---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Woodrow Wilson
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 21
number: 4
published: 1918-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: "Woodrow Wilson, “Why at War, and on What Terms Peace,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 4 (February 1918): 340–350."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2104unse
start_page: 340
end_page: 350
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse
  publication_year: 1918
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Why at War, and on What Terms Peace

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Why at War, and on What Terms Peace

By President Woodrow Wilson

[Quite often some one wishes to know the attitude of the United States

Government on the war, more frequently why we are at war. The Era is in

receipt of a number of papers purporting to set forth that attitude. The

President of the United States clearly and authentically gave the desired

information in his opening address to the joint meeting of the Senate and

House of the Sixty-fifth Congress, at 12:30 p. m., December 4, 1917. While

it was given as a director to Congress, it is an authentic guide to the indi-

vidual citizen. It is not only an epoch-making address, but the language in

itself makes it worthy of careful study. It serves not alone as a keynote for

the futuie action of Congress, but it is a pointer for the future policy of the

Allies, whose views it seems to meet with unanimity.

This document should be read in connection with President Wilson's ad-

dress of January 8, 1918, to Congress in joint session, setting forth the defi-

nite terms upon which the Entente Allies are ready to lay down their arms

in peace. The addresses follow. — Editors.]

(December 4, 1917)

Gentlemen of the Congress: Eight months have elapsed since I last had

the honor of addressing you. They have been months crowded with events

of immense and grave significance for us. I shall not undertake to retail or

even to summarize those events. The practical particulars of the part we

have played in them will be laid before you in the r ports of the Executive

Departments. I shall discuss only our present outlook upon these vast af-

fairs, our present duties, and the immediate means of accomplishing the ob-

jects we shall hold always in view.

What the War is For

I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable

wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have

long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American

to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to consider again and with a

very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures by which we mean to

attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and

our action must move straight towards definite ends. Our object is, of

course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be

diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking and answering the

question, When shall we consider the war won?

From one point of view it is not necessary to broach this fundamental

matter. I do not doubt that the American people know what the war is

about and what sort of an outcome they will regard as a realization of their

purpose in it. As a nation we are united in spirit and intention. I pay

little heed to those who tell me otherwise. I hear the voices of dissent, —

who does not? I hear the criticism and the clamor of the noisily thought-

less and troublesome. I also see men here and there fling themselves in im-

potent disloyalty against the calm, indomitable power of the nation. I hear

men debate peace who understand neither its nature nor the way in which

we may attain it with uplifted eyes and unbroken spirits. But I know that

none of these speaks for the nation. They Jo not touch the heart of i.ny-

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WHY AT WAR, AND ON WHAT TERMS PEACE 341

thing. They may safely be left to strut their uneasy hour and be forgotten.

But from another point of view I believe that it is necessary to say

plainly what we here at the seat of action consider the war to be for and

what part we mean to play in the settlement of its searching issues. We

are the spokesmen of the American people, and they have a right to know

whether their purpose is ours. They desire peace by the overcoming of evil,

by the defeat once for all of the sinister forces that interrupt peace and

render it impossible, and they wish to know how closely our thought runs

with theirs and what action we propose. They are impatient with those who

desire peace by any sort of compromise, — deeply and indignantly impatient,

— but they will be equally impatient with us if we do not make it plain to

them what our objectives are and what we are planning for in seeking to

make conquest of peace by arms.

I believe that I speak for them when I say two things: First, that this

intolerable Thing of which the masters of Germany have shown us the ugly

face, this menace of combined intrigue and force which we now see so

clearly as the German power, a Thing without conscience or honor or ca-

pacity for covenanted peace, must be crushed and, if it be not utterly

brought to an end, at least shut out from the friendly intercourse of the

nations; and, second, that when this Thing and its power are indeed de-

feated and the time comes that we can discuss peace, — when the German

people have spokesmen whose word we can believe and when these spokes-

men are ready in the name of their people to accept the common judgment

of the nations as to what shall henceforth be the bases of law and of cove-

nant for the life of the world, — we shall be willing and glad to pay the full

price for peace, and pay it ungrudgingly. We know what that price will be.

