Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be not only
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.
They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory.
It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put
my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no
other interpretation was in my thought.
I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft
concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser,
a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted
in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would
leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory, upon which terms of
peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand.
Only a peace between equals can last; only a peace the very principle
of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit.
The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as
necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of questions
of territory or of racial and national allegiance.