The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1917-01-25
PRESIDENT issues
NOTE TO CONGRESS
End of War without Victory Laid
Down rs Condition to Prevent
Aggression

Washington, Jan. the
United States shall enter a world
peace league and, as many contend,
thereby abandon its traditional pol
icy of isolation and no e%ntangling al
liances was laid squarely before con-
gress and the country today by Pres
ident Wilson in a special address to
the senate.
For the first time in more than a
hundred years a president of the Unit
ed States appeared in the senate
chamber to discuss the nations fore
ign relations after the manner Of
Washington, Adams, and Madison.
The effect was to leave congress all
official quarters and the foreign dip
lomats amazed and bewildered. I'm
mediately there arose a sharp div
ision Of opinion over the propriety as
we'll as the substance of the presi-
dents proposal.
Startling, Staggering, astound-
ing"and 1.-THE noblest utterance that
has fallen from human lips since the
Declaration of Independence" were
among the expressions Of senators.
The president, himself, after his ad-
dress said:
81 have said what everybody has
been longing for, but has thought
impossible"
The chief points of the presidents
address were:
That a lasting peace in Europe
cannot be a peace of victory for either
side.
That peace must be followed by a
definate concert of power to assure
the world that no catastrophe of val
shall overwhelm it again.
That in such a concert of power the
United States cannot withhold it's
participation to guarantee peace and
justice throughout the world, and
That before a peace is made the
United States government should
frankly formulate the conditions on
which it would feel justified in asking
the American people for their formal
and solemn adherence.
1T is clear to every man who
thinks" the president told the senate,
that there is in this no breach in
either our traditions or u policy as
a nation, but a fulfillment rather, of
all that we have professed or striven
for.
II am proposing, as it were, that
the nations should with one accord,
adopt the doctrine of President Mon
roe as the doctrine of the world: that
nc nation should seek to extend it's
policy over any other nation Of peo-
pie, but that every people should be
left free, to determine it's own po-
Icy, it's own way of development, In
hindered; unthreatened, unafraid, the
little along with the great and power
full. .
81 am proposing that all nations
henceforth avoid entangling alli-
ances which would draw them into
competitions of power, catch them
in a net of intrigue and selfish rival
ry and disturb their own affairs
with influence intruded from without.
There is no entangling alliance
in a concert of power. When all un-
tie to act in the same sence and with
the same purpose. all act in the COM
mon interest and are free to live
their own lives under a common pro-
lection.
IL am proposing government by
the consent Of the governed; that
freedom of the seas, which in inter-
national conference after conference
representatives of the United States
have urged with the eloquence of
those who are the convinced discip-
lines of liberty and hat moderation of
ornaments, which makes of armies
and navies a power for order merely
not an instrument OF aggression or
of self violence"