Pres. Wilson vetoes the Knox resolution to end the war. He says it would ignore the moral obligations which the US assumed when it went to war and would “place ineffacable stains on the gallantry and honor of the United States.” He says “The resolution seeks to establish peace with the German Empire without exacting from the German Government any action by way of setting right the infinite wrongs which it did to the peoples whom it attacked,” nor would it reduce armaments or establish freedom of the seas. The US would be announcing its unwillingness to assume “responsibilities with regard to the freedom of nations or the sacredness of international obligation or the safety of independent peoples.” “Have we sacrificed the lives of more than 100,000 Americans and ruined the lives of thousands of others and brought upon thousands of American families an unhappiness that can never end for purposes which we do not now care to sate or take further steps to attain?” I think that’s a trick question.
Rep. Nicholas Longworth (R-Ohio) points out an interview during the war in which Wilson was unconcerned with the freedom of the seas. Longworth asks “did the same man who gave the interview write the message?”, which I take to be suggesting not so subtly that someone else wrote the veto message. And while someone else (Mrs Wilson comes to mind) might easily have done so, it sounds very much like Wilson’s sentiments.
Canada puts in a rather belated claim for reparations from Germany of $1,871,000,000. Evidently it expects Germany to pay the whole cost of the war against it as well as $30 million for the explosion of a munitions ship in Halifax harbor in 1917 after it bumped another ship, which Canada is still pretending was a German plot of some kind.
Republican party leaders intend to keep the issue of prohibition out of the national convention.
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