
selves. Gov. Carey is quite right in saying that no document ever
drew upon it more widespread discussion than the great treaty of
peace with which your representatives returned from Paris. It is
not to be wondered at, my fellow citizens, because that treaty is a
unique document. It is the most remarkable document, I venture to
say, in human history, because in it is recorded a complete reversal
of the processes of government which had gone on throughout prac-
tically the whole history of mankind. The example that we set in
1776, which some statesmen in Europe affected to disregard and
others presumed to ridicule, nevertheless set fires going in the hearts
of men which no influence was able to quench, and one after another
the Governments of the world have yielded to the influences of de-
mocracy. No man has been able to stay the tide, and there came a
day when there was only one bulwark standing against it. That was
in Berlin and Vienna standing in the only territory which had not
been conquered by the liberal forces of the opinion of the world,
continued to stand fast where there was planted a pair of Govern-
ments that could use their people as they pleased, as pawns and’ in-
struments in a game of ambition, send them to the battle field with-
out condescending to explain to them why they were sent, send them
to the battle field to work out a dominion over free peoples on the
part of a Government that had never been liberalized and made free.
The world did not realize in 1914 that it had come to the final
grapple of principle. It was only by slow degrees that we realized
that we had any part in the war. We started the forces in 1776, as
I have said, that made this war inevitable, but we were a long time
realizing that, after all, that was what was at issue. We had been
accustomed to regarding Europe as a field of intriguing, of rival
335
336 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
‘ambitions, and of attempts to establish empire, and at first we merely
got the impression that this was one of the usual European wars,
to which, unhappily, mankind had become only too accustomed. You
know how unwilling we were to go into it. I can speak for myself.
I made every effort to keep this country out of the war, until it came
to my conscience, as it came to yours, that after all it was our war
-as well as Europe’s war, that the ambition of these central empires
was directed against nothing less than the liberty of the world, and
-.that if we were indeed, what we had always professed to be, cham-
pions of the liberty of the world, it was not within our choice to
keep out of the great enterprise. We went in just in time. I can
testify, my fellow countrymen, that the hope of Europe had sunk
very low when the American troops began to throng overseas. I can
testify that they had begun to fear that the terror would be realized
and that the German power would be established. At first they were
incredulous that our men could come in force enough to assist them.
At first they thought that it was only a moral encouragement they
would get from seeing that gallant emblem of the Stars and Stripes
( upon their fields. Presently they realized that the tide was real,
4hat here came men by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands,
by the millions ; that there was no end to the force which would now
rbe asserted to rescue the free peoples of the world from the terror of
.autocracy; and America had the infinite privilege of fulfilling her
.destiny and saving the world.. I do not hesitate to say, as a sober
interpretation of history, that American soldiers saved the liberties
, : of the world.
I want to remind you of all this, my fellow citizens, because it is
pertinent to the discussion that is now going on. We saved the liber-
ties of the world, and we must stand by the liberties of the world.
We can not draw back. You remember what happened in that fate-
ful battle in which our men first took part. You remember how the
French lines had been beaten and separated and broken at Chateau-
Thierry, and you remember how the gates seemed open for the ad-
vancement of the Germans upon Paris. Then a body of men, a little
‘body of men American soldiers and American marines against
the protests of French officers, against the command of the remote
commanders, nevertheless dared to fill that breach, stopped that ad-
vance, turned the Germans back, and never allowed them to turn
‘their faces forward again. They were advised to go back, and they
asked the naive American question, “What did we come over here
for ? We did not come over here to go back ; we came over here to go
forward.” And they never went in any other direction. The men
who went to Chateau-Thierry, the men who went into Balleau Wood,
the men who did What no other troops had been able to do in the
Argonne, never thought of turning back, not only, but they never
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 337
thought of making any reservations on their service. They never
thought of saying, ” We are going to do this much of the job and
then scuttle and leave you to do the rest.” I am here, I am on this
journey, to help this Nation, if I can by my counsel, to fulfill and
complete the task which the men who died upon the battle fields of
France began, and I am not going to turn back any more than they
did. I am going to ,keep my face just as they kept their face for-
ward toward the enemy.
My friends I use the Avords advisedly the only organized forces
in this country, outside of Congressional Halls, against this treaty
are the forces of hyphenated Americans. I beg you to observe that
I say the only organized forces, because I would not include many
individuals whom I know in any such characterization, but I do re-
peat that it is the pro-German forces and the other forces that showed
their h} 7 phen during the war that are now organized against this
treaty. We can please nobody in America except these people by
rejecting it or qualifying it in our acceptance of it. I want you to
recall the circumstances of this Great War lest we forget. We must
not forget to redeem absolutely and without qualification the
promises of America in this great enterprise. I have crossed the
continent now, my friends, and am a part of my way back. I can
testify to the sentiment of the American people. It is unmistakable.
The overwhelming majority of them demand the ratification of this
treaty, and they demand it because, whether they have analyzed it
or not, they have a consciousness of what it is that we are fighting
for. We said that this was a people’s war I have explained to you
that it was, though you did not need the explanation and we said
that it must be a people’s peace. It is a people’s peace. I challenge
any man to find a contradiction to that statement in the terms of
the great document with which I returned from Paris. It is so much
of a people’s peace that in every portion of its settlement every
thought of aggrandizement, of territorial or political aggrandize-
ment, on the part of the great powers was brushed aside, brushed
aside by their own representatives. They declined to take the
colonies of Germany in sovereignty, and said they would consent
and demand that they be administered in trust by a concert of the
nations through the instrumentality of a league of nations. They
did not claim a single piece of territory. On the contrary, every
territory that had been under the dominion of the Central Powers,
unjustly and against its own consent, is by that treaty and the
treaties which accompany it absolutely turned over in fee simple to
the people who live in it. The principle is adopted without qualifi-
cation upon which America was founded, that all just government
proceeds from the consent of the governed. No nation that could
141677 S. Doc. 120, 6G-1 22
338 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
be reached by the conclusions of this conference was obliged to ac-
cept the authority of a government by which it did not wish to be
controlled. It is a peace of liberation. It is a peace in which the
rights of peoples are realized, and when objection is made to the
treaty, is any objection made to the substance of the treaty? There
is only one thing in the substance of the treaty that has been debated
seriously, and that is the arrangement by which Japan gets the rights
that Germany had in Shantung Province in China. I wish I had
time to go through the story of that fully. It was an unavoidable
settlement, and nothing can be done for China without the league of
nations.
Perhaps you will bear with me if I take time to tell you what I am
talking about. You know that China has been the common prey of
the great European powers. Perhaps I should apologize to the
representatives of those powers for using such a word, but I think
they would admit that the word is justified. Nation after nation has
demanded rights, semisovereign rights, and concessions with regard
to mines and railways and every other resource that China could put
at their disposition, and China has never been able to say ” No ‘ -a
great learned, patient, diligent people, numbering hundreds of mil-
lions; has had no organized force with which to resist, and has
yielded again and again and again to unjust demands. One of these
demands was made upon her in March, 1898, by Germany unjustly
made. I will not go into the particulars, but I could justify that
word ” unjustly.” A concession was demanded of her of the control
of the whole district around Kiaochow Bay, one of the open doors to
the trade and resources of China. She was obliged to yield to Ger-
many practically sovereign control over that great region by the sea,
and into the interior of the Province Germany was privileged to ex-
tend a railway and to exploit all the deposits of ore that might be
found for 30 miles on either side of the railway which she was to
build. The Government of the United States at that time, presided
over by one of the most enlightened and beloved of our Presidents-
I mean William McKinley and the Department of State, guided by
that able and high-minded man, John Hay, did not make the slightest
protest. Why? Not because they would not if they could have
aided China, but because under international law us it then stood no
nation had the right to protest against anything that other nations
did that did not directly affect its own rights. Mr. McKinley and Mr.
Hay did insist that if Germany took control of Kiaochow Bay, she
should not close those approaches to China against the trade of the
United States. How pitiful, when you go into the court of right, you
can not protect China, you can only protect your own merchandise !
You can not say, ” You have done a great wrong to these people.”
You have got to say, ” We yield to the wrong, but \ve insist that you
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 339
should admit our goods to be sold in those markets!” Pitiful, but
nevertheless it was international law. All nations acted in that way
at that time. Immediately following these concessions to Germany,
Russia insisted upon concessions and got Port Arthur and other ter-
ritories. England insisted, though she had had similar concessions
in the past, upon an additional concession and got Weihaiwai.
France came into the game and got a port and its territory lying be-
hind it for the same period of time that Germany had got her con-
cession, namely, 99 years.
Then came the war between Russia and Japan, and what hap-
pened? In a treaty signed on our own sacred territory, at Ports-
mouth in New Hampshire, Japan w r as allowed to take from Russia
what had belonged to China, the concession of Port Arthur and of
Talienwan, the territory in that neighborhood. The treaty was
written here ; it was written under the auspices, so to say, of our own
public opinion, but the Government of the United States was not at
liberty to protest and did not protest; it acquisced in the very thing
which is being done in this treaty. What is being done in this treaty
is not that Shantung is being taken from China. China did not have
it. It is being taken from Germany, just as Port Arthur was not
taken from China but taken from Russia and transferred to Japan.
