ncert of purpose and of
action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.

[Sidenote: Standards of conduct for nations.]

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the
world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that
peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments,
backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not
by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such
circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be
insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for
wrong done shall be observed among nations and their Governments that
are observed among the individual citizens of civilized States.

[Sidenote: A war determined upon by rulers.]

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward
them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse
that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their
previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars
used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days, when peoples were
nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in
the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were
accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools.

[Sidenote: Such aggression impossible where people rule.]

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor States with spies or
set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of
affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest.
Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where
no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of
deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to
generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the
privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a
narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public
opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all of the
nation's affairs.

[Sidenote: Only a partnership of democratic nations can maintain peace.]

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a
partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic Government could be
trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a
league of honor, a partnership of opini