Message to the House of Representatives Returning Without Approval H.J. Res. 327 Declaring State of Peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary

The White House, May 27, 1920.

To the House of Representatives:

I return herewith, without my signature, House Joint Resolution 327, intended to repeal the Joint Resolution of April 6, 1917, declaring a state of war to exist between the United States and Germany, and the Joint Resolution of December 7, 1917, declaring a state of war to exist between the United States and the Austro-Hungarian Government, and to declare a state of peace. I have not felt at liberty to sign this joint resolution because I cannot bring myself to become party to an action which would place ineffaceable stain upon the gallantry and honor of the United States.

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 and whom we professed it our purpose to assist when we entered the war. 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 state or take further steps to attain?

The attainment of these purposes is provided for in the Treaty of Versailles by terms deemed adequate by the leading statesmen and experts of all the great peoples who were associated in the war against Germany. Do we now not care to join in the effort to save them?

We entered the war most reluctantly. 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 the war we set forth very definitely the purposes for which we entered, partly because we did not wish to be considered as merely taking part in a European contest. This Joint Resolution which I return 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 Government is concerned.

A treaty of peace was signed at Versailles on the twenty-eighth of June last which did seek to accomplish the objects which we had declared to be in our minds, because all the great Governments and peoples which united against Germany had adopted our declarations of purpose as their own and had in solemn form embodied them in communications to the German Government preliminary to the armistice of November II, 1918. But the treaty as signed at Versailles has been rejected by the Senate of the United States, though it has been ratified by Germany. By that rejection and by its method we have in effect declared that we wish to draw apart and pursue objects and interests of our own, unhampered by any connections of interest or of purpose with other Governments and peoples.

Notwithstanding the fact that upon our entrance into the war we professed to be seeking to assist in the maintenance of common interests, nothing is said in this resolution about the freedom of navigation upon the seas, or the reduction of armaments, or the vindication of the rights of Belgium, or the rectification of wrongs done to France, or the release of the Christian populations of the Ottoman Empire from the intolerable subjugation which they have had for so many generations to endure, or the establishment of an independent Polish State, or the continued maintenance of any kind of understanding among the great Powers of the world which would be calculated to prevent in the future such outrages as Germany attempted and in part consummated.

We have now, in effect, declared that we do not care to take any further risks or to assume any further responsibilities with regard to the freedom of nations or the sacredness of international obligations or the safety of independent peoples. Such a peace with Germany—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, as inconsistent with the dignity of the United States, with the rights and liberties of her citizens, and with the very fundamental conditions of civilization.

I hope that in these statements I have sufficiently set forth the reasons why I have felt it incumbent upon me to withhold my signature.

WOODROW WILSON