A World League for Peace

President Woodrow Wilson delivered this address on January 22, 1917, a few months before he asked Congress to vote to enter World War I. This speech reveals that he planned for the US to participate in the peace-making agreements long before he planned to take part in the fighting itself. The peace strategy he lays forth in this address mirrors the sentiments of his “14 points” message, delivered a year later at the end of the war. He states that these ideas are not just American ideals, “they are also the principles and policies of forward looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community,” and that for this reason they must triumph.