We shall be free to base peace on generosity and justice, to the exclusions of all selfish claims to advantage even on the part of the victors.
Woodrow Wilson
The Public Record
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, he was born in Virginia and raised in Georgia before moving to New Jersey, where he became a prominent political figure. Wilson was a key leader of the Progressive Movement, advocating for reforms such as antitrust legislation and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. His presidency is also noted for significant events such as the United States' involvement in World War I and his efforts to promote the League of Nations, an international organization aimed at preventing future conflicts.
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They have done a wrong to Belgium which must be repaired.
They have established a power over other lands and peoples than their own--over the great empire of Austria-Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan states, over Turkey and within Asia-which must be relinquished.
Germany's success by skill, by industry, by knowledge, by enterprise we did not grudge or oppose, but admired, rather.
She had built up for herself a real empire of trade and influence, secured by the peace of the world.
We were content to abide by the rivalries of manufacture, science and commerce that were involved for us in her success, and stand or fall as we had or did not have the brains and the initiative to surpass her.
But at the moment when she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to oust…
We only desire to see that their affairs are left in their own hands, in all matters, great or small.
We shall hope to secure for the peoples of the Balkan peninsula and for the people of the Turkish Empire the right and opportunity to make their own lives safe, their own fortunes secure against oppression or injustice and from the…
We intend no wrong against the German Empire, no interference with her internal affairs.
We should deem either the one or the other absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have professed to live by and to hold most sacred throughout our life as a nation.
We are in fact fighting for their emancipation from the fear, along with our own-from the fear as well as from the fact of unjust attack by neighbors or rivals or schemers after world empire.
That partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not a mere partnership of governments.
The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this war will have to be righted.
But they cannot and must not be righted by the commission of similar wrongs against Germany and her allies.
The world will not permit the commission of similar wrongs as a means of reparation and settlement.
Statesmen must by this time have learned that the opinion of the world is everywhere wide awake and fully comprehends the issues involved.
No representative of any self-governed nation will dare disregard it by attempting any such covenants of selfishness and compromise as were entered into at the Congress of Vienna.
The thought of the plain people here and everywhere throughout the world, the people who enjoy no privilege and have very simple and unsophisticated standards of right and wrong, is the air all governments must henceforth breathe if they…
It is in the full disclosing light of that thought that all policies must be received and executed in this midday hour of the world's life.
But the Congress that concludes this war will feel the full strength of the tides that run now in the hearts and consciences of free men everywhere.
The Russian people have been poisoned by the very same falsehoods that have kept the German people in the dark, and the poison has been administered by the very same hand.
Justice and equality of rights can be had only at a great price.
We are seeking permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace of the world, and must seek them candidly and fearlessly.
What shall we do, then, to push this great war of freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion?
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