And at the present time it distresses me to learn that certain
influences, which I assume to be German in their origin, are
trying not only to make a wrong impression, but to give an
absolutely untrue account of the things that happen.
You know distressing things have been happening just off our
coast; you know of vessels that have been sunk. I yesterday
received a quotation from a paper in Guadalajara which stated
that thirteen of our battleships had been sunk off the Capes of
Chesapeake.
You see how dreadful it is to have the people so radically
misinformed. It was added that our Navy Department was withholding
the facts with regard to these sinkings. I have no doubt that
the publisher of the paper printed this in perfect innocence and
without intending to convey a wrong impression, but it is evident
that allegations of that sort proceed from those who wish to make
trouble between Mexico and the United States.
[Illustration: An American patrol under a French officer in the
trenches in France. Some of the rifles are equipped for firing grenades
(© _Committee on Public Information, from international Film Service_)]
[Illustration: Pont-à-Mousson, in the Toul sector, showing the Church
of St. Laurent. The transparent fabric hung across the street is for
the purpose of misleading enemy aerial observers
(_French Pictorial Service_)]
Now, gentlemen, for the time being at any rate, and I hope that
it will not be a short time, the influence of the United States
is somewhat pervasive in the affairs of the world, and I believe
it is pervasive because those nations of the world which are less
powerful than some of the greatest nations are coming to believe
that our sincere desire is to do disinterested service.
We are the champions of those nations which have not had the
military standing which would enable them to compete with the
strongest nations in the world, and I look forward with pride
to the time which I hope will come when we can give substantial
evidence not only that we do not want anything out of this war,
but that we would not accept anything out of this war; that it is
absolutely a case of disinterested action.
And if you will watch the attitude of our people you will see that
nothing stirs them so deeply as the assurances that this war, so
far as we are concerned, is for idealistic objects. One of the
difficulties that I experienced during the first three years of
the war, the years when the United States was not in the war, was
in getting the Foreign Offices of the European nations to believe
that the United States was seeking nothing for herself, that her
neutrality was not selfish, and that if she came in she would not
come in to get anything substantial out of the war--any material
object, any territory or trade or anything else of that sort.
In some Foreign Offices there were men who personally know me
and they believed, I hope, that I was sincere in assuring them
that our purposes were disinterested; but they thought that
these assurances came from the academic gentleman removed from
the ordinary sources of information and speaking the idealistic
purposes of a cloister. They did not believe I was speaking the
real heart of the American people, and I knew all along that I
was. Now I believe every one who comes in contact with American
people knows that I am speaking their purposes.