The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-03-05

which cannot be realized in it's per lection, and yet I have felt besides it's tragedy, it's compulsion, it's compulsion upon every living man to exercise every influence that he has to the utmost to see that as little as possible of that hope is disappointed, because if men cannot now, after this agony of bloody sweat. come to theiH self possession and see how to regulate the affairs of the world, we will sink back into a period of struggle III which there will be no hope and there fore no mercy. There can he no mercy where there is no hope for why should you spare another if you yourself ex- pect to perish? Why should you be pitiful if you can get no pity? Why should you be just if, upon every hand, you are put upon?
 There is another thing which I think the critics of this covenant have not ob served. They not only have not ob- served the temper of the world, but they have not even observed the temper of those splendid boys in khaki that they sent across the seas . have had the proud consciousness of the reflected glory of those boys, because tho constitution made me their commander in chief, and they have taught me some lessons. When we went into the war. we went into it on the basis of the de- Alterations which it was my privilege to utter, because 1 believed them to be a1 interpretation of the purpose and thought of the people of the United States.
 And those boys who went over there with the feeling that they were sacredly bound to the realization of those ideals; that they were not only going over there to geat Germany; they were not going over there merely with resentment in their hearts against particular outlaw nation; but that they were crossing those 5000 miles of sea in order to show to Eu- rope that the United States, when it be- came necessary, would go anywhere where the rights of mankind were threatened
 WOULD NOT SIT STILL
 'They would not sit still in the trenches. They would not be restrained by the prudence of experienced continen- tai commanders. They thought they had come over there to do a particular thing and they were going to do it. and do it at once. And just as soon as that rush of spirit as well as rush of body came in contact with the lines of the enemy, they began to break, and they continued to break until the end They continued to break, my fellow citizens, not merely be- cause of the physical force of those lusty youngsters, but because of the irresistible spiritual force of the armies of the United States. It was that they felt. It was that that awed them. It was that that made them feel, if these youngsters ever got a foothold, they could never be dislodged and therefore every foot of ground that they won was permanently won for the liberty of mankind.
 And, do you suppose that having felt that crusading spirit of these youngsters, who weiit over there not to glorify Amer ica, but to serve their fellow men, 1 am going to permit myself for one moment to slacken in my effort to be worthy of them and their cause?
 What said at the opening I said with a deeper meaning than perhaps you have naught: I do mean not to come back until it's over over there, and it must mot be over until the nations of the world are assured of the permanency of peace.
 "Gentlemen on this side of the water would be very much profited by getting into communication with some gentlemen on the other side of the water We some times think, my fellow citizens, that the experienced statesmen of the European nations are an unusually hard-headed set of men, by which we generally mean, al though we do not admit it, that they are bit cynical that they say this is a very practical world;' by which you always mean that it is not an ideal world; that they do not believe that things can be settled upon an ideal basis. We'll, l never e me into intimate contact with them be- fore, but if they used to be that way. they are not that way now.
 HAVE BEEN SUBDUED
 "They have been subdued, if that was once their temper, by the awful signifi- carce of recent events and the awful inn portance of what is to ensue; and there is not one of them with whom l have come in contact who does not feel that he cannot in conscience return to his peo- ple from Paris unless he has done his ut most to do something more than attach his name to a treaty of peace. Every man in that conference knows that the treaty of peace in itself will be inopera- tive, as MT. Taft has said without this constant support and energy of great ol ganization such as is supplied by the league of nations
 'sAnd men who, when I first went
 over there, were shepticaI of the
 possibility of forming a league of
 nations, admitted that if we could
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