Acceptance Speech

Acceptance by Charles Gates Dawes.

Charles Dawes, vice-president of the United States, was not present to receive the Peace Prize for 1925, which he shared with Sir Austen Chamberlain. Given in recognition of his work as chairman of the Dawes Committee handling the problem of German reparations, the award (reserved in 1925) was made on December 10, 1926, at the Nobel Institute in Oslo. The prize was accepted on his behalf by Laurits Selmer Swenson, the United States minister in Oslo, who read the following telegram¹ from Mr. Dawes:

"This award, which is in recognition of the work of the First Committee of Experts, Reparation Commission, of which I was chairman, is gratefully acknowledged. The committee was composed of Owen D. Young, Sir Josiah C. Stamp, Sir Robert M. Kindersley, Jean Parmentier, Edgard Allix, Alberto Pirelli, Frederico Flora, Emile Francqui, Baron Maurice Houtart, and myself. It was the endeavor of the experts to found their plan upon the principles of justice, fairness, and mutual interest, relying for its acceptance thus prepared upon that common good faith which is the enduring hope for the universal safeguarding of peace. That the results achieved under it have merited in your judgment this high recognition is a tribute to the united efforts of the committee."

 

Mr. Dawes did not deliver a Nobel lecture.

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1. This telegram to the American Legation in Oslo, dated December 8, 1926, and sent in English, is the original text in the files of the Nobel Institute. It appears in French translation in Les Prix Nobel en 1926.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

 

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1925