ighting. They included open treaties of peace,
openly arrived at; absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas; the
removal, as far as possible, of trade barriers among nations; reduction
of armaments; adjustment of colonial claims in the interest of the
populations concerned; fair and friendly treatment of Russia; the
restoration of Belgium; righting the wrong done to France in 1871 in the
matter of Alsace-Lorraine; adjustment of Italian frontiers along the
lines of nationality; more liberty for the peoples of Austria-Hungary;
the restoration of Serbia and Rumania; the readjustment of the Turkish
Empire; an independent Poland; and an association of nations to afford
mutual guarantees to all states great and small. On a later occasion
President Wilson elaborated the last point, namely, the formation of a
league of nations to guarantee peace and establish justice among the
powers of the world. Democracy, the right of nations to determine their
own fate, a covenant of enduring peace--these were the ideals for which
the American people were to pour out their blood and treasure.

=The Selective Draft.=--The World War became a war of nations. The
powers against which we were arrayed had every able-bodied man in
service and all their resources, human and material, thrown into the
scale. For this reason, President Wilson summoned the whole people of
the United States to make every sacrifice necessary for victory.
Congress by law decreed that the national army should be chosen from all
male citizens and males not enemy aliens who had declared their
intention of becoming citizens. By the first act of May 18, 1917, it
fixed the age limits at twenty-one to thirty-one inclusive. Later, in
August, 1918, it extended them to eighteen and forty-five. From the men
of the first group so enrolled were chosen by lot the soldiers for the
World War who, with the regular army and the national guard, formed the
American Expeditionary Force upholding the American cause on the
battlefields of Europe. "The whole nation," said the President, "must be
a team in which each man shall play the part for which he is best
fitted."

=Liberty Loans and Taxes.=--In order that the military and naval forces
should be stinted in no respect, the nation was called upon to place its
financial resources at the service of the government. Some urged the
"conscription of wealth as well as men," meaning the support of the war
out of taxes upon great fortunes; but mor