Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-12-17
WILSON TO STRESS
IMPORTANCE OF US.
VICTORY IN ADDRESS
viii Visit Soldiers and De-
Iineate in Speech Just
What Kind of Peace They
Have Fought For
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
Copyright, 1918, by the New York
Evening Post, Inc.)

Copyright, 1918, by the New York
Evening Post, Inc.)
PARIS, Dec. 16.-President Wilson
is going to visit the American troops
December "a. General Pershing has
arranged for the trip. Undoubtedly
it will be the occasion for an impor-
tant speech that will emphasize and
delineate in the public mind the
achievement of the American forces.
While this is appreciated by the great
mass of the French and British peo-
pie. certain interests which want TO
make different kind Of peace from
that which America understood when
she announced her creed and battle
cry of making the world safe for de-
mocracy have been trying to depreci-
ate what has been done by the United
States in the war.
This tendency ought to be checked
because It can prove disturbing II
permitted to assume wider proper
| tions. After all, it may be merely a
human tendency which in the hour OF
triumph sometimes forgets how the
triumph was accomplished, just as q
man made rich often forgets who
gave him his first start.
Ii seems to be difficult to impress
some Europeans with the idea that
when America came 5000 miles
across seas with her big army and
navy. and left on this soil thousands
OF graves of American youths, we
broke the American traditional poll
cy of isolation, and now that VIC
tory is achieved we cannot allow q
peace to be made which is in any
wise different from the views OF
democracy which inspired our troops
at Chateau-Thierry and elsewhere to
carry forward the battle flag OF
world democracy. Our peace delega
ton would not feel true to the ideals
OF America, if it permitted without
protest its colleagues to say, this
is a strictly European affair. Your
own policy in the past has been to
keep aIoof, and now it should be
isolation once more"
VIII Not interiors
America certainly has no desire
TO interfere in the slightest degree
in trade and business questions in
volving the legitimate expansion of
European nations. but it will insist
on voice in the arrangements and
agreements which will make it cer-
tain that nothing will be done which
will make necessary another war by
another generation, the bringing of
America into the maelstrom anew. In
other words, the American attitude
here is: I'VE were partners in the
world policy when the war came. We
must be partners in peace. so that
war Will be unnecessary or localized
in the future. We have shown that
our sacrifice knows no boundaries
when the principles of world set
tlement are at stake, and we are
ready to insist that every nation
must exhibit the same spirit of self
denial in the hours Of peace"
Perhaps in respect to no question
more than that of the freedom of the
seas is the issue more clearly drawn
L
as TO what that term means, Jut
there is no doubt in the minds of the
allied governments. Indeed, in my
opinion, some American newspapers
have been interpreting the phrase
too extremely ana radically, and have
been partly misled by expressed or
unexpressed apprehensions of the
British
As a matter of fact, England Will
find in the last analysis that Amer.
lea is not asking her to adopt the
! impossible, but asking for that which
Great Britain herself is going to see
is for her benefit as we'll as for
the peace of the world,
No Objection to Navy
There is not the slightest objec,
ton, for instance. to possession by
Great Britain of a large navy. Any
idea that America wants England e
reduce to a point of equality with Us
her. naval strength is absurd and
mischievous. America simply wants
the league of nations not to be dom
mated by a single power any more
than in a fraternal or charitable or
ganization among private individuals
we permit the man who makes the
largest donation Of money to admin
lister the affairs or shape the poll.
cies.
England will probably make in the
end the largest naval donation &c
| the league of nations, but America
believes that international compacts
should limit the sphere of every ma
tons activity, so that navalism can
not be developed into a world men,
ace any more than militarism
Americans agree that the British at
titude i'm controlling the seas in the
past has been most liberal, but no
league Of nations can rest on firm
foundations il dependent merely on
written expectation and benevOlencc
/ The American contingent, therefore
/ believes that England eventually will
give the world magnificent example
Of her own unSeifishnesS by pool
Continued on Page 6, Column A.
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