WILSON, Woodrow - VAN DYKE, Henry.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

What Peace Means. First edition, a superb presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To President Woodrow Wilson, from his friend, Henry van Dyke, Oct. 1. 1919. You are our chosen leader. Go on, and God be your guide."Van Dyke (1852-1933) and Wilson had been colleagues at Princeton: Van Dyke became Murray Professor of English Literature in 1899, three years before Wilson became university president. Wilson later appointed Van Dyke ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg, posts he held from 1913 to 1917.The book comprises three sermons preached by Van Dyke at New York's Park Avenue Presbyterian Church at Easter 1919. The second sets out his vision of an equitable post-war peace: "Peace means something more than the mere absence of hostilities. It means justice, honour, fair-play, order, security" (p. 31). He continues: "It is evident that a league of free, democratic states, pledged by mutual covenant to uphold the settlement of international differences by reason and justice before the use of violence, offers the only hope of a durable peace among the nations" (p. 38).The inscription is almost certainly encouraging Wilson's campaign for the League of Nations, of which he was the foremost political architect. Van Dyke also publicly championed the project, undertaking a speaking tour of the Pacific Coast in support of the League that year (Van Dyke, p. 354). On 2 October, the day after the inscription, Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke that

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