Before we got into the war, Great Britain and France had entered
into solemn covenant by treaty with Japan that if she would take
what Germany had in Shantung by force of arms, and also the
islands lying north of the Equator which had been under German
dominion in the Pacific, she could keep them when the peace came
and its settlements were made. They were bound by a treaty of
which we knew nothing, but which, notwithstanding our ignorance
of it, bound them as much as any treaty binds. This war was fought
to maintain the sacredness of treaties. Great Britain and France,
therefore, can not consent to a change of the treaty in respect of the
cession of Shantung, and we have no precedent in our history which
permits us even to protest against it until we become members of the
league of nations.
1 want this point to sink in, my fellow countrymen : The league
of nations changes the international law of the world with regard
to matters of this sort. You have heard a great deal about article 10
of the covenant of the league, and I will speak of it presently, but
read article 11 in conjunction with article 10. Every member of the
league, in article 10, agrees never to impair the territorial integrity
of any other member of the league or to interfere with its existing
political independence. Both of those things were done in all these
concessions. There was a very serious impairment of the territorial
integrity of China in every one of them, and a very serious interfer-
ence with the political independence of that great but helpless King-
340 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
dom. Article 10 stops that for good and all. Then, in article 11,
it is provided that it shall be the friendly right of any member of
the league at any time to call attention to anything anywhere that
is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding
between nations upon which the peace of the world depends, so that
the ban would have been lifted from Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roose-
velt in the matter of these things if we had the covenant of the
league ; they could have gone in and said, u Here is your promise to
preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of this
great people. We have the friendly right to protest. We have the
right to call your attention to the fact that this will breed wars and
not peace, and that you have not the right to do this thing.” Hence-
forth, for the first time, we shall have the opportunity to play effec-
tive friends to the great people of China, and I for one feel my pulses
quicken and my heart rejoice at such a prospect. We, a free people,
have hitherto been dumb in the presence of the invasion of the free-
dom of other free peoples, and now restraint is taken away. I say
it is taken away, for we will be members of the covenant. Restraint is
taken away, and, like the men that we profess to be, we can speak out
in the interest of free people everywhere.
But that is not all. America, as I have said, was not bound by the
agreements of Great Britain and France, on the one hand, and Japan
on the other. We were free to insist upon a prospect of a different
. settlement, and at the instance of the United States Japan has
already promised that she will relinquish to China immediately after
the ratification of this treaty all the sovereign rights that Germany
had in Shantung Province the only promise of that kind ever made,
the only relinquishment of that sort ever achieved and that she will
retain only what foreign corporations have all over China unfor-
tunately but as a matter of fact the right to run the railroad and
the right to work the mines under the usual conditions of Chinese
sovereignty and as economic concessionaires, with no political rights
or military power of any kind. It is really an emancipation of China,
so far as that Province is concerned, from what is imposed upon her
by other nations in other Provinces equally rich and equally impor-
tant to the independence of China herself. So that inside the league
of nations we now have a foothold by which we can play the friend
to China.
And the alternative ? If you insist upon cutting out the Shantung
arrangement, that merely severs us from the treaty. It does not give
Shantung back to China. The only Avay you can give Shantung back
to China is by arms in your hands, tinned ships and armed men, sent
against Japan and France and Great Britain. A fratricidal strife,
in view of what we have gone through! We have just redeemed
France. We can not with arms in our hands insist that France
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 341
break a covenant, however ill judged, however unjust; we can not
as her brothers in arms commit anv such atrocious act against the
*/
fraternity of free people. So much for Shantung. Nobody can get
that provision out of that treaty and do China any service whatever,
and all such professions of friendship for China are empty noise,
for the gentlemen who make those professions must know that what
they propose will be not of the slightest service to her.
That is the only point of serious criticism with regard to the sub-
stance of the treaty. All the rest refers to the covenant of the
league of nations. With regard to that, my fellow citizens, I have
this to say: Without the covenant of the league of nations that
treaty can not be executed. Without the adherence of the United
States to that covenant, the covenant can not be made effective. To
state it another way, the maintenance of the peace of the world and
the execution of the treaty depend upon the whole-hearted partici-
pation of the people of the United States. I am not stating it as a
matter of power. I am not stating it with the thought that the
United States has greater material wealth and greater physical
power than any other nation. The point that I want you to get is
a very profound point; the point is that the United States is the
onlv nation of the world that has sufficient moral force with the
*/
rest of the world. It is the only nation which has proved its dis-
interestedness. It is the only nation which is not suspected by the
other nations of the world of ulterior purposes. There is not a Prov-
ince in Europe in which American troops would not at this moment
be welcomed with open arms, because the population would know that
they had come as friends and would go so soon as their errand was
fulfilled. 1 have had delegations come to me, delegations from coun-
tries where disorder made the presence of troops necessary, and
beg me to order American troops there. They said, “We trust them;
we want them. They are our friends.” And all the world, provided
we do not betray them by rejecting this treaty, will continue to re-
gard us as their friends and follow us as their friends and serve us
as their friends. It is the noblest opportunity ever offered to a
great people, and we will not turn away from it.
We are coming now to the grapple, because one question at a time,
is being cleared away. We are presently going to have a show-down,
a show-down on a very definite issue, and I want to bring your minds
to that definite issue. A number of objections have been made to the
covenant of the league of nations, but they have been disposed of in
candid minds. The first was the question whether we could withdraw
when we pleased. That is no longer a question in the mind of anybody
who has studied the language and real meaning of the covenant. We
can withdraw, upon two years’ notice, when we please. I state that
with absolutely no qualification. Then there was the Question as to
342 ADDKESSES OF PEESIDENT WILSON.
whether it interfered with self-determination ; that is to say, whether
there was anything in the guarantee of article 10 about terri-
torial integrity and political independence which would interfere
with the assertion of the right of great populations anywhere to
change their governments, to throw off the yoke of sovereignties
which they did not desire to live under. There is absolutely no such
restraint. I was present and can testify that when article 10 was de-
bated the most significant words in it were the words “against external
aggression.” We do not guarantee any government against anything
that may happen within its own borders or within its own sovereignty.
We merely say that we will not impair its territorial integrity or
interfere with its political independence, and we will not countenance
other nations outside of it making prey of it in the one way or the
other. Every man who sat around that table, and at the table where
the conference on the league of nations sat there were 14 free peoples
represented, believed in the sacred right of self-determination, \vould
not have dared to go back and face his own people if he had done or
said anything that stood in the way of it. That is out of the way.
There was some doubt as to whether the Monroe doctrine was properly
recognized, though I do not see how anybody who could read the
English language could have raised the doubt. The covenant says
that nothing contained in it shall be construed as affecting the validity
of the Monroe doctrine, so that by a sudden turn in the whole judg-
ment of the world the Monroe doctrine was accepted by all the great
powers of the world. I know what their first impressions were about
it. I know the history of their change of mind, and I know the hearti-
ness and unanimity of the conclusion. Nothing can henceforth em-
barrass the policy of the United States in applying the Monroe doc-
trine according to her own judgment. But there was apprehension
that some kind of a supergovernment had been set up which could
some day interfere in our domestic affairs, say that our immigration
laws were too rigorous and wrong; that our laws of naturalization
were too strict and severe ; that our tariff policy did not suit the rest
of the world. The covenant expressly excludes interference with
domestic questions, expressly states that it shall not be the right of an}^
authority of the league to interfere in matters of that sort. That
matter is cleared away by everybody who can understand the clauses
in question.
There is another matter in that connection I want to speak of.
The constitution of the league of nations is not often enough ex-
plained. It is made up of two bodies. One body, which is a com-
paratively large body, is called the assembly. The assembly is not
an originative body. The assembly is, so to say, the court of the
public opinion of the world. It is where you can broach questions,
but not decide them. It is where you can debate anything that
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 343
affects the peace of the world, but not determine upon a course of
action upon anything that affects the peace of the world. The whole
direction of the action of the league is vested in another body known
as the council, and nothing in the form of an active measure, no policy,
no recommendation with regard to the action of the governments
composing the league can proceed except upon a unanimous vote of
the council. Mark } T OU, a unanimous vote of the council. In brief,
inasmuch as the United States of America is to be a permanent mem-
ber of the council of the league, the league can take no step what-
ever without the consent of the United States of America. My
fellow citizens, think of the significance of that in view of the de-
bates you have been listening to. There is not a single active step
that the league can take unless we vote aye. The whole matter is, in
that negative sense, in the ability to stop any action, in our hands.
I am sometimes inclined to think that that weakens the league, that
it has not freedom of action enough, notwithstanding that I share
with all of my fellow countrymen a very great jealousy with regard
to setting up any power that could tell us to do anything, but no
such power is set up. Whenever a question of any kind with regard
to active policy and there are only three or four of them is re-
ferred to the assembly for its vote, its vote in the affirmative must
include the representatives of all the nations which are represented
on the council. In the assembly, as in the council, any single nation
that is a member of the council has a veto upon active conclusions.
That is my comment upon what you have been told about Great
Britain having six votes and our having one. I am perfectly content
with the arrangement, since our one offsets the British six. I do
not want to be a repeater ; if my one vote goes, I do not want to re-
peat it five times.
