The Benson signal., 1917-01-27
Lasting Peace Is U. S. Demand.


peace is concerned, it makes a great
deal OF difference in what way and
upon what terms it is ended. The
treaties and agreements which bring
it to an end must embody terms which
will create peace that is worth guar
anteeing and preserving, a peace that
will win the approval of mankind; not
merely peace that will serve the sew
eral interests and immediate aims of
the nations engaged. We shall have
no voice in determining what those
terms shall be, but we shall, I feel
cure, have voice in determining
whether they shall be made lasting or
not by the guarantees of universal
covenant and our judgment upon what
is fundamental and essential as a con-
dition precedent to permanency should
be spoken now, not afterward when it
may be too late.
No covenant of cooperative peace
that does not include the peoples of
the New World can suffice to keep the
future safe against war, and yet there
is only one sort of peace that the peo-
pies of America could join in guaran-
teeing.
Terms Must Satisfy America.
The elements of that peace must be
elements that engage the confidence
and satisfy the principles of the Amer
ican governments, elements consistent
with their political faith and the prac-
tical convictions which the peoples of
America have once for all embraced
and undertaken to defend.
do not mean to say that any Amer
lean government would throw any OBJ
stacle in the way of any terms of
peace the governments now at war
might agree upon Or seek to upset
them when made, whatever they might
be.
I only take it for granted that mere
terms of peace between the belliger-
ents will not satisfy even the belliger-
ents themselves Mere agreements
may not make peace.
1t will be absolutely necessary that
force be created as guarantor. of
the permanency of the settlement so
much greater than the force of any
nation now engaged or any alliance
hitherto formed or projected, that no
nation, no probable combination of ma
tions could face or withstand it.
If the peace presently to be made
is to endure it must be peace made
secure by the organized major force
of mankind. The terms of the imme-
diate peace agreed upon will deter
mine whether there is a peace where
such guarantee can be secured.
Questions on Which Peace Hinges.
The question upon which the whole
future peace and policy of the world
depends is this:
Is the present war a struggle for
just and secure peace, or only for a
new balance of power? If it be only
struggle for new balance of power,
who will guarantee the stable equilib-
rum of the new arrangement? Only
a tranquil Europe can be stable Eu-
rope. There must be, not balance
not organized rivalries, but an organ
lied common peace.
Fortunately, we have received very
explicit assurances on this point. The
statesmen of both groups of nations
now arrayed against one another have
said, in terms that could not be mis-
interpreted, that it was no part of the
purpose they had in mind to crush
their antagonists. But the implica-
tions of these assurances may not be
equally clear to all-may not be the
same on both sides of the water. I
think it will be serviceable if attempt
to set forth what we understand them
to be.
They imply first of all that it must
be peace without victory. 1t is not
pleasant to say this. beg that l may
be permitted to put my own interpreta-
stood that no other Interpretation was
in my thought | am seeking only to
face realities and to face them without
soft concealmentS. Victory would
mean peace forced upon the loser a
victors terms imposed upon the van
Quished. 1t would be adopted in hui
initiation, under duress, at an intOler-
able sacrifice, and would leave a,sting,
a resentment, bitter memory upon
which terms of peace would rest, not
permanently, but only as upon quick
sand. Only peace between equals
can last; only peace the very prln-
ciple of which is equality and COM
mon participation in common bene-
fit.
The right state of mind, the right
feeling between nations, is as neces-
sary for lasting peace as is the just
settlement of vexed questions of terri
tory or of racial and national alleg-
lance.
Right to Be the Basis of Terms.
The equality of nations upon which
peace must be founded, if it is to last,
must be an equality of rights; the
gual sntees exchanged must neither
recognize nor imply a difference be-
tween big nations and small, between
those that are powerful and those
that are weak Right must be used
upon the common strength, not upon
the individual strength, of the nations
upon whose concert peace will depend
Equality of territory or of resources
there, of course, cannot be; nor any
other sort of equality not gained in
the ordinary peaceful and legitimate
development of the peoples them
selves. But no one asks or expects