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sal blunder that has just been made-the blunder of force by the Central Empires. If Germany had waited a single generation, she would have had a commercial empire of the world. She was not willing to conquer by skill, by enterprise, by commercial success. She must needs attempt to conquer by arms, and the world will always acclaim the fact that it is impossible to conquer it by arms; that the only thing that conquers it is the sort of service which can be rendered in trade, in intercourse, in friendship, and that there is no conquering power which can suppress the freedom of the human spirit.

I have rejoiced personally in the partnership of the Italian and the American people, because it was a new partnership in an old enterprise, an enterprise predestined to succeed wherever it is undertaken-the enterprise that has always borne that handsome name which we call "Liberty." Men have pursued it sometimes like a mirage that seemed to elude them, that seemed to run before them as they advanced, but never have they flagged in their purpose to achieve it, and I believe that I am not deceived in supposing that in this age of ours they are nearer to it than they ever were before. The light that shined upon the summit now seems almost to shine at our feet, and if we lose it, it will be only because we have lost faith and courage, for we have the power to attain it.

So it seems to me that there never was a time when a greater breath of hope and of confidence had come into the minds and the hearts of men like the present. I would not have felt at liberty to come away from America if I had not felt that the time had arrived when, forgetting local interests and local ties and local purposes, men should unite in this great enterprise which will ever tie free men together as a body of brethren and a body of free spirits.

I am honored, sir, to be taken into this ancient comradeship of the citizenship of Rome.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ITALIAN PARLIAMent, Rome JANUARY 3, 1919

Your Majesty, Mr. President, Mr. President of the Chamber:

You are bestowing upon me an unprecedented honor, which I accept because I believe it is extended to me as the representative of the great people for whom I speak, and I am going to take this opportunity to say how entirely the heart of the American people has been with the great people of Italy. We have seemed no doubt indifferent at times, to look on from a great distance, but our hearts have never been far away. All sorts of ties have long bound the people of America to the people of Italy, and when the people of the United States, knowing this people, have witnessed its sufferings, its sacrifices, its heroic action upon the battlefield and its heroic endurance at home-its steadfast endurance at home touching us more nearly to the quick even than its heroic action on the battlefield-we have been bound by a new tie of profound admiration. Then, back of it all and through it all, running like the golden thread that wove it together, was our knowledge that the people of Italy had gone into this war for the same exalted principles of right and justice that moved our own people. And so I welcome this opportunity of conveying to you the heartfelt greetings of the people of the United States.

But we can not stand in the shadow of this war without knowing that there are things awaiting us which are in some senses more difficult than those we have undertaken. While it is easy to speak of right and justice, it is sometimes difficult to work them out in practice, and there will require a purity of motive and disinterestedness of object which the world has never witnessed before in the councils of nations. It is for that reason that it seems to me that you will forgive me if I lay some of the elements of the new situation before you for a moment. The distinguishing

fact of this war is that great empires have gone to pieces, and the characteristic of those empires was that they held different peoples reluctantly together under the coercion of force and the guidance of intrigue.

The great difficulty among such states as those of the Balkans has been that they were always accessible to secret influence; that they were always being penetrated by intrigue of one sort and another; and that north of them lay disturbed populations which were held together, not by sympathy and friendship, but by the coercive force of a military power. Now the intrigue is checked and the bands are broken, and what are we going to do to provide a new cement to hold these pepole together? They have not been accustomed to being independent. They must now be independent. I am sure that you recognize the principle as I do that it is not our privilege to say what sort of government they shall set up, but we are friends of these people and it is our duty as their friends to see to it that some kind of protection is thrown around them, something supplied which will hold them together. There is only one thing that holds nations together, if you exclude force, and that is friendship and good will. The only thing that binds men together is friendship and, by the same token, the only thing that binds nations together is friendship.

Therefore, our task at Paris is to organize the friendship of the world, to see to it that all the moral forces that make for right and justice and liberty are united and are given a vital organization to which the peoples of the world will readily and gladly respond. In other words, our task is no less colossal than this, to set up a new international psychology, to have a new atmosphere. I am happy to say that in my dealings with the distinguished gentlemen who lead your nation and those who lead France and England, I feel that atmosphere gathering, that desire to do justice, that desire to establish friendliness, that desire to make peace rest upon right; and with this common purpose no obstacle

need be formidable. The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them. So that it ought to be our pride to overcome everything that stands in the way. We know that there can not be another balance of power. That has been tried and found wanting, for the best of all reasons that it does not stay balanced inside itself, and a weight which does not hold together can not constitute a makeweight in the affairs of men. Therefore, there must be something substituted for the balance of power, and I am happy to find everywhere in the air of these great nations the conception that that thing must be a thoroughly united league of nations. What men once considered theoretical and idealistic turns out to be practical and necessary. We stand at the opening of a new age in which a new statesmanship will, I am confident, lift mankind to new levels of endeavor and achievement.

REPLYING TO AN ADDRESS BY KING VICTOR EMMANuel of ITALY

AT THE QUIRINAL, ROME, JANUARY 3, 1919

Your Majesty:

I have been very much touched by the generous terms of the address which you have just read. I feel it would be difficult for me to make a worthy reply, and yet if I could speak simply the things that are in my heart I am sure they would constitute an adequate reply.

I had occasion at the Parliament this afternoon to speak of the strong sympathy that had sprung up between the United States and Italy during the terrible years of the war, but perhaps here I could speak more intimately and say how sincerely the people of the United States have admired your own course and your own constant association

with the armies of Italy, and the gracious and generous and serving association of Her Majesty the Queen.

It has been a matter of pride with us that so many men of Italian origin were in our own armies and associated with their brethren of Italy itself in the great enterprise of freedom. These are no small matters, and they complete that process of welding together of the sympathies of nations which has been going on so long between our peoples. The Italians in the United States have excited a particular degree of admiration. They, I believe, are the only people of a given nationality who have been careful to organize themselves to see that their compatriots coming to America were from month to month and year to year guided to the places of the industries most suitable to their previous habits. No other nationality has taken such pains as that, and in serving their fellow countrymen they have served the United States, because these people have found places where they would be most useful and would most immediately earn their own living, and they have thereby added to the prosperity of the country itself. In every way we have been happy in our association at home and abroad with the people of this great state.

I was saying playfully to Mr. Orlando and Baron Sonnino this afternoon that in trying to put the peoples of the world under their proper sovereignties we would not be willing to part with the Italians in the United States. We would not be willing, unless they desired it, that you should resume possession of them, because we too much value the contribution that they have made, not only to the industry of the United States but to its thought and to many elements of its life. This is, therefore, a very welcome occasion upon which to express a feeling that goes very deep. I was touched the other day to have an Italian, a very plain man, say to me that we had helped to feed Italy during the war, and it went to my heart, because we had been able to do so little. It was necessary for us to use our tonnage so

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