I recall a talk the President had with me on the way to New York on the afternoon of the delivery of this speech when he requested me to read the manuscript. As he gave it to me he said: "They [meaning the Allies] will not like this speech, for there are many things in it which will displease the Imperialists of Great Britain, France, and Italy. The world must be convinced that we are playing no favourites and that America has her own plan for a world settlement, a plan which does not contain the germs of another war. What I greatly fear, now that the end seems inevitable, is that we shall go back to the old days of alliances and competing armaments and land grabbing. We must see to it, therefore, that there is not another Alsace-Lorraine, and that when peace finally comes, it shall be a permanent and a lasting peace. We must now serve notice on everybody that our aims and purposes are not selfish. In order to do this and to make the right impressions, we must be brutally frank with friends and foes alike." As we discussed the subject matter of this momentous speech, I gathered from the President's statements to me that he clearly foresaw the end of the war and of the possible proposal for a settlement that might be made by the Allies. Therefore, he felt it incumbent upon him frankly to discuss America's view of what a just and lasting settlement should be. As one examines this speech to-day, away from the excitement of that critical hour in which it was delivered, he can easily find in it statements and utterances that must have caused sharp irritation in certain chancelleries of Europe. In nearly every line of it there was a challenge to European Imperialism to come out in the open and avow its purposes as to peace. Many of the Allied leaders had been addressing their people on the matter of peace; now they were being challenged by an American president to place their cards face up on the table. An examination of the speech, in the light of subsequent events, reëmphasizes the President's pre-vision: