PHONE HARRISON 1741 MAURICE T. W Income Tax Attoi 53 WEST JACF CH My dear Sir:- We send you herewith Woodro the War, "Americanism." A few years ago, our hearts with the great events of th now nearly forgotten the im to, and those that occurred in the War. Please accept this token; i feeling of esteem, and we t ion to read and refer to it It was our intention to sen but due to the income tax r CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS NSHENK & CO. ys and Counsellors M BOULEVARD Wilson's Speeches on .nd minds were occupied e days. Some of us have :rtant events leading up uring our participation ;is sent to you with a Lst that you will have occas- :ny times. [you this book last month, ;h we were unable to do so. ery truly yours, MAURICE T. WEINSHENK & CO, AMERICANISM WOODROW WILSON'S SPEECHES ON THE WAR lit. AMERICANISM Woodrow Wilson's Speeches on the War Why He Made Them and What They Have Done The President's Principal Utterances in the first year of war; with notes, comments and war dates, giving them their historical setting, significance and consequences, and with brief quotations from earlier speeches and papers. Compiled, Edited and Annotated BY OLIVER MARBLE GALE CHICAGO THE BALDWIN SYNDICATE PUBLISHERS Copyrighted, 1918, by The Baldwin Syndicate The Baldwin Syndicate Chicago FOREWORD One of the most interesting and significant facts noted in glancing back over the course of the war is this: The Central Powers have been getting worse all the time in their political morality, and the Allies have been getting better. The issue between them is now perfectly clear. The Central Powers are seen to be fighting for the glory and success of every- thing that is hateful to humanity. The Allies know that they themselves are fighting to make the world a fit place to live in. The issue was not so clear at first. It was only as the Allies came to realize the unbelievable evil that Germany stood for that their own purposes were purified and they were consecrated to winning the war for the sake of all humanity. No one, perhaps, has done so much to bring out the real issue as Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. His calm, clear, steady, eloquent statements of Allied war aims and peace purposes, expressing the ideals which lay in the hearts of free men and women everywhere, have made him the world's accepted leader in the war for world democracy. The addresses, speeches and statements that have changed the face of history, brought him this leadership, and flung a peace- loving nation into the most hideous war of history with joyous, seflless devotion, are printed again in this little book, available to all. They are accompanied by notes, international comments, and a chronology of military and political war events, to bring out their setting, their significence and their consequences. Extracts are included from public statements made by Mr. Wilson before the beginning of the war and during the years before our entrance into it. These reveal the essential democracy of the President, and the unfoldment of the new Americanism. Possibly nothing could recall the course of the war and our own attitude towards it so clearly as reading in retrospect these words of Woodrow Wilson. The book is brought down to include the President's speech of September 27, 1918, delivered in New York at the opening of the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign. October i, 1918. OLIVER MARBLE GALE. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEVELOPMENT BEFORE WAR Seed Thoughts of World Democracy and Peace 7 NEUTRALITY First Interpretation of America's World Role 9 PREPAREDNESS The Dawn of a Fuller Understanding of the War.. 12 INTERVENTION The First Steps Into a World Place 18 "MUST THIS WAR PROCEED ?" Peace Note to the Powers, Decem- ber 18, 1U16 18 "A PEACE WORTH PRESERVING" Address to Congress on Essential Terms of Peace; First Statement of America's World Stand "The Peace Without Victory" Speech, January 22, 1917 22 SUSPENSION 30 "NO ALTERNATIVE" Address to Congress Announcing Severing of Diplomatic Relations with Germany, February 3, 1917 30 "WE MUST ARM OUR SHIPS"-Address to Congress Asking Power to Arm Merchant Ships. The Armed Neutrality Address, February 26, 1917 32 THE TESTING TIME PARTICIPATION 36 "THIS IS WAR" Address to Congress Asking That Germany Be De- clared at War With the United States. The "Make the World Safe for Democracy" Speech, April 2, 1917 36 "SPEAK, ACT AND SERVE TOGETHER"-An Appeal to the People for Unity and Support, April 16, 1917 46 "LISTS OF HONOR" Proclamation of the First Draft, May 18, 1917.. 51 "WE MUST NOT WEAKEN NOW" Message to Russia, May 20, 1917. 52 "A NEW GLORY FOR OUR FLAG" Flag Day Address at Baltimore, June 14, 1917 55 "WE MUST LEAVE SELFISHNESS OUT" An Appeal to Business Men, July 11, 1917 02 "PEACE IS IMPOSSIBLE NOW"-The Reply to the Pope, August 27, 1917 67 A MESSAGE TO THE NATIONAL ARMY-September 3, 1917 71 THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION November 7, 1917 73 "LABOR MUST BE FREE" Address to American Federation of Labor Convention at Buffalo, November 12, 1917 75 "WIN THE WAR" Address to Congress, December 4, 1917 83 "A PLATFORM OF WORLD PEACE" Address to Congress, January 8, 1918 (Containing the "Fourteen Peace Planks") 95 "ONLY ONE PEACE POSSIBLE" Address to Congress Answering a Peace Offensive, February 11, 1918 (Containing the "Four Points") 103 "FORCE TO THE UTMOST" The Baltimore Address of April 0, 191S.. Ill "TROOPS WITHOUT LIMIT" Red Cross Address in New York, May 20, liils 117 "WE MUST TRUST EACH OTHER"-Talk to Visiting Mexican Edi- tors, June 7, 1918 120 "WE SEEK THE REIGN OF LAW"-The Fourth of July Address at Mount V'ernon, Stating Four Peace Terms 12.1 "IMPARTIAL JUSTICE IS THE PRICE OF PEACE"-League of Na- tions Address, Opening 4th Liberty Loan Drive, Embodying Five Essentials to a League, New York City, Sept. 27, 1918 13u DEVELOPMENT (BRIEF QUOTATIONS FROM EARLIER PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS, AND UP TO THE TIME OF AMERICA'S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD WAR, SHOWING PRESIDENT WILSON'S FUNDAMENTAL DEMOCRACY, AND THE DEVELOPMENTS IN HIS THOUGHT UPON QUESTIONS OF NEU- TRALITY, PREPAREDNESS AND THE WORLD MEANING OF THE WAR. WlTH DATES OF LEADING RELATED EVENTS.) BEFORE WAR. NOVEMBER 4, 1912 WOODROW WILSON ELECTED PRESIDENT. MARCH 4, 1913 WOODROW WILSON INAUGURATED. (In his inaugural address, President Wilson sketched out the social and economic program which he conceived the Democratic party had been called into power to carry out. The concluding paragraphs of his inaugural, here quoted, give a high light on his conception of the obligation and opportunity at hand.) The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and oppor- tunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task of politics but a task which shall search us through and through whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our people, whether we be indeed their spokesmen and inter- preters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high course of action. This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me. AMERICANISM APRIL 8, 1913 PRESIDENT WILSON DELIVERS A SPECIAL MESSAGE ON TARIFF REVISION. (President ff'ilson addressed Congress In person. No other president since John Adams had done this. It has since become a common practice witli him. An extract illustrates the President's attitude toward this subject of tariff.) . . . we have built up a set of privileges and exemptions from competition behind which it was easy by any, even the crudest, forms of combination to organize monopoly. . . We must abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privi- lege or of any kind of artificial advantage. MAY 26, 1913 PRESIDENT WILSON ISSUES A PUBLIC WARNING AGAINST LOBBYISTS. (Certain interests rcere attempting unduly to influence tariff legislation. The President exposed them and invoked public opinion. Lobbying stopped.) I think that the public ought to know the extraordinary exertions being made by the lobby in Washington to gain recog- nition for certain alterations of the Tariff Bill. Great bodies of astute men seek to create an artificial opinion and to overcome the interests of the public for their private profit. . . Only public opinion can check and destroy it. JULY 4, 1913 (THIRTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE WAR.) PRESI- DENT WlLSON ADDRESSES A REUNION OF G. A. R. AND CON- FEDERATE VETERANS AT GETTYSBURG, PA. Here is a great people, great with every force that has ever beaten in the lifeblood of mankind. And it is secure. There is no one within its borders, there is no power among the nations of the earth, to make it afraid. OCTOBER 27, 1913 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDTSSES SOUTH CRN: COMMERCIAL CONGRESS AT MOBILE, ALABAMA. (Delegates ti'ere present from South and Central American countries. President li'ilson made occasion to reassure them of our just friendship. Mistrust of us began to disappear after this address. The theme of it is yii'en here.) Human rights, national integrity, and opportunity as against material interests that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issre which we now have to face. WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR DECEMBER 2, 1913 (EIGHT MONTHS BEFORE THE WAR.) CON- GRESS CONVENES, AND PRESIDENT WILSON DELIVERS HIS FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE. The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and .sense of community of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will. JUNE 28, 1914 ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND OF AUSTRIA ASSASSINATED AT SERAJEVO, BOSNIA. AUGUST 1. 