Peace cannot be had without
concession and sacrifice. There can be no sense of safety and equality
among the nations if great preponderating armaments are henceforth to
continue here and there to be built up and maintained. The statesmen of
the world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate
their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for
pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments, whether on land
or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question
connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.
I have spoken upon these great matters without reserve and with the
utmost explicitness because it has seemed to me to be necessary if the
world's yearning desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and
utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high authority amongst all
the peoples of the world who is at liberty to speak and hold nothing
back. I am speaking as an individual, and yet I am speaking also, of
course, as the responsible head of a great government, and I feel
confident that I have said what the people of the United States would
wish me to say.
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