And is it not just that in this debating body, from which without the
unanimous concurrence of the council no active proceeding can origi-
nate, that these votes should have been given to the self-governing
powers of the British Empire? I am ready to maintain that posi-
tion. Is it not just that those stout little Republics out in the Pacific, of
New Zealand and Australia, should be able to stand up in the councils
of the world and say something? Do you not know how Australia
has led the free peoples of the world in many matters that have led to
social and industrial reform? It is one of the most enlightened com-
munities in the world and absolutely free to choose its own Avay of
life independent of the British authority, except in matters of foreign
relationship. Do you not think that it is natural that that stout
little body of men whom we so long watched with admiration in their
contest with the British Crown in South Africa should have the right
to stand up and talk before the world? They talked once with their
arms, and, if I may judge by my contact with them, they can talk
344 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
with their minds. They know what the interests of South Africa are,
and they are independent in their control of the interests of South
Africa. Two of the most impressive and influential men I met in
Paris were representatives of South Africa, both of them members
of the British peace delegation in Paris, and yet both of them generals
who had made British generals take notice through many months of
their power to fight the men whom Great Britain had fought and
beaten and felt obliged to hand over their own government to, and
say, ” It is yours and not ours.” They were men who spoke counsel,
who spoke frank counsel. And take our neighbor on the north do
you not think Canada is entitled to a speaking part? I have pointed
“ait to you that her voting part is offset, but do you not think she is
entitled to a speaking part ? Do you not think that that fine dominion
has been a very good neighbor? Do you not think she is a good deal
more like the United States than she is like Great Britain ( Do yon
not feel that probably you think alike? The only other vote given
to the British Empire is given to that hitherto voiceless mass of hu-
manity that lives in that region of romance and pity that we know as
India. I am willing that India should stand up in the councils of the
world and say something. I am willing that speaking parts should be
assigned to these self-governing, self-respecting, energetic portions of
the great body of humanity.
I take leave to say that the deck is cleared of these bugaboos. We
can get out if we want to. I am not interested in getting out. I am
interested in getting on. But we can get out. The door is not locked.
You can sit on the edge of your chair and scuttle any time you want
to. There are so many who are interested first of all in knowing
that they are not in for anything that can possibly impose anything
on them. Well, we are not in for anything that we do not want to
continue to carry. We can help in the matters of self-determination,
as we never helped before. The six votes of the British Empire are
offset by our own, if we choose to offset them. I dare say we shall
often agree with them; but if we do not, they can not do anything
that we do not consent to. The Monroe doctrine is taken care of.
There is no danger of interference with domestic questions.
Well, what remains? Xothing except article 10, and that is the
heart of the whole covenant. Anybody who proposes to cut out
article 10 proposes to cut all the supports from under the peace and
security of the world, and we must face the question in that light;
we must draw the issue as sharply as that ; we must see it through as
distinctly as that. Let me repeat article 10. I do not know that I
can do it literally, but I can come very near. Under article 10 every
member of the league engages to respect and preserve as against
external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political
independence of the other members of the league. That cuts at the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 345
taproot of war. The wars of the past have been leveled against the
liberties of peoples and territories of those who could not defend
them, and if you do not cut at that taproot that upas tree is going to
grow again; and I tell you my fellow countrymen, that if you do
not cut it up now it will be harder to cut it up next time. The next
time will come ; it will come while this generation is living, and the
children that crowd about our car as AVC move from station to station
will be sacrificed upon the altar of that war. It will be the last war.
Humanity will never suffer another, if humanity survives. My fellow
countrymen, do you realize that at the end of the war that has just
closed new instruments of destruction had been invented and were
about to be used that exceeded in terrible force, and destructive
power any that had been used before in this war? You have heard
with wonder of those great cannon from which the Germans sent
shells 70 miles into Paris. Just before the war closed shells had been
invented that could be made to steer themselves and carry immense
bodies of explosives a hundred miles into the interior of countries,
no matter how great the serried ranks of their soldiers were at the
border. This war will be child’s play as compared with another war.
You have got to cut the root of that upas tree now or betray all
future generations.
And we can not without our vote in the council, even in support
of article 10, be drawn into wars that we do not wish to be drawn
into. The second sentence of article 10 is that the council shall
advise as to the method of fulfilling this guaranty, that the council
which must vote by unanimous vote, must advise can not direct-
what is to be done for the maintenance of the honor of its members
and for the maintenance of the peace of the world. Is there any-
thing that can frighten a man or a woman or a child, with just
thought or red blood, in those provisions ? And yet listen. I under-
stand that this reservation is under consideration. I ask your very
attentive ear.
The United Slates assumes no obligation under the provisions of article 10
to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other
country or to interfere in controversies between other nations, whether mem-
bers of the league or not, or to employ the military and naval forces of the
United States under any article of the treaty for any purpose, unless in any
particular case the Congress, which under the Constitution has the sole power
to declare war or authorize the employment of the military and naval forces
of the United States, shall by act or joint resolution so declare.
In other words, my fellow citizens, what this proposes is this:
That we should make no general promise, but leave the nations as-
sociated with us to guess in each instance what we were going to
consider ourselves bound to do and what we were not going to con-
sider ourselves bound to do. It is as if you said, ” We will not join
346 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
the league definitely, but we will join it occasionally. We will not
promise anything, but from time to time we may cooperate. We
will not assume any obligations.” Observe, 1113^ fellow citizens, as I
have repeatedly said to you and can not say too often, the council of
the league can not oblige us to take military action without the con-
sent of Congress. There is no possibility of that. But this reserva-
tion proposes that we should not acknowledge any moral obligation
in the matter ; that we should stand off and say, u We will see, from
time to time ; consult us when you get into trouble, and then we will
have a debate, and after two or three months we will tell you what
we are going to do.” The thing is unworthy and ridiculous, and I
want to say distinctly that, as I read this, it would change the entire
meaning of the treaty and exempt the United States from all respon-
sibility for the preservation of peace. It means the rejection of the
treaty, my fellow countrymen, nothing less. It means that the
United States would take from under the structure its very founda-
tions and support.
I happen to know that there are some men in favor of that reserva-
tion who do not in the least degree realize its meaning, men whom I
greatly respect, men who have just as much ardor to carry out the
promises of the United States as I have, and I am not indicting their
purpose, but I am calling their attention to the fact that if any such
reservation as that should be adopted I would be obliged as the Ex-
ecutive of the United States to regard it as a rejection of the treaty.
I ask them, therefore, to consider this matter very carefully, for I
want you to realize, and I hope they realize, what the rejection of
the treaty means two isolated and suspected people, the people of
Germany and the people of the United States. Germany is not ad-
mitted to respectable company yet. She is not permitted to enter
the league until such time as she shall have proved to the satisfaction
of the world that her change of government and change of heart is
real and permanent. Then she can be admitted. Now, her dearest
desire, feeling her isolation, knowing all the consequences that would
result, economic and social, is to see the United States also cut off
its association with the gallant peoples Avith whom side by side we
fought this war. I am not making this statement by conjecture.
We get it directly from the mouths of authoritative persons in Ger-
many that their dearest hope is that America will now accomplish
by the rejection of the treaty what Germany was not able to ac-
complish by her arms. She tried to separate us from the rest of the
world. She tried to antagonize the rest of the world against the
United States, and she failed so long as American armies were in
the field. Shall she succeed now, when only American voters are
in the field? The issue is final. We can not avoid it. We have
got to make it now, and, once made, there can be no turning back.
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 347
We either go in with the other free peoples of the world to guaran-
tee the peace of the world now, or we stay out and on some dark
and disastrous day we seek admission to the league of nations along
with Germany. The rejection of this treaty, my fellow citizens,
means the necessity of negotiating a separate treaty with Germany.
That separate treaty between Germany and the United States could
not alter any sentence of this treaty. It could not affect the validity
of any sentence of this treaty. It would simply be the Government
of the United States going, hat in hand, to the assembly at Weimar
and saying, ” May it please you, we have dissociated ourselves from
those who were your enemies; we have come to you asking if you
will consent to terms of amity and peace which will dissociate us,
both of us, from the comradeship of arms and liberty.” There is
no other interpretation. There is no other issue. That is the issue,
and every American must face it.
But I talk, my fellow citizens, as if I doubted what the decision
would be. I happen to have been born and bred in America. There
is not anything in me that is not American. I dare say that I inherit
a certain stubbornness from an ancient stock from which I am re-
motely derived; but, then, all of you are derived, more or less re-
motely, from other stocks. You remember the exclamation of the
Irishman who said, when he was called a foreigner, ” You say we are
furriners: I’d like to know who sittled this kintrv but furriners!”
v
We were all foreigners once, but we have undergone a climatic change,
and the marvel of America is its solidarity, is its homogeneity, in the
midst of its variety. The marvel about America is that, no matter
what a man’s stock and origin, you can always tell that he is an Ameri-
can the minute he begins to express an opinion. He may look same-
times like a foreigner, but tap him and you will find that the contents
is American. Having been bred in that way myself, I do not have to
conjecture what the judgments of America are going to be about a
great question like this. I know beforehand, and I am only sorry for
the men who do not know. If I did not know the law of custom and
of honor against betting on a certainty, I would like to bet with them.
But it would not be fair ; I would be taking advantage of them.
If I may close with a word, not of jest, but of solemnity, I want to
say, my fellow citizens, that there can be no exaggerating the impor-
tance of this peace and the importance of its immediate ratification,
because the world will not and can not settle down to normal condi-
tions, either in America or anywhere else, until it knows what the
future is going to be. If it must know that the future is going to be
one of disorder and of rivalry and of the old contests of power, let it
know it at once, so it can make its arrangements and its calculations
and lay its taxes and recruit its armies and build its ships for the next
348 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
great fight; but if, on the other hand, it can be told that it will have
an insurance against war, that a great body of pOAverful nations has
entered into a solemn covenant to substitute arbitration and discussion
for war, for that is the heart of the covenant, that all the great fighting
peoples of the world haA T e engaged to forego war and substitute arbi-
tration and discussion if it can know that the minds will be quieted r
the disorders will presently cease ; then men will know that we have
the opportunity to do that great, that transcendent duty that lies
ahead of us, sit quietly down in council chambers and work out the
proper reforms of our own industrial and economic life. They
have got to be worked out. If this treaty is not ratified, they will be
worked out in disorder throughout the world. I am not now inti-
mating, for I do not think, that disorder will shake the foundations
of our own affairs, but it will shake the foundations of the world, and
these inevitable, indispensable reforms will be worked out amongst
disorder and suspicion and hatred and violence, whereas if we can
have the healing influences of assured peace they Avill be worked out
in amit}^ and quiet and by the judgment of men rather than by the
passions of men. God send that day may come, and come soon !
