eperative peace that does not include the peoples of
the New World can suffice to keep the future safe against war; and yet
there is only one sort of peace that the peoples of America could join
in guaranteeing. The elements of that peace must be elements that engage
the confidence and satisfy the principles of the American governments,
elements consistent with their political faith and with the practical
convictions which the peoples of America have once for all embraced and
undertaken to defend.

I do not mean to say that any American government would throw any
obstacle in the way of any terms of peace the governments now at war
might agree upon, or seek to upset them when made, whatever they might
be. I only take it for granted that mere terms of peace between the
belligerents will not satisfy even the belligerents themselves. Mere
agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary
that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the
settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or
any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable
combination of nations could face or withstand it. If the peace
presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the
organized major force of mankind.

The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will determine whether it
is a peace for which such a guarantee can be secured. The question upon
which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is
the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a
new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of
power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of
the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe.
There must be, not 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 withou