It is with a great deal of genuine pleasure that I find myself in Pueblo, and I feel it a
compliment in this beautiful hall. One of the advantages of this hall, as I look about, is that
you are not too far away from me, because there is nothing so reassuring to men who are trying to
express the public sentiment as getting into real personal contact with their fellow citizens. I
have gained a renewed impression as I have crossed the continent this time of the homogeneity of
this great people to whom we belong. They come from many stocks, but they are all of one kind.
They come from many origins, but they are all shot through with the same principles and desire the
same righteous and honest things. I have received a more inspiring impression this time of the
public opinion of the United States than it was ever my privilege to receive before.
The chief pleasure of my trip has been that it has nothing to do with my personal fortunes, that
it
has nothing to do with my personal reputation, that it has nothing to do with anything except
great principles uttered by Americans of all sorts and of all parties which we are now trying to
realize at this crisis of the affairs of the world. But there have been unpleasant impressions as
well as pleasant impressions, my fellow citizens, as I have crossed the continent. I have
perceived more and more that men have been busy creating an absolutely false impression of what
the treaty of peace and the Covenant of the League of Nations contain and mean. I find, moreover,
that there is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty
proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which
threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say -- I cannot say too
often -- any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge
into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.
If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest I will know that I have got an enemy of
the Republic. My fellow citizens, it is only certain bodies of foreign sympathies, certain bodies
of sympathy with foreign nations that are organized against this great document which the American
representatives have brought back from Paris. Therefore, in order to clear away the mists, in
order to remove the impressions, in order to check the falsehoods that have clustered around this
great subject, I want to tell you a few very simple things about the treaty and the covenant.
Do not think of this treaty of peace as merely a settlement with Germany. It is that. It is a very
severe settlement with Germany, but there is not anything in it that she did not earn. Indeed, she
earned more than she can ever be able to pay for, and the punishment exacted of her is not a
punishment greater than she can bear, and it is absolutely necessary in order that no other nation
may ever plot such a thing against humanity and civilization. But the treaty is so much more than
that. It is not merely a settlement with Germany; it is a readjustment of those great injustices
which underlie the whole structure of European and Asiatic society. This is only the first of
several treaties. They are all constructed upon the same plan. The Austrian treaty follows the
same lines. The treaty with Hungary follows the same lines. The treaty with Bulgaria follows the
same lines. The treaty with Turkey, when it is formulated, will follow the same lines.
What are those lines? They are based upon the purpose to see that every government dealt with in
this great settlement is put in the hands of the people and taken out of the hands of coteries and
of sovereigns, who had no right to rule over the people. It is a people’s treaty, that
accomplishes by a great sweep of practical justice the liberation of men who never could have
liberated themselves, and the power of the most powerful nations ahs been devoted not to their
aggrandizement but to the liberation of people whom they could have put under their control if
they had chosen to do so. Not one foot of territory is demanded by submission to their authority
is demanded by them. The men who sat around the table in Paris knew that the time had come when
the people were no longer going to consent to live under masters, but were going to live the lives
that they chose themselves, to live under such governments as they chose themselves to erect. That
is the fundamental principle of this great settlement.
And we did not stop with that. We added a great international charter for the rights of labor.
Reject this treaty, impair it, and this is the consequence of the laboring men of the world, that
there is no international tribunal which can bring the moral judgments of the world to bear upon
the great labor questions of the day. What we need to do with regard to the labor questions of the
day, my fellow countrymen, is to lift them into the light, is to lift them out of the haze and
distraction of passion, of hostility, out into the calm spaces where men look at things without
passion.
The more men you get into a great discussion the more you exclude passion. Just as soon as the
calm
judgment of the worlds is directed upon the question of justice to labor, labor is going to have
to forum such as it never was supplied with before, and men everywhere are going to see that the
problem of labor is nothing more not less than the problem of the elevation of humanity. We must
see that all the questions which have disturbed the world, all the questions which have disturbed
the processes of industry, shall be brought out where men of all points of view, Men of all
attitudes of mind, men of all kinds of experience, may contribute their part of the settlement of
the great questions which we must settle and cannot ignore.