Above all, may God grant that it may come under the leadership of
America !
#ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, DENVER, COLO.
SEPTEMBER 25, 1919.
Mr. Chairman, my fellow countrymen, I always feel a thrill of
pride in standing before a great company of my fellow citizens to
speak for this great document which we shall always know as the
treaty of Versailles. I am proud to speak for it, because for the
first time in the history of international consultation men have
turned away from the ambitions of governments and have sought to
advance the fortunes of peoples. They have turned away from all
those older plans of domination and sought to lay anew the founda-
tions for the liberty of mankind. I say without hesitation that this
is a great document of liberation. It is a new charter for the liberty
of men.
As we have advanced from week to week and from month to
month in the debate of this great document, I think a great many
things that we talked about at first have cleared away. A great
many difficulties which were at first discovered, or which some fan-
cied that they had discovered, have been removed. The center and
lieart of this document is that great instrument which is placed at the
beginning of it, the covenant of the league of nations. I think every-
body now understands that you can not work this treaty without that
covenant. Everybody certainly understands that you have no in-
surance for the continuance of this settlement without the covenant
of the league of nations, and you will notice that, with the single
exception of the provision with regard to the transfer of the German
rights in Shantung in China to Japan, practically nothing in the
body of the treaty has seemed to constitute any great obstacle to its
adoption. All the controversy, all the talk, has centered on the
league of nations, and I am glad to see the issue center ; I am glad to
see the issue clearly drawn, for now we have to decide, Shall we
stand by the settlements of liberty, or shall we not?
I want, just by way of introduction and clarification, to point out
what is not often enough explained to audiences in this country, the
actual constitution of the league of nations. It is very simply con-
stituted. It consists of two bodies, a council and an assembly. The
assembly is the numerous body. In it every self-governing State
that is a member of the league is represented, and not only the self-
349
350 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
governing independent States, but the self-governing colonies and
dominions, such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, and
South Africa, are all represented in the assembly. It is in the
assembly that the combined representation of the several parts of the
British Empire are assigned six votes, and you are constantly being
told that Great Britain has six votes and we have one. I want you
to appreciate the full significance of that. They have six votes in
the assembly, and the assembly does not vote. That bubble is ex-
ploded. There are several matters in which the vote of the assembly
must cooperate with the vote of the council, but in every such case
an unanimous vote of the council is necessary, and, inasmuch- as the
United States is a permanent member of the council, her vote is
necessary to every active policy of the league. Therefore the single
vote of the United States always counts six, so far as the votes of
the British Empire are concerned, and if it is a mere question of
pride, I would rather be one and count six than six and count six.
That affords emphasis to the point I wish you to keep distinctly
in mind with regard to reservations and all the qualifications of rati-
fication which are being discussed. No active policy can be under-
taken by the league without the assenting vote of the United States.
I can not understand the anxiety of some gentlemen for fear some-
thing is going to be put over on them. I can not understand why,
having read the covenant of the league and examined its constitution,
they are not satisfied with the fact that every active policy of the
league must be concurred in by a unanimous vote of the council,
which means that the affirmative vote of the United States is in every
instance necessary. That being the case, it becomes sheer nonsense,
my fellow citizens, to talk about a supergovernment being set up over
the United States ; it becomes sheer nonsense to say that any author-
ity is constituted which can order our armies to other parts of the
world, which can interfere with our domestic questions, which can
direct our international policy even in any matter in which we do
not consent to be directed. We would be under our own direction
just as much under the covenant of the league of nations as we are
now. Of course, I do not mean to say that we do not, so to say,
pool our moral issues. We do that. In acquiescing in the covenant
of the league we do adopt, and we should adopt, certain fundamental
moral principles of right and justice, which, I dare say, we do not
need to promise to live up to, but which we are certainly proud to
promise to live up to. We are not turning any corner. We always
have lived up to them, and w r e do not intend to change our course
of action or our standards of action. And it is American standards
of action that are set up in the covenant of the league of nations.
What is the covenant for? To hear most of the debate, you would
) /
think that it was an ingenious contrivan<*e for a subtle interference
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 351
with the affairs of the United States. On the contrary, it is one of
the most solemn covenants ever entered into by all the great lighting
powers of the world that they never will resort to Avar agahi with-
out first having either submitted the question at issue to arbitra-
tion and undertaken to abide by the verdict of the arbitrators or
submitted it to discussion by the council of the league of nations, lay-
ing all the documents, all the facts, before that council, consenting
that that council should lay all those documents and all those facts
before the world ; they agree to allow six months for that discussion,
and, even if they are not satisfied with the opinion, for it is only an
opinion in that case, rendered by the council, they agree not to go
to war for three months after the opinion has been rendered. There
you have nine months’ submission to the moral judgment of the
world. In my judgment, that is an almost complete assurance
against war. If any such covenant as that had existed in 1914, Ger-
many never would have gone to war. The one thing that Germany
could not afford to do, and knew that she could not afford to do,
was to submit her case to the public opinion of the world. We have
now abundant proof of what would have happened, because it was
the moral judgment of the world that combined the world against
Germany. We were a long time, my fellow citizens, seeing that we
belonged in the Avar, but just so soon as the real issues of it became
apparent we knew that we belonged here. And Ave did an unpre-
cedented thing. We threw the whole poAver of a great nation into
a quarrel with the origination of which it had nothing to do. I
think there is nothing that appeals to the imagination more in the
history of men than those convoyed fleets crossing the ocean Avith
millions of American soldiers aboard those crusaders, those men
Avho loved liberty enough to leave their homes and fight for it upon
distant fields of battle, those men who swung out into the open as if
in fulfillment of the long prophecy of American history. There is
nothing finer in the records of public action than the united spirit
of the American people behind this great enterprise.
I ask your close observation to current events, my fellow country-
men. Out of doors, that is to say, that out of legislative halls, there is
no organized opposition to this treaty except among the people who
tried to defeat the purpose of this GoA r ernment in the Avar. Hyphens
are the knives that are being stuck into this document. The issue
is clearly draAvn. Inasmuch as we are masters of our own partici-
pation in the action of the league of nations, why do we need reser-
vations? If we can not be obliged to do anything that we do not
ourselA T es vote to do, Avhy qualify our acceptance of a perfectly safe
agreement? There can be only one object, my fellow citizens, and
that is to give the United States a standing of exceptional advan-
352 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
tage in the league, to exempt it from obligations which the other
members assume, or to put a special interpretation upon the duties
of the United States under the covenant which interpretation is not
applied to the duties of other members of the league under the
covenant. I, for my part, say that it is unworthy of the United
States to ask any special privilege of that kind. I am for going into
a body of equals or staying out. That is the very principle we have
been fighting for and have been proud to fight for, that the rights
of a weak nation were just as sacred as the rights of a great nation.
That is what this treaty was drawn to establish. You must not think
of this treaty alone. The lines of it are being run out into the Aus-
trian treaty and the Hungarian treaty and the Bulgarian treaty and
the Turkish treaty, and in every one of them the principle is this,
to deliver peoples who have been living under sovereignties that
Avere alien and unwelcome from the bondage under which they have
lived, to turn over to them their own territory, to adopt the Ameri-
can principle that all just government is derived from the consent
of the governed. All down through the center of Europe and into
the heart of Asia has gone this process of liberation, taking alien
yokes off the necks of such peoples and vindicating the American
principle that you can not impose upon anybody a sovereignty that
is not of its own choice. And if the results of this great liberation
are not guaranteed, then they will fall down like a house of cards.
What was the program of Pan Germanism? You know the for-
mula from Bremen to Bagdad. Verv well : that is the very stretch
c^ / u
of country over which these people have been liberated. New States,
one after another, have been set up by the action of the conference
at Paris all along the route that was intended to be the route of Ger-
man dominion, and if we now merely set them up and leave them
in their weakness to take care of themselves, then Germans can at
their leisure, by intriguing, by every subtle process of which they
are master, accomplish what they could not accomplish by arms,
and we will have abandoned the people whom we redeemed. The
thing is inconceivable. The thing is impossible.
We therefore have come to the straight-cut line adoption or re-
jection. Qualified adoption is not adoption. It is perfectly legiti-
mate, I admit, to say in what sense we understand certain articles.
They are all perfectly obvious in meaning, so far as I can see, but if
you want to make the obvious more obvious I do not see any objec-
tion to that; if by the multiplication of words you can make simple
words speak their meaning more distinctly, I think that that is an
interesting rhetorical exercise, but nothing more. Qualification
means asking special exemptions and privileges for the United States.
