Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1918 — WILSON GOING TO FRANCE, IT IS ANNOUNCED [ARTICLE]

WILSON GOING TO FRANCE, IT IS ANNOUNCED

Officially Stated Hr Will Head the United States Peace Mission. WIFE TO ACCOMPANY HIM White House Announcement Says Mrs. Wilson and Official Delegates Will Go With President, Who Iff to Insist on League of Nations. Washington, Nov. 19. —President WUspn ywill bead this country’s delegation tp the peace conference. He expects |o sail for France within a day or two after December 2, the opening of the regular session of congress. This was officially announce# at the White Hpuse. The statement is an president expects to sail tor France immediately after the opening SW regular session of congress Mr the purpose of taking part in the dtacuaelpp and settlement of the main features of the treaty of peace. "R is not likely that it wIU be possible for him to remain throughout the sessions pf the formal peace conference, but his presence at the outset la necessary in order to obviate the manifest disadvantages of discussion by cable in determining the general outlines of the final treaty, on which he must necessarily be consulted. “He will, of course, be accompanied by delegates who will sit as the representatives of the United States throughout tlie conference. The names of the delegates will be presently announced.” Mrs. Wilson will accompany the president, it was learned, and the entire delegation—peace envoys, secretaries, stenographers and the like — will probably sail on one of the American battleships, possibly the Pennsylvania. Peace Conference in December. The president’s announcement settles two questions. The first of these is the fact that the peace conference will be an early one, beginning in December; the second is that it will be held at Versailles.

The president will appear before congress, presumably on the day its regular session opens, to explain more minutely the reasons why, at this time, it is Imperative for him to go abroad. His reasons, it was said, will go far toward mollifying the feeling in certain quarters of the senate and the house that it Is unwise for him to leave the country. There are two outstanding reasons why the president’s attendance is necessary at the peace conference. He wants to preserve the unity of counsel that brought victory to the allies and America on the battlefield, and which characterized the sessions of the supreme war council at Versailles, and he also wants to make secure the foundations of a League of Nations. The latter is his plan for world and lasting peace and he Is so strongly convinced of Its efficacy that he is going to Europe to put it into concrete form. President to Be Chief Figure. By common consent and approbation of all the allies the president will assume the leading role at the momentous conference. The position of the United States in the great war, coupled with his position as this nation’s spokesman, will make him the chief figure and one whose word will command the respectful audience of all civilization.' He will be ahle to see the peace conference started with the “right foot forward” and officials and diplomats here believe that will be half the battle for the eventual amicable settlement of the grave questions it will have before it. The president, will be absent from the United States for three weeks or a month. Possibly it will be for a longer period, dependent, of course,on developments on the other side. The president’s announcement of his impending departure is deemed a sufficient answer to the query, “Does the Constitution allow him to leave the country?” If it did not he would not go. So that settles it. To those* persons who feel that he will shatter precedent is the recollection that three of the four presidents before him —Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft—also shattered precedents. Mr. Cleveland was outside the territorial waters of the United States on a yachting trip, while both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft visited the Canal Zone and also stepped out of Its boundaries tn the republic of Panama. Furthermore, It is recalled, Mr. Taft crossed the international bridge over the Rio Grande and stepped on Mexican soil «m one occasion.