The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-07-11

which had been agreed upon and which all were convinced was work | able. They could go forward with confidence to make arrangements in tended to be permanent.
 The most practical of the conferees were at last the most ready to refer to the League of Nations the super intendence of all interests which did not admit of immediate determine ton, of all administrative problems which were to require continuing oversight What had seemed a coun- sel of perfection had come to seem a plain counsel of necessity. The League of Nations was the practical statemans hope of success in many of the most difficult things he was attempting.
 / And it had validated itself in the
 thought of every member of the con-
 ference something much bigger,
 much greater every way, than a mere 1nstrum ent for carrying out the pro-
 visions of a particular treaty. It was
 universally recognized that all the peoples of the world demanded of the conference that it should create such a continuing concert of free na- tions as would make wars of aggres- sion and spoilation such as this that has just ended forever impossible. A cry had gone out from every home in every stricken land from which sons and brothers and fathers had gone forth to the great sacrifice and such 8, sacrifice should never again be ex- acted. It was manifest why. it had l been exacted. It had been exacted 1 because one nation desired domina- nd ha Tn 1 means of defense except ornaments 1 and alliances.
 War had lain at the heart of every 1 arrangement of the Europe-of every arrangement of the world-that pre- ceeded the war. Restive peoples had
 been told fleets and armies, which l they toiled to sustain, mean peace; | and they now know that they had 1 been lied to; that fleets and armies had been maintained to promote na- l tional ambitions and meant war | They knew that no old policy meant 1 anything else but force, force-al-
 ways force. And they knew that it | was intolerable.
 1 Every true heart in the world, and 1 every enlightened judgment demand ed that, at whatever cost of inde- | pendent action, every government that | took thought for its people or for | justice or for ordered freedom should 1 lend itself to a new purpose and ut | terIy destroy the old order of inter 1 national politics.
 Statesmen might see difficulties but
 the people could see none and could l brook no denial A war in which l they had been bled white to beat the i terror that lay concealed in every bal
 ance of power must not end in a | mere victory of arms and a new bal ance. The monster that had resorted | to arms must be put in chains that l could not be broken. The united power of free nations must put a stop ! to aggression, and the world must be | given peace. If there was not the will the intelligence to accomplish | that now, there must be another and | a. final war and the world must be
 swept clean of every power that could | renew the terror.
 | The League of Nations was not i merely an instrument to adjust and
 remedy old wrongs under a new treaty | of peace; it was the only hope for | mankind. Again and again had the l demon of war been cast out of the ] house of the peoples and the house | swept clean by a treaty of peace, only | to prepare a time when he would en- ter in again with spirits worse than himself. The house must now be giv en a tenant who could hold it against | all such.
 | Convenient, indeed indispensable, as | statesmen found the newly-planned ed 1 League of Nations to be for the ex-
 ecution Of present plans of peace and reparation, they saw it in a new as pect before their work was finished. They saw it as the main object of the peace, as the only thing that could complete it make it worth while. They saw it as the hope of the world,
 and that hope they did not dare to disappoint.
 | Shall we or any other free people hesitate to accept this great duty? Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world?
 And so the result of the conference
 of peace, so far as Germany is con-
 cerned, stands complete. The diff
 culties encountered were very many Sometimes they seemed insuperable.
 It was impossible to accon1m odate the interests of great a body of nations l-interests which directly indi- lrectly affected almost every nation in the world---without many minor com promises.
 The treaty, as result, is not ex-
 actly what we would have written. It
 is probably not what any one of the
 national delegations would have writ | ten. But results were worked out | which the whole bear test. | think that it will be found that the
 compromises, which were accepted as ! inevitable, nowhere cut to the heart
 of any principle. The work Of the 1 conference squares, as a whole, with l the principles agreed upon as the ba-
 sis of the peace well as with the | practical possibilities of the interna-
 tional situations which had to be fac
 ed and dealt with as facts.
 I shall presently have occasion to l lay before you a special treaty with | France, whose object is the temporary protection of France from unprovoked ed | aggression by the power with whom this treaty of peace has been negotiat- ed. Its terms link it with this treaty. I take the liberty. however, of reserv-
 ing 1t for special application on an | other occasion.
 The role which America was to play | in the conference seemed determined,
 as l have said, before my colleagues
 and I got to Paris-determined by