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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY
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"l urge that teachers and other school officers increase
materially the time and attention devoted to instruc-
tion bearing directly on the problems of community and
national life.
"Such a plea is in no way foreign to the spirit of
American public education, or to existing practices.
Nor is it a plea fora temporary enlargement of the
school programme appropriate merely to the period of
the war. It is a plea for a realization in public educa-
tion of the new emphasis which the war has given to
ihe ideals of democracy and to the broader conceptions
of national life."
\iiii
IGake iEurjliiiJj GUaaairs
DEMOCRACY TODAY
AN
AMERICAN INTERPRETATION
EDITED BY
CHRISTIAN GAUSS
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY SCOTT, FOEESMAN AND COMPANY
ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY
EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS
CHICAGO, U. S A
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 7
LINCOLN GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 17
LOWELL DEMOCRACY 19
CLEVELAND THE MESSAGE OF WASHINGTON 49
ROOSEVELT OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS A NATION 59
WILSON THE MEANING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPEND-
ENCE 63
WILSON THE AMERICAN OF FOREIGN BIRTH 75
WILSON AMERICA FIRST 81
WILSON THE SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP 90
WILSON ABRAHAM LINCOLN 96
WILSON A WORLD LEAGUE FOR PEACE 102
WILSON MESSAGE TO CONGRESS 113
WILSON REQUEST FOR A GRANT OF POWER 119
WILSON WAR MESSAGE 126
W T ILSON FLAG DAY ADDRESS 141
WILSON REPLY TO THE POPE 151
LANE WHY WE ARE AT WAR 156
ROOT THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 163
WILSON WHAT DEMOCRACY MEANS 182
WILSON SECOND WAR MESSAGE 194
WILSON PROGRAM OF THE WORLD'S PEACE 209
APPENDIX
LLOYD GEORGE--THE MEANING OF AMERICA 's ENTRANCE
INTO THE WAR 219
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 227
BIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES 247
INDEX . . . . 303
INTRODUCTION
It is the purpose of this volume to provide certain
important documents of abiding value which will help
students in secondary schools and colleges to under-
stand the situation in which the country finds itself
today, and which will serve also to clarify their
ideas on the purposes and significance of America.
The consciousness of any fixed, national purpose
has never been strong in the minds and hearts of
Americans. Our first impulse is angrily and emphati-
cally to deny this, for we have never admitted that
we were lacking in anything, even in ideals. What
other nations possessed which was good, we too wished
to have, and on a "bigger" scale. Yet this ^defi-
cieney in our national psychology has forcibly
impressed foreigners. To them we are only too often
a people of adventurers with no set goal, at best
active and intrepid, making and breaking our own
ideals. We impressed the stranger as Hannibal
impressed the Roman historian. To us there is nikil
sancti, nothing sacred : So Kipling found us :
We shake the iron hand of fate
And match with destiny for beers.
Such an attitude as is attributed to us would pretty
surely tend to make us overlook or minimize pn.e nmin
question that we, like all nations, must face. Of this
question II. G. Wells in The Future of America
writes: "The problem in America, save in its scale
8 Democracy Today
and freedom, is no different from the problem of Great
Britain, of Europe, of all humanity ; it is one chiefly
moral and intellectual ; it is to rggqlve a confusion
I of purposes, traditions, habits, into a common, ordered
intention/'
<.j_^^^^_
That this problem should have received so little
attention in America at large is due not to any
absence of great leaders, or to any failure on the
part of our leaders beginning with Washington to
set before us such an ''ordered intention." It has
been due to the fact that we have been feverishly
engaged in other problems; the exploitation of our
natural resources, the development of industry, and
the attempt to assimilate a vast immigrant popula-
tion. It was due also to the further fact that living
in a continent with no powerful or aggressive neigh-
bors, we felt wrongly that we could, for the present
at least, pursue a policy of isolation unmolested. We
/ have lived in a provincialism of soul of which we
were not conscious and which it has taken a world-
V catastrophe to shatter.
Yet around one fundamental ideal we have all and
always rallied. No matter from what part of the
i earth we or our forefathers came, America is a
democracy. Democracy and republicanism are
often used interchangeably, though the latter refers
rather to the form of government and the former''
to its spirit. That we are a republic is one of the j
fortunate accidents of history, for the men of '76
did not go to war for the purpose of electing a
president of their own, but because they refused tc
Introduction 9
be governed by a body in which they were not repre-
sented. If then, the War of Independence was not
waged primarily for the purpose of founding a repub-
lic, it was wag^d in the interest of democracy, in the
interest of founding a government which on the one
hand should be responsible to -the people and for
which on the other, the people should be responsible.
(Any particular state is merely the expression of an
ideal of societyVnd when the Revolution had ended
and the time had come to shape a constitution, it was
natural that our forefathers should have chosen a
republican form^f government, in which not only are
the policies to be pursued formulated by the citizens
through their representatives, but the^executives of
these policies are also named by them.
In modern times and on so large a scale, the experi-
ment was new and we have the distinction of having
been the first of the great modern republics. The
experiment, and such it was, was viewed abroad with
interest and suspicion. During our early trials, and
they were many and serious, few on the other side of
the Atlantic believed that the new and struggling gov-
ernment could endure. For not only was our state a
new departure, but the way of life of the colonists
also; and the structure of their society differed in
many respects from that of the great European pow-
ers. We had, to be sure, inherited the liberal tradi-
tions of the English law and the English constitution,
but the great European states still maintained the
social order known as feudal, developed in the Mid-
dle Ages and based upon the existence and official
10 Democracy Today
recognition of privileged classes. Of such a class and
such a feudal tradition we knew nothing, and the
ignorance was a fortunate one.
If the little republic embarked upon an uncharted
sea, it did so under the most favorable conditions
'ever vouchsafed to man. A people of pioneers,
unhampered by constraining traditions, we were
threatened by no fear of invasion by powerful and
aggressive neighbors and we had been given as
our inheritance what was to become the richest sec-
tion of the habitable globe. Our past could not
'hamper us, and the future with untold wealth and an
almost unlimited domain, lay before us "like a land
of dreams." We were free as no European nation
could possibly be free to carry out in relative peace
and security the great democratic experiment. Before
the world our rich endowment brought with it
a corresponding responsibility never adequately
recognized by the mass of our citizens. [We have been
justly regarded by others and should more frequently
and seriously regard ourselves as the initiators of and
the sponsors for the democratic ideajjgovermnent of
the people, by the people, and for the people, as Lin-
coln put it in memorable words. It was such a state
based on ideas of freedom and social and political
equality that Washington sought to found, that Lin-
coln maintained against internal division, and that
President Wilson is now defending/against unwar-
ranted foreign interference and the unprovoked
aggression of an autocratic power.,) Our democracy! j
today is for the first time in history called upon toff
Introduction 11
j tjustify itself and to defend itself against autocracy. ;
The aim of democracy is the liberty and welfare of
the individual ; the aim of autocracy is the power of
the rulers and the state. The idea of conquest, cf
forcing an alien rule upon a strange people is foreign
to the spirit of democracy. It is, however, of the
essence of autocratic governments. It is well, there-
fore, that we now bethink ourselves and take counsel
with our leaders.
It is a mistake to believe that democracy as we
know it in America is a form of government sanc-
tioned by classical examples reaching back to remote
antiquity and with a long tradition behind it. Those
who are tempted to believe otherwise should read
carefully a passage written in 1901 by no less an
authority than Woodrow Wilson.
"As a matter of fact democracy as we know it is no
older than the end of the eighteenth century. The
doctrines which sustain it can scarcely be said to
derive any support at all from the practices of the,
classical states, or any countenance whatever from the
principles of classical statesmen and philosophers.
The citizens who constituted the -people of the ancient
republics were, when most numerous, a mere privi-
leged class, a ruling minority of the population taken
as a whole. Under their domination slaves abounded,
and citizenship and even the privileges of the courts
of justice were reserved for men of a particular blood
and lineage. It never entered into the thought of any
ancient republican to conceive of all men as equally
entitled to take part in any government, or even in
12 Democracy Today
the control of any government, by votes cast or lots
drawn. Those who were in the ranks of privileged
citizenship despised those who were not, guarded their
ranks very jealously against intruders, and used their
power as a right singular and exclusive, theirs, not
as men, but as Athenians of authentic extraction, as
Romans of old patrician blood.
"Modern democracy wears a very different aspect,
and rests upon principles separated by the whole
heaven from those of the Roman or Grecian demo-
crat. Its theory is of equal rights without respect of
blood or breeding. It knows nothing of a citizenship
won by privilege or inherited through lines of descent
which cannot be changed or broadened. Its thought
is of a society without castes or classes, of an equality
of political birthright which is without bound or lim-
itation. Its foundations are set in a philosophy that
would extend to all mankind an equal emancipation,
make citizens of all men, and cut away everywhere
exceptional privilege. 'All men are born free and
equal' is the classical sentence of its creed, and
its dream is always of a state in which no man shall
have mastery over another without his willing acqui-
escence and consent. It speaks always of the sover-
eignty of the people, and the rulers as the peoples'
servants.
"Democracy is the antithesis of all government by
privilege. It excludes all hereditary right to rule,
whether in a single family or in a single class or in
any combination of classes. It makes the general
welfare of society the end and object of law, and
declares that no class, no aristocratic minority, no
single group of men, however numerous, however
capable, however enlightened, can see broadly enough
or sufficiently free itself from bias to perceive a
nation's needs in their entirety or guide its destinies
Introduction 13
for the benefit of all. The consent of the governed
must at every turn check and determine the action of
those who make and execute the laws."
Neither is our democracy the first and primitive
form of government as is sometimes supposed. It is as
a matter of fact the latest form of government,
designed to give the individual the greatest degree of
liberty and responsibility. We must not therefore
regard it as something which will "run itself" or
which has "always been so." Indeed men of great
authority like the English political historians, Lecky
and Sir Henry Maine, have looked upon certain recent
popular tendencies with grave misgiving. Maine
admitted that the great tendency of recent decades has
been to turn power more and more into the hands of
the people, but felt that the movement was not intelli-
gent, that the people did not know why they desired
this power or what they would do once they had it in
their possession. Lecky felt this same distrust. The
quest for power in our democracy has only too often
been selfish. If the people wish to exercise the great
prerogatives of government, they must also assume the
equally serious responsibility of molding "our confu-
sion of purposes, traditions, habits, into a common
ordered tradition."
The American people have come to us from every
continent, they are of different races and diverging
national traditions. They can only be united and
welded into a truly great nation if we make these
divergent traditions converge upon a definite and
identical future. Though it must be a long task, it
14 Democracy Today
will be the easier because from whatever lands
Americans have come and with whatever antecedent
customs and habits of mind, they have come in the
expectation of finding a land of freedom. Difficult as
it may seem, it should not therefore be impossible to
polarize the hopes and aspirations of earnest men of
many races and nations upon this central and uni-
fying vision. In order to bring more clearly into our
consciousness the meaning and bearing of these ideals,
this volume was planned. It aims to present some of
the most important pronouncements by recent Amer-
ican leaders and especially by President Wilson,
which would help to make plain whence we come and
whither we are tending.
These expressions of democracy's ideals may well
claim a place in the English courses of our schools
and colleges. For, in the words of the statesman
already quoted : ' ' These ideals have been very nobly
expressed by some of the greatest thinkers of the
**ace. The language in which they have been set for
the thought of the world rings keen in the ear, as
with a music of peace and good-will, and yet quick
also with the energy of fine endeavor, lifting the
thoughts to some of the highest conceptions of human
progress. ' '
In this presentation of the democratic idea as
expounded by our leaders, it has been thought best to
begin with Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address and
to follow this with some of the most notable pro-
nouncements on democracy from his day to Wilson's.
Lowell's Democracy is the more interesting as it
Introduction 15
shows us still on the defensive; and with its annota-
tions will help to make clearer the growth of the
democratic idea. Beside the pronouncements by rep-
resentative Americans, the address by Lloyd George
on America's entrance into the war is reprinted as
particularly significant. It was no part of the writer 's
intention to make of this volume a war book, but the
issues of democracy are so inevitably involved in the
present conflict that the war and the developments
which led to it could not be ignored. For this reason
we have included the most important utterances of
President Wilson since the beginning of the conflict ;
and the War Message and the Flag Day Address are
printed with very full annotations which detail the
various intrusions of Germany upon our rights. These
notes are reproduced from the editions of these
speeches published by the Committee on Public Infor-
mation at Washington. Though in some cases they
have been abbreviated, in no case have they been
changed. The notes on the War Message were pre-
pared for the Committee on Public Information by
Professor William Stearns Davis of the University of
Minnesota aided by Professor C. D. Allin and Dr.
William Anderson, also of Minnesota; and those on
the Flag Day Address, by Professors Wallace Note-
stein, Elmer Stoll, August C. Krey, and William
Anderson of the University of Minnesota, and Pro-
fessor Guernsey Jones of the University of Nebraska.
The editor has received considerable assistance
from his friends and colleagues. He is especially
indebted for help and suggestions to Professor Lind-
16 Democracy Today
say Todd Damon of Brown University, General Editor
of the Lake English Classics, and to Guy Stanton
Ford, Director of the Division on Civic and Educa-
tional Co-operation of the Committee of Public
Information at Washington.
DEMOCRACY TODAY
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
[DELIVERED NOVEMBER 19, 1863, AT THE DEDICATION OP
THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY]
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in
liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great
civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation
so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We
are met to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
resting-place of those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we can-
not consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The
' brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember, what we
say here ; l but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here,
to the unfinished work that they have thus far so
nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedi-
17
18 Democracy Today
cated to the great task remaining before us ; that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they here gave the last full measure
of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation
shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and
that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, 2 shall not perish from the earth.
DEMOCRACY
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
[INAUGURAL ADDRESS ON ASSUMING THE PRESIDENCY
OF THE BIRMINGHAM AND MIDLAND INSTITUTE,
BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, OCTOBER 6, 3884]
He must be a born leader or misleader of men, or
must have been sent into the world unfurnished with
that modulating and restraining balance-wheel which
we call a sense of humor, who, in old age, has as
strong confidence in his opinions and in the necessity
of bringing the universe into conformity with them as
he had in youth. In a world the very condition of
whose being is that it should be in perpetual flux,
where all seems mirage, and the one abiding thing ia
the effort to distinguish realities from appearances,
the elderly man must be indeed of a singularly tough
and valid fiber who is certain that he has any clarified
residuum of experience, any assured verdict of reflec-
tion, that deserves to be called an opinion, or who,
even if he had, feels that he is justified in holding
mankind by the button while he is expounding it.
And in a world of daily nay, almost hourly jour-
nalism, where every clever man, every man who thinks
himself clever, or whom anybody else thinks clever,
is called upon to deliver his judgment point-blank
and at the word of command on every conceivable
subject of human thought, or, on what sometimes
seems to him very much the same thing, on every
inconceivable display of human want of thought, there
19
20 Democracy Today
is such a spendthrift waste of all those commonplaces
which furnish the permitted staple of public discourse
that there is little, chance of beguiling a new tune out
of the one-stringed instrument on which we have been
thrumming so long. In this desperate necessity one
is often tempted to think that, if all the words of
the . dictionary were tumbled down in a heap and
then all those fortuitous juxtapositions and combina-
tions that made tolerable sense were picked out and
pieced together, we might find among them some
poignant suggestions towards novelty of thought or
expression. But, alas ! it is only the great poets who
seem to have this unsolicited profusion of unexpected
and incalculable phrase, this infinite variety of topic.
For everybody else everything has been said before,
and said over again after. He who has read his
Aristotle will be apt to think that observation has on
most points of general applicability said its last word,
and he who has mounted the tower of Plato 1 to look
abroad from it will never hope to climb another with
so lofty a vantage of speculation. Where it is so
simple if not so easy a thing to hold one 's peace, why
add to the general confusion of tongues? There is
something disheartening, too, in being expected to
fill up not less than a certain measure of time, as if
the mind were an hour-glass, that need only be shaken
and set on one end or the other, as the case may be,
to run its allotted sixty minutes with decorous exacti-
tude. I recollect being once told by the late eminent
naturalist, Agassiz, that when he was to deliver his
first lecture as professor (at Zurich, I believe) he had
Democracy Lowell 21
grave doubts of his ability to occupy the prescribed
three quarters of an hour. He was speaking without
notes, and glancing anxiously from time to time at
the watch that lay before him on the desk. "When
I had spoken a half hour," he said, "I had told them
everything I knew in the world, everything! Then
I began to repeat myself, ' ' he added, roguishly, ' ' and
I have done nothing else ever since." Beneath the
humorous exaggeration of the story I seemed to see
the face of a very serious and improving moral. And
yet if one were to say only what he had to say and
then stopped, his audience would feel defrauded of
their honest measure. Let us take courage by the
example of the French, whose exportation of Bor-
deaux wines increases as the area of their land in
vineyards is diminished.
To me, somewhat hopelessly revolving these things,
the undelayable year has rolled round, and I find
myself called upon to say something in this place,
where so many wiser men have spoken before me.
Precluded, in my quality of national guest, by motives
of taste and discretion, from dealing with any ques-
tion of immediate and domestic concern, it seemed to
me wisest, or at any rate most prudent, to choose a
topic of comparatively abstract interest, and to ask
your indulgence for a few somewhat generalized
remarks on a matter concerning which I had some
experimental knowledge, derived from the use of such
eyes and ears as Nature had been pleased to endow
me withal, and such report as I had been able to win
from them. The subject which most readily sug-
22
gested itself was the spirit and the working of those
conceptions of life and polity which are lumped
together, whether for reproach or commendation,
under the name of Democracy. By temperament and
education of a conservative turn, I saw the last years
of that quaint Arcadia 2 which French travelers saw
with delighted amazement a century ago, and have
watched the change (to me a sad one) from an agri-
cultural to a proletary population. The testimony
of Balaam should carry some conviction. I have
grown to manhood and am now growing old with the
growth of this system of government in my native
land, have watched its advances, or what some would
call its encroachments, gradual and irresistible as
those of a glacier, have been an ear-witness to the
forebodings of wise and good and timid men, and
have lived to see those forebodings belied by the
course of events, which is apt to show itself humor-
ously careless of the reputation of prophets. I
recollect hearing a sagacious old gentleman say in
1840 that the doing away with the property qualifica-
tion for suffrage twenty years before had been the
ruin of the State of Massachusetts; 3 that it had put
public credit and private estate alike at the mercy of
demagogues. I lived to see that Commonwealth
twenty odd years later paying the interest on her
bonds in gold, though it cost her sometimes nearly
three for one to keep her faith, and that while suffer-
ing an unparalleled drain of men and treasure in help-
ing to sustain the unity and self-respect of the nation.*
If universal suffrage has worked ili in our larger
Democracy Lowell 23
cities, as it certainly has, this has been mainly because
the hands that wielded it were untrained to its use.
There the election of a majority of the trustees of
the public money is controlled by the most ignorant
and vicious of a population which has come to us from
abroad, wholly unpracticed in self-government and
incapable of assimilation by American habits and
methods. But the finances of our towns, where the
native tradition is still dominant and whose affairs
are discussed and settled in a public assembly of the
people, have been in general honestly and prudently
administered. Even in manufacturing towns, where
a majority of the voters live by their daily wages,
it is not so often the recklessness as the moderation
of public expenditure that surprises an old-fashioned
observer. ' ' The beggar is in the saddle at last, ' ' cries
Proverbial Wisdom. ' ' Why, in the name of all former
experience, doesn't he ride to the Devil?" Because
in the very act of mounting he ceased to be a beggar
and became part owner of the piece of property he
bestrides. The last thing we need be anxious about
is property. It -always has friends or the means of
making them. If riches have wings to fly away from
their owner, they have wings also to escape danger.
I hear America sometimes playfully accused of
sending you all your storms, and am in the habit of
parrying the charge by alleging that we are enabled
to do this because, in virtue of our protective system,
we can afford to make better bad weather than any-
body else. And what wiser use could we make of it
than to export it in return for the paupers which
24 Democracy Today
some European countries are good enough to send
over to us who have not attained to the same skill in
the manufacture of them? But bad weather is not
the worst thing that is laid at our door. A French
gentleman, not long ago, forgetting Burke 's 5 monition
of how unwise it is to draw an indictment against a
whole people, has charged us with the responsibility
of whatever he finds disagreeable in the morals or
manners of his countrymen. If M. Zola 6 or some other
competent witness would only go into the box and tell
us what those morals and manners were before our
example corrupted them! But I confess that I find
little to interest and less to edify me in these interna-
tional bandyings of ' ' You 're another. ' '
I shall address myself to a single point only in the
long list of offenses of which we are more or less
gravely accused, because that really includes all the
rest. It is that we are infecting the Old World with
what seems to be thought the entirely new disease
of Democracy. 7 It is generally people who are in
what are called easy circumstances who can afford the
leisure to treat themselves to a handsome complaint,
and these experience an immediate alleviation when
once they have found a sonorous Greek name to abuse
it by. There is something consolatory also, something
flattering to their sense of personal dignity, and to that
conceit of singularity which is the natural recoil from
our uneasy consciousness of being commonplace, in
thinking ourselves victims of a malady by which no
one had ever suffered before. Accordingly they find it
simpler to class under one comprehensive heading
Democracy Lowell 25
whatever they find offensive to their nerves, their
tastes their interests, or what they suppose to be
their opinions, and christen it Democracy, much as
physicians label every obscure disease gout, or as
cross-grained fellows lay their ill-temper to the
weather. But is it really a new ailment, and, if it be,
is America answerable for it? Even if she were,
would it account for the phylloxera, 8 and hoof-and-
mouth disease, and bad harvests, and bad English,
and the German bands, and the Boers, 8a and all the
other discomforts with which these later days have
vexed the souls of them that go in chariots? Yet I
have seen the evil example of Democracy in America
cited as the source and origin of things quite as
heterogeneous and quite as little connected with it by
any sequence of cause and effect. Surely this ferment
is nothing new. It has been at work for centuries, and
we are more conscious of it only because in this age
of publicity, where the newspapers offer a rostrum
to whoever has a grievance, or fancies that he has,
the bubbles and scum thrown up by it are more
noticeable on the surface than in those dumb ages
when there was a cover of silence and suppression on
the cauldron. Bernardo Navagero, 9 speaking of the
Provinces of Lower Austria in 1546, tells us that
"in them there are five sorts of persons, Clergy,
Barons, Nobles, Burghers, and Peasants. Of these last
no account is made, because they have no voice in the
Diet."
Nor was it among the people that subversive or
mistaken doctrines had their rise. A Father of the
26 Democracy Today
Church 10 said that property was theft many centuries
before Proudhon 11 was born. Bourdaloue 12 reaffirmed
it. Montesquieu 13 was the inventor of national
workshops, and of the theory that the State owed
every man a living. Nay, was not the Church herself
the first organized Democracy ? u A few centuries ago
the chief end of man was to keep his soul alive, and
then the little kernel of leaven that sets the gases at
work was religious, and produced the Reformation.
Even in that, far-sighted persons like the Emperor
Charles V. saw the germ of political and social revolu-
tion. 15 Now that the chief end of man seems to have
become the keeping of the body alive, and as comfort-
ably alive as possible, the leaven also has become
wholly political and social. But there had also been
social upheavals before the Reformation and contem-
poraneously with it, especially among men of Teu-
tonic race. The Reformation gave outlet and direc-
tion to an unrest already existing. Formerly the
immense majority of men our brothers knew only
their sufferings, their wants, and their desires. They
are beginning now to know their opportunity and
their power. All persons who see deeper than their
plates are rather inclined to thank God for it than to
bewail it, for the sores of Lazarus have a poison in
them against which Dives has no antidote. 16
There can be no doubt that the spectacle of a great
and prosperous Democracy on the other side of the
Atlantic must react powerfully on the aspirations and
political theories of men in the Old World who do
not find things to their mind ; but, whether for good
Democracy Lowell 27
or evil, it should not be overlooked that the acorn
from which it sprang was ripened on the British oak.
Every successive swarm that has gone out from this
officina gentium 17 has, when left to its own instincts t -
may I not call them hereditary instincts? assumed
a more or less thoroughly democratic form. This
would seem to show, what I believe to be the fact,
that the British Constitution, under whatever dis-
guises of prudence or decorum, is essentially demo-
cratic. England, indeed, may be called a monarchy
with democratic tendencies, the United States a democ-
racy with conservative instincts. People are continu-
ally saying that America is in the air, and I am glad
to think it is, since this means only that a clearer con-
ception of human claims and human duties is begin-
ning to be prevalent. The discontent with the existing
order of things, however, pervaded the atmosphere
wherever the conditions were favorable, long before
Columbus, seeking the back door of Asia, found him-
self knocking at the front door of America. I say
wherever the conditions were favorable, for it is cer-
tain that the germs of disease do not stick or find a
prosperous field for their development and noxious
activity unless where the simplest sanitary precautions
have been neglected. ' ' For this effect defective comes
by cause, ' ' as Polonius said long ago. 18 It is only by
instigation of the wrongs of men that what are called
the Rights of Man 19 become turbulent and dangerous.
It is then only that they syllogize unwelcome truths.
It is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dan-
gerous, but the revolts of intelligence :
28 . Democracy Today
The wicked and the weak rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion. 20
Had the governing classes in France during the last
century paid as much heed to their proper business
as to their pleasures or manners, the guillotine need
never have severed that spinal marrow of orderly and
secular tradition through which in a normally consti-
tuted state the brain sympathizes with the extremities
and sends will and impulsion thither. It is only when
the reasonable and practicable are denied that men
demand the unreasonable and impracticable; only
when the possible is made difficult that they fancy the
impossible to be easy. Fairy tales are made out of
the dreams of the poor. No ; the sentiment which lies
at the root of democracy is nothing new. I am speak-
ing always of a sentiment, a spirit, and not of a form
of government ; for this was but the outgrowth of the
other and not its cause. This sentiment is merely an
expression of the natural wish of people to have a
hand, if need be a controlling hand, in the manage-
ment of their own affairs. What is new is that they
are more and more gaining that control, and learning
more and more how to be worthy of it. What we
used to call the tendency or drift what we are being
taught to call more wisely the evolution of things
has for some time been setting steadily in this direc-
tion. There is no good in arguing with the inevitable.
The only argument available with an east wind is to
put on your overcoat. And in this case, also, the
prudent will prepare themselves to encounter what
they cannot prevent. Some people advise us to put
Democracy Lowell 29
on the brakes, as if the movement of which we are
conscious were that of a railway train running down
an incline. But a metaphor is no argument, though
it be sometimes the gunpowder to drive one home and
imbed it in the memory. Our disquiet comes of what
nurses and other experienced persons call growing-
pains, and need not seriously alarm us. They are
what every generation before us certainly every
generation since the invention of printing has gone
through with more or less good fortune. To the door
of every generation there comes a knocking, and
unless the household, like the Thane of Cawdor 21 and
his wife, have been doing some deed without a name,
they need not shudder. It turns out at worst to be a
poor relation who wishes to come in out of the cold.
The porter always grumbles and is slow to open.
"Who's there, in the name of Beelzebub?" he mutters.
Not a change tor the better in our human housekeep-
ing has ever taken place that wise and good men have
not opposed it, have not prophesied with the alder-
man that the world would wake up to find its throat
cut in consequence of it. The world, on the contrary,
wakes up, rubs its eyes, yawns, stretches itself, and
goes about its business as if nothing had happened.
Suppression of the slave trade, abolition of slavery,
trade unions, at all of these excellent people shook
their heads despondingly, and murmured ' ' Ichabod. ' ' 22
But the trade unions are now debating instead of
conspiring, and we all read their discussions with
comfort and hope, sure that they are learning the
business of citizenship and the difficulties of practical
legislation.
30 Democracy Today
One of the most curious of these frenzies of exclu-
sion was that against the emancipation of the Jews.
All share in the government of the world was denied
for centuries to perhaps the ablest, certainly the most
tenacious, race that had ever lived in it the race to
whom we owed our religion and the purest spiritual
stimulus and consolation to be found in all literature
a race in which ability seems as natural and heredi-
tary as the curve of their noses, and whose blood, fur-
tively mingling with the bluest bloods in Europe, has
quickened them with its own indomitable impulsion.
We drove them into a corner, but they had their
revenge, as the wronged are always sure to have it
sooner or later. They made their corner the counter
and banking-house of the world, and thence they rule
it and us with their ignobler scepter of finance. Your
grandfathers mobbed Priestley 23 only that you might
set up his statue and make Birmingham the headquar-
ters of English Unitarianism. We hear it said some-
times that this is an age of transition, as if that made
matters clearer; but can any one point us to an age
that was not? If he could, he would show us an age
of stagnation. The question for us, as it has been for
all before us, is to make the transition gradual and
easy, to see that our points are right so that the train
may not come to grief. For we should remember that
nothing is more natural for people whose education
has been neglected than to spell evolution with an
initial " r. " A great man struggling with the storms
of fate has been called a sublime spectacle ; but surely
a great man wrestling with these new forces that have
Democracy Lowell 31
come into the world, mastering them and controlling
them to beneficent ends, would be a yet sublimer.
Here is not a danger, and if there were it would be
only a better school of manhood, a nobler scope for am-
bition. I have hinted that what people are afraid of
in democracy is less the thing itself than what they
conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences.
It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a dead level of
mediocrity in character and culture, to vulgarize men 's
conceptions of life, and therefore their code of morals,
manners, and conduct to endanger the rights of
property and possession. 24 But I believe that the real
gravamen of the charges lies in the habit it has of
making itself generally disagreeable by asking the
Powers that Be at the most inconvenient moment
whether they are the powers that ought to be. If
the powers that be are in a condition to give a sat-
isfactory answer to this inevitable question, they need
feel in no way discomfited by it.
Few people take the trouble of trying to find out
what democracy really is. Yet this would be a great
help, for it is our lawless and uncertain thoughts, it
is the indefiniteness of our impressions, that fill dark-
ness, whether mental or physical, with specters and
hobgoblins. Democracy is nothing more than an
experiment in government, more likely to succeed in
a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which
must stand or fall on its own merits as others have
done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual
motion in politics any more than in mechanics. Presi-
dent Lincoln defined democracy to be "the govern-
32 Democracy Today
ment of the people by the people for the people."
This is a sufficiently compact statement of it as a
political arrangement. Theodore Parker 25 said that
' ' Democracy meant not ' I 'm as good as you are, ' but
'You're as good as I am.' ' And this is the ethical
conception of it, necessary as a complement of the
other; a conception which, could it be made actual
and practical, would easily solve all the riddles that
the old sphinx of political and social economy who sits
by the roadside has been proposing to mankind from
the beginning, and which mankind have shown such a
singular talent for answering wrongly. In this sense
Christ was the first true democrat that ever breathed,
as the old dramatist Dekker said he was the first true
gentleman. 26 The characters may be easily doubled,
so strong is the likeness between them. A beautiful
and profound parable of the Persian poet Jellaladeen 27
tells us that ' ' One knocked at the Beloved 's door, and
a voice asked from within 'Who is there?' and he
answered 'It is I.' Then the voice said, 'This house
will not hold me and thee ' ; and the door was not
opened. Then went the lover into the desert and
fasted and prayed in solitude, and after a year he
returned and knocked again at the door; and again
the voice asked 'Who is there?' and he said 'It is thy-
self ; and the door was opened to him." But that is
idealism, you will say, and this is an only too prac-
tical world. I grant it; but I am one of those who
believe that the real will never find an irremovable
basis till it rests on the ideal. 27a It used to be thought
that a democracy was possible only in a small terri-
Democracy Lowell 33
tory, 28 and this is doubtless true of a democracy
strictly defined, for in such all the citizens decide
directly upon every question of public concern in a
general assembly. An example still survives in the
tiny Swiss canton of Appenzell. But this immediate
intervention of the people in their own affairs is not
of the essence of democracy; it is not necessary, nor
indeed, in most cases, practicable. Democracies to
which Mr. Lincoln's definition would fairly enough
apply have existed, and now exist, in which, though
the supreme authority reside in the people, yet they
can act only indirectly on the national policy. This
generation has seen a democracy with an imperial
figurehead, 28 * and in all that have ever existed the
body politic has never embraced all the inhabitants
included within its territory, the right to share in
the direction of affairs has been confined to citizens,
and citizenship has been further restricted by various
limitations, sometimes of property, sometimes of
nativity, and always of age and sex.
The framers of the American Constitution were
far from wishing or intending to found a democracy
in the strict sense of the word, 29 though, as was inev-
itable, every expansion of the scheme of government
they elaborated has been in a democratical direction.
But this has been generally the slow result of growth,
and not the sudden innovation of theory ; in fact, they
had a profound disbelief in theory, and knew better
than to commit the folly of breaking with the part.
They were not seduced by the French fallacy that a
new system of government could be ordered like a
34 Democracy Today
new suit of clothes. 30 They would as soon have thought
of ordering 1 a new suit of flesh and skin. It is only
on the roaring loom of time that the stuff is woven
for such a vesture of their thought and experience
as they were meditating. They recognized fully the
value of tradition and habit as the great allies of
permanence and stability. They all had that distaste
for innovation which belonged to their race, and many
of them a distrust of human nature derived from
their creed. The day of sentiment was over, and
no dithyrambic affirmations or fine-drawn analyses of
the Rights of Man would serve their present turn.
This was a practical question, and they addressed
themselves to it as men of knowledge and judgment
should. Their problem was how to adapt English
principles and precedents to the new conditions of
American life, and they solved it with singular discre-
tion. They put as many obstacles as they could con-
trive, not in the way of the people 's will, but of their
whim. With few exceptions they probably admitted
the logic of the then accepted syllogism, democracy,
anarchy, despotism. 31 But this formula was framed
upon the experience of small cities shut up to stew
within their narrow walls where tke number of citi-
zens made but an inconsiderable fraction of the inhab-
itants, where every passion was reverberated from
house to house and from man to man with gathering
rumor till every impulse became gregarious and there-
fore inconsiderate, and every popular assembly
needed but an infusion of eloquent sophistry to turn
it into a mob, all the more dangerous because sancti-
fied with the formality of law.
Democracy Lowell 35
Fortunately their case was wholly different. They
were to legislate for a widely scattered population and
for States already practiced in the discipline of a par-
tial independence. They had an unequaled oppor-
tunity and enormous advantages. The material they
had to work upon was already democratical by
instinct and habitude. It was tempered to their
hands by more than a century's schooling in self-
government. They had but to give permanent and
conservative form to a ductile mass. 32 In giving
impulse and direction to their new institutions, espe-
cially in supplying them with checks and balances,
they had a great help and safeguard in their federal
organization. The different, sometimes conflicting,
interests and social systems of the several States made
existence as a Union and coalescence into a nation con-
ditional on a constant practice of moderation and
compromise. The very elements of disintegration
were the best guides in political training. Their chil-
dren learned the lesson of compromise only too well,
and it was the application of it to a question of
fundamental morals that cost us our civil war. 33 We
learned once for all that compromise makes a good
umbrella but a poor roof; that it is a temporary''
expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to
be unwise in statesmanship.
Has not the trial of democracy in America proved,
on the whole, successful? If it had not, would the
Old World be vexed with any fears of its proving con-
tagious ? This trial would have been less severe could
it have been made with a people homogeneous in race,
36 Democracy Today
language, and traditions, whereas the United States
have been called on to absorb and assimilate enormous
masses of foreign population heterogeneous in all
these respects, and drawn mainly from that class which
might fairly say that the world was not their friend,
nor the world's law. The previous condition too
often justified the traditional Irishman, who, landing
in New York and asked what his politics were,
inquired if there was a Government there, and on
being told that there was, retorted, "Thin I'm, agin
it!" We have taken from Europe the poorest, the
most ignorant, the most turbulent of her people, and
have made them over into good citizens, who have
added to our wealth, and who are ready to die in
defence of a country and of institutions which they
know to be worth dying for. The exceptions have
been (and they are lamentable exceptions) where
these hordes of ignorance and poverty have coagulated
in great cities. But the social system is yet to seek
which has not to look the same terrible wolf in the
eyes. On the other hand, at this very moment Irish
peasants are buying up the worn-out farms of Massa-
chusetts, and making them productive again by the
same virtues of industry and thrift that once made
them profitable to the English ancestors of the men
who are deserting them. To have achieved even these
prosaic results (if you choose to call them so), and
that out of materials the most discordant, I might
say the most recalcitrant, argues a certain beneficent
virtue in the system that could do it, and is not to
be accounted for by mere luck. Carlyle said scorn-
Democracy Lowell 37
fully that America meant only roast turkey every day
for everybody. 34 He forgot that States, as Bacon 35
said of wars, go on their bellies. As for the security
of property, it" should be tolerably well secured in a
country where every other man hopes to be rich, even
though the only property qualification be the owner-
ship of two hands that add to the general wealth.
Is it not the best security for anything to interest the
largest possible number of persons in its preservation
and the smallest in its division? In point of fact,
far-seeing 36 men count the increasing power of wealth
and its combinations as one of the chief dangers with
which the institutions of the United States are threat-
ened in the not distant future. The right of individ-
ual property is no doubt the very corner-stone of
civilization as hitherto understood, but I am a little
impatient of being told that property is entitled to
exceptional consideration because it bears all the bur-
dens of the State. It bears those, indeed, which can
most easily be borne, but poverty pays with its person
the chief expenses of war, pestilence, and famine.
Wealth should not forget this, for poverty is begin-
ning to think of it now and then. Let me not be
misunderstood. 1 see as clearly as any man possibly
ctri, and rate as highly, the value of wealth, and of
hereditary wealth, as the security of refinement, the
feeder of all those arts that ennoble and beautify life,
and as making a country worth living in. Many an
ancestral hall here in England has been a nursery of
that culture which has been of example and benefit
to all. Old gold has a civilizing virtue which new
gold must grow old to be capable of secreting.
38 Democracy Today
I should not think of coming before you to defend
or to criticize any form of government. All have
their virtues, all their defects, and all have illustrated
one period or another in the history of the race, with
signal services to humanity and culture. There is not
one that could stand a cynical cross-examination by
an experienced criminal lawyer, except that of a per-
fectly wise and perfectly good despot, such as the
world has never seen, except in that white-haired king
of Browning's, who
Lived long ago
In the morning of the world,
When Earth was nearer Heaven than now. 3T
The English race, if they did not invent government
by discussion, have at least carried it nearest to per-
fection in practice. It seems a very safe and reason-
able contrivance for occupying the attention of the
country, and is certainly a better way of settling
questions than by push of pike. Yet, if one should
ask it why it should not rather be called government
by gabble, it would have to fumble in its pocket
a good while before it found the change for a con-
vincing reply. As matters stand, too, it is beginning
to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit
at "Westminster and Washington or in the editors'
rooms of the leading journals, so thoroughly is every-
thing debated before the authorized and responsible
debaters get on their legs. And what shall we say of
government by a majority of voices? To a person
who in the last century would have called himself an
Impartial Observer, a numerical preponderance seems,
Democracy Lowell 39
on the whole, as clumsy a way of arriving at truth as
could well be devised, 38 but experience has apparently
shown it to be a convenient arrangement for deter-
mining what may be expedient or advisable or prac-
ticable at any given moment. Truth, after all, wears
a different face to everybody, and it would be too
tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to
lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, per-
haps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees
his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not
only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far
better looking than he had imagined.
