We must face the facts as they are and act upon them without sentiment in this stern business.
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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Recent experience has convinced me that the Congress must go further in authorizing the Government to set limits to prices.
The law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unrestrained selfishness.
While we have eliminated profiteering in several branches of industry, it still runs impudently rampant in others.
The farmers for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regulation of food prices restricts their incomes, no restraints are placed upon the prices of most of the things they must themselves purchase; and similar…
Our safety would be at an end, our honor forever sullied and brought into contempt, were we to permit their triumph.
They are striking at the very existence of democracy and liberty.
The cause being just and holy, the settlement must be of like motive and equality.
For this we can fight, but for nothing less noble or less worthy of our traditions.
For this cause we entered the war and for this cause will we battle until the last gun is fired.
But we learned quickly and acted with a promptness and a readiness of cooperation that justify our great pride that we were able to serve the world with unparalleled energy and quick accomplishment.
But it is not the physical scale and executive efficiency of preparation, supply, equipment and despatch that I would dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and the…
No soldiers or sailors ever proved themselves more quickly ready for the test of battle or acquitted themselves with more splendid courage and achievement when put to the test.
I am proud to be the fellow-countryman of men of such stuff and valor.
And throughout it all how fine the spirit of the nation was: what unity of purpose, what untiring zeal!
What elevation of purpose ran through all its splendid display of strength, its untiring accomplishment!
I have said that those of us who stayed at home to do the work of organization and supply will always wish that we had been with the men whom we sustained by our labor; but we can never be ashamed.
It has been an inspiring thing to be here in the midst of fine men who had turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole great…
The patriotism, the unselfishness, the thoroughgoing devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their toilsome labors, day after day, month after month, have made them fit mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea.
They can look any man-at-arms in the face, and say, We also strove to win and gave the best that was in us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph!
These great days of completed achievement would be sadly marred were we to omit that act of justice.
And now we are sure of the great triumph for which every sacrifice was made.
We are about to give order and organization to this peace not only for ourselves but for the other peoples of the world as well, so far as they will suffer us to serve them.
It is international justice that we seek, not domestic safety merely.
While we are adjusting our relations with the rest of the world is it not of capital importance that we should clear away all grounds of misunderstanding with our immediate neighbors and give proof of the friendship we really feel?
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