The Days of a Man 



D917 



Jeannette 

 Rankin 



My own 



The Presi- 

 dent de- 

 fines our 



I was pleased to meet again Miss Jeannette Rankin 

 of Montana, the first woman to be elected to Con- 

 gress, a resolute, clear-eyed, progressive young 

 woman who held opinions of her own and voted in 

 accordance with them. The newspaper story of her 

 breakdown on the critical third of April was, I am 

 credibly informed, a pure fabrication. 



In a personal letter to George Huddleston of 

 Alabama, I indicated my own view: 



Can we not ask that Congress should, in substance, declare 

 that the United States of America has entered on the great war 

 in a spirit of altruism, hoping to stay the slaughter and asking 

 no reward, primarily through sympathy with efforts to redeem 

 Belgium, France, and Serbia.'' When this is guaranteed and the 

 seas recognized as the World's Open Highway, we shall hope 

 to lay down our arms, returning to our normal status of peace. 

 We shall approve of no forced annexations, of no compulsory 

 indemnities, and of no exploitation of commercial or economic 

 fruits of victory. We ask no guarantees for the future save those 

 involved in the good will of free peoples. We appeal to all 

 nations to grant, through federation and autonomy, relief to 

 repressed nationalities, believing that in cooperation and con- 

 ciliation rather than through unchecked national sovereignty, 

 the future of civilization may be conserved. 



Not long afterward, the President himself made a 

 clear statement of America's aims, accepted on all 

 sides as eminently satisfactory. In a crisis, one man 

 speaks more to the point than five hundred. 



He now assured the world that we were pledged to 

 conduct the war "with no selfish ends to serve," and 

 committed us to peace with "no annexations and no 

 punitive indemnities." . . . "The day of conquest 

 and aggrandizement is gone by." . . . "War should 

 not end in vindictive action of any kind; no nation or 

 people shall be robbed or punished. , . . We shall 



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