and nobly.

After President Wilson's failure to bring about even a pacific attitude
among the warring nations, no peace appeal from any quarter calculated
to receive respectful attention was made, excepting that issued by Pope
Benedict August 15, four months after the United States had declared
war. The President summarized the Pope's proposals as follows:

"His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status
existing before the war, and that then there be a general
condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations based upon an
acceptance of the principle of arbitration; that by a similar
concert freedom of the seas be established; and that the
territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplexing problems of
the Balkan States and the restitution of Poland be left to such
conciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new temper of
such a peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of the
peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be
involved."

The president's reply to the Pope forcibly stated the aim of the United
States to free the world from the menace of Prussian militarism
controlled by an arrogant and faithless autocracy. Distinguishing
between the German rulers and the people, President Wilson asserted that
the United States would willingly negotiate with a government subject to
the popular will. The note disavowed any intention to dismember
countries or to impose unfair economic conditions. In part the
President's language was:

"Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw
before, that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic
restrictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass
others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge
or deliberate injury. The American people have suffered intolerable
wrongs at the hands of the Imperial German Government, but they
desire no reprisal upon the German people, who have themselves
suffered all things in this war, which they did not choose. They
believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the
rights of governments--the rights of peoples great or small, weak
or powerful--their equal right to freedom and security and self
government and to a participation upon fair terms in the economic
opportunities of the world, the German people, of