We can not ask that. We must either go in or stay out. Now, if
we go in what do we get ? I am not now confining my view to our-
ADDEESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 353
selves. America has shown the world that she does not stop to cal-
culate the lower sort of advantage and disadvantage ; that she goes in
upon a high plane of principle, and is willing to serve mankind while
she is serving herself. What we gain in this treaty is, first of all,
the substitution of arbitration and discussion for war. If you got
nothing else, it is worth the whole game to get that. My fellow
citizens, we fought this war in order that there should not be another
like it. I am under bonds, I am under bonds to my fellow citizens
of every sort, and I am particularly under bonds to the mothers of
this country and to the wives of this country and to the sweethearts
that I will do everything in my power to see to it that their sons
and husbands and sweethearts never have to make that supereme sacri-
fice again. And when I passed your beautiful Capitol Square just
now and saw thousands of children there to greet me, I felt a lump
in my throat. These are the little people that I am arguing for.
These are my clients, these lads coming on and these girls that,
staying at home, would suffer more than the lads who died on the
battle field, for it is the tears at home that are more bitter than the
agony upon the field. I dare not turn away from the straight path
I have set myself to redeem this promise that I have made.
If you say, ” What is there? An absolute insurance against war? ‘
I say, ” Certainly not.” Nobody can give you an insurance against
human passion, but if you can get a little insurance against an infinite
catastrophe, is it not better than getting none at all ? Let us assume
that it is only 25 per cent insurance against war. Can any humane
man reject that insurance? Let us suppose that it is 50 per cent in-
surance against war. Why, my friends, my calm judgment is that
it is 99 per cent insurance against war. That is what I went over to
Europe to get, and that is what I got, and that is what I have brought
back.
Stop for a moment to think about the next war, if there should be
one. I do not hesitate to say that the war we have just been through,
though it was shot through with terror of every kind, is not to be
compared with the war we would have to face next time. There
were destructive gases, there were methods of explosive destruction
unheard of even during this war, which were just ready for use when
the war ended great projectiles that guided themselves and shot into
the heavens went for a hundred miles and more and then burst tons
of explosives upon helpless cities, something to which the guns with
which the Germans bombarded Paris from a distance were not com-
parable. What the Germans used were toys as compared with what
would be used in the next war. Ask any soldier if he wants to go
through a hell like that again. The soldiers know what the next war
would be. They know what the inventions were that were iust about
141677 S. Doc. 120. 6fV-1 08
354 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
to be used for the absolute destruction of mankind. I am for anv
kind of insurance against a barbaric reversal of civilization.
And by consequence, the adoption of the treaty means disarma-
ment. Think of the economic burden and the restraint of liberty
in the development of professional and mechanic life that resulted
from the maintenance of great armies, not only in Germany but in
France and in Italy end, to some extent, in Great Britain. If the
United States should stand off from this thing we would have to
have the biggest army in the world. There would be nobody else
that cared for our fortunes. We would have to look out for our-
selves, and when I hear gentlemen say, ” Yes: that is what we want
to do, we want to be independent and look out for ourselves,” I say,
” Well, then, consult your fellow citizens. There will have to be
universal conscription. There will have to be taxes such as even
yet we have not seen. There will have to be a concentration of
authority in the Government capable of using this terrible instru-
ment. You can not conduct a war or command an army by a de-
bating society. You can not determine in community centers what
the command of the Commander in Chief is going to be; you will
have to have a staff like the German staff, and you will have to
center in the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy the right
to take instant action for the protection of the Nation.” America
will never consent to any such thing.
Then, if we have this great treaty, we have what the world never
had before a court of public opinion of the world. I do not think
that you can exaggerate the significance of that, my fellow country-
men. International law up to this time has been the most singular
code of manners. You could not mention to any other Government
anything that concerned it unless you could prove that your own
interests were immediately involved. Unless you could prove that
it was your own material interest that was involved, it was impolite
to speak of it. There might be something brooding that threatened
the peace of the world, and you could not speak of it unless the
interests of the United States were involved. I am going to allude
for a moment to a matter so interesting that I wish I could develop
it. This cession in Shantung Province in China, which China gave
to Germany in 1898, was an iniquitous thing at the outset; but our
great President, William McKinley, and our great Secretary of
State, John Hay, did not protest against it. It was an outrageous
invasion of the rights of China. They not only did not protest, but
all they asked was that Germany, after she got what did not belong
to her, would please not close the doors against the trade of the
United States. I am not saying this by way of criticism. That is
all that under international manners they had a right to ask. Inter-
national law has been the principle of minding your own business,
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 355
particularly when something outrageous was up; and article 11 of
the league of nations makes matters of that sort everybody’s busi-
ness. Under article 11 any member of the league can at any time
call attention to anything, anywhere, which is likely to affect the
peace of the world or the good understanding between nations upon
which the peace of the world depends. The littlest nation, along
with the biggest Panama, to take one of our own near neighbors
can stand up and challenge the right of any nation in the world to do
a thing which threatens the peace of the world. It does not have to
be a big nation to do it.
The voice of the world is at last released. The conscience of the
world is at last given a forum, and the rights of men not liberated
under this treaty are given a place where they can be heard. If
there are nations which wish to exercise the power of self-determi-
nation but are not liberated by this treaty, they can come into that
great forum, they can point out how their demands affect the peace
and quiet of the world, they can point out how their demands affect
the good understanding between nations. There is a forum here for
the rights of mankind which was never before dreamed of, and in
that forum any representative has the right to speak his full mind.
If that is not a wholesome moral clearing house, I wish somebody
would suggest a better. It is just a moral clearing house that the
world needs. There have been a great many things unspoken that
ought to have been spoken. There have been voiceless multitudes
all over the world who had nobody to speak for them in any court of
conscience anywhere, and now they are given spokesmen. All for-
ward-looking men may now see their way to the method in which
they may help forward the real processes of civilization.
There is another matter which I am sure will interest a great many
in sound of my voice. If we do not have this treaty of peace, labor
will continue to be regarded, not as it ought to fre regarded, a human
function, but as a purchasable commodity throughout the world.
There is inserted in this great treaty a Magna Charta of labor.
There is set up here a means of periodic examination of the condi-
tions of labor all over the world, particularly the labor of women
and children and those who have not the physical force to handle
some of the burdens that are put upon them, and it is made the duty
of the nations of the world constantly to study the methods of rais-
ing the levels of human labor. You know what that means. We
have not done our full duty with regard to the amelioration and
betterment of the conditions of labor in America, but the conditions
here are better than they are anywhere else. We now have an op-
portunity to exercise our full influence to raise the levels everywhere
to the levels which we have tried to maintain in this country, and
then to take them higher into the fields of that sort of association
356 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
between those who employ labor and those who execute it as will
make it a real human relationship and not a mere commercial rela-
tionship. The heart of the world has never got into this business
yet. The conscience of the world has never been released along lines
of action in regard to the improvement of the conditions of labor.
And more than that, until w T e find such methods as I have been allud-
ing to, we are never releasing the real energies of this people. Men
are not going to work and produce what they would produce if they
feel that they are not justly treated. If you want to realize the real
wealth of this country, then bring about the human relationship be-
tween employers and employees which will make them colaborers
and partners and fellow workers. All of that is open to us through
the instrumentality of the league of nations under this great treaty,
and still we debat^ whether we should ratify it or not.
There is a great deal of pleasure in talking, I admit ; and some men,
even some men I do not agree with, I admit, talk very well, indeed.
It is a pleasure to hear them when they are honest; it is a pleasure
to be instructed by them when they know what they are talking about.
But we have reached the stage now when all the things that needed
to be debated have been debated and all the doubts are cleared up.
They are cleared up just as thoroughly as the English language can
clear them. The people of the United States are no longer susceptible
to being misled as to what is in this covenant, and they now have an
exceedingly interesting choice to make. I have said it a great many
times, my fellow countrymen, but I must say it again, because it is
a pleasant thing to testify about, the fundamental thing that I dis-
covered on the other side of the water was that all the great peoples
of the world are looking to America for leadership. There can be
no mistaking that. The evidences were too overwhelming, the evi-
dences were too profoundly significant, because what underlay them
was this : We are the only Nation which so far has not laid itself open
to suspicion of ulterior motives. We are the only Nation which has
not made it evident that when we go to anybody’s assistance we mean
to stay there longer than we are welcome. Day after day I received
delegations in Paris asking what ? Credits from the United States ?
No. Merchandise from the United States? Yes, if possible; but
that was not the chief point. They were asking that I send American
troops to take the place of other troops, because they said, ” Our
people will welcome them with open arms as friends who have come
for their sakes and not for anything that America can possibly in the
future have in mind.” What an extraordinary tribute to the prin-
ciples of the United States ! What an extraordinary tribute to the
sincerity of the people of the United States ! I never was so proud in
my life as when these evidences began to accumulate. I had been
proud always of being an American, but I never before realized fully
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 357
what it meant. It meant to stand at the front of the moral forces
of the world.
My fellow citizens. I think we must come to sober and immediate
\j
conclusions. There is no turning aside from the straight line. We
must now either accept this arrangement or reject it. If we accept it,
there is no danger either to our safety or to our honor. If w r e reject
it, we will meet with suspicion, with distrust, with dislike, with dis-
illusionment everywhere in the world. This treaty has to be carried
out. In order to carry this treaty out, it is necessary to reconstruct
Europe economically and industrially. If we do not take part in
that reconstruction, we will be shut out from it, and by consequence
the markets of Europe will be shut to us. The combinations of
European Governments can be formed to exclude us wherever it is
possible to .exclude us ; and if you want to come to the hard and ugly
basis of material interest, the United States will everywhere trade at
an overwhelming disadvantage just so soon as we have forfeited, and
deserve to forfeit, the confidence of the world. I ask merchants,
“Who are good customers, friends or enemies? Who are good
customers, those who open their doors to you, or those who have
made some private arrangement elsewhere which makes it impos-
sible for them to trade- with you? ‘ I have heard Europe spoken of
as bankrupt. There may be great difficulties in paying the public
debts, but there are going to be no insuperable difficulties to rebegin-
ning the economic and industrial life of Europe. The men are there,
the materials are there, the energy is there, and the hope is there.
