What should be the boundaries of the new Armenian nation? I have before me Stanford's Linguistic Map of Europe, a map based upon the most careful scientific research and conscientious scholarship. This map shows the area in which the Armenian speaking population is dominant as extending to Adana and Alexandretta on the Mediterranean, almost to the Black Sea near Trebizond, to Tiflis in the Caucasus Mountains and to Lake Urmia near the western boundary of Persia on the East.
At the edges this Armenian territory shades over into regions occupied by Turks and Kurds. In the interest of international justice and permanent peace in the future, the boundaries of the new Armenia ought to be extended as far as the Armenian race extends as an important element of the population, because the Armenians have proved their capacity for self-government even under the almost impossible conditions of Turkish misrule, while Turks and Kurds have again and again proved incapable of governing themselves, much less of governing others. The hope for toleration of racial minorities, which is the indispensable condition for peace in areas of mixed population, would be many times greater in a government by the Armenians than in a government by Turks and Kurds.
Armenia is a touchstone of victory in this war because, unlike Belgium, it lies so far beyond the range of accurate news reports and the limelight of public opinion, that it is likely to be overlooked unless a settlement is approached in a new spirit of international justice. The horrors of the Armenian massacres have been so unendurable that many people have had to try to escape from thinking about Armenia in order to keep their sanity in the midst of such wholesale horror. But oblivion is no remedy for the problem of Armenia and the world of the future will not be safe for democracy or for anything else unless Armenia and the problem which it represents is permanently solved in the Peace Conference. I do not believe that any indemnities or annexations of territories or any imperialistic gain of this war is worth the life of a single American soldier, but I do believe that only by giving Armenia its independence, by establishing the principle of international justice, of which Armenia is a concrete example, and by creating a League of Free Nations as the basis of the new world order, will we be enabled to say that the sacrifices of these young men shall not have been in vain. Thus Armenia becomes the touchstone of victory in this great war for freedom and humanity.