They would not discuss a League of
Nations until Germany's continental position was secured. The Allies on
the other hand would not make peace with an unbeaten Germany, which
evidently persisted in the hope of dominating weaker nationalities and
said no word of reparations for the acknowledged wrongs committed.
Feeling ran high in England and France because Wilson's note had seemed
to place the belligerents on the same moral plane, in its statement that
the objects on both sides "are virtually the same, as stated in general
terms to their own people and to the world." The statement was verbally
accurate and rang with a certain grim irony which may have touched
Wilson's sense of humor. But the Allies were not in a state of mind to
appreciate such humor. Their official answer, however, was frank, and in
substance accepted the principles of permanent peace propounded by
Wilson. It was evident to most Americans that the main purpose of Germany
was to establish herself as the dominating power of the continent and
possibly of the world; the aim of the Allies, on the other hand, seemed
to be the peace of the world based upon democracy and justice rather than
material force.

The President's attempt thus cleared the air. It made plain to the
majority of Americans that in sympathy, at least, the United States must
be definitely aligned with Great Britain and France. Furthermore the
replies of the belligerents gave to Wilson an opportunity to inform the
world more definitely of the aims of the United States, in case it should
be drawn into the war. This he did in a speech delivered to the Senate on
January 22, 1917. America would play her part in world affairs, he said,
but the other nations must clearly understand the conditions of our
participation. The basis of peace must be the right of each individual
nation to decide its destiny for itself without interference from a
stronger alien power. "I am proposing as it were, that the nations should
with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of
the world: that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any
other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to
determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered,
unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful."
Instead of the old system of alliances there should be a general concert
of powers: "There is no entangling alliance in a concert of powers. When