WE CANNOT TAKE THE WORD OF GERMANY

JFK+50:  Volume 7, No. 2415

PRESIDENT WILSON REJECTS POPE'S PEACE PROPOSALS

Vatican City (JFK+50) One hundred years ago, August 28, 1917, Pope Benedict XV* received a reply to his peace proposals from Woodrow Wilson.  The President of the United States rejected the proposals on the grounds that their acceptance would translate into "a renewal of the furious and brutal policy of the German imperial government."

In Mr. Wilson's view, the proposals would only give Germany more time to "renew its craving" for world domination.

The President wrote...

"We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything..."

JFK+50 NOTE

Pope Benedict XV's 7 point peace plan of August 1, 1917

1) moral force of right...be substituted for material force of arms
2) diminution of armaments
3) mechanism for international arbitration
4) common rights over the seas
5) renunciation of war indemnities
6) evacuation of occupied territories
7) examination of rival claims 

*Pope Benedict XV (1854-1922) was born in Pegli, Italy & educated at the University of Genoa.  PB XV served as pontiff from 1914-1922.  World War I was the dominant issue of his reign.

SOURCE

"No U.S. Peace With Kaiser," The Chicago Daily Tribune, August 29, 1917.

Pope Benedict XV

Library of Congress Image (1915)