The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-10
TEXT OF WILSON'S SPEECH In PRESENTING
PEACE TREATY AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS
Continued from First Pass.)

OF the fruits OF the grating may,
fear. for a time be bitter. 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 illegitimate purposes. the de-
moralizing ambitions, the interna-
tional counsels and expedients out
of which the sinister designs of
Germany had sprung as natural
growth.
Why our Principles Won.
II had been our privilege to for
mulate 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 insisted
upon them. but because they were
readily acceded to as the princi-
pies to which honorable and en-
lightened minds everywhere had
been bred. They spoke the con-
science of the world as well as the
conscience OF America, and l am
happy to pay my tribute of respect
and gratitude to the able, forward
looking men with whom 1t was my
privilege to cooperate for their
unfailing spirit of cooperation, the
constant effort to accommodate the
interests they represented 70 tne
The difficulties, which were many.
lay in the circumstances, not often
in the men. Almost without ex-
ception the men who led had
caught the true and full vision OF
the problem of peace as an maj
visible whole, a problem, not OF
mere adjustments of interest, out
of justice and right action: r
Remedy Wrongs Done by Foe.
The atmosphere in which the
conference worked seemed created
not by the ambitions Of strong
governments, but by the hopes and
aspirations OF small nations and OF
peoples hitherto under bondage 10
the power that victory had shat
tered and destroyed. Two great en-
pires had been forced into political
bankruptcy. and we were the re-
ceiyers. Our task was not only 10
make peace with the central en-
pires and remedy the wrongs their
armies had done. The central en-
pires had lived in open violation OF
many of the very rights for which
the war had been fought, dominat-
ing alien peoples over whom they
had no natural right to rule, en-
forcing, not obedience, but yerita-
able 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.
Meant Creating New Nations.
That meant that new nations
Czecho- Slovaka, Hungary itself.
No part of ancient Poland had
ever in any true sense become
part of Germany or of Austria or of
Russia; Bohemia was alien in ev-
cry thought and hope to the mon
archy of which she had so long
been an artificial part; and the I'M
easy partnership between Austria
and Hungary had been one rather
of interest than of kinship or SYM
pathy.
The Slavs, whom Austria had
chosen to force into her empire on
the south. were kept to their ODE
dience by nothing but fear. Their
hearts were with their kinsmen in
the Balkans. These We're all ar
engagements of power, not ar
engagements of natural union or as
ISOLATION. 1t was the imperative
task of those who would make
peace and make it intelligently to
establish a new order which would
rest upon the free choice of peo-
pies rather than upon the arbitrary
authority of Hapsburgs or Hohen-
zollerns.
More than that. great populations
bound by sympathy and actual kin
to Rumanian were also linked
against their will to the conglom-
crate Austro- Hungarian monarchy
or to other alien sovereignties, and
1T was part of the task of peace to
make a new Rumania as well as a
new Slavic state clustering about
Serbia
Aiding UndeveIoped Peoples.
And no natural frontiers could be
found to these new fields of ad-
justment and redemption. It was
necessary to look constantly for
ward to other related tasks. The
German colonies were to be disposed
of. They had not been governed;
they had been exploited merely,
without thought Of the interest or
even the ordinary human rights of
their inhabitants. The Turkish en-
pire, moreover. had fallen apart. as
the Austro- Hungarian had. 1t had
never had any real unity. 1t had
been held together only by pitiless,
inhuman force. Its peoples cried
aloud for release. for succour from
unspeakable distress, for all that
the new day of hope seemed at last
hitherto in utter darkness were to
be led out into the same light and
given at last a helping hand. I'm
developed peoples and peoples ready
for recognition but not yet ready to
assume the full responsibilities of
statehood were to be given adequate
guarantees of friendly protection,
guidance and assistance.
Opportunities Never Known.
- tl@s-
great enterprises Of liberty sprang
opportunities to attempt what
statesmen had never found the way
before to do; an opportunity to
throw safeguards about the rights
of racial. national and religious
minorities by solemn international
covenant; an opportunity to limit
and regulate military establish
ments where they We're most likely
to he mischevious; an opportunity
to effect a complete and systematic
Observation-Disclosures of waterways
and railways which were necessary
to the free economic life OF more
than one nation, and to clear many
of the normal channels of commerce
of unfair distractions of law or of
privilege; and the very welcome OPP
portunity to secure for labor the
concerted protection of definite in
ternational pledges of principle and
practice. These were not tasks
which the conference looked about
it to find and went out of its way
to perform. They were insepara-
BILE from the settlements of peace;
they were thrust upon 1t by circum-
stances that could not be over
looked. The war had created them.
In all quarters of the world old es-
tablished relationships had been dis
turbed or broken, and affairs were
at loose ends. needing to be mended
or united again, but could not be
made what they were before. They
had to be set right by applying
some uniform principle of Justice or
enlightened expediency. And they
could not be adjusted by merely
prescribing in treaty what should
be done. New states were to be set
up which could not hope to live
through their first period of weak
ness without assured support by the
great nations that had consented to
their creation and won for them
their independence. Ill-governed COL
onies could not be put in the hands
of governments which were to act
as trustees for their people and not
as their masters. IL there was to be
no common authority among the ma
tiopo 70 rubfch fha1y xuara IN