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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
WILSON, Woodrow (1856-1924), President. Typed letter signed ("Woodrow Wilson"), as President, to Frederic A. Delano, Washington, 6 September 1917. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery.
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WILSON, Woodrow (1856-1924), President. Typed letter signed ("Woodrow Wilson"), as President, to Frederic A. Delano, Washington, 6 September 1917. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery.
WILSON SHOOTS DOWN POPE BENEDICT'S 7-POINT PEACE PLAN IN 1917
"I am sure I need not tell you," Wilson writes, "how sincerely I appreciate your approval of my response to the peace proposals of the Pope. It has gratified me very much to find with what general approval and acquiescence the note has been received on both sides of the water. I think it must be because it tells the unquestionable truth." Wilson is remembered for his 14-points and his humane vision in 1918-1919 of a peace without vengeance and a League of Nations to preserve collective security. But here, in September 1917, six months into America's involvement in the "war to end all wars," he takes pride in having rejected the peace plan of Pope Benedict XV. On 1 August 1917, Benedict issued a seven point plan that would prefigure many of Wilson's 14-points of January 1918. The pontiff called for the substitution of "the moral force of right" for "the material force of arms; the reduction of armaments; international arbitration of disputes; freedom of the seas; the elimination of punitive reparations; withdrawals from occupied territories; and negotiations over the disputed territorial claims (especially in central Europe) that gave rise to the war.
Wilson made his reply on 27 August 1917, under the name of his Secretary of State Robert Lansing. But he drafted much of the document himself--and, interestingly, takes possession of the text by here calling it "my reply." He told the pontiff "it would be folly" to try and pursue this 7-point plan with the current German government. "The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of international action and honor... We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guaranty of anything that is to endure..."
WILSON SHOOTS DOWN POPE BENEDICT'S 7-POINT PEACE PLAN IN 1917
"I am sure I need not tell you," Wilson writes, "how sincerely I appreciate your approval of my response to the peace proposals of the Pope. It has gratified me very much to find with what general approval and acquiescence the note has been received on both sides of the water. I think it must be because it tells the unquestionable truth." Wilson is remembered for his 14-points and his humane vision in 1918-1919 of a peace without vengeance and a League of Nations to preserve collective security. But here, in September 1917, six months into America's involvement in the "war to end all wars," he takes pride in having rejected the peace plan of Pope Benedict XV. On 1 August 1917, Benedict issued a seven point plan that would prefigure many of Wilson's 14-points of January 1918. The pontiff called for the substitution of "the moral force of right" for "the material force of arms; the reduction of armaments; international arbitration of disputes; freedom of the seas; the elimination of punitive reparations; withdrawals from occupied territories; and negotiations over the disputed territorial claims (especially in central Europe) that gave rise to the war.
Wilson made his reply on 27 August 1917, under the name of his Secretary of State Robert Lansing. But he drafted much of the document himself--and, interestingly, takes possession of the text by here calling it "my reply." He told the pontiff "it would be folly" to try and pursue this 7-point plan with the current German government. "The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of international action and honor... We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guaranty of anything that is to endure..."