The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-01-22
Event Makes History.

lllcllIS VI OH lIS way 10 LneIl.
Event Makes History.
No such history making event with
such far reaching possibilities to the
United States probably ever had been
seen in the senate chamber.
In the background of the fundament-
al proposition of whether the United
States should alter the foreign policy
laid down by Washington and carried
out by a long line of presidents was
the possibility that out of some such
league of nations might come a way
to end the present war.
Reviews Step Movement.
The president reviewed the peace
negotiations to date and spoke of
the note he had addressed to the belli-
gerents and the answers he had re-
ceived. He then said he thought it his
duty to inform the senate of what had
been in his mind. In regard to the
duty of this country in the days to
come when 1T will be necessary to
lay afresh and upon a new plan, the
foundations of peace among nations -
1T is inconceivable that the people
OF the United States should play no
part In that great enterprise" he said.
Settlement Must Come.
Speaking Of the end Of the war and
conditions which will prevent another
the president said such a settlement
can not be long postponed. Before
it comes. however, he declared it was
right that this government should
formulate the conditions upon
which 1t would be justified in asking
her people to approve it's formal and
solemn adherence to a league for
peace"
He said those conditions were "the
present war must first be ended: but
we owe it to candor and to a just re-
gard for the opinion of mankind to
say that so far as our participation in
guarantees of future peace is con-
cerned, it makes a great deal of diff
ference in that way and upon what
terms it is ended The treaties and
agreements which bring it to an end
must embody terms which will create
a peace that is worth guaranteeing
and preserving a peace that will win
the approval of mankind; not merely
4 peace that will serve the several in.
Lerests and immediate aims of the ma
voice in determining what those terms
shall be but we shall. feel sure, have
a voice in determining whether they
shall be made lasting or not by the
guarantees of universal covenant and
our judgment upon what is fun6a-
mental and essential as a condition
precedent to permanency should be
spoken now not afterwards, when it
may be too late.
Must include New World
"No covenant of cooperative peace
hat does not include the peoples of
The new world can suffice to keep the
Is only one sort of peace that the
people of America could joir in guar
3nteeing..
THE elements of that peace must
be elements that engage the conf
lence and satisfy the principles of the
American governments elements con-
sistent with their political faith and
the practical convictions which the
people of America have once for all
and undertaken to defend.
Community Of Power
There must be-" he continued,
not a balance of power but a COM
nunity of power; not organized riv-
alries but an organized, common
Jeace
'The equality of nations upon which
peace must be founded. if it is to last.
must be an equality of right; the
guarantees exchanged must neither
nor imply difference be-
ween big nations and small, between
hose that are powerful and those
hat are weak Right must be based
lpon the common strength not upon
he individual strength of the nations
lpon whose concerts peace will de-
pend. Equality of territory or of re-
sources of course there cannot be:
Tor any other sort of equality not
gained in the original peaceful and
legitimate development of the peo-
lies themselves. But no one asks or
expects anything more than an equal
ty of right. Mankind is looking now
or freedom of life.
Power Comes From Governed
"And there is deeper thing evolv-
ID than even equality of right among
organized nations. No peace can last
,r ought to last, which does not rec
,gnize and accept the principle that
,owers for the consent of the gov
srned. and that no right anywhere
.xists to hand peoples about from
sovereignty to sovereignty as If
hey were property.
Demands Security Of Life
Il take it for granted for instance,
f l may venture among a single ex-
.mple that statesmen everywhere are
greed that there should be united
and autonomous Poland
nd that henceforth security of life. of
and of industrial and social