A toast by by Robert Lansing, the US Secretary of State

This is  the text of a toast by by Robert Lansing, secretary of state, at the Persian banquet in the Ritz hotel in Paris, hosted by Aligholi Masood Ansary-Moshverolmolk, the foreign minister of Iran, during the Versailles Peace Conference on March 6 1919 . Unfortunately, in his attempt to render the country into a British protectorate, by imposing a secret deal on the country, Lord Curzon, the British foreign secretary, blocked the participation of Iran in that conference. However, the Iranian Parliament did not ratify the "Anglo-Persian friendship Treaty of 1919.  In response the British General Ironside directed a coup by Reza Khan, an Illiterate Cossack who deposed Ahmad Shah, Iran's first constitutional monarch.

I am deeply honored by being asked to respond to the toast to President Wilson on this occasion and particularly so because he would rejoice with all his heart in the spirit of friendship and good will which is manifested here. 

No man in America—I think I may say that no man in the world—has a greater solicitude for the welfare of Persia and her people than the President of the United States. He is and will remain Persia’s friend and on that friendship Persia may rely in attaining to those aspirations which are just and in harmony with peace and good will among the nations. 

Persia has had a wonderful past which should inspire her people to attain to that place in the world to which that past entitles her. It was Persia, first among the great Aryan race to which we all belong, that entered upon the stage of history and contended with the ancient empires of the Euphrates and the Nile for dominion in the earth. It was Persia who for centuries was the repository of the learning and art, of the culture of the world. 

It was Persia, in spite of the domination of the Greek and the Roman, the Saracen, the Mongol and the Turk, who has preserved her national solidarity and has kept alive in the hearts of her children an intense and unchangeable love of country; but Persia’s ruin as an empire, as well as her glory, found its roots
in the lust of conquest and in the autocratic spirit which so long ruled history.
Today autocracy is no more. In its place a new spirit has arisen—the spirit of liberty. That spirit will rule the era upon which the world has entered. It is to that era and to that spirit that America and Persia alike turn their faces for their future happiness and prosperity. With mutual good will, with a desire to be mutually helpful, Persia and America should join hands and build upon the ruins of the old a new structure which shall be eternal. 

It is with that spirit that I pledge to you, Mr. Minister, and to your country, that helpfulness and encouragement which it is always the aim and purpose of America to render to her friends.
I bid you, therefore, join with me in a toast to Persia, her rulers and her people, and to the glory of her future.