Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-07-10

sistance to their freedom. 1t was
our duty to do everything that it
was within u power to do to make
the triumph of freedom and of
right a lasting triumph in the as
surance of which men might every
where live without fear.
Entanglements i'm Way
'Old entanglements of every kind
stood in the way-promises which
governments had made to m an
other in the days when might and
right were confused and the power
of the victor was without restraint.
Engagements which contemplated
and dispositions of territory, any
extensions of sovereignty that might
seem to be to the interest of those
who had the power to insist upon
them, had been entered into with
out thought of what the peoples
concerned might wish or profit by;
and these could not always be hon.
orably brushed aside. 1t was not
easy to graft the new order of ideas
on the old, and some of the fruits
of the grating may, / fear, for a
time be bitter. But, with very few
exceptions, the men who sat with
us at the peace table desired as sin
cerely as we did, to get away from
the bad influences, the illegitimate
purposes. the demoralizing ambi-
tions, the international counsels and
eXpedients out of which the sinister
designs of Germany had sprung as
a natural growth"
1T had been our privilege to form
ulate the principles which were &C
cepted as the basis of the peace
but they had been accepted, not be-
/ m nco We had nnn1n in fn hnSfnn on6
assure the victory and insisted upon
them, but because they were read
lily acceded to as the principles to
which honorable and enlightened
minds everywhere had been bred.
They spoke the conscience of the
world as well as the conscience of
America and l am happy to pay my
tribute of respect and gratitude to
the able, forward-looking men with
whom it was my privilege to CO.
operate for their unfailing spirit OF
cooperation, their constant effort
to accommodate the interests they
represented to the principles we
were all agreed upon. The diff
culties which were many, lay in the
circumstances, not often in the men.
1t was almost without exception the
men who led had caught the true
and full vision of the problem of
peace as an indivisible whole, a
problem not of mere adjustments
of interest but of justice and right
action.
The atmosphere in which the
conference worked seemed created,
not by the ambitions of strong gov
ernments, but by the hopes and as
p%irations of small nations and of
peoples hitherto under bondage to
the power that victory had shat
tered and destroyed. Two great IN
pires had been forced into political
bankruptcy and we were the re-
ceivers. Our task was not only to
make peace with the Central m
pires and remedy the wrongs their
armies had done. The Central en-
pires had lived in open violation of
many of the very rights for which
the war had been fought, dominat-
ing alien peoples over whom they
had no natural right to rule, en-
forcing, 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 Gen.
armies had done. The Central en-
THAT meant hat new nations
MtIG ~ NC SItdICu-I OldIug 1ZGClO-
Slovakia, Hungary itself. No part
of ancient Poland had ever in any
true sense become a part of Ger
many, 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 partne rship
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 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 imperative
task of those who would make peace
and make 1t intelligently, to estab-
fish a new order which would rest
upon tho free choice of peoples
rather thar upon the arbitrary au-
thority of Hapsburgs or Hohenzol-
lerns.
More than that. great popula-
tions bound by sympathy and actual
kin TO Rumania were also linked
against their will to the conglomer-
ate Austro- Hungarian monarchy or
to other alien sovereignities and II