Joseph I. France to Woodrow Wilson

Personally Type-written Memorandum Submitted
in Place of Personal Interview. Confidential.
ByJoseph Irwin France.
Maryland.
I venture to trespass upon your very precious time because it seems to me to be my duty to do so.
I wish to say that I am in sympathy with the motives which have animated you in the formulation of your foreign policy, which policy now seems to me to have been both consistent and constructive.
Your message delivered to the Senate on January 22nd, 1917, I consider to be one of the greatest of American State Papers. I endorse its ideals and purposes and I should be gratified if I could feel that I am to have, in the future, some small part, in co-operation with you, in applying the great principles, therein enunciated, to the solution of the practical and pressing problems of international relationships.
I trust that now we may avoid, in the present emergency, doing anything which might be inconsistent with your past foreign policies and with those ideals and purposes expressed in that message, and particularly, that twe may now and “henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw (us) into competitions of power, catch (us) in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry”. May we at this time have enough vision to enable us to perform the service of which you therein speak and use our great power to “lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace”. We should, I believe, add our power and authority to that of other neutral nations “to guarantee peace and justice through out the world”.
We seem to be upon the brink of war but I do feel that the next step should not be war but the establishment of a state of armed neutrality which shall at once place back of our words all of our resources, military, naval, commercial and moral, in which armed neutrality we might associate with ourselves other neutral powers.
I feel a deep conviction that such an armed neutrality might, under your leadership, become more than a mere conservative and preservative, a mere negative neutrality to defend our legal rights. Owing to past invasions of our rights we have acquired new and larger rights, particularly the right to demand such restitution as may meet our desires and purposes and it remains for us to determine what form that restitution shall take. I personally feel that we have a right to demand as restitution the imediate and full restoration of all of our rights, which can only be accomplished by an immediate peace, since all war curtails the rights of neutrals.
Such a neutrality as I have in mind would be aggresive and constructive, dedicated to the principles which you have enunciated. It would, with of all of our physical and moral resources, place our Republic in the position of world leadership and enable us to “show mankind the way to liberty”. Such a course demands a higher courage on the part of our nation than would be required for a declaration of war.
Should such an armed neutrality fail to accomplish its purpose or prove, after a trial, not to meet the requirements, we still have the last recourse of war for which, by lapse of time, devoted to complete preparation, we would become more nearly prepared. Such a bold course would unite and inspire our people. Our American people are idealists still, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, and if they are not now resolved upon war, and I believe that they are not, it is because they do not feel that American ideals and truly American principles are at stake. They attribute materialistic motives to those who have been so loudly clamoring for war.
I respectfully submit this to you feeling confident that you will overlook the seeming impropriety of my doing so, an impropriety which I assure you, would not have been committed but for my confidence in you. I know that you will understand my motives and that you will believe that no other motive anaimates me than that of a desire to serve and help save this, the only Democracy in the world, this Republic for which you have suffered and which you have served so well.