At the front of this great treaty is put the Covenant of the League of Nations. It will also be at
the front of the Austrian treaty and the Hungarian treaty and the Bulgarian treaty and the treaty
with Turkey. Every one of them will contain the Covenant of the League of Nations, because you
cannot work any of them without the Covenant of the League of Nations. Unless you get the united,
concerted purpose and power of the great Governments of the world behind this settlement, it will
fall down like a house of cards. There is only one power to put behinds the liberation of mankind,
and that is the power of mankind. It is the power of the united moral forces of the world, and in
the Covenant of the League of Nations the moral forces of the world are mobilized.
For what purpose? Reflect, my fellow citizens, that the membership of this great League is going
to
include all the great fighting nations of the world, as well as the weak ones. It is not for the
present going to include Germany, but for the time being Germany is not a great fighting country.
All the nations that have power that can be mobilized are going to be members of this League,
including the United States.
And what do they unite for? They enter into a solemn promise to one another they will never use
their power against one another for aggression; that they never will impair the territorial
integrity of a neighbor; that they never will interfere with the political independence of a
neighbor; that they will abide by the principle that great populations are entitled to determine
their own destiny and that they will not interfere with that destiny; and that no matter what
differences arise amongst them they will never resort to war without first having done one or
other of two things -- either submitted the matter of controversy to arbitration, in which case
they agree to abide by the result without question, or submitted it to the consideration of the
council of the League of Nations, laying before that council all the documents, all the facts,
agreeing that the council can publish the documents, all the facts, agreeing that the council can
publish the documents and the facts to the whole world, agreeing that there shall be six months
allowed for the mature consideration of those facts by the council, and agreeing that at the
expiration of the six months, even if they are not then ready to accept the advice of the council
with regard to the settlement of the dispute, they will still not go to war for another three
months.
In other words, they consent, no matter what happens, to submit every matter of difference between
them to the judgment of mankind, and just so certainly as they do that, my fellow citizens, war
will be in the far background, war will be pushed out of that foreground of terror in which it has
kept the world for generation after generation, and men will know that there will be a calm time
of deliberate counsel. The most dangerous thing for a bad cause is to expose it to the opinion of
the world. The most certain way that you can prove that a man is mistaken is by letting all his
neighbors know what he thinks, by letting all his neighbors know what he thinks, by letting all
his neighbors discuss what he thinks, and if he is in the wrong you will notice that he will stay
at home, he will not walk on the street. He will be afraid of the eyes of his neighbors. He will
be afraid of their judgment of his character. He will know that his cause is lost unless he can
sustain it by the arguments of right and of justice. The same law that applies to individuals
applies to nations.
But, you say, “We have heard that we might be at a disadvantage in the League of Nations.” Well,
whoever told you that either was deliberately falsifying or he had not read the Covenant of the
League of Nations. I leave him the choice. I want to give you a very simple account of the
organization of the League of Nations and let you judge for yourselves. It is a very simple
organization. The power of the League, or rather the activities of the league, lie in two bodies.
There is the council, which consists of one representative from each of the principal allied and
associated powers -- that is to say, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan,
along with four other representatives of smaller powers chosen out of the general body of the
membership of the League.
The council is the source of very active policy of the League, and no active policy of the League
can be adopted without a unanimous vote of the council. That is explicitly stated in the Covenant
itself. Does it not evidently follow that the League of Nations can adopt no policy whatever
without the consent of the United States? The affirmative vote of the representative of the United
States is necessary in every case. Now, you have heard of six votes belonging to the British
Empire. Those six votes are not in the council. They are in the assembly, and the interesting
thing is that the assembly does not vote. I must qualify that statement a little, but essentially
it is absolutely true. In every matter in which the assembly is given a voice, and there are only
four or five, its vote does not count unless concurred in by the representatives of all the
nations represented on the council, so the at there is no validity to any vote of the assembly
unless in that vote also the representative of the United States concurs. That one vote of the
United States is as big as the six votes of the British Empire. I am not jealous for advantage, my
fellow citizens, but I think that is a perfectly safe situation. There is no validity in a vote,
either by the council or the assembly, in which we do not concur. So much for the statements about
the six votes for the British Empire.