The nations are not crushed. They are ready for the great enter-
prises of the future, and it is for us to choose whether we will enter
those great enterprises upon a footing of advantage and of honor
or upon a footing of disadvantage and distrust.
Therefore, from every point of view, I challenge the opponents of
this treaty to show cause why it should not be ratified. I challenge
them to show cause why there should be any hesitation in ratifying
it. I do not understand delays. I do not understand covert processes
of opposition. It is time that we knew where we shall stand, for ob-
serve, my fellow citizens, the negotiation of treaties rests with the
Executive of the United States. When the Senate has acted, it will
be for me to determine whether its action constitutes an adoption or
a rejection, and I beg the gentlemen who are responsible for the
action of the United States Senate to make it perfectly clear whether
it is an adoption or a rejection. I do not wish to draw doubtful con-
clusions. I do not wish to do injustice to the process of any honest
mind. But when that treaty is acted upon I must know whether it
means that we have ratified it or rejected it, and I feel confident that
I am speaking for the people of the United States.
358 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
When it is around election time, my fellow citizens, a man ought
to be doubtful of what the meaning of his intercourse with his fel-
low citizens is, because it is easy for applause to go to the head ; it is
easy for applause to seem to men more than it does; it is easy for
the assurances of individual support to be .given a wider implication
than can properly be given to them. I thank God that on this oc-
casion the whole issue has nothing to do with me. I did not carry
any purpose of my own to Paris. I did not carry any purpose that
I did not know from the action of public opinion in the United
States was the purpose of the United States. It was not the purpose
of a party. It was not the purpose of any section of our fellow
citizens. It was a purpose subscribed to by American public opin-
ion and formally adopted by the Governments with which we had
to deal on the other side, and I came back with a document embody-
ing the principles insisted upon at the outset and carried by the
American delegation to Paris. Therefore I think that I have the
right to say that I have the support of the people of the United
States. The issue is so big that it transcends all party and personal
things. I was a spokesman; I was an instrument. I did not speak
any privately conceived idea of my own. I had merely tried to ab-
sorb the influences of public opinion in the United States, and that,
my fellow citizens, is the function of all of us. We ought not in
a great crisis like this to follow any private opinion; we ought not
to follow any private purpose; we ought, above all things, to forget
that we are ever divided into parties when we vote. We are all
democrats I will not insist upon the large ” D ‘ -we are all dem-
ocrats because we believe in a people’s government, and what I am
pleading for is nothing less than a people’s peace.
#ADDRESS AT PUEBLO, COLO.,
SEPTEMBER 25, 1919.
Mr. Chairman and fellow countrymen, it is with a great deal of
genuine ‘pleasure that I find myself in Pueblo, and I feel it a com-
pliment that I should be permitted to be the first speaker in this
beautiful hall. One of the advantages of this hall, as I look about,
is that you are not too far away from me, because there is nothing
so reassuring to men who are trying to express the public sentiment
as getting into real personal contact with their fellow citizens. I
have gained a renewed impression as I have crossed the continent this
time of the homogeneity of this great people to whom we belong.
They come from many stocks, but they are all of one kind. They
come from many origins, but they are all shot through with the same
principles and desire the same righteous and honest things. I have
received a more inspiring impression this time of the public opinion
of the United States than it was ever my privilege to receive before.
The chief pleasure of my trip has been that it has nothing to do
with my personal fortunes, that it has nothing to do with my per-
sonal reputation, that it has nothing to do with anything except
great principles uttered by Americans of all sorts and of all parties
which we are now trying to realize at this crisis of the affairs of the
world. But there have been unpleasant impressions as well as pleas-
ant impressions, my fellow citizens, as I have crossed the continent.
I have perceived more and more that men have been busy creating
an absolutely false impression of what the treaty of peace and the
covenant of the league of nations contain and mean. I find, more-
over, that there is an organized propaganda against the league of
nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same
sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threat-
ened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say
I can not say too often any man who carries a hyphen about with
him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this
Republic whenever he gets ready. If I can catch any man with a
hyphen in this great contest I will know that I have got an enemy
of the Republic. My fellow citizens, it is only certain bodies of for-
359
360 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
eign sympathies, certain bodies of sympathy with foreign nations
that are organized against this great document which the American
representatives have brought back from Paris. Therefore, in order
to clear away the mists, in order to remove the impressions, in order
to check the falsehoods that have clustered around this great subject.
I want to tell you a few very simple things about the treaty and the
covenant.
Do not think of this treaty of peace as merely a settlement with
Germany. It is that. It is a very severe settlement with Germany,
but there is not anything in it that she did not earn. Indeed, she
earned more than she can ever be able to pay for, and the punishment
exacted of her is not a punishment greater than she can bear, and it
is absolutely necessary in order that no other nation may ever plot
such a thing against humanity and civilization. But the treaty is
so much more than that. It is not merely a settlement with Ger^
many; it is a readjustment of those great injustices which underlie
the whole structure of European and Asiatic society. This is only
the first of several treaties. They are all constructed upon the same
plan. The Austrian treaty follows the same lines. The treaty with
Hungary follows the same lines. The treaty with Bulgaria follows
the same lines. The treaty with Turkey, when it is formulated, will
follow the same lines. What are those lines ? They are based upon
the purpose to see that every government dealt with in this great set-
tlement is put in the hands of the people and taken out of the hands
of coteries and of sovereigns who had no right to rule over the people.
It is a people’s treaty, that accomplishes by a great sweep of practical
justice the liberation of men who never could have liberated them-
selves, and the power of the most powerful nations has been devoted
not to their aggrandizement but to the liberation of people whom
they could have put under their control if they had chosen to do so.
Not one foot of territory is demanded by the conquerors, not one
single item of submission to their authority is demanded by them.
The men who sat around that table in Paris knew that the time had
come when the people were no longer going to consent to live under
masters, but Avere going to live the lives that they chose themselves,
to live under such governments as they chose themselves to erect.
That is the fundamental principle of this great settlement.
And we did not stop with that. We added a great international
charter for the rights of labor. Reject this treaty, impair it, and this
is the consequence to the laboring men of the world, that there is no
international tribunal which can bring the moral judgments of the
world to bear upon the great labor questions of the day. AVhat we
need to do with regard to the labor questions of the day, my fellow
countrymen, is to lift them into the light, is to lift them out of the
haze and distraction of passion, of hostility, not into the calm spaces
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 361
where men look at things without passion. The more men you get
into a great discussion the more you exclude passion. Just so soon as
the calm judgment of the world is directed upon the question of jus-
tice to labor, labor is going to have a forum such as it never was sup-
plied with before, and men everywhere are going to see that the
problem of labor is nothing more nor less than the problem of the ele-
vation of humanity. We must see that all the questions which have
disturbed the world, all the questions which have eaten into the con-
fidence of men toward their governments, all the questions which
have disturbed the processes of industry, shall be brought out where
men of all points of view, men of all attitudes of mind, men of all
kinds of experience, may contribute their part to the settlement of the
great questions which we must settle and can not ignore.
At the front of this great treaty is put the covenant of the league
of nations. It will also be at the front of the Austrian treaty and
the Hungarian treaty and the Bulgarian treaty and the treaty with
Turkey. Every one of them will contain the covenant of the league
of nations, because you can not work any of them without the cove-
nant of the league of nations. Unless you get the united, concerted
purpose and power of the great Governments of the world behind
this settlement, it will fall down like a house of cards. There is only
one power to put behind the liberation of mankind, and that is the
power of mankind. It is the power of the united moral forces of
the world, and in the covenant of the league of nations the moral
forces of the world are mobilized. For what purpose? Reflect,
my fellow citizens, that the membership of this great league is going
to include all the great fighting nations of the world, as well as the
weak ones. It is not for the present going to include Germany, but
for the time being Germany is not a great fighting country. All
the nations that have power that can be mobilized are going to be
members of this league, including the United States. And what do
they unite for ? They enter into a solemn promise to one another that
they will never use their power against one another for aggression;
that they never will impair the territorial integrity of a neighbor;
that they never will interfere with the political independence of a
neighbor ; that they will abide b} T the principle that great populations
are entitled to determine their own destiny and that they will not
interfere with that destinv ; and that no matter what differences arise
/ /
amongst them they will never resort to war without first having done
one or other of two things either submitted the matter of con-
troversy to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the
result without question, or submitted it to the consideration of the
council of the league of nations, laying before that council all the
documents, all the facts, agreeing that the council can publish the
documents and the facts to the whole world, agreeing that there shall
362 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
be six months allowed for the mature consideration of those facts
by the council, and agreeing that at the expiration of the six months,
even if they are not then ready to accept the advice of the council
with regard to the settlement of the dispute, they will still not go
to war for another three months. In other words, they consent, no
matter what happens, to submit every matter of difference between
them to the judgment of mankind, and just so certainly as they do
that, my fellow citizens, war will be in the far background, war
will be pushed out of that foreground of terror in which it has
kept the world for generation after generation, and men will know
that there will be a calm time of deliberate counsel. The most
dangerous thing for a bad cause is to expose it to the opinion of the
world. The most certain way that you can prove that a man is
mistaken is by letting all his neighbors know what he thinks, by let-
ting all his neighbors discuss what he thinks, and if he is in the
wrong you will notice that he will stay at home, he will not walk
on the street. He will be afraid of the eyes of his neighbors. He
will be afraid of their judgment of his character. He will know
that his cause is lost unless he can sustain it by the arguments of
right and of justice. The same law that applies to individuals ap-
plies to nations.