The arguments against universal suffrage are
equally unanswerable. "What," we exclaim, ''shall
Tom, Dick, and Harry have as much weight in the
scale as I ? " Of course, nothing could be more absurd.
And yet universal suffrage has not been the instru-
ment of greater unwisdom than contrivances of a
more select description. Assemblies could be men-
tioned composed entirely of Masters of Arts and Doc-
tors in Divinity which have sometimes shown traces
of human passion or prejudice in their votes. Have
the Serene Highnesses and Enlightened Classes car-
ried on the business of Mankind so well, then, that
there is no use in trying a less costly method? The
democratic theory is that those Constitutions are likely
to prove steadiest which have the broadest base, that
the right to vote makes a safety-valve of every voter,
and that the best way of teaching a man how to vote
is to give him the chance of practice. For the ques-
tion is no longer the academic one, " Is it wise to give
40 Democracy Today
every man the ballot?" but rather the practical one,
"Is it prudent to deprive whole classes of it any
longer ? " It may be conjectured that it is cheaper in
the long run to lift men up than to hold them down,
and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous
to society than a sense of wrong in their heads. At
any rate this is the dilemma to which the drift of
opinion has been for some time sweeping us, and in
politics a dilemma is a more unmanageable thing to
hold by the horns than a wolf by the ears. It is said
that the right of suffrage is not valued when it is
indiscriminately bestowed, and there may be some
truth in this, for I have observed that what men prize
most is a privilege, even if it be that of ,->hief mourner
at a funeral. But is there not danger that it will be
valued at more than its worth if denied, and that
some illegitimate way will be sought to make up for
the want of it? Men who have a voice in public
affairs are at once affiliated with one or other of the
great parties between which society is divided, merge
their individual hopes and opinions in its safer,
because more generalized, hopes and opinions, are dis-
ciplined by its tactics, and acquire, to a certain
degree, the orderly qualities of an army. They no
longer belong to a class, but to a body corporate. Of
one thing, at least, we may be certain, that, under
whatever method of helping things to go wrong man's
wit can contrive, those who have the divine right to
govern will be found to govern, in the end, and that
the highest privilege to which the majority of man-
kind can aspire is that of being governed by those
Democracy Lowell 41
wiser than they. Universal suffrage has in the United
States sometimes been made the instrument of incon-
siderate changes, under the notion of reform, and
this from a misconception of the true meaning of
popular government. One of these has been the sub-
stitution in many of the states of popular election for
official selection in the choice of judges. The same
system applied to military officers was the source of
much evil during our civil war, and, I believe, had
to be abandoned. 39 But it has been also true that on
all great questions of national policy a reserve of
prudence and discretion has been brought out at the
critical moment to turn the scale in favor of a wiser
decision. An appeal to the reason of the people has
never been known to fail in the long run. It is,
perhaps, true that, by effacing the principle of passive
obedience, democracy, ill understood, has slackened
the spring of that ductility to discipline which is
essential to "the unity and married calm of States."
But I feel assured that experience and necessity will
cure this evil, as they have shown their power to cure
others. And under what frame of policy have evils
ever been remedied till they became intolerable, and
shook men out of their indolent indifference through
their fears?
We are told that the inevitable result of democracy
is to sap the foundations of personal independence, to
weaken the principle of authority, to lessen the
respect due to eminence, whether in station, virtue,
or genius. If these things were so, society could not
hold together. Perhaps the best forcing-house of robust
42 Democracy Today
individuality would be where public opinion is inclined
to be most overbearing, as he must be of heroic
temper who should walk along Piccadilly 40 at the
height of the season in a soft hat. As for authority,
it is one of the symptoms of the time that the religious
reverence for it is declining everywhere, but this is
due partly to the fact that statecraft is no longer
looked upon as a mystery, but as a business, and
partly to the decay of superstition, by which I mean
the habit of respecting what we are told to respect
rather than what is respectable in itself. There is
more rough and tumble in the American democracy
than is altogether agreeable to people of sensitive
nerves and refined habits, and the people take their
political duties lightly and laughingly, as is, perhaps,
neither unnatural nor unbecoming in a young giant.
Democracies can no more jump away from their own
shadows than the rest of us can. They no doubt
sometimes make mistakes and pay honor to men who
do not deserve it. But they do this because they
believe them worthy of it, and though it be true that
the idol is the measure of the worshipper, yet the
worship has in it the germ of a nobler religion. But
is it democracies alone that fall into these errors?
I, who have seen it proposed to erect a statue to
Hudson, 41 the railway king, and have heard Louis
Napoleon 42 hailed as the savior of society by men who
certainly had no democratic associations or leanings,
am not ready to think so. But democracies have like-
wise their finer instincts. I have also seen the wisest
statesman and most pregnant speaker of our genera
Democracy Lowell 43
tion, a man of humble birth and ungainly manners,
of little culture beyond what his own genius supplied,
become more absolute in power than any monarch of
modern times through the reverence of his country-
men for his honesty, his wisdom, his sincerity, his
faith in God and man, and the nobly humane sim-
plicity of his character. And I remember another
whom popular respect enveloped as with a halo, the
least vulgar of men, the most austerely genial, and
the most independent of opinion. Wherever he went
he never met a stranger, but everywhere neighbors
and friends proud of him as their ornament and
decoration. Institutions which could bear and breed
such men as Lincoln and Emerson had surely some
energy for good. No, amid all the fruitless turmoil
and miscarriage of the world, if there be one thing
steadfast and of favorable omen, one thing to make
optimism distrust its own obscure distrust, it is the
rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and
more beautiful than themselves. The touchstone of
political and social institutions is their ability to
supply them with worthy objects of this sentiment,
which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress.
There would seem to be no readier way of feeding it
with the elements of growth and vigor than such an
organization of society as will enable men to respect
themselves, and so to justify them in respecting
others.
Such a result is quite possible under other condi-
tions than those of an avowedly democratical Consti-
tution. For I take it that the real essence of democ-
44 Democracy Today
racy was fairly enough defined by the First Napoleon
when he said that the French Revolution meant "la
carriere ouverte aux talents" a clear pathway for
merit of whatever kind. 43 I should be inclined to
paraphrase this by calling democracy that form of
society, no matter what its political classification, in
which every man had a chance and knew that he had
it. If a man can climb, and feels himself encouraged to
climb, from a coalpit to the highest position for which
he is fitted, he can well afford to be indifferent what
name is given to the government under which he lives.
The Bailli of Mirabeau, uncle of the more famous
tribune of that name, wrote in 1771 : ' ' The English
are, in my opinion, a hundred times more agitated
and more unfortunate than the very Algerines them-
selves, because they do not know and will not know
till the destruction of their overswollen power, which
I believe very near, whether they are monarchy, aris-
tocracy, or democracy, and wish to play the part of
all three." England has not been obliging enough
to fulfill the Bailli 's prophecy, and perhaps it was this
very carelessness about the name, and concern about
the substance of popular government, this skill in
getting the best out of things as they are, in utilizing
all the motives which influence men, and in giving
one direction to many impulses, that has been a prin-
cipal factor of her greatness and power. Perhaps it
is fortunate to have an unwritten constitution, 44 for
men are prone to be tinkering the work of their own
hands, whereas they are more willing to let time and
circumstance mend or modify what time and circum-
Democracy Lowell 45
stances have made. All free governments, whatever
their name, are in reality governments by public
opinion, and it is on the quality of this public opin-
ion that their prosperity depends. It is, therefore,
their first duty to purify the element from which
they draw the breath of life. With the growth of
democracy grows also the fear, if not the danger,
that this atmosphere may be corrupted with poison-
ous exhalations from lower and more malarious levels,
and the question of sanitation becomes more instant
and pressing. Democracy in its best sense is merely
the letting in of light and air. Lord Sherbrooke, 45 with
his usual epigrammatic terseness, bids you educate
your future rulers. But would this alone be a suffi-
cient safeguard? To educate the intelligence is to
enlarge the horizon of its desires and wants. And
it is well that this should be so. But the enterprise
must go deeper and prepare the way for satisfying
those desires and wants in so far as they are legiti-
mate. What is really ominous of danger to the exist-
ing order of things is not democracy (which, properly
understood, is a conservative force), but the Socialism,
which may find a fulcrum in it. If we cannot equalize
conditions and fortunes 46 any more than we can
equalize the brains of men and a very sagacious per-
son has said that "where two men ride of a horse
one must ride behind" we can yet, perhaps, do
something to correct those methods and influences
that lead to enormous inequalities, and to prevent their
growing more enormous. It is all very well to pooh-
pooh Mr. George 47 and to prove him mistaken in his
46 Democracy Today
political economy. I do not believe that land should
be divided because the quantity of it is limited by
nature. Of what may this not be said? A fortiori,
we might on the same principle insist on a division
of human wit, for I have observed that the quantity
of this has been even more inconveniently limited.
Mr. George himself has an inequitably large share of
it. But he is right in his impelling motive; right,
also, I am convinced, in insisting that humanity makes
a part, by far the most important part, of political
economy ; and in thinking man to be of more concern
and more convincing than the longest columns of
figures in the world. For unless you: include human
nature in your addition, your total is sure to be wrong
and your deductions from it fallacious. Communism
means barbarism, but Socialism means, or wishes
to mean, cooperation and community of interests,
sympathy, the giving to the hands not so large
a share as to the brains, but a larger share than
hitherto in the wealth they must combine to produce
means, in short, the practical application of Chris-
tianity to life, and has in it the secret of an orderly
and benign reconstruction. State Socialism would
cut off the very roots in personal character self-help,
forethought, and frugality which nourish and sus-
tain the trunk and branches of every vigorous Com-
monwealth.
I do not believe in violent changes, nor do I expect
them. Things in possession have a very firm grip. 48
One of the strongest cements of society is the convic-
tion of mankind that the state of things into which
Democracy Lowell 47
they are born is a part of the order of the universe,
as natural, let us say, as that the sun should go round
the earth. It is a conviction that they will not sur-
render except on compulsion, and a wise society
should look to it that this compulsion be not put upon
them. For the individual man there is no radical
cure, outside of human nature itself, for the evils
to which human nature is heir. The rule will always
hold good that you must
Be your own palace or the world's your gaol.
But for artificial evils, for evils that spring from
want of thought, thought must find a remedy some-
where. There has been no period of time in which
wealth has been more sensible of its duties than now.
It builds hospitals, it establishes missions among the
poor, it endows schools. It is one of the advantages
of accumulated wealth, and of the leisure it renders
possible, that people have time to think of the wants
and sorrows of their fellows. But all these remedies
are partial and palliative merely. It is as if we should
apply plasters to a single pustule of the smallpox
with a view of driving out the disease. The true way
is to discover and to extirpate the germs. As society
is now constituted these are in the air it breathes,
in the water it drinks, in things that seem, and which
it has always believed, to be the most innocent and
healthful. The evil elements it neglects corrupt these
in their springs and pollute them in their courses.
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that
the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never'
48 Democracy Today
come. The world has outlived much, and will outlive
a great deal more, and men have contrived to be
happy in it. It has shown the strength of its con-
stitution in nothing more than in surviving the quack
medicines it has tried. In the scales of the destinies
brawn will never weigh so much as brain. Our heal-
ing is not in the storm or in the whirlwind, it is not
in monarchies, or aristocracies, or democracies, but
will be revealed by the still small voice that speaks
to the conscience and the heart, prompting us to a
wider and wiser humanity.
THE MESSAGE OF WASHINGTON
GROVER CLEVELAND
[DELIVERED AT CHICAGO, FEBRUARY 22, 1907]
In furtherance of the high endeavor of your organ-
ization, it would have been impossible to select for
observance any other civic holiday having as broad
and fitting a significance as this. It memorizes the
birth of one whose glorious deeds are transcendently
above all others recorded in our national annals ; and,
in memorizing the birth of Washington, it commem-
orates the incarnation of all the virtues and all the
ideals that made our nationality possible, and gave
it promise of growth and strength. It is a holiday
that belongs exclusively to the American people. All
that Washington did was bound up in our national
life, and became interwoven with the warp of our
national destiny. The battles he fought were fought
for American liberty, and the victories he won gave
us national independence. His example of unselfish
consecration, 1 and lofty patriotism made manifest, as
in an open book, that those virtues were conditions
not more vital to our nation's beginning than to its
development and durability. His faith in God, and
the fortitude of his faith, taught those for whom he
wrought that the surest strength of nations comes
from the support of God's almighty arm. His uni-
versal and unaffected sympathy with those in every
sphere of American life, his thorough knowledge of
. 49
50 Democracy Today
existing American conditions, and his wonderful fore-
sight of conditions yet to be, coupled with his power-
ful influence in the councils of those who were to
make or mar the fate of an infant nation, made him
a tremendous factor in the construction and adoption
of the constitutional chart by which the course of the
aewly launched republic could be safely sailed. And
it was he who first took the helai, and demonstrated,
for the guidance of all who might succeed him, how
and in what spirit and intent the 'responsibilities of
our chief magistracy should be discharged.
If your observance of this day were intended to
make more secure the immortal fame of Washington,
or to add to the strength and beauty of his imperish-
able monument built upon a nation's affectionate
remembrance, your purpose would be useless. Wash-
ington has no need of you. But in every moment,
from the time he drew his sword in the cause of
American independence to this hour, living or dead,
the American people have needed him. It is not
important now, nor will it be in all the coming years,
to remind our countrymen that Washington has lived,
and that his achievements in his country's service
are above all praise. But it is important and more
important now than ever before that they should
clearly apprehend and adequately value the virtues
and ideals of which he was the embodiment, and that
they should realize how essential to our safety and
perpetuity are the 'consecration and patriotism which
he exemplified. The American people need today the
example and teachings of Washington no less than
The Message of Washington 51
those who fashioned our nation needed his labors and
guidance; and only so far as we commemorate his
birth with a sincere recognition of this need can our
commemoration be useful to the present generation.
It is, therefore, above all things, absolutely essential
to an appropriately commemorative condition of
mind that there should be no toleration of even the
shade of a thought that what Washington did and
said and wrote, in aid of the young American republic
have become in the least outworn, or that in these
later days of material advance and development they
may be merely pleasantly recalled with a sort of
affectionate veneration, and with a kind of indulgent
and loftily courteous concession of the value of
Washington's example and precepts. These consti-
tute the richest of all our crown jewels; and, if we
disregard them or depreciate their value, we shall be
no better than "the base Indian who threw a pearl
away richer than all his tribe." 2
They are full of stimulation to do grand and noble
things, and full of lessons enjoining loyal adherenca
to public duty. But they teach nothing more impres-
sive and nothing more needful by way of recalling
our countrymen to a faith which has become some-
what faint and obscured than the necessity to national
beneficence and the people 's happiness of the homely,
simple, personal virtues that grow and thrive in the
hearts of men who, with high intent, illustrate the
goodness there is in human nature.
Three months before his inauguration as first
President of the republic which he had done so much
52
to create, Wasnington wrote a letter to Lafayette, 3
his warm friend and revolutionary ally, in which he
expressed his unremitting desire to establish a general
system of policy which, if pursued, would "ensure
permanent felicity to the commonwealth"; and he
added these words:
"I think I see a path as clear and as direct as a
ray of light, which leads to the attainment of that
object. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry, and
frugality is necessary to make us a great and happy
people. Happily, the present posture of affairs, and
the prevailing disposition of my countrymen promise
to cooperate in establishing those four great and
essential pillars of public felicity. ' '
It is impossible for us to be in accord with the
spirit which should pervade this occasion if we fail
to realize the momentous import of this declaration,
and if we doubt its conclusiveness or its application
to any stage of our national life, we are not in sym-
pathy with a proper and improving observance of the
birthday of George Washington.
Such considerations as these suggest the thought
that this is a time for honest self-examination. The
question presses upon us with a demand for reply that
will not be denied :
Who among us all, if our hearts are purged of
misleading impulses and our minds freed from per-
verting pride, can be sure that today the posture of
affairs and the prevailing disposition of our country-
men cooperate in the establishment and promotion
of harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality?
The Message of Washington 53
When Washington wrote that nothing but these
was necessary to make us a great and happy people,
he had in mind the harmony of American brotherhood
and unenvious good will, the honesty that insures
against the betrayal of public trust and hates devious
ways and conscienceless practices, the industry that
recognizes in faithful work and intelligent endeavor
abundant promise of well-earned competence and
provident accumulation, and the frugality which out-
laws waste and extravagant display as plunderers of
thrift and promoters of covetous discontent.
The self-examination invited by this day's com-
memoration will be incomplete and superficial if we
are not thereby forced to the confession that there
are signs of the times which indicate a weakness and
relaxation of our hold upon these saving virtues.
When thus forewarned, it is the height of recreancy
for us obstinately to close our eyes to the needs of the
situation, and refuse admission to the thought that
evil can overtake us. If we are to deserve security,
and make good our claim to sensible, patriotic Amer-
icanism, we will carefully and dutifully take our
bearings, and discover, if we can, how far wind and
tide have carried us away from safe waters.
If we find that the wickedness of destructive agita-
tors and the selfish depravity of demagogues have
stirred up discontent and strife where there should
be peace and harmony, and have arrayed against each
other interests which should dwell together in hearty
cooperation; if we find that the old standards of
sturdy, uncompromising American honesty have
54 Democracy Today
become so corroded and weakened by a sordid atmos-
phere that our people are hardly startled by crime
in high places and shameful betrayals of trust every-
where ; if we find a sadly prevalent disposition among
us to turn from the highway of honorable industry
into shorter crossroads leading to irresponsible and
worthless ease; if we find that widespread wasteful-
ness and extravagance have discredited the wholesome
frugality which was once the pride of Americanism
we should recall Washington's admonition that har-
mony, industry, and frugality are "essential pillars
of public felicity, ' ' and forthwith endeavor to change
our course.
To neglect this is not only to neglect the admonition
of Washington, but to miss or neglect the conditions
which our self-examination has made plain to us.
These conditions demand something more from us
than warmth and zest in the tribute we pay to Wash-
ington, and something more even than acceptance of
his teachings, however reverent our acceptance
may be.
The sooner we reach a state of mind which keeps
constantly before us, as a living, active, impelling
force, the truth that our people, good or bad, harmon-
ious or with daggers drawn, honest or unscrupulous,
industrious or idle, constitute the source of our
nation's temperament and health, and that the traits
and faults of our people must necessarily give quality
and color to our national behavior, the sooner we shall
appreciate the importance of protecting this source
from unwholesome contamination. And the sooner
The Message of Washington 55
all of us honestly acknowledge this to be an individual
duty that cannot be shifted or evaded, and the more
thoroughly we purge ourselves from influences that
hinder its conscientious performance, the sooner will
our country be regenerated and made secure by the
saving power of good citizenship.
It is our habit to affiliate with political parties.
Happily, the strength and solidity of our institutions
can safely withstand the utmost freedom and activity
of political discussion so far as it involves the adop-
tion of governmental policies or the enforcement of
good administration. But they cannot withstand the
frenzy of hate which seeks, under the guise of political
earnestness, to blot out American brotherhood, and
cunningly to persuade our people that a crusade of
envy and malice is no more than a zealous insistence
upon their manhood rights.
Political parties are exceedingly human; and they
more easily fall before temptation than individuals,
by so much as partisan success is the law of their
life, and because their responsibility is impersonal.
It is easily recalled that political organizations have
been quite willing to utilize gusts of popular prejudice
and resentment; and I believe they have been known,
as a matter of shrewd management, to encourage
voters to hope for some measure of relief from
economic abuses, and yet to "stand pat" on the day
appointed for realization.
We have fallen upon a time when it behooves every
thoughtful citizen, whose political beliefs are based
on reason and who cares enough for his manliness
56 Democracy Today
and duty to save them from barter, to realize that the
organization of the party of his choice needs watch-
ing, and that at times it is not amiss critically to
observe its direction and tendency. This certainly
ought to result in our country 's gain ; and it is only
partisan impudence that condemns a member of a
political party who, on proper occasion, submits its
conduct and the loyalty to principle of its leaders
to a Court of Review, over which his conscience, his
reason and his political understanding preside.
I protest that I have not spoken in a spirit of
pessimism. I have and enjoy my full share of the
pride and exultation which our country's material
advancement so fully justifies. Its limitless resources,
its astonishing growth, its unapproachable industrial
development, and its irrepressible inventive genius
have made it the wonder of the centuries. Neverthe-
less, these things do not complete the story of a people
truly great. Our country is infinitely more than a
domain affording to those who dwell upon it immense
material advantages and opportunities. In such a
country we live. But I love to think of a glorious
nation built upon the will of free men, set apart for
the propagation and cultivation of humanity's best
ideal of a free government, and made ready for the
growth and fruitage of the highest aspirations of
patriotism. This is the country that lives in us. I
indulge in no mere figure of speech when I say that
our nation, the immortal spirit of our domain, lives
in us in our hearts and minds and consciences.
There it must find its nutriment or die. This thought
The Message of Washington 57
more than any other presents to our minds the
impressiveness and responsibility of American citizen-
ship. The land we live in seems to be strong and
active. But how fares the land that lives in us ? Are
we sure that we are doing all we ought to keep it in
vigor and health ? Are we keeping its roots well sur-
rounded by the fertile soil of loving allegiance, and
are we furnishing them the invigorating moisture of
unselfish fidelity? Are we as diligent as we ought
to be to protect this precious growth against the
poison that must arise from the decay of harmony
and honesty and industry and frugality; and are we
sufficiently watchful against the deadly, burrowing
pests of consuming greed and cankerous cupidity?
Our answers to these questions make up the account
of our stewardship as keepers of a sacred trust.
The land we live in is safe as long as we are duti-
fully careful of the land that lives in us. But good
intentions and fine sentiments will not meet the
emergency. If we would bestow upon the land that
lives in us the care it needs, it is indispensable that
we should recognize the weakness of our human
nature, and our susceptibility to temptations and
influences that interfere with a full conception of our
obligations; and thereupon we should see to it that
cupidity and selfishness do not blind our consciences
or dull our efforts.
From different points of view I have invited you
to consider with me what obligations and responsibil-
ities rest upon those who in this country of ours are
entitled to be called good citizens. The things I
58 Democracy Today
pointed out may be trite. I know I have spoken in
the way of exhortation rather than with an attempt
to say something new and striking. Perhaps you
have suspected, what I am quite willing to confess,
that, behind all that I have said, there is in my mind
a sober conviction that we all can and ought to do
more for the country that lives in us than it has been
our habit to do; and that no better means to this
end are at hand than a revival of pure patriotic affec-
tion for our country for its own sake, and the accep-
tance, as permanent occupants in our hearts and
minds, of the virtues which Washington regarded as
all that was necessary to make us a great and happy
people, and which he declared to be "the great and
essential pillars of public felicity" harmony, hon-
esty, industry, and frugality.
OUE RESPONSIBILITIES AS A NATION
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
[INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON,
MARCH 4, 1905]
JNO people on earth have more cause to be thankful
than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of
boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude
to the Giver of Good, who has blessed us with the
conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large
a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as
a people it has been granted to lay the foundations
of our national life in a new continent. We are the
heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of
the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the
dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not
been obliged to fight for our existence against any
alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor
and effort without which the manlier and hardier
virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would
be our own fault if we failed ; and the success which
we have had in the past, the success which we confi-
dently believe the future will bring, should cause in
us no feeling of Tainglory, but rather a deep and
abiding realization of all which life has offered us;
a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is
ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a
free government a mighty people can thrive best,
59
60 . Democracy Today
alike as regards the things of the body and the things
of the soul.
Much has been given to us, and much will right-
fully be expected from us. We have duties to others
and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither.
We have become a great nation, forced by the fact
of its greatness into relations with the other nations
of the earth ; and we must behave as beseems a people
with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations,
large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial
and sincere friendship. We must show not only in
our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly,
desirous of securing their good will by acting toward
them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of
all their rights. But justice and generosity in a
nation, as in an individual, count most when shown
not by x .he weak but by the strong. While ever careful
to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less
insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish
peace ; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of
righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right
and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that
acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to
fear us, and 1 no strong power should ever be able to
single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.
Our relations with the other Powers of the world
are import-ant ; but still more important are our rela-
tions among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in
population, and in power as this nation has seen
during the century and a quarter of its national life
Our Responsibilities as a Nation 61
is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the
problems which are ever before every nation that
rises to greatness. Power invariably means both
responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced cer-
tain perils which we have outgrown. We now face
other perils, the very existence of which it was impos-
sible that they should foresee. Modern life is both
complex and intense, and the tremendous changes
wrought by the extraordinary industrial development
of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our
social and political being. Never before have men
tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that
of administering the affairs of a continent under the
form of a democratic republic. The conditions which
have told for our marvelous material well-being, which
have developed to a very high degree our energy,
self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also
brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the
accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers.
Upon the success of our experiment much depends;
not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards
the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free
self-government throughout the world will rock to its
foundations ; and therefore our responsibility is heavy,
to ourselves, to the world as it is today, and to the
generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why
we should fear the future but there is every reason
why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from
ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor
fearing to approach these problems with the unbend-
ing, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
62 Democracy Today
Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though
the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before
our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic,
the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken
and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well
done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that
self-government is difficult. We know that no people
needs such high traits of character as that people
which seeks to govern its affairs aright through
the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose
it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false
to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They
did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we
now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence
that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted
and enlarged to our children and our children's
children. To do so we must show, not merely in great
crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities
of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood and
endurance, and above all the power of devotion tD a
lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded
this Republic in the days of Washington, which made
great the men who preserved this Republic in the days
of Abraham Lincoln.
THE MEANING OF THE DECLARATION OP
INDEPENDENCE
WOODROW WILSON
[DELIVERED AT INDEPENDENCE HALL, JULY 4, 1914]
We are assembled to celebrate the one hundred and
thirty-eighth anniversary of the birth of the United
States. I suppose that we can more vividly realize the
circumstances of that birth standing on this historic
spot than it would be possible to realize them any-
where else. The Declaration of Independence was
written in Philadelphia; it was adopted in this
historic building by which we stand. I have just
had the privilege of sitting in the chair of the great
man who presided over the deliberations of those who
gave the declaration to the world. 1 My hand rests at
this moment upon the table upon which the declara-
tion was signed. We can feel that we are almost in
the visible and tangible presence of a great historic
transaction.
Have you ever read the Declaration of Independ-
ence or attended with close comprehension to the real
character of it when you have heard it read ? If you
have, you will know that it is not a Fourth of July
oration. The Declaration of Independence was a
document preliminary to war. It was a vital piece of
practical business, not a piece of rhetoric ; and if you
will pass beyond those preliminary passages which
we are accustomed to quote about the rights of men
63
64 Democracy Today
and read into the heart of the document you will see
that it is very express and detailed, that it consists
of a series of definite specifications concerning actual
public business of the day. Not the business of our
day, for the matter with which it deals is past, but
the business of that first revolution by which the
Nation was set up, the business of 1776. Its general
statements, its general declarations can not mean any-
thing to us unless we append to it a similar specific
body of particulars as to what we consider the essen-
tial business of our own day.
Liberty does not consist, my fellow citizens, in mere
general declarations of the rights of man. It consists
in the translation of those declarations into definite
action. Therefore, standing here where the declara-
tion was adopted, reading its businesslike sentences,
we ought to ask ourselves what there is in it for us.
There is nothing in it for us unless we can translate
it into the terms of our own conditions and of our
own lives. We must reduce it to what the lawyers
call a bill of particulars. It contains a bill of partic-
ulars, but the bill of particulars of 1776. If we would
keep it alive, we must fill it with a bill of particulars
of the year 1914.
The task to which we have constantly to readdress
ourselves is the task of proving that we are worthy
of the men who drew this great declaration 2 and know '
what they would have done in our circumstances.
Patriotism consists in some very practical things
practical in that they belong to the life of every day,
that they wear no extraordinary distinction about
them, that they are connected with commonplace duty.
Meaning of the Declaration of Independence 65
The way to be patriotic in America is not only to love
America but to love the duty that lies nearest to our
hand and know that in performing it we are serving
our country. There are some gentlemen in Washing-
ton, for example, at this very moment who are show-
ing themselves very patriotic in a way which does
not attract wide attention but seems to belong to
mere everyday obligations. The Members of the
House and Senate who stay in hot Washington to
maintain a quorum of the Houses and transact the
all-important business of the Nation are doing an act
of patriotism. I honor them for it, and I am glad to
stay there and stick by them until the work is done.
It is patriotic, also, to learn what the facts of our
national life are and to face them with candor. I
have heard a great many facts stated about the present
business condition 3 of this country, for example a
great many allegations of fact, at any rate, but the
allegations do not tally with one another. And yet 1
know that truth always matches with truth ; and when
I find some insisting that everything is going wrong
and others insisting that everything is going right,
and when I know from a wide observation of the gen-
eral circumstances of the country taken as a whole
that things are going extremely well, I wonder what
those who are crying out that things are wrong are
trying to do. Are they trying to serve the country, or
are they trying to serve something smaller than the
country ? Are they trying to put hope into the hearts
of the men who work and toil every day, or are they
trying to plant discouragement and despair in those
66 Democracy Today
hearts? And why do they cry that everything is
wrong and yet do nothing to set it right? If they
love America and anything is wrong amongst us, it is
their business to put their hand with ours to the task
of setting it right. When the facts are known and
acknowledged, the duty of all patriotic men is to
accept them in candor and to address themselves hope-
fully and confidently to the common counsel which is
necessary to act upon them wisely and in universal
concert.
I have had some experiences in the last fourteen
months which have not been entirely reassuring. It
was universally admitted, for example, my fellow citi-
zens, that the banking system of this country needed
reorganization. We set the best minds that we could
find to the task of discovering the best method of reor-
ganization. 4 But we met with hardly anything but
criticism from the bankers of the country; we met
with hardly anything but resistance from the major-
ity of those at least who spoke at all concerning the
matter. And yet so soon as that act was passed there
was a universal chorus of applause, and the very men
who had opposed the measure joined in that applause.
If it was wrong the day before it was passed, why was
it right the day after it was passed ? Where had been
the candor of criticism not only, but the concert of
counsel which makes legislative action vigorous and
safe and successful ?
It is not patriotic to concert measures against one
another; it is patriotic to concert measures for one
another.
Meaning of the Declaration of Independence 67
In one sense the Declaration of Independence has
lost its significance. It has lost its significance as
a declaration of national independence. Nobody
outside of America believed when it was uttered that
we could make good our independence; now no-
body anywhere would dare to doubt that we are
independent and can maintain our independence. As
a declaration of independence, therefore, it is a mere
historic document. Our independence is a fact so
stupendous that it can be measured only by the size
and energy and variety and wealth and power of
one of the greatest nations in the world. But it is
one thing to be independent and it is another thing
to know what to do with your independence. It is
one thing to come to your majority and another thing
to know what you are going to do with your life and
your energies ; and one of the most serious questions
for sober-minded men to address themselves to in the
United States is this : What are we going to do with
the influence and power of this great Nation? Are
we going to play the old role of using that power for
our aggrandizement and material benefit only ? You
know what that may mean. It may upon occasion
mean that we shall use it to make the people of other
nations suffer in the way in which we said it was intol-
erable to suffer when we uttered our Declaration of
Independence.
The Department of State at Washington is con-
stantly called upon to back up the commercial enter-
prises and the industrial enterprises of the United
States in foreign countries, and it at one time went
68 Democracy Today
so far in that direction that all its diplomacy came
to be designated as "dollar diplomacy." It was
called upon to support every man who wanted to earn
anything anywhere if he was an American. But there
ought to be a limit to that. There is no man who is
more interested than I am in carrying the enterprise
of American business men to every quarter of the
globe. I was interested in it long before I was sus-
pected of being a politician. I have been preaching
it year after year as the great thing that lay in the
future for the United States, to show her wit and
skill and enterprise and influence in every country in
the world. But observe the limit to all that which
is laid upon us perhaps more than upon any other
nation in the world. We set this Nation up, at any
rate we professed to set it up, to vindicate the rights
of men. We did not name any differences between
one race and another. We did not set up any barriers
against any particular people. We opened our gates
to all the world and said, "Let all men who wish to
be free come to us and they will be welcome." We
said, ' ' This independence of ours is not a selfish thing
for our own exclusive private use. It is for every-
body to whom we can find the means of extending it. ' '
We can not with that .oath taken in our youth, we
can not with that great ideal set before us when we
were a young people and numbered only a scant
3,000,000, take upon ourselves, now that we are 100,-
000,000 strong, any other conception of duty than we
then entertained. If American enterprise in foreign
countries, particularly in those foreign countries which
Meaning of the Declaration of Independence 69
are not strong enough to resist us, takes the shape of
imposing upon and exploiting the mass of the people
of that country it ought to be checked and not encour-
aged. I am willing to get anything for an American
that money and enterprise can obtain except the sup-
pression of the rights of other men. I will not help
any man buy a power which he ought not to exercise
over his fellow beings. 5
You know, my fellow countrymen, what a big ques-
tion there is in Mexico. Eighty-five per cent of the
Mexican people have never been allowed to have any
genuine participation in their own Government or to
exercise any substantial rights with regard to the very
land they live upon. All the rights that men most
desire have been exercised by the other fifteen per
cent. Do you suppose that that circumstance is not
sometimes in my thought ? I know that the American
people have a heart that will beat just as strong for
those millions in Mexico as it will beat, or has beaten,
for any other millions elsewhere in the world, and
that when once they conceive what is at stake in Mex-
ico they will know what ought to be done in Mexico.
I hear a great deal said about the loss of property in
Mexico and the loss of the lives of foreigners, and I
deplore these things with all my heart. Undoubtedly,
upon the conclusion of the present disturbed condi-
tions in Mexico those who have been unjustly deprived
of their property or in any wise unjustly put upon
ought to be compensated. Men's individual rights
have no doubt been invaded, and the invasion of those
rights has been attended by many deplorable circum-
70 Democracy Today
stances which ought sometime, in the proper way, to
be accounted for. But back of it all is the struggle
of a people to come into its own, and while we look
upon the incidents in the foreground let us not forget
the great tragic reality in the background which
towers above the whole picture.
A patriotic American is a man who is not niggardly
and selfish in the things that he enjoys that make for
human liberty and the rights of man. He wants to
share them with the whole world, and he is never so
proud of the great flag under which he lives as when
it comes to mean to other people as well as to him-
self a symbol of hope and liberty. I would be ashamed
of this flag if it did anything outside America that
we would not permit it to do inside of America.
The world is becoming more complicated every day,
my fellow citizens. No man ought to be foolish enough
to think that he understands it all. And, therefore,
I am glad that there are some simple things in the
world. One of the simple things is principle. Hon-
esty is a perfectly simple thing. It is hard for me to
believe that in most circumstances when a man has a
choice of ways he does not know which is the right
way and which is the wrong way. No man who has
chosen the wrong way ought even to come into Inde-
pendence Square; it is holy ground which he ought
not to tread upon. He ought not to come where
immortal voices have uttered the great sentences of
such a document as this Declaration of Independence
upon which rests the liberty of a whole nation.
Meaning of the Declaration of Independence 71
And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to prefer
the honor of the country to its material interest.
Would you rather be deemed by all the nations of the
world incapable of keeping your treaty obligations
in order that you might have free tolls for American
ships ? 6 The treaty under which we gave up that right
may have been a mistaken treaty, but there was no
mistake about its meaning.
When I have made a promise as a man I try to keep
it, and I know of no other rule permissible to a nation.
The most distinguished nation in the world is the
nation that can and will keep its promises even to its
own hurt. And I want to say parenthetically that I
do not think anybody was hurt. I cannot be enthusi-
astic for subsidies to a monopoly, but let those who
are enthusiastic for subsidies ask themselves whether
they prefer subsidies to unsullied honor.
The most patriotic man, ladies and gentlemen, is
sometimes the man who goes in the direction that he
thinks right even when he sees half the world against
him. It is the dictate of patriotism to sacrifice yourself
if you think that that is the path of honor and of duty.
Do not blame others if they do not agree with you.
Do not die with bitterness in your heart because you
did not convince the rest of the world, but die happy
because you believe that you tried to serve your coun-
try by not .selling your soul. Those were grim days,
the days of 1776. Those gentlemen did not attach
their names to the Declaration of Independence on
this table expecting a holiday on the next day, and
that 4th of July was not itself a holiday. They at-
72 Democracy Today
tached their signatures to that significant document
knowing that if they failed it was certain that every
one of them would hang for the failure. They were
committing treason in the interest of the liberty of
3,000,000 people in America. All the rest of the world
was against them and smiled with cynical incredulity
at the audacious undertaking. Do you think that if
they could see this great Nation now they would
regret anything that they then did to draw the gaze
of a hostile world upon them? Every idea must be
started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to start
anything. Yet if it is in you, you must start it if
you have a man's blood in you and if you love the
country that you profess to be working for.
I am sometimes very much interested when I see
gentlemen supposing that popularity is the way to
success in America. The way to success in this great
country, with its fair judgments, is to show that you
are not afraid of anybody except God and His final
verdict. If I did not believe that, I would not believe
in democracy. If I did not believe that, I would not
believe that people can govern themselves. If I did not
believe that the moral judgment would be the last
judgment, the final judgment, in the minds of men as
well as the tribunal of God, I could not believe in
popular government, But I do believe these things,
and, therefore, I earnestly believe in the democracy
not only of America but of every awakened people
that wishes and intends to govern and control its own
affairs.
It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this
Meaning of the Declaration of Independence 73
that may be called the original fountain of independ-
ence and liberty in America and here drink draughts
of patriotic feeling which seem to renew the very
blood in one's veins. Down in Washington some-
times when the days are hot and the business presses
intolerably and there are so many things to do that
it does not seem possible to do anything in the way
it ought to be done, it is always possible to lift one's
thought above the task of the moment and, as it were,
to realize that great thing of which we are all parts,
the great body of American feeling and American
principle. No man could do the work that has to be
done in Washington if he allowed himself to be sepa-
rated from that body of principle. He must make
himself feel that he is a part of the people of the
United States, that he is trying to think not only for
them, but with them, and then he can not feel lonely.
He not only can not feel lonely but he can not feel
afraid of anything.
My dream is that as the years go on and the world
knows more and more of America it will also drink at
these fountains of youth and renewal ; that it also will
turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie
at the basis of all freedom ; that the world will never
fear America unless it feels that it is engaged in some
enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of
humanity; and that America will come into the full
light of the day when all shall know that she puts
human rights above all other rights and that her flag
is the flag not only of America but of humanity.
What other great people has devoted itself to this
74 Democracy Today
exalted ideal ? To what other nation in the world can
all eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the
whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting
for their rights? I do not know that there will ever
be a declaration of independence and of grievances
for mankind, but I believe that if any such document
is ever drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the
American Declaration of Independence, and that
America has lifted high the light which will shine unto
all generations and guide the feet of mankind to the
goal of justice and liberty and peace.
