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

hopes of the peoples who had been living in that shadow, the nations that had come by our assistance to their freedom. It was our duty to do everything that 1t was within our power to do to make the triumph of freedom and of right a lasting tri- umph in the assurance of which men might everywhere live without fear.
 Old entanglements of every kind stood in the way---promises which governments had made to one an other in the days when might and right were confused and the power of the victor was without restraint. En- agreements which contemplated any dispositions of territory, any exten- sions 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 honorably brushed aside. It was not easy to graft the new or the fruits of the grating may, I fear, the friuts of the grating may, I 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 lIle Detd Iu1luellSeSp lue llltS lt purposes, the demoralizing ambitions, the international counsel and expedi- ersts out of which the sinister designs of Germany had sprung as a natural growth.
 It had been our privilege to formu- late 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 ac-
 ceded 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 re- spect and gratitude to the able, for ward-lookfng men with whom it was my privilege to cooperate for their
 unfailing 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 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 interests but l of justice and right action.
 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 peo- | pies hitherto under bondage to the | power that victory had shattered and destroyed. Two great empires had been forced into political bank ruptcy aHo we were the receivers 1 Our task was not only to make peace with the central empires and rem 1 edy the wrongs their armies had l done. The central empires had liv- l ed in open violation of many of the | very rights for which the war had 1 been fought, dominating alien peo- | ples over whom they had no natural | right to rule, enforcing, not obedi- ence but veritable bondage, exploit | ing 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, Czech Slovaki | to be created-Poland Czecho Slova- | kia, Hungary itself. No part of an 1 clent HOldnd nau ever III any true
 sense become a part of Germany, or
 of Austora, or of Russia. Bohemia
 was alien in every thought and prin- 1 ciple to the monarchy of which she | so long been an artificial part; and | the uneasy partnership between Aus | tria and Hungary had been one oi | interest than of kinsship or sympathy l Slaves whom Austria had chosen tc l force into her empire on the south i were kept to their obedience by noth- | ing but fear. Their hearts were witt | their kinsmen in the Balkans. These
 were all arrangements of power moi | arrangements of natural union or as 1 sociation. It was the imperative task | of those who would make peace and
 make it intelligently, to establish g | new order which would rest upon the | free choice of peoples rather upon the arbitrary authority of Hapsburg: l or Hohenzollerns.
 | More than that, great populations bound by sympathy and actual kin to iRumania were also linked against
 their will to the conglomerate Austro- Hungarian monarchy or to other alien sovereignties and it was part o1 the task of peace to make a new Ru- mania, as well as a new Slavic state
 clustering about Serbia.
 And no natural frontiers could be found to these new neldS or adJuSt-
 ment and redemption. It was neces-
 sary to look constantly forward tc
 other related tasks. The German
 colonies were to be disposed of. They
 had not been governed; they had been
 exploited merely, without thought o1
 the interest, or even the ordinary hu-
 man rights, of their inhabitants.
 The Turkish empire, moreover, had
 fallen apart, as the Austre-Hungar-
 ian had. It had never had any req,
 unity. It had been held together
 only by pitiless, inhuman force. Its
 peoples cried aloud for release, foI
 succor from unspeakable distress, fol
 all that the new day of hope seemed
 at last to bring within it's dawn Peoples hitherto in utter darkness
 were to be led out into the same ligh and given at las. a helping hand Undeveloped peoples and peoples
 ready for recognition but not yet ready to assume the full responslbih ties of statehood were to be g1ver adequate guarantees of friendly pro-
 lection, guidance and assistance.