violence and death.  President Wilson’s messages have done as much as famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance of the German people.  If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable?  Obstinacy is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation’s power of resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the governing classes.

[Footnote 1:  “President Wilson’s State Speeches and Addresses,” New York, 1918.]

President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"), and that “Right is more precious than peace,” had also repeatedly affirmed that “We have no quarrel with the German people.”

He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.

In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel privations, President Wilson’s words, pronounced as a solemn pledge before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective resistance.  Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.

After America’s entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.

It is here necessary to reproduce the original text of President Wilson’s message containing the fourteen points which constitute a formal pledge undertaken by the democracy of America, not only towards enemy peoples but towards all peoples of the world.

These important statements from President Wilson’s message have, strangely enough, been reproduced either incompletely or in an utterly mistaken form even in official documents and in books published by statesmen who took a leading part in the Paris Conference.

It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original text in full: 

    1st.  Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest
    negotiations, after which secret international agreements will be
    abolished and diplomacy will always proceed frankly and openly.

2nd.  Full liberty of navigation on the high seas outside territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when the seas be closed wholly or in part by an international decision sanctioned by international treaties.

    3rd.  Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and
    establishment of terms of equality in commerce among all nations
    adhering to peace and associated to maintain it.

    4th.  Appropriate guarantees to be given and received for the
    reduction of national armaments to a minimum compatible with
    internal safety.