been able to defend them against intrigue or aggression, and that there is no force of foresight or of prudence in any modern Cabinet to stop war. And therefore they say, "There must be some fundamental cause for this," and the fundamental cause they are beginning to perceive to be that nations have stood singly or in little jealous groups against each other, fostering prejudice, increasing the danger of war rather than concerting measures to prevent it; and that if there is right in the world, if there is justice in the world, there is no reason why nations should be divided in the support of justice.

They are therefore saying if you really believe that there is a right, if you really believe that wars ought to be stopped, stop thinking about the rival interests of nations, and think about men and women and children throughout the world. Nations are not made to afford distinction to their rulers by way of success in the manœuvres of politics; nations are meant, if they are meant for anything, to make the men and women and children in them secure and happy and prosperous, and no nation has the right to set up its special interests against the interests and benefits of mankind, least of all this great nation which we love. It was set up for the benefit of mankind; it was set up to illustrate the highest ideals and to achieve the highest aspirations of men who wanted to be free; and the world—the world of today—believes that and counts on us, and would be thrown back into the blackness of despair if we deserted it.

I have tried once and again, my fellow citizens, to say to little circles of friends or to larger bodies what seems to be the real hope of the peoples of Europe, and I tell you frankly I have not been able to do so because when the thought tries to crowd itself into speech the profound emotion of the thing is too much; speech will not carry. I have felt the tragedy of the hope of those suffering peoples.

It is tragedy because it is a hope which cannot be realized in its perfection, and yet I have felt besides its tragedy, its

compulsion-its 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 their self-possession and see how to regulate the affairs of the world, we will sink back into a period of struggle in which there will be no hope, and, therefore, no mercy. There can be no mercy where there is no hope, for why should you spare another if you yourself expect 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 observed. They not only have not observed 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. I have had the proud consciousness of the reflected glory of those boys, because the 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 declarations which it was my privilege to utter, because I believed them to be an interpretation of the purpose and thought of the people of the United States. And those boys 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 beat Germany; they were not going over there merely with resentment in their hearts against a particular outlaw nation; but that they were crossing those three thousand miles of sea in order to show to Europe that the United States, when it became necessary, would go anywhere where the rights of mankind were threatened. They would not sit still in the trenches. They would not be restrained by the prudence of experienced continental 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 because 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 that 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 went over there not to glorify America but to serve their fellow men, I am going to permit myself for one moment to slacken in my effort to be worthy of them and of their cause? What I said at the opening I said with a deeper meaning than perhaps you have caught; I do mean not to come back until it's over over there, and it must not 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 sometimes 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, although we do not admit it, that they are a 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. Well, I never came into intimate contact with them before, but if they used to be that way, they are not that way now. They have been subdued, if that was once their temper, by the awful significance of recent events and the awful importance of what is to ensue; and there is not one of them with whom I have come in contact who does not feel that he cannot in conscience return to his people from Paris unless he has done his utmost to do something more than attach his name to a treaty of peace. Every

man in that Conference knows that the treaty of peace is itself will be inoperative, as Mr. Taft has said, without this constant support and energy of a great organization such as is supplied by the League of Nations.

And men who when I first went over there were skeptical of the possibility of forming a League of Nations admitted that if we could but form it it would be an invaluable instrumentality through which to secure the operation of the various parts of the treaty; and when that treaty comes back, gentlemen on this side will find the covenant not only in it, but so many threads of the treaty tied to the covenant that you cannot dissect the covenant from the treaty without destroying the whole vital structure. The structure of peace will not be vital without the League of Nations, and no man is going to bring back a cadaver with him.

I must say that I have been puzzled by some of the criticisms-not by the criticisms themselves; I can understand them perfectly, even when there was no foundation for them; but by the fact of the criticism. I cannot imagine how these gentlemen can live and not live in the atmosphere of the world. I cannot imagine how they can live and not be in contact with the events of their times, and I particularly cannot imagine how they can be Americans and set up a doctrine of careful selfishness, thought out to the last detail. I have heard no counsel of generosity in their criticism. I have heard no constructive suggestion. I have heard nothing except, "Will it not be dangerous to us to help the world?" It would be fatal to us not to help it.

From being what I will venture to call the most famous and the most powerful nation in the world we would of a sudden have become the most contemptible. So, I did not need to be told, as I have been told, that the people of the United States would support this covenant. I am an American and I knew they would. What a sweet revenge it is upon the world. They laughed at us once, they thought we did not mean our professions of principle. They thought so

until April of 1917. It was hardly credible to them that is we would do more than send a few men over and go through chee forms of helping, and when they saw multitudes hastening across the and saw what those multitudes were eager sea, cal to do when they got to the other side, they stood at amaze ed and said: "The thing is real, this nation is the friend of

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mankind as it said it was." The enthusiasm, the hope, the he trust, the confidence in the future bred by that change of view are indescribable. Take an individual American and you may often find him selfish, and confined to his special interests; but take the American in the mass and he is willing to die for an idea. The sweet revenge, therefore, is this, that we believed in righteousness, and now we are ready to make the supreme sacrifice for it, the supreme sacrifice of throwing in our fortunes with the fortunes of men everywhere. Mr. Taft was speaking of Washington's utterance about entangling alliances, and if he will permit me to say so, he put the exactly right interpretation upon what Washington said, the interpretation that is inevitable if you read what he said, as most of these gentlemen do not. And the thing that he longed for was just what we are now about to supply; an arrangement which will disentangle all the alliances in the world.

Nothing entangles, nothing enmeshes a man except a selfish combination with somebody else. Nothing entangles a nation, hampers it, binds it, except to enter into a combination with some other nation against the other nations of the world. And this great disentanglement of all alliances is now to be accomplished by this covenant, because one of the covenants is that no nation shall enter into any relationship with another nation inconsistent with the covenants of the League of Nations. Nations promise not to have alliances. Nations promise not to make combinations against each other. Nations agree that there shall be but one combination, and that is the combination of all against the wrongdoer.