But, you say, ” We have heard that we might be at a disadvantage
in the league of nations.” Well, whoever told you that either was
deliberately falsifying or he had not read the covenant of the league
of nations. I leave him the choice. I want to give you a very simple
account of the organization of the league of nations and let you
judge for yourselves. It is a very simple organization. The power
of the league, or rather the activities of the league^lie in two bodies.
There is the council, which consists of one representative from each
of the principal allied and associated powers that is to say, the
United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, along with
four other representatives of smaller powers chosen out of the gen-
eral body of the membership of the league. The council is the source
of every active policy of the league, and no active policy of the
league can be adopted without a unanimous vote of the council.
That is explicitly stated in the covenant itself. Does it not evidently
follow that the league of nations can adopt no policy whatever with-
out the consent of the United States? The affirmative vote of the
representative of the United States is necessary in every case. Now,
you have heard of six votes belonging to the British Empire. Those
six votes are not in the council. They are in the assembly, and the
interesting thing is that the assembly does not vote. I must qualify
that statement a little, but essentially it is absolutely true. In every
matter in which the assembly is given a voice, and there are only
four or five, its vote does not count unless concurred in by the repre-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 363
sentatives of all the nations represented on the council, so that there
is no validity to any vote of the assembly unless in that vote also the
representative of the United States concurs. That one vote of the
United States is as big as the six votes of the British Empire. I am
not jealous for advantage, my fellow citizens, but I think that is a
perfectly safe situation. There is no validity in a vote, either by the
council or the assembly, in which we do not concur. So much for the
statements about the six votes of the British Empire.
Look at it in another aspect. The assembly is the talking body.
The assembly was created in order that anybody that purposed any-
thing wrong should be subjected to the awkward circumstance that
everybody could talk about it. This is the great assembly in which
all the things that are likely to disturb the peace of the world or the
good understanding between nations are to be exposed to the general
view, and I want to ask you if you think it was unjust, unjust to the
United States, that speaking parts should be assigned to the several
portions of the British Empire? Do you think it unjust that there
should be some spokesman in debate for that fine little stout Kepublic
down in the Pacific, New Zealand? Do you think it was unjust that
Australia should be allowed to stand up and take part in the debate-
Australia, from which we have learned some of the most useful pro-
gressive policies of modern time, a little nation only five million in
a great continent, but counting for several times five in its activities
and in its interest in liberal reform? Do you think it unjust that that
little Republic down in South Africa, whose gallant resistance to
being subjected to any outside authority at all we admired for so
many months and whose fortunes we followed with such interest,
should have a speaking part? Great Britain obliged South Africa
to submit to her sovereignty, but she immediately after that felt that
it was convenient and right to hand the whole” self-government of
that- colony over to the very men whom she had beaten. The repre-
sentatives of South Africa in Paris were two of the most distinguished
generals of the Boer Army, two of the realest men I ever met, two men
that could talk sober counsel and wise advice, along with the best
statesmen in Europe. To exclude Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts from
the right to stand up in the parliament of the world and say some-
thing concerning the affairs of mankind would be absurd. And
what about Canada? Is not Canada a good neighbor? I ask you.
Is not Canada more likely to agree with the United States than with
Great Britain ? Canada has a speaking part. And then, for the first
time in the history of the world, that great voiceless multitude, that
throng hundreds of millions strong in India, has a voice, and I want
to testify that some of the wisest and most dignified figures in the
peace conference at Paris came from India, men who seemed to
364 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
carry in their minds an older wisdom than the rest of us had, whose
traditions ran back into so many of the unhappy fortunes of mankind
that they seemed very useful counselors as to how some ray of hope
and some prospect of happiness could be opened to its people. I for
my part have no jealousy whatever of those five speaking parts in the
assembly. Those speaking parts can not translate themselves into five
votes that can in any matter override the voice and purpose of the
United States.
Let us sweep aside all this language of jealousy. Let us be big
enough to know the facts and to welcome the facts, because the facts
are based upon the principle that America has always fought for,
namely, the equality of self-governing peoples, whether they were
big or little not counting men, but counting rights, not counting
representation, but counting the purpose of that representation.
When you hear an opinion quoted you do not count the number of
persons who hold it ; you ask, ” Who said that ? ‘ You weigh opin-
ions, you do not count them, and the beauty of all democracies is
that every voice can be heard, every voice can have its effect, every
voice can contribute to the general judgment that is finally arrived
at. That is the object of democracy;. Let us accept what America
has always fought for, and accept it with pride that America showed
the way and made the proposal. I do not mean that America made
the proposal in this particular instance; I mean that the principle
was an American principle, proposed by America.
When you come to the heart of the covenant, my fellow citizens,
you will find it in article 10, and I am very much interested to know
that the other things have been blown away like bubbles. There is
nothing in the other contentions with regard to the league of na-
tions, but there is something in article 10 that you ought to realize
and ought to accept or reject. Article 10 is the heart of the whole
matter. What is article 10? I never am certain that I can from
memory give a literal repetition of its language, but I am sure that
I can give an exact interpretation of its meaning. Article 10 pro-
vides that every member of the league covenants to respect and
preserve the territorial integrity and existing political independence
of every other member of the league as Against external aggression.
Not against internal disturbance. There was not a man at that table
w T ho did not admit the sacredness of the right of self-determination,
\he sacredness of the right of any bod}’ of people to say that they
would not continue to live under the Government they were then
living under, and under article 11 of the covenant they are given a
place to say whether they will live under it or not. For follow-
ing article 10 is article 11, which makes it the right of any member
of the league at any time to call attention to anything, anywhere,
that is likelv to disturb the peace of the world or the good under-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 365
standing between nations upon which the peace of the world de-
pends. I want to give you an illustration of what that would mean.
You have heard a great deal something that was true and a great
deal that was false about that provision of the treaty which hands
over to Japan the rights which Germany enjoyed in the Province
of Shantung in China. In the first place, Germany did not enjoy
any rights there that other nations had not already claimed. For
my part, my judgment, my moral judgment, is against the whole set
of concessions. They were all of them unjust to China, they ought
never to have been exacted, they were all exacted by duress from a
great bod}’ of thoughtful and ancient and helpless people. There
never was any right in any of them. Thank God, America never
asked for any. never dreamed of asking for any. But when Germany
got this concession in 1898, the Government of the United States
made no protest whatever. That was not because the Government
of the United States was not in the hands of high-minded and con-
scientious men. It was. William McKinley was President and
John Hay was Secretary of State as safe hands to leave the honor
of the United States in as any that you can cite. They made no
protest because the state of international law at that time was that
it was none of their business unless they could snow that the interests
of the United States were affected, and the only thing that they
could show with regard to the interests of the United States was
that Germany might close the doors of Shantung Province against
the trade of the United States. They, therefore, demanded and ob-
tained promises that we could continue to sell merchandise in Shan-
tung. Immediately following that concession to Germany there was
a concession to Russia of the same sort, of Port Arthur, and Port
Arthur was handed over subsequently to Japan on the very territory
of the United States. . Don’t you remember that when Russia and
Japan got into war with one another the war was brought to a
conclusion by a treaty written at Portsmouth, N. H., and in that
treaty without the slightest intimation from any authoritative
sources in America that the Government of the United States had
any objection, Port Arthur, Chinese territory, was turned over to
Japan? I want you distinctly to understand that there is no
thought of criticism in my mind. I am expounding to you a state
of international law. Now, read articles 10 and 11. You will see
that international law is revolutionized by putting morals into it.
Article 10 says that no member of the league, and that includes all
these nations that have demanded these things unjustly of China,
shall impair the territorial integrity or the political independence of
any other member of the league. China is going to be a member of
the league. Article 11 says that any member of the league can call
attention to anything that is likely to disturb the peace of the
366 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
world or the good understanding between nations, and China is foi
the first time in the history of mankind afforded a standing before
the jury of the world. I, for my part, have a profound sympathy for
China, and I am proud to have taken part in an arrangement which
promises the protection of the world to the rights of China. The
whole atmosphere of the world is changed by a thing like that, my
fellow citizens. The whole international practice of the world is
revolutionized.
But you will say, ” What is the second sentence of article 10 ?
That is what gives very disturbing thoughts.” The second sentence
is that the council of the league shall advise what steps, if any, are
necessary to carry out the guaranty of the first sentence, namely,
that the members will respect and preserve the territorial integrity
and political independence of the other members. I do not know
any other meaning for the word ” advise ” except ” advise.” The
council advises, and it can not advise without the vote of the United
States. Why gentlemen should fear that the Congress of the United
States would be advised to do something that it did not want to do
I frankly can not imagine, because they can not even be advised to
do anything unless their own representative has participated in the
advice. It may be that that will impair somewhat the vigor of the
league, but, nevertheless, the fact is so, that we are not obliged to
take any advice except our own, which to any man who wants to go
his own course is a very satisfactory state of affairs. Every man
regards his own advice as best, and I dare say every man mixes his
own advice with some thought of his own interest. Whether we use
it wisely or unwisely, we can use the vote of the United States to
make impossible drawing the United States into any enterprise that
she does not care to be drawn into.
