![]() I have seen representatives of peoples over there who for generations through, in the dumbness of unutterable suffering, have known what the weight of those armaments and the weight of that power meant. The great nations of the world have been asleep, but God knows the other nations have not been asleep. The thing is inconceivable and can not happen." Very well, could not it happen? Did not it happen? Are we satisfied now what the balance of power means? It means that the stronger force will sometimes be exercised or an attempt be made to exercise it to crush the other powers. It can not be that he speaks for a great Government. Her military men published books and told us what they were going to do with it, but we dismissed them. What we shut our eyes against deliberately was the probability that she would make the use of her preparation that she did finally make of it. Nobody was ignorant of what Germany was doing. There were wise men in Great Britain, there were wise men in the United States, who pointed out to us not only what they suspected, but what we all knew with regard to the preparations for the use of force in Europe. It has been my privilege to come into somewhat intimate contact with that interesting and delightful people, and I realize now that for nearly 50 years, ever since the settlement which took Alsace-Lorraine away from them in 1871, they have been living under the constant dread of the catastrophe which at last came and their thought throughout this conference was that they must concert some measure, must draw together some kind of cooperative force, which would take this intolerable dread from their hearts, that they could not live another 50 years, expecting what would come at last. I believe, my fellow countrymen, that the only people in Europe who instinctively realized what was going to happen and what did happen in 1914 was the French people. We wished always to be the mediators of justice and of right, but we thought that the cool spaces of the ocean to the east and the west of us would keep us from the infections that came, arising like miasmatic mists out of that arrangement of power and of suspicion and of dread. ![]() I am glad to say that I am not justified in adding that the policy of the world was ever conceived by us upon the basis of the advantage of America. It was either the advantage of Germany or the advantage of Great Britain or the advantage of Italy or the advantage of Japan. Every bit of the policy of the world, internationally speaking, was made in the interest of some national advantage on the part of the stronger nations of the world. Not the balance that you try to maintain in a court of justice, not the scales of justice, but the scales of force one great force balanced against another force. ![]() This group of nations thought that it represented one set of principles that group of nations thought that it represented another set of principles and that the best that could be accomplished in the world was this that they used to call the balance of power. So there were drawn together groups of nations which stood armed, facing one another, which stood drawing their power from the vitality of people who did not wish to be subordinated to them, drawing their vitality from the energy of great peoples who did not wish to devote their energy to force, but wished to devote their energy to peace. The old order of things was not to depend upon the general moral judgment of mankind, not to base policies upon international right, but to base policies upon international power. The old order of things the rest of the world seemed to have got in some sense used to. I mean that it is in a state of mind which may bring about the dissolution of governments if we do not enter into a world settlement which will really in fact and in power establish justice and right. ![]() I do not mean that it is in a state of mind which will bring about the dissolution of governments. For, my fellow citizens, what does not seem to me realized in this blessed country of ours is the fact that the world is in revolution. To hear some gentlemen you would think it was an arrangement for the inconvenience of the United States, whereas, as a matter of fact, my fellow citizens, it is a world settlement, the first ever attempted, attempted upon broad lines which were first laid down in America. You have heard so many little things about the treaty that perhaps you would like to hear some big things about it. Your honor, your excellency, my fellow countrymen, I have come here to discuss a very solemn question, and I shall have to ask your patience while you bear with me in discussing somewhat in detail the very great matter which now lies not only before the consideration of the people of the United States but before the consideration of the people of the world.
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