THE AMERICAN OF FOREIGN BIRTH
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE A GATHERING OF RECENTLY
NATURALIZED CITIZENS AT CONVENTION HALL,
PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1915]
MR. MAYOR, FELLOW CITIZENS : It warms my heart
that you should give me such a reception; but it is
not of myself that I wish to think tonight, but of
those who have just become citizens of the United
States.
This is the only country in the world which experi-
ences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other coun-
tries depend upon the multiplication of their own
native people. This country is constantly drinking
strength out of new sources by the voluntary associa-
tion with it of great bodies of strong men and forward-
looking women out of other lands. And so by the gift
of the free will of independent people it is being con-
stantly renewed from generation to generation by the
same process by which it was originally created. It
is as if humanity had determined to see to it that this
great Nation, founded for the benefit of humanity,
should not lack for the allegiance of the people of the
world.
You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the
United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegi-
ance to no one, unless it be God certainly not of alle-
giance to those who temporarily represent this great
75
76
Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance
to a great ideal, to a great body of principles, to a
great hope of the human race. You have said, ' ' We
are going to America not only to earn a living, not
only to seek the things which it was more difficult to
obtain where we were born, but to help forward the
great enterprises of the human spirit to let men
know that everywhere in the world there are men who
will cross strange oceans and go where a speech is
spoken which is alien to them if they can but satisfy
their quest for what their spirits crave ; knowing that
whatever the speech there is but one longing and utter-
ance of the human heart, and that is for liberty and
justice." And while you bring all countries with
you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other
countries behind you bringing what is best of their
spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seek-
ing to perpetuate what you intended to leave behind
in them. I certainly would not be one even to sug-
gest that a man cease to love the home of his birth
and the nation of his origin these things are very
sacred and ought not to be put out of our hearts
but it is one thing to love the place where you were
born and it is another thing to dedicate yourself to
the place to which you go. You can not dedicate
yourself to America unless you become in every
respect and with every purpose of your will thorough
Americans. You can not become thorough Americans
if you think of yourselves in groups. America does
not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself
as belonging to a particular national group in America
The American of Foreign Birth 11
has not yet become an American, and the man who
goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no-
worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.
My urgent advice to you would be, not only always
to think first of America, but always, also, to- think
first of humanity. You do not love humanity if you
seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Human-
ity can be welded together only by love, by sympathy,
by justice, not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry
for the man who seeks to make personal capital out
of the passions of his fellow-men. He has lost the
touch and ideal of America, for America was created
to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not
by the passions which separate and debase. We came
to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our
ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them
see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid
of the things that divide and to make sure of the
things that unite. It was but an historical accident
no doubt that this great country was called the
"United States"; yet I am very thankful that it has
that word "United" in its title, and the man who
seeks to divide man from man, group from group,
interest from interest in this great Union is striking
at its very heart.
It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in think-
ing of those of you who have just sworn allegiance
to this great Government, that you were drawn across
the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some
belief, by some vision of a new kind of justice, by
some expectation of a better kind of life. No doubt
78 Democracy Today
you have been disappointed in some of us. Some of
us are very disappointing. No doubt you have found
that justice in the United States goes only with a
pure heart and a right purpose as it does everywhere
else in the world. No doubt what you found here did
not seem touched for you, after all, with the complete
beauty of the ideal which you had conceived before-
hand. But remember this: If we had grown at all
poor in the ideal, you had brought some of it with you.
A man does not go out to seek the thing that is not in
him. A man does not hope for the thing that he does
not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten what
America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in
your own hearts a renewal of the belief. That is the
reason that I, for one, make you welcome. If I have
in any degree forgotten what America was intended
for, I will thank God if you will remind me. I was
born in America. You dreamed dreams of what
America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams
with you. No man that does not see visions will ever
realize any high hope or undertake any high enter-
prise. Just because you brought dreams with you,
America is more likely to realize dreams such as you
brought. You are enriching us if you came expect-
ing us to be better than we are.
See, my friends, what that means. It means that
Americans must have a consciousness different from
the consciousness of every other nation in the world.
I am not saying this with even the slightest thought of
criticism of other nations. You know how it is with
a family. A family gets centered on itself if it is not
The American of Foreign Birth 79
careful and is less interested in the neighbors than it
is in its own members. So a nation that is not con-
stantly renewed out of new sources is apt to have the
narrowness and prejudice of a family; whereas,
America must have this consciousness, that on all sides
it touches elbows and touches hearts with all the
nations of mankind. The example of America must
be a special example. The example of America must
be the example not merely of peace because it will not
fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and
elevating influence of the world and strife is not.
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.
You have come into this great Nation voluntarily
seeking something that we have to give, and all that
we have to give is this: We can not exempt you
from work. No man is exempt from work anywhere
in the world. We can not exempt you from the strife
and the heartbreaking burden of the struggle of the
day that is common to mankind everywhere ; we can
not exempt you from the loads that you must carry.
We can only make them light by the. spirit in which
they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the
spirit of liberty, it is the spirit of justice.
When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and
the committee that accompanied him to come up from
Washington to meet this great company of newly ad-
mitted citizens, I could not decline the invitation. I
ought not to be away from Washington, and yet I feel
80 Democracy Today
that it has renewed my spirit as an American to be
here. In Washington men tell you so many things
every day that are not so, and I like to come and
stand in the presence of a great body of my fellow-
citizens, whether they have been my fellow-citizens
a long time or a short time, and drink, as it were, out
of the common fountains with them and go back feel-
ing what you have so generously given me the sense
of your support and of the living vitality in your
hearts of the great ideals which have made America
the hope of the world.
AMERICA FIRST
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE DAUGHTERS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
OCTOBER 11, 1915]
Again it is my very great privilege to welcome you
to the City of Washington and to the hospitalities of
the Capital. May I admit a point of ignorance? I
was surprised to learn that this association is so young,
and that an association so young should devote itself
wholly to memory I can not believe. For to me the
duties to which you are consecrated are more than the
duties and the pride of memory.
There is a very great thrill to be had from the
memories of the American Revolution, but the Ameri-
can Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation,
and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is the
duty of bringing the things then begun to a noble
triumph of completion. For it seems to me that the
peculiarity of patriotism in America is that it is not a
mere sentiment. It is an active principle of conduct.
It is something that was born into the world, not to
please it but to regenerate it. It is something that
was born into the world to replace systems that had
preceded it and to bring men out upon a new plane
of privilege. The glory of the men whose memories
you honor and perpetuate is that they saw this vision,
and it was a vision of the future. It was a vision of
81
82 Democracy Today
great days to come when a little handful of three
million people upon the borders of a single sea should
have become a great multitude of free men and women
spreading across a great continent, dominating the
shores of two oceans, and sending West as well as
East the influences of individual freedom. These
things were consciously in their minds as they framed
the great Government which was born out of the
American Revolution; and every time we gather to
perpetuate their memories it is incumbent upon us
that we should be worthy of recalling them and that
we should endeavor by every means in our power to
emulate their example.
The American Revolution was the birth of a nation ;
it was the creation of a great free republic based upon
traditions of personal liberty which theretofore had
been confined to a single little island, but which it was
purposed should spread to all mankind. And the
singular fascination of American history is that it
has been a process of constant re-creation, of making
over again in each generation the thing which was
conceived at first. You know how peculiarly neces-
sary that has been in our case, because America has
not grown by the mere multiplication of the original
stock. It is easy to preserve tradition with continuity
of blood; it is easy in a single family to remember
the origins of the race and the purposes of its organ-
ization ; but it is not so easy when that race is con-
stantly being renewed and augmented from other
sources, from stocks that did not carry or originate
the same principles.
America First 83
So from generation to generation strangers have
had to be indoctrinated with the principles of the
American family, and the wonder and the beauty of it
all has been that the infection has been so generously
easy. For the principles of liberty are united with
the principles of hope. Every individual, as well as
every Nation, wishes to realize the best thing that is
in him, the best thing that can be conceived out of
the materials of which his spirit is constructed. It
has happened in a way that fascinates the imagination
that we have not only been augmented by additions
from outside, but that we have been greatly stimulated
by those additions. Living in the easy prosperity
of a free people, knowing that the .sun had always
been free to shine upon us and prosper our under-
takings, we did not realize how hard the task of liberty
is and how rare the privilege of liberty is; but men
were drawn out of every climate and out of every race
because of an irresistible attraction of their spirits
to the American ideal. They thought of America as
lifting, like that great statue in the harbor of New
York, a torch to light the pathway of men to the things
that they desire, and men of all sorts and conditions
struggled toward that light and came to our shores
with an eager desire to realize it, and a hunger for it
such as some of us no longer felt, for we were as if
satiated and satisfied and were indulging ourselves
after a fashion that did not belong to the ascetic de-
votion of the early devotees of those great principles.
Strangers came to remind us of what we had promised
ourselves and through ourselves had promised man-
84 Democracy Today
kind. All men came to us and said, "Where is the
bread of life with which you promised to feed us, and
have you partaken of it yourselves ? ' ' For my part, I
believe that the constant renewal of this people out of
foreign stocks has been a constant source of reminder
to this people of what the inducement was that was
offered to men who would come and be of our number.
Now we have come to a time of special stress and
test. There never was a time when we needed more
clearly to conserve the principles of our own patriot-
ism than this present time. The rest of the world
from which our polities were drawn seems for the
time in the crucible and no man can predict what will
come out of that crucible. We stand apart, unem-
broiled, conscious of our own principles, conscious of
what we hope and purpose, so far as our powers per-
mit, for the world at large, and it is necessary that
we should consolidate the American principle. Every
political action, every social action, should have for
its object in America at this time to challenge the
spirit of America ; to ask that every man and woman
who thinks first of America should rally to the stand-
ards of our life. There have been some among us
who have not thought first of America, who have
thought to use the might of America in some matter
not of America's origination. They have forgotten
that the first duty of a nation is to express its own
individual principles in the action of the family of
nations and not to seek to aid and abet any rival or
contrary ideal.
Neutrality is a negative word. It is a word that
America First 85
does not express what America ought to feel.
America has a heart and that heart throbs with
all sorts of intense sympathies, but America
has schooled its heart to love the things that
America believes in and it ought to devote itself only
to the things that America believes in; and, believ-
ing that America stands apart in its ideals, it ought
not to allow itself to be drawn, so far as its heart is
concerned, into anybody's quarrel. 1 Not because it
does not understand the quarrel, not because it does
not in its head assess the merits of the controversy,
but because America has promised the world to stand
apart and maintain certain principles of action which
are grounded in law and in justice. We are not try-
ing to keep out of trouble ; we are trying to preserve
the foundations upon which peace can be rebuilt.
Peace can be rebuilt only upon the ancient and ac-
cepted principles of international law, only upon those
things which remind nations of their duties to each
other, and, deeper than that, of their duties to man-
kind and to humanity.
America has a great cause which is not confined
to the American continent. It is the cause of human-
ity itself. I do not mean in anything that I say even,
to imply a judgment upon any nation or upon any
policy, for my object here this afternoon is not to sit
in judgment upon anybody but ourselves and to chal-
lenge you to assist all of us who are trying to make
America more than ever conscious of her own princi-
ples and her own duty. I look forward to the neces-
sity in every political agitation in the years which
86 Democracy Today
are immediately at hand of calling upon every man
to declare himself, where he stands. Is it America
first or is it not?
We ought to be very careful about some of the
impressions that we are forming just now. There is
'too general an impression, I fear, that very large
numbers of our fellow-citizens born in other lands
have not entertained with sufficient intensity and af-
fection the American ideal. But the number of such
is, I am sure, not large. Those who would seek to
represent them are very vocal, but they are not very
influential. Some of the best stuff of America has
come out of foreign lands, and some of the best stuff
in America is in the men who are naturalized citizens
of the United States. I would not be afraid upon
the test of "America first" to take a census of all the
foreign-born citizens of the United States, for I know
that the vast majority of them came here because they
believed in America ; and their belief in America has
made them better citizens than some people who were
born in America. They can say that they have bought
this privilege with a great price. They have left
their homes, they have left their kindred, they have
broken all the nearest and dearest ties of human life
in order to come to a new land, take a new rootage,
begin a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their
confidence in a new principle ; whereas, it cost us none
of these things. We were born into this privilege;
we were rocked and cradled in it ; we did nothing to
create it ; and it is, therefore, the greater duty on our
part to do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it.
America First 87
I am not deceived as to the balance of opinion among
the foreign-born citizens of the United States, but I
am in a hurry for an opportunity to have a line-up
and let the men who are thinking first of other coun-
tries stand on one side and all those that are for
America first, last, and all the time on the other side.
Now, you can do a great deal in this direction.
When I was a college officer I used to be very much
opposed to hazing; not because hazing: is not whole-
some, but because sophomores are poor judges. I
remember a very dear friend of mine, a professor of
ethics on the other side of the water, was asked if he
thought it was ever justifiable to tell a lie. He said
Yes, he thought it was sometimes justifiable to lie;
"but," he said, "it is so difficult to judge of the justi-
fication that I usually tell the truth." I think that
ought to be the motto of the sophomore. There are
freshmen who need to be hazed, but the need is to be
judged by such nice tests that a sophomore is hardly
old enough to determine them. But the world can
determine them. We are not freshmen at college,
but we are constantly hazed. I would a great deal
rather be obliged to draw pepper up my nose than to
observe the hostile glances of my neighbors. I would
a great deal rather be beaten than ostracized. I would
a great deal rather endure any sort of physical hard-
ship if I might have the affection of my fellow-men.
We constantly discipline our fellow-citizens by having
an opinion about them. That is the sort of discipline
we ought now to administer to everybody who is not
to the very core of his heart an American. Just have
88 Democracy Today
an opinion about him. and let him experience the at-
mospheric effects of that opinion ! And I know of no
body of persons comparable to a body of ladies for
creating an atmosphere of opinion ! I have myself in
part yielded to the influences of that atmosphere,
though it took me a long time to determine how I was
going to vote in New Jersey. 2
So it has seemed to me that my privilege this after-
noon was not merely a privilege of courtesy, but the
real privilege of reminding you for I am sure I am
doing nothing more of the great principles which we
stand associated to promote. I for my part rejoice
that we belong to a country in which the whole busi-
ness of government is so difficult. We do not take
orders from anybody ; it is a universal communication
of conviction, the most subtle, delicate, and difficult
of processes. There is not a single individual's opin-
ion that is not of some consequence in making up the
grand total, and to be in this great cooperative effort
is the most stimulating thing in the world. A man
standing alone may well misdoubt his own judgment.
He may mistrust his own intellectual processes; he
may even wonder if his own heart leads him right in
matters of public conduct; but if he finds his heart
part of the great throb of national life, there can be
no doubt about it. If that is his happy circumstance,
then he may know that he is part of one of the great
forces of the world.
I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to
America if I did not feel that she was something
more than a rich and powerful nation. I should not
America First 89
feel proud to be in some respects and for a little while
her spokesman if I did not believe that there was some-
thing else than physical force behind her. I believe
that the glory of America is that she is a great spirit-
ual conception and that in the spirit of her institutions
dwells not only her distinction but her power. The
one thing that the world cannot permanently resist
is the moral force of great and triumphant convictions.
THE SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENSHIP CONVEN-
TION, WILSON NORMAL SCHOOL BUILDING,
WASHINGTON, D. C., JULY 13, 1916.]
I have come here for the simple purpose of express-
ing my very deep interest in what these conferences
are intended to attain. It is not fair to the great
multitudes of hopeful men and women who press into
this country from other countries that we should leave
them without that friendly and intimate instruction
which will enable them very soon after they come to
find out what America is like at heart and what
America is intended for among the nations of the
world.
I believe that the chief school that these people must
attend after they get here is the school which all of
us attend, which is furnished by the life of the com-
munities in which we live and the nation to which we
belong. It has been a very touching thought to me
sometimes to think of the hopes which have drawn
these people to America. I have no doubt that many
a simple soul has been thrilled by that great statue
standing in the harbor of New York and seeming to
lift the light of liberty for the guidance of the feet
of men; and I can imagine that they have expected
here something ideal in the treatment that they will
receive, something ideal in the laws which they would
90
The School of Citizenship 91
have to live under, and it has caused me many a time
to turn upon myself the eye of examination to see
whether there burned in me the true light of the
American spirit which they expected to find here. It
is easy, my fellow-citizens, to communicate physical
lessons, but it is very difficult to communicate spiritual
lessons. America was intended to be a spirit among
the nations of the world, and it is the purpose of con-
ferences like this to find out the best way to introduce
the newcomers to this spirit, and by that very interest
in them to enhance and purify in ourselves the thing
that ought to make America great and not only ought
to make her great, but ought to make her exhibit a
spirit unlike any other nation in the world.
I have never been among those who felt comfortable
in boasting of the superiority of America over other
countries. The way to cure yourself of that is to
travel in other countries and find out how much of
nobility and character 'and fine enterprise there is
everywhere in the world. The most that America can
hope to do is to show, it may be, the finest example,
not the only example, of the things that ought to bene-
fit and promote the progress of the world.
So my interest in this movement is as much an in-
terest in ourselves as in those whom we are trying to
Americanize, because if we are genuine Americans
they cannot avoid the infection ; whereas, if we are not
genuine Americans, there will be nothing to infect
them with, and no amount of teaching, no amount of
exposition of the Constitution, which I find very few
persons understand, no amount of dwelling upon the
92 Democracy Today
idea of liberty and of justice will accomplish the object
we have in view, unless we ourselves illustrate the idea
of justice and of liberty. My interest in this move-
ment is, therefore, a two-fold interest. I believe it will
assist us to become self-conscious in respect of the
fundamental ideas of American life. When you ask
a man to be loyal to a government, if he comes from,
some foreign countries, his idea is that he is expected
to be loyal to a certain set of persons like a ruler or
a body set in authority over him, but that is not the
American idea. Our idea is that he is to be loyal
to certain objects in life, and that the only reason he
has a President and a Congress and a Governor and a
State Legislature and courts is that the community
shall have instrumentalities by which to promote those
objects. It is a cooperative organization expressing
itself in this Constitution, expressing itself in these
laws, intending to express itself in the exposition of
those laws by the courts; and the idea of America is
not so much that men are to be restrained and pun-
ished by the law as instructed and guided by the law.
That is the reason so many hopeful reforms come to
grief. A law cannot work until it expresses the spirit
of the community for which it is enacted, and if you
try to enact into law what expresses only the spirit
of a small coterie or of a small minority, you know,
or at any rate you ought to know, beforehand that it
is not going to work. The object of the law is that
there, written upon these pages, the citizen should
read the record of the experience of this state and
nation ; what they have concluded it is necessary for
The School of Citizenship 93
them to do because of the life they have lived and
the things that they have discovered to be elements
in that life. So that we ought to be careful to main-
tain a government at which the immigrant can look
with the closest scrutiny and to which he should be
at liberty to address this question: "You declare
this to be a land of liberty and of equality and of
justice ; have you made it so by your law? ' ' We ought
to be able in our schools, in our night schools, and in
every other method of instructing these people, to
show them that that has been our endeavor. We can-
not conceal from them long the fact that we are just as
human as any other nation, that we are just as selfish,
that there are just as many mean people amongst us as
anywhere else, that there are just as many people
here who want to take advantage of other people as
you can find in other countries, just as many cruel
people, just as many people heartless when it comes
to maintaining and promoting their own interest ; but
you can show that our object is to get these people
in harness and see to it that they do not do any
damage and are not allowed -to indulge the passions
which would bring injustice and calamity at last upon
a nation whose object is spiritual and not material.
America has built up a great body of wealth.
America has become, from the physical point of riew,
one of the most powerful nations in the world, a nation
which if it took the pains to do so, could build that
power up into one of the most formidable instruments
in the world, one of the most formidable instruments
of force, but which has no other idea than to use its
94 Democracy Today
force for ideal objects and not for self-aggrandize-
ment.
We have been disturbed recently, my fellow-citizens,
by certain symptoms which have showed themselves
in our body politic. Certain men, I have never be-
lieved a great number, born in other lands, have in
recent months thought more of those lands than they
have of the honor and interest of the government
under which they are now living. They have even
gone so far as to draw apart in spirit and in organiza-
tion from the rest of us to accomplish some special
object of their own. 1 I am not here going to utter any
criticism of these people, but I want to say this, that
such a thing as that is absolutely incompatible with
the fundamental idea of loyalty, and that loyalty is
not a self-pleasing virtue. I am not bound to be loyal
to the United States to please myself. I am bound to
be loyal to the United States because I live under its
laws and am its citizen, and whether it hurts me or
whether it benefits me, I am obliged to be loyal.
Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the
absolute principle of self-sacrifice. Loyalty means
that you ought to be ready to sacrifice every interest
that you have, and your life itself, if your country
calls upon you to do so, and that is the sort of loyalty
which ought to be inculcated into these newcomers,
that they are not to be loyal only so long as they are
pleased, but that, having once entered into this sacred
relationship, they are bound to be loyal whether they
are pleased or not; and that loyalty which is merely
self-pleasing is only self-indulgence and selfishness.
The School of Citizenship 95
No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual
manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve
somebody else than it is to serve himself.
These are the conceptions which we ought to teach
the newcomers into our midst, and we ought to realize
that the life of every one of us is part of the schooling,
and that we cannot preach loyalty unless we set the
example, that we cannot profess things with any in-
fluence upon others unless we practice them also.
This process of Americanization is going to be a pro-
cess of self-examination, a process of purification, a
process of rededication to the things which America
represents and is proud to represent. And it takes
a great deal more courage and steadfastness, my fel-
low-citizens, to represent ideal things than to repre-
sent anything else. It is easy to lose your temper,
and hard to keep it. It is easy to strike and some-
times very difficult to refrain from striking, and I
think you will agree with me that we are most justi-
fied in being proud of doing the things that are hard
to do and not the things that are easy. You do not
settle things quickly by taking what seems to be the
quickest way to settle them. You may make the com-
plication just that much the more profound and in-
extricable, and, therefore, what I believe America
should exalt above everything else is the sovereignty
of thoughtfulness and sympathy and vision as against
the grosser impulses of mankind. No nation can live
without vision, and no vision will exalt a nation except
the vision of real liberty and real justice and purity
of conduct.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE ACCEPT-
ANCE BY THE WAR DEPARTMENT OF THE GIFT TO
THE NATION OF THE LINCOLN BIRTHPLACE
FARM AT HODGENVTLLE, KENTUCKY,
SEPTEMBER 4, 1916.]
No more significant memorial could have been pre-
sented to the nation than this. It expresses so much
of what is singular and noteworthy in the history of
the country ; it suggests so many of the things that we
prize most highly in our life and in our system of
government. How eloquent this little house within
this shrine is of the vigor of democracy! There is
nowhere in the land any home so remote, so humble,
that it may not contain the power of mind and heart
and conscience to which nations yield and history sub-
mits its processes. Nature pays no tribute to aristoc-
racy, subscribes to no creed of caste, renders fealty to
no monarch or master of any name or kind. Genius
is no snob. It does not run after titles or seek by
preference the high circles of society. It affects
humble company as well as great. It pays no special
tribute to universities or learned societies or conven-
tional standards of greatness, but serenely chooses
its own comrades, its own haunts, its own cradle even,
and its own life and adventure and of training. Here
Abraham Lincoln 97
is proof of it. This little hut was the cradle of one
of the great sons of men, a man of singular, delightful,
vital genius who presently emerged upon the great
stage of the nation 's history, gaunt, shy, ungainly, but
dominant and majestic, a natural ruler of men, him-
self inevitably the central figure of the great plot. No
man can explain this, but every man can see how it
demonstrates the vigor of democracy, where every
door is open, in every hamlet and countryside, in city
^nd wilderness alike, for the ruler to emerge when he
will and claim his leadership in the free life. Such
are the authentic proofs of the validity and vitality
of democracy.
Here, no less, hides the mystery of democracy.
Who shall guess this secret of nature and providence
and a free polity? Whatever the vigor and vitality
of the stock from which he sprang, its mere vigor and
soundness do not explain where this man got his great
heart that seemed to comprehend all mankind in its
catholic and benignant sympathy, the mind that sat
enthroned behind those brooding, melancholy eyes,
whose vision swept many an horizon which those about
him dreamed not of, that mind that comprehended
what it had never seen, and understood the language
of affairs with the ready ease of one to the manner
born, or that nature which seemed in its varied rich-
ness to be the familiar of men of every way of life.
This is the sacred mystery of democracy; that its
richest fruits spring up* out of soils which no man hf^
prepared and in circumstances amidst which they an
the least expected. This is a place alike of mysterj
and of reassurance.
98 Democracy Today
It is likely that in a society ordered otherwise than
our own Lincoln could not have found himself or the
path of fame and power upon which he walked
serenely to his death. In this place it is right that we
should remind ourselves of the solid and striking facts
upon which our faith in democracy is founded. Many
another man besides Lincoln has served the nation in
its highest places of counsel and of action whose
origins were as humble as his. Though the greatest
example of the universal energy, richness, stimulation,
and force of democracy, he is only one example among
many. The permeating and all-pervasive virtue of
the freedom which challenges us in America to make
the most of every gift and power we possess every,
page of our history serves to emphasize and illustrate.
Standing here in this place, it seems almost the whole
of the stirring story.
Here Lincoln had his beginnings. Here the end
and consummation of that great life seem remote and
a bit incredible. And yet there was no break any-
where between beginning and end, no lack of natural
sequence anywhere. Nothing really incredible hap-
pened. Lincoln was unaffectedly as much at home
in the White House as he was here. Do you share
with me the feeling, I wonder, that he was perma
nently at home nowhere? It seems to me that in the
case of a man, I would rather say of a spirit, like
Lincoln the question .where he was is of little signifi-
cance, that it is always what he was that really arrests
our thought and takes hold of our imagination. It is
the spirit always that is sovereign. Lincoln, like the
Abraham Lincoln 99
rest of us, was put through the discipline of the
world, a very rough and exacting discipline for him,
an indispensable discipline for every man who would
know what he is about in the midst of the world's
affairs ; but his spirit got only its schooling there. It
did not derive its character or its vision from the
experiences which brought it to its full revelation.
The test of every American must always be, not where
he is, but what he is. That, also, is of the. essence of
democracy, and is the moral of which this place is
most gravely expressive.
We would like to think of men like Lincoln and
Washington as typical Americans, but no man can be
typical who is so unusual as these great men were.
It was typical of American life that it should produce
such men with supreme indifference as to the manner
in which it produced them, and as readily here in this
hut as amidst the little circle of cultivated gentlemen
to whom Virginia owed so much in leadership and
example. And Lincoln and Washington were typical
Americans in the use they made of their genius. But
there will be few such men at best, and we will not
look into the mystery of how and why they come.
We will only keep the door open for them always,
and a hearty welcome, after we have recognized
them.
I have read many biographies of Lincoln; I have
sought out with the greatest interest the many inti-
mate stories that are told of him, the narratives of
nearby friends, the sketches at close quarters, in
which those who had the privilege of being associated
100 Democracy Today
with him have tried to depict for us the very man
himself ' ' in his habit as he lived ' n ; but I have
nowhere found a real intimate of Lincoln's. I
nowhere get the impression in any narrative or rem-
iniscence that the writer had in fact penetrated to the
heart of his mystery, or that any man could penetrate
to the heart of it. That brooding spirit had no real
familiars. I get the impression that it never spoke
out in complete self -revelation, and that it could not
reveal itself completely to anyone. It was a very
lonely spirit that looked out from underneath those
shaggy brows and comprehended men without fully
communing with them, as if, in spite of all its genial
efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions
of duty where no man looked on. There is a very
holy and very terrible isolation for the conscience of
every man who seeks to read the destiny in affairs for
others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as
for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude
upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right
perhaps no man can assist. This strange child of the
cabin kept company with invisible things, was born
into no intimacy but that of its own silently assemb-
ling and deploying thoughts.
I have come here today, not to utter a eulogy on
Lincoln; he stands in need of none, but to endeavor
to interpret the meaning of this gift to the nation of
the place of his birth and origin. Is not this an altar
upon which we may forever keep alive the vestal fire
of democracy as upon a shrine at which some of the
deepest and most sacred hopes of mankind may from
Abraham Lincoln 101
age to age be rekindled? For these hopes must con-
stantly be rekindled, and only those who live can
rekindle them. The only stuff that can retain the
life-giving heat is the stuff of living hearts. And the
hopes of mankind cannot be kept alive by words
merely, by constitutions and doctrines of right and
codes of liberty. The object of democracy is to
transmute these into the life and action of society,
the self-denial and self-sacrifice of heroic men and
women willing to make their lives an embodiment of
right and service and enlightened purpose. The com-
mands of democracy are as imperative as its privi'
leges and opportunities are wide and generous. Its
compulsion is upon us. It will be great and lift a
great light for the guidance of the nations only if we
are great and carry that light high for the guidance
of our own feet. We are not worthy to stand here
unless we ourselves be in deed and in truth real
democrats and servants of mankind, ready to give
our very lives for the freedom and justice and spir-
itual exaltation of the great nation which shelters and
nurtures us.
A WORLD LEAGUE FOR PEACE 1
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SENATE OP THE UNITED
STATES, JANUARY 22, 1917.]
On the 18th 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 most 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 defi-
nitely 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 conditions 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.
102
A World League for Peace 103
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
Government in these days to come when it will be
necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the foun-
dations of peace among the nations.
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 prepare 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 honorable hope that it might in all that it
was and did show mankind the way to liberty.
They cannot, in honor, withhold 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 con-
ditions under which they will feel free to render it.
That service is nothing less than this to add their
104 Democracy Today
authority and their power to the authority and force
of other nations to guarantee peace and justice
throughout the world. Such a settlement cannot now
be long postponed. It is right that before it comes
this Government should frankly formulate the condi-
tions 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 man-
kind to say that so far as our participation in guaran-
tees 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 universal covenant, and
our judgment upon what is fundamental and essen-
tial as a condition precedent to permanency should be
spoken now, not afterward, 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
105
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 the practical convictions which the
peoples of America have once for all embraced and
undertaken to defend.
I do not mean to say that any American Govern-
ment would throw any obstacle in the way of any
terms of peace the Governments now at war might
agree upon, or seek to upset them when made, what-
ever they might be. I only take it for granted that
mere terms of peace between the belligerents will not
satisfy even the belligerents themselves. 2
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 in 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 organized major
force of mankind.
The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will
determine whether it is a peace for which such a guar-
antee can be secured. The question upon which the
whole future peace and policy of the world depends is
this:
106 Democracy Today
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, 3 who will
guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium
of the new arrangement ?
Only a tranquil Europe can 'be a stable Europe.
There must be not only a balance of power, but a
community of power; not organized rivalries, but an
organized common peace.
Fortunately, we have received very explicit assur-
Lnces on this point. The statesmen of both of the
groups of nations now arrayed against one another
have said, in terms that could not be misinterpreted,
that it was no part of the purpose they had in mind
to crush their antagonists. But the implications of
these assurances 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.
They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace
without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I
beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpre-
tation upon it and that it may be understood that no
other interpretation was in my thought. 4
I am seeking only 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 accepted in humil-
iation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and
would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory,
107
upon which terms of peace would rest, not per-
manently, 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 neces-
sary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of
questions of territory or of racial and national alle-
giance.
The equality of nations upon which peace must be
founded, if it is to last, must be an equality of rights ;
the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor
imply a difference between big nations and small, be-
tween those that are powerful and those that are weak. 5
Bight must be based upon the common strength,
not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon
whose concert 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 devel-
opment of the peoples themselves. But no one asks
or expects any thing more than an equality of rights.
Mankind is looking now for freedom of life, not for
equipoises of power.
And there is a deeper thing involved than even
equality of rights among organized nations. No
peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recog-
nize and accept the principle that Governments derive
all their just powers from the consent of the gov-
erned, 6 and that no right anywhere exists to hand
108 Democracy Today
people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if
they were property.
I take it for granted, for instance, if I may venture
upon a single example, that statesmen everywhere are
agreed that there should be a united, independent,
and autonomous Poland, and that henceforth invio-
lable security of life, of worship, and of industrial
and social development should be guaranteed to all
peoples who have lived hitherto under the power 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 uncover realities.
Any peace which does not recognize and accept
this principle will inevitably be upset. It will 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 world
will sympathize. The world can be at peace only if
its life is stable, and there can be no stability where
the will is in rebellion, where there is not tranquillity
of spirit and a sense of justice, of freedom, and of
right.
So far as practicable, moreover, every great people
now struggling toward a full development of its re-
sources and of its powers should be assured a direct
A World League for Peace 109
outlet to the great highways of the sea. Where this
cannot be done by the cession of territory, it can no
doubt 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, equality, and cooperation. 7
No doubt a somewhat radical reconsideration of
many of the rules of international practice hitherto
sought 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, unthreatened intercourse of
nations is an essential part of the process of peace and
of development. It need not be difficult 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 limita-
tion 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 limiting naval arma-
ments opens the wider and perhaps more difficult
question of the limitation of armies and of all pro-
grams of military preparation.
110 ^Democracy Today
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 na-
tions if great preponderating armies are henceforth
to continue here and there to be built up and main-
tained.
The statesmen 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 arm-
aments, whether on land or sea, is the most immedi-
ately and intensely practical question connected with
the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.
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 among all the peoples of the world who is at
liberty to speak and hold nothing back.
I am speaking as an individual, and yet I am speak-
ing also, of course, as the responsible 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 speaking for liberals and friends of
humanity in every nation and of every program of
liberty ?
A World League for Peace 111
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 Government 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 confi-
dence 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.
I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should
with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Mon-
roe as the doctrine of the world; 8 that no nation
should seek to extend its policy 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 com-
petitions 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 en-
tangling alliance in a concert of power. When all
unite to act in the same sense and with the same pur-
pose, all act in the common interest and are free to
112 Democracy Today
live their own lives under a common protection.
I am proposing government by the consent of the
governed; that freedom of the seas which in inter-
national 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.
These are American principles, American policies.
"We can 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. 9
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
WOODROW WILSON
[DELIVERED BEFORE CONGRESS FEBRUARY 3, 1917, ON THE
OCCASION OF SEVERING DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
WITH GERMANY.]
The Imperial German Government, on the 31st of
January, 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 sub-
marines against all shipping seeking to pass through
certain designated areas of the high seas to which it
is clearly my duty to call your attention.
Let me remind the Congress that on the 18th of
April last, in view of the sinking on the 24th of March
of the cross-Channel passenger-steamer Sussex by a
German submarine, without summons or warning, and
the consequent loss of the lives of several citizens of
the United States who were passengers aboard her,
this Government addressed a note to the Imperial
German Government in which it made the following
declaration :
If it is still the purpose of the Imperial German Government
to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against ves-
sels of commerce by the use of submarines without regard to
what the Government of the United States must consider the
sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the uni-
113
114 Democracy Today
/ersally 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 German Government
should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of
its present methods of submarine 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.
In reply to this declaration the German Govern-
ment gave this Government the following assurances:
The German Government is prepared to do its utmost to con-
fine the operations of war for the rest of its duration to the
fighting forces of the belligerents, thereby insuring the freedom
of the seas, a principle upon which the German Government
believes, now as before, to be in agreement with the Government
of the United States.
The German Government, guided by this idea, notifies the
Government of the 'United States that the German naval forces
have received the following orders:
In accordance with the general principles of visit and search
and destruction of merchant vessels recognized by international
law, such vessels, both within and without the area declared as
naval war zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without
saving human lives, unless these ships attempt to escape or
offer resistance.
But neutrals cannot expect that Germany, forced to fight for
her existence, shall, for the sake of neutral interest, restrict the
use of an effective weapon if her enemy is permitted to con-
tinue to apply at will methods of warfare violating the rules of
international law. Such a demand would be incompatible with
the character of neutrality, and the German Government is con-
vinced that the Government of the United States does not think
of making such a demand, knowing that the Government of the
United States has repeatedly declared that it is determined to
restore the principle of the freedom of the seas from whatever
Barter it has been violated.
Message to Congress 115
To this the Government of the United States replied
on the 8th of May, accepting, of course, the assur-
ances given, but adding :
The Government of the United States feels it necessary to
state that it takes it for granted that the Imperial German
Government does not intend to imply that the maintenance of
its newly announced policy is in any way contingent upon the
course or result of diplomatic negotiations between the Govern-
ment of the United States and any other belligerent Govern-
ment, notwithstanding the fact that certain passages in the
Imperial Government 's note of the 4th instant might appear to
be susceptible to that construction. In order, however, to avoid
any possible misunderstanding, the Government of the United
States notifies the Imperial Government that it cannot for a
moment entertain, much less discuss, a suggestion that respect
by German naval authorities for the rights of citizens of the
United States upon the high seas should in any way or in the
slightest degree be made contingent upon the conduct of any
other Government affecting the rights of neutrals and non-
combatants. Eesponsibility in such matters is single, not joint ;
absolute, not relative.
To this note of the 8th of May the Imperial Ger-
man Government made no reply.
On the 31st of January, the Wednesday of the
present week, the German Ambassador handed to the
Secretary of State, along with a formal note, a mem-
orandum which contains the following statement :
The Imperial Government, therefore, does not doubt that the
Government of the United States will understand the situation
thus forced upon Germany by the Entente Allies ' brutal methods
of war and by their determination to destroy the Central Powers,
and that tihe Government of the United States will further
realize that the now openly disclosed intentions of the Entente
Allies give back to Germany the freedom of action which she
116 Democracy Today
reserved in her note addressed to the Government of the United
States on May 4, 1916.
Under these circumstances Germany will meet the illegal
measures of her enemies by forcibly preventing after February 1,
1917, in a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the
eastern Mediterranean all navigation, that of neutrals included,
from and to France, etc. All ships met within the zone will be
sunk.
I think that you will agree with me that, in view
of this declaration, which suddenly and without prior
intimation of any kind deliberately withdraws the
solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's
note of the 4th 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 18th of April, 1916, it announced that it
would take in the event that the German Government
did not declare and effect an abandonment of the
methods of submarine warfare which it was then em-
ploying and to which it now purposes again to resort.
I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of State
to announce to his Excellency the German ambassa-
dor that all diplomatic relations between the United
States and the German Empire are severed, and that
the American ambassador at Berlin will immediately
be withdrawn, and, in accordance with this decision,
to hand to his Excellency his passports.
Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the Ger-
man Government, this sudden and deeply deplorable
renunciation of its assurances, given this Government
at one of the most critical moments of tension in the
relations of the two Governments, I refuse to believe
Message to Congress 117
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 regard 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 prosecu-
tion of the ruthless naval program 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 so-
briety and prudent foresight of their purpose should
unhappily prove unfounded, if American ships and
American lives should, in fact, be sacrified 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. I take it for granted that all neutral Govern-
ments will take the same course.
I do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial
German Government. We are the sincere friends of
the German people and earnestly desire to remair
at peace with the Government which speaks for them.