1914 WORLD WAR BEGINS,- GERMANS ENTER BELGIUM. AUGUST 4, 1914 ENGLAND ENTERS WAR. NEUTRALITY. AUGUST 19, 1914 THE PRESIDENT PROCLAIMS THE NEUTRAL- ITY OF THE UNITED STATES, AND ASKS CITIZENS TO RESPECT IT IN WORD, DEED AND THOUGHT. (The doctrine of America's destiny as the trustee of peace is first advanced in this neutrality proclamation.) I suppose that every thoughtful man in America has asked himself, during these last Toubled weeks, what influence the European War may exert upon the United States. This great country of ours should show herself in this time of peculiar trial a Nation fit beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action. AUGUST 20. 1914 GERMANS ENTER BRUSSELS. AUGUST 26, 1914 GERMANS DESTROY LOUVAIN. SEPTEMBER 2, 1914 RUSSIANS CAPTURE LEMBERC. SEPTEMBER 2, 1914 FRENCH GOVERNMENT LEAVES PARIS; GERMANS STILL SWEEP ON. SEPTEMBER 6, 1914 ALLIES TURN- THE GERMANS BACK AT THE MARNE. 9 AMERICANISM SEPTEMBER 18, 1914 GERMANS BOMBARD RHEIMS CATHE- DRAL. DECEMBER 8, 1914 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES CONGRESS NEWLY CONVENED. (Another enunciation of the President's doctrine of neutralit\ is found in this address.} We are at peace with all the world. No one . . . can say that there is reason to fear that from any quarter our independ- ence or the integrity of our territory is threatened. . . We mean to live our own lives as we will ; but we mean also to let live. We are, indeed, a true friend to all the nations of the world. . . We are the champions of peace and of concord. DECEMBER 9, 1914 FRENCH GOVERNMENT RETURNS TO PARIS. FEBRUARY 12, 1915 GERMANS BEGIN TO WIN ix EAST PRUSSIA. FEBRUARY 19, 1915 BRITISH AND FRENCH FLEETS BOMBARD THE DARDANELLES FORTS. MARCH 10, 1915 BATTLE OF NEUVE CHAPPELLE BEGINS. MARCH 22, 1915 RUSSIANS CAPTURE PRZEMYSL. APRIL 20, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, NEW YORK CITY. (A neutrality pronouncement. Some Americans ivere not con- vinced.) My interest in the neutrality of the United States is not the petty desire to keep out of trouble. . . But I am interested in neutrality because there is something so much greater to do than fight; there is a distinction waiting for this nation that no nation has ever yet got. That is the distinction of absolute self-control and self-mastery. . . We are trustees for what I venture to say is the greatest heritage that any nation ever had, the love of justice and righteousness and human liberty. MAY 2, 1915 GERMANS TURN BACK THE RUSSIAN TIDE IN EAST GALICIA. 10 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR MAY 7, 1915 LUSITANIA TORPEDOED. (Immense excitement followed. Demands for war at once were loud and insistent.) MAY 10, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES A GROUP OF NEWLY NATURALIZED CITIZENS AT PHILADELPHIA. (This speech contained a phrase which provoked much scorn.) There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right. MAY 13, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON SENDS FIRST LUSITANIA NOTE. . . . it (the United States) must hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability. . . FIRST LUSITANIA NOTE. MAY 23, 1915 ITALY GOES TO WAR. JULY 9, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON SENDS A SECOND NOTE ON THE LUSITANIA CASE. (Germany's reply set up the defense that the Lusitania had been armed. The second note placed the issue on broader grounds.) The Government of the United States is contending for . . , the rights of humanity, which every Government honors itself in respecting. . . JULY 21, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON DISPATCHES ANOTHER NOTE TO GERMANY. (The President's third note obtained a promise from Ger- many to sink no more ships without warning.) Friendship itself prompts it to say to the Imperial Govern- ment that repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts of contravention of those rights must be regarded by the Government of the United States, when they affect American citi- zens, as deliberately unfriendly. AUGUST 4, 1915 GERMANS, CONTINUALLY VICTORIOUS IN THE EAST, OCCUPY WARSAW. AUGUST 6, 1915 BRITISH LAND AT GALLIPOLI. 11 AMERICANISM SEPTEMBER 8, 1915 RUSSIANS STOP GERMANS. SEPTEMBER 20, 1915 TEUTONS TURN ON SERBIA. SEPTEMBER 25-30, 1915 BATTLE OF CHAMPAGNE. OCTOBER 9-10, 1915 AUSTRO-GERMANS CAPTURE BELGRADE. OCTOBER 11, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES THE DAUGH- TERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AT WASHINGTON. (The President again expounded the doctrine of American neu- trality. There was a growing tendency to defer to his patience and trust to his judgment.) . . . We stand apart, unembroiled, conscious of our own principles, conscious of what we hope and purpose. . . Neu- trality is a negative word. It is a word that does not express what America ought to feel. . . We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations upon which peace can be rebuilt. OCTOBER 12, 1915 EDITH CAVELL, AN ENGLISH NURSE, EXECUTED AS A SPY BY THE GERMANS AT BRUSSELS. NOVEMBER, 1915 ANOTHER WINTER IN THE TRENCHES CERTAIN. NOVEMBER 7, 1915 ITALIAN LINER ANCONA SUNK. PREPAREDNESS NOVEMBER 11, 1915 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES THE MAN- HATTAN CLUB, NEW YORK. CITY. (President H 7 ilson was awakening to the deeper meanings of the World War. This address contains his first public utterance upon the subject of preparedness.) . . . we believe, we passionately believe, in the right of every people to choose their own allegiance and be free of masters altogether. The mission of America in the world is essentially a mission of peace and good will among men. Within a year we have witnessed what we did not believe possible, a great European conflict involving many of the greatest 12 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR nations of the world. The influences of a great war are every- where in the air. . . No thoughtful man feels any panic haste in this matter. The country is not threatened from any quarter. . . . Speak in terms of deepest solemnity of the urgency and necessity of preparing ourselves. DECEMBER 7, 1915 CONGRESS CONVENES. (President Wilson went before Congress and asked for the greatest navy in the world, and laid down plans for a citizen army,) Since I last had the privilege of addressing you on the state of the Union the war of nations on the other side of the sea . . . has extended its threatening and sinister scope until it has swept within its flame some portion of every quarter of the globe, not excepting our own hemisphere. . . We have stood apart, studiously neutral ... it was neces- sary, if a universal catastrophe was to be avoided, that a limit should be set to the sweep of destructive war and that some part of the great family of nations should keep the processes of peace alive. . . . But we do believe in a body of free citizens ready and sufficient to take care of themselves and of the governments which they have set up to serve them. DECEMBER 30, 1915 LINER PERSIA TORPEDOED IN THE MEDI- TERRANIAN. JANUARY 1, 1916 ALLIES ARE UNABLE TO PROGRESS AGAINST THE CENTRAL POWERS. THE WESTERN FRONT is A DEAD- LOCK. RUSSIA IS HELD FIRM. AuSTRO-GERMANS ARE OVER- RUNNING SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO. THE COSTLY FAILURE AT GALLIPOLI is BECOMING APPARENT. SUBMARINES ARE VERY DESTRUCTIVE. A DARK DAY FOR