assurances of words. You have had contact with our people. You know your own personal reception. You know how gladly we have opened to you the doors of every establishment that you wanted to see and have shown you just what we were doing, and I hope you have gained the right impression as to why we were doing it. We are doing it, gentlemen, so that the world may never hereafter have to fear the only thing that any nation has to dread-the unjust and selfish aggression of another nation. Some time ago, as you probably all know, I proposed a sort of Pan-American agreement. I had perceived that one of the difficulties of our relationship with Latin America was this: The famous Monroe doctrine was adopted without your consent, without the consent of any of the Central or South American States.

If I may express it in the terms that we so often use in this country, we said, "We are going to be your big brother, whether you want us to be or not." We did not ask whether it was agreeable to you that we should be your big brother. We said we were going to be. Now, that was all very well so far as protecting you from aggression from the other side of the water was concerned, but there was nothing in it that protected you from aggression from us, and I have repeatedly seen the uneasy feeling on the part of representatives of the States of Central and South America that our selfappointed protection might be for our own benefit and our own interests and not for the interest of our neighbors. So I said, "Very well, let us make an arrangement by which we will give bond. Let us have a common guarantee, that all of us will sign, of political independ

ence and territorial integrity. Let us agree that if any one of us, the United States included, violates the political independence or the territorial integrity of any of the others, all the others will jump on her. I pointed out to some of the gentlemen who were less inclined to enter into this arrangement than others that that was in effect giving bonds on the part of the United States that we would enter into an arrangement by which you would be protected from us.

Now, that is the kind of agreement that will have to be the foundation of the future life of the nations of the world, gentlemen. The whole family of nations will have to guarantee to each nation that no nation shall violate its political independence or its territorial integrity. That is the basis, the only conceivable basis, for the future peace of the world, and I must admit that I was ambitious to have the States of the two continents of America show the way to the rest of the world as to how to make a basis of peace. Peace can come only by trust. As long as there is suspicion there is going to be misunderstanding, and as long as there is misunderstanding there is going to be trouble. If you can once get a situation of trust, then you have got a situation of permanent peace. Therefore, everyone of us, it seems to me, owes it as a patriotic duty to his own country to plant the seeds of trust and of confidence instead of the seeds of suspicion and variety of interest. That is the reason that I began by saying to you that I have not had the pleasure of meeting a group of men who were more welcome than you are, because you are our near neighbors. Suspicion on your part or misunderstanding on

your part distresses us more than we would be distressed by similar feelings on the part of those less near by.

When you reflect how wonderful a storehouse of treasure Mexico is, you can see how her future must depend upon peace and honor, so that nobody shall exploit her. It must depend upon every nation that has any relations. with her, and the citizens of any nation that has relations with her, keeping within the bounds of honor and fair dealing and justice, because so soon as you can admit your own capital and the capital of the world to the free use of the resources of Mexico, it will be one of the most wonderfully rich and prosperous countries in the world. And when you have the foundations of established order, and the world has come to its senses again, we shall, I hope, have the very best connections that will assure us all a permanent cordiality and friendship.

THE END OF THE WAR

WOODROW WILSON

[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE CONGRESS,
NOVEMBER 11, 1918]

Gentlemen of the Congress: In these anxious times of rapid and stupendous change it will in some degree lighten my sense of responsibility to perform in person the duty of communicating to you some of the larger circumstances of the situation with which it is necessary to deal.

The German authorities, who have, at the invitation of the supreme war council, been in communication with Marshal Foch, have accepted and signed the terms of armistice1 which he was authorized and instructed to communicate to them.2

The war thus comes to an end; for, having accepted these terms of armistice, it will be impossible for the German command to renew it.

It is not now possible to assess the consequences of this great consummation. We know only that this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end and that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture in such fashion and in such force as to contribute, in a way of which we are all deeply proud, to the great result.

We know, too, that the object of the war is attained;

the object upon which all free men had set their hearts; and attained with a sweeping completeness which even now we do not realize.

Armed imperialism, such as the men conceived who were but yesterday the masters of Germany, is at an end, its illicit ambitions engulfed in black disaster. Who will now seek to revive it? The arbitrary power of the military caste of Germany, which once could secretly and of its own single choice disturb the peace of the world, is discredited and destroyed.

And more than that—much more than that—has been accomplished. The great nations which associated themselves to destroy it had now definitely united in the common purpose to set up such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the whole world for disinterested justice, embodied in settlements which are based upon something much better and much more lasting than the selfish competitive interests of powerful States.

There is no longer conjecture as to the objects the victors have in mind. They have a mind in the matter, not only, but a heart also. Their avowed and concerted purpose is to satisfy and protect the weak as well as to accord their just rights to the strong.

The humane temper and intention of the victorious Governments has already been manifested in a very practical way. Their representatives in the Supreme War Council at Versailles have by unanimous resolution assured the people of the Central Empires that everything that is possible in the circumstances will be done to supply them with food3 and relieve the distressing want that is in so many places threatening their very lives; and