It will be full, impartial justice, — justice done at every point and to every

natin that the final settlement must affect, our enemies as well as our friends.

You catch, with me. the voices of humanity that are in the air. They

grow daily more audible, more articulate, more persuasive, and they come

from the hearts of men everywhere. They insist that she war shall not end

in vindictive action of any kind; that no nation or people shall be robbed or

punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have them-

selves done deep and abominable wrong. It is this thought that has been

expressed in the formula "No annexations, no contributions, no punitive

indemnities." Just because this crude formula expresses the instinctive

judgment as to right of plain men everywhere it has been made diligent use

of by the masters of German intrigue to lead the people of Russia astray—

and the people of every other country their agents could reach, in order

that a premature peace might be brought about before autocracy has been

taught its final and convincing lesson, and the people of the world put in

control of their own destinies.

But the fact that a wrong use has been made of a just idea is no reason

why a right use should not be made of it. It ought to be brought under

the patronage of its real friends. Let it be said again that autocracy must

first be shown the utter futility of its claims to power or leadership in the

modern world. It is impossible to apply any standard of justice so long

as such forces are unchecked and undefeated as the present masters of Ger-

many command. Not until that has been done can Right be set up as arbiter

and peace-maker among the nations. But when that has been done — as, God

willing, it assuredly will be,— we shall at last be free to do an unprecedented

thing, and this is the time to avow our purpose to do it. We shall be free

to base peace on generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all selfish claims

to advantage even on the part of the victors.

Our Present and Immediate Task

Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present and immediate task is

to win the war, and nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is accom-

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342 IMPROVEMENT ERA

plished. Every power and resource we possess, whether of men, of money,

or of materials, is being devoted and will continue to be devoted to that

purpose until it is achieved. Those who desire to bring peace about before

that purpose is achieved I counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We will

not entertain it. We shall regard the war as won only when the German

people say to us, through properly a credited representatives that they are

ready to agree to a settlement based upon justice and the reparation of the

wrongs their rulers have done. They have done a wrong to Belgium which

must be repaired. They have established a power over other lands and

peoples than their own,— over the great Empire of Austria-Hungary, over

hitherto free Balkan states, over Turkey, and within Asia, — which must be

relinquished.

Germany's success by skill, by industry, by knowledge, by enterprise

we did not grudge or oppose, but admired, rather. She had built up for

herself a real empire of trade and influence, secured by the peace of the

world. We were content to abide the rivalries of manufacture, science, and

commerce that were involved for us in her success and stand or fall as we

had or did not have the brains and the initiative to surpass her. But at the

moment when she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she threw

them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit

to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to

oust where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and hated. The

peace we make must remedy that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands

and happy peoples of Belgium and northern France from the Prussian con-

quest and the Prussian menace, but it must also deliver the peoples of

Austria-Hungary, the peoples of the Balkans, and the peoples of Turkey, alike

in Europs and in Asia, from the impudent and alien dominion of the Prus-

sian military and commercial autocracy.

Our Attitude Towards the Central Powers

We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do not wish in any way

to impair or to rearrange the A.ustro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of

ours what they do with their own life, either industrially or politically. We

do not purpose or desire to dictate to them in any way. We only desire

to see that their affairs are left in their own hands, in all matters, great or

small, We shall hope to secure for the peoples of the Balkan peninsula and

for the people of the Turkish Empire the right and opportunity to make

their own live > safe, their own fortunes secure against oppression or injus-

tice and from the dictation of foreign courts or parties.

And our attitude and purpose with regard to Germany herself are of a

like kind. We intend no wrong against the German Empire, no interference

with her internal affairs. We should deem either the one or the other abso-

lutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have professed

to live by and to hold most sacred throughout our life as a nation.

The people of Germany are being told by the men whom they now

permit to deceive them and to act as their masters that they are fighting for

the very life and existence of their Empire, a war of desperate self-defense

against deliberate aggression. Nothing could be more grossly or wantonly

false, and we must seek by the utmost openness and candor as to our real

aims to convince them of its falseness. We are in fact fighting for their

emancipation from fear, along with our own, — from the fear as well as from

the fact of unjust attack by neighbors or rivals or schemers after world

empire. No one is threatening the existence or the independence or the

peaceful enterprise of the German Empire.