We shall not believe that they are hostile to us until
118 Democracy Today
we are obliged to believe it; and we 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 immemorial principles of our people
which I sought to express in my address to the Senate
only two weeks ago seek merely to vindicate our
right to liberty and justice and an unmolested life.
These are 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.
REQUEST FOR A GRANT OF POWER
WOODROW WILSON
[MESSAGE TO THE CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 26, 1917. J
I have again asked the privilege of addressing you
because we are moving through critical times, during
which it seems to me to be my duty to keep in close
touch with the Houses of Congress so that neither
counsel nor action shall run at cross-purposes be-
tween us.
On the 3d of February I officially informed you
of the sudden and unexpected action of the Imperial
German Government in declaring its intention to
disregard the promises it had made to this Govern-
ment in April last and undertake immediate subma-
rine operations against all commerce, whether of bel-
ligerents or of neutrals, that should seek to approach
Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic coasts of
Europe, or the harbors of the eastern Mediterranean,
and to conduct those operations without regard to the
established restrictions of international practice, with-
out regard to any considerations of humanity, even,
which might interfere with their object.
That policy was forthwith put into practice. It
has now been in active exhibition for nearly four
weeks. Its practical results are not fully disclosed.
The commerce of other neutral nations is suffering
severely, but not, perhaps, very much more severely
119
120 Democracy Today
than it was already suffering before the 1st of Febru-
ary, when the new policy of the Imperial Government
was put into operation.
We have asked the cooperation of the other
neutral Governments to prevent these depredations,
but I fear none of them has thought it wise to join us
in any common course of action. Our own commerce
has suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than
in fact, rather because so many of our ships are
timidly keeping to their home ports than because
American ships have been sunk.
Two American vessels have been sunk, the Housa-
tonic and the Lyman M. Law. The case of the Hous-
atonic, which was carrying foodstuffs consigned to a
London firm, was essentially like the case of the Frye,
in which, it will be recalled, the German Government
admitted its liability for damages, and the lives of
the crew, as in the case of the Frye, were safeguarded
with reasonable care.
The case of the Law, which was carrying lemon-box
staves to Palermo, disclosed a ruthlessness of method
which deserves grave condemnation, but was accom-
panied by no circumstances which might not have
been expected at any time in connection with the use
of the submarine against merchantmen as the Ger-
man Government has used it.
In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves
in with regard to the actual conduct of the German
submarine warfare against commerce and its effects
upon our own ships and people is substantially the
same that it was when I addressed you on the 3d of
Request for Grant of Power 121
February, except for the tying up of our shipping in
our own ports because of the unwillingness of our
ship-owners to risk their vessels at sea without insur-
ance or adequate protection, and the very serious
congestion of our commerce which has resulted, a con-
gestion which is growing rapidly more and more
serious every day.
This in itself might presently accomplish, in effect,
what the new German submarine orders were meant
to accomplish, so far as we are concerned. We can
only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have
ventured to hope the German commanders would in
fact avoid has not occurred.
But while this is happily true, 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 fortu-
nate circumstances or because the commanders of the
German submarines which they may happen to
encounter exercise an unexpected discretion and
restraint, rather than because of the instructions
under which those 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 actim may come at any time, if we are
in fact, and not in word merely, to defend our ele-
mentary rights as a neutral nation. It would be most
imprudent to be unprepared.
122 Democracy Today
I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful of the
fact that the expiration of the term of the present
Congress is immediately at hand by constitutional lim-
itation, and that it would in all likelihood require an
unusual length of time to assemble and organize the
Congress which is to succeed it.
I feel that I ought, in view of that fact, to obtain
from you full and immediate assurance of the author-
ity which I may need at any moment to exercise. No
doubt I already possess that authority without special
warrant of law by the plain implication of my con-
stitutional duties and powers, but I prefer in the
present circumstances not to act upon general impli-
cation. I wish to feel that the authority and the
power of the Congress are behind me in whatever it
may become necessary for me to do. We are jointly
the servants of the people and must act together and
in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it.
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 safe-
guard 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.
Request for Grant of Power 123
It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be neces-
sary to put armed forces 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 assur-
ances 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 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 pursuit 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 come only by the wilful acts and ag-
gressions 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. The form in which action may become nec-
essary cannot vet be foreseen. I believe that the
124 Democracy Today
people will be willing to trust me to act with restraint,
with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and
good faith that they have themselves displayed
throughout these trying months; and it is in that
belief that I request that you will authorize me to
supply our merchant-ships with defensive arms 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 pro-
tect our ships and our people in their legitimate and
peaceful pursuits of the seas.
I request also that you will grant me at the same
time, along with the powers I ask, a sufficient credit
to enable me to provide adequate means of protection
where they are lacking, including adequate insurance
against the present war risks.
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 interest merely that we are
thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights,
chief of all the right 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 funda-
mental 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
Request for Grant of Power 125
about human lives the lives of non-combatants, the
lives of men who are peacefully at work keeping 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 are speaking of no selfish material rights, but
of rights which our hearts support, and whose found-
ation is that righteous passion for justice upon which
all law, all structures alike of family, of state, and of
mankind must rest, and upon the ultimate base of
our existence and our liberty. I cannot imagine any
man with American principles at his heart hesitating
to defend these things.
WAR MESSAGE
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE CONGRESS, APRIL 2, 1917.]
I have called the Congress into extraordinary ses-
sion because there are serious, very serious, choices of
policy to be made, and made immediately, which it
vas neither right nor constitutionally permissible 1
that I should assume the responsibility of making.
On the 3d 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 re-
straints of law or of humanity and use its submarines
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 within the Mediterranean. 2 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 restrained
the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity
with its promise then given to us 3 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 where no resistance was offered or
escape attempted, and care taken that their crews
126
"War Message 127
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 restraint was ob-
served. 4
The new policy has swept every restriction aside.
Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their char-
acter, 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 with those
of belligerents. Even hospital-ships and ships carry-
ing relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people
of Belgium, 5 though the latter were provided with
safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the Ger-
man Government itself and were distinguished by un-
mistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the
same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.
I was for a little while unable to believe that such
things would, in fact, be done by any Government
that had 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 high-
ways 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 ac-
complished, but always with a clear view at least of
128 Democracy Today
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 supposed to underlie
the intercourse of the world.
I am not now thinking of the loss JL property in-
volved, 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
pursuits which have always, even in the darkest
periods of modern history, 6 been deemed innocent and
legitimate.
Property can be paid for ; the lives of peaceful and
innocent people cannot be.
The present German warfare against commerce is
a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all
nations. American ships have been sunk, 7 American
lives taken, 8 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 dis-
crimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each
nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. 9 The
choice we make for ourselves must be made with a
moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judg-
ment befitting our- character and our motives as a
Nation. We must put excited feeling away.
War Message 129
Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious
assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only
the vindication of right, of human right, of which we
are only a single champion.
When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of
February 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
submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the
German submarines have been used against merchant
shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their
attacks as the law of nations has assumed that mer-
chantmen would defend themselves against privateers
or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open
sea.
It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim
necessity, 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 neu-
trals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea
which it has proscribed, 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 pre-
130 Democracy Today
tensions it is worse than ineffectual ; it is likely to pro-
duce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically
certain to draw us into the war without either the
rights or the effectiveness of belligerents.
There is one choice we cannot make, we are inca-
pable of making : we will not choose the path of sub-
mission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation
and our people to be ignored or violated. 10 The wrongs
against which we now array ourselves are not com-
mon wrongs; they reach out to the very roots of
human life.
With a profound sense of the solemn and even
tragical character of the step I am taking and of the
grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhes-
itating obedience to what I deem my constitutional
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. 11 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 Government of the Ger-
man 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 Governments 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.
War Message 131
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 sub-
marines.
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 500,000 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 ade-
quate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope,
so far as they can equitably be sustained by the pres-
ent generation, by well-conceived taxation. I say sus-
tained 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 would be likely to arise out
of the inflation which would be produced by vast
loans.
132 Democracy Today
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. 12
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 men-
tioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal
with them as having been framed after very careful
thought by the branch of the Government upon which
the responsibility of conducting the war and safe-
guarding the nation will most directly fall.
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 thing in mind now that I
had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d
of January last ; the same that I had in mind when I
addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on
the 26th of February.
War Message 133
Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the princi-
ples of peace and the 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
will henceforth insure the observance of those prin-
ciples.
Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where
the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of
its peoples, and the menace to that peace and free-
dom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments 13
backed by organized force which is controlled wholly
by their will, not by the will of their people. We
have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances.
We are at the beginning of an age in which it will
be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of
responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among
nations and their Governments that are observed
among the individual citizens of civilized states.
We have no quarrel with the German people. We
have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and
friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their
Government acted in entering this war. 14 It was not
with their previous knowledge or approval. 15
It was a war determined upon as wars used to be
determined 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 16 or little groups of ambitious men who were
accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools.
134 Democracy Today
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. 17
Such designs can be successfully worked only under
cover and where no one has the right to ask questions.
Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggres-
sion, carried, it may be, from generation to genera-
tion, can be worked out and kept from the light only
within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully
guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class.
They arc happily impossible where public opinion
commands and insists upon full information concern-
ing all the nation's affairs.
A steadfast concert for peace can never be main-
tained except by a partnership of democratic nations.
No autocratic Government could be trusted to keep
faith within it or observe its covenants. 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 own. 18
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 ?
War Message 135
Russia was known by those who know it best to have
been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the
vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relation-
ships of her people that spoke their natural instinct,
their habitual attitude toward life.
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,
in character or purpose ; 19 and now it has been shaken
off and the great, generous Russian people have been
added, in all their native 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 have served to convince us
that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never
be our friend is that from the very outset of the pres-
ent war it has filled our unsuspecting communities
and even our offices of Government with spies and set
criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our na-
tional unity of council, our peace within and without,
our industries and our commerce. 20
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
136 Democracy Today
agents of the Imperial German Government accred-
ited to the Government of the United States.
Even in checking these things and trying to extir-
pate 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 pur-
pose of the German people toward 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 con-
vince us at last that that Government entertains no
real friendship for us and means to act against our
peace and security at its convenience. 21 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. 22
We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose
because we know that in such a Government, follow-
ing such methods, we can never have a friend; and
that in the presence of its organized power, always
lying in wait to accomplish we know not what pur-
pose, there can be no assured security for the demo-
cratic Governments of the world. 23
We are now about to accept the gage of battle with
this natural foe to liberty, and shall, if necessary,
spend the whole force of the nation to check and nul-
lify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now
that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense
about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of
the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the
War Message 137
German people included; for the rights of nations
great and small and the privilege of men everywhere
to choose their way of life and of obedience. The
world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace
must be planted upon the trusted foundations of polit-
ical liberty.
We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no
conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for
ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices
we shall freely make. We are but one of the cham-
pions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied
when those rights have been made as secure as the
faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Just because we fight without rancor and without
selfish objects, seeking nothing for ourselves but what
we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall,
I feel confident, conduct our operations as belliger-
ents without passion and ourselves observe with proud
punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we
profess to be fighting for.* 4
I have said nothing of the Governments allied with
the Imperial Government of Germany because they
have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend
pur right and our honor.
The Austro-Hungarian Government has indeed
avowed its unqualified indorsement and acceptance of
the reckless and lawless submarine warfare 25 adopted
now without disguise by the Imperial German Govern-
ment, and it has therefore not been possible for this
Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the ambas-
sador recently accredited to this Government by the
138 Democn>- y Today
Imperial and Royal Government of Austro-Hungary ;
but that Government has not actually engaged in
warfare against citizens of the United States on the
seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least,
of postponing a discussion of our relations with the
authorities at Vienna.
We enter this war only where we are clearly forced
into it because there are no other means of defending
our rights.
It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves
as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness
because we act without animus, not in enmity toward
a people or with the desire to bring any injury or dis-
advantage upon them, but only in armed opposition
to an irresponsible Government which has thrown
aside all considerations of humanity and of right
and is running amuck.
"We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the
German people, and shall desire nothing so much as
the early re-establishment oi intimate relations of
mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be
for them, for the time being, tc believe that this is
spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their
present Government through all these bitter months
because of that friendship, exercising a patience and
forbearance which would otherwise have been impos-
sible. 26
We shall,* happily, still have an opportunity to
prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions
towards the millions of men and women of German
birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and
War Messaged 139
share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it to-
ward all who are, in fact, loyal to their neighbors
and to the Government in the hour of test. They are,
most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they
had never known any other fealty or allegiance.
They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and
restraining the few who may be of a different mind
and purpose. If there should be disloyalty it will
be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression j 27
but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here
and there and without countenance except from a law-
less and malignant few.
It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen
of the Congress, which I have performed in thus ad-
dressing you. There are, it may be, many months of
fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into
the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civiliza-
tion itself seeming to be in the balance. But the
right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight
for the things which we have always carried nearest
our hearts 28 for democracy, for the right of those
who submit to authority to have a voice in their own
governments, for the rights and liberties of small
nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a
concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety
to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our for-
tunes, everything that we are and everything that we
have, with the pride of those who know that the day
has come when America is privileged to spend her
140 Democracy Today
blool and her might for the principles that gave her
birtli and happiness and the peace which she has
treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. 29
FLAG DAY ADDRESS
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON, D. c., ON FLAG
DAY, JUNE 14, 1917.]
We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this flag
which we honor and under which we serve is the
emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and
purpose as a nation. It has no other character than
that which we give it from generation to generation.
The choices are ours. It floats in majestic silence
above the ho^s that execute those choices, whether
in peace or in war. And yet, though silent, it speaks
to us, speaks to us of the past, of the men and
women who went before us and of the records they
wrote upon it. We celebrate the day of its birth ; and
from its birth until now it has witnessed a great his-
tory, has floated on high the symbol of great events,
of a great plan of life worked out by a great people.
We are about to carry it into battle, to lift it where
it will draw the fire of our enemies. We are about
to bid thousands, hundreds of thousands, it may be
millions, of our men, the young, the strong, the
capable men of the nation, to go forth and die
beneath it on fields of blood far away, for what?
For some unaccustomed thing? For something for
which it has never sought the fire before? Amer-
ican armies were never before sent across the seas.
141
142 Democracy Today
Why are they sent now? For same new purpose,
for which this great flag has never been carried
before, or for some old, familiar, heroic purpose for
which it has seen men, its own men, die on every
battlefield upon which Americans have borne arms
since the Revolution?
These are questions which must be answered. We
are Americans. We in our turn serve America, and
can serve her with no private purpose. We must
use her flag as she has always used it. We are ac-
countable at the bar of history and must plead in
utter frankness what purpose it is we seek to serve.
It is plain enough how we were forced into the
war. The extraordinary insults and aggressions of
the Imperial German Government left us no self-
respecting choice but to take up arms in defense of
our rights as a free people and of our honor as a
sovereign government. The military masters of
Germany denied us the right to IDC neutral. They
filled our unsuspecting communities with vicious
spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the
opinion of our people in their own behalf. When
they found that they could not do that, their agents
diligently spread sedition amongst us and sought to
draw our own citizens from their allegiance, and
some of those agents were men connected with the
offi'cial Embassy of the German Government itself
here in our own Capital. 1 They sought by violence
to destroy our industries and arrest our commerce. 2
They tried to incite Mexico to take up arms against
us and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance with
Flag Day Address 143
her, and that, not by indirection, but by direct
suggestion from the Foreign Office in Berlin. 3 They
impudently denied us the use of the high seas and
repeatedly executed their threat that they would
send to their death any of our people who ventured
to approach the coasts of Europe. 4 And many of
our own people were corrupted. 5 Men began to look
upon their own neighbors with suspicion and to
wonder in their hot resentment and surprise whether
there was any community in which hostile intrigue
did not lurk. What great nation in such circum-
stances would not have taken up arms? Much as
we had desired peace, it was denied us, and not of
our own choice. This flag under which we serve
would have been dishonored had we withheld our
hand.
But that is only part of the story. We know
now as clearly as we knew before we were our-
selves engaged that we are not the enemies of the
German people and that they are not our enemies.
They did not originate or desire this hideous war
or wish that we should be drawn into it; and we
are vaguely conscious that we are fighting their
cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our
own. 6 They are themselves in the grip of the same
sinister power that has now at last stretched its
ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. 7 The
whole world is at war because the whole world is
in the grip of that power and is trying out the
great battle which shall determine whether it is,, to
be brought under its mastery or fling itself free.
144 Democracy Today
The war was begun by the military masters of
Germany, who proved to be also the masters of
Austria-Hungary. These men have never regarded
nations as peoples, men, women, and children of
tike blood and frame as themselves, for whom gov-
ernments existed and in whom governments had
their life. They have regarded them merely as serv-
iceable organizations which they could by force or
intrigue bend or corrupt to their own purpose.
They have regarded the smaller states, in particular,
and the peoples who could be overwhelmed by force,
as their natural tools and instruments of domina-
tion. 8 Their purpose has long been avowed. The
statesmen of other nations, to whom that purpose
was incredible, 9 paid little attention ; regarded what
German professors expounded in their classrooms
and German writers set forth to the world as the
goal of German policy as rather the dream of minds
detached from practical affairs, as preposterous pri-
vate conceptions of German destiny, than as the
actual plans of responsible rulers; but the rulers of
Germany themselves knew all the while what con-
crete plans, what well advanced intrigues lay back
of what the professors and the writers were saying,
and were glad to go forward unmolested, 10 filling the
thrones of Balkan states with German princes, 11 put-
ting German officers at the service of Turkey to drill
her armies 12 and make interest with her govern-
ment, developing plans of sedition and rebellion in
India and Egypt, setting their fires in Persia. 13 The
demands made by Austria upon Servia were a mere
Flag Day Address 145
single step 14 in a plan which compassed Europe and
Asia, from Berlin to Bagdad. 15 They hoped those
demands might not arouse Europe, but they meant
to press them whether they did or not, for they
thought themselves ready for the final issue of arms.
Their plan was to throw a broad belt of German
military power and political control across the very
center of Europe and beyond the Mediterranean into
the heart of Asia; and Austria-Hungary was to be
as much their tool and pawn as Servia or Bulgaria
or Turkey or the ponderous states of the East.
Austria-Hungary, indeed, was to become part of the
central German Empire, absorbed and dominated by
the same forces and influences that had originally
cemented the German states themselves. The dream
had its heart at Berlin. It could have had a heart
nowhere else! 10 It rejected the idea of solidarity of
race entirely. The choice of peoples played no part
in it at all. It contemplated binding together racial
and political units which could be kept together only
by force, Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Rouman-
ians, Turks, Armenians, the proud states of Bo-
hemia and Hungary, the stout little commonwealths
of the Balkans, the indomitable Turks, the subtle
peoples of the East. 17 These peoples did not wish to
be united. They ardently desired to direct their
own affairs, would be satisfied only by undisputed
independence. They could be kept quiet only by
the presence or the constant threat of armed men.
They would live under a common power only by
sheer compulsion and await the day of revolution. 18
146 Democracy Today
But the German military statesmen had reckoned
with all that and were ready to deal with it in
their own way.
And they have actually carried the greater part
of that amazing plan into execution! Look how
things stand. Austria is at their mercy. It has
acted, not upon its own initiative or upon the choice
of its own people, but at Berlin's dictation ever
since the war began. Its people now desire peace,
but cannot have it until leave is granted from Ber-
lin. The so-called Central Powers are in fact but a
single Power. Servia is at its mercy, should its
hands be but for a moment freed. Bulgaria has
consented to its will, and Roumania is overrun. The
Turkish armies, which Germans trained, are serving
Germany, certainly not themselves, and the guns of
German warships lying in the harbor at Constanti-
nople remind Turkish statesmen every day that they
have no choice but to take their orders from Berlin. 19
From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf the net is spread.
Is it not easy to understand the eagerness for
peace that has been manifested from Berlin ever
since the snare was set and sprung? Peace, peace,
peace has been the talk of her Foreign Office for
now a year and more; not peace upon her own ini-
tiative, but upon the initiative of the nations over
which she now deems herself to hold the advantage.
A little of the talk has been public, but most of it
has been private. Through all sorts of channels it
has come to me, and in all sorts of guises, but never
with the terms disclosed which the German Govern-
ment would be willing to accept. 20
Flag Da/y Address 147
That government has other valuable pawns in its
hands besides those I have mentioned. It still holds a
valuable part of Prance, though with slowly relaxing
grasp, and practically the whole of Belgium. Its
armies press close upon Russia and overrun Poland at
their will. It cannot go further ; it dare not go back.
It wishes to close its bargain before it is too late and
it has little left to offer for the pound of flesh it will
demand. 21
The military masters under whom Germany is
bleeding see very clearly to what point Fate has
brought them. If tiiey fall back or are forced back
an inch, their power both abroad and at home will
fall to pieces like a house of cards. It is their power
at home they are thinking about now more than
their power abroad. It is that power which is trem-
bling under their very feet; and deep fear has en-
tered their hearts. They have but one chance to
perpetuate their military power or even their con-
trolling political influence. If they can secure peace
now with the immense advantages still in their
hands which they have up to this point apparently
gained, they will have justified themselves before
the German people : they will have gained by fore
what they promised to gain by it: an immense ex-
pansion of German power, an immense enlargement
of German industrial and commercial opportunities.
Their prestige will be secure, and with their prestige
their political power. If they fail, their people will
thrust them aside ; a government accountable to the
people themselves will be set up in Germany as it
148 Democracy Today
has been in England, in the United States, in France,
and in all the great countries of the modern time
except Germany. If they succeed they are safe and
Germany and the world are undone; if they fail
Germany is saved and the world will be at peace,
[f they succeed, America will fall within the menace.
We and all the rest of the world must remain armed,
as they will remain, and must make ready for the
next step in their aggression ; if they fail, the world
may unite for peace and Germany may be of the
union. 22
Do you not now understand the new intrigue, 23 the
intrigue for peace, and why the masters of Germany
do not hesitate to use any agency that promises to
effect their purpose, the deceit of the nations? Their
present particular aim is to deceive all those who
throughout the world stand for the rights of peo-
ples and the self-government of nations; for they
see what immense strength the forces of justice and
of liberalism are gathering out of this war. They
are employing liberals in their enterprise. They are
using men, in Germany and without, as their spokes-
men whom they have hitherto despised and op-
pressed, using them for their own destruction,
Socialists, 24 the leaders of labor, the thinkers they have
hitherto sought to silence. Let them once succeed
and these men, now their tools, will be ground to
powder beneath the weight of the great military
empire they will have set up; the revolutionists in
Russia will be cut off from all succor or cooperation
in western Europe and a counter revolution fostered
Flag Day Address 149
and supported ; Germany herself will lose her chance
of freedom; and all Europe will afm for the next,
the final struggle.
The sinister intrigue is being no less actively con-
ducted in this country than in Russia and in every
country in Europe to which the agents and dupes of
the Imperial German Government can get access.
That government has many spokesmen here, in
places high and low. They have learned discretion.
They keep within the law. It is opinion they utter
now, not sedition. They proclaim the liberal pur-
poses of their masters; declare this a foreign war
which can touch America with no danger to either
her lands or her institutions; set England at the
center of the stage and talk of her ambition to assert
economic dominion throughout the world; appeal to
our ancient tradition of isolation in the politics of
the nations ; and seek to undermine the government
with false professions of loyalty to its principles.
But they will make no headway. The false betray
themselves always in every accent. It is only
friends and partisans of the German Government
whom we have already identified who utter these
thinly disguised disloyalties. The facts are patent
to all the world, and nowhere are they more plainly
seen than in the United States, where we are accus-
tomed to deal with facts and not with sophistries;
and the great fact that stands out above all the rest
is that this is a People's "War, a war for freedom
and justice and self-government amongst all the
nations of the world, a war to make the world safe
150 Democracy Today
for the peoples who live upon it and have made it
their own, the German people themselves included;
and that with us rests the choice to break through all
these hypocrisies and patent cheats and masks of
brute force and help set the world free, or else
stand aside and let it be dominated a long age
through by sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary
choices of self-constituted masters, by the nation
which can maintain the biggest armies and the most
irresistible armaments, a power to which the world
has afforded no parallel and in the face of which
political freedom must wither and perish.
For us there is but one choice. We have made it.
Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to
stand in our way in this day of high resolution when
every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated
and made secure for the salvation of the nations.
We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and
our flag shall wear a new luster. Once more we
shall make good with our lives and fortunes the
great faith to which we were born, and a new glory
shall shine in the face of our people.
REPLY TO THE POPE
WOODROW WILSON
WASHINGTON, D. C., AUGUST, 27, 1917.
To His HOLINESS BENEDICTUS XV., POPE:
In acknowledgment of the communication of your
Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated Aug. 1,
1917, the President of the United States requests me
to transmit the following reply:
Every heart that has not been blinded and hard-
ened by this terrible war must be touched by this
moving appeal of his Holiness the Pope, must feel
the dignity and force of the humane and generous
motives which prompted it, and must fervently wish
that we might take the path of peace he so persua-
sively points out. But it would be folly to take it
if it does not in fact lead to the goal he proposes.
Our response must be based upon the stern facts and
upon nothing else. It is not a mere cessation of
arms he desires; it is a stable and enduring peace.
The agony must not be gone through with again,
and it must be a matter of very sober judgment
what will insure us against it.
His Holiness in substance proposes that we return
to the status quo ante bellum, and that then there
be a general condonation, disarmament, and a con-
cert of nations based upon an acceptance of the
principle of arbitration; that by a similar concert
freedom of the seas be established; and that the
151
152 Democracy Today
territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplex-
ing problems of the Balkan States, and the restitu-
tion of Poland be left to such conciliatory adjust-
ments as may be possible in the new temper of such
a peace, due regard being paid to the aspirations of
the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations
will be involved.
It is manifest that no part of this program can be
successfully carried out unless the restitution of the
status quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory
basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the
free peoples of the world from the menace and the
actual power of a vast military establishment con-
trolled by an irresponsible Government which, hav-
ing secretly planned to dominate the world, pro-
ceeded to carry the plan out without regard either
to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-estab-
lished practices and long-cherished principles of
international action and honor; which chose its own
time for the war; delivered its blow fiercely and
suddenly; stopped at no barrier either of law or of
mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of
blood not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood
of innocent women and children also and of the
helpless poor; and now stands balked but not
defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This
power is not the German people. It is the ruthless
master of the German people. It is no business of
ours how that great people came under its control
or submitted with temporary zest to the domination
of its purpose; but it is our business to see to it
Reply to the Pope 153
that the history of the rest of the world is no longer
left to its handling.
To deal with such a power by way of peace upon
the plan proposed by his Holiness the Pope would,
so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its
strength and a renewal of its policy ; would make it
necessary to create a permanent hostile combination
of nations against the German people, who are its
instruments; and would result in abandoning the
new-born Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle
interference, and the certain counter-revolution
which would be attempted by all the malign influ-
ences to which the German Government has of late
accustomed the world. Can peace be based upon a
restitution of its power or upon any word of honor
it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and accom-
modation ?
Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see,
if they never saw before, that no peace can rest
securely upon political or economic restrictions meant
to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass
others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any
kind of revenge or deliberate injury. The Amer-
ican people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the
hands of the Imperial German Government, but they
desire no reprisals upon the German people, who
have themselves suffered all things in this war,
which they did not choose. They believe that peace
should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the rights
of Governments the rights of peoples great or
small, weak or powerful their equal right to free-
154 Democracy Today
dom and security and self-government and to a par-
ticipation upon fair terms in the economic oppor-
tunities of the world, the German people of course
included if they will accept equality and not seek
domination.
The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this :
Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved
or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intrig-
uing Government, on the one hand, and of a group
of free peoples on the other? This is the test which
goes to the root of the matter; and it is the test
which must be applied.
The purposes of the United States in this war are
known to the whole world, to every people to whom
the truth has been permitted to come. They do not
need to be stated again. We seek no material advan-
tage of any kind. We believe that the intolerable
wrongs done in this war by the furious and brutal
power of the Imperial German Government ought
to be repaired, but not at the expense of the sover-
eignty of any people rather a vindication of the
sovereignty both of those that are weak and of those
that are strong. Punitive damages, the dismember-
ment of empires, the establishment of selfish and
exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient
and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis
for a peace of any kind, least of all for an endur-
ing peace. That must be based upon justice and
fairness and the common rights of mankind.
We cannot take the word of the present rulers of
Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to
Reply to the Pope 155
endure, unless explicitly supported by such con-
clusive evidence of the will and purpose of the Ger-
man people themselves as the other peoples of the
world would be justified in accepting. Without
such guarantees treaties of settlement, agreements
for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in
the place, of force, territorial adjustments, reconsti-
tutions of small nations, if made with the German
Government, no 'man, no nation could now depend
on. We must await some new evidence of the pur-
poses of the great peoples of the Central Powers.
God grant it may be given soon and in a way to
restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in
the faith of nations and the possibility of a coven-
anted peace.
EGBERT LANSING,
Secretary of State of the United States of America.
WHY WE ARE AT WAR
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Why are we fighting Germany? The brief answer
is that ours is a war of self-defense. We did not
wish to fight Germany. She made the attack upon
us; not on our shores, but on our ships, our lives,
our rights, our future. For two years and more we
held to a neutrality that made us apologists for
things which outraged man's common sense of fair
play and humanity. At each new offense the inva-
sion of Belgium, the killing of civilian Belgians, the
attacks on Scarborough and other defenseless towns,
the laying of mines in neutral waters, the fencing
off of the seas and on and on through the months
we said: "This is war archaic, uncivilized war,
but war! All rules have been thrown away: all
nobility ; man has come down to the primitive brute.
And while we can not justify we will not intervene.
It is not our war."
Then why are we in? Because we could not keep
out. The invasion of Belgium, which opened the
war, led to the invasion of the United States by
slow, steady, logical steps. Our sympathies evolved
into a conviction of self-interest. Our love of fair
play ripened into alarm at our own peril.
We talked in the language and in the spirit of
good faith and sincerity, as honest men should talk,
until we discovered that our talk was construed as
156
Why We Are at War 157
cowardice. And Mexico was called upon to invade
us. We talked as men would talk who cared alone
for peace and the advancement of their own mate-
rial interests, until we discovered that we were
thought to be a nation of mere money makers, devoid
of all character until, indeed, we were told that we
could not walk the highways of the world without
permission of a Prussian soldier; that our ships
might not sail without wearing a striped uniform 1
of humiliation upon a narrow path af national sub-
servience. We talked as men talk who hope for
honest agreement, not for war, until we found that
the treaty torn to pieces at Liege was but the sym-
bol of a policy that made agreements worthless
against a purpose that knew no word but success.
And so we came into this war for ourselves. It
is a war to save America to preserve self-respect,
to justify our right to live as we have lived, not as
some one else wishes us to live. In the name of
freedom we challenge with ships and men, money,
and an undaunted spirit, that word "Verboten"
which Germany has written upon the sea and upon
the land. For America is not the name of so much
territory. It is a living spirit, born in travail,
grown in the rough school of bitter experiences, a
living spirit which has purpose and pride, and con-
science knows why it wishes to live and to what
end, knows how it comes to be respected of the
world, and hopes to retain that respect by living on
with the light of Lincoln's love of man as its Old
and New Testament. It is more precious that this
158 Democracy Today
America should live than that we Americans should
live. And this America, as we now see, has been
challenged from the first of this war by the strong
arm of a power that has no sympathy with our pur-
pose and will not hesitate to destroy us if the law
that we respect, the rights that are to us sacred, or
the spirit that we have, stand across her set will to
make this world bow before her policies, backed by
her organized and scientific military system. The
world of Christ a neglected but not a rejected
Christ has come again face to face with the world
of Mahomet, who willed to win by force.
With this background of history and in this sense,
then, we fight Germany
Because of Belgium invaded, outraged, enslaved,
impoverished Belgium. We can not forget Liege,
Louvain, and Cardinal Mercier. Translated into
terms of American history, these names stand for
Bunker Hill, Lexington, and Patrick Henry. .
Because of France invaded, desecrated France, a
million of whose heroic sons have died to save the
land of Lafayette. Glorious golden France, the pre-
server of the arts, the land of noble spirit the first
land to follow our lead into republican liberty.
Because of England from whom came the laws,
traditions, standards of life, and inherent love of
liberty which we call Anglo-Saxon civilization. We
defeated her once upon the land and once upon the
sea. 2 But Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Can-
ada are free because of what we did. And they are
with us in the fight for the freedom of the seas.
Why We Are at War 159
Because of Russia New Russia. She must not be
overwhelmed now. Not now, surely, when she is
just born into freedom. Her peasants must have
their chance; they must go to school to Washing-
ton, to Jefferson, and to Lincoln until they know
their way about in this new, strange world of gov-
ernment by the popular will.
Because of other peoples, with their rising hope
that the world may be freed from government by
the soldier.
We are fighting Germany because she sought to
terrorize us and then to fool us. We could not
believe that Germany would do what she said she
would do upon the seas.
We still hear the piteous cries of children coming
up out of the sea where the Lusitania went down.
And Germany has never asked forgiveness of the
world.
We saw the Sussex sunk, crowded with the sons and
daughters of neutral nations.
We saw ship after ship sent to the bottom ships
of mercy bound out of America for the Belgian
starving ; ships carrying the Red Cross and laden
with che wounded of all nations; ships carrying
food and clothing to friendly, harmless, terrorized
peoples; ships flying the Stars and Stripes sent to
the bottom hundreds of miles from shore, manned
by American seamen, murdered against all law, with-
out warning.
We believed Germany's pro'mise that she would
respect the neutral flag and the rights of neutrals,
160 Democracy Today
and we held our anger and outrage in check. But
now we see that she was holding us off with fair
promises until she could build her huge fleet of sub-
marines. 3 For when spring came she blew her prom-
ise into the air, just as at the beginning she had
torn up that "scrap of paper." 4 Then we saw clearly
that there was but one law for Germany her will
to rule.
We are fighting Germany because she violated our
confidence. Paid German spies filled our cities. Offi-
cials of her Government, received as the guests of
this Nation, lived with us to bribe and terrorize,
defying our law and the law of nations.
We are fighting Germany because while we were
yet her friends the only great power that still held
hands off she sent the Zimmennann note, 5 calling to
her aid Mexico, our southern neighbor, and hoping
to lure Japan, our western neighbor, into war
against this Nation of peace.
The nation that would do these things proclaims
the gospel that government has no conscience. And
this doctrine can not live, or else democracy must
die. For the nations of the world must keep faith.
There can be no living for us in a world where the
state has no conscience, no reverence for the things
of the spirit, no respect for international law, no
mercy for those who fall before its force. What an
unordered world ! Anarchy ! The anarchy of rival
wolf packs!
We are fighting Germany because in this war feu-
dalism 6 is making its last stand against on-coming
Why We Are at War 161
democracy. We see it now. This is a war against
an old spirit, an ancient, outworn spirit. It is a
war against feudalism the right of the castle on
the hill to rule the village below. It is a war for
democracy the right of all to be their own masters.
Let Germany be feudal if she will, but she must not
spread her system over the world that has outgrown
it. Feudalism plus science, thirteenth century plus
twentieth this is the religion of the mistaken Ger-
many that has linked itself with the Turk ; that has,
too, adopted the method of Mahomet. "The state
has no conscience. " " The state can do no wrong. ' ' 7
With the spirit of the fanatic she believes this gos-
pel and that it is her duty to spread it by force.
With poison gas that makes living a hell, with sub-
marines that sneak through the seas to slyly murder
noncombatants, with dirigibles that bombard men
and women while they sleep, with a perfected sys-
tem of terrorization that the modern world first
heard of when German troops entered China, 8 Ger-
man feudalism is making war upon 'mankind. Let
this old spirit of evil have its way and no man will
live in America without paying toll to it in man-
hood and in money. This spirit might demand Can-
ada from a defeated, navyless England, and then
our dream of peace on the north would be at an
end. We would live, as France has lived for forty
years, in haunting terror.
America speaks for the world in fighting Ger-
many. Mark on a map those countries which are
Germany's allies and you will mark but four, run-
162 Democracy Today
rung from the Baltic through Austria and Bulgaria
to Turkey. All the other nations the whole globe
around are in arms against her or are unable to
move. There is deep meaning in this. We fight
with the world for an honest world in which nations
keep their word, for a world in which nations do
not live by swagger or by threat, for a world in
which men think of the ways in which they can
conquer the common cruelties of nature instead of
inventing more horrible cruelties to inflict upon the
spirit and body of man, for a world in which the
ambition or the philosophy of a few shall not make
miserable all mankind, for a world in which the
man is held more precious than the machine, the
system, or the state.
THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN
ELIHU ROOT
[ADDRESS DELIVERED AT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, SEPTEMBER
14, 1917]
The declaration of war between the United States
and Germany completely changed the relations of all
the inhabitants of this country to the subject of peace
and war.
Before the declaration everybody had a right to
discuss in private and in public the question whether
the United States should carry on war against Ger-
many. Everybody had a right to argue that there
was no sufficient cause for war, that the consequences
of war would be worse than the consequences
of continued peace, that it would be wiser to submit
to the aggressions of Germany against American
rights, that it would be better to have Germany suc-
ceed than to have the allies succeed in the great con-
flict.
Everybody holding these views had a right by
expressing them to seek to influence public opinion
and to affect the action of the President and the Con-
gress, to whom the people of the country by their
constitution have entrusted the power to determine
whether the United States shall or shall not make war.
But the question of peace or war has now been
decided by the President and Congress, the sole
163
164 Democracy Today
authorities which had the right to decide, the lawful
authorities upon whom rested the duty to decide. The
question no longer remains open. It has been deter-
mined and the United States is at war with Germany.
The power to make such a decision is the most
essential, vital, and momentous of all the powers of
government. No nation can maintain its independ-
ence or protect its citizens against oppression or con-
tinue to be free which does not vest the power to
make that decision in some designated authority, or
which does not recognize the special and imperative
duties of citizenship in time of war following upon
such a decision lawfully made.
One of the cardinal objects of the Union which
formed this nation was to create a lawful authority
whose decision and action upon this momentous ques-
tion should bind all the states and all the people of
every state.
The constitution under which we have lived for one
hundred and thirty years declares : ' ' We, the people
of the United States, in order to ... provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution." 1
The constitution so ordained vests in Congress the
power to declare war, to raise and support armies, to
provide and maintain a navy, 2 and it vests in the Pres-
ident the power to command the army and navy. 3
The power in this instance was exercised not sud-
denly or rashly, but advisedly, after a long delay and
discussion, and patience under provocation, after
The Duties of the Citizen 165
repeated diplomatic warnings to Germany known to
the whole country, after clear notice by breach of
diplomatic relations with Germany that the question
was imminent, after long opportunity for reflection
and discussion following that notice, and after a for-
mal and deliberate presentation by the President to
Congress of the reasons for action in an address which
compelled the attention not of Congress alone but of
all Americans and of all the world and which must
forever stand as one of the great state papers of mod-
ern times.
The decision was made by overwhelming majorities
of both houses of Congress. 4 When such a decision
has been made the duties and therefore the rights
of all the people of the country immediately change.
