moral judgment of the world to the particular settlements which we shall attempt, but also to organize the moral force of the world to preserve those settlements, to steady the forces of mankind, and to make the right and the justice to which great nations like our own have devoted themselves the predominant and controlling force of the world.

There is something inspiring in knowing that this is the errand that we have come on. Nothing less than this would have justified me in leaving the important tasks which fall upon me upon the other side of the

In the Guildhall, London, after the ceremony of granting him the freedom of the city, December 28, President Wilson said:

My Lord Mayor: We have come upon times when ceremonies like this have a new significance, which most impresses me as I stand here. The address which I have just heard is most generously and graciously conceived, and the delightful accent of sincerity in it seems like a part of that voice of counsel which is now everywhere to be heard. I feel that a distinguished honor has been conferred upon me by this reception, and I beg to assure you, sir, and your associates of my very profound appreciation; but I know that I am only part of what I may call a great body of circumstances.

I do not believe that it was fancy on my part that I heard in the voice of welcome uttered in the streets of this great city and in the streets of Paris something more than a personal welcome.

It seemed to me that I heard the voice of

one people speaking to another people, and it was a voice in which one could distinguish a singular combination of emotions. There was surely there the deep gratefulness that the fighting was over. There was the pride that the fighting had had such a culmination. There was that sort of gratitude that the nations engaged had produced such men as the soldiers of Great Britain and of the United States and of France and of Italy -men whose prowess and achievements they had witnessed with rising admiration as they moved from culmination to culmination.

But there was something more in it— the consciousness that the business is not yet done, the consciousness that it now rests upon others to see that those lives were not lost in vain.

I have not yet been to the actual battlefield, but I have been with many of the men who have fought the battles, and the other day I had the pleasure of being present at a session of the French Academy when they admitted Marshal Joffre to their membership.

That sturdy, serene soldier stood and uttered not the words of triumph, but the

simple words of affection for his soldiers and the conviction which he summed up in a sentence which I will not try accurately to quote, but reproduce in its spirit. It was that France must always remember that the small and the weak could never live free in the world unless the strong and the great always put their power and their strength in the service of right.

That is the afterthought-the thought that something must be done now; not only to make the just settlements-that, of course but to see that the settlements remained and were observed and that honor and justice prevail in the world. And as I have conversed with the soldiers I have been more and more aware that they fought for something that not all of them had defined, but which all of them recognized the moment you stated it to them. They fought to do away with an old order and to establish a new one, and the centre and characteristic of the old order was that unstable thing which we used to call the "balance of power," a thing in which the balance was determined by the sword which was thrown in on the one side or the other, a balance which was determined by the unstable equilibrium of competitive interest, a balance which was maintained by jealous watchfulness and an antagonism of interest which, though it was generally latent, was always deep-seated.

The men who have fought in this war have been the men from the free nations who are determined that that sort of thing should end now and forever. It is very interesting to me to observe how from every quarter, from every sort of mind, from every concert of counsel, there comes the suggestion that there must now be not a balance of power, not one powerful group of nations set up against another, but a single overwhelming, powerful group of nations who shall be the trustees of the peace of the world.

It has been delightful in my conferences with the leaders of your government to find how our minds moved along exactly the same line and how our thought was always that the key to the peace was the guarantee of

the peace, not the items of it; that the items would be worthless unless there stood back of them a permanent concert of power for their maintenance. That is the most reassuring thing that has ever happened in the world.

When this war began the thought of a league of nations was indulgently considered as the interesting thought of closeted students. It was thought of as one of those things that it was right to characterize by a name which, as a university man, I have always resented. It was said to be academic, as if that in itself were a condemnation-something that men could think about, but never get. Now we find the practical leading minds of the world determined to get it.

No such sudden and potent union of purpose has ever been witnessed in the world before. Do you wonder, therefore, gentlemen, that in common with those who represent you I am eager to get at the business and write the sentences down? And that I am particularly happy that the ground is cleared and the foundations laid-for we have already accepted the same body of principles. Those principles are clearly and definitely enough stated to make their application a matter which should afford no fundamental difficulty.

And back of us is that imperative yearning of the world to have all disturbing questions quieted, to have all threats against peace silenced, to have just men everywhere come together for a common object. The peoples of the world want peace and they want it now, not merely by conquest of arms, but by agreement of mind.

It was this incomparably great object that brought me overseas. It has never

before been deemed excusable for a President of the United States to leave the territory of the United States, but I know that I have the support of the judgment of my colleagues in the government of the United States in saying that it was my paramount duty to turn away even from the imperative tasks at home to lend such counsel and aid as I could to this great, may I not say final, enterprise of humanity.

At the Lord Mayor's luncheon in London, December 28, President Wilson said:

My Lord Mayor, Your Royal Highness, Your Grace, ladies and gentlemen-You have again made me feel, sir, the very wonderful and generous welcome of this great city and you have reminded me of what has perhaps become one of the habits of my life.

You have said that I have broken all precedents in coming across the ocean to join in the counsels of the peace conference, but I think those who have been associated with me in Washington will testify that that is nothing surprising. I said to the members of the press in Washington one evening, that one of the things that had interested me most since I lived in Washington was that every time I did anything perfectly natural it was said to be unprecedented.

