sufficiently numerous or influential to make their voices audible. The tragical circumstance is that this one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just.

I would not be a true spokesman of the people of the United States 5 if I did not say once more that we entered this war upon no small occasion and that we can never turn back from a course chosen upon principle. Our resources are in part mobilized now and we shall not pause until they are mobilized in their entirety.

Our armies are rapidly going to the fighting front, and will go more and more rapidly. Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation — emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers - whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.

I hope that it is not necessary for me to add that no word of what I have said is intended as a threat. That is not the temper of our people. I have spoken

thus only that the whole world may know the true spirit of America — that men everywhere may know that our passion for justice and for self-government is no mere passion of words but a passion which, once set in action, must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own." It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom.

NOTES

PERMANENT PEACE (PAGES 3-12)

On December 12, 1916, the German Government offered to meet the Entente Allies in a conference to discuss peace. It was generally felt that the proposal was made in the spirit of a victor to the vanquished, and the Allies rejected the offer as a "sham proposal." On December 18, President Wilson sent an identic note to all the belligerent powers, asking them to state their terms for ending the war and guaranteeing the world against its renewal. The Entente Allies alone replied. A month later, on January 22, 1917, President Wilson addressed the Senate in the remarkable speech we are considering, wherein he declared the conditions on which the United States would give ❝ its formal and solemn adherence to a league of peace."

1. All treaties must receive the approval of the Senate before they become effective.

2. This was spoken, of course, before the United States entered the war.

3. In these words President Wilson shows himself to be in accord with the chief ideals of the League to Enforce Peace.

This league was organized in Independence Hall, Philadelphia the very spot where the United States of America was born - on June 17, 1915. Ex-President William Howard Taft was made the first president of the League. The League at its first meeting adopted the four following proposals:

We believe it to be desirable for the United States to join a league of nations binding the signatories to the following:

First: All justiciable questions arising between the signatory powers, not settled by negotiation, shall, subject to the limitations of treaties, be submitted to a judicial tribunal for hearing and judgment, both upon the merits and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction of the question.

Second: All other questions arising between the signatories and not settled by negotiation shall be submitted to a council of conciliation for hearing, consideration, and recommendation.

Third: The signatory powers shall jointly use forthwith both their economic and military forces against any one of their number that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against another of the signatories before any question arising shall be submitted as provided in the foregoing.

Fourth: Conferences between the signatory powers shall be held from time to time to formulate and codify rules of international law, which, unless some signatory shall signify its dissent within a stated period, shall thereafter govern in the decisions of the judicial tribunal mentioned in Article One.

4. According to the theory of the "balance of power," no country or group of countries must be allowed to become so strong as to menace the rights of other countries. This principle was in full force during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

5. President Wilson was severely criticized both in Great Britain and in America for the use of this phrase. Do you think he would speak or write these words now?

6. Look up the history of Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, and other countries for examples of people who have been handed about "from sovereignty to sovereignty." Note the very forceful and effective manner in which President Wilson makes his thought clear.

7. Russia, for example, since the time of Peter the Great, has been seeking "windows to the west.” Serbia and Hungary have been seriously handicapped by difficulty of access to the sea. Can you think of other countries similarly handicapped?

8. The United States was the only great power not involved in the war, and many of the lesser nations of Europe, such as Sweden and Norway, which were nominally neutral, were so involved as to be unable to speak freely.

9. Again and again in his speeches, President Wilson makes it clear that he is speaking for the people of the United States, that he is their mouthpiece. Does the head of an autocracy speak thus?

10. Re-read the Introduction to see how the military alliances of Europe before 1914 were a very potent cause of the war. President Wilson has the faculty of seeing what is the vital issue of the hour, and of so stating this that the people are forced to face it squarely. 11. Especially at the First and Second Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907.