The worst that can happen to the detriment of the German people is

this, that if they should still, after the war is over, continue to be obliged

to live under ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the

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WHY AT WAR, AND ON WHAT TERMS PEACE 343

people of the world, men or classes of men whom the olher peoples of the

world could not trust, it might be impossible to admit them to the partner-

ship of nations which must henceforth guarantee the world's peace. That

partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not a mere partnership of

governments. It might be impossible, also, in such untoward circumstances,

to admit Germany to the free economic intercourse which must inevitably

spring out of the other partnerships of a real peace. But there would be no

aggression in that; and such a situation, inevitable because of distrust, would

in the very nature of things sooner or later cure itself, by processes which

would assuredly set in.

The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this war will have to

be righted. That of course. But they can not and must not be righted by

the commission of similar wrongs against Germany and her allies. The

world will not permit the commission of similar wrongs as a means of rep-

aration and settlement. Statesmen must by this time have learned that

the opinion of the world is everywhere wide awake and fully comprehends

the issues involved. No representative of any self-governed nation will dare

disregard it by attempting any such covenants of selfishness and compromise

as were entered into at the Congress of Vienna. The thought of the plain

people here and everywhere throughout the world, the people who enjoy

no privilege and have very simple and unsophisticated standards of right

and wrong, is the air all governments must henceforth breathe if they would

live. It is in the full disclosing light of that thought that all policies must

be conceived and executed in this midday hour of the world's life. German

rulers have been able to upset the peace of the world only because the Ger-

man people were not suffered under their tutelage to share the comradeship

of the other peoples of the world either in thought or in purpose. They

were allowed to have no opinion of their own which might be set up as a

rule of conduct for those who exercised authority over them. But the con-

gress that concludes this war will feel the full strength of the tides that run

now in the hearts and consciences of free men everywhere. Its conclusions

will run with those tides.

The Russian People Poisoned

All these things have been true from the very beginning of this stu-

pendous war; and I can not help thinking that if they had been made plain

at the very outset the sympathy and enthusiasm of the Russian people might

have been once for all enlisted on the side of the allies, suspicion and dis-

trust swept away, and a real and lasting union of purpose effected. Had

they believed these things at the very moment of their revolution and had

they been confirmed in that belief since, the sad reverses which have re-

cently marked the progress of their affairs towards an ordered and stable

government of free men might have been avoided. The Russian people have

been poisoned by the very same falsehoods that have kept the German peo-

ple in the dark, and the poison has been administered by the very same

hands. The only possible antidote is the truth. It can not be uttered too

plainly or too often.

From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed to be my duty to

speak these declarations of purpose, to add these specific interpretations to

what I took the liberty of saying to the Senate in January. Our entrance

into the war has not altered our attitude towards the settlement that must

come when it is over. When I said in January that the nations of the world

were entitled not only to free pathways upon the sea but also to assured

and unmolested access to those pathways I was thinking, and I am thinking

now, not of the smaller and weaker nations alone, which need our countenance

and support, but also of the great and powerful nations, and of our present

enemies as well as our present associates in the war. I was thinking, and I

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314 IMPROVEMENT ERA

am thinking now, of Austria herself, among the rest, as well as of Serbia

and of Poland. Justice and equality of rights can be had only at a great

price. We are seeking permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace

of the world and must seek them candidly and fearlessly. As always, the

right will prove to be the expedient.

What Shall We do to Push the War?

What shall we do, then, to push this great war of freedom and justice

to its righteous conclusion? We must clear away with a thorough hand all

impediments to success and we must make every adjustment of law that

will facilitate the full and free use of our whole capacity and force as a

fighting unit.

One very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our way is that we are at

war with Germany but not with her allies. I therefore very earnestly recom-

mend that the Congress immediately declare the United States in a state of

war with Austria-Hungary. Does it seem strange to you that this should be

the conclusion of the argument I have just addressed to you? It is not.

