Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-02-25
What the President Said

Defcrs Report of Proceedings
I have not come to report the pro-
ceedings or the results of the pro-
ceedings of the Peace Conference;
that would be premature. can say
that 1 have received very happy
impressions from this conference;
the impression that while there are
many differences of judgment. while
there are some Emergencies of OBJ
Ject, there is nevertheless a common
spirit and common realization of
the necessity of setting up new
standards of right in the world,
Because the men who are in con-
ference in Paris realize as keenly
as any American can realize that
they are not the masters of their
people; that they are the servants
of their people and that the siprit of
their people has awakened to new
purpose and a new conception of
their power to realize that purpose,
and that no man dare go home from
that conference and report any
thing less noble than was expected
of it.
The conference sdems to you to
go slowly; from day to day in Paris
it seems to go slowly. but I wonder
task which it has undertaken. 1t
seems as If the settlements of this
war affect, and affect directly, every
great, and I sometimes thing, every
small, nation in the world, and no
one decision can prudently be made
which is not properly linked in with
the great series of other decisions
which must accompany it. And it
must be reckoned in with the final
result If the real quality and char
acter of that result is to be properly
judged.
What we are doing is to hear the
whole case; hear 1t from the mouths
of the men most interested; hear it
from those who are officially COM
missioned to state 1t; hear the rival
claims; hear the claims that affect
new nationalities, that affect new
areas of the world. that affect new
commercial and economic connec-
tons that have been established Dy
the great World War through
which we have gone. And l nave
been struck by the moderateness OF
those who have represented national
claims. can testify that l have no
where seen the gleam or passion. L
have seen earnestness, l have seen
tears come to the eyes of men VINO
pied for down n-trodden people whom
they were privileged to speak for;
but they were not the tears of an
guish. they were the tears OF ardent
hope.
And / don't see how any man can
fail to have been subdued by these
pleas, subdued to this feeling, tnat
he was not there to assert an IN
dividual judgment of his own, but 10
try to assist the cause of humanity.
All Seek Representatives OF U. -
And in the mist of it all every In
terest seeks out first of all, when 1T
reaches Paris, the representatives or
the United States Why? Because,
and I think l am stating the most
wonderful fact in history-pecause
there is no nation in Europe that
suspects the motives OF the Onlted
States.
thing seen before? Was there ever
So moving a thing? Was there ever
any fact that so bound the nation
that had won that esteem forever
to deserve it?
Whenever it is desired to send a
small force of soldiers to occupy
a. piece of territory where II Is
thought nobody else will be wei
come, they ask for American SOL
fliers. And where other soldiers
would be looked upon with sus-
.picion and perhaps net with re-
sistance, the American soldier is
welcomed with acclaim.
I have mad so many GROUNDS Tor
pride on the other side of the water
that am very thankful that they are
not grounds for personal prlde. q
be the most stuck-up man. IN the
world. And it has been an infinite
Measure to me to see those gallant
soldiers of ours. of whom the con-
stitution of the United states made
me the proud commander. You may
he proud of the Twenty-siXth DiVi-
sion, but 1 commanded the twenty
sixth division, and see what they did
under NV direction! And everybody
praises the American soldier with
the feeling that in praising him he
is subtracting from the credit of no
one else.
have been searching for the
fundamental fact that converted
Europe to believe in us. Before this
war Europe did not believe in us as
she does now~ She did not believe
in us throughout the first three years
of the war. She seems really to
have believed that we were holding
off because we thought We could
make more by staying out than by
going in. And allNof sudden, in a
short eighteen months, the whole
verdict Is reversed. There can be
but one explanation for it. They
saw what we did--that without
making a single claim we put all our
men and all our means at the dis
posaI of those who were fighting for
their homes, in the first instance but
for a cause, the cause of human
rights and justice, and that we went
in, not to support their national
claims, but to support the great
cause which they held in common.
U, S. Holds Ideals and Acts Ideals
! And when they saw that America
not only held ideals, but acted ideals,
they were converted to America and
became firm partisans of those
ideals.
1 met d group of scholars when
I was in Paris-some gentlemen
from one of the Greek universities
who. had come to see me, and in
whose presence I felt very young,
indeed. I told them that 1 had one
of the delightful revenges that some
times comes to a man. All my life
1 had heard men speak with a sort
of condescension of ideals and of
idealists, and particularly those sep
arated. encloistered persons whom
they choose to term academic, who
were in the habit of uttering idealsl
in the free atmosphere when they
clash with nobody in particular.
And 1 said 1 have had this sweet