Have not told you is not a single political leader supported the movement. Matt won the crusade for voters. And naacp down. Elected leadership down. Nobody anywhere supported it so we asked the city council would you at least put the measure on the ballot so that the people can decide whether they want it or not. Would you allow the people to vote on it, and they didnt do that. At the time i think tim kaine was the mayor of the city, and i said, tim, can you work something out to at least put it on the ballot that people decide it . He said i can only get four votes. I cant get five votes, the majority to do it. Now with that, so what we had to do was to go out and get the people to sign the petition, and if you get the percentage of numbers of people to sign the petition, then it can go on the ballot, so we were able to get about 15,000 signatures to make certain that it had gone on the ballot, and even though the entirety of the leadership was against it, when the people voted, 80 of the people said we want to change. Now, that was in 2003 here. If 80 of the people felt that way then, that sent a message to me. That said the leadership is totally out of touch with the people, so it didnt have anything to do with me. It had to do with the message that was being resonating, that people didnt believe that the leadership was doing the job for them. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website where all our video is archived. Thats cspan. Org history. Next on American History tv, thor . For strategic and International Studies host a discussion with historians on world war i and the legacy of president Woodrow Wilson, a century after he outlined his 14point statement of principles in an address to congress. This is about two hours. All right. Welcome to csis. Im dr. Mark warner, the head of the project on military and diplomatic history. Thank you all especially for braving todays weather. Great to see all this interest in world one one. For those who havent been here before our project is focused on history that also provides insights into contemporary affairs. Were delighted to have a cohost of todays event with the world war i Centennial Commission and the csis project and dan rundy who runs that project, thank you for your support. When we think about or when historians think about what are the most important events in world history. World war i usually comes out at number one, but americans tend to be fixated on other wars like the civil war and world war ii, but this one is in many respects the most important, and were here today to try to provide some additional awareness. 1100 years ago today Woodrow Wilson appeared before a joint session of congress to deliver his 14point speech and he was the president of the institution and he drew upon his economic colleagues to come up with principles for european peace which ultimately became the 14 points. Its worth remembering a little bit of Historical Context. This was in fact rather presumptuous act to be doing this, and at the time of the speech, the u. S. And army and marine corps were still getting organized and the u. S. Had yet to fight a significant battle in europe. And it was certainly far from clear as to who was actually going to win, and we were at the same time giving our ideas for peace to countries who had seen a whole generation of people killed. For those who dont remember the 14 points i will give you an overview for which the panelists will go into detail it. A lot of the points were restoring and reestablishing countries damaged by war. There was talk of giving a right some sort of right to selfdetermination to senator warner, if you can grab a seat here well get going here in a minute. So point four talked about the need to reduce armaments and point 14 talked about an International Governing Body which led to the league of nations, and the 14 points remain a matter of great controversy and youll hear about some of that today. For some people their idealism is more dangerous and to those who are sympathetic they more provesized to a more rulesbased order. The impact has certainly been profound and the 14 point greatly influences the final year of the war and also very much influence of the peace. Wilsons rule view and wilson interpreted whats been calls wilsonianism. Before i introduce senator warner i want to recognize a few other people who made this event to be. Ambassador todd sedgwick, if you could raise your hands. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Centennial Commission and came to us at csis with an idea that became the event. Dan roundy, instrumental again. His staff has also been great in helping the details, including checking people in here and all the other administrative details and Chris Metzger in particular. Also, is terry hamby here yet, the commissioner of the world war i commission and hes going to come here and probably got delayed by the weather as many have. Hopefully he will get here when conditions we are mitt. So before we bring up our panel of distinguished historians who who are three of the very top historians from world war i were going to hear from another member of the world war i commission, the honorable john warner, who is lass csis counsellor, a former fiveterm senator from the Common Wealth of virginia and secretary of the navy. At the age of 17 he volunteered for active military duty which i didnt mention and served in the final years of world war ii and as lieutenant in the u. S. Marines during the korean war. In 1969 he received a president ial appointment as undersecretary of the navy and later became secretary of the navy during a period of conflict in vietnam. Between 1974 and 1976 senator warner was serving as administrator for the American Revolution by the Centennial Administration and 1979 was elected to the senate and served five consecutive terms, establishing a record of being the second longest serving senator in the history of the commonwealth of virginia. During all of thinks 30 years in the senate he served on the Armed Services committee, and in his final years the Committee Members elected him to leadership positions, are first as a ranking republican and then for his last six years he was full committee chair, so, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome senator john warner. You can sit if you prefer. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much for that resounding introduction. Youre in good luck today and come through this questionable weather to join us, and ive to the a terrible cold and i cant talk for about five minutes and how about this. The most dangerous thing you can ever get a retired senator is a microphone with no restrictions on who is going to take it back and april way from him, and im quite anxious as you are to move on to a wonderful Panel Discussion on a subject that is really becoming quite interesting all across the country. I must confess that my father was an army captain, United StatesArmy Fifth Division in world war i in the trenches. He was a medical doctor, and he was right out on the front lines doing the triage as he brought the wounded in. He had the difficult task of saying we can save this one. We cant save that one, and i remember he had his little tin army hat with a red diamond in the Fifth Division ton in our library and it was and he admonished us, my brother and myself, i only wear that hat and that, of course, was a challenge my brother and i to steal it at any time he couldnt wear it, but so i grew up with a really wonderful man who had served and seen that war, and for me now to have the opportunity in my final years of life to share with you and many others a interesting afternoon like this, and with five individuals who have given their careers over for a minute to put together a monologue and to share with you their own information on a vital subject. I thought how best to prepare my very few years and i thought i read about three books and one of them was john eisenhauers book, and that brings me just to a little bit of a personal message that i would hike to give you, and that is that eisenhower clearly puts in here, president Ike Eisenhowers son. I was privileged to know him. He laid out very carefully and very objectively that the case that the failures after the fighting to come together internationally, and at that moment in history, after the enormity of the carnage and suffering, all over europe. To put together something that would help foreclose thank you so much foreclose any future similar strifes like this, and he said, unfortunately, it wasnt come back and ill come pack and address one or two aspects of that, an as a consequence a mere 23 years since the armistice. We were right back into world war two. Some of the reasons for that were the very serious and Failing Health of president wilson. I must say im a politician and i studied politics and have been active in it all my life, and and it was fascinating to go back for my first trip to read a lot of the things that wilson had tried to and, of course, the subject today is the 14 points, by surrounding the 14 points was the league of nations and the fact that we were going to enter a treaty, and we had this opportunity and we had shown the world that this little somewhat inconsequentialal collection of states that suddenly comes in to be one of the major powers of the world and its an absolute clear case that our contributions and sacrifices led to the final victory and the defeat of the German Military and their allies, so it was important but what greeted them as wilson started around. They called it the league fight. I guess that was a way to demean it. President wilson toured the country giving speeches, pleading for members in the league of nation. The quality or thought of these debates was usually far more elevated than any other political debates since the civil war. For American Foreign policy this conflict elicited breadth and depth of discussion that had not arisen before and that remained unmatched since, so we got off to a good start, and there was a lot of enthusiasm and then it sort of began to steadily go downhill. President wilson was an early convert in the concept of security and around it were many of his policies before and after the world war i experience. He represented the u. S. At the peace conference where he succeeded in make the idea a reality of getting the league incorporated in the pretty of versailles. The treaty was much more than the league of nation and the articles contained a whole lot of things, but congress rejected it, and no matter how hard he traveled and really extraordinary in my readings. He just he was determined to get this done, but along the way, i mean, he encountered reluctance within his own party, the democrats. The republicans were growing in strength, and i even found this in another book. Nearly every leading republican cordially, this is an interesting use of words, nearly every leading republican cordially despised wilson while the president regarded most of them with anger and contempt. The good fellowship extend broadly within the restrictive parties themselves. Wilson challenged americans to build a new world order by joining the league of nations and by saying at versailles in 1919, quote, shall we or any other free people hesitate to accept this great duty. Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world. Well, congress did reject it. But if you go back in and as ive done and as im sure youre panelists are going to do it and i want to carefully not tread in their domain, there are time and time again references if wilson had only shown the slightest willingness to compromise, he could have seized it and fashioned a compromise agreement. He but he refused this is perplexing to me anyone from capitol hill being among the american negotiators in paris. Well, that was a direct affront to the congress of the United States. I mean, they should have been had seats there, and but they didnt, and then he avoided counsel with noncongressional leaders of other peters. In other words, he didnt want to meet the senior politicians of both parties to get their superintendents. Bitterly fought midterm elections in 1918 and had the United States divided by government by awarding majorities in the houses of congress to wilsons republican opponents, and the tide shifted with that. That circumstance body ill for the cooperation over peacemaking and League Membership and it went downhill from there. But then we have to reflect on the sadness that he experienced in his own physical situation. He suffered a very major heart attack on his triple. As a consequence that have he had to abandon the trip across the United States urging the poem in turn to come back and tell your congressional leaders, particularly the senate of the need to have this league of nations and the treaty of paris and to ratify the treaty. But all of it ended up in failure, and im sure our speakers are going to address it in some detail. So i want to conclude though talking a little bit talking about what were doing as an organization. Were holding forums much like this one, wherever we can, all across the country. Were very active. Weve got a Remarkable Group of volunteer, trustees, commissioners. They are very diligent, very attentive and this one right here in the front row, the good ambassador, is one of their leaders. The president or the chairman as we call him is just a marvelous, good rough and tumble tennesseean right out of the heart of the country, and we all have developed a great fondness and love for him, and hes just a grand fellow. Sorry weather has precluded hits being here today, but were coming along and were making some good progress, and it is my hope that this will continue to build in its importance, but were up against one problem that nobody is to blame. Nobodiy really had the foresight to see it. But the Pershing Park was put together many years ago. And selected by the powers to be to locate the statue there, and along came another succession period of legislation by congress saying that there be no more memorials on the mall. Well, then we were confronted now with no alternative to pershing call. We were stopped by law, but in our work as trustees and volunteers on getting Pershing Park ready to receive a national mall, were clearly seeing the strong disadvantages and eisenhower points it out in his book, and its as follows. Every single Major Military memorial that this country takes pride in is on the mall. Everyone, and he starts with the washington monument, our war of independents. You go to the civil war regrettably at the other end and represented by magnificent structure to abraham lincoln, a very powerful president to this day idolized by people and they are the two boundaries and in between the world war i mean, we start in succession. The first was the Korean War Memorial was built and then the Vietnam Veterans memorial was built and lastly the world war ii memorials were built, and thats why we feel ever so strongly that our National Monument to world war i should likewise be on the mall and he eequated significance to the other great memorials, and the group of us, the ambassador and i, and terry hamby, the chairman, and those trying to get passage through congress of a needed amendment to get the option to do it so we havent given up. Were in there still fighting, but this session today is just another Building Block towards drawing americas attention to the importance of this. The casualties in world war i were extraordinarily high. Terry handby uses the statement that the combined death and wounded in world war i exceeded any of the major battles that we experienced in world war ii. So i think we all have a moral obligation to see that this anniversary of 100 to the armistice is coming up november the 11th on this year and is done with the dignity befigure all of the sacrifices made by that generation 100 years ago, and my father among them. Im proudly to say, and and i thank each of you for finding the opportunity to come today and i continually thank our panel and ccsi has been a home for me for years. Just a youngster crawling through the hauls of congress when i had moral burke and dave abshar, our distinguished representative in the front row knows, began to put together the concept of this marvelous organization. It represents the premiere crew among the growing importance of think tanks in the nations capital. Im going to say this bluntly. Im free to say whatever i want to say now, and ive watched in the 30 years that i was in the senate the concept of think tanks, and you could almost name on ten fingers the number in town in those days and grow to where they are in the hundreds today, but they perform a very vital function. They can have forms like this. They have no restrictions whatsoever on what should be said. They are devoid of most of them politics. I mean, sure, plenty of politicians like myself who love to come. Ive spoeblgen here many times through the years, and its not looked upon as a political situation and its largely supported from contributions from within the private sector almost entirely and occasionally a government grant or two, but they have done a magnificent job of really filling somewhat of a gap that has existed here between what congress is able to do and the executive branch that youre able to do by working together and theres a void in there, and these think tanks like csis can move right in and do a lot of the analytical work and hold the hearings and forums that somehow Congress Finds awkward in doing so my hats off to csis. Thanks to each one of you, and now lets proceed to get to the heart of the matter and weve said what we have to say. I listened