It is in fact the inevitable logic of what I have said. Austria-Hungary is for

the time being not her own mistress but simply the vassal of the German

Government. We must face the facts as they are and act upon them with-

out sentiment in this stern business. The government of Austria-Hungary

is not acting upon its own initiative or in response to the wishes and feel-

ings of its own peoples but as the instrument of another nation. We

must meet its force with our own and regard the Central Powers as but

one. The war can be successfully conducted in no other way. The same

logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria.

Thev also are the tools of Germany. But they are mere tools and do not

yet stand in the direct path of our necessary action. We shall go wherever

the necessities of this war carry us, but it seems to me that we should go

only where immediate and practical considerations lead us and not heed

any others.

The financial and miliary measures which must be adopted will sug-

gest themselves as the war and its undertakings develop, but I will take the

liberty of proposing to you certain other acts of legislation which seem to

me to be needed for the support of the war and for the release of our whole

force and energy.

It will be necessary to extend in certain particulars the legislation of the

last session with regard to alien enemies; and also necessary, I believe, to

create a very definite and particular control over the entrance and depar-

ture of all persons into and from the United States.

Legislation should be enacted defining as a criminal offense every wil-

ful violation of the presidential proclamations relating to alien enemies pro-

mulgated under section 4067 of the Revised Statutes and providing appropri-

ate punishments; and women as well as men should be included under the

terms of the acts placing restraints upon alien enemies. It is likely that

as time goes on many alien enemies will be willing to be fed and housed

at the expense of the Government in the detention camps and it would be

the purpose of the legislation I have suggested to confine offenders among

them in penitentiaries and other similar institutions where they could be

made to work as other criminals do.

Recent experience has convinced me that the Congress must go further

in authorizing the Government to set limits to prices. The law of supply

and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unre-

strained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteering in several

branches of industry it still runs impudently rampant in others. The farm-

ers, for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regu-

lation of food prices restricts their incomes, no restraints are placed upon

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WHY AT WAR, AND ON WHAT TERMS PEACE 345

the prices of most of the things they must themselves purchase; ami similar

inequities obtain on all sides.

It is imperatively necessary that the consideration of the full use of the

water power of the country and also the consideration of the systematic

and yet economical development of such of the natural resources of the

country as are still under the control of the federal government should be

immediately resumed and affirmatively and constructively dealt with at the

earliest possible moment. The pressing need of such legislation is daily

becoming more obvious.

The legislation proposed at the last session with regard to regulated

combinations among our exporters, in order to provide for our foreign trade

a more effective organization and method of cooperation, ought by all

means to be completed at this session.

And I beg that the members of the House of Representatives will per-

mit me to express the opinion that it will be impossible to deal in any but a

very wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous appropriations of

the public moneys which must continue to be made, if the war is to be

properly sustained, unless the House will consent to return to its former

practice of initiating and preparing all appropriation bills through a single

committee, in order that responsibility may be centered, expenditures

standardized and made uniform, and waste and duplication as much as pos-

sible avoided.

Additional legislation may also become necessary before the present

Congress again adjourns in order to effect the most efficient coordination

and operation of the railway and other transportation systems of the coun-

try; but to that I shall, if circumstances should demand, call the attention

of the Congress upon another occasion.

If I have overlooked anything that ought to be done for the more ef-

fective conduct of the war, your own counsels will supply the omission.

What I am perfectly clear about is that in the present session of the Con-

gress our whole attention and energy should be concentrated on the vigor-

ous, rapid, and successful prosecution of the great task of winning the war.