Look at it in another aspect. The assembly is the talking body. The assembly was created in order
that anybody that purposed anything wrong should be subjected to the awkward circumstance that
everybody could talk about it. This is the great assembly in which all the things that are likely
to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations are to be exposed to
the general view, and I want to ask you if you think it was unjust, unjust to the United States,
that speaking parts should be assigned to the several portions of the British Empire? Do you think
it unjust that there should be some spokesman in debate for that fine little stout Republic down
in the Pacific, New Zealand? Do you think it was unjust that Australia should be allowed to stand
up and take part in the debate -- Australia, from which we have learned some of the most useful
progressive policies of modern time, a little nation only five million in a great continent, but
counting for several times five in its activities and in its interest in liberal reform? Do you
think it unjust that that little Republic down in South Africa, whose gallant resistance to being
subjected to any outside authority at all we admired for so many months and whose fortunes we
followed with such interest, should have a speaking part? Great Britain obliged South Africa to
submit to her sovereignty, but she immediately after that felt that it was convenient and right to
hand the whole self-government of that colony over to the very men whom she had beaten.
The representatives of South Africa in Paris were two of the most distinguished generals of the
Boer Army, two of the realest men I ever met, two men that could talk sober counsel and wise
advice, along with the best statesmen in Europe. To exclude Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts from the
right to stand up in the parliament of the world and say something concerning the affairs of
mankind would be absurd. And what about Canada? Is not Canada a good neighbor? I ask you is not
Canada more likely to agree with the United States than with Great Britain? Canada has a speaking
part. And then, for the first time in the history of the world, that great voiceless multitude,
that throng hundreds of millions strong in India, has a voice, and I want to testify that some of
the wisest and most dignified figures in the peace conference at Paris came form India, men who
seemed to carry in their minds an older wisdom than the rest of us had, whose traditions ran back
into so many of the unhappy fortunes of mankind that they seemed very useful counselors as to how
some ray of hope and some prospect of happiness could be opened to its people. I for my part have
no jealousy whatever of those five speaking parts in the assembly. Those speaking parts cannot
translate themselves into five votes that can in any matter override the voice and purpose of the
United States.
Let us sweep aside all this language of jealousy. Let us be big enough to know the facts and to
welcome the facts, because the facts are based upon the principle that America has always fought
for, namely, the equality of self-governing peoples, whether they were big or little -- not
counting men, but counting rights, not counting representation, but counting the purpose of that
representation. When you hear an opinion quoted you do no count the number of persons who hold it;
you ask, “Who said that?” You weigh opinions, you do not count them, and the beauty of all
democracies is that every voice can be heard, every voice can have its effect, every voice can
contribute to the general judgment that is finally arrived at. That is the object of democracy.
Let us accept what America has always fought for, and accept it with pride that America showed the
way and made the proposal. I do not mean that America made the proposal in this particular
instance; I mean that the principle was an American principle, proposed by America.
When you come to the heart of the Covenant, my fellow citizens, you will find it in article ten,
and I am very much interested to know that the other things have been blown away like bubbles.
There is nothing in the other contentions with regard to the league of nations, but there is
something in article ten that you ought to realize and ought to accept or reject. Article ten is
the heart of the whole matter. What is article ten? I never am certain that I can from memory give
a literal repetition of its language, but I am sure that I can give an exact interpretation of its
meaning. Article ten provides that every member of the league covenants to respect and preserve
the territorial integrity and existing political independence of every other member of the league
as against external aggression. Not against internal disturbance. There was not a man at that
table who did not admit the sacredness of the right of self-determination, the sacredness of the
right of any body of people to say that they would not continue to live under the Government they
were then living under, and under article eleven of the Covenant they are given a place to say
whether they will live under it or not. For following article ten is article eleven, which makes
it the right of any member of the League at any time to call attention to anything, anywhere, that
is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations upon which
the peace of the world depends. I want to give you an illustration of what that would mean.
You have heard a great deal -- something that was true and a great deal that was false--about the
provision of the treaty which hands over to Japan the rights which Germany enjoyed in the Province
of Shantung in China. In the first place, Germany did not enjoy any rights there that other
nations had not already claimed. For my part, my judgment, my moral judgment, is against the whole
set of concessions. They were all of them unjust to China, they ought never to have been exacted,
they were all exacted by duress, from a great body of thoughtful and ancient and helpless people.
There never was any right in any of them. Thank God, America never asked for any, never dreamed of
asking for any.