President Wilson, addressing some Mexican journalists at Washing- :on on
Monday, assured them that America's entry into the war was absolutely a case of disinterested action. He was not, he said, an academic gentleman speaking the idealistic purposes of the lobster; he was speaking the real heart of the American people. He illustrated thepoint bysaying'that when at New York he declared his intention of standing by Russia as firmly as by France or Great Britain, the "rather too well-dressed" audience displayed an en- thusiasm which surprised him. America had nothing to gain from Russia, and yet an American audience was specially responsive to his declaration of sympathy for her. President Wilson recalled his proposed Pan-American agreement, based on a common guarantee of political independence and territorial integrity. He saw in such a scheme the only conceivable basis for the future peace of the world. "The whole family of nations will have to guarantee to each nation that no nation shall violate its political independence or its territorial integrity."
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