The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1917-01-24

eminent ever since the days when they
set up a new nation In the high and
honorable hope that 1t might in all
that it was and did show mankind the
way to liberty.
"They cannot III honor withhold the
service to which they are now about
to be challenged. They do not wish to
withhold it. But they owe it to them
selves and to the other nations of the
world TO state the conditions under
which they will feel free to render 1t.
Cannot Be Long Postponed.
THAT service Is nothing less than
this-to add their authority and their
power to the authority and force of
other nations to guarantee peace and
justice throughout the world Such a
settlement cannot now be long post
poned. 1t is right that before it comes
this government should frankly form
ulate the conditions upon which il
would feel justified in asking our PEG
pie to approve its formal and solemn
adherence to a league for peace. l am
here to attempt to state those condi-
tons.
THE present war must first be end
ed; but we owe it to candor and to Il
just regard for the opinion of mankind
to say that so far as our participation
In guarantees of future peace is con-
cerned 1t makes great deal of differ
ence in what way and upon what terms
it is ended. The treaties and agree
ments which bring it to an end must
embOdy terms which will create a
peace that is worth guaranteeing and
preserving, peace that will win the
approval Of mankind; not merely a
peace that will serve the several inter-
eSts and immediate aims of the nations
engaged.
1--WE shall have no voice in determin-
ing what those terms shall be, but we
shall, / feel sure, have a voice in de-
termining whether they shall be made
lasting or not by the guarantees of a
universal covenant and our judgment
upon what is fundamental and essen
tial as condition precedent to per-
manency should be spoken now, not
afterWard when it may be too late.
mo 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.
THE elements of that peace must be
elements that engage the confidence
and satisfy the principles of the Amer
lean governments, elements consistent
with their political faith and the prac-
teal convictions which the peoples of
America have once for all embraced
and undertaken to defend.
Sea Paths Must Be Free.
And the paths of the sen must alike,
in law and in fact, be free. The free
dom of the seas is the sine qua non
of peace, equality and cooperation. No
doubt a somewhat radical reconSidera-
ton of many of the rules of interna-
tional practice hitherto sought to be es-
tablished may be necessary in order to
make the seas indeed free and COM
mon in practically all circumstances
for the use of mankind, but the mo-
tive for such changes is convincing
and compelling. There can be no trust
or intimacy between the peoples of the
world without them. The free, con-
slant, unthreatened intercourse of ma
tons is an essential part Of the proc
ess of peace and of development. 1t
need not be difficult to define or to Sc
cure the freedom Of the seas, if the
governments Of the world sincerely de-
sire to come to an agreement concern
ing it.
at is a problem closely connected
with the limitation Of naval arma-
ments and the cooperation of the ma
vies of the world in keeping the seas
at once free and safe. And the QueS-
ton of limiting naval ornaments opens
the wider and perhaps more difficult
question of the limitation Of armies
and of all progress of military prepare
ton.
Questions Must Be Faced