It was perfectly natural to break this precedent, natural because the demand for intimate conference took precedence over every other duty. And, after all, the breaking of precedents, though this may sound strange doctrine in England, is the most sensible thing to do. The harness of precedent is sometimes a very sad and harassing trammel. In this case the breaking of precedent is sensible for a reason that is very prettily illustrated in a remark attributed to Charles Lamb. One evening, in a company of his friends, they were discussing a person who was not present and Lamb said, in his hesitating manner: "I h-hate that fellow." "Why Charles," one of his friends said, "I did not know that you knew him." "Oh," he said, "I-I-I d-don't. I can't h-hate a man I know."

IRRESISTIBLE

In the Lowther Street Congregational Church at Carlisle, England (the town where his grandfather, Thomas Woodrow, once taught and preached, and the girlhood home of his mother), President Wilson spoke as follows on Sunday, December 29:

And perhaps that simple and attractive remark may furnish a secret for cordial international relationship. When we know one another we cannot hate one another.

I have been very much interested before coming here to see what sort of a person I was expected to be. So far as I can make out I was expected to be a perfectly bloodless, thinking machine, whereas I am perfectly aware that I have in me all the insurgent elements of the human race. I am sometimes, by reason of long Scottish tradition, able to keep these instincts in restraint. The stern Covenanter tradition that is behind me sends many an echo down the years. It is not only diligently to pursue business, but also to seek this sort of comradeship that I feel it is a privilege to have come across the seas, and in the welcome that you have accorded Mrs. Wilson and me you have made us feel that companionship was accessible to us in the most delightful and enjoyable form.

I thank you sincerely for this welcome, sir, and am very happy to join in a love feast which is all the more enjoyable because there is behind it a background of tragical suffering. Our spirits are released from the darkness of the clouds that at one time seemed to have settled upon the world in a way that could not be dispersed, the sufferings of your people, the sufferings of the people of France and the infinite suffering of the people of Belgium. The whisper of grief that has been blown all through the world is now silent, and the sun of hope seems to spread its rays and to charge the earth with a new prospect of happiness. So our joy is all the more elevated because we know that our spirits are now lifted out of that valley.

MORAL FORCE

It is with unaffected reluctance that I inject myself into this service. I remember my grandfather very well, and, remembering him, I can see how he would not approve. I remember what he required of me and remember the stern lesson of duty he spoke. And I remember painfully about things he expected me to know that I did not know.

has taken several hundred years to make them perceive that the principal condition of right is duty, and that unless a man performs his full duty he is entitled to no right. It is a fine correlation of the influence of duty that right is the equipoise and balance of society.

And so, when we analyze the present situation and the future that we now have to mould and control, it seems to me there is no other thought than that that can guide

us.

You know that the United States has always felt from the very beginning of her history that she must keep herself separate from any kind of connection with European politics. I want to say very frankly to you that she is not now interested in European politics, but she is interested in the partnership of right between America and Europe. If the future had nothing for us but a new attempt to keep the world at a right poise by a balance of power the United States would take no interest, because she will join no combination of power which is not a combination of all of us. She is not interested merely in the peace of Europe but in the peace of the world.

Therefore, it seems to me that in the settlement which is just ahead of us something more delicate and difficult than was ever attempted before has to be accomplished— a genuine concert of mind and of purpose. But while it is difficult, there is an element present that makes it easy. Never before in the history of the world, I believe, has there been such a keen international consciousness as there is now.

There is a great voice of humanity abroad in the world just now which he who cannot hear is deaf. There is a great compulsion of the common conscience now in existence which, if any statesman resist, will gain for him the most unenviable eminence in history. We are not obeying the mandate of parties or of politics. We are obeying the mandate of humanity.

That is the reason why it seems to me that the things that are most often in our minds are the least significant. I am not hopeful that the individual items of the settlement which we are about to attempt will

be altogether satisfactory. One has only to apply his mind to any one of the questions of boundary and of altered sovereignty and of racial aspirations to do something more than conjecture that there is no man and no body of men who know just how they ought to be settled, and yet if we are to make unsatisfactory settlements we must see to it that they are rendered more and more satisfactory by the subsequent adjustments which are made possible. We must provide the machinery for readjustments in order that we have the machinery of good will and friendship.

Friendship must have a machinery. If I cannot correspond with you, if I cannot learn your minds, if I cannot co-operate with you, I cannot be your friend; and if the world is to remain a body of friends it must have the means of friendship, the means of constant friendly intercourse, the means for constant watchfulness over the common interests.

That makes it necessary to make some great effort to have with one another an easy and constant method of conference, so that troubles may be taken when they are little and not allowed to grow until they are big. I never thought I had a big difference with a man that I did not find when I came into conference with him that after all it was rather a little difference, and that if we were frank with one another and did not too much stand upon that great enemy of mankind which is called pride, we could come together.

It is the wish to come together that is more than half the process. It is a doctrine which ought to be easy of comprehension in a great commercial centre like this. You cannot trade with a man who suspects you. You cannot establish commercial and industrial relations with those who do not trust you. Good will is the forerunner of trade. Good will is the foundation of trade, and trade is the great amicable instrument of the world on that account.

I felt, before I came here, at home in Manchester-because Manchester has 60 many of the characteristics of our great American cities. I was reminded of an anecdote of a humorous fellow countryman