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Caption: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 17
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» children, ft new heaven and ft now earth here on this _ ^ ^ ^ ^ durinR your lives? _ *lobe and ^ ^ ^ _ First of all wo. that i- tho Allies, arc com mitted to the creation of a real international law. not a mere collection of precedents, illuminated or dark »ed by the comments of professors Of international law in German or Russian or French or American or English Universities—but a real code of enforeihle precepts based upon ethical principles. A code in which the "might of right instead of the right of might" shall be so integrally incorporated that no doubt shall exist as to the principle on which it is based. We are all now committed to the support of putting the idea of law—as meaning something more than a disputed custom into international relations; to vindicate for righteous law the claim to be the only real foundation stone of all national and international action; to substitute the reign of law dominated by ethical considerations for the reign of might and force based on national selfishness—to put in the place of the idea of the supreme selfdetermining, uncontrolled, unmoral, unethical, or if you please, supermoral and superethical nation, the notion of a moral being, subject to the reign of moral law, regardful of the rights of other nations and of individual human beings, sensitive to the ever-purifying and ever-rising standards of justice and mercy and fairness in the conduct of international affairs. As a nation, subject like other weak human organizations to occasional lapses, we Americans have stood for these things —we have held high these standards in our courts, in our administrative departments, in our legislatures, and now, thank God[ the whole strength of the Republic, the entire fortunes of its citizens, its sacred honor and mighty traditions are lining up on the bloodstained fields of France in furtherance of these ideas. Nay more! The President of the United States has voiced these sentiments in lofty and inspiring language. He has read the deepest thought of the American people and formulated it in a w a y t o , each of them to say "that i, c x a c „ v N o 1 I think," and with that, the n a t i o n ^ come unified and strengthened a n / a altcd. * With this formulation of our view sentiments we entered this great eonfT and immediately our Allies accepted ^ statement of this issue and thus it j / become the rallying cry of the oppressed nations throughout the world and all these great powers, England, France, Italy, Jap. an, China, and the numerous smaller nations, have solemnly undertaken to observe suet* these principles. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ It will be a new world when they shall have been formally adopted and put into practice as they will be at the end of the Great War. I Btrbr In the second place, this war in its out[ No*, come will, in my opinion, give an immense it (tan impetus to the movement for democratic government among the sons of men. It will raise it and exalt it as the only posw ad sible form of the highest type of human of political organization. It will hold it high fcpCOf advanced as the ideal toward which we pfcb should strive with all• o u r | might and As i All monarchical or strength and soul. •jnc remnants *l* _ evolution are destined, in my opinion, to disappea —nay must disappear, and this war will go a long way to clean them up. If monarchy must be restored to save Russian society or China from dissolution, it will frankly be recognized as only a temporary measure to be gotten rid of as soon as Russia and China have reached such a development as will enable them to dispense with these crutches. Now I believe that this immense impetus to free government is going to produce wonderful results of many different kinds here, in our own society which will make it infinitely easier for the man dependent on his own exertion to get on in the world than it now is. We have been conceiving the liberty spoken of in the Declaration of Independence ,n terms of political liberty, in terms « • * :
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