FREE MEN. JANUARY 9, 1916 BRITISH EVACUATE GALLIPOLI PENINSULA. JANUARY 13, 1916 CAPITAL OF MONTENEGRO CAPTURED. JANUARY 23, 1916 CAPITAL OF ALBANIA CAPTURED. JANUARY 27 - FEBRUARY 3, 1916 PREPAREDNESS SPEECHES. (Six weeks after his preparedness appeal to Congress, Presi- dent Wilson made a tour of the Middle West to line up the 13 AMERICANISM country for preparedness. Extracts from these speeches show a growing comprehension of the German threat.) If there is one passion more deep-seated in the hearts of our fellow countrymen than another, it is the passion for peace. . . But, gentlemen, there is something that the American people love better than they love peace. . . They are ready at any time to fight for the vindication of their character and of their honor. . . We cannot surrender our convictions. We live in a world which we did not make, which we cannot alter, which we cannot think into a different condition from that which actually exists. . . . more than a year ago ... I said that this ques- tion of military preparedness was not a pressing question. But more than a year has gone by since then and I would be ashamed if I had not learned something in fourteen months. The minute I stop changing my mind with the change of all the circumstances of the world, I will be a back number. I cannot tell you what the international relations of this country will be tomorrow, and I use the word literally. . . (NEW YORK CITY.) The world is on fire, and there is tinder everywhere. It amazes me to hear men speak as if America stood alone in the world and could follow her own life as she pleased. We are in the midst of a world that we did not make and cannot alter; ... I must tell you that the dangers are infinite and constant. . . new circumstances have arisen which make it absolutely necessary that this country should prepare herself. . . (PlTTSBURG, P.\.) let me tell you very solemnly you cannot afford to postpone this thing. I do not know what a single day may bring forth. . . . no man in the United States knows what a single week or a single day or a single hour may bring forth. (CLEVELAND, OHIO) . . . there may at any moment come a time when I can- not preserve both the honor and the peace of the United States. (MILWAUKEE, Wis.) My fellow citizens, you may be called upon any day to stand behind me to maintain the honor of the United States. (DES MOINES, IA.) There may come a time I pray God it may never come, but it may, in spite of everything we do, come upon us, and come of a sudden when I shall have to ask: "I have had my say; who stands back of me?" (KANSAS CITY, Mo.) 14 VVOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR FEBRUARY 22, 1916 GERMAN CROWN PRINCE BEGINS VER- DUN ATTACK. (This was the most violent and dangerous offensive since the first German onrush. There were anxious weeks before it was finally stopped.) MARCH 18-30, 1916 RUSSIANS RECOVER OFFENSIVE IN RIGA REGION. MARCH 24, 1916 SUSSEX, CHANNEL PASSENGER STEAMER, TOR- PEDOED WITH GREAT Loss OF LIFE. APRIL 18, 1916 PRESIDENT WILSON SENDS A NOTE TO GER- MANY UPON THE SUSSEX SINKING. ( The President, reminding Germany of her evil record, takes a firm stand.) Again and again the Imperial Government has given its solemn assurances to the Government of the United States that at least passenger ships would not be thus dealt with, and yet it has repeatedly permitted its undersea commanders to disregard those assurances with entire impunity. The Government of the United States has been very patient. If it is still the purpose of the Imperial Government to prose- cute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of com- merce by the use of submarines without regard to what the Gov- ernment of the United States must consider the sacred and indis- putable rules of international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of sub- marine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the Government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether. This action the Government of the United States contemplates \vith the greatest reluctance but feels constrained to take in behalf of humanity and the rights of neutral nations. APRIL 19, 1916 SPECIAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS ON THE SUSSEX SINKING. (The President at once informed Congress of the stand he had taken in the Sussex matter.) . . . But we cannot forget that we are in some sort and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesman of the 15 AMERICANISM rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent while those rights seem in process of being swept utterly away in the mael- strom of this terrible war. APRIL 24, 1916 EASTER INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN. MAY 4, 1916 GERMANY AGAIN PROMISES TO AMEND HER METHOD OF SUBMARINE WARFARE. MAY 8. 1916 NOTE DISPATCHED TO GERMANY, ACKNOWLEDGING GERMANY'S ASSURANCES. (This was the final submarine note, closing the discussion. All now depended upon Germany.) . . . Accepting the Imperial Government's declaration of its abandonment of the policy which has so seriously menaced the good relations between the two countries, the Government of the United States will rely upon a scrupulous execution henceforth of the now altered policy of the Imperial Government. MAY 15, 1916 AUSTRIANS BEGIN STRONG OFFENSIVE AGAINST ITALIANS IN THE TRENTINO. MAY 27, 1916 ADDRESS BEFORE THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE, WASHINGTON. (Tills address is prophetic of the statements of America's war aims, subsequently repeated many times, and now the Allied object of the war.) We believe these fundamental things: First, that every people- has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live. Like other nations, we have ourselves no doubt once and again offended against that principle when for a little while controlled by selfish passion, as our franker historians have been honorable enough to admit; but it has become more and more our rule of life and action. Second, that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great and powerful nations expect and insist upon. And, third, that the world has a right to be free from every disturbance of its pence that has its origin in aggres- sion and disregard of the rights of peoples and nations. MAY 30, 1916 REMNANT 01 SERBIAN ARMY JOINS ALLIES AT SALONIK.I. 16 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR MAY 31, 1916 GERMAN MAIN FLEET COMES OUT AND is DE- FEATED OFF JUTLAND, GIVING THE ALLIES UNCHALLENGED COMMAND OF THE SEA, SAVE FOR SUBMARINES. JUNE 5, 1916 LORD KITCHENER LOST WITH CRUISER HAMP- SHIRE. JUNE 6, 1916 ITALIANS STOP AUSTRIANS IN TRENTINO. JULY 1, 1916 GREAT ALLIED SOMME OFFENSIVE BEGINS. JULY 9, 1916 SUBMARINE DEUTSCHLAND ARRIVES IN AMERICA ON ITS FIRST VOYAGE. AUGUST 9, 1916 ITALIANS TAKE GORITZ. AUGUST 28, 1916 ROUMANIA ENTERS THE WAR. (One of the greatest tragedies of the war. Roumania, under pressure and promise from Russia and urged by the Allies, feeling that the tide had safely turned against Germany, took a fatal step. She was quickly crushed.) SEPTEMBER 28. 1916 VENIZELOS, GREEK STATESMAN AND PROGRESSIVE, SWINGS GREECE INTO LINE WITH THE ALLIES. OCTOBER 13, 1916 ITALIANS WIN VICTORY ON CARSO PLATEAU. DECEMBER 12, 1916 GERMANY PROPOSES PEACE NEGOTIA- TIONS. (Germany felt that it would be a good time to end the war. She was in possession of Belgium and most of the Balkans, and held a slice of France. The Allied offensive on the Western front, the vigorous and brilliant French recovery at Verdun, and Italian activity against the Austrians had shown the High Cnm- mand that, as affairs stood, they could not win by arms alone without a high cost. So an attempt was made to bring about a peace which would postpone the war until Germany could gather herself together to begin again. This was the first, but not the last, of the "Peace Offensives," as they have come to be called. Many times since then she has tried to pull victory out of the fire hy psychological processes. In these attempts she has had plenty 17 AMERICANISM of assistance in enemy nations, some of it deliberate and sinister, but most of it the mistaken infatuation of pacifists, so called, and of the carelessly ignorant. This present attempt took the form of a suggestion that delegates from the belligerent countries meet at a neutral point and discuss possible terms of peace.) INTERVENTION. DECEMBER 18, 1916 PRESIDENT WILSON SENDS A NOTE TO THE BELLIGERENTS ASKING THEM TO STATE TERMS "UPON WHICH THE WAR MIGHT BE CONCLUDED." (President Wilson's prestige was at a low ebb, in Europe at least, after the sending of this note. The Allies resented a sug- gestion that they abandon the war ivhile Germany was still un- punished and unrepentant. (Germany had just overrun Roumania and was holding firm in France and Belgium.