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 bases of a general peace.
Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between representatives
of the Central Powers, to which the attention of all the belligerents
has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be
possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with regard
to terms of peace and settlement. The Russian representatives 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
representatives of the Central Powers, on their part, presented an
outline of settlement which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible
of liberal interpretation 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 populations with
whose fortunes it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires
were to keep every 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 reasonable
conjecture that the general principles of settlement which they at first
suggested originated with the more liberal statesmen of Germany and
Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of their own peoples'
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 proposals of
conquest and domination.
The whole incident is full of significance. It is also 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 representatives have insisted, very
justly, very wisely, and in true spirit of modern 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 has been audience, as was desired. To whom have we been listening,
then? To those who speak the spirit and intention of the Resolutions of
the German Reichstag of the ninth 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 we listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled and in
open and hopeless contradiction? These are very serious and pregnant
questions. Upon the answer to them depends the peace of the world.
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 Empires, they have again attempted to
acquaint the world with their objects in the war and have again
challenged their adversaries 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 to
with the utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not once, but again and
again, we have laid our whole thought and purpose before the world, not
in general terms only, but each time with sufficient definition to make
it clear what sort of definite 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 secrecy of counsel, the only lack of
fearless frankness, the only failure to make 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 statesman who 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 a peradventure that the objects of the vital
sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of Society and that
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
subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their
conception of what is right, of what it is humane and honorable for them
to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a
generosity of spirit, and a universal 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 to us to say what it is that we desire, in what,
if in 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 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 wish 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 governments 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 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
justice 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 particularly 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 dealing by 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 justice be done to others it will not be
done to us. The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program;
and that program, the only possible program as we see it, is this:
I. 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.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside
territorial 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.
III. 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.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments
will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all
colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in
determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the
populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims
of the government whose title is to be determined.
VI. 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 welcome 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.
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and
restored, 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 validity of international law is forever impaired.
VIII. 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 fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may
once more be made secure in the interest of all.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected
along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations
we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest
opportunity of autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied
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 independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan
states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be
assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now
under the 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.
XIII. 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
political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be
guaranteed by international covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under
specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of
political independence and territorial integrity to great and small
states alike.
In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and
assertions of right we f eel ourselves to be intimate partners of all
the governments and peoples associated together against the
Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose.
We stand together until the end.
For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to
continue 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 arrangements 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, and necessary as a preliminary 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 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 liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength,
their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.
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