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Caption: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 48
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* XI. AMERICAN WAR A I M S IN R E L A T I O N TO G O V E R N M E N T A N D LIBERTY—PROBLEM OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND REORGANIZATION 1. President Wilson: The object of this war is to deliver the free people* of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment, controlled by an irresponsible government which having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long established practices and long cherished principles, of international action and honor." (Reply to the Pope's Peace Appeal). "These are the ends for which the associated peoples of the world are fighting and which must be conceded them before there can be peace: 1. The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that can separately, secretly, and of its single choice disturb the peace of t h e world; or, if it can not be presently destroyed, at the least its reduction to virtual impotence. 2. The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery. - The consent of all nations to be governed in their conduct toward each other by the same principles of honor and of respect for the common law of civilized society that govern the individual citizens of all modern states in their relations with one another; to the end that all promises and covenants may be sacredly observed, no private Plots or conspiracies hatched, no selfish injuries wrought with impunity, and a mutual trust established upon the handsome foundation of a mutual respect for right. *• The establishment of an organization of peace, which shall make it certain that the combined power of free nations will check every invasion of right and serve to make peace and justice the more secure by affording a definite tribunal of opinion to which all must submit and by which every international readjustment that can not be amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly concerned shall be sanctioned. These great objects can be put in a single sentence. What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained 31 2 A
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