on this day the Paris Peace Conference was opened by the leaders of the victorious "big five" great powers namely Prime Ministers Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando and Georgy Lvov, Premier Georges Clemenceau and of course President Theodore Roosevelt.

Unlike his fellow imperialists sitting around the table, TR was personally opposed to the imposition of punitive victor's terms. Yet this urge had to be balanced with the immense loss of life amongst the American volunteer army he himself had raised, not to mention the savage personal loss of all four of his sons Quentin, Kermit, Ted Jr., and Archie.

Surely he had to return to the States with some form of tangible benefit, either reparations of perhaps possession of the overseas colonies of the defeated Central Powers. And yet no longer the cowboy who had charged up San Juan Hill, nor even in good enough health to be an American Lion, TR decided that he might play the wise elder statesman. He would ensure that the victors reward would be the security of a new paradigm for world affairs.

And so his opening remarks at the Conference were meant for the future "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure ... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat".