, 1919-01-09
PRESIDENT PAYS
HOMAGE TOALLIES
WILSON SAYS STATESMEN AT
PEACE TABLE WILL SET
NEW LEVEL.
new TIES THAT BIND
JOINT RECEPTION WAS GIVEN BY
BOTH MEMBERS OF SENATE
AND CHAMBER DEPUTIES.
Western Newspaper Union News Service.

Western Newspaper Union News Service.
Rome, Jan. A big ovation was
given President Wilson at the joint
reception of the Italian Parliament,
and listened with deep interest to the
Presidents short speech as follows:
You are bestowing Upon me an IN
precedented honor which | accept be-
cause | believe that it is extended to
me as the representative of the great
people for whom | speak. And | am
going to take this first opportunity to
say how seriously the heart of the
American people has been with the
great people of Italy.
I'VE have seemed, no doubt, indif-
ferent at times, but our hearts have
never been far way. All sorts of
ties have long bound the people of
our America to the people of Italy,
and when the people of the United
States have witnessed its sacrifices,
its heroic actions upon the battlefield
INT its heroic endurance at home
its steadfas t endurance at home
touching us more nearly to the quick
even than its heroic action on the
we nave Dtth DOuIlu ny
a new tie of profound admiration.
Then back of it all, and through it
all, running like the golden thread
that wove it together, was our knowl-
edge that the people of Italy had gone
into this war for the same exalted
principle of right and justice that
moved our own people.
But we cannot stand in the shad-
ow of this war without knowing there
are things which are in some senses
more difficult than those we have
undertaken, because, while it is easy
to speak of right and justice, it is
sometimes difficult to work them out
in practice and there will be required
a purity of motives I'M disinterested-
ness of object which the world has
never witnessed before in the coun-
ellis of nations.
1T is for that reason that it seems
to me you will forgive me if l lay
some of the elements of the new stu
alton before you for a moment. The
distinguished fact of this war is that
great empires ave gone to pieces.
And the characteristics of those en-
pires are that they held different peo,
pies reluctantly together under the
coercion of force n the guidance of
intrigue.
THE great difficulty among such
states as those of the Balkans has
been that they were always accessible
to secret influence: n they were
always being penetrated by intrigue
of some sort or another; that north of
them lay disturbed populations which
were held together not by history and
friendship, but by the coercive force
of military power.
Now the intrigue is checked and
the bands are broken, and what we
are going to provide is a new cement
to hold the people together. They
have not been accustomed to being
independent. They must now be in
dependent.
Il am sure that you recognize the
principle as / do-that it is not IL
privilege to say what sort of a gov
eminent they should set up. But we
are friends of those people. and 1t is
our duty as their friends to see to it
that some kind of protection is thrown
around them.
Friendship and Good VIII.
There is only one thing that holds
nations together, if you exclude force,
and hat is friendship n good will.
Therefore our task at Paris is to or
ganize the friendship of the world
to see to it hat all the moral forces
that make for right and justice and
liberty are united and are given a
vital organization to which the peo-
pies of the world will readily and
gladly respond.
Desire to Do Justice.
In other words, our task is no less
colossal than this; To set up a new
international psychology: to have a
new real atmosphere. | am happy to
say that in my dealings with h dis
tinguished gentlemen who lead your
nation and those who lead France
and England, l feel that atmosphere
gathering, that desire to do justice,
that desire to establish friendliness,
hat desire to make peace rest upon
right, and with this common purpose,
no obstacles need be formidable.
I'VE know that there cannot be an
other balance of power. That has
been tried and found wanting, for the
best of all reasons that 1t does not
stay balanced inside itself.
United League of Nations.
Therefore there must be something
substituted for the balance of power,
and l am happy to find everywhere
in the air of these great nations the
conception that that thing must be a
thoroughly united league or nations.
What men once considered theo-
retical and idealistic turns out to be
a practical necessity. We stand at
the opening of a new age in which a