The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1917-01-26

| 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 peoples of America could join In
guaranteeing.
THE elements of that peace must
be elements that engage the conf
| dence and satisfy the principles of
the American governments, elements
consistent with their political faith
and the practical convictions which
the peoples of America have once for
all embraced and undertaken to de-
fend.
Il do not mean to say that any
American government would throw
any obstacle 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. l only take it for granted
that mere terms of peace between the
| belligerents will not satisfy even the
belligerents themselves. Mere agree
ments may not make peace secure. 1t
will be absolutely necessary that a
! force be created as a 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 combinatin of ma
tions, could face or Withstand 1t. If
the peace presently to be made is to
endure it must be a peace made Sc
cure by the organized major force of
mankind.
THE terms of the immediate pace
agreed upon will determine whether
it is peace for which such guaran-
tee can be secured. The question
upon which the whole future peace
and policy of the world depends is
this:
rs the present war a struggle for
just and secure or only for new
balance of power? If it be only a
struggle for a new balance of power,
who can guarantee, the stable equilib-
rum of the new arrangement? Only
a tranquil Europe can be a stable
Europe. There must be not bal
ance of power, but a community of
power; not organized rivalries, but
an organized common peace.
Fortunately, we have received
very explicit assurances on this point.
The statesmen of both of the groups
of nations now arrayed againts one
another have said, in terms that
could not be misinterpreted, that it
was no part of the purpose they had
in mind to crush their antagonists.
But the implications of these assur
ances may not be equally clear to all
may not be the same on both sides
of the water. l think it will be SER
viceable if I attempt to set forth
what we understand them to be.
They imply first of all that it
must be a peace without victory. 1t
is not pleasant to say this. l beg
that / may be permitted to put my
own Interpretation upon it and that
it may be understood that no other
Interpretation was in my thought. l
am seeking only to face realities and
to face them without soft conceal
ments. Victory would mean peace
forced upon the loser, victor's terms
imposed upon the Vanquished. 1t
would be accepted in humiliation,
under duress, at an intolerable sacri-
flee and would leave a sting, resent
ment, a bitter memory upon which
terms of peace would rest, not per-
manently, but only as upon quick
sand. Only a peace between equals
can last; only a peace the very prin-
ciple of which is equality and COM
mon participation in a common bene-
fit. The right state of mind, the right
feeling between nations, is as neces- |
sary for a lasting peace as is the
just settlement of vexed questions of
territory or of racial and national al
legiance.
For Equality Rights
The equality of nations upon
which peace must be founded, if it
is to last, must be an equality or
rights: that guarantees exchanged
must neither recognize nor imply a
difference between big nations and
small, between those that are power
full and those that are weak. Right
must be based 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 can not be; nor any other sort !
of equality not gained in the ordinary |
peaceful and legitimate development !
of the peoples themselves. But no |
one asks or expects anything more
than equality of rights. Mankind is |
looking now for freedom and life, not !
for equiDoise of power.
and there is a deeper thing in
volvei than even t.lTality of right |
among organized nations. No peace |
can last, or ought to last, which does
not recognize and accept the princi-
D,ts InrsifTA n II Al. p
just powers from the consent of the
governed, and that no right anywhere
exists to hand peoples about from
sovereignty as if they were property.
l take for granted, for instance if
may venture upon a single example,
that statesmen everywhere are agreed
that there should be united, indie
pendent and autonomous Poland and
that henceforth inviolable security of
life, of worship and of industrial and
social development should be guar
anteed to all peoples who have lived
under the power of govern
ments devoted to a faith and purpose
hostile to their own.
II speak of this not because of
any desre to exalt an abstract politi-
cal 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 other conditions of peace
which seem to me clearly indispensi-
ble-because wish frankly to u6cov-
er realities.
ANY peace which does not recOg
nize and accept this principle will in
evitably be upset 1t Will not rest up
on the affections or the convictions of
mankind. The ferment of spirit of