Paris Peace Conf. 811.001/15½
The Secretary to President Wilson ( Close ) to the Secretary of State
Memorandum for the Secretary of State:
Will you not be kind enough to have the following reply sent to this message from Ambassador Sharp:
“The President’s reply to President Poincaré will be in English and will be as follows:
“Mr. President: I am deeply indebted to you for your gracious greeting. It is very delightful to find myself in France and to feel the quick contact of sympathy and unaffected friendship between the representatives of the United States and the representatives of France. You have been very generous in what you were pleased to say about myself, but I feel that what I have said and what I have tried to do has been said and done only in an attempt to speak the thought of the people of the United States truly and to carry that thought out in action. From the first, the thought of the people of the United States turned toward something more than the mere winning of this war. It turned to the establishment of eternal principles of right and justice. It realized that merely to win the war was not enough; that it must be won in such a way and the questions raised by it settled in such a way as to insure the future peace of the world and lay the foundation for the freedom and happiness of its many peoples and nations.
[Page 148]“Never before has war worn so terrible a visage or exhibited more grossly the debasing influences of illicit ambitions. I am sure that I shall look upon the ruin wrought by the armies of the Central Empires with the same repulsion and deep indignation that they stir in the hearts of the men of France and of Belgium, and I appreciate as you do, Sir, the necessity of such action in the final settlement of the issues of the war as will not only rebuke such acts of terror and spoliation, but make men everywhere aware that they cannot be ventured upon without the certainty of just punishment.
“I know with what ardor and enthusiasm the soldiers and sailors of the United States have given the best that was in them to this war of redemption. They have expressed the true spirit of America. They believe their ideals to be acceptable to free peoples everywhere, and are rejoiced to have played the part they have played in giving reality to those ideals in cooperation with the armies of the Allies. We are proud of the part they have played, and we are happy that they should have been associated with such comrades in a common cause.
“It is with peculiar feelings, Mr. President, that I find myself in France joining with you in rejoicing over the victory that has been won. The ties that bind France and the United States are peculiarly close. I do not know in what other comradeship we could have fought with more zest or enthusiasm. It will daily be a matter of pleasure with me to be brought into consultation with the statesmen of France and her Allies in concerting the measures by which we may secure permanence for these happy relations of friendship and cooperation, and secure for the world at large such safety and freedom in its life as can be secured only by the constant association and cooperation of friends.
“I greet you, Sir, not only with deep personal respect, but as the representative of the great people of France, and beg to bring you the greetings of another great people to whom the fortunes of France are of profound and lasting interest”.