PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

peoples, but it was definitely believed that they did not comport with
the idealistic slogan of self-determination, no annexations and no
indemnities. Popular questioning took the form of asking how many
thousand English lives Alsace-Lorraine or Dalmatia were worth, how
many French lives Poland or Mesopotamia were worth. Nor was such
questioning entirely unknown in America. The whole Allied cause had
been put on the defensive by the refusal to participate at
Brest-Litovsk.
Here was a highly sensitive state of mind which no competent leader
could fail to consider. The ideal response would have been joint
action by the Allies. That was found to be impossible when it was
considered at the Interallied Conference of October. But by December
the pressure had become so great that Mr. George and Mr. Wilson were
moved independently to make some response. The form selected by the
President was a statement of peace terms under fourteen heads. The
numbering of them was an artifice to secure precision, and to create
at once the impression that here was a business-like document. The
idea of stating "peace terms" instead of "war aims" arose from the
necessity of establishing a genuine alternative to the Brest-Litovsk
negotiations. They were intended to compete for attention by
substituting for the spectacle of Russo-German parleys the much
grander spectacle of a public world-wide debate.
Having enlisted the interest of the world, it was necessary to hold
that interest unified and flexible for all the different possibilities
which the situation contained. The terms had to be such that the
majority among the Allies would regard them as worth while. They had
to meet the national aspirations of each people, and yet to limit
those aspirations so that no one nation would regard itself as a
catspaw for another. The terms had to satisfy official interests so as
not to provoke official disunion, and yet they had to meet popular
conceptions so as to prevent the spread of demoralization. They had,
in short, to preserve and confirm Allied unity in case the war was to
go on.
But they had also to be the terms of a possible peace, so that in case
the German center and left were ripe for agitation, they would have a
text with which to smite the governing class. The terms had,
therefore, to push the Allied governors nearer to their people, drive
the German governors away from their people, and establish a line of
common understanding between the Allies, the non-official Germans, and
the subject peoples of Austria-Hungary. The Fourteen Points were a
daring attempt to raise a standard to which almost everyone might
repair. If a sufficient number of the enemy people were ready there
would be peace; if not, then the Allies would be better prepared to
sustain the shock of war.