Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1919-07-10
Text Of Wilson'S
]. Address Before
The Senate Today

Washington, Jug 1O.-President
Wilson in presenting the peace treaty
and the League of Nations to the SEN
ate today spoke as follows:
Gentlemen of the Senate:
The treaty of peace with Germany
was signed at Versailles on the 2Sth
Of June. I avail myself Of the earliest
opportunity to lay the treaty before
you for ratification and to inform
you with regard to the work Of the
conference by which that treaty was
formulated.
The treaty constitutes nothing less
than world settlement.
1T would not be possible for me
either to summarize or to construe its
manifold provisions in an address
which must of necessity be something
less than treatise. Ny services and
all the information I possess will be
at your disposal and at the disposal
Of your committee on foreign relations
at any time. either informally or in
session as you may prefer, and 1 hope
that you. will not hesitate to make
use of them.
Il shall at this time. prior to your
own study Of the document, attempt
only a general Characterization of its
scope and purpose.
In one sense there is no need that
| should report to you what was at
tempted and done at Paris. You have
been daily cognizant of what was go
ing on thereof the problems with
which the peace conference had to
deal and of the difficulty of laying
down straight lines of settlement any
where on field on which the old
lines of International relationship and
the new alike, followed SO intricate
a pattern and were for the most part
cut so deep by historical circumstance
| III M
would have been best to ignore or re-
verse them. The cross currents Of
politics and of interest must have
been evident to you. 1t would be pre-
suming in me to attempt to explain
the questions which arose or the di-
verse elements that entered into them
shall attempt something less am
bilious than that and more clearly
suggested by my duty to report to the
congress the part it seemed necessary
for my colleagues and me to play as
the Representatives of the government
of the United States. That part was
dictated by the role America had play
ed In the war and by the expectations
that had been. created IN the minds
Of the-people with whom we had as
soctated ourselves insthat great. strug-
gle. *
U,4S. ENTERED ON
DIFFERENT FOOTING
1.-The United States entered the war
upon a. different footing from every
other nation except our associates on
this side OF the sea. We entered it not
because our materials we're directly
threatened or because any special
treaty obligations to which we were
parties had been violated but only
because we saw the supremacy and
even the validity, of right everywhere
put in jeopardy. and free government
likely to be everywhere imperiled by
the intolerable aggression of a power
which respected neither representa-
ton or obligation and whose system
Of government flouted the rights Of
the citizen as against the autocratic
authority of his governors and in the
settlements of the peace we have
sought no special reparation for our
selves but only the restoration of
right and the assurance OF liberty ev-
erywhere that the effects of the settle
ment were to be felt. We entered
the war as the disinterested cham