Connecticut western news., 1917-03-08

States Stands For World Peace.
 Freedom of Seas, Actual Equality of
 Nations and Limitation of Arma-
 ments-Counts on United Nation to
 Back Him.
 The second inaugural address of President Wilson was as follows:
 My Fellow Citizens: The four years which have elapsed since last I stood in this place have been crowded with counsel and action of the most vital interest and consequence. Perhaps no equal period in our history has been so fruitful of impOr- tant reforms in our economic and indus trial life or so full of significant changes in the spirit and purpose of our political action.
 We have sought very thoughtfLny to set our house in order, correct the grosser CT TOTS and abuses of our industrial life. lib crate and quicken the processes of our na- uonal genius and energy and lift our poll tics to broader view of the peoples es sential interests
 It is record of singular variety and singular distinction. But I shall not at tempt to review 1t. 1t speaks for itself and will be of increasing influence as the years go by. This is not the time for retrospect; 1t is time, rather. to speak our thoughts and purposes concerning the piSSSIL anu luS lIIliIleuldle future.
 Drawn Into Wars Orbit.
 Although we have centered counsel and action with such unusual concentration and success upon the great problems of domestic legislation to which we ad- dressed ourselves four years ago. other matters have more and more forced them selves upon our attention, matters lying outside our own life as nation and over which we had no control, but which, de- fkN A- drawn us more and more irresistibly into their own current and influence.
 It has been impossible to avoid them They have affected the life of the whole world They have shaken men everywhere with a passion and an apprehension they never knew before. It has been hard to preserve calm counsel while the thought of our own people swayed this way and that under their influence
 We are composite and cosmopolitan people We are of the blood of all the ma tions that are at war. The currents of our thoughts well as the currents of our trade run quick at all seasons back and forth between us and them. The war in evitably set its mark from the first alike upon our minds, our industries, com merce, our politics and our social action. To be indifferent to it or independent of it was out of the question.
 And yet all the while we have been con- scious that we were not part of it. Tn that consciousness despite many divisions, wn have drawn closer together We have been deeply wronged upon the seas, but we have not wished to wrong or injure In 7 return: have retained throughout the con sctousnesS of standing in some sort apart, intent upon an interest that transcended the immediate issues of the war itself.
 Want Only Justice.
 As some of the injuries done us have be- come intolerable we have still been clear that We wished nothing for ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all man. kind-fair dealings, justice, the freedom to live and be at ease against organized wrong.
 It Is in this spirit and with this thought that we have grown more and more aware, more and more certain, that the part we wished to play was the part of those who mean to vindicate and fortify peace. We have been obliged to arm ourselves 70 make good our claim to a certain mini mum of right and of freedom of action.
 We stand firm in armed neutrality since it seems that in no other way can We dem onstrate what 1t Is we insist upon and cannot forego. We may even be drawn on by circumstances, not by our own purpose or desire, to more active assertion of our rights as we see them and a more inn mediate association with the great strug gle itself.
 But nothing will alter our thought or our purpose They are too clear to be ob- scured. They are too deeply rooted in the principles of our national life to be al tered. We desire neither conquest nor advantage. We wish nothing that can be had only at the cost of another people. We always professed unselfish purpose, and we covet the opportunity to prove that our professions are sincere.
 We are provincials no longer. The trag- ical events of the thirty months of vital turmoil through which we have just passed have made us citizens of the world There can be no turning back. Our own fortunes as nation are involved, whether we would have it so or not.
 Still More American.
 And yet we are not the less Americans on that account We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the principles in which we have been bred. They are not the principles of a province or of a single continent. We have known and boasted all along that they were the principles of a liberated mankind.
 These, therefore, are the things we shall stand for, whether in war or in peace:
 That all nations are equally interested in the peace of the world and in the polit- tcal stability of free peoples and equally responsible for their maintenance.
 That the essential principle of peace is the actual equality of nations in all mat ters of right or privileges.
 |, That peace cannot securely or justly rest upon an armed balance of power.
 That governments derive all their pow CTS from the consent or by the common thought, purpose or power of the family of nations
 That the seas should be equally free and safe for the use of all peoples, under rules set up by common agreement and consent and that, so far as practicable, they should be accessible to all upon equal terms.
 That national armaments should be linn ited to the necessities of national order and domestic safety.
 That the community of interest and of power upon which peace must henceforth depend imposes upon each nation the duty of seeing to 1t that all influences proceed ing from Its own citizens meant to en- courage or assist revolution in other states should be sternly and effectually suppressed and prevented.
 need not argue these principles to you, my fellow countrymen; they are your own