It becomes their duty to stop discussion upon the
question decided, and to act, to proceed immediately
to do everything in their power to enable the govern-
ment of their country to succeed in the war upon
which the country has entered. It is a fundamental
necessity of government that it shall have the power
to decide great questions of policy and to act upon its
decision.
In order that there shall be action following a deci-
sion once- made, the decision must be accepted. Dis-
cussion upon the question must be deemed closed.
A nation which declares war and goes on discussing
whether it ought to have declared war or not is impo-
tent, paralyzed, imbecile, and earns the contempt of
mankind and the certainty of humiliating defeat and
subjection to foreign control.
166 Democracy Today
A democracy which cannot accept its own decisions,
made in accordance with its own laws, but must keep
on endlessly discussing the questions already decided,
has failed in the fundamental requirements of self-
government; and, if the decision is to make war, the
failure to exhibit capacity for self-government by
action will inevitably result in the loss of the right of
self-government.
Before the decision of a proposal to make war, men
may range themselves upon one side or the other of
the question ; but after the decision in favor of war,
the country has ranged itself, and the only issue left
for the individual citizen is whether he is for or
against his country. From that time on arguments
against the war in which the country is engaged are
enemy arguments.
Their spirit is the spirit of rebellion against the
government and laws of the United States. Their
effect is to hinder and lessen that popular support of
the government in carrying on the war which is nec-
essary to success. Their manifest purpose is to pre-
vent action by continuing discussion.
They encourage the enemy. They tend to introduce
delay and irresolution into our own councils. The
men who are speaking and writing and printing argu-
ments against the "war now, and against everything
which is being done to carry on the war, are render-
ing more effective service to Germany than they ever
could render in the field with arms in their hands.
The purpose and effect of what they are doing is so
plain that it is impossible to resist the conclusion that
The Duties of the Citizen 167
the greater part of them are at heart traitors to the
United States and wilfully seeking to bring about the
triumph of Germany and the humiliation and defeat
of their own country.
Somebody has to decide where armies are to fight,
whether our territory is to be defended by waiting
here until we are attacked or by going out and attack-
ing the enemy before they get here. The power to
make that decision and the duty to make it rest under
the constitution of this country with the President as
commander-in-chief.
When the President has decided that the best way
to beat Germany is to send our troops to France and
Belgium, that is the way the war must be carried on,
if at all.
I think the decision was wise. Others may think it
unwise. But, when the decision has been made, what
we think is immaterial. The commander-in-chief, with
all the advice and all the wisdom he can command,
has decided when and where the American army is to
move. The army must obey, and all loyal citizens of
the country will do their utmost to make that move-
ment a success.
Anybody who seeks by argument or otherwise to
stop the execution of the order sending troops to
France and Belgium is simply trying to prevent the
American government from carrying on the war suc-
cessfully. He is aiding the enemies of his country,
and if he understands what he is really doing, he is
a traitor at heart.
168 Democracy Today
It is beyond doubt that many of the professed paci-
fists, the opponents of the war after the war has been
entered upon, the men who are trying to stir up resist-
ance to the draft, the men who are inciting strikes in
the particular branches of production which are nec-
essary for the supply of arms and munitions of war,
are intentionally seeking to aid Germany and defeat
the United States.
As time goes on and the character of these acts
becomes more and more clearly manifest, all who con-
tinue to associate with them must come under the
same condemnation as traitors to their country.
There are doubtless some who do not understand
what this struggle really is. Some who were born
here resent interference with their comfort and pros-
perity, and the demands for sacrifice which seem to
them unnecessary, and they fail to see that the time
has come when, if Americans are to keep the inde-
pendence and liberty which their fathers won by suf-
fering and sacrifice, they in their turn must fight
again for the preservation of that independence and
liberty.
There are some born abroad who have come to this
land for a greater freedom and broader opportunities,
and have sought and received the privileges of Amer-
ican citizenship, who are swayed by dislike for some
ally or by the sympathies of German kinship, and fail
to see that the time has come for them to make good
the obligations of their sworn oaths of naturalization.
This is the oath that the applicant for citizenship
makes :
The Duties of the Citizen 169
' ' That he will support the constitution of the United
States, and that he absolutely and entirely renounces
all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, poten-
tate, state, or sovereignty; that he will support and
defend the constitution and laws of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear
true faith and allegiance to the same."
All these naturalized citizens who are taking part
in this obstruction to our government in the conduct
of the war are false to their oaths, are forfeiting their
rights of citizenship, are repudiating their honorable
obligations, are requiting by evil the good that has
been done them in the generous and unstinted hos-
pitality with which the people of the United States
have welcomed them to the liberty and the opportuni-
ties of this free land. We must believe that in many
cases this is done because of failure to understand
what this war really is.
This is a war of defense. It is perfectly described
in the words of the constitution which established this
nation: "To provide for the common defense" and
"To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and
our posterity."
The national defense demands not merely force, but
intelligence. It requires foresight, consideration of
the policies and purposes of other nations, understand-
ing of the inevitable or probable consequences of the
acts of other nations, judgment as to the time when
successful defense may be made, and when it will be
too late, and prompt action before it is too late.
170 Democracy Today
By entering this war in April, the United States
availed itself of the very last opportunity to defend
itself against subjection to German power before it
was too late to defend itself successfully.
For many years we have pursued our peaceful
course of internal development protected in a variety
of ways. We were protected by the law of nations
to which all civilized governments have professed their
allegiance. So long as we committed no injustice our-
selves we could not be attacked without a violation of
that law.
We were protected by a series of treaties under
which all the principal nations of the earth agreed to
respect our rights and to maintain friendship with
us. We were protected by an extensive system of
arbitration created by or consequent upon the peace
conferences at The Hague, and under which all con-
troversies arising under the law and under treaties
were to be settled peaceably by arbitration and not
by force.
We were protected by the broad expanse of ocean
separating us from all great military powers, and by
the bold assertion of the Monroe Doctrine that if any
of those powers undertook to overpass the ocean and
establish itself upon these western continents that
would be regarded as dangerous to the peace and
safety of the United States, and would call upon her
to act in her defense.
We were protected by the fact that the policy and
the fleet of Great Britain were well known to support
the Monroe Doctrine. We were protected by the deli-
The Duties of the Citizen 171
cate balance of power in Europe which made it seem
not worth while for any power to engage in a conflict
here at the risk of suffering from its rivals there.
All these protections were swept away by the war
which began in Europe in 1914. The war was begun
by the concerted action of Germany and Austria the
invasion of Serbia on the east by Austria and the
invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium on the west by
Germany. Both invasions were in violation of the
law of nations, and in violation of the faith of treaties.
Everybody knew that Russia was bound in good
faith to come to the relief of Serbia, that France was
bound by treaty to come to the aid of Russia, that
England was bound by treaty to come to the aid of
Belgium, so that the invasion of these two small states
was the beginning of a general European war.
These acts, which have drenched the world with
blood, were defended and justified in the bold avowal
of the German government that the interests of the
German state were superior to the obligations of law
and the faith of treaties, 5 that no law or treaty was
binding upon Germany which it was for the interest
of Germany to violate.
All pretense of obedience to the law of nations and
of respect for solemn promises was thrown off; and,
in lieu of that systeifc of lawful and moral restraint
upon power which Christian civilization has been
building up for a century was reinstated the cynical
philosophy of Frederick the Great, the greatest of the
Hohenzollerns, who declares:
172 Democracy Today
1 ' Statesmanship can be reduced to three principles :
First, to maintain your power, and, according to cir-
cumstances, to extend it. Second, to form an alliance
only for your own advantage. Third, to command
fear and respect, even in the most disastrous times.
' ' Do not be ashamed of making interested alliances
from which you yourself can derive the whole advan-
tage. Do not make the foolish mistake of not break-
ing them when you believe your interests require it.
' ' Above all, uphold the following maxim : To
despoil your neighbors is to deprive them of the means
of injuring you.
"When he is about to conclude a treaty with some
foreign power, if a sovereign remembers he is a Chris-
tion, he is lost. ' '
From 1914 until the present, in a war waged by
Germany with a revolting barbarity unequaled since
the conquests of Genghis Khan, 6 Germany has violated
every rule agreed upon 'by civilized nations in mod-
ern times to mitigate the barbarities of war or to pro-
tect the rights of noncombatants and neutrals. She
had no grievance against Belgium except that Bel-
gium stood upon her admitted rights and refused to
break the faith of her treaties by consenting that the
neutrality of her territory should be violated to give
Germany an avenue for the attack upon France.
She has taken possession of the territory of Belgium
and subjected her people to the hard yoke of a brutal
soldiery. She has extorted vast sums from her peace-
ful cities. She has burned her towns and battered
down her noble churches. She has stripped the Bel-
The Duties of the Citizen 173
gian factories of their machinery and deprived them
of the raw material of manufacture.
She has carried away her workmen by tens of thou-
sands into slavery, and her women into worse than
slavery. She has slain peaceful noncombatants by the
hundred, undeterred by the helplessness of age, of
infancy, or of womanhood. She has done the same in
northern France, in Poland, in Serbia, in Roumania.
In all of these countries women have been outraged
by the thousand, by tens of thousand, and who ever
heard of a German soldier being punished for rape,
or robbery, or murder? These revolting outrages
upon humanity and law are not the casual incidents
of war, but are the results of a settled policy of fright-
fulness answering to the maxim of the Great Fred-
erick to ' ' command respect through fear. ' '
Why were these things done by Germany? The
answer rests upon the accumulated evidence of Ger-
man acts and German words so conclusive that no pre-
tense can cover it, no sophistry can disguise it. The
answer is that this war was begun and these crimes
against humanity were done because Germany was
pursuing the hereditary policy of the Hohenzollerns
and following the instincts of the arrogant military
caste which rules Prussia, to grasp the over-lordship
of the civilized world and establish an empire in which
she should play the role of ancient Eome.
They were done because Prussian militarism still
pursues the policy of power through conquest, of
aggrandizement through force and fear, which in little
more than two centuries has brought the puny mark
174 Democracy Today
of Brandenburg 7 with its million and a half of
people to the control of a vast empire the greatest
armed force of the modern world.
It now appears beyond the possibility of doubt that
this war was made by Germany pursuing a long and
settled purpose. For many years she has been pre-
paring to do exactly what she has done with a thor-
oughness, a perfection of plans, and a vastness of pro-
vision in men, munitions, and supplies never before
equaled or approached in human history.
She brought the war on when she chose, because
she chose, in the belief that she could conquer the
earth, nation by nation.
All nations are egotistical, all peoples think most
highly of their own qualities, and regard other peo-
ples as inferior ; but the egotism of the ruling class of
Prussia is beyond all example and it is active and
aggressive. They believe that Germany is entitled to
rule the world by virtue of her superiority in all these
qualities which they include under the term "kultur,"
and by reason of her power to compel submission by
the sword.
That belief does not evaporate in theory. It is
translated into action, and this war is the action which
results. This belief of national superiority and the
right to assert it everywhere is a tradition from the
Great Frederick. 8 It has been instilled into th^ minds
of the German people through all the universities and
schools. It has been preached from her pulpits and
taught by her philosophers and historians. It has
been maintained by her government and it will never
The Duties of the Citizen 175
cease to furnish the motive for the people of Prussia
so long as German power enables the military auto-
cracy of Prussia to act upon it with success.
Plainly, if the power of the German government is
to continue, America can no longer look for protection
to the law of nations or the faith of treaties or the
instincts of humanity or the restraints of modern
civilization.
Plainly, also, if we had stayed out of the war and
Germany had won there would no longer have been
a balance of power in Europe or a British fleet to sup-
port the Monroe Doctrine and protect America.
Does any one indulge in the foolish assumption that
Germany would not then have extended her lust for
power by conquest to the American continent? Let
him consider what it is for which the nations of
Europe have been chiefly contending for centuries
past.
It has been for colonies. It has been to bring the
unoccupied or weakly held spaces of the earth under
their flags and their political control, in order to
increase their trade and their power.
Spain, Holland, Portugal, England, France, have
all had their turn, and have covered the earth with
their possessions. For thirty years Germany, the last
comer, has been pressing forward with feverish activ-
ity the acquisition of stations for her power on every
coast and every sea, restive and resentful because she
has been obliged to take what others have left.
Europe, Asia, and Africa have been taken up. The
Americas alone remain. Here in the vast and unde-
176 Democracy Today
fended spaces of the new world, fraught with poten-
tial wealth incalculable, Germany could "find a place
in the sun," to use her emperor's phrase; Germany
could find her ' ' liberty of national evolution, ' ' to use
his phrase again. Every traditional policy, every
instinct of predatory Prussia, would urge her into this
new field of aggrandizement.
What would prevent? The Monroe doctrine? Yes.
But what is the Monroe doctrine as against a nation
which respects only force unless it can be maintained
by force ? We already know how the German govern-
ment feels about the Monroe doctrine.
Bismarck declared it to be a piece of colossal impu-
dence; and, when President Roosevelt interfered to
assert the doctrine for the protection of Venezuela,
the present kaiser declared that if he then had a larger
navy he would have taken America by the scruff of
the neck. 9
If we had stayed out of the war, and Germany had
won, we should have had to defend the Monroe doc-
trine by force or abandon it ; and if we abandoned it
there would have been a German naval base in the
Caribbean commanding the Panama canal, depriving
us of that strategic line which unites our eastern and
western coasts, and depriving us of the protection the
expanse of ocean once gave, and an America unable
or unwilling to protect herself against the establish-
ment of a German naval base in the Caribbean would
lie at the mercy of Germany, and subject to Ger-
many's orders.
The Duties of the Citizen 177
America's independence would be gone unless she
was ready to fight for it, and her security would
thenceforth be not a security of freedom, but only a
security purchased by submission.
But if America had stayed out of the war and Ger-
many had won, could we have defended the Monroe
doctrine? Could we have maintained our independ-
ence? For an answer to that question consider what
we have been doing since the 2d of April last, when
war was declared.
Congress has been in continuous session passing
with unprecedented rapidity laws containing grants
of power and of money unexampled in our history.
The executive establishment has been straining every
nerve to prepare for war. The ablest and strongest
leaders of industrial activity have been called from all
parts of the country to aid the government.
The people of the country have generously
responded with noble loyalty and enthusiasm to tht
call for the surrender of money and of customary
rights, and the supply of men to the service of the,
country.
Nearly half a year has passed, and still we are no'j
ready to fight. I am not blaming the government.
It was inevitable. Preparation for modern war can-
not be made briefly or speedily. It requires time
long periods of time; and the more peaceful and
unprepared for war a democracy is the longer is the
time required.
It would have required just as long for America to
prepare for war if we had stayed out of this war and
178 Democracy Today
Germany had won and we had undertaken to defend
the Monroe doctrine or to defend our coasts when we
had lost the protection of the Monroe doctrine. Month
after month would have passed with no adequate army
ready to fight, just as these recent months have pasced.
But what would Germany have been doing in* the
meantime? How long would it have been before our
attempts at preparation would have been stopped by
German arms? A country that is forced to defend
itself against the aggression of a military autocracy
always prepared for war must herself be prepared for
war beforehand or she never will have the opportunity
to prepare.
The history, the character, the avowed principles of
action, the manifest and undisguised purposes of the
German autocracy made it clear and certain that if
America stayed out of the great war, and Germany
won, America would forthwith be required to defend
herself and would be unable to defend herself against
the same lust for conquest, the same will to dominate
the world, which has made Europe a bloody shambles.
When Germany did actually apply her principles
of action to us, and by the invasion of Belgium she
violated the solemn covenant she has made with us 10 to
observe the law of neutrality established for the pro-
tection of peaceful states, when she had arrogantly
demanded that American commerce should surrender
its lawful right of passage upon the high seas under
penalty of destruction, when she had sunk American
ships and sent to their death hundreds of American
citizens, peaceful men, women, and children, when the
The Duties of the Citizen 179
Gulflight and the Falaba, and the Persia and the
Arabic and the Sussex and the Lusitania had been
torpedoed without warning in contempt of law and
of humanity, when the German embassy at Washing-
ton had been found to be the headquarters of a vast
conspiracy of corruption within our country inciting
sedition and concealing infernal machines in the car-
goes of our ships and blowing up our factories with
the workmen laboring in them, and when the govern-
ment of Germany had been discovered attempting to
incite Mexico and Japan to form a league with her to
attack us and to bring about a dismemberment of our
territory, then the question presented to the American
people was not what shall be done regarding each of
these specific aggressions taken by itself, but what
shall be done by America to defend her commerce, her
territory, her citizens, her independence, her liberty,
her life as a nation against the continuance of assaults
already begun by that mighty and conscienceless
power which had swept aside every restraint and
every principle of Christian civilization and was seek-
ing to force upon a subjugated world the dark and
cruel rule of a barbarous past.
The question was how shall peaceful and unpre-
pared and liberty loving America save herself from
subjection to the military power of Germany. There
was but one possible answer. There was but one
chance for rescue and that was to act at once while
the other democracies of the world were still main-
taining their liberty against the oppressor, to prepare
at once while the armies and the navies of England
180 Democracy Today
and France and Italy and Russia and Roumania were
holding down Germany so that she could not attack
us while our preparation was but half accomplished,
to strike while there were allies loving freedom like
ourselves to strike with us, to do our share to prevent
the German kaiser from acquiring that domination
over the world which would have left us without
friends to aid us, without preparation, and without
the possibility of successful defense.
The instinct of the American democracy which led
it to act when it did arose from. a long delayed and
reluctant consciousness still vague and half expressed,
that this is no ordinary war which the world is wag-
ing. It is no contest for petty policies and profits.
It is a mighty and all-embracing struggle between two
conflicting principles of human right and human
duty.
It is a conflict between the divine right of kings to
govern mankind through armies and nobles and the
right of the peoples of the earth to toil and endure
and aspire to govern themselves by law in the free-
dom of individual manhood.
It is the climax of the supreme struggle between
autocracy and democracy. No nation can stand aside
and be free from its effects. The two systems cannot
endure together in the same world.
If autocracy triumphs, military power lustful of
dominion, supreme in strength, intolerant of human
rights, holding itself superior to law, to morals, to
faith, to compassion, will crush out the free democ-
racies of the world. If autocracy is defeated and
The Duties of the Citizen 181
nations are compelled to recognize the rules of law
and of morals, then and then only will democracy be
safe.
To this great conflict for human rights and human
liberty America has committed herself. There can be
no backward step. There must be either humiliating
and degrading submission or terrible defeat or glori-
ous victory. It was no human will that brought us to
this pass. It was not the President. If was not Con-
gress. It was not the press. It was not any political
party. It was not any section or part of our people.
It was that in the providence of God the mighty
forces that determine the destinies of mankind beyond
the control of human purpose have brought to us the
time, the occasion, the necessity, that this peaceful
people so long enjoying the blessings of liberty and
justice for which their fathers fought and sacrificed
shall again gird themselves for conflict, and with all
the forces of manhood nurtured and strengthened by
liberty offer again the sacrifice of possessions and of
life itself, that this nation may still be free, that the
mission of American democracy shall not have failed,
that the world shall be free.
WHAT DEMOCRACY MEANS
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
DELIVERED AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK, NOV. 12, 1917]
I esteem it a great privilege and a real honor to be
thus admitted to your public councils. When your
executive committee paid me the compliment of invit-
ing me here I gladly accepted the invitation because
it seems to me that this above all other times in our
history is the time for common counsel, for the draw-
ing not only of the energies but of the minds of the
cation together.
I thought that it was a welcome opportunity for
disclosing to you some of the thoughts that have been
gathering in my mind during the last momentous
months.
I am introduced to you as the president of the
United States, and yet I would be pleased if you would
put the thought of the office into the background and
regard me as one of your fellow citizens who has come
here to speak not the words of authority but the
words of counsel, the words which men should speak
to one another who wish to be frank in a moment
more critical perhaps than the history of the world
has ever yet known, a moment when it is every man's
duty to forget himself, to forget his own interests, to
fill himself with the nobility of a great national and
182
What Democracy Means 183
world conception and act upon a new platform ele-
vated above the ordinary affairs of life, elevated to
where men have views of the long destiny of man-
kind.
I think that in order to realize just what this
moment of counsel is, it is very desirable that we
should remind ourselves just how this war came about
and just what it is for. You can explain most wars
very simply, but the explanation of this is not so sim-
ple. Its roots run deep into all the obscure soils of
history, and in my view this is the last decisive issue
between the old principles of power and the new
principles of freedom.
The war was started by Germany. Her authorities
deny that they started it. But I am willing to let the
statement I have just made await the verdict of his-
tory. And the thing that needs to be explained is
why Germany started the war.
Eemember what the position of Germany in the
world was as enviable a position as any nation has
ever occupied. The whole world stood at admiration
of her wonderful intellectual and material achieve-
ments, and all the intellectual men of the world went
to school to her. As a university man I have been
surrounded by men trained in Germany, men who had
resorted to Germany because nowhere else could they
get such thorough and searching training, particu-
larly in the principles of science and the principles
that underlie modern material achievements.
Her men of science had made her industries per-
haps the most competent industries in the world, and
184 Democracy Today
the label, "Made in Germany," was a guarantee of
good workmanship and of sound material. She had
access to all the markets of the world, and every other
man who traded in those markets feared Germany
because of her effective and almost irresistible com-
petition.
She had a place in the sun. Why was she not satis-
fied ? What more did she want ? There was nothing
in the world of peace that she did not already have
and have in abundance.
We boast of the extraordinary pace of American
advancement. We show with pride the statistics of
the increase of our industries and of the population
of our cities. Well, those statistics did not match the
recent statistics of Germany. Her old cities took on
youth, grew faster than any American city ever grew ;
her old industries opened their eyes and saw a new
world and went out for its conquest; and yet the
authorities of Germany were not satisfied.
You have one part of the answer to the question
why she was not satisfied in her methods of competi-
tion. There is no important industry in Germany
upon which the government has not laid its hands to
direct it, and when necessity arise, control it.
You have only to ask any man whom you meet,
who is familiar with the conditions that prevailed
before the war in the matter of international compe-
tition, to find out the methods of competition which
the German manufacturers and exporters used under
the patronage and support of the government of Ger-
many. 1 You will find that they were the same sorts of
What Democracy Means 185
competition that we have tried to prevent by law
within our own borders.
If they could not sell their goods cheaper than we
could sell ours at a profit to themselves, they could
get a subsidy from the government which made
it possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and the con-
ditions of competition were thus controlled in large
measure by the German government itself. But that
did not satisfy the German government.
All the while there was lying behind its thought, in
its dreams of the future, a political control which
would enable it in the long run to dominate the labor
and the industry of the world. They were not content
with success by superior achievement; they wanted
success by authority.
I suppose few of you have thought much about the
Berlin to Bagdad railway. 2 The Berlin to Bagdad
railway was constructed in order to run the threat of
force down the flank of the industrial undertakings
of half a dozen other countries, so that when German
competition came in it would not be resisted too far
because there was always the possibility of getting
German armies into the heart of that country quicker
than any other armies could be got there.
Look at the map of Europe now. Germany, in
thrusting upon us again and again the discussion of
peace talks about what? Talks about Belgium, talks
about northern France, talks about Alsace-Lorraine.
Those are deeply interesting subjects to us and to
them, but they are not talking about the heart of the
matter.
186 Democracy Today
Take the map and look at it. Germany has abso-
lute control of Austria-Hungary, practical control of
the Balkan states, control of Turkey, control of Asia
Minor. I saw a map in which the whole thing was
printed in appropriate black the other day and the
black stretched all the way from Hamburg to Bagdad
the bulk of German power inserted into the heart of
the world.
If it can keep that she has kept all that her dreams
contemplated when the war began. If she can keep
that, her power can disturb the world as long as she
keeps it, always provided, for I feel bound to put this
proviso in, always provided the present influences
that control the German government continue to con-
trol it.
I believe that the spirit of freedom can get into the
hearts of Germans and find as fine a welcome there
as it can find in any other hearts. But the spirit of
freedom does not suit the plans of the Pan-Germans. 3
Power cannot be used with concentrated force against
free peoples if it is used by free people.
You know how many intimations come to us from
one of the central powers that it is more anxious for
peace than the chief central power; and you know
that it means that the people in that central power
know that if the war ends as it stands, they will in
effect themselves be vassals of Germany, notwithstand-
ing that their populations are compounded with all
the people of that part of the world, and notwith-
standing the fact that they do not wish in their pride
187
and proper spirit of nationality to be so absorbed and
dominated.
Germany is determined that the political power oi
the world shall belong to her. There have been such
ambitions before. They have been in part realized.
But never before have those ambitions been based
upon so exact and precise and scientific a plan of
domination.
May I not say that it is amazing to me that any
group of people should be so ill-informed as to sup-
pose, as some groups in Russia apparently suppose,
that any reforms planned in the interest of the people
can live in the presence of a Germany powerful
enough to undermine or overthrow them by intrigue
or force? Any body of free men that compounds with
the present German government is compounding for
its own destruction. But that is not the whole of the
story. Any man in America, or anywhere else, who
supposes that the free industry and enterprise of the
world can continue if the Pan-German plan is
achieved and German power fastened upon the world
is as fatuous as the dreamers of Russia.
What I am opposed to is not the feeling of the
pacifists, but their stupidity. My heart is with them,
but my mind has a contempt for them. I want peace,
but I know how to get it, and they do not.
You will notice that I sent a friend of mine, Colonel
House, to Europe, 4 who is as great a lover of peace as
any man in the world ; but I did not send him on a
peace mission ; I sent him to take part in a conference
as to how the war was to be won ; and he knows, as I
188 Democracy Today
know, that this is the way to get peace, if you want
it for more than a few minutes.
All of this is a preface to the conference that I
referred to with regard to what we are going to do.
If we are true friends of freedom our own or any-
body else's we will see that the power of this coun-
try and the productivity of this country is raised to
its absolute maximum and that absolutely nobody is
allowed to stand in the way of it.
When I say that nobody is allowed to stand in the
way, I don't mean that they shall be prevented by
the power of the government, but by the power of
the American spirit. Our duty, if we are to do this
great thing and show America to be what we believe
her to be, the greatest hope and energy of the world,
then we must stand together night and day until the
job is finished.
While we are fighting for freedom we must see,
among other things, that labor is free ; and that means
a number of interesting things. It means not only
that we must do what we have declared our purpose
to do see that the conditions of labor are not ren-
dered more onerous by the war but also that we shall
see to it that the instrumentalities by which the con-
ditions of labor are improved are not blocked or
checked.
That we must do. That has been the matter about
which I have taken pleasure in conferring from time
to time with your president, Mr. Gompers. And, if
I may be permitted to do so, I want to express my
admiration of his patriotic courage, his large vision,
What Democracy Means 189
and his statesmanlike sense of what is to be done. I
like to lay my mind alongside of a mind that knows
how to pull in harness. The horses that kick over
the traces will have to be put in a corral.
Now, to "stand the ground" means that nobody
must interrupt the processes of our energy, if the
interruption can possibly be avoided without the abso-
lute invasion of freedom. To put it concretely that
means this : Nobody has a right to stop the processes
of labor until all the methods of conciliation and set-
tlement have been exhausted ; and I might as well say
right here that I am not talking to you alone.
You sometimes stop the courses of labor, but there
are others who do the same. And I believe that I am
speaking of my own experience not only but of the
experience of others, when I say that you are reason-
able in- a larger number of cases than the capitalists.
I am not saying these things to them personally
yet, because I haven't had a chance. But in order' to
clear the atmosphere and come down to business every-
body on both sides has got to transact business, and
the settlement is never impossible when both sides
want to do the square and right thing. Moreover, a
settlement is always hard to avoid when the parties
can be brought face to face.
I can differ with a man much more radically when
he isn't in the room than I can when he is in the room,
because then the awkward thing is that he can come
back at me and answer what I say. It is always dan-
gerous for a man to have the floor entirely to himself.
And, therefore, we must insist in every instance that
190 Democracy Today
the parties come into each other's presence and there
discuss the issues between them, and not separately in
places which have no communication with each other.
I always like to remind myself of a delightful say-
ing of an Englishman of a past generation, Charles
Lamb. He was with a group of friends and he spoke
very harshly of some man who was not present. I
ought to say that Lamb stuttered a little. And one
of his friends said, ''Why, Charles, I didn't know
that you knew so and so ? "
' ' 0, " he said, ' ' I don 't. I can 't hate a man I know. ' '
There is a great deal of human nature, of very pleas-
ant human nature, in that saying. It is hard to hate
a man you know. I must admit, parenthetically, that
there are some politicians whose methods I do not
believe in, but they are jolly good fellows, and if they
only would not talk the wrong kind of politics with
me I would love to be with them. And so it is all
along the line in serious matters and things less
serious.
We are all of the same clay and spirit and we can
get together if we desire to get together.
Therefore, my counsel to you is this :
Let us show ourselves Americans by showing that
we do not want to go off in separate camps or groups
by ourselves, but that we want to cooperate with all
other classes and all other groups in a common enter-
prise which is to release the spirits of the world from
bondage.
I would be willing to set that up as the final test of
an American. That is the meaning of democracy.
What Democracy Means 191
I have been very much distressed, my fellow citi-
zens, by some of the things that have happened
recently. The mob spirit is displaying itself here
and there in this country. 5 I have sympathy with
what some men are saying, but I have no sympathy
with the men that take their punishment into their
own hands ; and I want to say to every man who does
join such a mob that I do not recognize him as worthy
of the free institutions of the United States.
There are some organizations 6 in this country whose
object is anarchy and the destruction of law, but I
would not meet their efforts by making myself a part-
ner in destroying the law. I despise and hate their
purposes as much as any man, but I respect the
ancient processes of justice and I would be too proud
not to see them done justice, however wrong they are.
And so I want to utter my earnest protest against any
manifestation of the spirit of lawlessness anywhere or
in any cause.
Why, gentlemen, look what it means. We claim to
be the greatest democratic people in the world, and
democracy means first of all that we can govern our-
selves. If our men have not self-control, then they are
not capable of that great thing which we call demo-
cratic government. A man who takes the law into
his own hands is not the right man to cooperate in
any form of orderly development of law and institu-
tions. And some of the processes by which the strug-
gle between capital and labor is carried on are
processes that come very near to taking the law into
your own hands.
192 Democracy Today
I do not mean, for a moment to compare them with
what I have just been speaking of, but I want you to
see that they are mere gradations of the manifesta-
tions of the unwillingness to cooperate, and the fun-
damental lesson of the whole situation is that we must
not only take common counsel but that we must yield
to and obey common counsel. Not all of the instru-
mentalities for this are at hand. I am hopeful that in
the very near future new instrumentalities may be
organized by which we can see to it that various
things that are now going on shall not go on.
There are various processes of the dilution of labor
and the unnecessary substitution of labor and bidding
in distant markets and unfairly upsetting the whole
competition of labor which ought not to go on I mean
now on the part of employers and we must interject
into this some instrumentality of cooperation by
which the fair thing will be done all around. I am
hopeful that some such instrumentalities may be
devised, but whether they are or not, we must use
those that we have and upon every occasion where it
is necessary to have such an instrumentality origin-
ated upon that occasion, if necessary.
And so, my fellow citizens, the reason that I came
away from Washington is that I sometimes get lonely
down there. There are so many people in Washington
who know things that are not so, and there are so few
people in Washington who know anything about what
the people of the United States are thinking, I
have to come away to get reminded of the rest of the
country; I have to come away and talk to men who
What Democracy Means 193
are up against the real thing and say to them, ' ' I am
with you if you are with me. ' ' And the only test of
being with me is not to think about me personally at
all, but merely to think of me as the expression for
the time being of the power and dignity and hope of
the United States.
SECOND WAR MESSAGE
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE CONGRESS, DECEMBER 4,
1917.]
Eight months have elapsed since I last had the
honor of addressing you. They have been months
crowded with events of immense and grave signifi-
cance for us. I shall not undertake to retail or even
to summarize those events. The practical particulars
of the part we have played in them will be laid before
you in the reports of the executive departments. I
shall discuss only our present outlook upon these vast
affairs, our present duties, and the immediate means
of accomplishing the objects we shall hold always in
view.
I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war.
The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us
by the sinister masters of Germany have long since
become too grossly obvious and odious to every true
American to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask
you to consider again and with very grave scrutiny
our objectives and the measures by which we mean
to attain them ; for the purpose of discussion here in
this place is action and our action must move straight
toward definite ends. Our object is, of course, to win
the war, and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves
to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while
194
Second War Message 195
asking and answering the question, When shall we
consider the war won?
From one point of view it is not necessary to
broach this fundamental matter. I do not doubt that
the American people know what the war is about
and what sort of an outcome they will regard as a
realization of their purpose in it. As a nation we
are united in spirit and intention.
I pay little heed to those who tell me otherwise.
I hear the voices of dissent who does not? I hear
the criticism and the clamor of the noisily thought-
less and troublesome. I also see men here and there
fling themselves in impotent disloyalty against the
calm, indomitable power of the. nation. I hear men
debate peace who understand neither its nature nor
the way in which we may attain it, with uplifted eyes
and unbroken spirits. But I know that none of these
speaks for the nation. They do not touch the heart
of anything. They may safely be left to strut their
uneasy hour and be forgotten.
But from another point of view I believe that it
is necessary to say plainly what we here at the seat
of action consider the war to be for and what part we
mean to play in the settlement of its searching issues.
We are the spokesmen of the American people and
they have a right to know whether their purpose is-
ours. They desire peace by the overcoming of evil,
by the defeat once and for all of the sinister forces
that interrupt peace and render it impossible, and
they wish to know how closely our thought runs with
theirs and what action we propose. They are impa-
196 Democracy Today
tient with those who desire peace by any sort of
compromise deeply and indignantly impatient but
they will be equally impatient with us if we do not
make it plain to them what our objectives are and
what we are planning for in seeking to make conquest
of peace by arms.
I believe that I speak for them when I say two
things: First, that this intolerable Thing of which
the masters of Germany have shown us the ugly face,
this menace of combined intrigue and force, which we
now see so clearly as the German power, a Thing with-
out conscience or honor or capacity for covenanted
peace, must be crushed, and if it be not utterly
brought to an end, at least shut out from the friendly
intercourse of the nations; and, second, that when
this Thing and its power are indeed defeated and th
time comes that we can discuss peace when the Ger-
man people have spokesmen whose word we can
believe, and when those spokesmen are ready in the
name of their people to accept the common judgment
of the nations as to what shall henceforth be the
bases of law and of covenant for the life of the world
we shall be willing and glad to pay the full price
for peace and pay it ungrudgingly. We know what
that price will be. It will be full, impartial justice
justice done at every point and to every nation that
the final settlement must affect, our enemies as well
as our friends.
You catch, with me, the voices of humanity that
are in the air. They grow daily more audible, more
articulate, more persuasive, and they come from the
Second War Message 197
hearts of men every where. They insist that the war
shall not end in vindictive action of any kind; that
no nation or people shall be robbed or punished
because the irresponsible rulers of a single country
have themselves done deep and abominable wrong.
It is this thought that has been expressed in the
formula, ' ' No annexations, no contributions, no puni-
tive indemnities."
Just because this crude formula expresses the
instinctive judgment as to the right of plain men
everywhere it has been made diligent use of by the
masters of German intrigue to lead the people of Rus-
sia astray, and the people of every -other country their
agents could reach, in order that a premature peace
might be brought about before autocracy has been
taught its final and convincing lesson and the people
of the world put in control of their own destinies.
But the fact that a wrong use has been made of
a just idea is no reason why a right use should not
be made of it. It ought to be brought under the pat-
ronage of its real friends. Let it be said again that
autocracy must first be shown the utter futility of its
claims to power or leadership in the modern world.
It is impossible to apply any standard of justice so
long as such forces are unchecked and undefeated
as the present masters of Germany command. Not
until that has been done can right be set up as arbiter
and peacemaker among the nations. But when that
has been done as, God willing, it assuredly will be
we shall at last be free to do an unprecedented
thing, and this is the time to avow our purpose to
198 Democracy Today
do it. We shall be free to base peace on generosity
and justice, to the exclusion of all selfish claims to
advantage even on the part of the victors.
Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present
and immediate task is to win the war, and nothing
shall turn us aside from it until it is accomplished.
Every power and resource we possess, whether of
men, of money, or of materials, is being devoted and
will continue to be devoted, to that purpose until it
is achieved. Those who desire to bring peace about
before that purpose is achieved, I counsel to carry
their advice elsewhere. We will not entertain it.
We shall regard the war as won only when the
German people say to us, through properly accredited
representatives, that they are ready to agree to a
settlement based upon justice and the reparation of
the wrongs their rulers have done. They have done
a wrong to Belgium which must be repaired. They
have established a power over other lands and peo-
ples than their own over the great empire of Aus-
tria-Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan states, over
Turkey, arid within Asia which must be relinquished.
Germany's success by skill, by industry, by knowl-
edge, by enterprise we did not grudge or oppose, but
admired rather. She had built up for herself a real
empire of trade and influence, secured by the peace
of the world. We were content to abide the rivalries
of manufacture, science, and commerce that were in-
volved for us in her success and stand or fall as we
had or did not have the brains and the initiative to
surpass her.
Second War Message 199
But at the moment when she had conspicuously won
her triumphs of peace she threw them away to establish
in their stead what the world will no longer permit
to be established, military and political domination
by arms, by which to oust where she could not excel
the rivals she most feared and hated.
The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It
must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples
of Belgium and northern France from the Prussian
conquest and the Prussian menace, but it must also
deliver the peoples of Austria-Hungary, the peoples
of the Balkans, and the peoples of Turkey, alike in
Europe and in Asia, from the impudent and alien
domination of the Prussian military and commercial
autocracy.
We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do
not wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the
Austro-Hungarian empire. It is no affair of ours
what they do with their own life, either industrially
or politically. We do not purpose nor desire to dic-
tate to them in any way. We only desire to see that
their affairs are left in their own hands, in all mat-
ters, great or small. We shall hope to secure for the
peoples of the Balkan peninsula and for the people
of the Turkish empire the right and opportunity to
make their own lives safe, their own fortunes secure
against oppression or injustice and from the dictation
of foreign courts or parties, and our attitude and
purpose with regard to Germany herself are of a like
kind.
We intend no wrong against the German empire,
200 Democracy Today
no interference with her internal affairs. We should
deem either the one or the other absolutely unjusti-
fiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have
professed to live by and to hold most sacred through-
out our life as a nation.
The people of Germany are being told by the men
whom they now permit to deceive them and to act as
their masters that they are fighting for the very life
and existence of their empire, a war of desperate self-
defense against deliberate aggression. Nothing could
be more grossly or wantonly false, and we must seek
by the utmost openness and candor as to our real aims
to convince them of its falseness. We are, in fact,
fighting for their emancipation from fear, along with
our own, from the fear as well as from the fact of
unjust attack by neighbors or rivals or schemers after
world empire. No one is threatening the existence
or the independence or the peaceful enterprise of the
German empire.
The worst that can happen to the detriment of the
German people is this, that if they should still, after
the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under
ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb
the peace of the world, men or classes of men whom
the other peoples of the world could not trust, it
might be impossible to admit them to the partnership
of nations which must henceforth guarantee the
world's peace. That partnership must be a partner-
ship of peoples, not a mere partnership of governments.
