The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1919-07-15

: ''It had been our privilege to form
; ulte the principles which were ac-
cepted as the basis of the peace, but
they had been accepted, not because
we had come in to hasten and assure
! the victory and insisted upon them,
but because they were readily acced-
ed to as the principles to which hon
orable and enlightened minds every
where had been bred. They spoke the
conscience of the world, as we'll as
the conscience of America and I was
happy to pay my tribute of respect
and gratitude to the able, forward
looking men with whom it was my
privilege to cooperate for their un-
failing spirit of cooperation, their
constant effort to accommodate the
interests they represented to the
principles we were all agreed upon.
The difficulties, which were many
lay in the circumstances, not often
in the men, Almost without excep-
ton the men who led had caught the
true and full vision of the problem Of
peace as an indivisible whole, prob
lem, not of mere adjustments OF in
terest, but of justice and right act
ion.
''The atmosphere in which the con-
ference worked seemed created, not
by the ambitions of strong govern
ments, but by the hopes and aspira-
tions of small nations and of peoples
hitherto under bondage to the power
that victory had shattered and 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
central empires and remedy the
wrongs their armies had done. The
central empires had lived in open vio-
lation of many of the rights for
which the war had been fought, dom
mating alien peoples over whom they
had no natural right to rule, enforc
ing, not obedience, but veritable
bondage, exploiting those who were
weak for the benefit Of those who
were masters and overlords only by
force of arms. There could be no
peace until the whole order of CEN
trail Europe was set right.
New Nations Created.
''That meant that new nations were
to be created-Poland, Czecho-Slova-
,kia, Hungary itself. No part of an
'cient Poland had ever in any true
sense become a 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
uneasy partnership between Austria
and Hungary had been one rather Of
interest than of kinship 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 kinsmen in the Balkans. These
were all arrangemnts Of power, not
arrangements of natural union or as
sociation. 1t was the imperative task
of those who would make peace and
make it intelligently to establish a
new ord. which would rest upon the
free choice Of peoples, rather than
upon the arbitrary authority of
/ jHapsburgs or Hohenzollerns.
"More than that, great populations
bound by sympathy and actual kin to
Rumania were also linked against
their will to the conglomerate Aus
tro-H Hungarian monarchy or to other
alien sovereigns, and it was part Of
the task of peace to make new Ru-
manian as well as 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 forward
to our related tasks. The German
colonies were to be disposed of. They
had not been governed; they had
been exploited merely, without
thought of the interest or even the
ordinary human rights Of their in
ihabitants.
''The Turkish empire, moreover,
had fallen apart, as the Austro-Hun-
'garian had. It had never had any
real unity. It had been together only
by pitiless, inhuman force. Its peo-
pies cried aloud for release, for sue
cor from unspeakable distress, for
all that the new day of hope seemed
at last to bring within it's dawn.
! UDoop1oe bifhorto in ,1tfar darknoss