The response of the Entente Powers was frank and in harmony with our principal purpose. Many questions raised in the statement of their aims were so purely European in character as to have small interest for us; but our great concern in Europe was the lasting restoration of peace, and it was clear that this was also the chief interest of the Entente nations. As to the wisdom of some of the measures they proposed toward this end, we might differ in opinion, but the trend of their proposals was the establishment of just frontiers based on the rights of all nations, the small as well as the great, to decide their own destinies. The aims of the belligerents were now becoming clear. From the outbreak of hostilities the German Government had claimed that it was fighting a war of defense. But the tone of its recent proposals had been that of a conqueror. It sought a peace based on victory. [Sidenote: Central Empires desire domination over other races.] The Central Empires aspired to extend their domination over other races. They were willing to make liberal terms to any one of their enemies, in a separate peace which would free their hands to crush other opponents. But they were not willing to accept any peace which did not, all fronts considered, leave them victors and the dominating imperial power of Europe. The war aims of the Entente showed a determination to thwart this ambition of the Imperial German Government. Against the German peace to further German growth and aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan for a European peace that should make the whole Continent secure. [Sidenote: The kind of peace America desires.] At this juncture the President read his address to the Senate, on January 22, 1917, in which he outlined the kind of peace the United States of America could join in guaranteeing. His words were addressed not only to the Senate and this nation, but to people of all countries: "May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear." [Sidenote: The peace of the people.] The address was a rebuke to those who still cherished dreams of a world dominated by one nation. For the peace he outlined was not that of a victorious Emperor, it was not the peace of Caesar. It was in behalf of all the world, and it was a peace of the people: "No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. [Sidenote: Each people should determine its own polity.]