} It ivas especially un- fortunate, coming so closely after Germany's attempts to secure the spoils of outlaivery by a premature and patched up peace. What was regarded as a suggestion in the note that the Allied war aims and purposes were no better than Germany's gave added offense. At home opinion ivas confused and divided. It is now believed by many that the note was sent because the administration realized that America was on the brink of war and the President did not wish it to be said afterward that he had neglected any step which might honorably have averted it. Germany, answering vaguely, proposed again a meeting of delegates. The Allies, replying through France, doubted whether the time had come ivhen a peace of lasting benefit to Europe could be secured. The Allies' terms, hoivever, were given in a broad way, involving restoration, reparation, rehabilita- tion and guarantees.) "MUST THIS WAR PROCEED?" A NOTE TO THE BELLIGERENTS ASKING FOR A DEFINITE STATE- MENT OF PEACE TERMS. (Abridged) The President suggests that an early occasion be sought to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satis- factory as a guaranty against its renewal or the kindling of any similar conflict in the future as would make it possible frankly to compare them. He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the 18 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR objects, which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war, are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world. Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small States as secure against aggression or denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great and powerful States now at war. Each wishes itself to be made secure in the future, along with all other nations and peoples, against the recurrence of wars like this and against aggression or selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve an uncertain balance of power amid multiplying sus- picions; but each is ready to consider the formation of a league of nations to insure peace and justice throughout the world. Be- fore that final step can be taken, however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues of the present war upon terms which will certainly safeguard the independence, the territorial integrity, and the political and commercial freedom of the nations involved. The President therefore feels altogether justified in suggest- ing an immediate opportunity for a comparison of views as to the terms which must precede those ultimate arrangements for the peace of the world, which all desire and in which the neutral nations as well as those at war are ready to play their full responsi- ble part. // the contest must continue to proceed toward undefined ends by slow attrition until the one group of belligerents or the other is exhausted; if million after million of human lives must continue to be offered up until on the one side or the other there are no more to offer; if resentments must be kindled that can never cool and despairs engendered from which there can be no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert of free peoples will be rendered vain and idle. THE OBJECTS HAVE NEVER BEEN STATED. The life of the entire world has been profoundly affected. Every part of the great family of mankind has felt the burden and terror of this unprecedented contest of arms. No nation in the civilized world can be said in truth to stand outside its influence or to be safe against its disturbing effects. And yet the concrete objects for which it is being waged have never been definitively stated. The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avoived the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that the 19 AMERICANISM war had been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture what definitive results, what actual exchange of guaranties, what political or territorial changes or readjustments, what stage of military success, even, would bring the war to an end. It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an interchange of views would clear the way at least for conference and make the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the immediate future, a concert of nations immediately practicable. The President is not proposing peace; he is not even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations with the belligerent, how near the haven of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing longing. He believes that the spirit in which he speaks and the objects which he seeks will be understood by all concerned, and he confidently hopes for a response which will bring a new light into the affairs of the world. COMMENTS ox PEACE NOTE. Senator IVeeks: "Ill-timed and unwise." Senator Stone: "A very timely proffer. ... It is the begin- ning of the end." Prof. Ellery C. Stou'ell, Nac-Yorkcr Slaats-Zeitung : "The President has chosen the psychological moment." Van Bernstorff: "Now I am positive there will be a r^cacc conference." Ne-n' York Tribune: "Now American influence for real peace. for just peace, is abolished." Neiv York Jf'orld: "It cannot be ignored, and the powers must go further than any European statesmen have yet gone in defining the objects of the war and the terms of peace." Tagllsche Rundschau (Germany] : "President Wilson is actu- ated by vanishing profits on the one hand and the fear of sub- marine warfare on the other hand." Clemenceau in L'Hornme Enchaine: "The moral side of the war has escaped President Wilson. . . He believes himself just when he speaks to all in the same terms." Gustave Herve in / ictoin-: ''President Wilson has delivered us full in the chest the greatest blow, the most dangerous since Charleroi." 20 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR London Observer: "A memorable mistake has been made at the White House. That mistake jeopardizes all the beneficient possibilities of the role which might have been and may still be reserved for the American President at a later stage." L'Intransigeant : "This act will disarrange the sly maneuver our adversary is seeking to accomplish at this time. . . He will not be able to escape the request of the American question." Montreal Star: "He has failed to see the moral issue." Toronto Globe: "The prevalent tone of the European press is one of polite ridicule." DECEMBER 19, 1916 LLOYD GEORGE MAKES FIRST SPEECH AS NEW PREMIER. (He repudiated the German peace proposals, asserting Eng- land was making war with its new cabinet, not peace.) JANUARY 6-7, 1917 ALLIED WAR CONFERENCE AT ROME. JANUARY 10, 1917 FRANCE REPLIES, FOR THE ALLIES, TO PRESIDENT WILSON'S NOTE. JANUARY 18, 1917 ENGLAND REPLIES, THROUGH ARTHUR J. BALFOUR, FOREIGN SECRETARY. (Mr. Balfour's reply, supplemental to that of France, sug- gested a league of nations to prevent hostilities in the future.} JANUARY 22, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES CONGRESS ON TERMS OF PEACE. (President Wilson announced to the world a basis for peace and the only basis upon which the United States could join with other nations to take part in keeping the world henceforth at peace. It was the first statement of the principles which are now accepted as the basis of the Allied Peace Platform. This address u-as cordially received everywhere. It did much to clarify and express Allied thinking upon the war, and to prepare American thought for ivhat must now have seemed inevitable in the near future our entrance into the war; although many politicians and journalists called it a Eutopian dream, and many felt it ivas another case of impudent intrusion. This was the famous "Peace without Vic- tory" address a phrase angrily misunderstood at the time. On the whole, the address reinstated President Wilson in European regard, and proved the first step toward that impersonal and dis- interested world leadership which is now accorded him.) 21 AMERICANISM "A PEACE WORTH PRESERVING." ADDRESS TO THE SENATE ON ESSENTIAL TERMS OF PEACE IN EUROPE. (Complete ) Gentlemen of the Senate: On the eighteenth of December last I addressed an identic note to the governments of the nations now at war requesting them to state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy. The Central Powers united in a reply which stated merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace. The Entente Powers have replied much more definitely and have stated, in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable condi- tions of a satisfactory settlement. We are that much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall end the present war. We are that much nearer the discussion of the international con- cert which must thereafter hold the world at peace. In every discussion of the peace that must end this war it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of man- kind, every sane and thoughtful man must take that for granted. I have sought this opportunity to address you because I thought that I owed it to you, as the council associated with me in the final determination of our international obligations, to disclose to you without reserve the thought and purpose that have been taking form in my mind in regard to the duty of our Govern- ment in the days to come when it will be necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace among the nations. AMERICA'S PART IN PEACE. It is inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. To take part in such a service will be the opportunity for which they have sought to pre- pare themselves by the very principles and purposes of their polity and the approved practices of their Government ever since the days when they set up a new nation in the high and honourable hope that it might in all that it was and did show mankind the 22 VVOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR way to liberty. They cannot in honour withold the service to which they are now about to be challenged. They do not wish to withhold it. But they owe it to themselves and to the other nations of the world to state the conditions under which they will feel free to render it. That service is nothing less than this, to add their authority and their power to the authority and force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world. Such a settle- ment cannot now be long postponed. It is right that before it comes this Government should frankly formulate the conditions upon which it would feel justified in asking our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those conditions. The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candor and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged. We shall have no voice in determining what those terms shall be, but we shall, I feel sure, have a voice in determining whether they shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a uni- versal covenant, and our judgment upon what is fundamental and essential as a condition precedent to permanency should be spoken now, not afterwards when it may be too late. No covenant of cooperative peace that does not include the peoples of the New World can suffice to keep the future safe against war; and yet there is only one sort of peace that the peoples of America could join in guaranteeing. The elements of that peace must be elements that engage the confidence and satisfy the principles of the American governments, elements consistent with their political faith and with the practical convictions which the peoples of America have once for all embraced and under- taken to defend. No NATION MAY CAST DOWN PEACE I do not mean to say that any American government would throw any obstacle in the way of any terms of peace the govern- ments now at war might agree upon, or seek to upset them when made, whatever they might be. I only take it for granted that mere terms of peace between belligerents will not satisfy even 23 AMERICANISM the belligerents themselves. Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable combination of nations, could face or withstand it. If the peace presently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the organ- ized major force of mankind. The terms of immediate peace agreed upon will determine whether it is a peace for which such a guarantee can be secured. The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guar- antee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace. Fortunately we have received very explicit assurances on this point. The statesmen of both the groups of nations now arrayed against one another have said, in terms that could not be misin- terpreted, that it was no part of the purpose they had in mind to crush their antagonists. But the implications of these assur- ances may not be equally clear to all may not be the same on both sides of the water. I think it will be serviceable if I attempt to set forth what we understand them to be. "PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY." They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without vic- tory. It is not pleasant to say this. 1 beg that I may be per- mitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in my thought. I am only seeking to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be ac- cepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance. 24 WOODROW WILSON 7 AND THE WAR The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded if it is to last must be an equality of rights; the guarantees ex- changed must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak. Right must be based upon the common strength, not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose con- cert peace will depend. Equality of territory or of resources there of course cannot be; nor any other sort of equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples themselves. But no one asks or expects anything more than an equality of rights. Mankind is looking now for freedom of life, not for the equipoises of power. A DEMOCRATIC PEACE. And there is a deeper thing involved than even equality of right among organized nations. No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that gov- ernments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I take it for granted, for instance, if I may venture upon a single exam- ple, that statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should be a united, independent, and autonomous Poland, and that hence- forth inviolable security of life, of worship, and of industrial and social development should be guaranteed to all peoples who have lived hitherto under the poiver of governments devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own. I speak of this, not because of any desire to exalt an abstract political principle which has always been held very dear by those who have sought to build up liberty in America, but for the same reason that I have spoken of the other conditions of peace which seem to me clearly indispensable because I wish frankly to un- cover realities. Any peace which does not recognize and accept this principle will be inevitably upset. It ivill not rest upon the affections or the convictions of mankind. The ferment of spirit of whole populations will fight subtly and constantly against it, and all the vvorld will sympathize. The world can be at peace only if its life is stable, and there can be no stability where the ivill is in rebellion, where there is not tranquility of spirit and a sense of justice, of freedom, and of right. SOME ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF PEACE. So far as practicable, moreover, every great people now strug- gling towards a full development of its resources and of its powers 25 AMERICANISM should be assured a direct outlet to the great highways of the sea. Where this cannot be done by the cession of territory, it can be done by the neutralization of direct rights of way under the general guarantee which will assure the peace itself. With a right comity of arrangement no nation need be shut away from free access to the open paths of the world's commerce. And the paths of the sea must alike in law and in fact be free. The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equal- ity, and cooperation. No doubt a somewhat radical reconsider- ation of many of the rules of international practice hitherto thought to be established may be necessary in order to make the seas indeed free and common in practically all circumstances for the use of mankind, but the motive for such changes is convincing and compelling. There can be no trust or intimacy between the peoples of the world without them. The free, constant, unthreat- ened intercourse of nations is an essential part of the process of peace and development. It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of the world sincerely desire to come to an agreement concerning it. It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments