The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-07-11

OF wonderful help in nervousness,
Made by c. ]. Hood Co. Lowell, Mass.
shared with every American who saw or
dealt with them there They were the
sort Of men America would wish to be
represented by the sort of men every
American would wish TO claim as fellow
countrymen and comrades in a great
cause, They were terrible in battle and
gentle and helpful out of it, remember
ing the mothers and the sisters, the
wives and the little children at home.
They were free men under arms not
forgetting their ideals of duty i'll the
midst of tasks of violence. | am proud
to have had the privilege of being asso-
eiated with them and of calling myself
their leader.
"But speak now of what they meant
TO the men by whose sides they fought
and to the people with whom they min
gled with such utter sympathy, as
friends who asked only to be of service.
They were for all the visible embodi-
ment of America. What they did made
America and that all she stood for "a liv-
ing reality in the thoughts not only of
the people of France but also of tens of
millions of men and women throughout
all the nations of world standing
everywhere in peril of its freedom and
of the loss of everything it held dear, in
deadly fear that its bonds were never TO
be loosed, its hopes forever to be Knocked
and disappointed.
"And the compulsion of what they
stood for was upon us who represented
America at the peace table. II was our
duty to see to it that every decision we
took part in contributed, so far as we
were able to influence it, to quiet the
fears and realize the hopes of the peoples
who had been living in that shadow, the
nations that had come by our assistance
to their freedom. Ii was our duty to do
everything that it was within our power
to do to make the triumph of freedom
and of right lasting triumph in the as.
surance of which men might everywhere
live without fear.
Old Entanglements Hindered Peace
Treaty.
"0ld entanglements of every kind
stood in the way-promises which gov
ernments made to one another and which
were confused with the power of the vic
tor Engagements which contemplated
many dispositions of territory; any ex-
tensions of sovereignty that might seem
TO be to the interest of those who had
the power to insist upon them, had been
entered into without thought of what
the peoples concerned might wish or
profit by; and these could not always
be honorabv 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 time be bit.
ter. But, with very few exceptions, the
men who sat with us at the peace table
desired as sincerely as we did to get
away from the bad influences, the lille
gitimate purposes, the demoralizing am
billions, the international counsels and
expedients out of which the sinister de-
signs of Germany had sprung as nat
ural growth.
at had been our privilege to formulate
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 aeceded 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 / am
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 unifieation of spirit
- -
accommodate the interests they repre-
scented to the principles we were all
agreed upon The difficulties, which
were many, lay in the circumstances, not
often in the men. Almost without ex-
cepton 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.
Two Great Nations in Bankruptcy.
"The atmosphere in which the confer
ence worked seemed created, not BY the
ambitions of strong governments, but by
the hopes and aspirations of small ma
tions and of peoples hitherto under bond
age to the power that victory had shat.
tered and DESTROYED Two great EN-
pires had been forced into political bank
ruptcy and we were the receivers Our
task was nct only to make peace with
the central empires and remedy the
wrongs their armies had done. The CEN
trail 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
u. l. CO.. ,I.a
but yertable 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 central Europe
was set right.
"That meant that new nations were
to be created Poland, Czecho-Slovakia
Hungary itself. No part Of ancient Pc.
land had ever in any true sense become
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 be-
tween 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 it intelligently, to establish new
order which would rest upon the free
choice of peoples rather than upon the
| l.. 1, & II