Our Cause Just and Holy

We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusiasm because we

know that for us this is a war of high principle, debased by no selfish am-

bition of conquest or spoliation; because we know, and all the world knows,

ihat we have been forced into it to save the very institutions we live under

from corruption and destruction. The purposes of the Central Powers strike

straight at the very heart of everything we believe in; their methods of war-

fare outrage every principle of humanity and of knightly honor; their in-

trigue has corrupted the very thought and spirit of many of our people; their

^mister and secret diplomacy has sought to take our very territory away

from us and disrupt the Union of the States. Our safety would be at an

rnd, our honor forever sullied and brought into contempt were we to permit

their triumph. They are striking at the very existence of democracy and

liberty. ,

It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested purpose, in which

all the free peoples of the world are banded together for the vindication of

right, a war for the preservation of our nation and of all that it has held

dear of principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves doubly constrained

to propose for its outcome only that which is righteous and of irreproach-

able intention, for our foes as well as for our friends. The cause being just

and holy, the settlement must be of like motive and quality. For this we

cm fight, but for nothing less noble or less worthy of our traditions. For

this cause we entered the war and for this cause will we battle until the last

gun is fired.

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346 IMPROVEMENT ERA

I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time when it is

most necessary to speak plainly, in order that all the world may know that

even in the heat and ardor of the struggle and when our whole thought is

of carrying the war through to its end we have not forgotten any ideal or

principle for which the name of America has been held in honor among

the nations and for which it has been our glory to contend in the great

generations that went before us. A supreme moment of history has come.

The eyes of the people have been opened, and they see. The hand of God

is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only

if they rise to the clear heights of his own justice and mercy.

(January 8, 1918)

Gentlemen of the Congress: Once more, as repeatedly before, the

spokesmen of the Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the

objects of the war and the possible basis of a general peace.

The Brest-Litovsk Peace Parleys

Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between Russian repre-

sentatives and representatives of the Central Powers to which the attention

of all ihe belligerents has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining

whether it may be possible to extend these parleys into a general confer-

ence with regard to terms of peace and settlement. The Russian represen-

tatives presented not only a perfectly definite statement of the principles

upon which they would be willing to conclude peace, but also an equally

definite program of the concrete application of those principles. The rep-

resentatives of the Central Powers, on their part, presented an outline of set-

tlement which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpre-

tation until their specific program of practical terms was added.

That program proposed no concessions at all, either to the sovereignty

of Russia or to the preferences of the population with whose, fortunes it

deals, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires were to keep everv foot

of territory their armed forces had occupied — every province, every city,

every point of vantage — as a permanent addition to their territories and their

power. It is a reasonable conjecture that the general principles of settle-

ment which they at first suggested originated with the more liberal states-

men of Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of

their own people's thought and purpose, while the concrete terms of actual

settlement came from the military leaders, who have no thought but to keep

what they have got. The negotiations have been broken off. The Russian

representatives were sincere and in earnest. They cannot entertain such pro-

posals of conquest and domination.

The whole incident is full of significance. It also is full of perplexity.

With whom are the Russian representatives dealing? For whom are the

representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the

majorities of their respective parliaments or for the minority parties, that

military and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their whole

policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and of the Balkan states, which

have felt obliged to become their associates in this war? The Russian rep-

resentatives have insisted, very justly, very wisely and in the true spirit of

democracy, that the conferences they have been holding with the Teutonic

and Turkish statesmen should be held within open, not closed, doors, and all

the world have been audience, as was desired. To whom have we been lis-

tening, then? To those who speak the spirit and intention of the resolution

of the German reichstag of the 9th of July last, the spirit and intention of

the liberal leaders and parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy

that spirit and intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or are

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WHY AT WAR, AND ON WHAT TERMS PEACE 347

we listening, in fact, to both unreconciled and in open and hopeless contra-

diction? These are very serious and pregnant questions. Upon the answer

to them depends the peace of the world.

Germany's Challenge for Peace Answered

But whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk, whatever the

confusions of counsel and of purpose in the utterances of the spokesmen of

the Central Powers, they have again attempted to acquaint the

world with their objects in the war and have again challenged their adver-

saries to say what their objects are and what sort of settlement they would

deem just and satisfactory. There is no good reason why that challenge

should not be responded to, and responded with the utmost candor. We

did not wait for it.

Not once, but again and again we have laid our whole thought and pur-

pose before the world, not in general terms only, but each time with suffi-

cient definition to make it clear what sort of definitive terms of settlement

must necessarily spring out of them. Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George

has spoken with admirable candor and in admirable spirit for the people

and government of Great Britain.