and the cooperation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe. And the question of lim- iting naval armaments opens the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of armies and of all programmes of military preparation. Difficult and delicate as these questions are, they must be faced with the utmost candor and decided in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come with healing in its wings, and come to stay. Peace cannot be had without concession and sacrifice. There can be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great preponderating armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be built up and maintained. The states- men of the world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. I SPEAK FOR ALL FRIENDS OF HUMANITY. I have spoken upon these great matters without reserve and with the utmost explicitness because it has seemed to me to be necessary if the world's yearning desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high authority amongst all the peoples of the world who is 26 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I am speaking as an individual, and yet I am speaking, also, of course, as the respon- sible head of a great government, and I feel confident that I have said what the people of the United States would wish me to say. May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speak- ing for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every programme of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear. And in holding out the expectation that the people and Gov- ernment of the United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the permanence of peace upon such terms as I have named I speak with the greater boldness and confidence because it is clear to every man who can think that there is in this promise no breach in either our traditions or our policy as a nation, but a fulfilment, rather, of all that we have professed or striven for. THE MONROE DOCTRINE OF THE WORLD. I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world: that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful. I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power; catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a com- mon protection. I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom of the seas which in international conference after conference representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced disciples of liberty; and that moderation of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence. 27 AMERICANISM These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others. And they are also the principles and policies of forward-looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail. COMMENTS ox ADDRESS ox ESSENTIAL PEACE TERMS. New York Times: "By one bold stroke President Wilson removes the obstacles to world peace guaranteed by the world." New York World: "Our own belief is that President Wilson has enunciated the broad principles of liberty and justice upon which alone a durable peace is possible." Washington Post: "It constitutes a shining ideal, seemingly unattainable when passions rule the world, but embodying, never- theless, the hopes of nations, large and small." Cleveland Plain Dealer: "President Wilson has already ex- erted a great influence promotive of peace. His strongest card he played before the Senate Monday." Philadelphia Public Ledger: "President Wilson's address to the Senate was inspired by lofty idealism, and voiced the aspiration of the whole world for a lasting peace, founded on justice and liberty." Indianapolis Star: "Nobody knows whither this bold and puz- zling step may lead." St. Louis Globe-Democrat: "It is either a monumental mis- take or an act that will fill a flaming page in history." Toronto Globe: "President Wilson has not aided the cause of peace in Europe by intervention at this stage." Providence Journal: "Mr. Wilson beckons the suffering na- tions of the world toward him with his schoolmaster's cane, and delivers a prize oration on the millennium, while the civilization and the liberty of the world are battling for life in the shambles of a hundred bloody fields." New York Herald: "When President Wilson emerges from the dreamland of his fancy and essays to deal with the cold hard facts of a situation which finds great nations grappling for a righteous peace, he shows that a proper realization of the senti- ments impelling those people to sacrifice their all for liberty has no more found its way into the secluded cloisters of the White House than has a real understanding of the sentiments of the American people." 28 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR Boston Transcript: "He seems to have been forced by the flash of events to the solemn conclusion that he is the keeper of the conscience of the world not only, but also the exclusive if not the ordained moral spokesman of mankind." London Times: The Times refers to "the high and daring character of his pacifist ideals together with the prudence and caution of his policy. ..." It asserts that "his project is noth- ing less ambitious, less splendid than the establishment of a per- petual and universal reign of peace." Continuing it says: "The Times believes that President Wilson is the first statesman who has proposed as a practical policy what has been the 'dream of many thinkers for a great number of centuries.' " London Chronicle: "The extreme elevation of the moral tone . . . will command the unqualified respect of those forward- looking, liberty-loving elements of all nations to which he frankly makes his appeals." Manchester Guardian: "It is a splendid policy, nobly ex- pressed. How will it be received? By people everywhere we can- not doubt joyfully and with clear perception . . . The mass of the nation will do well to see that their rulers render them every possible favor and support." London Globe: "We must at your bidding lay down our arms and dream with you your foolish drearr. of peace." L'Humanite: "The most incomparably splendid historic mon- ument that has been given to the world since our immortal Decla- ration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens." L 'Information: "It will find a profound echo in the soul of France." Le Figaro: "His message will prove a violent shock to the horrible theory of Pan-Germanism." Gustave Herve in Victoire: "What a pity it is this masterly page of social philosophy is marred and almost disfigured by those three little words: 'Peace without victory.' " Echo de Paris: "This declaration moves in the serene domain of theories." Le Journal: "President Wilson is haunted with the fixed idea of inaugurating the golden age of universal brotherhood." JANUARY 26, 1917 RUSSIAN FOREIGN OFFICE ANNOUNCES THAT PRESIDENT WILSON'S SPEECH ON ESSENTIAL PEACI-: TERMS "HAS MADE A MOST FAVORABLE IMPRESSION UPON THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT/' 29 AMERICANISM JANUARY 31, 1917 GERMANY ANNOUNCES RUTHLESS U-BOAT WARFARE, TO BEGIN THE FOLLOWING DAY. SUSPENSION. FEBRUARY 3, 1917 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH GERMANY BROKEN. FEBRUARY 3, 1917 U. S. S. HOUSATONIC SUNK. FEBRUARY 3, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES CONGRESS. (7/z this address President Wilson stated that diplomatic re- lations had been broken off, and told why. He still professed to maintain hope that Germany would respect American rights. This was the first "German People" speech, suggesting the doctrine, noiv abandoned by all but a few pacifists, doubtless, that the Ger- man people ivere driven to war by an autocracy which left them no other choice, and that they would accept an opportunity to escape from their masters if a friendly hand should make it pos- sible. It ivas not then so fully comprehensible that the only hand the Germans can understand, as yet, is the hand of force their own kind of a hand.