Republican farmer., 1918-10-04
PRESIDENT SAYS WE CANNOT TAKE WORD OF THOSE WHO FORGED WAR UPON US TO NEW YORK AUDIENCE

of a new day in which we are permit ted to hope for a general alliance which will avoid entanglements and clear the air of the world for com( mon understandings and the mains teTfance of common rights.
 I have made this analysis of the in- ternational situation which the war has created, not, of course, because I doubted whether the leaders of the great nations and people with whom we are associated were of the same mind and entertained like purpose. but because the air every now and again. gets darkened by mists and groundless doubtings. and mischiev- ous perversions of counsel and 1t is necessary once again to sweep all the irresponsible talk about peace in- trigues and weakening morale and doubtful purpose on the part of those in authority utterly, and if need be unceremoniously, aside and any things in the plainest words that can be found, even when 1t is only to say over again what has been said before, quite as plainly if in less unvarnished terms.
 As I have said, neither I nor any other man in governmental authority created or gave form to the issues of this war. I have simply responded to them with such vision as could com mand. But I have responded gladly and with a resolution that has grown warmer and more confident as the issues grow clearer and clearer.
 It is now plain that they are issues which no man can pervert unless it be wilfully. I am bound to fight for them, and happy to fight for them as time and circumstance have revealed them to me as to all the world. Our enthusiasm for them grows more and more irresistible as they stand out in more and more vivid and unmistaka- ble outline.
 And the forces that draw into closer and closer array, organize their mill lions into more and more unconquer- able might, as they become more and more distinct to the thought and pur- pose of the peoples engaged.
 It is the peculiarity of this great war that while statesmen have seem- ed to cast about for definitions of their purpose and have sometimes seemed to shift their ground and their point of view, the thought of the mass of men, whom statesmen are suppos- ed to instruct and lead, has grown more and more unclouded, more and more certain of what it is that they are fighting for.
 National purposes have fallen more and more into the background and the common purpose of enlightened mankind has taken their place. The counsels of plain men have become on all hands more simple and straight forward and more unified than the counsels of sophisticated men of af- fairs, who still retain the impression that they are playing a game of power and playing for high stakes. That is why I have said that this is a peo- ples' war, not a statements. States men must follow the clarified com- mon thought or be broken.
 Take that to be the significance of the fact that assemblies and associa- tions of many kinds made up of plain workaday people have demanded, al- most every time they come together and are still demanding, that the leaders of their governments declare to them plainly what it is exactly what it is, that they are seeking in this war, and what they think the items of the final settlement should be.
 They are not yet satisfied with what they have been told. They still seem to fear that they are getting what they ask for only in statesmens terms
 o,l1 S,, of rangements and the divisions of power, and not in terms of broad vis- ion, justice and mercy and peace and the satisfaction of those deep-seated longings of oppressed and distracted men and women and enslaved peoples that seem to them the only things worth fighting a war for that engults the world.
 Perhaps statesmen have not always recognized this changed aspect of the whole world of policy and action. Perhaps they not always spoke in di- rect reply to the questions asked be- cause they did not know how search ing those questions. were and what sort of answers they demanded.
 But I, for one. am glad to atternp4 the answer again and again. in the hope that I may make 1t clearer and clearer that, my one thought is to sat- isfy those who struggle in the ranks and are, perhaps, above all others, entitled to a reply whose meaning no one can have any excuse for misun- derstanding, if he understands the language in which it Is spoken or can get someone to translate 1t correctly into his own. And I believe that the leaders of the governments with which we are associated will speak, as they 1 have occasion. as plainly as I have tried to speak. I hope that they will feel free to say whether they think that I am in any degree mistaken in my interpretation of these issues involved or in my pur- pose with regard to the means by which a satisfactory settlement of these issues may be obtained.
 Unity of purpose and of counsel are as imperatively necessary in this war as was unity in command in the bat tlefield; and with perfect unity of purpose and counsel will come assur- , ance of complete victory. It can be had in no other way.
 Peace drives" can be effectively utilized and silenced only by showing that every victory of the nations as- sociated against Germany brings the nations nearer the sort of peace which will bring security and reassurance to all peoples and make the recurrence of another struggle of pitiless forcA and bloodshed forever impossible, and that and nothing else can.
 Germany is constantly intimatfnS the terms" she will accept, and Ss- ways finds that the world does not