Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1919-03-04

terest seeks out first of all, when ii
reaches Paris, the Representatives OF
the United States. Why? Because
and | think / am now stating the most
wonderful fact in history = because
there is no nation in Europe that sus-
poets the motives of the United States.
U. S. Has Won Esteem.
"Was there ever so wonderful a
thing seen before? Was there ever
so moving a thing? Was there ever
any fact that so bound the nation that
had won that esteem forever to de-
serve it?
81 would not have you understand
that the great men who represent the
other nations there in conferences are
disesteemed by those who know them.
Quite the contrary. But you under
stand the countries of Europe have
again and again clashed with another
in competitive interests.
at is impossible for men to forget
the sharp issues that were drawn be
tween them in times past. 1t is i'm
possible for men to believe that all
ambitions have all of a sudden been
foregone. They remember territory
that was coveted; they remember
rights that it was attempted to extort;
they remember political ambitions
which it was attempted to realize
and, while they believe the men must
have come into a different temper,
they can not forget these things and
so they do not resort to one another
for a dispassionate view of the mat
tiers of controversy.
"Friend of Mankind"
"They resort to that nation which
has won the enviable distinction of
being regarded as the friend of man
kind. Whenever it is desired to send
a small force of soldiers to occupy a
piece of territory where it is thought
nobody else will be welcome, they
will ask for American soldiers. And
where other soldiers would be looked
upon with suspicion and perhaps met
with resistance, the American soldiers
are welcomed with acclaim. And
everybody praises the American sol
der with the feeling that in pTaising
him he is subtracting from the credit
of no one else.
Il have been searching for the fun
damental fact that converted Europe
hnl in hi
rope did not believe in US as she does
now. She did not believe in us
throughout the first three years of the
war. She seems really to have be-
ieved that we were holding off be-
cause we thought we could make more
by staying out than by going in. And
all of a sudden, in a short eighteen
months the whole story is reversed
There can be but one explanation for
t. They saw what we did-that
without making a single claim we put
all our men and all our means at the
of those who were fighting
for their homes, in the first instance,
but for cause, the cause of human
right and justice, and we went in, not
to support their national claims, but
to support the great cause which they
held in common. And when they saw
that America not only held ideals, but
acted ideals, they were converted to
America and became firm partisans of
those ideals.
And now do you realize this con-
fidence we have established through
out the world imposes a burden upon
US? If YOU choose to call it a burden.
1t is one OF those burdens which any
nation ought to be proud to carry
Any man who resists the present tides
that run in the world will find himself
thrown upon a shore so high and bar
rem that it will seem as if he had been
separated from his human kind for
ever.
THE Europe that l have left the
other day was full of something it had
never felt fill its heart so full before.
1t was full of hope. The Europe of
the second year of the war, the Eu-
rope of the third year of the war, was
sinking to a sort of stubborn despera-
ton. They did not see any great
thing to be achieved, even when the
war should be won. They hoped there
would be some salvage. They hoped
that they could clear their territories
of invading armies; they hoped they
could set up their homes and start
their industries afresh. But they
thought it would simply be a resump-
ton of the old life that Europe had
led-led in fear, led in anxiety, led
in constant suspicious watchfulness
They never dreamed that it would be
Europe of settled peace and OF
justified hope.
And now those ideals have
wrought this new magic: that all the
peoples of Europe are buOyed up. and
confident in the spirit of hope, be-
cause they believe that we are at the
eve of a new age in the world when
nations will understand one another
when nations will support one another
in every just cause, when nations will
unite every physical strength to see
that the right shall prevail.
IF America were at this juncture
to fail the world, what would come
of it? l do not mean any disrespect
to any other great people when 1 say
that America is the hope of the world
and if she does not justify that hope
the results are unthinkable. Men will
be thrown back upon the bitterness
of disappointment, not only the bitter
ness of despair. All nations will be
set up as hostile camps again; the
men at the peace conference will &C