It might be impossible, also, in such untoward
circumstances, to admit Germany to the free economic
Second War Message 201
intercourse which must inevitably spring out of the
other partnerships of a real peace. But there would
be no aggression in that; and such a situation, inevi-
table because of distrust, would in the very nature of
things sooner or later cure itself, by processes which
would assuredly set in.
The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in
this war will have to be righted. That of course.
But they cannot and must not be righted by the com-
misson of similar wrongs against Germany and her
allies. The world will not permit the commission of
similar wrongs as a means of reparation and settle-
ment. Statesmen must by this time have learned that
the opinion of the world is everywhere wide-awake
and fully comprehends the issues involved. No repre-
sentative of any self-governed nation will dare dis-
regard it by attempting any such covenants of self-
ishness and compromise as were entered into at the
congress of Vienna.
The thought of the plain people here and every-
where throughout the world, the people who enjoy
no privilege and have very simple and unsophisticated
standards -of right and wrong, is the air all govern-
ments must henceforth breathe if they would live.
It is in the full disclosing light of that thought that
all policies must be conceived and executed in this
midday hour of the world's life.
German rulers have oeen able to upset the peace of
the world only because the German people were not
suffered under their tutelage, to share the comrade-
ship of the other peoples of the world either in thought
202 Democracy Today
or in purpose. They were allowed to have no opinion
of their own which might be set up as a rule of conduct
for those who exercised authority over them. But the
congress that concludes this war will feel the full
strength of the tides that run now in the hearts and
consciences of free men everywhere. Its conclusions
will run with those tides.
All these things have been true from the very be-
ginning of this stupendous war; and I cannot help
thinking that if they had been made plain at the very
outset the sympathy and enthusiasm of the Russian
people might have been once for all enlisted on the
side of the allies, suspicion and distrust swept away,
and a real and lasting union of purpose effected. Had
they believed these things at the very moment of their
revolution and had they been confirmed in that belief
since, the sad reverses which have recently marked
the progress of their affairs toward an ordered and
stable government of free men might have been
avoided.
The Russian people have been poisoned by the very
same falsehoods that have kept the German people
in the dark, and the poison has been administered by
the very same hands. The only possible antidote is
the truth. It cannot be uttered too plainly or too
often.
From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed
to be my duty to speak these declarations of purpose,
to add these specific interpretations to what I took
the liberty of saying to the senate in January. Our
entrance into the war has not altered our attitude
Second War Message 203
toward the settlement that must come when it is over.
When I said in January that the nations of the world
were entitled not only to free pathways upon the sea,
but also to assured and unmolested access to those
pathways I was thinking 1 , and I am thinking now,
not of the smaller and weaker nations alone, which
need our countenance and support, but also of the great
and powerful nations, and of our present enemies as
well as our present associates in the war. I was think-
ing, and am thinking now, of Austria herself, among
the rest, as well as of Serbia and of Poland. Justice
and equality of rights can be had only at a great price.
We are seeking 1 permanent, not temporary, foun-
dations for the peace of the world, and must seek them
candidly and fearlessly. As always, the right will
prove to be the expedient.
What shall we do, then, to push this great war of
freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion? We
must clear away with a thorough hand all impedi-
ments to success, and we must make every adjustment
of law that will facilitate the full and free use of our
whole capacity and force as a fighting unit.
One very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our
way is that we are at war with Germany, but not with
her allies. I therefore very earnestly recommend that
the congress immediately declare the United States
in a state of war with Austria-Hungary. Does it
seem strange to you that this should be the conclusion
of the argument I have just addressed to you? It is
not. It is in fact the inevitable logic of what I have
said. Austria-Hungary is for the time being not her
204 Democracy Today
own mistress, but simply the vassal of the German
government. We must face the facts as they are and
act upon, them without sentiment in this stern busi-
ness.
The government of Austria-Hungary is not acting
upon its own initiative or in response to the wishes and
feelings of its own peoples, but as the instrument of
another nation. We must meet its force with our own
and regard the central powers as but one. The war
can be successfully conducted in no other way. The
same logic would lead also to a declaration of war
against Turkey and Bulgaria. They also are the tools
of Germany. But they are mere tools and do not yet
stand in the direct path of our necessary action. We
shall go wherever the necessities of this war carry us,
but it seems to me that we should go only where
immediate and practical considerations lead us and not
heed any others.
The financial and military measures which must be
adopted will suggest themselves as the war and its
undertakings develop, but I will take the liberty of
proposing to you certain other acts of legislation which
seem to me to be needed for the support of the war
and for the release of our whole force and energy.
It will be necessary to extend in certain particulars
the legislation of the last session with regard to alien
enemies ; and also necessary, I believe, to create a
very definite and particular control over the entrance
and departure of all persons into and from the United
States.
Legislation should be enacted defining as a criminal
Second War Message 205
offense every willful violation of the Presidential
proclamations relating to enemy aliens promulgated
under Section 4,067 of the Revised Statutes and pro-
viding appropriate punishments; and women as well
as men should be included under the terms of the acts
placing restraints upon alien enemies. It is likely
that as time goes on many alien enemies will be willing
to be fed and housed at the expense of the government
in the detention camps, and it would be the purpose of
the legislation I have suggested to confine offenders
among them in penitentiaries and other similar institu-
tions where they could be made to work as other
criminals do.
Recent experience has convinced me that the Con-
gress rnnst go further in authorizing the Government
to set limits to prices. The law of supply and demand,
I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of
unrestrained selfishness. While we have eliminated
profiteering in several branches of industry it still
runs impudently rampant in others. The farmers,
for example, complain with a great deal of justice
that, while the regulation of food prices restricts their
incomes, no restraints are placed upon the prices of
most of the things they must themselves purchase, and
similar iniquities obtain on all sides.
It is imperatively necessary that the consideration
of the full use of the water power of the country and
also the consideration of the systematic and yet eco-
nomical development of such of the natural resources
of the country as are still under the control of the
Federal Government should be resumed and affirma-
206 Democracy Today
tively and constructively dealt with at the earliest
possible moment. The pressing need of such legis-
lation is daily becoming more obvious.
The Legislation proposed at the last session with
regard to regulated combinations among our export-
ers, in order to provide for our foreign trade a more
effective organization and method of cooperation,
ought by all means to be completed at this session.
And I beg that the members of the House of Rep-
resentatives will permit me to express the opinion that
it will be impossible to deal in any way but a very
wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous
appropriations of the public moneys which must
continue to be made, if the war is to be properly
sustained, unless the House will consent to return to
its former practice of initiating and preparing all
appropriation bills through a single committee, in
order that responsibility may be centered, expendi-
tures standardized and made uniform, and waste and
duplication as much as possible avoided.
Additional legislation may also become necessary
before the present Congress adjourns in order to effect
the most efficient coordination and operation of the
railway and other transportation systems of the coun-
try; but to that I shall, if circumstances should de-
mand, call the attention of Congress upon another
occasion.
If I have overlooked anything that ought to be
done for the more effective conduct of the war, your
own counsels will supply the omission. What I am
perfectly dear about is that in the present session of
Second War Message 207
the Congress our whole attention and energy should
be concentrated on the vigorous and rapid and suc-
cessful prosecution of the great task of winning the
war.
"We can do this with all the greater zeal and en-
thusiasm because we know that for us this is a war
of high principle, debased by no selfish ambition of
conquest or spoliation ; because we know, and all the
world knows, that we have been forced into it to save
the very institutions we live under from corruption
and destruction. The purposes of the central powers
strike straight at the very heart of everything we
believe in ; their methods of warfare outrage every
principle of humanity and of knightly honor; their
intrigue has corrupted the very thought and spirit of
many of our people; their sinister and secret
diplomacy has sought to take our very territory away
from us and disrupt the union of the States. Our
safety would be at an end, our honor forever sullied
and brought into contempt were we to permit their
triumph. They are striking at the very existence of
democracy and liberty.
It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested
purpose, in which all the free peoples of the world are
banded together for the vindication of right, a war
for the preservation of our nation and of all that it
has held dear of principle and -of purpose, that we
feel ourselves doubly constrained to propose for its
outcome only that which is righteous and of irreproach-
able intention, for our foes as well as for our friends.
The cause being just and holy, the settlement must-
208 Democracy Today
be of like motive and quality. For this we can fight,
but for nothing less noble or less worthy of our tradi-
tions. For this cause we entered the war and for
this cause will we battle until the last gun is fired.
I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the
time when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in
order that all the world may know that even in the
heat and ardor of the struggle and when our whole
thought is of carrying the war through to its end we
have not forgotten any ideal or principle for which
the name of America has been held in honor among
the nations and for which it has been our glory to
contend in the great generations that went before us.
A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes
of the people have been opened and they see. The
hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show
them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to
the clear heights of His own justice and mercy.
PROGRAM OF THE WORLD'S PEACE
WOODROW WILSON
[ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE CONGRESS JANUARY 8,
1918.]
Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of
the central empires have indicated their desire to dis-
cuss the objects of the war and the possible bases of a
general peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest -
Litovsk between Russian representatives and repre-
sentatives of the central powers to which the attention
of all the belligerents has been invited for the purpose
of ascertaining whether it may be possible to extend
these parleys into a general conference with regard to
terms of peace and settlement.
The Russian representatives presented not only a
perfectly definite statement of the principles upon
which they would be willing to conclude peace, but
also an equally definite program of the concrete appli-
cation of those principles.
The representatives of the central powers, on their
part, presented an outline of settlement which, if
much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal inter-
pretation until their specific program of practical terms
was added.
That program proposed no concessions at all, either
to sovereignty of Russia or to the preferences of the
population with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant,
in a word, that the central empires were to keep every
209
210 Democracy Today
foot of territory their armed forces had occupied
every province, every city, every point of vantage as
a permanent addition to their territories and their
power.
It is a reasonable conjecture that the general prin-
ciples of settlement which they at first suggested origi-
nated with the more liberal statesmen of Germany and
Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of
their own people's thought and purpose, while the con-
crete terms of actual settlement came from the military
leaders, who have no thought but to keep what they
have got. The negotiations have been broken off. The
Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest.
They cannot entertain such proposals of conquest and
domination.
The whole incident is full of significance. It is also
full of perplexity. With whom are the Russian repre-
sentatives dealing ? For whom are the representatives
of the central empires speaking? Are they speaking
for the majorities of their respective parliaments or
for the minority parties that military and imperial-
istic minority which has so far. dominated their whole
policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and the
Balkan states, which have felt obliged to become their
associates in this war ?
The Russian representatives have insisted, very
justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of democ-
racy, that the conferences they have been holding witli
the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held
within open, not closed, doors, and all the world has
been audience, as was desired.
Program of the World's Peace 211
To whom have we been listening, then? To those
who speak the spirit and intention of the resolutions
of the German reichstag of the 9th of July last, the
spirit and intention of the liberal leaders and parties
of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit
and intention and insist upon conquest and subjuga-
tion ? Or are we listening in fact to both, unreconciled
and in open and hopeless contradiction? These are
very serious and pregnant questions. Upon the answer
to them depends the peace of the world.
But whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-
Litovsk, whatever the confusions of counsel and of
purpose in the utterances of the spokesmen of the cen-
tral empires, they have again attempted to acquaint
the world with their objects in the war and have again
challenged their adversaries to say what their objects
are and what sort of settlement they would deem just
and satisfactory.
There is no good reason why that challenge should
not be responded to, and responded to with the utmost
candor. "We did not wait for it. Not once, but again
and again, we have laid our whole thought and purpose
before the world, not in general terms only, but each
time with sufficient definition to make it clear what sort
of definitive terms of settlement must necessarily
spring out of them.
Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken
with admirable candor and in admirable spirit for the
people and government of Great Britain. There is no
confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the cen-
tral powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness
of detail.
212 Democracy Today
The only secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fear-
less frankness, the only failure to make definite state-
ment of the objects of the war lies with Germany and
her allies. The issues of life and death hang upon
these definitions. No statesman who has the least con-
ception of his responsibility ought for a moment to
permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling
outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure
beyond a peradventure that the objects of the vital
sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of society
and that the people for whom he speaks think them
right and imperative as he does.
There is, moreover, a voice calling for these defini-
tions of principle and of purpose which is, it seems
to me, more thrilling and more compelling than any
of the many moving voices with which the troubled
air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian
people. They are prostrate and all but helpless, it
would seem, before the grim power of Germany, which
has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their
power apparently is shattered, and yet their soul is
not subservient. They will not yield either in prin-
ciple or in action. The conception of what is right, of
what is humane and honorable for them to accept, has
been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a
generosity of spirit, and a universal human sympathy
which must challenge the admiration of every friend
of mankind ; and they have refused to compound their
ideals or desert others that they themselves may be safe.
They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in
what, if in anything, our purpose and our spirit differ
Program of the World's Peace 213
from theirs ; and I believe that the people of the United
States would wish me to respond with utter simplicity
and frankness.
Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it
is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may
be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the
people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty
and ordered peace.
It will be our wish and purpose that the processes
of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open,
and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no
secret understandings of any kind. The day of con-
quest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the
day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of
particular governments, and likely at some unlooked
for moment to upset the peace of the world.
It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every
public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an
age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for
every nation whose purposes are consistent with jus-
tice and the peace of the world to avow now or at any
other time the objects it has in view.
We entered this war because violations of right had
occurred which touched us to the quick and made the
life of our own people impossible unless they were
corrected and the world secured once for all against
their recurrence. What we demand in this war, there-
fore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves.
It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in ;
and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-
loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its
214 Democracy Today
own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of
justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the
world as against force and selfish aggression.
All the peoples of the world are in effect partners
in this interest, and for our own part we see very
clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not
be done to us.
The program of the world 's peace, therefore, is our
program, and that program, the only possible pro-
gram, as we see it, is this :
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after
which there shall be no private international under-
standings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed
always frankly and in the public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas,
outside territorial waters, alike in peace arid in war,
except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part
by international action for the enforcement of inter-
national covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic
barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade
conditions among all the nations consenting to the
peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate guaranties given and taken that na-
tional armaments will be reduced to the lowest point
consistent with domestic safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial
adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict
observance of the principle that in determining all
such questions of sovereignty the interest of the popu-
lations concerned must have equal weight with the
Program of the World's Peace 215
equitable claims of the government whose title is to be
determined.
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and
such a settlement of all -questions affecting Russia as
will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other
nations of the world in obtaining for her an unham-
pered and unembarrassed opportunity for the inde-
pendent determination of her own political develop-
ment and national policy and assure her of a sincere
welcome into the society of free nations under insti-
tutions of her own choosing; and, more than a wel-
come, assistance also of every kind that she may need
and may herself desire. The treatment accorded
Russia by her sister nations in the months to come
will be the acid test of their good will, of their com-
prehension of her needs as distinguished from their
own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish
sympathy.
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be
evacuated and restored without any attempt to limit
the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all
other free nations. No other single act will serve as
this will serve to restore confidence among the nations
in the laws which they have themselves set and deter-
mined for the government of their relations with one
another. Without this healing act the whole structure
and validity of international law is forever impaired.
VIII. All French territory should be freed and the
invaded portions restored and the wrong done to
France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-
Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world
216 Democracy Today
for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that
peace may once more be made secure in the interest
of all.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should
be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nation-
ality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place
among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and
assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of
autonomous development.
XI. Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be
evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia ac-
corded free and secure access to the sea ; and the rela-
tions of the several Balkan states to one another deter-
mined by friendly counsel along historically estab-
lished lines of allegiance and nationality; and inter-
national guaranties of the political and economic
independence and territorial integrity of the several
Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman
Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but
the other nationalities which are now under Turkish
rule should be assured an undoubted security of
life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of
autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should
be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships
and commerce of all nations under international
guaranties.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be
erected which should include the territories inhab-
ited by indisputably Polish populations, which should
Program of the World's Peace 217
be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and
whose political and economic independence and terri-
torial integrity should be guaranteed by international
covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be
formed under specific covenants for the purpose of
affording mutual guaranties of political independence
and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
In regard to these essential rectifications of .wrong
and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be inti-
mate partners of all the governments and peoples
associated together against the imperialists. We can
not be separated in interest or divided in purpose.
We stand together until the end.
For such arrangements and covenants we are willing
to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved ;
but only because we wish the right to prevail and
desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured
only by removing the chief provocations to war, which
this program does remove.
We have no jealousy of German greatness and there
is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge
her no achievement or distinction of learning or of
pacific enterprise such as have made her record very
bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure
her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or
power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms
or with hostile arrangements of trade, if she is willing
to associate herself with us and the other peace-loving
nations of the world in covenants of justice and law
and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place
218 Democracy Today
of equality among the peoples of the world the new
world in which we now live instead of a place of
mastery.
Neither do we presume to suggest to her any altera-
tion or modification of her institutions. But it is
necessary, we must frankly say, and necessary as a
preliminary to any intelligent dealings with her on our
part, that we should know whom her spokesmen speak
for when they speak to us, whether for the reichstag
majority or for the military party and the men whose
creed is imperial domination. -
We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete
to admit of any further doubt or question.
An evident principle runs through the whole pro-
gram I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to
all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live
on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another,
whether they be strong or weak. Unless this principle
be made its foundation no part of the structure of
international justice can stand. The people of the
United States could act upon no other principle, and
to the vindication of this principle they are ready to
devote their lives, their honor, and everything that
they possess. The moral climax of this, the culminating
and final war for human liberty, has come, and they
are ready to put their strength, their own highest
purpose, their own integrity, and devotion to the test.
APPENDIX
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
[ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE AMERICAN CLUB IN LONDON,
APRIL 12, 1917.]
I am in the happy position of being, I think, the first
British Minister of the Crown who, speaking on behalf of
the people of this country, can salute the American Nation
as comrades in arms. I am glad; I am proud. I am glad
not merely because of the stupendous resources which this
great nation will bring to the succor of the alliance, but I
rejoice as a democrat that the advent of the United States
into this war gives the final stamp and seal to the character
of the conflict as a struggle against military autocracy
throughout the world.
That was the note that ran through the great deliverance
of President Wilson. 1 It was echoed, Sir, in your resounding
words today. The United States of America have the noble
tradition, never broken, of having never engaged in war
except for liberty. And this is the greatest struggle for
liberty that they have ever embarked upon. I am not at all
surprised, when one recalls the wars of the past, that America
took its time to make up its mind about the character of this
struggle. In Europe most of the great wars of the past
were waged for dynastic aggrandizement and conquest. No
wonder when this great war started that there were some
elements of suspicion still lurking in the minds of the people
219
220 Democracy Today
of the United States of America. There were those who
thought perhaps that Kings were at their old tricks and
although they saw the gallant Republic of France fighting,
they some of them perhaps regarded it as the poor victim of
a conspiracy of monarchial swashbucklers. The fact that the
United States of America has made up its mind finally makes
it abundantly clear to the world that this is no struggle of
that character, but a great fight for human liberty.
They naturally did not know at first what we had endured
in Europe for years from this military caste in Prussia. It
never has reached the United States of America. Prussia
was not a democracy. The Kaiser promises that it will be a
democracy after the war. I think he is right. But Prussia
not merely was not a democracy. Prussia was not a State;
Prussia was an army. It had great industries that had been
highly developed; a great educational system; it had its
universities, it had developed its science.
All these were subordinate to the one great predominant
purpose, the purpose of all a conquering army which was to
intimidate the world. The army was the spear-point of
Prussia; the rest was merely the haft. That was what we
had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves
of Europe. They knew what it all meant. It was an army
that in recent times had waged three wars, 2 all of conquest,
and the unceasing tramp of its legions through the streets of
Prussia, on the parade grounds of Prussia, had got into the
Prussian head. The Kaiser, when he witnessed on a grand
scale his reviews, got drunk with the sound of it. 3 He deliv-
ered the law to the world as if Potsdam was another Sinai,
and he was uttering the law from the thunder clouds.
But make no mistake. Europe was uneasy. Europe was
half intimidated. Europe was anxious. Europe was appre-
hensive. We knew the whole time what it meant. What we
did not know was the moment it would come.
This is the menace, this is the apprehension from which
Europe has suffered for over fifty years.* It paralyzed the
beneficent activity of all States, which ought to be devoted
Meaning of America's Entrance Into the War22l
to concentrating on the well-being of their peoples. They
had to think about this menace, which was there constantly
as a cloud ready to burst over the land. No one can tell
except Frenchmen what they endured from this tyranny,
patiently, gallantly, with dignity, till the hour of deliverance
came. 5 The best energies of domestic science had been
devoted to defending itself against the impending blow.
France was like a nation which put up its right arm to ward
off a blow, and could not give the whole of her strength to
the great things which she was capable of. That great,
bold, imaginative, fertile mind, which would otherwise have
been clearing new paths for progress, was paralyzed.
That is the state of things we had to encounter. The most
characteristic of Prussian institutions is the Hindenberg line.
What is the Hindenburg line? The Hiudenburg line is a line
drawn in the territories of other people, with a warning that
the inhabitants of those territories shall not cross it at the
peril of their lives. That line has been drawn in Europe for
fifty years.
You recollect what happened some years ago in France,
when the French Foreign Minister 8 was practically driven
out of office by Prussian interference. Why? What had he
done? He had done nothing which a Minister of an inde-
pendent State had not the most absolute right to do. He
had crossed the imaginary line drawn in French territory
by Prussian despotism, and he had to leave. Europe, after
enduring this for generations, made up its mind at last that
the Hindenburg line must be drawn along the legitimate
frontiers of Germany herself. There could be no other atti-
tude than that for the emancipation of Europe and the -world.
It was hard at first for the people of America quite to
appreciate that Germany had not interfered to the same
extent with their freedom, if at all. But at last they endured
the same experience as Europe had been subjected to. Amer-
icans were told that they were not to be allowed to cross
and recross the Atlantic except at their peril. American
ships were sunk without warning. American citizens were
222 Democracy Today
drowned, hardly with an apology in fact, as a matter of
German right. At first America could hardly believe it.
They could not think it possible that any sane people should
behave in that manner. And they tolerated it once, and
they tolerated it twice, until it became clear that the Ger-
mans really meant it. Then America acted, and acted
promptly.
The Hindenburg line was drawn along the shores of
America, and the Americans were told they must not cross
it. America said, "What is this?" Germany said, "This
is our line, beyond which you must not go," and America
said, "The place for that line is not the Atlantic, but on
the Rhine and we mean to help you roll it up."
There are two great facts which clinch the argument that
this is a great struggle for freedom. The first is the fact
that America -has come in. She would not have come in
otherwise. The second is the Eussian revolution. When
France in the eighteenth century sent her soldiers to America
to fight for the freedom and independence of that land,
France also was an autocracy in those days. But Frenchmen
in America, once they were there their aim was freedom,
their atmosphere was freedom, their inspiration was free-
dom. They acquired a taste for freedom, and they took it
home, and France became free. That is the story of Russia.
Russia engaged in this great war for the freedom of Serbia,
of Montenegro, of Bulgaria, and has fought for the freedom
of Europe. They wanted to make their own country free,
and they have done it. The Russian revolution is not merely
the outcome of the struggle for freedom. It is a proof of
the character of the struggle for liberty, and if the Russian
people realize, as there is every evidence they are doing,
that national discipline is not incompatible with national
freedom nay, that national discipline is essential to the
security of national freedom they will, indeed, become a
free people.
I have been asking myself the question, Why did Germany,
deliberately, in the third year of the war, provoke America
Meaning of America's Entrance Into the War 223
to this declaration and to this action deliberately, reso-
lutely? It has been suggested that the reason was that there
were certain elements in American life, and they were under
the impression that they would make it impossible for the
United States to declare war. That I can hardly believe. But
the answer has been afforded by Marshal von Hindenburg
himself, in the very remarkable interview which appeared
in the press, I think, only this morning.
He depended clearly on one of two things. First, that
the submarine campaign would have destroyed international
shipping to such an extent that England would have been put
out of business before America was ready. According to
his computation, America cannot be ready for twelve months.
He does not know America. In the alternative, that when
America is ready, at the end of twelve months, with her
army, she will have no ships to transport that army to the
field of battle. In von Hindenburg 's words, "America car-
ries no weight," I suppose he means she has no ships to carry
weight. On that, undoubtedly, they are reckoning.
Well, it is not wise always to assume that even when the
German General Staff, which has miscalculated so often,
makes a calculation it has no ground for it. It therefore
behooves the whole of the Allies, Great Britain and America
in particular, to see that that reckoning of von Hindenburg
is as false as the one he made about his famous line, which
we have broken already.
The road to victory, the guarantee of victory, the abso-
lute assurance of victory is to be found in one word ships;
and a second word ships; and a third word ships. And
with that quickness of apprehension which characterizes
your nation, Mr. Chairman, I see that they fully realize that,
and today I observe that they have already made arrange-
ments to build one thousand 3000-tonners for the Atlantic.
I think that the German military advisers must already begin
to realize that this is another of the tragic miscalculations
which are going to lead them to disaster and to ruin. But
you will pardon me for emphasizing that. We are a slow
224 Democracy Today
people in these islands slow and blundering but we get
there. You get there sooner, and that is why I am glad to
see you in.
But may I say that we have been in this business for three
years? We have, as we generally de, tried every blunder.
In golfing phraseology, we have got into every bunker. But
we have got a good niblick. We are right out on the course.
But may I respectfully suggest that it is worth America's
while to study our blunders, so as to begin just where we
are now and not where we were three years ago? That is an
advantage. In war, time has as tragic a significance as it has
in sickness. A step which, taken today, may lead to assured
victory, taken tomorrow may barely avert disaster. All the
Allies have discovered that. It was a new country for us all.
It was trackless, mapless. We had to go by instinct. But
we found the way, and I am so glad that you are sending
your great naval and military experts here, just to exchange
experiences with men who have been through all the dreary,
anxious crises of the last three years.
America has helped us even to win the battle of Arras.
Do you know that these guns which destroyed the German
trenches, shattered the barbed wire I remember, with some
friends of mine whom I see here, arranging to order the
machines to make those guns from America. Not all of them
you got your share, but only a share, a glorious share. So
that America has also had her training. She has been mak-
ing guns, making ammunition, giving us machinery to pre-
pare both; she has supplied us with steel, and she has got
all that organization and she has got that wonderful facility,
adaptability, and resourcefulness of the great people which
inhabits that great continent. Ah! It was a bad day for
military autocracy in Prussia when it challenged the great
Eepublic of the West. We know what America can do, and
we also know that now she is in it she will do it. She will
wage an effective and successful war.
There is something more important. She will insure a
beneficent peace. I attach great importance and I am the
Meaning of America's Entrance Into the War 225
last man in the world, knowing for three years what our
difficulties have been, what our anxieties have been, and what
our fears have been I am the last man to say that the succor
which is given to us from America is not something in itself
to rejoice in, and to rejoice in greatly. But I don't mind
saying that I rejoice even more in the knowledge that
America is going to win the right to be at the conference
table when the terms of peace are being discussed. That
conference will settle the destiny of nations the course
of human life for God knows how many ages. It would
have been tragic for mankind if America had not been there,
and there with all the influence, all the power, and the right
which she has now won by flinging herself into this great
struggle.
I can see peace coming now not a peace which will be
the beginning of war; not a peace which will be an endless
preparation for strife and bloodshed; but a real peace. The
world is an old world. It has never had peace. It has been
rocking and swaying like an ocean, and Europe poor
Europe! has always lived under the menace of the sword.
When this war began two-thirds of Europe were under
autocratic rule. It is the other way about now, and democ-
racy means peace. The democracy of France did not want
war; the democracy of Italy hesitated long before they
entered the war; the democracy of this country shrank from
it shrank and shuddered and never would have entered
the caldron had it not been for the invasion of Belgium.
The democracies sought peace; strove for peace. If Prussia
had been a democracy there would have been no war. Strange
things have happened in this war. There are stranger things
to come, and they are coming rapidly.
There are times in history when this world spins so leis-
urely along its destined course that it seems for centuries
to be at a standstill; but there are also times when it rushes
along at a giddy pace, covering the track of centuries in a
year. Those are the times we are living in now. Six weeks
ago Eussia was an autocracy; she now is one of the most
226 Democracy Today
advanced democracies in the world. Today we are waging
the most devastating war that the world has ever seen;
tomorrow perhaps not a distant tomorrow war may be
abolished forever from the category of human crimes. This
may be something like the fierce outburst of Winter which
we are now witnessing before the complete triumph of the
sun. It is written of those gallant men who won that victory
on Monday 7 men from Canada, from Australia, and from
this old country, which has proved that in spite of its age
it is not decrepit it is written of those gallant men that they
attacked with the dawn fit work for the dawn! to drive
out of forty miles of French soil those miscreants who had
defiled it for three years. "They attacked with the dawn."
Significant phrase!
The breaking up of the dark rule of the Turk, which for
centuries has clouded the sunniest land in the world, the
freeing of Russia from an oppression which has covered it
like a shroud for so long, the great declaration of President
Wilson coming with the might of the great nation which he
represents into the struggle for liberty are heralds of the
dawn. "They attacked with the dawn, f ' and these men are
marching forward in the full radiance of that dawn, and
soon Frenchmen and Americans, British, Italians, Russians,
yea, and Serbians, Belgians, Montenegrins, will march into
the full light of a perfect day.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
PREAMBLE
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our poster-
ity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America.
ARTICLE I
THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT
The Congress : Its Divisions and Powers
Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist
of a Senate and House of Representatives.
The House: Its Composition and Powers
Sec. 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of
members chosen every second year by the people of the several
states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifica-
tions requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the
state legislature.
No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained
to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen
of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an
inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.
(Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among
the several states which may be included within this Union,
according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined
by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those
bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not
taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.*) The actual enumera-
*Partly superseded by the Fourteenth Amendment.
228 Democracy Today
tion shall be made within three years after the first meeting of
the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent
term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.
The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every
thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one repre-
sentative; and until such enumeration shall be made the state
of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three; Massachu-
setts, eight; Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one;
Connecticut, five; New York, six; New Jersey, four; Pennsyl-
vania, eight; Delaware, one; Maryland, six; Virginia, ten;
North Carolina, five; South Carolina, five; and Georgia, three.
When vacancies happen in the representation from any state,
the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to
fill such vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and
other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
The Senate: Its Composition and Powers
Sec. 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed
of two senators from each state, chosen by the legislature
thereof, for six years; and each senator shall have one vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of
the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be
into three classes. The seats of the senators of the first class
shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the
second class, at the expiration of the fourth year; of the third
class, at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may
be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resig-
nation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any
state, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments
until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall fill such
vacancies.
No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to
the agr cf thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant
of that state for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice-president of the United States shall be president of
the Senate, out shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.
The Constitution of the United States 229
The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a presi-
dent pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-president, or when
he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments ;
when sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirma-
tion. When the President of the United States is tried, the
Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted
without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further
than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and
enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United
States; but the party convicted shall, neverthless, be liable and
subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment accord-
ing to law.
Congressional Elections and Date of Assembly
Sec. 4. The times, places, and manner of holding elections
for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each
state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any
time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the
places of choosing senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and
such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless
they shall by law appoint a different day.
Eules of Procedure of Senate and House
Sec. 5. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns,
and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each
shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number
may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel
the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under
such penalties as each house may provide.
Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish
its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence
of two-thirds, expel a member.
Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from
time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in
their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the
members of either house on any question shall, at the desire of
one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.
230 Democracy Today
Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without
the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor
to any other place than that in which the two houses shall be
sitting.
Compensation and Privileges of Members
Sec. 6. The senators and representatives shall receive a com-
pensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid
out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all
cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privi-
leged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their
respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same;
and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be
questioned in any other place.
No senator or representative shall, during the time for which
he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the author-
ity of the United States which shall have been created, or the
emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such
time; and no person holding any office under the United States
shall be a member of either house during Ihis continuance in
office.
Methods of Legislation
Sec. 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the
House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or con-
cur with amendments as on other bills.
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representa-
tives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented .
to the President of the United States; if he approve, he shall
sign it, but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to
that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter
the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to recon-
sider it. If after such reconsideration two-thirds of that house
shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the
objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house, it
shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both
houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of
the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on
The Constitution of the United States 231
the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not
be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted)
after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a
law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress
by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall
not be a law.
Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of
the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary
(except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the
President of the United States ; and before the same shall take
effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him,
shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of
Representatives, according to the rules and limitations pre-
scribed in the case of a bill.
Powers Vested in Congress
Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power:
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay
the debts and provide for the common defenses and general
welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and
excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the
several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform
laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United
States ;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securi-
ties and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
' To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by secur-
ing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive
right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the
high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
232 Democracy Today
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and
make rules concerning captures on land and water ;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money
to that use shall be for a longer term than two years ;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land
and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of
the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed
in the service of the United States, reserving to the states,
respectively, the appointment of the officers and the authority
of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by
Congress ;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over
such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by ces-
sion of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress,
become the seat of the government of the United States, and to
exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent
of the legislature of the state in which the same stall be, for
the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other
needful buildings; and
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other
powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the
United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Limits to Powers of the Federal Government
Sec. 9. The migration or importation of such persons as any
of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand
eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on
such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus-
pended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public
safety may require it.
No bill of attainder or P.X post facto law shall be passed.
The Constitution of the United States 233
No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in pro-
portion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to
be taken.
No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any
state.
No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce
or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another; nor
shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter,
clear, or pay duties in another.
No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in conse-
quence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement
and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public
money shall be published from time to tima
No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.
And no person holding any office of profit or trust under them
shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present,
emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king,
prince, or foreign state.
Limits to Powers of the States
Sec. 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con-
federation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money;
emit bills of credit ; make anything but gold and silver coin a
tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post
facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant
any title of nobility.
No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any
imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be
absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the
net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on
imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the
United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision
and control of the Congress.
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty
of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter
into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a
foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in
such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
234 Democracy Today
ARTICLE II
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
The Executive Officers; the Electoral College
Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President
of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during
the term of four years, and, together with the Viee-President,
chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:
Each state shall. appoint, in such manner as the legislature
thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole
number of senators and representatives to which the state may
be entitled in the Congress; but no senator or representative,
or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an elector.
(The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by
ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an
inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall
make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of
votes for each ; which list they shall sign and certify, and trans-
mit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States,
directed to the president of the Senate. The president of the
Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be
counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall
be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole
number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one
who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes,
then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by
ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a
majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House
shall, in like manner, choose the President. But in choosing
the President the votes shall be taken by states, the representa-
tion from each state having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose
shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the
states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a
choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the
person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall
. The Constitution of the United States 235
be the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or more
who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by
ballot the Vice-president.*)
The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors,
<^nd the day on which they shall give their votes; which day
shall be the same throughout the United States.
No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the
United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution,
shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any
person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to
the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident
within the United States.
In case of the removal of the President from office, or of
his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and
duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-
president, and the Congress may by law provide for the case
of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the
President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then
act as President; and such officer shall act accordingly, until
the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
The president shall, at stated times, receive for his services
a compensation which shall neither be increased nor diminished
during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he
shall not receive within that period any other emolument from
the United States, or any of them.
Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take
the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or
affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President
of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, pre-
serve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United
States."
Powers Granted to the President
SEC. 2. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the
army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the
several states, when called into the actual service of the United
"This paragraph was in force only from 1788 to 1803.
236 Democracy Today
States; he may acquire the opinion, in writing, of the principal
officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject
relating to the duties of their respective offices; and he shall
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against
the United States, except in eases of impeachment.
He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of
the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators
present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the ad-
vice and consent of the Senate shall appoint, ambassadors,
other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme
Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appoint-
ments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall
be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the
appointment of such inferior offices as they think proper in the
President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of de-
partments.
The President shall have power to fill up vacancies that may
happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions
which will expire at the end of their next session.
The President's Duties
SEC. 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress in-
formation of the state of the Union, and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and ex-
pedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both
houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between
them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn
them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive
ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that
the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the
officers of the United States.
Impeachment of Executive and Civil Officers
Sec. 4. The President, Vice-president, and all civil officers
of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeach-
ment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors.
The Constitution of the United States 237
AETICLE III
THE JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT
The Federal Courts Supreme and Inferior
Section 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be
vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as*
the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The
judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their
offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive
for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished
during their continuance in office.
Powers and Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts
Sec. 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law
and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the
United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under
their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public
ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall
be a party; to controversies between two or more states; (be-
tween a state and citizens of another state*) ; between citizens
of different states; between citizens of the same state claiming
lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or
the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.
In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and
consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party, the Su-
preme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other
cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate
jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions and
under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall
be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the
said crimes shall have been committed; but when not com-
mitted within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places
as the Congress may by law have directed.
Cancelled by the Eleventh Amendment.
238 Democracy Today
Treason-. Its Nature and Punishment
Sec. 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only
in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies,
giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of
treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same
overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of
treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of
blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person at-
tained.
ARTICLE IV
RELATION OF THE STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS
Recognition of State Authority
Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state
to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every
other state. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe
the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall
be proved, and the effect thereof.
Laws Eegarding Citizens of the States
Sec. 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to aJl
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other
crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state,
shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from
which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state hav-
ing jurisdiction of the crime.
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
sen-ice or labor may be due.
Admission of States and Regulation of United States Territories
Sec. 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this
Union ; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the
jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the
junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the
The Constitution of the United States 239
consent of the legislature of the states concerned as well as of
the Congress.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other
property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims
of the United States, or of any particular state.
Protection Guaranteed ~by the Federal Government
Sec. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in
this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect
each of them against invasion; and on application of the legis-
lature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be con-
vened), against domestic violence.
ARTICLE V
POWER AND METHOD OF AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION
The Congress whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem
it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or,
on the application of the legislature of two-thirds of the several
states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which,
in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part
of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislature of three-
fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths
thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be pro-
posed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may
be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight
shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the
ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without
its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the
Senate.
ARTICLE VI
PUBLIC DEBTS; THE SUPREME LAW; OATH OF OFFICE; RELIGIOUS
TEST PROHIBITED
All debts contracted and engagements entered into before
the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the
United States under this Constitution as under the confed-
eration.
240 Democracy 'ioday
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which
shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every
state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or
laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the
members of the several state legislatures, and al) executive and
judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several
states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this
constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required a,s a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United
States.
ARTICLE VII
RATIFICATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OP THE CONSTITUTION
The ratification of the conventions of nine states shall ba
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the
states so ratifying the same.
Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states
. present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our
Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of
the independence of the United States o.t America the twelfth.
