which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression.

All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest points consistent with domestic safety.

5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest coöperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distin guished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single

act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

11. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this program does remove.

A PROGRAM BASED ON PRINCIPLE.

We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing.

We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world,-the new world in which we now live,instead of a place of mastery.

Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration or modification of her institutions. But it is necessary, we must frankly say, and necessary as a preliminary to any intelligent dealings with her on our part, that we should know whom her spokesmen speak for when they speak to us, whether for the Reichstag majority or for the military party and the men whose creed is imperial domination.

We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to admit of any further doubt or question. An evident principle runs through the whole program I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak.

Unless this principle be made its foundation no part of the structure of international justice can stand. The people of the United States could act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that they possess. The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purposes, their own integrity and devotion to the test.

COMMENTS ON THE PRESIDENT'S PEACE PLATFORM. Theodore Roosevelt: "A reassertion of our duty-to stand with the Allies to the end and fight until we have won a complete victory."

100

WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR

Maximilian Harden: "The key to the temple of world peace is in the hands of President Wilson."

Morris Hillquit: "A full and true expression of the aspirations of all democratic movements of this war. The next move is up to Germany.”

Scott Nearing of the People's Council: "The President has put into perfect English the splendid economic and social ideals of the New Russia."

New York Tribune: "Mr. Wilson's address to Congress will live as one of the great documents in American history and one of the permanent contributions of America to world liberty. ... He has established an ideal of international policy throughout the civilized world. Today, as never before, the whole nation marches with the President, certain alike of the leader and the cause. In a very deep sense Mr. Wilson's words constitute a second Emancipation Proclamation."

New York World: "The most definite and comprehensive statement of peace terms yet made by any responsible head of any government."

New York Sun: "The President ties up in complete solidarity our cause and that of the European Powers which are fighting the Teutons."

New York Staats Zeitung: "He speaks without restraint for all the world. . . .

"

Chicago Tribune: "An unescapable challenge to the Governments of the Central Powers, and, what is perhaps more important, to the conscience of their people."

London Daily News: "President Wilson states the issue with unanswerable truth. . . . It is whether the world is to be governed by the German General Staff."

A London Paper: "The Magna Charta of future peace."

JANUARY 9, 1918-REPORTS Published that crowds in Ger

MAN CITIES MARCH DEMANDING peace.

(Doubtless permitted by the German Bureau of Enemy Psychology in Berlin as a part of the peace offensive. Germans do not, as a rule, march unless permitted to; and no news leaves Germany that is not intended for outside consumption.)

JANUARY 14, 1918—Russo-German Armistice Extended TO FEBRUARY 18.

JANUARY 18, 1918-STRIKES AND RIOTS REPORTED THROUGHOUT AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

JANUARY 19, 1918-RUSSIAN CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY BROKEN UP BY BOLSHEVIKI, WHO HAD FAILED TO GAIN CONTROL OF IT IN THE ELECTION.

JANUARY 24, 1918-VON HERTLING, GERMAN CHANCELLOR, AND COUNT CZERNIN, AUSTRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER, REPLY TO LLOYD GEORGE AND PRESIDENT WILSON. (These leaders, answering the Brest-Litovsk peace offensive, had reiterated the Allied war aims and peace terms. Von Hertling denied every principle of them, assuming Germany's most aggressive and insolent attitude toward world affairs. Czernin, seeming to accept President Wilson's platform in principle, made overtures for a direct exchange of ideas between Austria and the United States.)

JANUARY 26, 1918-GERMAN SOCIALISTS, INDIGNANT OVER GERMAN CONDUCT OF BREST-LITOVSK NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE BOLSHEVIKI, WARN THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT. JANUARY 29, 1918-GERMANY KNOWN TO BE TRANSFERRING TROOPS FROM RUSSIAN FRONT TO WESTERN FRONT, CONTRARY TO TERMS OF THE TRUCE AGREEMENT.

(Another "scrap of paper" incident. Germany's intention, of course, in the successful Russian peace offensive was to relieve herself from pressure on the east in order to free these troops to bring a decision in the West, and to obtain possession of the Russian resources by deceit when they could not be gained by arms. The entire device was detected from the first by Allied statesmen, most of the Allied people, and some of the Allied press.)

FEBRUARY 4, 1918-GERMANY DEFINITELY CONCENTRATING FOR HUGE SPRING OFFENSIVE IN THE WEST.

(The High Command promised, and possibly hoped, that this would be the final drive of the war.)

FEBRUARY 7, 1918—Bolsheviki Refuse German DemanDS FOR IMMEDIATE PEACE.

FEBRUARY 9, 1918-THE UKRAINE SIONS A PEACE WITH GERMANY.

(4 Teuton intrigue, which deceived the people of the Ukraine at the time. Germany subsequently found the Ukraire hot handling.)

FEBRUARY 10, 1918-RUSSIANS BREAK OFF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AT BREST-LITOVSK.

(Germany's terms were intolerable. Every concession led to heavier demands.)

FEBRUARY 11, 1918-BOLSHEVIKI DECLARE WAR AT AN END, AND DISBAND ARMY.

(This proved a conclusive experiment in non-resistance; its consequences convinced even some pacifists that war may be expedient.)

FEBRUARY 11, 1918-PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES CONGRESS, ANSWERING FURTHER GERMAN PEACE OFFENSIVES. (The simultaneous utterances of the two great Anglo-Saxon leaders, Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson, a month before, had stirred up a Teutonic turmoil. Germany and Austria replied simultaneously within two weeks; von Hertling for Germany with evasion and subterfuge; Count Czernin, for Austria, in a tone apparently so conciliatory that some hope was entertained that this exchange of views might lead to something, until it became apparent that Count Czernin was merely playing a deep part in the Teutonic game, in which nothing can be trusted. President Wilson, seizing upon the hope, endeavored to drive in a wedge between Germany and her ally, in the following address, delivered before Congress.)

"ONLY ONE PEACE POSSIBLE."

PRESIDENT WILSON'S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS, ANALYZING GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN PEACE UTTERANCES. (Complete)

Gentlemen of the Congress:

On the eighth of January I had the honor of addressing you on the objects of the war as our people conceive them. The Prime Minister of Great Britain had spoken in similar terms on the fifth of January. To these addresses the German Chancellor replied on the twenty-fourth and Count Czernin, for Austria, on the same day. It is gratifying to have our desire so promptly realized that all exchanges of view on this great matter should be made in the hearing of all the world.

Count Czernin's reply, which is directed chiefly to my own address of the eighth of January, is uttered in a very friendly He finds in my statement a sufficiently encouraging ap

tone.