The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1917-01-27

be peace without victory. Ii is not
to say this. l beg that
may be permitted to put my own in
depreciation upon it and that it may
be understood that no other interpre-1
tation was in my thought. am seek
ing only to face realities and to face
them without soft concealments.
Victory would mean peace forced
upon the loser a victor's terms i'm,
posed upon the vanquished. 1t would
be accepted in humiliation under
duress at an intolerable sacrifice and
would leave sting, a resentment, a.
bitter memory upon which terms of
peace would rest, not permanently.
but only as upon quicksand. Only
peace between equals can last. Only
peace the very principle of which
is equality and common participation
in common benefit. The right state
Of mind, the right feeling between
nations, is as necessary for lasting
peace as is the just settlement of
vexed questions of territory or Of
racial and national allegiance. 4.
1.-THE equality of nations uoon
which peace must be founded if it is
to last must be an equality of rights:
the guarantees exchanged must
neither recognize nor imply differ
ence between big nations and small,
between those that are powerful an6
those that are weak. Right must bo
based upon the common strength, not
upon the individual strength, of tllc
nations upon whose concert peace
will depend. Equality of territory or
of resources there Of course can not
be: nor any other sort Of equality not
gained in the ordinary peaceful and
legitimate development of the peo-
pies themselves. But no one asks
or expects anything more than an
equality Of rights. Mankind is Look
ing now for freedom of life. not fer
equipoise of power.
And there 10 deeper thing inc.
volved than even equality of right
among organized nations, No peace
can last, or ought to last, which does
not recognize and accept the prin-
ciple that governments derive all their
just powers from the consent Of the
governed, and that no righ. any,
where exists to hand peoples about
from sovereignty to sovereignty as lf
they were property. take it for
granted, for instance, If may ven-
ure upon a single example. that
2tatesmen everywhere are agreed that
there should be united. Independent
and autonomous Poland and that
heneeforth inviolable security of life,
If Worship and Of industrial and so-
cial ds2elopment should be gnarans'
teed to all people who have lived
shithestos under the power. OF govern
ments devoted to q faith and .pur-
pose hostile to their own.
"r speak Of this. not because of
any desire to exalt an abstract poli.-
ical principle which has always been
held very dear by those who have
sought to build up liberty in America
but for the same reason that have
spoken OF the other conditions OF
peace which seem to ME clearly in
dispensable-because I wish frankly
to uncover realities. Any peace which
does not recognize and accept this
principle will inevitably be upset. It
will not rest upon the affections O,
the convictions Of mankind. The fer.
ment Of spirit Of whole populations
viii fight subtly and constantly
against it. and all the world will SYM
pathize. The world can be at peace
only If its life is stable. and there
can be no stability where the will is
In rebellion, where there is not tran.
guilty. of spirit and sense of jus
tice. Of freedom and Of right.
so far as practicable every great
people, now struggling towards a full
development of its resources and OF
its powers should be assured a direct
outlet to the great highways Of "a
sea. Where this can not be dol. ~,
the cession of territory, it can NO
doubt be done by the naturalization
IF direct rights of way under the
general guarantee which will assure
the peace itself. With the right
comfy Of arrangement no nation need
be shut away from free access to
he. open paths of the worlds COM
merce.
And the paths of the sea mus
alike in law and in fact be free. The
freedom of the seas is the sin qua
non Of peace. equality and coopera-