The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1919-09-12
TEXT OF WILSON'S SPEECH
ADVOCATING PEACE TREATY
CONTINUED from last issue.)

Some gentlemen have feared with
regard to the league of nations, that
we will be obliged to do things we
don't want to do. If the treaty were
wrong, that might be so; but if the
treaty is right, we will wish to pre-
serve right. think know the heart
of this great people whom l, for the
tinoe beng, have the nigh honor &C
represent, better than some other
men that hear talk.
/ have been bred and am proud
to have been bred in the old revolu-
tionary stock which set this govern
ment up, when America was set up
as a friend of mankind, and l know
If they do not-that America has
never lost that vision or that pur-
pose.
But I haven't the slightest fear
that arms will be necessary if the
purpose is there. If / know that my
adversary is armed and I am not, /
do not press the controversy, and if
any nation entertains selfish pur-
poses set against the principles es-
tablished in this treaty, and is told
by the rest of the world that it must
withdraw it's claims, it will not press
them.
Rectifies Wrong of Long Standing.
"The heart of this treaty, then,
my fellow citizens, is not even that
it Furnishes Germany-that is tenn
3rorary thing-it is that it rectifies
: the age-long wrong which character
lied the history of Europe.
There were some of US who wish
red that the scope Of the treaty would
reach some other age-long wrong. 1t
was a big job, and l don't say that
we wished that it were bigger, but
there were other wrongs elsewhere
than in Europe, and of the same kind
which no doubt to be .righted, and
some day will be righted, but which
I'VE could not draw into the treaty,
because we could deal only with the
countries whom the war had engulf
ed and affected. But so far as the
scope of our treaty went, We recti-
fled the wrongs which have been the
fertile source Of war in Europe.
Have you ever reflected, my fel-
low countrymen, on the real source
Of revolution? Men don't start rev.
olutions in sudden passion. Do you
remember what Thomas Carlyle said
about the French revolution? He
was speaking Of the so-called Hun
dred Days terror which reigned, not
only in Paris, but throughout France,
in the days of the French revolution;
and he reminded his readers that
back of that hundred days of terror
lay several hundred years of agony
and of wrong. The French people
had been deeply and consistently
wronged by their government; rob-
bed; their human rights disregarded,
and the slow agony of those hundreds
of years had after while gathered
into a hot agony that could not be
suppressed. Revolutions don't spring
UP over night; revolutions gather
through the ages; revolutions come
from the long-suppression of the hu-
man spirit; revolutions come because
men know that they have rights and
that they are disregarded. And.
when we think Of the future of the
world in connection with this treaty,
we must remember that one of the
chief efforts of those who made this
treaty was to remove that anger
from the hearts of great peoples,
great peoples who had always been
suppressed and always been used,
who had always been the tools in the
hands of fgovernments-generally of
alien governnents-not their own.
And the makers of the treaty knew
that if these wrongs were not re-
moved, there could be no peace in the
world, because, after all, my fellow
citizens, war comes from the seed
of wrong, and not from the seed of
right. This treaty is an attempt to
right the history of Europe, and in
my humble judgment, it is mea-
-surahae, success. / say measure
a.. az f;llow citizens, because
,youymiu realize the difficulty of this.
Here are two neighboring peoples.
THE one have not stopped at a sharp
line and the settlement of the other
people, or their migrations, begun
at that sharp line; they have inter-
mingled. There are regions where
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