File No. 701.7111/28
Remarks Made by the First Minister of Rumania ( Angelescu) on His Reception by President Wilson, January 15, 1918
Mr. President: The great American Democracy’s intervention has defined and brought in still higher relief the high moral aim of the Allies’ action in the unprecedented struggle that has been going on for three years and more, and in which the triumph of right is at stake.
That great historic event will henceforth loom, through its consequences, above the progress of mankind.
Through the blood-red glow of the present days, the oppressed peoples see in that intervention, prompted by the purest love for justice and truth, the dawn of a new order of things built upon the freedom of nations and international equity.
I am glad, Mr. President, to bring on this day to Your Excellency, under the tragical circumstances that have befallen my country, the expression of the high esteem and admiration of His Majesty, the King, and the Roumanian people for the powerful Republic of the United States and its illustrious Representative.
Roumania’s confidence in ultimate victory and the concomitant achievement of her historic destinies are enhanced by her very sacrifices and misfortunes.
[Page 737]Sacrifices and misfortunes alike have been enormous.
The accumulated results of our national efforts of the last fifty years since our own national life was given birth were all wiped out by the enemy’s invasion. We were spared no sorrow; monstrous excesses, pillage and massacre of the people, my country withstood all these horrors without flinching either from its determination or from its remaining true to its alliances until the end, when the hour of reparation will strike.
It stood erect in adversity, strengthened by the consciousness of fighting not for conquest at the expense of other peoples but for its very national existence interwoven with the preservation of the four million brethren who beyond the mountains, have through centuries asserted they are bound to Roumania by solidarity of race and ideals.
From this assurance of political independence and national unity, my country will derive renewed vigor in carrying out its mission of promoting progress, order and civilization in Southeastern Europe.
It will apply all of the loyalty of which His Majesty the King has given so much conclusive evidence to strengthening its political and economic relations with the mighty American Democracy whose world prestige is asserting itself more and more every day.
In this undertaking I shall, constantly and earnestly, devote all my efforts. They will, as I firmly hope, be sympathetically received by Your Excellency.
Thus will the bonds be strengthened by which brotherhood in arms has united the democratic peoples who are shedding their blood side by side so that their independence and free development in every manifestation of national life may be guaranteed forever.