There is no confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the Central

Powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of detail. The only se-

crecy of counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only failure to make

a definite statement of the objects of the war lies with Germany and her

allies. The issues of life and death hang upon these definitions. No states-

man wha has the least conception of his responsibility ought for a moment

to permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring of blood

and treasure unless he is sure beyond peradventure that the objects of the

vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of society, and that the

people for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does.

There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of principle and

of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrilling and more compelling

than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the

world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate

and all but helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany,

which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity.

Their power apparently is shattered, and yet their soul is not subservi-

ent. They will not yield either in principle or in action. The conception of

what is right, of what is humane and honorable for them to accept, has been

stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit and a uni-

versal human sympathy, which must challenge the admiration of every

friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound their ideals or

desert others that they themselves may be safe.

They call o us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if anything,

our purpose and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that the people

of the United States would wish me to respond with utter simplicity and

frankness.

Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our heartfelt desire

and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to

assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered

peace.

It will be our aim and purpose that the processes of peace, when

they are begun, shall be absolutely open, and that they shall involve

and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The

day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day

of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular govern-

ments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the

world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man

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318 IMPROVEMENT ERA

whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which

makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with jus-

tice and the peace of the world to avow now or at any other time the objects

it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which

touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible

unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their

recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to

ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particu-

larly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own,

wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of

justice and fair dealings by the other peoples of the world as against force

and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are, in effect, partners

in this interest, and, for our own part, we see very clearly that unless jus-

tice be done to others it will not be done to us.

Program of the World's Peace

The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program, and that

program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:

First — Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there

shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy

shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

Second — Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside terri-

torial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in

whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international

covenants.

Third — The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and

the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations

consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

Fourth — Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments

will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

Fifth — A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all

colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in de-

termining all such questions of sovereignty in the interests of the populations

concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the gov-

ernment whose title is to be determined.

Sixth — The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of

all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation

of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and

unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own

political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere wel-

come into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing;

and, more than a welcome assistance also of every kind that she may need

and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations

in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their

comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and

of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

Seventh — Relgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and

r stored without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in

common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this

will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they

have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations

with one another. Without this healing act, the whole structure and valid-

ity of international law is forever impaired.

Eighth — All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions

restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter

of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly

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WHY AT WAR, AND ON WHAT TERMS PEACE 349

fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more Le made

secure in the interest of all.

Ninth — A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along

clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

Tenth — The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations

we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest op-

portunity of autonomous development.

Eleventh — Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; oc-

cupied territories restored ; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the

sea, and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined

by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and

nationality, and international guarantees of the political and economic inde-

pendence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be

entered into.

Twelfth — The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman empire should

be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now

under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an

absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the

Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships

and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

Thirteenth — An independent Polish state should be erected, which

should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations,

which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea and whose po-

litical and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guar-

anteed by international covenant.

Fourteenth — A general association of nations mi st be formed under

specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political

independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Ready to Fight for these Declarations

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of

right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and

peoples associated together against the imperialists. We cannot be separ-

ated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and con-

tinue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right

to prevail and desire a just and stable peace, such as can be secured only

by removing the chief provocations to war, which this program does remove.

We have no jealousy of German greatness and there is nothing in this

program that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of

learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright

and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way

her legitimate influence or power.

We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrange-

ment of trade, if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other

peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law. and fair

dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples

of the world — the new world in which we now live — instead of a place of

mastery.

Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration or modification

of her institutions. But it is necessary, we must frankly say, as a prelim-

inary to any intelligent dealings with her on our part, that we should know

whom her spokesmen speak for when they speak to us, whether for the

reichstag majority or for the military party and the men whose creed is

imperial domination.

We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to admit of any

further doubt or question. An evident principle runs through the whole

program I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and

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nationalities and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with

one another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this principle be made

its foundation, no part of the structure of international justice can stand.

The people of the United States could act upon no other principle, and

to the vindication of this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their

honor and everything that they possess.

The moral climax of this, the culminating and final war for human lib-

erty has come, and they are ready to put their strength, their own highest

purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.