In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names,
GEO. WASHINGTON, Deputy from Virginia.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: NEW JERSEY:
John Langdon William Livingston
Nicholas Gil man David Br ear ley
William Paterson
MASSACHUSETTS: Jonathan Dayton
Nathaniel Gorham PENNSYLVANIA:
Rufus King Benjamin Franklin
COXXECTICUT: Thomas Mifflin
William Samuel Johnson Eobert Morns
Roger Sherman Geor S e C1 y mer
Thomas Fitzsimmons
NEW YORK: James Wilson
Alexander Hamilton Gouverneur Morris
The Constitution of the United States 241
DELAWARE: NORTH CAROLINA:
George Eeed William Blount
Gunning Bedford, Jr. Eichard Dobbs Spaight
John Dickinson Hugh Williamson
Richard Bassett SOUTH CAROLINA:
Jacob Broom John Rutledge
MARYLAND: Charles Pinckney
James McHenry Charles Cotesworth
Daniel of St. Thomas Pinckney
Jenifer Pierce Butler
Daniel Carroll GEORGIA:
VIRGINIA: William Few
John Blair Abraham Baldwin
James Madison, Jr.
Attest: WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary.
AMENDMENTS
Articles in addition to, and amendments of, the Constitution
of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and
ratified by the legislatures of the several states pursuant to the
fifth article of the original Constitution.
ARTICLE I
FREEDOM OP RELIGION AND SPEECH ; RIGHT OF ASSEMBLY
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the peo-
ple peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.
ARTICLE II
RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS
A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a
free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed.
ARTICLE III
QUARTERING OF TROOPS
No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house
without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war but in a
manner to be prescribed by law.
242 Democracy Today
ARTICLE IV
RIGHT OF SEARCH PROHIBITED
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon prob-
able cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things
to be seized.
ARTICLE V
RIGHT OF TRIAL BY JURY
No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a
grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces,
or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war and
public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same
offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb; nor shall
be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against him-
self, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public
use, without just compensation.
ARTICLE VI
RIGHTS OF ACCUSED IN CRIMINAL CASES
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state
and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to
be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be
confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
assistance of counsel for his defense.
ARTICLE VII
SUITS AT COMMON LAW
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by -jury shall be pre-
served, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-exam-
ined in any court of the United States than according to the
rules of common law.
The Constitution of the United States 243
AETICLE VIII
BAIL AND FINES
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines im-
posed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
AETICLE IX
MODIFICATION OF ENUMERATED RIGHTS
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
AETICLE X
POWERS RESERVED TO STATES AND THE PEOPLE
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti-
tution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the
states respectively, or to the people.
AETICLE XI
LIMITATION TO POWER OF THE FEDERAL COURTS
The judicial power of the United States shall not be con-
strued to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or
prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of
another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.
AETICLE XII
NEW ELECTORAL LAW
The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by
ballot for President and Vice-president, one of whom, atjeast,
shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves;
they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as Presi-
dent, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-presi-
dent ; and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for
as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-president, and
of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and
certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of
the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the
President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate
and House of Eepresentatives, open all the certificates, and
the votes shall then be counted; the person having the greatest
number of votes for President shall be the President, if such
number be a majority of the whole number of electors ap-
pointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the
244 Democracy Today
persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the
list of those voted for as President, the House of Representa-
tives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But
in choosing the President, the vote shall be taken by states, the
representation from each state having one vote. A quorum for
this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-
thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be
necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives
shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall
devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next follow-
ing, then the Vice-president shall act as President, as in the case
of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-presi-
dent shall be the Vice-president, if such number be a majority
of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person
have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the
list the Senate shall choose the Vice-president. A quorum for
the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of
senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary
to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the
office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of
the United States.
ARTICLE XIII
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
Slavery and Involuntary Servitude Prohibited
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.
Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XIV
NEW LAWS MADE NECESSARY BY THE CIVIL WAE
Qualifications for Citizenship
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the state wherein they reside, No
The Constitution of the United States 245
state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Apportionment of Representatives
Sec. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the sev-
eral states according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not
taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice
of electors for President and Vice-President of the United
States, representatives in Congress, the executive or judicial
officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is
denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being
twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or
in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or
other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced
in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall
bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of
age in such state.
Disability for Breaking Oath of Office
Sec. 3. No person shall be a senator, or representative in
Congress, or elector of President or Vice-President, or hold any
office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any
state, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of
Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member
of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer
of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States,
shall have-engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same,
or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress
may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such dis-
ability.
The Public Debt
Sec. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States,
authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pen-
sions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or
rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United
246 Democracy Today
States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation
incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave;
but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal
and void.
Sec. 5. Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appro-
priate legislation, the provisions of this article.
ARTICLE XV
RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE
Eight Guaranteed to All Citizens
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any
state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servi-
tude.
Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XVI
INCOME TAX
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on
incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment
among the several states, and without regard to any census or
enumeration.
ARTICLE XVII
ELECTION OF SENATORS
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six
years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in
each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors
of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State
in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue
writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the
legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof
to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacan-
cies by election as the legislature may direct.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect tie
election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid
as part of the Constitution.
BIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865)
The circumstances of the writing and delivery of Lincoln 's
address at Gettysburg are so well known as scarcely to need
recounting. The battle had been fought July 1-2-3 of 1863
and the check there sustained by the Confederacy marked the
turning point in the Civil War. Lincoln's address, delivered
Nov. 19, 1863, at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National
Cemetery, has remained one of the most important and strik-
ing documents in the history of American Democracy. His
definition of our system of rule "as government of the peo-
ple, by the people, for the people" has become a touchstone
of one 's Americanism.
The reading of this famous passage, almost universally
adopted in our time, which places the emphasis on the prepo-
sitions of, by, and for is incorrect in the sense that it is not
that used by Lincoln himself. President John Grier Hibben
of Princeton University informs the editor that one of the
audience on that memorable day has assured him that the
emphasis was placed by Lincoln unmistakably on the word
people, which he made stronger with each repetition, ' ' govern-
ment of the people, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE." It ia
natural that Lincoln should have done this, for to him one of
the greatest advantages in our system of government was the
importance and the opportunity it gave to the young citizen
poor in purse and social station. This was one of the reasons
why he believed slavery hostile to the spirit of democracy. He
was proud to count himself one of the people. The point was
brought out sharply in his speech delivered at New Haven,
March 6, 1860, before his election to the Presidency.
"One of the reasons why I am opposed to slavery is just
this: what is the true condition of the laborer? I take it that
it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property
as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in
a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more
247
248 Democracy Today
Page
harm than good. So while we do not propose any war on cap-
ital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to
get rich with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most
of us do in the race of life, free society is such that he knows
he can better his condition ; he knows that there is no fixed
condition of labor for his whole life. I am not ashamed to
confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, maul-
ing rails, at work on a flatboat just what might happen to
any poor man's son. I want every man to have a chance
and I believe a black man is entitled to it in which he can
better his condition where he may look forward and hope to
be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for himself
afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him. That is
the true system."
Further light on the character of Lincoln will be found in
President Wilson's address on Abraham Lincoln, pages 96-101.
LINCOLN'S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
(Bold face figures refer to pages; plain figures to note num-
bers in text.)
17 - 1. Lincoln with characteristic modesty little thought that his
address would go down to posterity. Before its delivery he
told a friend r " It is a flat failure. The people won 't like it. ' '
18 - 2. This definition of our government may possibly have been
suggested to Lincoln by a phrase of the abolitionist preacher,
Theodore Parker, in a speech delivered in 1858. Parker's
statement ran ' ' Democracy is direct self-government, over all
the people, by all the people, for all the people.' ' Lincoln 's
simpler statement is in any case more effective.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
James Bussell Lowell, 1819-1891, added to his fame as poet
and essayist, the distinction of having served his country as
ambassador to Spain 1876-1880, and to Great Britain, 1880-
1885. He performed a particularly useful service in interpret-
ing England and the United States to each other. The address
on Democracy, which shows his optimistic faith and native
Americanism, was delivered during this period of his stay in
England. It should be remembered that as late as 1884, Ameri-
can democracy was still in European eyes on the defensive.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 249
Page
20. 1. Plato is more idealistic than Aristotle; hence "the tower
of Plato." His works, with chose of Aristotle, constitute the
most important body of ancient philosophy.
22. 2. Lowell, born in 1819 at Cambridge, Mass., on the edge of
the open country, had seen the transformation of his section
from a rural to an industrial population. The French trav-
elers had brought back glowing accounts of the simple life of
the American settlers and even of the American Indians.
Though Lowell did not like the change he would not willingly
testify against it; hence the reference to Balf-am. See Num-
bers, xxii, xxiii.
'6. The property qualification for suffrage, general in the
early years of our government, had been abolished in Massa-
chusetts at the Constitutional Convention in 1820.
4. In the period of the Civil War Massachusetts paid out in
bounties and bounty loans $26,000,000 and the war debt of the
state at the close of the war was $15,000,000.
M- 5. In the speech on Moving his Resolution for Conciliation
with the Colonies, March 22, 1775, Burke says, "I do not
know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole
people." Select Works, Clarendon Press, 1892, Vol. I, p. 192.
It is impossible to identify exactly the "French gentleman"
referred to. Lowell may have been thinking of the well-
known critic and historian, Taine, who satirized certain Ameri-
can tendencies in his Life and Opinions of F. T. Graindorge.
6. Zola (1840-1902) was at this time (1884) the most dis-
cussed novelist in France. His novels include ' ' naturalistic ' '
pictures of the worst and most depraved elements in French
life.
7. Democracy was not nearly so popular in Europe in 1884
as it is at present. The excesses of the Paris Commune in
1871 had dealt a severe "blow to the idea that the people can
govern themselves. The great Civil War through which we
ourselves had passed had likewise discouraged enthusiasm for
democracy.
250 Democracy- Today
Pag*
25- 8. A species of grape louse which at this time was ruining
the vineyards of France.
8a. The Boers had started a revolt in 1880 and in 1881
routed the small British force at Majuba Hill.
9. A distinguished Venetian ambassador (1507-1565).
26 - 10. Not one but many of the fathers of the church con-
tested the. rights of property. The medieval church held that
the taking of interest was sinful and it was this condemnation
that threw money-lending as a business into the hands of the
Jews. It made no distinction between usury and interest.
11. Proudhon (1809-1865), a French radical and socialist
who summarily defined property as a theft in his famous volume
What Is Property? published in 1840.
12. Bourdaloue (1632-1704), a famous French pulpit orator,
not at all revolutionary in his general conceptions.
13. Montesquieu (1689-1755), author of The Spirit of the
Laws and historically the most important of the modern polit-
ical writers. His work influenced the framers of our Consti-
tution and he is frequently referred to by Jefferson.
National workshops (ateliers nationaux) were established
in France just before the French Revolution, but Lowell is
doubtless thinking about the national workshops which were
founded after the Revolution of 1848 in France and which
were a failure. Lowell strains his point when he attributes
them to Montesquieu. He is trying to prove in this passage
that most of the "heresies" attributed to American Democracy
were in existence before we had declared our independence.
14. Like all the above statements, true in a measure. In
the Church of the Middle Ages a career was open to young
men of ability, whatever their station, far more readily than
at the court or in the army from which persons not of noble
birth were in most cases excluded.
15. Charles V. (1500-1555), Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire in the time of Luther. More clearly than most of his
contemporaries he saw the leaven of ' ' democracy " working in
the reforms demanded of the church. The Reformation was a
protest against outside authority in religious matters; the
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 251
Page
American and French Kevolutions were protests against sub-
mission to authority in political matters. The refusal to submit
to the rule of any power outside ourselves is the first step in
democracy. The idea of "government by the consent of the
governed" is fundamental to it and is frequently emphasized
by President Wilson, as in the close of his A World League
for Peace. Contrast this with Emperor William's attitude in
Note 15 to Wilson's War Message, page 267.
16. That is, extreme poverty (Lazarus) and what it entails,
slums, unsanitary conditions, criminality, are plague-spots in a
state, which the existence of a very wealthy class (Dives) does
not cure or compensate for.
27. 17. "Forge of the races or mother of peoples." The Brit-
ish have of course been recognized as the colonizing people
par excellence.
18. Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2.
19. The "rights of man," a phrase frequently used by rad-
ical thinkers in France in the 18th century, became a shib-
boleth of the French Revolutionists. Thomas Paine adopted it
as the title of his famous reply to Burke 's Reflections on the
Revolution in France. These natural rights of men are em-
phasized in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence. Many modern political thinkers disagree with this
doctrine of ' ' natural rights. ' '
28. 20. Lowell was evidently quoting from memory the opening
lines of Coleridge's Ode to France. His memory tricked him
for the first line should read
"The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain."
29- 21. See Macbeth, Act II, Scenes 2 and 3.
22. An expression of despair. See I Samuel, iv, 21.
30- 23. Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), a nonconformist minister
of liberal tendencies, famous in the history of science as well
as of religion. He was mobbed in Birmingham in 1791 but
not so much for his religious opinions as for his sympathies
with the French Revolution. He spent his last years in
America.
" 24. The fear that democracy will reduce all to a "dead
252 Democracy Today
level" has frequently been entertained. In his volume on
Walt Whitman, J. A. Symonds discusses the question whether
there can be any great poetry of democracy, seeing that dem-
ocracies must lack the contrasts of older civilizations. The
fear is groundless.
32 25. Theodore Parker, 1810-1860, an advanced New England
theologian and social reformer and a courageous abolitionist.
See Note 2 to Lincoln 's Gettysburg Address.
26. Dekker's beautiful linss deserve quotation.
"The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed. ' '
See Thomas I)ekker, edited by Ernest Ehys. The Mermaid
Series, London, 1887, page 190.
27. Perhaps more correctly Jelal-ed-din-Eumi, 1207-1273, a
Persian mystic poet, author of Mathnawi.
27a. The idea that any real democracy must rest on a basis
of ideals is one frequently encountered in President Wilson's
speeches and admirably characterizes the American attitude.
33. 28. The belief that a democracy could only exist in a small
or city-state where all citizens could assemble for deliberation,
was frequently held and supported by arguments drawn from
history. The Greek republics as well as the Italian republics
of the late Middle Age and Eenaissance and the northern
Free Cities or Communes had all been small. The Swiss repub-
lics, like Geneva, were often cited and indeed Geneva was the
state Rousseau had most in mind in writing his Social Con-
tract. We must not forget that our immensely larger demoe
racy with its universal manhood suffrage and representative
government had no precedent in antiquity or indeed in modern
times.
28a. The reference is vague, but Lowell is probably referring
to England. Queen Victoria was also Empress of India.
29. This is an extreme statement but true in the sense that
the framers of the Constitution did not wish to extend suffrage
to all citizens regardless of qualifications and that they dis-
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 253
age
trusted unreasoning popular movements. It was for this reason
that they "put as many obstacles as they could contrive, not
in the way of the people's will, but of their whim." It was
for this reason that they divided the functions of government
into legislative, judicial, and executive. In adopting this sys-
tem of "checks and balances" they were following Montes-
quieu. On all this see the Constitution, Appendix.
34. 30. The French Revolution had tried to throw overboard all
previous French tradition. They were to begin with the Year
One, a new calendar, a new religion, an entirely new system of
government based, so they thought, on reason alone and made
to order. Of all these radical innovations the metric system
alone survived.
31. It was quite generally held that . democracy leads to
anarchy since the people are unwilling to curb themselves.
Anarchy in its turn disappears before the power of some ambi-
tious despot. This in rough outline was the history of the
French nation from the overthrow of the monarchy to the
Terror, this anarchy giving way in its turn to the supremacy
of Napoleon. The same process had frequently occurred in the
Greek republics and in the Italian Cities of the Renaissance.
35. 32. This paragraph makes the task of the founders of the
Republic and the Framers of the Constitution seem far easier
than it really was. The local state governments were very
unwilling to surrender any of their rights or property and the
smaller ones were jealous of the larger. Maryland had signed
the Articles of Confederation only in 1781 and this first Fed-
eration was altogether unsatisfactory. State legislated against
state, especially in commercial matters, and there was no cen-
tral authority to which all would yield. Yet it was impossible
to frame a Constitution until 1787 and the difficulties encoun-
tered were serious indeed. See Madison's Journal of the Con-
stitutional Convention, edited by E. H. Scott, Scott, Foresman
& Co., 1892.
33. The Missouri Compromise (1821) admitted Missouri as
a slave state and forbade slavery in territory west of Missouri
and north of 36 30', It perpetuated the situation in which
254 Democracy Today
age
Lincoln said the union could not exist. It made us half slave
and half free. Lowell was bitterly opposed to slavery.
37- 34. Lowell's memory is again at fault, though what Carlyle
said was "just as bad." In Latter Day Pamphlets I, "The
Present Time," Carlyle pays his compliments to America as
follows.: "Roast-goose with apple-sauce, she (America) is not
much. Boast-goose with apple sauce for the poorest working
man. ' '
35. Lowell probably had in mind the Essay, Of Seditions and
Troubles, though Bacon does not say this in so many words.
He does say that "the rebellions of the belly are the worst.''
36. In this matter Lowell himself was far-sighted. At the
time of this address there was relatively little fear of trusts.
The agitation and legislation against them became important
in the next decade.
38. 37. From Pippa Passes III. The last line should read,
' ' When earth was nigher heaven than now. ' '
39- 38. This was the objection of the English historian and
political thinker, Lecky, who says, ' ' One of the great divisions
of politics in our day is coming to be whether, at the last
resort, the world should be governed by its ignorance or by
its intelligence. According to the one party, the preponderat-
ing power should be with education and property. According
to the other, the ultimate source of power, the supreme right
of appeal and control, belongs legitimately to the majority of
the nation told by the head or in other words, to the poorest,
the most ignorant, the most incapable, who are necessarily the
most numerous." In opposition to this, see Whitman's Dem-
ocratic Vistas where he holds that the object of democracy is
not better government, but a better people, and that universal
suffrage tends to raise the level of intelligence and self-
respect. Lowell's answer, slightly different, follows in the
next paragraph.
*' 39. In volunteer regiments at the outset of the Civil War
the command was often given to him who raised them; or
officers, often with no or insufficient training, were elected.
The system was a poor one.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 255
IPago
42. 40. Piccadilly, the thoroughfare for the promenades of the
elegant and fashionable in London, so called from the picca-
dill, a small stiff collar, affected by the gallants of the time of
James I.
41. George Hudson, 1800-1871, one of the first "promoters"
of English railways. Risen to a position of undeserved wealth
and prominence, he was ruined by the discovery of frauds in
his procedure. The English public turned on him; Carlyle fre-
quently held him up to scorn and called him ' ' the big swollen
gambler." See Latter Day Pamphlets. The project to erect
a statue to him, never carried through, called forth Carlyle 'a
fiercest denunciations.
42. Napoleon III, 1808-1873. Elected president of France
in 1848 he made himself emperor in 1852, and retained this
title until captured in the Franco-Prussian War, for the
unfortunate outcome of which his lack of political foresight
was largely responsible. He was a man of more ambition than
character.
44. 43. This phrase is still used by French radicals and social-
ists. See also Lincoln's speech at New Haven in Introduction
to Lincoln, page 247.
44. The English have no written constitution.
45. 45. Eobert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke, 1811-1892, was a
British liberal statesman and at one time Chancellor of the
Exchequer. He is perhaps best known for his brilliant speeches.
Though the phrase quoted has always been credited to Lowe,
what he really said in the famous address in Edinburgh in
1867 was that it is necessary "to induce our masters to learn
their letters. ' '
46. It is hardly necessary to say that Lowell is speaking of
the socialism of an earlier day and that his idea is imperfect.
. Modern socialism does not insist on equalizing all fortunes or
incomes. Advanced socialists today claim that they are work-
ing to overthrow the capitalistic regime and create a ' ' coop-
erative commonwealth" in which the state is employer and in
which unnecessary competition is eliminated. Communism, men-
tioned later (p. 46), would havp all property held in common.
256 Democracy Today
Page
47. Henry George, 1839-1897, author of Progress and Pov-
erty, in which he advocated the theory of taxing land exclus-
ively. George did not wish land to be "divided" primarily,
but to destroy private property in land, which he held should
no more exist than private property in light or air. Under
bis system each user of property would pay to the government
a tax on his land. This land tax or "single tax" would be
sufficient to cover all governmental expenses.
46 - 48. Compare this with Balzac 's statement in The Country
Doctor : ' i There is something in the nature of power which
makes it tend to conserve itself. ' '
STEPHEN GROVER CLEVELAND (1837-1908)
Stephen Grover Cleveland was President of the United States
1885-1889 and 1893-1897. By the death of his father he was
forced as a lad to make his own way in the world without
the benefit of a college education. A man of simple habits,
he never sought to attract attention. The quality of forceful
leadership which he possessed and ever exercised in the interest
of good citizenship forced him upon the attention of the
country and brought him to the Presidency.
His career as President was marked by independence in
forming his judgments and intrepidity in the execution of
judgments once formed. He never sought favor and had the
high courage to follow the unpopular course. Time justified
him and has proved the wisdom of his decisions.
The address delivered before the Union League Club of Chi-
cago has as its subject Patriotism and Holiday Observance.
The introductory paragraphs deal with the observance of holi-
days general and have no immediate bearing on our subject,
and are thei ore omitted. The second and larger part of the
speech, dea! .g with Washington and Patriotism, is given
without change.
THE MESSAGE OF WASHINGTON
49 - 1. Washington served during the seven years of the Revolu-
tion with no expectation or hope of compensation. He was
later reimbursed only for the expenditures which as com-
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 257
Page
mander-in-chief he had made out of his private purse. He
loved his home but in this long period could visit it but twice.
Fond of retirement as he was, he prepared his Farewell Address
at the end of his first term (1793) and was prevailed upon to
accept a second only because of the very threatening condition
of our relations with France and England. Yet after his
retirement when war seemed imminent with France he again, in
1798, accepted the heavy responsibility of commander-in-chief
of the provisional army that was being raised.
51. 2. From Othello, Act V, scene 2.
52 - 3. The letter was written at Mount Vernon January 29, 1789.
In the same letter he says, in reply to Lafayette's congratula-
tions on his election, "I shall assume the task with the most
unfeigned reluctance, and with a real diffidence."
THEODORE EOOSEVELT (1858- )
Theodore Roosevelt, born 1858, was graduated from Harvard
University in 1880. Distinguished sportsman, soldier, and man-
of -letters, he was twenty- sixth President of the United States,
1901-1909. His earlier policy was an advocacy of the "Square
Deal" between capital and labor with hands off except in case
of unfairness on the part of either contestant. His later policy
has been strongly for legislation in the interest of the wage-
earner and the economically unfortunate. He was leader of
the Progressive Party 1912. He is an ardent advocate of. uni-
versal military training and is recognized abroad as the type
of American man of action.
WOODEOW WILSON (1856 )
Woodrow Wilson, born in Virginia in 1856, is the twenty-
eighth President of the United States. After graduation from
Princeton University, he studied and practiced law, then turned
to teaching. After serving eight years as President of Prince-
ton University, he was elected Governor of New Jersey 1911,
and President of the United States 1913. The leader of the
nation in the third great crisis in its history, he has won the
confidence of the people by his patience, earnestness, and high
sense of our national destiny. One of the greatest masters of
258 Democracy Today
Page
style in our time, his addresses are regarded both here and in
Europe, as among the most important documents in the history
of the world war. The earlier addresses given in this volume
deal with problems of citizenship, patriotism, and democracy.
The later ones are landmarks in our struggle against Germany
and autocracy.
THE MEANING OP THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
63 - 1. John Hancock of Massachusetts (1737-1793) was chosen
president of the Continental Congress in 1775 and his name
stands at the head of the signers of the Declaration.
84. 2. On the 10th of June, 1776, a committee of five was
appointed to draw up the Declaration. It consisted of Thomas
Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman,
and Robert R. Livingston. This committee assigned the com-
position to Jefferson. The draft which he brought in . was
modified by omitting certain passages and articles which it
was thought might weaken the force of the Colonies' case.
The phraseology is very largely Jefferson's.
65 - 3. Before the outbreak of the war in Europe and for some
time thereafter, there was a financial depression in the country,
of which the President's opponents took advantage in order to
criticize the legislative program which he was carrying into
execution.
M - 4. The banking and currency law, known as the Federal
Reserve Act, was approved after much opposition and discus-
sion, December 23, 1913. It was a constructive measure based
on the work of financiers, bankers, statesmen, and economists.
Under it the United States is divided into twelve districts, each
with a Reserve Bank which is the center of the banking system
of that district. In operation it has proved itself successful
and a decided advance upon its predecessor, the National Bank-
ing System.
69 - 5. At this time the President was being severely criticized for
his refusal to declare war or intervene in Mexico to protect
the property rights of American citizens.
71. 6. The Panama Canal Act of 1912, providing for the perma-
nent government of the Canal Zone and other regulations, was
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 259
Page
amended in a bill signed by the President June 15, 1914, known
as the "Panama Tolls Exemption Eepeal Bill." In this bill
the clause which exempted American coastwise vessels from
paying tolls was repealed because it was in contravention of
the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty with Great Britain. The repeal of
the Tolls Exemption for American coastwise vessels gave the
same advantages to English and foreign vessels that our own
possessed. It meant sacrificing undoubted economic advantages
in the interest of maintaining good faith.
AMERICA FIRST
85- 1. This paragraph, and indeed this whole address, illustrates
President Wilson 's attitude in the early period of the war. He
felt at that time that America was out of and above the con-
flict. The reasons for the change will be plain after reading
the War Message, April 2nd, 1917, page 126, and the Flag Day
Address, June 14, 1917, page 141, with their notes.
*8- 2. Woman Suffrage was voted upon and defeated in New
Jersey October 19, 1915.
THE SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP
94 - 1. How serious this movement was, and how it was started
and fomented by agents of the German government will be
plainer after reading the Flag Day Address, June 14, 1917, and
the notes to its opening paragraphs.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
mo- 1. Hamlet, Act III. scene 4.
A WORLD LEAGUE FOR PEACE
'02- 1. This address, which attracted much attention throughout
the world, marks the culmination of President Wilson's earlier
policy and of his efforts to establish peace between the belliger-
ents without direct intervention. Even at the time of its deliv-
ery, Germany, unknown to the President, was planning acts of
aggression against the United States (see the Zimmermann
Note, War Message, note 22). Her failure to make any satis-
factory reply to the President's Note of December 18th, in
which he asked the belligerents to state their peace terms,
260 Democracy Today
Page
showed only too plainly that her rulers were more interested
in carrying out their plans for the extension of German
dominion and the creation of Mittel-Europa (see Flag Day
Address, notes 12-16) than they were in the establishment of any
permanent peace based upon principles of right and justice.
This address was directed not to the belligerents but to the
American people, and its main interest lies in the fact that it
presents the program for peace which the President was then
willing to sanction. Its main thesis lies in its insistence that
the time for a new "balance of power" (see Note 3) is past
and that the peace to which we now aspire must be based upon
a concert of the powers acting to guarantee liberty and justice
and ready to check and curb any outlaw nation. The many
Declarations of War upon Germany which followed upon her
promulgation of ruthless submarine warfare seem to fore-
shadow the formation of such a concert of powers.
'05. 2. See Flag Day Address.
106. 3. "Balance of power" is an old phrase in political history
and international law. The idea goes back to the ancients
and is in principle as follows: No nation or group of nations
must be allowed to become so strong as to be able to enforce
their will upon the others. In order to prevent this, members
of the family of nations are justified in combining against
another nation or group of nations. This idea of reestablish-
ing the "balance of power" lay behind the formation of many
of the coalitions in modern history, those for instance against
Louis XIV. and Napoleon. The theory was complicated in the
last hundred years by wars waged to establish national
independence. In the later period of the nineteenth century
the theory was illustrated in the attempted balance between the
Dual Alliance of France and Eussia and the Triple Alliance
of Germany, Austria, and Italy.
4. It is plain from the War Message that the President
makes a distinction between the German people and their rulers.
It is no less plain from the Flag Day Address that he now feels
that the present rulers of Germany, her military caste, her
policy of inhumanity, and her plans of conquest must be
defeated.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 261
Page
107. 5. The principles set forth in this and the following para-
graphs are wholly at variance with the desires and purposes
of Germany as they have become plain at the end of 1917.
Her contempt for the rights of small nations is only too evident
in her treatment of Belgium and in her plans with respect to
the smaller states of Europe as revealed in the Flag Day
Address and its notes.
6. The German autocracy has never been willing to recognize
this principle, of government by the consent of the governed.
Prussia and the German Empire themselves are not governed
in this way. (See Flag Day Address, Note 7.) Only a few
years before the war the present Emperor threatened to make
Alsace-Lorraine, which is still governed like a conquered pro-
vince, ' ' a Prussian province. ' ' The Poles, who have been under
German" rule for over a century and a quarter, are still discrimi-
nated against; and it is unthinkable that in her present temper
Germany would willingly found a really autonomous Poland
as suggested in the next paragraph. (See Flag Day Address,
Note 18.) Carrying the principles here stated by Wilson into
effect would mean not only the complete nullification of
Germany's plans in the war, but a reversal of her fundamental
idea of social and national organization.
|09 - 7. Germany, the originator of submarine warfare on neutrals,
has claimed that she is fighting ' ' for the freedom of the seas. ' '
With no color of right she has already sunk, to mention but
one neutral, over six hundred Norwegian vessels, and her policy
has brought forth from many previously friendly nations dec-
larations of war against her. (See War Message, Note 9.)
The German conception of freedom of the seas was clearly
exhibited in her note to us of February 1st, 1917. (Quoted
in Flag Day Address, Note 4.)
'" 8. The Monroe Doctrine, proclaimed in 1823, insisted that
no foreign power should colonize further or attempt ' ' to extend
the European system" to the Western Hemisphere.
" 2 - 9. How useless it was to propose peace to Germany on these
terms will be only too evident when we read President Wilson 's
message to Congress, delivered less than two weeks later, sever-
ing relations with Germany for the reasons there givep.
262 Democracy Today
Page
WAR MESSAGE
All the following notes on the War Message are taken by special
permission from the text of the President's Message officially
annotated by the Committee on Public Information. See page 15.
'26. 1. President Wilson had the sworn duty to lay the facts
before Congress and recommend to it the needful action. The
Constitution prescribe his duties in such emergencies.
It is worthy of note that the Constitution lays the duty
and power of declaring war directly upon Congress, and that
it can not be evaded by Congressmen by any referendum to
the voters, for which not the slightest constitutional provision
is made.
Congress performed this duty by voting on the war question,
as requested. The vote of the Senate was 82 to 6 for war; of
the House 373 to 50. Such comparative unanimity upon so
momentous a question is almost unparalleled in the history of
free nations.
2. The German Chancellor in announcing this repudiation of
all his solemn pledges in the Imperial Parliament (Reichstag),
on January 31, frankly admitted that this policy involved
' ' ruthlessness ' ' toward neutrals. ' ' When the most ruthless
methods are considered the best calculated to lead us to victory
and to a swift victory . . . they must be employed. . . .
3. The broken Sussex pledge. On May 4, 1916, the German
government, in reply to the protest and warning of the United
States following the sinking of the Sussex, gave this promise:
That "merchant vessels both within and without the area
declared a naval war zone shall not be sunk without warning,
and without saving human lives, unless the ship attempt to
escape or offer resistance."
Germany added, indeed, that if Great Britain continued her
blockade policy, she would have to consider ' ' a new situation. ' '
On May 8, 1916, the United States replied that it could not
admit that the pledge of Germany was ' ' in the slightest degree
contingent upon the conduct of any other Government ' ' (i. e.,
on any question of the English blockade). To this Germany
made no reply at all, and under general diplomatic usage, when
one nation makes a statement to another, jthe latest statement
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 263
Page
of the case stands as final unless there is a protest made. The
promise made by Germany thus became a binding pledge.
'27. 4. As to the proper usages in dealing with merchant vessels
in war, here are the rules laid down some time ago for the
American Navy (a fighting navy, surely), and these rules hardly
differed in other navies, including the Russian and Japanese :
' ' The personnel of a merchant vessel captured as a prize
. . . are entitled to their personal effects.
"All passengers not in the service of the enemy, and all
women and children on board such vessels should be released
and landed at a convenient port at the first opportunity.
"Any person in the naval service of the United States who
pillages or maltreats in any manner, any person found on board
a merchant vessel captured as a prize, shall be severely pun-
ished."
' ' The destruction of a vessel which has surrendered without
first removing its officers and crew would be an act contrary
to the sense of right which prevails even between enemies
in time of war. ' '
5. The British hospital ships Asturias sunk March 20, and the
Gloucester Castle. These vessels had been sunk although pro-
tected by the most solemn possible of international compacts.
Somewhat earlier in the war the great liner Britannic had been
sunk while in service as a hospital ship, probably torpedoed by
a U-boat. Since this message was written the Germans have
continued their policy of murdering more wounded soldiers
and their nurses by sinking more hospital ships.
The Belgian relief ships referred to were probably the
Camilla, Trevier, and the Feistein, but most particularly the
large Norwegian steamer Storstad, sunk with 10,000 tons of
grain for the starving Belgians.
'28. 6. Mr. Wilson could have gone further back than ' ' modern
history. ' '
Even in the most troubled period of the Middle Ages there
was consistent effort to spare the lives of nonbelligerents. Thus
in the eleventh century not merely did the church enjoin the
' ' truce of God" ' which ordered all warfare to cease on four days
264 Democracy Today
Page
of the week, but it especially pronounced its curse upon those
who outraged or injured not merely clergymen and monks, but
all classes of women. We also have ordinances from this ' ' dark
period ' ' of history forbidding the interference with shepherds
and their flocks, the damaging of olive trees, or the carrying
off or destruction of farming implements. All this at a period
when feudal barons are alleged to have been waging their wars
with unusual ferocity.
7. The following American vessels were sunk by submarines
after Germany's decree of ruthless submarine policy, January
31, 1917:
February 3, 1917, H&usatonic; February 13, 1917, Lyman M.
Law; 'March 2, 1917, Algonquin; March 16, 1917, Vigilancia;
March 17, 1917, City of Memphis; March 17, 1917, Illinois;
March 21, 1917, Healdton (claimed to have been sunk off Dutch
coast, and far from the so-called "prohibited zone") ; April 1,
1917, Aztec.
8. In all, up to the declaration of war by us, 226 American
citizens, many of them women and children, had lost their lives
by the action of German submarines, and in most instances
without the faintest color of international right. The most
flagrant and horrible case was that of the Lusitania, sunk May
7, 1915, with loss of 114 American lives.
9. Practically all the civilized neutral countries of the earth
have protested at the German policy.
so. 10. Eight of American citizens to protection in their doings
abroad and on the seas no less than at home. Decided by
Supreme Court of United States. (Slaughter House Cases, 16
Wall., 36.)
"Every citizen . . . may demand the care and protection of
the United States when on the high seas or within the jurisdic-
tion of a foreign Government."
See Cooley's Principles of Constitutional Law, third edition,
page 273 (standard authority).
Obviously a Government which can not or will not protect
its citizens against a policy of lawless murder is unworthy of
respect abroad or obedience at home. The protection of the
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 265
Page
lives of the innocent and law-abiding is clearly the very first
duty of a civilized state.
130. 11. Wars do not have to be declared in order to exist. The
mere commission of warlike or unfriendly acts commences them.
Thus the first serious clash in the Mexican war took place April
24, 1846. Congress "recognized" the state of war only on
May 11 of that year. Already Gen. Taylor had fought two
serious battles at Palo Alto and Eesaca de la Palma.
Many other like cases could <be cited ; the most recent was the
outbreak of the war between Japan and Eussia. In 1904 the
Japanese attacked the Eussian fleet before Port Arthur, and
only several days after this battle was war ' ' recognized. ' '
If the acts of Germany were unfriendly, war in the strictest
sense existed when the President addressed Congress.
|32 - 12. So obvious is the military necessity of giving every pos-
sible help to the present enemies of Germany that those who try
to thwart this are almost open to the very grave criminal charge
of giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.
33 - 13. Contrast these fwo standards: Bethmann-Hollweg ad-
dressing the Eeichstag, August 4, 1914 :
"We are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no
law. Our troops have occupied (neutral) Luxemburg and per-
haps already have entered Belgium territory. Gentlemen, this
is a breach of international law. The wrong I speak openly
the wrong we hereby commit we will try to make good as soon
as our military aims have been attained.
' ' He who is menaced as we are, and is fighting for his highest
possession, can only consider how he is to hack his way
through."
Or Frederick the Great again, the arch prophet of Prussian-
ism, speaking in 1740 and giving the keynote to all his suc-
cessors, "The question of right is an affair of ministers. . . .
It is time to consider it in secret, for the orders to my troops
have been given," and still, again, "Take what you can; you
are never wrong unless you are obliged to give back." (Per-
kins, France under Louis XV, volume 1, pages 169-170.)
Against this set the words of the first President of the Young
American Eepublic, speaking at a time when the Nation was so
266 Democracy Today
Page
weak that surely any kind of shifts could have been justified
on the score of necessity.
'33. Said George Washington in his first inaugural address
(1789) :
"... the foundation of our national policy will be laid in
the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the
preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attri-
butes which can win the affections of its citizens and command
the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every
satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire,
since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that
there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble
union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advan-
tage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnani-
mous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and
felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the pro-
pitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that
disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven
itself has ordained ; and since the preservation of the sacred fire
of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of govern-
ment are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked
on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American
people. ' '
The present war is for a large part being waged to settle
whether the American or the Prussian standard of morality is
valid.
The constitution of Prussia has remained practically
unchanged and the electoral districts and three class voting
system of nearly 70 years ago still exist. Liberal industrial
and socialistic elements in the great modern cities and manu-
facturing areas are without adequate representation in the
Prussian Diet, and the old country districts are practically
"rotten boroughs" where the peasant who votes by voice not
written ballot, is at the mercy of his feudal noble landlord. It
is the latter who back the throne and its autocratic power so
long as the policy suits their narrow provincial militaristic
views formed in the days of Frederick the Great and his des-
potic father and revived and glorified by Bismarck.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 267
Page
133. 14. When the crisis was precipitated late in July, 1914, there
was a strong peace-party in Germany, and earnest protests were
made against letting Austrian aggression against Serbia start a
world conflagration. In Berlin on July 29, twenty-eight mass
meetings were held to denounce the proposed war, and one of
them is said to have been attended by 70,000 men. The
Vorwaerts (the great organ of the socialists) declared on that
day, ' ' the indications proved beyond a doubt that the camarilla
of war lords is working with absolutely unscrupulous means to
carry out their fearful designs to precipitate an international
war and to start a world-wide fire to devastate Europe. ' ' On
the 31st this same paper asserted that the policy of the German
Government was ' ' utterly without conscience. ' ' Then came the
declaration of "war emergency" (Kriegsgefahr), mobiliza-
tion, martial law, and any expression of public opinion was
stilled in Germany.
15. The German people had not the slightest share in shaping
the events which led up to the declaration of war. The German
Emperor is clothed by the imperial constitution With practically
autocratic power in all matters of foreign policy. The Eeiehs-
tag has not even a consultative voice in such matters. The
German constitution (Article 11) gives to the Emperor specific
power to "declare war, conclude peace, and enter into alli-
ances." The provision that only defensive wars may be
declared by the Emperor alone puts the power in his hands to
declare this and any other war without consulting any but the
military group, for no power in modern times has ever admitted
that it waged aggressive warfare. William II declared this war
without taking his people into the slightest confidence until the
final deed was done.
