Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-07-11


OF France, but also of tens of millions
OF men and women throughout all the
lolllhg nations of a world standing
everywhere in peril of its freedom and
OF the loss of everything it held dear,
IN deadly fear that Is bonds We're
never TO be loosed. its hopes forever
to be Knocked and disappointed.
Must Save EurC9c.
And the compulson of wnat they
STOOD FOR was upon us VINO represent
ed America at the peace table It
was our duty to see to it that every
decision we took part in contributed,
so taf as We We're able to influence it,
to quiet the fears and realize the
hopes of the peoples who lad been
living in that shadow, the nations that
had come by our assistance to their
freedom. 1t was our duty to do every
thing that it was within our power to
do to make the triumph If freedom
and OF right lasting trn'mnh, in the
assurance of which men might every
where live without fear.
Old ENGAGEMENTS of every kind
stood in the way-promses which
governments had made to one an
other in the days when miCht and
right were confuse and the 1OWcr
Engagements when contemplated
any dispositions of territory, any eX-
tensions of sovereignty that might
seem to be to the interests of those
who had the power to insist upon
them, had been entered into without
thought of what the peoples con-
cerned might wish or profit bv; and
those could not always he honorably
brushed aside. IT was not easy to
graft the new order of ideas on the
old, and some of the frm's of the
grating may, / fear for a time, be
bitter But with very few exceptions,
the men who sat with us at the peace
table desired as sincerely as we did to
get away from the bad influences. the
lllegltimate purposes, the demorali2ing
ambitions, the international councils
and eXpedients out of which the sin
isler designs of Germany had sprung
as natural growth 1t mad been our
privilege to formulate the principles
which were accepted as the basis of
the peace, but they had been accom-
plished, not because we had come in
to hasten and assure the victory and
insisted unon them, but because they
were readily acceded to as the prin-
ciples to which honorable and en-
lightcned minds everywhere had been
lred. They spoke the conscience or
the world as well as the conscience of
America, and | am happy to pay my
respect and gratitude to the able, for
ward looking meii with whom il was
my privilege to cooperate for their
unfailing spirit of cooperation, their
constant effort to Accommodate the
interests they represented to the prin-
ciplos we were all agreed upon. The
difficulties, which We're many. lay in
the circumstances, not o-.en in the
men. Almost without exception the
men whu lead had caughF the true
and full vision of the problem of
peace as an indivisibln whole. a prob
lem, not of mere adjustments of in.
terests, hu' OF justice and right action.
New Nations Created
The atmosphere in which the CON
ference worked seemed created, n1
by the ambitions of strong govern.
ments, but by the hopes anG aspira-
tons of small nations and or peoples
hitherto rllder bondage to the POW ~
tHat victory had shattered AMI de-
Stroyed Two great empires had been
forced into political bankruptcy and
we were the receivers. Our task was
not only to make peace with the CEN
trail empires and remedy the wrongs
their armies had done. The central
empires had lived in omen violation
of many of the very rights for which
the war had been fought, dominating
alien peoples over whom thcv had no
natural right to rule, enforcing, not
obedience. hut veritable bondage. eX-
plotting those who were weak for the
benefit of those who We're masters and
over-lords only by force of arms.
There could he no peace until the
whole order of central Europe was set
right.
That meant that new nations were
to be created-Poland Czecho- Slova
kia. Hungary itself. No part of an
ctent Poland had ever in any true
sense become part of Germany, or of
Austria, or of Russia. Bohemia was
alien in every thought and hope to the
monarchy of which she had so long
been an artificial part; and the I'M
easy partnership between Austria ana
Hungary had been one rather of inter
cts than of tinship or sympathy The
Slavs whom Austria had chosen to
force into her empire on the south
were kept to their obedience by moth
ing but fear Their hearts were with
their knsmen in the Balkans. These
were ali arrangements of power, not
arrangements of natural union or as
Soc'atlon. 1t was the imperative task
of those who make peace and make
1t intellisentlY to establish new
order which would rest upon the free
choice of peoples rather tnan upon
the arbitrary authority of Hapsburgs
or Hohenzollerns.
self determination.
More than that. great populations
bound by sympathy and actual kin to
Rumanla were also linked aga,nst
thelr viii to the Conglomerate Austro-
Hungarian monarchy or to other alien
soVerelgnueS, and it was part of the
task OF peace to make a new Rumania
as well as new Slavic state cluster
ing about Serbia.
And no natural frontiers could he
found to those new fields of adjust
ment and redemption. 1t was neces.
Sary TO look constantly forward to
other related tasks. The German
coiohies were to be disposed Of They
mad not been governed; they had
been exploited merely, without
thought Of the interest or even the
ordinary human rights of their inhab-
itants.
The Turkish empire, moreover. had
tailen apart as the Austro- Hungarian
had, 1t had never had any real unity,
IL had been held together only by pitt !
less, inhuman force. It's peoples cried |
aloud for release, for succor from un-
Speakable distress, for all that the |
new day of hope seemed at last to
orlhS within its dawn. Peoples hth-
efto IN utter darkness were to be led !
out into the same light and given at
last helping hand. Unieveloped |
peoples and peoples ready for recog- !
nluon but not yet ready to assume
the full responsibilities of statehood |
were TO be given adequate guarantees !
OF frlendly protection. guidance and |