ry that they see towns
systematically burned down, mines flooded, factories reduced to ashes,
orchards devastated, cathedrals shelled and fired--all that deliberate
savagery, aimed to destroy national wealth, nature, and beauty, which
the imagination could not conceive at a distance from the men and
things that have endured it and today bear witness to it.

In your turn, Mr. President, you will be able to measure with your own
eyes the extent of these disasters, and the French Government will make
known to you the authentic documents in which the German General Staff
developed with astounding cynicism its program of pillage and
industrial annihilation. Your noble conscience will pronounce a
verdict on these facts.

Should this guilt remain unpunished, could it be renewed, the most
splendid victories would be in vain.

Mr. President, France has struggled, has endured, and has suffered
during four long years; she has bled at every vein; she has lost the
best of her children; she mourns for her youths. She yearns now, even
as you do, for a peace of justice and security.

It was not that she might be exposed once again to aggression that she
submitted to such sacrifices. Nor was it in order that criminals
should go unpunished, that they might lift their heads again to make
ready for new crimes, that, under your strong leadership, America armed
herself and crossed the ocean.

Faithful to the memory of Lafayette and Rochambeau, she came to the aid
of France, because France herself was faithful to her traditions. Our
common ideal has triumphed. Together we have defended the vital
principles of free nations. Now we must build together such a peace as
will forbid the deliberate and hypocritical renewing of an organism
aiming at conquest and oppression.

Peace must make amends for the misery and sadness of yesterday, and it
must be a guarantee against the dangers of tomorrow. The association
which has been formed for the purpose of war, between the United States
and the Allies, and which contains the seed of the permanent
institutions of which you have spoken so eloquently, will find from
this day forward a clear and profitable employment in the concerted
search for equitable decisions and in the mutual support which we need
if we are to make our rights prevail.

Whatever safeguards we may erect for the future, no one, alas, can
assert that we shall forever spare to mankind the horrors of new wars.
Five years ago