wards when it may be too late.

"No covenant of co-operative peace that does not include the peoples
of the New World can suffice to keep the future safe against war;
and yet there is only one sort of peace that the peoples of America
could join in guaranteeing. The elements of that peace must be
elements that engage the confidence and satisfy the principles of
the American governments, elements consistent with their political
faith and with the practical convictions which the peoples of America
have once for all embraced and undertake to defend.

"I do not mean to say that any American government would throw
any obstacle in the way of any terms of peace the governments now
at war might agree upon, or seek to upset them when made, whatever
they might be. I only take it for granted that mere terms of peace
between the belligerents will not satisfy even the belligerents
themselves. Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will
be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of
the permanency of the settlement so much greater than the force of
any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or projected
that no nation, no probable combination of nations could face or
withstand it. If the peace presently to be made is to endure, it
must be a peace made secure by the organized major force of mankind!

"The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will determine whether
it is a peace for which such a guarantee can be secured. The question
upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends
is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace,
or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for
a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee,
the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil
Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of
power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an
organized common peace.

"Fortunately we have received very explicit assurances on this point.
The statesmen of both of the groups of nations now arrayed against
one another have said, in terms that could not be misinterpreted,
that it was no part of the purpose they had in mind to crush their
antagonists. But the implications of these assurances may not be
equally clear to all,--may not be the same on both sides of the
water. I think it will be serviceable if I attempt to set forth
what we understand them to be.