the family of nations to exert her whole force, moral and physical, to the assertion of those rights throughout the round globe.

77. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. October 28, 1916

(New York Times, October 29, 1916)

We have peace, we have a peace founded upon the definite understanding that the United States, because it is powerful, self-possessed, because it has definite objects does not need to make a noise about them; because it knows that it can vindicate its right at any time, does not have to proclaim its right in terms of violent exaggeration. We have determined, whether we get the respect of the rest of the world or not, that we will deserve it by the way in which we act.

78. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. November 4, 1916

(New York Times, November 5, 1916)

The world will never be again what it has been. The United States will never be again what it has been. The United States was once in enjoyment of what we used to call splendid isolation. The three thousand miles of the Atlantic seemed to hold all European affairs at arm's length from us. The great spaces of the Pacific seemed to disclose no threat of influence upon our politics.

Now, from across the Atlantic and from across the Pacific we feel to the quick the influences which are affecting ourselves, and, in the meantime, whereas we used to be always in search of assistance and stimulation from out

of other countries, always in search of the capital of other countries to assist our investments, depending upon foreign markets for the sale of our securities, now we have bought in more than 50 per cent of those securities; we have become not the debtors but the creditors of the world, and in what other nations used to play in promoting industries which extended as wide as the world itself, we are playing the guiding part.

We can determine to a large extent who is to be financed and who is not to be financed. That is the reason I say that the United States will never be again what it has been. So it does not suffice to look, as some gentlemen are looking, back over their shoulders, to suggest that we do again what we did when we were provincial and isolated and unconnected with the great forces of the world, for now we are in the great drift of humanity which is to determine the politics of every country in the world.

With this outlook, is it worth while to stop to think of party advantage? Is it worth stopping to think of how we have voted in the past? We are now going to vote, if we be men with eyes open that can see the world, as those who wish to make a new America in a new world mean the same old thing for mankind that it meant when this great Republic was set up; mean hope and justice and righteous judgment and unselfish action. Why, my fellow-citizens, it is an unprecedented thing in the world that any nation in determining its foreign relations should be unselfish, and my ambition is to see America set the great example; not only a great example morally, but a great example intellectually.

Every man who has read and studied the great annals of this country may feel his blood warm as he feels these great forces of humanity growing stronger and stronger, not only, but knowing better and better from decade to decade how to concert action and unite their strength. In the days to come

men will no longer wonder how America is going to work out her destiny, for she will have proclaimed to them that her destiny is not divided from the destiny of the world; that her purpose is justice and love of mankind.

A LEAGUE OF NATIONS

79. Extract from a Communication of Secretary Lansing to the United States representatives at the capitals of the belligerent powers. December 18, 1916

(Congressional Record, LIV, 633)

The President suggests that an early occasion be sought to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guaranty against its renewal or the kindling of any similar conflict in the future as would make it possible frankly to compare them. He is indifferent as to

the means taken to accomplish this. He would be happy himself to serve, or even to take the initiative in its accomplishment, in any way that might prove acceptable, but he has no desire to determine the method or the instrumentality. One way will be as acceptable to him as another if only the great object he has in mind be attained.

He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world. v Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small states as secure against aggression or denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great and powerful states now at war. Each wishes itself to be

made secure in the future, along with all other nations and peoples, against the recurrence of wars like this, and against aggression of selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying suspicions; but each is ready to consider the formation of a league of nations to insure peace and justice throughout the world. Before that final step can be taken, however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues of the present war upon terms which will certainly safeguard the independence, the territorial integrity, and the political and commercial freedom of the nations involved.

In the measures to be taken to secure the future peace of the world, the people and Government of the United States are as vitally and as directly interested as the Governments now at war. Their interest, moreover, in the means to be adopted to relieve the smaller and weaker peoples of the world of the peril of wrong and violence is as quick and ardent as that of any other people or Government. They stand ready, and even eager, to cooperate in the accomplishment of these ends, when the war is over, with every influence and resource at their command. But the war must first be concluded. The terms upon which it is to be concluded they are not at liberty to suggest; but the President does feel that it is his right and his duty to point out their intimate interests in its conclusion, lest it should presently be too late to accomplish the greater things which lie beyond its conclusion, lest the situation of neutral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be rendered altogether intolerable, and lest, more than all, an injury be done civilization itself which can never be atoned for or repaired.

The President therefore feels altogether justified in suggesting an immediate opportunity for a comparison of views as to the terms which must precede those ultimate arrange

ments for the peace of the world, which all desire and in which the neutral nations as well as those at war are ready to play their full responsible part. If the contest must continue to proceed towards undefined ends by slow attrition, until the one group of belligerents or the other is exhausted, if million after million of human lives must continue to be offered up until on the one side or the other there are no more to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can never cool and despairs engendered from which there can be no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert of free peoples will be rendered vain and idle.

The life of the entire world has been profoundly affected. Every part of the great family of mankind has felt the burden and terror of this unprecedented contest of arms. No nation in the civilized world can be said in truth to stand outside its influence or to be safe against its disturbing effects. And yet the concrete objects for which it is being waged have never been definitely stated.

The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture what definite results, what actual exchange of guaranties, what political or territorial changes or readjustments, what stage of military success even, would bring the war to an end.

It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an interchange of views would clear the way at least for conference and make the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the imme