Made by President Wilson at Washington, Sept. 16.
I received your Imperial Majesty's important communication of the
7th and have read it with the gravest interest and concern. I am
honored that you should have turned to me for an impartial judgment
as the representative of a people truly disinterested as respects
the present war and truly desirous of knowing and accepting the
truth.
You will, I am sure, not expect me to say more. Presently, I pray
God very soon, this war will be over. The day of accounting will
then come, when I take it for granted the nations of Europe will
assemble to determine a settlement. Where wrongs have been
committed, their consequences and the relative responsibility
involved will be assessed.
The nations of the world have fortunately by agreement made a plan
for such a reckoning and settlement. What such a plan cannot
compass the opinion of mankind, the final arbiter in all such
matters, will supply. It would be unwise, it would be premature,
for a single Government, however fortunately separated from the
present struggle, it would even be inconsistent with the neutral
position of any nation which, like this, has no part in the
contest, to form or express a final judgment.
I speak thus frankly because I know that you will expect and wish
me to do so as one friend speaks to another, and because I feel
sure that such a reservation of judgment until the end of the war,
when all its events and circumstances can be seen in their entirety
and in their true relations, will commend itself to you as a true
expression of sincere neutrality.