things in this war which they did not choose. They
believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the
rights of governments--the rights of peoples great or small, weak or
powerful--their equal right to freedom and security and
self-government and to a participation upon fair terms in the
economic opportunities of the world, the German people, of course,
included, if they will accept equality and not seek domination.

The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is it based upon
the faith of all the peoples involved or merely upon the word of an
ambitious and intriguing Government on the one hand, and of a group
of free peoples on the other? This is a test which goes to the root
of the matter; and it is the test which must be applied.

THE TEST THAT MUST BE APPLIED

The purposes of the United States in this war are known to the whole
world, to every people to whom the truth has been permitted to come.
They do not need to be stated again. We seek no material advantage of
any kind. We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by
the furious and brutal power of the Imperial German Government ought
to be repaired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any
people--rather a vindication of the sovereignty both of those that
are weak and of those that are strong. Punitive damages, the
dismemberment of empires, the establishment of selfish and exclusive
economic leagues, we deem inexpedient and in the end worse than
futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for an
enduring peace. That must be based upon justice and fairness and the
common rights of mankind.

THE GERMAN RULERS CANNOT BE TRUSTED

We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a
guaranty of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported
by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German
people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be
justified in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties of
settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up
arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments,
reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government,
no man, no nation could now depend on. We must await some new
evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers.
God grant it may be given soon, and in a way to restore the
confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the
possibilit