Approaches to the Great Settlement Author:Emily Greene Balch Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in reply; the Reichstag debates of June 5 and 6, and von Bethmann-Hollweg's speech of November g.1 The fact that an informal discussion of peace had been ente... more »red upon gave rise to the hope that the warring countries were approaching a common ground of agreement; and it seemed for a time as though this might be the case. But their mutual distrust was too profound,2 and in the end the discussion came to nothing. During this discussion rumors of peace moves by the Pope and of mediation by the President of the United States were current in Europe, in connection, especially, with President Wilson's address of May 15 before the Press Club. In this speech he said: " If somebody does not keep the processes of peace going, if somebody does not keep the passions disengaged, by what impartial judgment and suggestion is the world to be aided to a solution when the whole thing is over? " Five days later at Charlotte, N. C., he spoke of Americans as imagining themselves " lifting some sacred emblem of counsel and of peace, of accommodation and righteous judgment, before the nations of the world." A few days later, in an address before the League to Enforce Peace, the so-called " Declaration of Interdependence," he stated, as a profession of faith, the principles upon which he was later to formulate a definite policy of international relations: 1 These debates and interviews, except the last, for which see N. Y. Times, Nov. 10, may be found in Governments and Parliaments on Peace, a pamphlet published by the Nederlandsche Anti- Oorlog Raad, 51 Theresiastraat, The Hague. 2 The Paris Economic Conference was held in April of that year. It proposed a " trade war after the war " against Germany. British, French, Italian, Belgian, Servian and Russian delegates were present, and a program w...« less