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Show PRESIDENT VETOES PEACE RESOLUTION KNOX PROPOSAL SCORED BY CHIEF EXECUTIVE IN VETO MESSAGE. Declares Such a Method of Making Peace With Germany Would Place An Inefficable Stain Upon the Honor of the United States. Washington. President Wilson submitted sub-mitted a message to the house of representatives rep-resentatives on May 27, vetoing the Knox peace resolution. "Such a method of making peace with Germany," the president said, "would place an inefficable stain upon the gallantry and honor of the United States." Without announcing his intention regarding re-garding the treaty of Versailles, the president declared that the treaty embodied the important things omitted omit-ted by the resolution and said by rejecting re-jecting the treaty, the United States had declared in effect that it wished "to draw apart and pursue objects and interests of our own." The president added that the peace resolution omitted mention of many important objects for the vindication of which the United States entered the war. "Such a peace with Germany," the message continued, "a peace in which none of the essential interests which we had at heart when we entered the war is safeguarded is, or ought to be, inconceivable, is inconsistent with the dignity of the United States, with the rights and liberties of her citizens citi-zens and with the very fundamental conditions of civilization." "We have sacrificed the lives of more than 100,000 Americans and ruined the lives of thousands of others and brought upon thousands of American Ameri-can families an unhappiness that can never end for purposes which we do not now care to state or take further steps to attain?" said President Wilson. Wil-son. "The attainment of these purposes pur-poses is provided for in the treaty of Versailles by terms deemed adequate by the leading statesmen and experts of all the great problems who were associated in the war against Germany. Ger-many. Do we now not care to join in the effort to secure them? "We entered the war most reluctantly. reluct-antly. Our people were profoundly disinclined to take part in a European war, and at last did so, only because they became convinced that it could not in truth be regarded as only a European war, but, must be regarded as a war in which civilization itself was involved and human rights of every kind, as against : a belligerent government. Moreover, when we entered en-tered the war, we set forth very definitely defi-nitely the purposes for which we entered, en-tered, partly because we did not wish to be considered as merely taking part in a European contest. "This joint resolution which I return re-turn does not seek to accomplish any of these objects, but in effect makes a complete surrender of the rights of the United States so far as the German Ger-man government is concerned." |
