not among the ends which we contemplate.

An admirable opportunity to give this humane and prudent assurance was
offered by the Pope's proposal of a Peace Conference (August, 1917).
President Wilson, with characteristic acuteness and candor, made good
use of this opportunity. While declining the proposal clearly and
firmly, as impossible under the present conditions, he added the
following statement of the peace purposes of the United States--a
statement which approaches a definition by the process of exclusion:

"Punitive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the establishment of
selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient, and in the
end worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of
all for an enduring peace, that must be based upon justice and fairness
and the common rights of mankind." (President Wilson's Note to His
Holiness the Pope, August 27, 1917.)

Thus far (and in my judgment no farther) we may go in an indirect,
third-personal discussion of the terms of peace with our enemy.

2. On the other hand, a full discussion of the terms of peace with our
friends, the allied nations, will be most profitable--indeed, it is
absolutely necessary.

The sooner it comes--the more frank, thorough, and confidential it
is--the better!

The Allies, as President Wilson said in the address already quoted
(January 22, 1917), have stated their terms of peace "with sufficient
definiteness to imply details."

These terms have been summed up again and again in three general words:

RESTITUTION,
REPARATION,
GUARANTEES FOR THE FUTURE.

It is for us to discuss the details which are implied in these terms,
not with our enemy, but with our friends who have borne the brunt of
this German war against peace.

Nothing which would make their sacrifice vain could ever satisfy the
heart and conscience of the United States.

We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave Belgium,
Luxembourg, Servia, Montenegro, Roumania crushed and helpless in the
hands of their captors.

We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave our sister-republic
France hopelessly exposed to the same kind of an assault which Germany
made upon her in 1870 and in 1914.

We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave Great Britain
crippled and powerless to work with us in the maintenance of the freedom
of the sea.

We cannot honorably accept a peace which would leave the Italian demand
for un