The Colorado statesman., 1919-01-11
WILSON SAYS STATE ESMEN AT
PEACE TABLE WILL SET
NEW LEVEL.
new. TIES THAT BIND
JOINT RECEPTION WAS GIVEN BY
BOTH MEMBERS OF SENATE
AND CHAMBER DEPUTIES.
Western Newspaper Union News Service.

western Newspaper Union news SerNice.
Rome, Jan. A big ovation was
given President Wilson at the joint
reception of the Italian Parliament,
and listened with deep interest TO the
Presidents short speech as follows:
"You are bestowing upon me an un'
precedented honor which ! accept be
cause / believe that 1t is extended to
me as the representative of the great
people for whom | speak. And | am
going to take this first opportunity to
say how seriously the heart of the
American people has been with the
great people of Italy.
I'VE have seemed. no doubt, indif'
ferent at times, but our hearts have
never been far away. All sorts OF
ties have long bound the people OF
our America to the people of Italy,
and when the people of the United
States have witnessed it's sacrifices
its heroic actions upon the battlefield
and it's heroic endurance at home
its steadfas endurance at home
touching us more nearly to the quick
even than its heroic action on the
battlefield-we have been bound by
a new tie of profound admiration.
Then back of it all, and through il
all, running like the golden thread
that wove it together, was our knowl
edge that the people of Italy had gone
into this war for the same exalted
principle of right and justice that
moved our own people.
-, -lu1
ow of this war without knowing there
are things which are in some senses
more difficult than those we have
undertaken, because, while it is easy
to speak of right and justice, it is
sometimes difficult to work them Out
in practice and there will be required
a purity of motives and disinterested.
ness of object which the world has
never witnessed before in the coun
ellis of nations.
ut is for that reason that it seems
to me you will forgive me if | lay
some of the elements of the new stu
alton before you for moment. The
distinguished fact of this war is thai
great empires have gone to pieces.
And the characteristics of those EN-
pires are that they held different peo
pies reluctantly together under the
coercion of force and the guidance Of
intrigue.
"The great difficulty among such
states as those of the Balkans has
been that they were always accessible
to secret influence; and they were
always being penetrated by intrigue
of some sort or another; that north oi
them lay disturbed populations which
were held together not by history and
friendship, but by the coercive force
of military power.
Now the intrigue is checked and
the bands are broken, and what we
are going to provide is new cement
to hold the people together. They
have not been accustomed to being
independent. They must now be in
dependent.
81 am sure that you recognize the
principle as / do-that it is not our
privilege to say what sort of gov
ernment' they should set up. But we
are friends of those people, and 1t
our duty as their friends to see to
that some kind of protection is thrown
around them.
Friendship and Good viii.
There is only one thing that holds
nations together, IL you exclude force,
and that is friendship and good will
Therefore our task at Paris is to or
ganize the friendship of the world
to see to 1t that all the moral forces
that make for right and justice and
liberty are united and are given a
vital organization to which the peo-
pies of the world will readily and
gladly respond.
Desire to Do Justice.
I'm other words, our task is no less
colossal than this: To set up new
international psychology; to have a
new real atmosphere. | am happy to
say that in my dealings with the dis
tinguished gentlemen who lead your
nation and those, who lead France
and England, / feel that atmosphere
gathering, that desire to do justice,
that desire to establish friendliness,
that desire to make peace rest upon
right, and with this common purpose.
no obstacles need be formidable.
I'VE know that there cannot be All
other balance of power. That has
been tried and found wanting, for the
best of all reasons that 1t does not
stay balanced inside itself.
United League of Nations.
Therefore there must be something
substituted for the balance of power
and 1 am happy to find everywhere
in the air of these great nations the
conception that that thing must be
thoroughly united league or nations.
What men once considered theo-
retical and idealistic turns out to be