} "NO ALTERNATIVE." ADDRESS ANNOUNCING THE SEVERANCE OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS. (Abridged] Gentlemen of the Congress: The Imperial German Government on the thirty-first of Jan- uary announced to this Government and to the governments of the other neutral nations that on and after the first day of February, the present month, it would adopt a policy with regard to the use of submarines against all shipping seeking to pass through cer- tain designated areas of the high seas to which it is clearly my duty to call your attention. (Here the President presents a summary of the submarine case against Germany, quoting from notes and records.) I think that you will agree with me that, in view of this dec- laration, which suddenly and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately withdraws the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note of the fourth of May, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course which, in its note of the 30 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR 18th of April, 1916, it announced that it would take in the event that the German Government did not declare and effect an aban- donment of the methods of submarine warfare which it was then employing and to which it now purposes again to resort. RELATIONS SEVERED. I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of State to announce to His Excellency the German Ambassador that all diplomatic relations between the United States and the German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambassador at Berlin will imme- diately be withdrawn; and, in accordance with this decision, to hand to His Excellency his passports. Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the German Gov- ernment, this sudden and deeply deplorable renunciation of its assurances, given this Government at one of the most critical mo- ments of tension in the relations of the two governments, / refuse to believe that It is the intention of the German authorities to do in fact what they have warned us they will feel at liberty to do. I cannot bring myself to believe that they will indeed pay no re- gard to the ancient friendship between their people and our own or to the solemn obligations which have been exchanged between them and destroy American ships and take the lives of American citizens in the wilful prosecution of the ruthless naval programme they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt acts on their part CAN MAKE ME BELIEVE IT EVEN NOW. If this inveterate confidence on my part in the sobriety and prudent foresight of their purpose should unhappily prove un- founded ; if American ships and American lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval commanders in heedless contravention of the just and reasonable understandings of international law and the obvious dictates of humanity, I shall take the liberty of coming again before the Congress, to ask that authority be given me to use any means that may be necessary for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do nothing less. 1 take it for granted that all neutral governments will take the same course. FRIENDS OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE. l r /e do not desire any hostile conflict with the German Impe- rial Government. We are the sincere friends of the German people and earnestly desire to remain at peace ivith the Govern- ment which speaks for them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and until we are obliged to believe it; and we 31 AMERICANISM purpose nothing more than the reasonable defense of the undoubted rights of our people. We wish to serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and in action to the immemo- rial principles of our people which 1 sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago, seek merely to vindi- cate our right to liberty and justice and an unmolested life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of wilful injustice on the part of the Government of Germany! FEBRUARY 17, 1917 FIRST WEEK'S SUBMARINE TOLL 58 VES- SELS SUNK, OF WHICH 21 WERE NEUTRAL. FEBRUARY 26. 1917 BRITISH ADVANCE IN ASIA-MINOR; CAP- TURE KUT-EL-AMARA. FEBRUARY 26, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES CONGRESS. ( This is known as The Armed Neutrality Address. Presi- dent Wilson asked Congress for authority to arm merchant ves- sels. He had now given up hope of a change in Germany's U-boat policy. Americans, including women and children, had been lost in the ruthless warfare. Ambassador Gerard had been held as hostage in Berlin, but finally permitted to go to Switzerland. Meanwhile American shipping had stagnated because owners were unwilling to risk unarmed ships in the U-boat danger zone. This request for power to arm ships met with the resistance of "the little group of ivilful men" in the Senate. AH this time clamor for war grew. People were becoming impatient witli the Presi- dent's patience: while he evidently was carefully exhausting every possibility of averting war not so much to escape it, as to make all the world see that, when it should come, it was inevitable.} "WE MUST ARM OUR SHIPS." ARMED NEUTRALITY ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE CONGRESS FEB- RUARY 3, 1917. (Abridged) . . . it must be admitted that there have been certain additional indications and expressions of purpose on the part of the German press 'and the German authorities which have increased rather than lessened the impression that, if our ships and our people are spared, it will be because of fortunate circumstances or because the commanders of the German submarines which they 32 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR may happen to encounter exercise an unexpected discretion and restraint rather than because of the instructions under which these commanders are acting. It would be foolish to deny that the situation is fraught with the gravest possibilities and dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see that the necessity for definite action may come at any time, if we are in fact, and not in word merely, to defend our elementary rights as a neutral nation. It would be most imprudent to be unprepared. ARMED NEUTRALITY. No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances, with discretion but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the occasion, if occasion should indeed arise. Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are suffering at the hands of Germany, there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is abundant American precedent. It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be necessary to put armed force anywhere into action. The American people do not desire it, and our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure that they will understand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose I hold nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in everything I do. I am anxious that the people of the nations at war also should understand and not mistrust us. I hope that I need give no further proofs and assurances than I have already given throughout nearly three years of anxious patience that I am the friend of peace and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able. I am not now proposing or contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace to follow the pursuits of peace in quietness and good will rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized nations of the world. No course of my choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can only come by the wilful acts and aggressions of others. You will understand why I can make no definite proposals or forecasts of action now and must ask for your supporting authority in the most general terms. I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defensive arms. 33 AMERICANISM should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. THE RIGHTS OF HUMANITY ARE AT STAKE. I have spoken of our commerce and of the legitimate errands of our people on the seas, but you will not be misled as to my main thought, the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them dignity and weight. It is not of material interests merely that we are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the rights of life itself. I am thinking, not only of the rights of Americans to go and come about their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity without which there is no civilization. My theme is of those great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has sought to throw about human lives, the lives of non-combatants, the lives of men icho are peacefully at work 'lee pin ff the industrial processes of the world quick and vital, the lives of women and children and of those who supply the labor which ministers to their sustenance. We arc speaking of no selfish material rights but of rights which our hearts support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for justice upon which all law, all structures alike of family, of state, and of mankind must rest, as upon the ultimate base of our existence and our liberty. I cannot