Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 17 [PAGE 6]

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vaooleonism succeeded republicanism and l a of universal dominion overcame notion of equal * £ nations and men. . The uprising of the nations against Nano-eon was in the name of freedom and liberty. The battle of Waterloo brought national freedom from Napoleonic dictalion but did not bring political, religious or industrial liberty to the masses of the people in Germany, Russia or Austria. On the contrary, the dynasties on the thrones of these nations succeeded at the Congress of Vienna and in the years immediately following in organizing a combination of autocratic and despotic power to crush out every possible semblance of political liberty for the masses of the people in those and other nations. And the Holy Alliance, born of most unholy parentage and guilty of the most unholy acts, was to turn back the wheels of progress and bring to naught as far as possible the designs and purposes of the Great Revolution. And in large part, it succeeded for nearly half a century—this we should not forget at this juncture—in repressing all movements of progress toward the realization of these great ideals. Now we can not conceal the fact that there is a certain fear on the part of many that some such result may come out of this conflict. do not share this fear. The world conations today are vastly different from those of a century ago. Then the major!t X of nations had in form and fact governments autocratic or aristocratic; today n ey are democratic or rapidly becoming °- Then the world fear was of democcy. Today, it i s of autocracy: Then the su Periority in arms and men was on f, n e side of the autocratic nations-today ,s on the side of democratic nations. T he representatives of the nations at »enna were m c n of the stripe of Tallyan a n d Metternich and the like of them. T J 0<l *y at such a conference they will be 5

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Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau and the like of them. But the guaranties of a different outcome are after all vastly greater and more certain than the personality of individual men even though they be as great as these three. Slowly and irresistibly the issues have framed themselves in this fierce conflict so that the nations one after another have •lined up and pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the maintenance of free government and fair treatment among all nations and all men. Nothing like it has ever happened before n * human history. The vast majority of nations are now marching together shoulder to shoulder committed to the defense and full realization of the principles of our Declaration of Independence: that all men are bom equal and are entitled to certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, carrying high aloft on their banners the slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity to all men I And victory sooner or later is sure to these legions with this legend. The Germans may possibly take Paris; they may possibly take the Channel ports; they may possibly invent a gun which will lay London in ashes—nothing of this sort seems to them impossible. But it will all be in vain! The stars in their courses are fighting for us even though now they be dimmed by clouds and mist. The greater the German victories, the surer, the more complete, the more irretrievable their ultimate defeat. The farther into France they march, the longer for them the way home—though they may cover it in the return far more rapidly than in the onset. The victory of our program over that of the Central Powers is as sure and certain as that there is a sun in the sky or a God in heaven. Now what is this program whose realization will make for us, that is. for you and your children and your children's

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