Woodrow Wilson as I Know HimTumulty, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick)
History
Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him
Tumulty, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick)
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
For example, among the rest was a man whom I have come to admire so
much that I have come to have a personal affection for him, and that
is Mr. Venizelos, Prime Minister of Greece, as genuine a friend of man
as ever lived and as able a friend honest people ever had, and a man
on whose face a glow comes when you state a great principle, and yet
who is intensely practical and who was there to insist that nothing
was to be done which would put the small nations of the world at the
disposal of the big nations. So that he was the most influential
spokesman of what may be called the small powers as contrasted with
the great. But I merely single him out for the pleasure of paying him
this tribute, and not because the others were less earnest in pursuing
their purpose. They were a body of men who all felt this. Indeed,
several of them said this to us: "The world expects not only, but
demands of us that we shall do this thing successfully, and we cannot
go away without doing it." There is not a statesman in that conference
who would dare to go home saying that he had merely signed a treaty of
peace no matter how excellent the terms of that treaty are, because he
has received if not an official at least an influential mandate to see
to it that something is done in addition which will make the thing
stand after it is done; and he dare not go home without doing that. So
that all around that table there was coöperation—generous coöperation
of mind to make that document as good as we could make it. And I
believe it is a thoroughly sound document. There is only one
misleading sentence in it—only one sentence that conveys a wrong
impression. That can, I dare say, be altered, though it is going to be
extremely difficult to set up that fourteen-nation process again as
will have to be done if any alteration is made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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