imagine any man with American principles at heart hesitating to defend these things. FEBRUARY 28, 1917 ASSOCIATED PRESS PUBLISHES Vox ZIM- MERMANN NOTE TO THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR IN MEXICO, PROPOSING THAT MEXICO AND JAPAN UNITE WITH GERMANY AGAINST THE UNITED STATES, MEXICO TO BE REWARDED WITH NEW MEXICO, TEXAS AND ARIZONA. MARCH 3, 1917 ALLIED SPRING OFFENSIVE BEGINS ON WEST- ERN FRONT WITH ADVANCE OF BRITISH NEAR BAPAUME. MARCH 4, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON ISSUES A STATEMENT RE- BUKING CERTAIN SENATORS. (A bill introduced in response to the President's address, giving him the authority lie had requested to arm ships, luas blocked in the Senate, and failed to get through before the session 34 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR came to a close, March 3. President Wilson immediately called a special session, to convene April 2, and issued a statement rebuk- ing those who had opposed defensive measures.) A little group of wilful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible. MARCH 4, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON INAUGURATED QUIETLY, THE DAY BEING SUNDAY. (In his second inaugural, delivered the next day, President Wilson pointed out that the world-war was compelling the United States to take part in world affairs. . . "We are provincials no longer. . . Events . . . have made us citizens of the world" and restated essential terms of peace and international comity.) MARCH 10, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON ORDERS MERCHANT SHIPS TO ARM, FINDING SUFFICIENT AUTHORITY IN HIS GENERAL POWERS. MARCH 11, 1917 RUSSIAN REVOLUTION BEGINS IN FOOD RIOTS. MARCH 11, 1917 BRITISH CAPTURE BAGDAD. MARCH 13, 1917 GERMAN LINES ox THE WESTERN FRONT BEGIN TO FEEL THE PRESSURE OF THE ALLIED SPRING OFFEN- SIVE, THE GERMANS RETIRING FROM WEST OF BAPAUME. MARCH 15, 1917 CZAR NICHOLAS ABDICATES THE RUSSIAN THRONE. MARCH 17, 1917 BRITISH CAPTURE BAPAUME; FRENCH TAKE ROYE AND LASSIGNY. MARCH 18, 1917 GERMANS MAKE GREAT "STRATEGIC RETREAT/' RETIRING ON 85-MILE FRONT, ABANDONING PERONNE, CHAULNES, NESLE AND NOYON. ALLIES ADVANCE LINE, ARRAS TO SOISSONS, TO DEPTH OF 12 MILES AND RETAKE 60 VILLAGES. (This retreat was accompanied by a wanton, -vicious destruc- tion beyond comparison with anything in history.) 35 AMERICANISM THE TESTING TIME APRIL 2, 1917 CONGRESS ASSEMBLES IN SPECIAL SESSION. PARTICIPATION. APRIL 2, 1917 PRESIDENT WILSON MAKES HIS FAMOUS WAR ADDRESS TO CONGRESS. (Congress had assembled on this day in special session called by the President. Fall elections had left the Democrats without a majority in the House, but independents gave them control. In the evening President Wilson unexpectedly appeared and quietly asked the Congress to declare Germany's course ivar against the United States. Hope ivas now abandoned. Germany stood revealed This was Wilson's first war speech; the first of the long series of lucid, trenchant indictments of Germany, pitilessly just, u'hich have united the thought and purpose of the nation and re- enforced the determination of the Allies to destroy autocracy. It was received with acclaim throughout the Allied u'orld, both because of the entrance of a great and just neutral nation into war, and because of the high moral tone which Woodrow Wilson's statement gave to this entrance. This is the "Make the World Safe for Democracy" speech a famous and unique battle-cry of nations.} "THIS IS WAR." PRESIDENT WILSON'S WAR ADDRESS, DELIVERED TO THE CONGRESS APRIL 2, 1917. (Complete ) Gentlemen of the Congress: I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to he made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. On the third of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its sub- marines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany 36 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat re- strained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of re- straint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along ivith those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were dis- tinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk u'itti the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle. A WARFARE AGAINST MANKIND. I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were sup- posed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in 37 AMERICANISM pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a war- fare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindica- tion of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. ARMED NEUTRALITY is NOT EXOUGH. When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of Febru- ary last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because sub- marines are in effect outlaws when used as the German sub- marines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim neces- sity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has pro- scribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual ; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practicallv certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot 38 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs: they cut to the very roots of human life. LET Us ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE TO WAR. With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical charac- ter of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my con- stitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Gov- ernment of the German Empire to terms and end the war. What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the govern- ments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least five hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of uni- versal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sus- tained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships and evils which 39 AMERICANISM would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be pro- duced by vast loans. In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty, for it will be a very practical duty, of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there. I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very care- ful thought by the branch of the Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war safeguarding the nation will most directly fall. LET Us MAKE OUR OBJECTS CLEAR. While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of January last; the same that 1 had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the third of Febru- ary and on the twenty-sixth of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as tuill henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the w'orld is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organ- ized force which is controlled wholly by their icill, not by the will of their people. If e nave seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. I!'e are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and responsibil- ity for w'rong done shall be observed among nations and their 40 WOODROW WILSON AND THE WAR governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states. We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in enter- ing this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or ap- proval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be deter- mined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs. AUTOCRACY CANNOT BE TRUSTED. A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic govern- ment could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its cove- nants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their o\vn. Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, 41 AMERICANISM or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, gener- ous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor. One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsus- pecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence. MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY. We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in ivait to accomplish we kno^v not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic gov- ernments of the world. We are now about to accept a gauge of battle u'ith this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the ivhole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power, ITe are glad, now that ice see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate f>eace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the (?