Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-07-10

ultimate purposes. the demorallz-
ing ambitions, the internationa.
counsels and expedients out OF
which the sinister designs of Ger
many had sprung as natural
growth.
1t had been our privilege to for
mulate the principles which were
accepted as the basis of the peace.
but they had been accepted. not
because we had come in to hasten
and assure the victory and IN
sisted upon them. but because they
were readily acceded to as the
principles to which honorable and
enlightened minds everywhere had
been bred. They spoke the con-
science of the world as we'll as the
conscience of America. and 1 am
happy to pay my tribute OF re-
spect and gratitude to the able,
forward-looking men with whom
for their unfailing spirit of CO.
operation. their constant effort to
accommodate the interests they rep
resented to the principles we were
all agreed upon. The difficulties,
which were many, lay in the cir
cumstances. not often in the men.
Almost without exception the men
who led had caught the true and
full vision of the problem of peace
as an indisible whole, problem,
not of mere adjustments of inter-
est, but of justice and right action.
The atmosphere in which. the
conference worked seemed Gre
ated, not by the ambitions of
strong governments, but by the
hopes and aspirations of small ma
tions and of peoples hitherto un-
der bondage to the power that
victory had shattered and Destroy
ed. Two great empires had been
forced into political bankruptcy.
and we were the receivers. Our
task was not only to make peace
with the central empires and rem
edy the wrongs their armies had
done.
The central empires had lived in
open violation Of many of the very
rights for which the war had been
fought dominating alien peoples
over whom they had no natural
right to rule, enforcing. not obedi-
ence, but veritable bondage. ex-
plotting those who were weak for
the benefit of those who we're mas
tiers and overlords only by force Of
arms. There could be no peace
until the whole order of central
Europe was set right.
That meant that new nations
were to be created - Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary itself.
No part of ancient Poland had ever
in any true sense become a part of
Germany, or of Austria. or of Rus
STA. Bohemia was alien in every
thought and hope to the monarchy
Of which she had so long been an
nership between Austria and Hun
gary had been one rather Of in
terest than of kinship or SYM
pathy. The Slavs whom Austria
had chosen to force into her en-
pire On the south were kept to
their obedience by nothing but
fear. Their hearts were with their
kinsmen in the Balkans. These
were all arrangements of power.
not arrangements of natural union
or association. 1t was the impera-
tive task of those who would
make peace, and make it intelli
gently, to establish a new order
which wau Id rest upon the free
choice of peoples rather than upon
the arbitrary authority of Haps-
burgs or Hohenzollerns
More than that. great populations
bound by sympathy and actual kin
to Rumania were also linked
against their will to the conglo
merate Austro- Hungarian monarchy
or to Their alien sovereisnties. and
it was part of the task to peace to
make a new Rumania as well as a
new slavic state clustering about
Serbia.
And no natural frontiers could be
found to these new fields of ad
justment and redemption. 1t was
necessary to look constantly for
ward to other related tasks. The
German colonies were to be dis
posed of. They had not been gov
erned; they had been exploited
merely. without thought of the in
terest or even the ordinary human
rights of their inhabitants
The Turkish empire, moreover,
had fallen apart. as the Austro-
Hungarian had. 1t had never had
any real unity. 1t had been held
together only by pitiless, inhuman
force. Its peoples cried aloud for
release. for succour from unspeak-
able. distress, for al that the new
day Of hope seemed at last to bring
within its dawn. Peoples hitherto
in utter darkness were to be led
out into the same light and given
at last helping hand Undevelop-
ed peoples and peoples ready for
recognition but not yet ready to
assume the full responsibilities o.