the progress of science and the state of civilization
might have permitted the hope that no Government, however autocratic,
would have succeeded in hurling armed nations upon Belgium and Serbia.

Without lending ourselves to the illusion that posterity will be
forevermore safe from these collective follies, we must introduce into
the peace we are going to build all the conditions of justice and all
the safeguards of civilization that we can embody in it.

To such a vast and magnificent task, Mr. President, you have chosen to
come and apply yourself in concert with France. France offers you her
thanks. She knows the friendship of America. She knows your rectitude
and elevation of spirit. It is in the fullest confidence that she is
ready to work with you.

President Wilson replied:--

_Mr. President_: I am deeply indebted to you for your gracious
greeting. It is very delightful to find myself in France and to feel
the quick contact of sympathy and unaffected friendship between the
representatives of the United States and the representatives of France.

You have been very generous in what you were pleased to say about
myself, but I feel that what I have said and what I have tried to do
has been said and done only in an attempt to speak the thought of the
people of the United States truly, and to carry that thought out in
action.

From the first, the thought of the people of the United States turned
toward something more than the mere winning of this war. It turned to
the establishment of eternal principles of right and justice. It
realized that merely to win the war was not enough; that it must be won
in such a way and the question raised by it settled in such a way as to
insure the future peace of the world and lay the foundations for the
freedom and happiness of its many peoples and nations.

Never before has war worn so terrible a visage or exhibited more
grossly the debasing influence of illicit ambitions. I am sure that I
shall look upon the ruin wrought by the armies of the Central Empires
with the same repulsion and deep indignation that they stir in the
hearts of the men of France and Belgium, and I appreciate, as you do,
sir, the necessity of such action in the final settlement of the issues
of the war as will not only rebuke such acts of terror and spoliation,
but make men everywhere aware that they cannot be ventured upon without
the certainty of just punishment.

I know with what ardor and en