Yet article 10 strikes at the taproot of war. Article 10 is a state-
ment that the very things that have always been sought in imperial-
istic wars are henceforth forgone by every ambitious nation in the
world. I would have felt very lonely, my fellow countrymen, and I
would have felt very much disturbed if, sitting at the peace table in
Paris, I had supposed that I was expounding my own ideas. Whether
you believe it or not, I know the relative size of my own ideas; I
know how they stand related in bulk and proportion to the moral
judgments of my fellow countrymen, and I proposed nothing what-
ever at the peace table at Paris that I had not sufficiently certain
knowledge embodied the moral judgment of the citizens of the
United States. I had gone over there with, so to say, explicit instruc-
tions. Don’t you remember that we laid down 14 points which
should contain the principles of the settlement? They were not,
my points. In every one of them I was conscientiously trying to
read the thought of the people of the United States, and after I
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 367
uttered those points I had every assurance given me that could be
given me that they did speak the moral judgment of the United
States and not my single judgment. Then when it came to that
critical period just a little less than a year ago, when it was evident
that the war was coming to its critical end, all the nations engaged
in the war accepted those 14 principles explicitly as the basis of the
armistice and the basis of the peace. In those circumstances I
crossed the ocean under bond to my own people and to the other
governments with which I was dealing. The whole specification of
the method of settlement was written down and accepted beforehand,
and we were architects building on those specifications. It reassures
me and fortifies my position to find how before I went over men
whose judgment the United States has often trusted were of exactly
the same opinion that I went abroad to express. Here is something
I want to read from Theodore Roosevelt:
” The one effective move for obtaining peace is by an agreement
among all the great powers in which each should pledge itself not
only to abide by the decisions of a common tribunal but to back
its decisions by force. The great civilized nations should com-
bine by solemn agreement in a great world league for the peace
of righteousness; a court should be established. A changed and
amplified Hague court would meet the requirements, composed of
representatives from each nation, whose representatives are sworn
to act as judges in each case and not in a representative capacity.”
Now there is article 10. He goes on and says this: “The nations
should agree on certain rights that should not be questioned, such as
territorial integrity, their right to deal with their domestic affairs,
and with such matters as whom they should admit to citizenship.
All such guarantee each of their number in possession of these
rights.”
Now, the other specification is in the covenant. The covenant in
another portion guarantees to the members the independent control
of their domestic questions. There is not a leg for these gentlemen
to stand on when they say that the interests of the United States are
not safeguarded in the very points where we are most sensitive. You
do not need to be told again that the covenant expressly says that
nothing in this covenant shall be construed as affecting the validity
of the Monroe doctrine, for example. You could not be more explicit
than that. And every point of interest is covered, partly for one
very interesting reason. This is not the first time that the Foreign
Relations Committee of the Senate of the United States has read and
considered this covenant. I brought it to this country in March last
in a tentative, provisional form, in practically the form that it now
has, with the exception of certain additions which I shall mention
368 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
immediately. I asked the Foreign Relations Committees of both
Houses to come to the White House and we spent a long evening in
the frankest discussion of every portion that they wished to discuss.
They made certain specific suggestions as to what should be contained
in this document when it was to be revised. I carried those sugges-
tions to Paris, and every one of them was adopted. What more could
I have done? What more could have been obtained? The very
matters upon which these gentlemen were most concerned were, the
right of withdrawal, which is now expressly stated ; the safeguarding
of the Monroe doctrine, which is now accomplished; the exclusion
from action by the league of domestic questions, which is now accom-
plished. All along the line, every suggestion of the United States
was adopted after the covenant had been drawn up in its first form
and had been published for the criticism of the world. There is a
very true sense in wbich I can say this is a tested American document.
I am dwelling upon these points, my fellow citizens, in spite of
the fact that I dare say to most of you they are perfectly well known,
because in order to meet the present situation we have got to know
what we are dealing with. We are not dealing with the kind of
document which this is represented by some gentlemen to be; and
inasmuch as we are dealing with a document simon-pure in respect
of the very principles we have professed and lived up to, we have
got to do one or other of two things we have got to adopt it or re-
ject it. There is no middle course. You can not go in on a special-
privilege basis of your own. I take it that you are too proud to ask
to be exempted from responsibilties which the other members of the
league will carry. We go in upon equal terms or we do not go in at
all ; and if we do not go in, my fellow citizens, think of the tragedy
of that result the only sufficient guaranty to the peace of the world
withheld ! Ourselves drawn apart with that dangerous pride which
means that we shall be ready to take care of ourselves, and that
means that we shall maintain great standing armies and an irre-
sistrble navy ; that means we shall have the organization of a mil-
itary nation; that means we shall have a general staff, with the kind
of power that the general staff of Germany had; to mobilize this
great manhood of the Nation when it pleases, all the energy of our
young men drawn into the thought and preparation for war. What
of our pledges to the men that lie dead in France? We said that
they went over there not to prove the prowess of America or her
readiness for another war but to see to it that there never was such
a war again. It always seems to make it difficult for me to say any-
thing, my fellow citizens, when I think of my clients in this case.
My clients are the children; my clients are the next generation.
They do not know Avhat promises and bonds I undertook when T
ADDKESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON. 369
ordered the armies of the United States to the soil of France, but I
know, and I intend to redeem my pledges to the children; they shall
not be sent upon a similar errand.
Again and again, my fellow citizens, mothers who lost their sons
in France have come to me and. taking my hand, have shed tears upon
it not only, but they have added. ” God bless you, Mr. President ! ‘
Why, my fellow citizens, should they pray God to bless me ? I advised
the Congress of the United States to create the situation that led to
the death of their sons. I ordered their sons oversea. I consented
to their sons being put in the most difficult parts of the battle line,
where death was certain, as in the impenetrable difficulties of the for-
est of Argonne. Why should they weep upon my hand and call down
the blessings of God upon me? Because they believe that their boys
died for something that vastly transcends any of the immediate and
palpable objects of the war. They believe, and they rightly believe,
that their sons saved the liberty of the w r orld. They believe that
wrapped up with the liberty of the world is the continuous protection
of that liberty by the concerted powers of all civilized people. They
believe that this sacrifice was made in order that other sons should
not be called upon for a similar gift the gift of life, the gift of all
that died and if we did not see this thing through, if we fulfilled
the dearest present wish of Germany and now dissociated ourselves
from those alongside whom we fought in the war, would not some-
thing of the halo go awaj^ from the gun over the mantelpiece, or
the sword? Would not the old uniform lose something of its sig-
nificance? These men were crusaders. They were not going forth
to prove the might of the United States. They were going forth to
prove the might of justice and right, and all the world accepted them
as crusaders, and their transcendent achievement has made all the
world believe in America as it believes in no other nation organized
in the modern world. There seems to me to stand between us and the
rejection or qualification of this treaty the serried ranks of those
boys in khaki, not only these boys who came home, but those dear
ghosts that still deploy upon the fields of France.
My friends, on last Decoration Day I went to a beautiful hillside
near Paris, where was located the cemetery of Suresnes, a cemetery
given over to the burial of the American dead. Behind me on the
slopes was rank upon rank of living American soldiers, and lying
before me upon the levels of the plain was rank upon rank of de-
parted American soldiers. Right by the side of the stand where
I spoke there was a little group of French women who had adopted
those graves, had made themselves mothers of those dear ghosts by
putting flowers every day upon those graves, taking them as their
own sons, their own beloved, because they had died in the same
141677 S. Doc. 120. 66-1 24
370 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON.
cause France was free and the world was free because America
had come ! I wish some men in public life who are now opposing
the settlement for which these men died could visit such a spot as that.
I wish that the thought that comes out of those graves could pene-
trate their consciousness. I wish that they could feel the moral ob-
ligation that rests upon us not to go back on those boys, but to see
the thing through, to see it through to the end and make good their
redemption of the world. For nothing less depends upon this de-
cision, nothing less than the liberation and salvation of the world.
You will say, ” Is the league an absolute guaranty against war ? ‘
No; I do not know any absolute guaranty against the errors of
human judgment or the violence of human passion, but I tell you
this: With a cooling space of nine months for human passion, not
much of it will keep hot. I had a couple of friends who were in the
habit of losing their tempers, and when they lost their tempers they
were in the habit of using very unparliamentary language. Some of
their friends induced them to make a promise that they never would
swear inside the town limits. When the impulse next came upon
them, they took a street car to go out of town to swear, and by the time
they got out of town they did not want to swear. They came back
convinced that they were just what they were, a couple of unspeak-
able fools, and the habit of getting angry and of swearing suffered
great inroads upon it by that experience. Now, illustrating the great
by the small, that is true of the passions of nations. It is true of the
passions of men however you combine them. Give them space to
cool off. I ask you this: If it is not an absolute insurance against
war, do you want no insurance at all? Do you want nothing? Do
you want not only no probability that war will not recur, but the
probability that it will recur? The arrangements of justice do not
stand of themselves, my fellow citizens. The arrangements of this
treaty are just, but they need the support of the combined power of
the great nations of the world. And they will have that support.
Now that the mists of this great question have cleared away, I be-
lieve that men will see the truth, eye to eye and’ face to face. There
is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their
hand to, and that is the truth of justice and of liberty and of peace.
We have accepted that truth and we are going to be led by it, and
it is going to lead us, and through us the world, out into pastures
of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before.