As for William II, speeches without number can be cited to
show his sense of his own autocratic authority e.g., speaking
at Konigsberg, in 1910 "Looking upon myself as the instru-
ment of the Lord, regardless of the views and the opinions of
the hour, I go on my way. ' ' And another time : ' ' There is but
one master in this country; it is I, and I will bear no other."
He has also been very fond of transforming an old Latin adage,
making it read : ' ' The will of the king is the highest law. ' '
268 Democracy Today
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16. President Wilson probably had in mind such wars as those
of Louis XIV, waged by that King almost solely for his own
glory and interest and with extremely little heed to the small
benefit and great suffering they brought to France. The War
of the Spanish Succession (begun in 1701) was particularly
such a war. History, of course, contains a great many others
begun from no worthier motive, including several conducted by
Prussia and earlier by Philip II of Spain.
|34 - 17. There is abundant evidence that the situation in Europe
in July, 1914, was regarded by the German "jingo" party
Von Tirpitz, Bernhardi, et al. as peculiarly favorable. Eussia
was busy rearming her army, and her railway system had not
yet been properly developed for strategic purposes. France was
vexed with labor troubles, a murder trial was heaping scandal
upon one of her most famous statesmen, and her army was
reported by her own statesmen as sadly unready. England
seemed on the point of being plunged into a civil war by the
revolt of a large fraction of Ireland.
Such a convenient crippling of all the three great rivals of
Germany might never come again. The murder of the arch-
duke of Austria at Serajevo came, therefore, as a most con-
venient occasion for a stroke which would either result in a
great increase of Teutonic prestige or enable Germany to fight
with every possible advantage.
18. The great humanitarian aims of The Hague peace con-
ferences of 1899 and 1907 were the limitation of armaments
and the compulsory arbitration of international disputes.
- Unanimity among the world powers was essential to the success
of both. None dared disarm unless all would do so. The great
democracies, Great Britain, France, and the United States,
favored both propositions, but Germany, leading the opposition,
prevented their adoption. She agreed with reluctance to a con-
vention for optional arbitration, but refused at the second con-
ference even to discuss disarmament. [See Scott, James Brown,
The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, I, index ' ' Arm-
aments" and "Arbitration."]
135. 19. The whole autocratic regime has been imposed on a people
whose instincts and institutions are fundamentally democratic.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 269
Page
The deposed Komanoff dynasty began in an election among the
nobles. Peter the Great and the more despotic of his suc-
cessors created largely by imitation and adaptation of German
bureaucracy the machinery with which they ruled. Underneath
this un-Eussian machinery of despotism Eussian communal and
local life has preserved itself with wonderful vitality.
135. 20. Besides undoubtedly many matters which from reasons of
public policy the Government has still kept hidden, the House of
Eepresentatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, when it presented
the war resolution following the President's message, went on
formal record as listing at least twenty-one crimes or unfriendly
acts committed upon our soil with the connivance of the German
Government since the European war began. Among these were :
Inciting Hindoos within the United States to stir up revolts
in India, and supplying them with funds for that end, contrary
to our neutrality laws.
Eunning a fraudulent passport office for German reservists.
This was supervised by Capt. von Papen of the German
Embassy.
Sending German agents to England to act as spies, equipped
with American passports.
Outfitting steamers to supply 'German raiders, and sending
them out of American ports in defiance of our laws.
Sending an agent from the United States to try to blow up
the International Bridge at Vanceboro, Me.
Furnishing funds to agents to blow up factories in Canada.
Five different conspiracies, some partly successful, to manu-
facture and place bombs on ships leaving United States ports.
For these crimes a number of persons have been convicted; also
Consul-General Bopp, of San Francisco (a very high German
official accredited to the United States Government), has been
convicted of plotting to cause bridges and tunnels to be
destroyed in Canada.
Financing newspapers in this country to conduct a propa-
ganda serviceable to the ends of the German Government.
Stirring up anti-American sentiment in Mexico and disorders
generally in that country, to make it impossible for the United
States to mix in European affairs.
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German military usage has been quite in this spirit, however,
and approves of such doings. (See German War Code, standard
translation, page 85.)
"Bribery of enemies' subjects, acceptance of offers of treach-
ery, utilization of discontented elements in the population, sup-
port of pretenders and the like, are permissible; indeed,
international law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of
crimes of third parties."
|36 - 21. A Prussianized Germany, triumphant in Europe and domi-
nant on the seas, would find its occasion to strike down America
in its isolation and make of us the over-seas tributary of a new
Eoman Empire. There can be no question that the future of
democracy and of independent national life is hanging in the
balance in this struggle.
22. The famous ' ' Zimmermann note, ' ' exposed by our Gov-
ernment March 1, is a document that should stick in the memo-
ries of all Americans. Remember, it was composed on January
19, 1917, at a time when Germany and America were officially
very good friends, and the date was just three days before Mr.
Wilson appeared in the Senate with his scheme for a league to
assure peace and justice to the world.
Zimmermann admitted the authenticity of the note, and only
deplored that it had been discovered. The significant parts were
these :
' ' BERLIN, January 19, 1917.
"On February 1 we intend to begin submarine warfare
unrestricted. In spite of this, it is our intention to keep neutral
the United States of America.
"If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on
the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war
together and together make peace. We shall give general finan-
cial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer
the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The
details are left to you for settlement. ' '
The whole dispatch was so gross a revelation of interna-
tional immorality that German-American papers immediately
denounced it as a forgery, only to have its genuineness brazenly
acknowledged and defended by Berlin.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 271
Page
23. It is worthy of note that although nearly all the nations
opposed to 'Germany concluded the so-called ' ' cooling off ' ' arbi-
tration treaties with the United States, negotiated by Mr.
Bryan, Germany, although indulging in certain meaningless
talk about "approving of the principle" of arbitration,
declined to join in the compacts.
There was no arbitration treaty that could be invoked when
trouble arose with Germany.
137. 24. "Pair play" has a small part in the Prussian military
usage, however. (See German War Code, authorized translation^
pages 1-3 and 52.) J. Murray, London, 1915'.
"A war conducted with energy can not be directed merely
against the combatants of the enemy State and the positions
they occupy, but will and must in like manner seek to destroy
the total intellectual and material resources of the latter.
Humanitarian claims, such as the protection of men and their
goods, can only be taken into consideration in so far as the
nature and object of the war permit."
See also Clausewitz (the Prussian military authority and oft-
quoted oracle). Treatise "On War" (Vom Kriege) V: Kap.
14 (3).
Speaking of the desirability of crushing down an hostile
country by requisitions, etc., he commends it because of "the
fear of responsibility, punishment, and ill-treatment, which in
such cases presses on the whole population like a general
"weight." This recourse (of requisitions) has "no limits except
those of the exhaustion, impoverishment, and devastation of the
country, ' '
25. Austria had a serious clash with the United States in the
Ancona case late in 1915, when Americans perished, thanks to
the ruthless action of an Austrian submarine. In reply to
American protests Austria promised to order her commanders to
behave with humanity, and (compared, at least, to her German
allies) she kept her word with reasonable exactness.
On April 8, 1917, however, Austria, probably acting under
German pressure, broke off diplomatic relations with the United
States without waiting for action by our Government, and the
272 Democracy Today
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same was done a little later by Germany's other obedient
vassal, the Sultan of Turkey.
'38. 26. No one can accuse Mr. Wilson of the least precipitancy in
bringing matters to an issue. Of course, on the contrary, his
persistent attempts to bring the German Government to recog-
nize the claims of reason and humanity have caused him to be
bitterly criticized. Despite this criticism he has patiently and
steadily held to the policy announced a year ago, ' ' to wait until
facts became unmistakable and were susceptible of only one
interpretation." (Sussex note, April 18, 1916.)
Here is a partial list of the stages in the U-boat campaign :
(1) December 24, 1914. Admiral von Tirpitz throws out
hints in a newspaper interview of a wholesale torpedoing policy.
He directly asks, "What will America say?" This was
considerably before the so-called English blockade was causing
Germany any serious food problem.
(2) February 4, 1915. German Government proclaims a war
zone within which any ship may be sunk unwarned.
(3) February 10, 1915. Mr. Wilson tells German Govern-
ment it will be held to ' ' strict accountability ' ' if any American
rights are violated in this way.
(4) May 1, (dated April 22), 1915. German Embassy pub-
lishes in New York morning papers warning against taking
passage on ships which our Government had told the people
they had a perfect right to take.
The Lusitania sailed at 12:20 noon, May 1.
(5) May 7, 1915. Sinking of Lusitania.
(6) May 13, 1915. Mr. Wilson's "first Lusitania" note.
(7) May 28, 1915. Germany's reply defending the sinking
of the Lusitania.
(8) June 9, 1915. Mr. Wilson's "second Lusitania" note.
(9) July 21, 1915. Mr. Wilson's "third Lusitania" note
(following more unsatisfactory German rejoinders.)
(10) August 19, 1915. Sinking of the Arabic, whereupon von
Bernstorff gave an oral pledge for his Government that here-
after German submarines would not sink "liners" without
warning.
(11) February, 1916. (After still more debatable sinkings)
Germany makes proposals looking toward "assuming liability"
for the Lusitania victims, but the whole case is soon complicated
again by the ' ' armed ship ' ' issue.
(12) March 24, 1916. Sinking of the Sussex passenger
vessel with Americans on board.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 273
rage
(13) April 10, 1916. Germany cynically tells United States
she can not be sure whether she sunk the Sussex or not,
although admitting one of her submarines was active 1 close to
the place of disaster.
(14) April 18, 1916. President Wilson threatens Germany
with breach of diplomatic relations if Sussex and similar inci-
dents are repeated.
(15) May 4, 1916. Germany grudgingly makes the promise
that ships will not be sunk without warning.
(16) October 8, 1916. German submarine appears off Ameri-
can coast and sinks British passenger steamer Stephano with
many American passengers (vacationists returning from New-
foundland) on board. Loss of life almost certain had not
American men-of-war been on hand to pick up the refugees.
[From this time until final break several other vessels sunk
under circumstances which made it at least doubtful whether
Germany was living up to her pledges.]
(17) January 31, 1917. Germany tears up her promises and
notifies Mr. Wilson she will begin ' ' unrestricted submarine
war. ' '
(18) February 3, 1917. Mr. Wilson gives Count Bernstorff
his passports and recalls Ambassador Gerard from Berlin.
In all modern history it may be doubted if there is another
chapter displaying such prolonged patience, forbearance, and
conciliatoriness as that shown by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lansing
in the face of a long course of deliberate evasion and prevarica-
tion to them personally, as well as outrage after outrage upon
the property, and still more, upon the lives of very many Ameri-
can citizens.
139. 27. The treason statutes of the United States have seldom
been invoked, but they exist and possess teeth.
It is treason to "levy war against the United States, adhere
to their enemies, or give them aid or comfort." (Chapter 1,
section 1, Eevised Statutes.) The penalty is death, or imprison-
ment for at least five years, and a fine of at least $10,000.
.It is "misprision of treason" to know of any treasonable
plots or doings and fail to report the same to the authorities.
The penalty is seven years' imprisonment. The penalty for
inciting a rebellion or insurrection is ten years, and the crime of
entering into any correspondence with a foreign government
w influence it in any dispute with the United States, or to
274 Democracy Today
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defeat any measures taken by our Government, calls for three
years' imprisonment. (Chapter 1, section 5.) There is also a
penalty of six years' imprisonment for any seditious conspiracy
to oppose the authority of the United States.
139. All these laws President Wilson has, by recent proclamation
.(April 6, 1917), reminded the people are in full force.
"Giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United
States" has been defined in the courts (30 Federal Cases, No.
18272), as
"In general, any act clearly indicating a want of loyalty to
the Government and sympathy with its enemies, and which by
fair construction is directly in furtherance of their hostile
designs. ' ' Such deeds are, of course, liable to all the penalty
of treason.
In extreme cases also, of "rebellion and invasion" the Con-
stitution specifically gives the Government power to suspend
the writ of habeas corpus (Constitution, Article I, section 9,
paragraph 2) ; in other words, to arrest and imprison on mere
suspicion without trial, and this was actually done in the Civil
War.
28. Abraham Lincoln (second inaugural address, 1865).
' ' With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness
in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the
work we are in to bind up one another 's wounds, to care for
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and
orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. ' '
Priedrich von Bernhardi (German lieutenant general, and
acceptable mouthpiece, not of the whole German nation, but of
the Prussian military caste which holds the German nation in
its grip) :
"Might is at once the supreme right, and the dispute as to
what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war" (page 23).
"The inevitableness, the idealism, and the blessedness of war
as the indispensable and stimulating law of development must
be repeatedly emphasized (page 37).
' ' Our people must learn, to feel that the maintenance of peace
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 275
rage
never can or may be the goal of a policy" (page 37, "Germany
and the Next War").
Which of these two national viewpoints is to be allowed to
dominate the world?
140. 29. The last sentence is an adaptation of the close of Luther's
defense at the Diet of Worms in 1521, "I can not do other-
wise. God help me."
FLAG DAY ADDRESS
All the following notes on the Flag Day Address are taken by
special permission from the text of the President's Address offi-
cially annotated by the Committee on Public Information. (See
page 15.)
'42. i. As for espionage, Konig, the head of the Hamburg- Amer-
ican secret service, who was active in passport frauds, who
induced Gustave Stahl to perjure himself and declare the
Lusitania armed, and who plotted the destruction of the Wei-
land Canal, has, in his work as a spy, passed under thirteen
aliases in this country and Canada. As for the corruption of
public opinion, it has proceeded both openly and under cover.
Dr. Dernburg was the official missionary, and he and others
went up and down the land. Newspapers have been started with
German money and others have received secret subsidies from
the German Government. The accounts of large sums given in
this way to buy up newspapers or individuals have already
been published. Most important of all, in a telegram, dated
January 22, 1917, but just made public by the Secretary of
State, von Bernstorflf asked his Government for authority to
expend $50,000 "in order, as on former occasions, to influence
Congress through the organization you know of."
As for conspiracy in our midst, it has taken various forms
under the fostering and munificent hands of Gapts. Boy-Ed, von
Papen, von Eintelen, Tauscher, and von Igel, all directly con-
nected with the German Government. For what unlawful and
seditious purposes their money was spent for bombs to blow
up our merchant vessels and their crews, for evading our laws
and supplying German raiders at sea, or for organizing dis-
guised pro-German societies, is plain from the von Igel papers
now in possession of our Government. In others there is the
276 Democracy Today
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implication that the German diplomatists in America were
involved in the Separatist movement in the Province of Quebec.
The German agents spent $600,000 on Huerta's abortive attempt
in this country to start a revolution in Mexico (1915). For
the whole subject see files of New York World and New York
Times Index under ' ' German and Austro-Hungarian conspira-
tors, " "German plots, etc., for 1914-1917," and Congressional
Record, April 5, 1917, pp. 192, 193.
142. . They have sought to destroy our industries by bringing
about strikes and inducing men to quit work. Labor 's National
Peace Council attempted to bring about a strike among 23,000
longshoremen (Gompers's statement, New York Times, Sept. 14,
1915), and that was not the only attempt. Ambassador Dumba
and Consul General von Nuber ran advertisements in various
papers calling upon all loyal Austrians to quit work in muni-
tions factories. German official documents, seized in Capt. von
Igel's office, present as an argument against Austro-Hungary 's
cutting off the subsidy to a pretended employment bureau,
which was in reality a branch of the German Secret Service,
that this ' ' Liebau Bureau ' ' had been highly successful in
fomenting strikes and disturbances at munition factories. (Cf.
letter of Mar. 24, 1916, to Ambassador von Bernstorff.) Dum-
ba 's letter, reporting his plans to bring about disturbances in
the Bethlehem Steel Works, was seized by the British among
the belongings of Mr. Archibald, a subsidized American corre-
spondent, and Dumba 's recall was thereupon demanded by our
Department of State.
The Germans have sought to arrest our commerce, not by
submarines alone, but by blowing up ships in harbor and at
sea. They have put bombs in coal bunkers and tied them to
rudder posts. Models of Eobert Fay's contrivances for this
latter purpose were exhibited at his trial, and he spared pas-
senger ships only because twin screws baffled him. By Fay's
own confession and that of his partner the money for this com-
bination of treachery and murder came from the German secret
police.
1*3- 3. The reference is to the note sent by Dr. Alfred Zimmer-
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 277
Page
mann, foreign secretary, to von Eekhart, German minister to
Mexico, requesting him to seek an alliance against us with
Mexico and Japan. See Note 22 to the War Message. The
note was intercepted, and when in March its contents were made
known it set popular feeling aflame and more than any other
act of aggression on the part of Germany aroused the Amer-
ican public.
143. 4. Possibly the most glaring instance of German official
effrontery was the permission to regular American passenger
steamers to continue their sailings undisturbed after February
1, 1917, if
' ' (a) The port of destination is Falmouth.
" (6) Sailing to or coming from that port course is taken via
the Scilly Islands and a point 50 N. 20 W.
" (c) The steamers are marked in the following way, which
must not be allowed to other vessels in American ports: On
ship's hull and superstructure three vertical stripes, 1 meter
wide, each to be painted alternately white and red. Each mast
should show a large flag checkered white and red and the stern
the American national flag. Care should be taken that, during
dark, national flag and painted marks are easily recognizable
from a distance, and that the boats are well lighted throughout.
" (d) One steamer a week sails in each direction with arrival
at Falmouth on Sunday and departure from Falmouth on
Wednesday.
" (e) The United States Government guarantees that no con-
traband (according to German contraband list) is carried by
those steamers."
The German ambassador to the Secretary of State, January
31, 1917.
5. A check for $5,000 to J. F. J. Archibald for ' ' propaganda
work," and a receipt from Edwin Emerson, the war corre-
spondent, for $1,000 "traveling expenses" were among the
documents found in von Igel 's possession. Many persons in
places of influence and authority were approached.
Others likewise bearing English names have been persuaded
to take leading places in similar organizations which concealed
278 Democracy Today
Page
their origin and real purpose. The American Embargo Con-
ference arose out of the ashes of Labor's Peace Council, and
its president was American, though the funds were not. Still
others tampered with were journalists who lent themselves to
the German propaganda, and who went so far as to serve as
couriers between the Teutonic embassies and Vienna and Berlin.
143- 6. At 6 p. m., Aug. 1, the German Army was formally mobil-
ized, although there is much evidence that it had been mobilized
for days, and at 7 p. m., war was declared against Eussia.
On Aug. 4 the Keichstag, the representative body of the Ger-
man Nation, met, and for the first time learned officially what
had been done. Between July 23 and August 4 the German
Government had put itself in the posture of war against Eussia,
France, Great Britain, and Belgium, and had violated Luxem-
burg, and yet had asked no advice or consent of the German
people. That is why it is proper to say that the German people
did not begin the war, or the mass of the people originate it.
Perhaps the most conclusive proof of this lies in the efforts
made by the Government to convince the people that the war
was strictly a defensive one. ' ' Envious people everywhere are
compelling us to our just defense," said the Kaiser on July
31; and again, "The sword is being forced into our hand."
By such speeches and by the circulation of a report (since
acknowledged by high German officials to be false) that France
had already attacked Germany, the German people were aroused.
Even the invasion of Belgium was represented to be a defen-
sive measure, and it was declared by the Chancellor in the
Eeichstag and by everybody else in authority to have been due
to certain knowledge that France herself was about to invade
Belgium. Lieut. Gen. Freytag-Loringhoven, Chief of the Sup-
plementary Staff, has recently made it clear that this was not
true. He admits that the initial success of the German arms
was largely owing to the French expecting the -German advance
elsewhere. (N. T. Times, Aug. 12, 1917.)
7. The present German Empire and its constitution was
formeo. not by the people but by the twenty-five kings and
princes of Germany, headed by the King of Prussia. Bismarck
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 279
Page
wrote the constitution and regarded it as adopted when the Ger-
man princes and kings approved it. It was never submitted to
a vote of the people. It is clear at once how perfect this con-
stitution is. It is perfect from the standpoint of the kings and
princes, especially of the Kaiser, who, as King of Prussia, con-
trols two-thirds of the people and two-thirds of the land of
Germany.
*3. Bismarck did not choose to leave the people out entirely;
thus the 'German constitution provides for an elected house,
called the Eeichstag. It is chosen by manhood suffrage of
those over twenty-five years of age. The districts established
in 1871 are unchanged today. This means that the large cities
which have grown up since 1871 and contain the laboring vote
are but partially represented, and the German Government dares
not change these districts, because it would mean an increased
vote for the laboring classes and the Socialist Party. It need
not be so fearful, for, under the constitution, the popular house
is merely a great debating club, which may talk and go through
the forms of considering legislation, but is not a real factor in
the German Government. It is little more than a convenient
piece of political scene-painting, and the room where it meets
has been well called by one of the members the "Hall of
Echoes. ' '
The real power in the German Parliament lies with the
Bundesrat, a body of 61 members, which meets in secret. It
is composed of diplomats appointed by the kings and princes of
Germany, Prussia having the largest number. These ambassa-
dors vote at the direction of their sovereigns, and as the King
of Prussia is the most powerful and appoints the chancellor, who
presides over the Bundesrat, he has enough, votes to veto any
measure. The Bundesrat is not only safe from democracy but
it is the body through which the Emperor, as King of Prussia,
can really control Germany. Here are originated almost all
bills, and all legislation must be approved by the Bundesrat;
this means, in other words, by Prussia and its King, the present
Emperor William II. It is thus that Germany has been Prus-
sianized in its government and filled with the political ambi-
tions and military ideals of a State whose best models of a
280 Democracy Today
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ruler are still, in the twentieth century, Frederick the Great
and his brutal father.
*3- It is this Government, comprised of a group of kings and
princes, led by the King of Prussia, that the pro-Germans praise
as the most democratic in the world. What they mean is that
for the sake of keeping the people quiet and submissive to their
military aims the autocracy grants them old-age pensions and
clean streets, and in return expects them to send their sons to
any war and to commit any act for -T..9 sake of a State where
irresponsible medieval-minded sovereigns still believe in this
twentieth century that they rule by divine grace and are
accountable only to God. But the god that they have in mind
is a war god whom they haye created in their own image.
This pictures but half of what we mean by autocracy, for it
leaves out of account the government of the most powerful
State in Germany, that of Prussia itself. When one knows that
in Prussia the voters are divided into three classes according to
their wealth, and one nobleman's or rich man's vote may be
equal to that of 10,000 laborers, and that actually 4 per cent
of the wealthy people count for as much as 82 per cent of the
laboring and poor class, some may think that this is efficient
government; but the only people they can get to agree with
them are the Prussian nobles, landowners, and capitalists. See
Hazen, The German Government, published and distributed by
the Committee on Public Information.
The militaristic group which started the war without con-
sulting the people's representatives have been equally con-
temptuous of public opinion in conducting it. In England there
have been two sweeping changes in the cabinet in response to
popular demand, and in France both cabinet ministers and
army leaders have been changed; but in Germany even when,
after three years of war, popular discontent led to the fall of
Bethmann-Hollweg, the first secret conferences concerning his
successor were evidently with the army generals and then with
the crown council at which the Crown Prince, was present. The
new chancellor, Michaelis, was so far from being the choice of
the people that even the most hostile groups in the Eeichstag
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 281
/age
did not know what to make of him. Michaelis has already
been displaced by another puppet of the Emperor's, von
Hertling. He will doubtless soon be removed in his turn.
144. 8. Dispatches from Petrograd carry new evidence from the
secret Russian archives of the Kaiser's intrigues against small
states. In telegrams signed "Nicky" and "Willy," the Czar
and the German Emperor are shown to have been arranging in
1905 for a secret alliance endangering Denmark. In case of
war with England, Denmark was to be treated as Belgium
has been in the present war, except that a preliminary effort
was to be made to make the Danes see and accept the inevi-
table. The German Emperor telegraphed on August 2, 1905,
from Copenhagen, where he had gone to break ground for the
nefarious scheme:
' Considering great number of channels leading from Copen-
hagen to London and proverbial want of discretion of the
Danish court, I was afraid to let anything be known about our
alliance, as it would immediately have been communicated to
London, a most impossible thing so long as treaty is to remain
secret for the present.
"By long conversation with Isvolsky, however, I was able to
gather that actual Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Eaben,
and a number of persons of influence have already come to the
conviction that in case of war and impending attack on Baltic
from foreign power Danes expect their inability and helpless-
ness to uphold even shadow of neutrality against invasion being
evident that Eussia and Germany will immediately take steps
to safeguard their interests by laying hands on Denmark and
occupying it during the war.
"As this would at the same time guarantee territory and
future existence of dynasty and country, the Danes are slowly
resigning themselves to this alternative and making up their
minds accordingly. This 'being exactly what you wished and
hoped for, I thought it better not to touch on the subject with
Danes and refrained from making any allusions.
"It is better to let the idea develop and ripen in their heads
and let them draw final conclusions themselves, so that they
282 Democracy Today
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will of their own accord be moved to lean upon us and fall in
line with our two countries. Tout vient a qui sait attendre.
['All things come to Mm who waits.']
" WILLY."
** 9. Some of the German conceptions and plans are indicated
in the quotations that follow. These quotations are necessarily
brief, and for that reason they may seem somewhat sharp, but
they are none the less typical of the spirit that is to be found
in scores of German pamphlets and books, in a wide range of
newspapers, and, indeed, in the conversation of a large number
of intelligent Germans. It must not be supposed, of course,
that all Germans knew the bitter logic of such notions. Prob-
ably a majority did not. But unfortunately a powerful and
increasing minority, a clamorous minority, were in favor of
the policy of military aggression.
"Eoom they must make room. The western and southern
Slavs or we. Since we are the stronger, the choice will not
be difficult. We must quit our modest waiting at the door.
Only by growth can a people save itself." (Otto R. Tannen-
berg, Gross-Deut schland : die Arbeit des SOten Jahrhunderts
[Greater Germany: the work of the 20th century], 1911, pp.
74-75.)
"We are of the race of the Thunderer;
We will possess the earth.
That is the old right of the Germans
To win land with the hammer.
"This right of the Germans arises, let it be said once more,
out of German civilization, the best on earth. . . . for-
ward, then, into the fight for German aims, and 'far as the
hammer is hurled, let the earth be ours.' " (Bley, Die Welt-
stellung des Deutschtums, [Germany's Position in the World],
1897, pp. 27-29.)
"Our fathers have left us much to do. The German people
is so situated in Europe that it need only run and take what-
ever it requires. . . . Today ... it is for Ger-
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 283
Page
many to rise from a European to a world power. . .- .
Humanitarian dreams are imbecility. Diplomatic charity begins
at home. Statesmanship is business. Eight and wrong are
notions indispensable in private life. The German people are
right because they number 87,000,000 souls. Our fathers have
left us much to do." (O. E. Tannenberg, Gross-Deutschland:
die Arbeit des SOten Jahrhunderts, 1911, pp. 230-31.)
144. "it is our sacred duty to sharpen the sword that has been
put into our hands and to hold it ready for defense as well as
for offense. We must allow the idea to sink into the minds of
our people that our armaments are an answer to the armaments
and policy of the French. We must accustom them to think
that an offensive war on our part is a necessity, in order to
combat the provocations of our adversaries. We must act with
prudence so as not to arouse suspicion and to avoid the crises
which might injure our economic existence. We must so man-
age matters that under the heavy weight of powerful arma-
ments, considerable sacrifices, and strained political relations
the precipitation of war (Losschlagen) should be considered as
a relief, because after it would come decades of peace and
prosperity, as after 1870." ('Memorandum of the German Gov-
ernment on the strengthening of the German Army, Berlin,
Mar. 19, 1913 ; French Yellow Boole, Carnegie edition, 1915, I,
p. 542.)
"Do not let us forget the civilizing task which the decrees
of Providence have assigned to us. Just as Prussia was des-
tined to be the nucleus of Germany, so the regenerated Ger-
many shall be the nucleus of a future empire of the west. And
in order that no one shall be left in doubt, we proclaim from
henceforth that our continental nation has a right to the sea,
not only to the North Sea but to the Mediterranean and the
Atlantic. Hence we intend to absorb one after another all the
provinces which neighbor on Prussia. We will successively
annex Denmark, Holland, Belgium, northern Switzerland, then
Trieste and Venice, finally northern France, from the Sambre
to the Loiret This programme we fearlessly pronounce. It is
not the work of a madman. The empire we intend to found
will be no Utopia. We have ready to hand the means of
284 Democracy Today
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founding it and no coalition in the world can stop us." (Bron-
sart von Schellendorf, quoted by H. A. L. Fisher in The War,
Its Causes and Issues, 1914, p. 16.)
I* 4 - 10. In his published speeches the Kaiser never makes a down-
right assertion of a wish to conquer other peoples. But he is
continually "sharpening" his "sword," glorifying war and
the military deeds of his ancestors, and urging his army to be
ready for its great work. In much that he says this notion of
aggression is implicit. The following excerpts show the dan-
gerous drift of his mind, and that of his son and heir and of the
ruler of the second kingdom in the Empire:
"The German people is of one mind with its princes and its
Emperor in the feeling that in its powerful development it
must set up a new boundary post and create a great fleet which
will correspond to its needs." (Kaiser's speech, Berlin, Feb.
13, 1900. Christian Gauss, The German Emperor as Shoicn in
His Public Utterances, 1913, p. 158.)
"I hope it [Germany] will be granted, through the harmoni-
ous cooperation of princes and peoples, of its armies and its
citizens, to become in the future as closely united, as powerful,
and as authoritative as once the Eoman world empire was, and
that, just as in the old times they said 'Civis romanus sum,'
hereafter, at some time in the future, they will say, 'I am a
German citizen.' ' (Kaiser's speech of Oct. 11, 1900, Chris-
tian Gauss, p. 169.)
"At the declaration of war Russia followed France, and then
the English also fell upon us. ... I am glad of it, and
I am glad because we can now have a reckoning with our ene-
mies and because now at length ... we can get a direct
outlet from the Ehine to the sea. Ten months have gone by
eince that time. Much precious blood has been shed. It has
not, however, been shed for nothing. A strengthening of the
German Empire and an expansion outward beyond its boun-
daries as far as this is necessary an expansion by which we
shall be protected against further attacks that will be the
gain (Frucht) of this war." (Speech by the King of Bavaria,
June 7, 1915, at the banquet of the Bavarian Canal Association.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 285
Page
Quoted by Grumbach, Da* annexionistische Deutschland,
[Germany with Annexations], 1917, page 5.)
f44. "it i g only by relying on our good German sword that we
can tope to conquer that place in the sun which rightly belongs
to us, and which the world does not seem willing to accord us
. . . till the world comes to an end, the ultimate decision
must rest with the sword." (Extract from the Crown Prince's
introduction to Germany in Arms, issued in 1913.)
"War is the noblest and holiest expression of human activ-
ity. For us, too, the glad, great hour of battle will strike.
Still and deep in the German heart must live the joy of battle
and the longing for it. Let us ridicule to the utmost the old
women in breeches who fear war and deplore it as cruel and
revolting. No; war is beautiful. Its august sublimity elevates
the human heart beyond the earthly and the common. In the
cloud palace above sit the heroes Frederick the Great and
Bliicher, and all the men of action the great Emperor, Moltke,
Boon, Bismarck are there as well, but not the old women who
would take away our joy in war. When here on earth a battle
is won by German arms and the faithful dead ascend to heaven,
a Potsdam lance corporal will call the guard to the door, and
'old Fritz,' springing from his golden throne, will give the
command to present arms. That is the heaven of young Ger-
many. ' ' (Jung Deutschland, the official organ of the ' ' Young
German League," October, 1913. Quoted by J. P. Bang,
Hurrah and Hallelujah, 1917, p. 212.)
The following is the testimony of Otfried Nippold, professor
of church history at Jena. On his return from a residence of
several years in Japan he was shocked to observe the extraor-
dinary growth of jingoism in Germany. He gathered in most
careful fashion a collection of statements advocating war and
conquest, made in the years 1912-13 by prominent men, by well-
known associations, and by leading newspapers. At the end of
his book of more than a hundred pages this German scholar
made the following careful statement of the situation:
' ' The evidence submitted in this book amounts to an irre-
futable proof that a systematic stimulation of the war spirit is
286 Democracy Today
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going on, based on the one hand on the wishes of the Pan-
German League and on the other on the agitation of the
Defense Association (Wehrverein). One cannot but feel deep
regret in discovering that in Germany, as well as in other coun-
tries, ill-feeling against other States and Nations is being
stirred up so unjustifiably and that people are being so unscrup-
ulously incited to war. ...
144. ' ' We have come across other speakers and writers and they
are decidedly in the majority, so far as the passages quoted in
these pages are concerned who deal with the matter in a much
more thoroughgoing way. These men do not only occasionally
incite people to war, but they systematically inculcate a desire
for war in the minds of the German people. In the opinion
of these instigators, the German^ Nation needs a war ; a long-
continued peace seems regrettable to them just because it is a
peace, no matter whether there is any reason for war or not,
and therefore, in case of need, one must simply strive to bring
it about. . . .
"From this dogma (that war must come) it is only a step
to the next chauvinistic principle, so dear to the heart of our
soldier politicians who are languishing for war the funda-
mental principle of the aggressive or preventive war. If it be
true that war is to come, then let it come at the moment which
is most favorable to ourselves. In other words, do not wait until
there is a reason for war, but strike when it is most convenient.
. . . And, above all, as soon as possible. . . .
"If their theory holds good, Germany, even if she conquered
ever so many colonies, would again be in need of war after a
few decades, since otherwise the German Nation would again
ibe in danger of moral degeneration. The truth is that, to
them, war is quite a normal institution of international inter-
course and not in any way a means of settling great interna-
tional conflicts not a means to be resorted to only in case of
great necessity." (Der deutsche Chauvinismus, [German
Chauvinism], 1913, pp. 113-117.)
The powerful forces exciting the war mania were analyzed
again and again by leading Social Democrats in the Beichstag.
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 287
Page
Their views confirm the following statement made by the
French minister of foreign affairs in his report (July 30,
1913) :
144. "Some want war because, in the present circumstances, they
think it inevitable; and, as far as Germany is concerned, the
sooner the better. Others regard war as necessary for economic
reasons, based on overpopulation, overproduction, and the need
for markets and outlets, and also for social reasons. . . .
Others, uneasy for the safety of the Empire and believing that
time is on the side of France, think that events should be
brought to an immediate head. . . . Others are bellicose
from ' Bismarckism, ' as it may be termed. They feel them-
selves humiliated at having to enter into discussions with
Prance. . . . Angry disappointment is the unifying force
of the Wehrvereine and other associations- of young Gennany.
. . . Others again want war from a mystic hatred of
revolutionary France . . . [The writer goes on to say
that the country squires, the aristocracy, which is military in
character, the higher bourgeoisie, the manufacturers, big mer-
chants, and bankers are in favor of war]. The universities,
if we except a few distinguished spirits, develop a warlika
philosophy. . . . Historians, philosophers, political pam-
phleteers, and other apologists of German Kultur, wish to
impose upon the world a way of thinking and feeling specific-
ally German. . . . We come finally to those whose sup-
port of the war policy is inspired by rancour and resentment.
. . . ' ' (French Yellow Book, Doc. No. 5. Diplomatic
Documents, Carnegie edition, 1916, I, pp. 551-553.)
It will not escape the reader's attention that these three
statements from widely differing sources were made from one
to three years before Germany plunged the world into the war
she wanted.
Even now (November, 1917) the rulers of Germany can not
abandon their schemes for annexation. Recently the Reichstag,
impelled probably by the growing peril of Germany's situation,
voted against annexations and indemnities. Alarmed by this
vote, the Pan-Germans have been conducting a campaign of
mass meetings and telegrams. They sent a wire to the recent
288 Democracy Today
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chancellor, Michaelis, urging that peace without indemnities
and extensions of territory was impossible. To this the chan-
cellor answered: "I am firmly confident that the splendid
military situation will help us to a peace which will guarantee
permanently the German Empire's condition of existence (sic)
on the Continent and overseas." (New YorTc Times, Aug. 10,
1917.) Michaelis 's phrases were those commonly used by the
Germans who wish extension of territory, but who express their
wishes agreeably. He was indicating in a polite and guarded
way that the Pan-Germans should understand that their plans
of conquest had not been given up.
l44 - 11. In Eoumania the house of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen ; in
Bulgaria the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; in Albania the
inglorious house of Wied. What the late Queen of Greece,
the Kaiser 's sister, accomplished for the German cause is suffi-
ciently known. In Montenegro the heir apparent is married to
a German princess. Only the Serbian royal house is without
German connections.
12. Not long after the treaty of Berlin (1878) German offi-
cers, one of whom was General von der Goltz, set about reorgan-
izing the Turkish Army. In 1888 German financiers, depending
upon the Deutsche Bank, asked for a railway concession. In
the next year the Kaiser, William II, visited Abdul Hamid.
By 1891 German influence at Constantinople became evident.
Germans in Turkey were directing the building of railways and
Germans at home were urging the necessity of German rail-
ways to the Persian Gulf. In 1898 the Kaiser went to Con-
stantinople and on to Palestine, where he declared himself the
friend of 300,000,000 Moslems. In 1899 Dr. Siemens, a Berlin
capitalist, signed the Bagdad Eailway convention with Turkey.
Although capitalists of other nations were allowed to share in
financing the road, German interests maintained control over
it. Since that time German officers have been going to Turkey
in numbers, drilling the Turkish troops, teaching them modern
warfare, equipping the army with the best new artillery, and
thoroughly fortifying strategic points. Meanwhile German
diplomats were studiously indifferent to Armenian atrocities
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 289
Page
perpetrated by the Turks. When the Young Turk movement
culminated in the revolution of 1908 the Kaiser's government
was quick to show favor to the new government. German
officers assisted the Turks in their two Balkan wars, 1912-13.
These different moves have all been part of a general plan.
For two decades German policy has been to create in Turkey
a strong but subordinated military ally and to bring her within
the German economic system. Kich territories in Asia Minor
and the Mesopotamian valley might thus be developed, an all-
German route to the East assured, and Britain's routes to India
and her position in Egypt brought within striking distance.
I* 4 - 13. See the French Yellow Book (Diplomatic Documents, Car-
negie edition), for a secret German document bearing date of
March 19, 1913, obtained from a reliable source and commu-
nicated to M. Jonnart, minister for foreign affairs, by M.
fitienne, minister of war, April 2, 1913. The German writer
discusses plans for increase of armament, and for war, partic-
ularly against France (pp. 542-3) : "We must not be anxious
about the fate of our colonies. The final result in Europe will
settle their position. On the other hand, we must stir up
trouble in the north of Africa and in Russia. It is a means
of keeping the forces of the enemy engaged. It is, therefore,
absolutely necessary that we should open u.p relations, by means
of well-chosen agents, with influential people in Egypt, Tunis,
Algeria, and Morocco, in order to prepare the measures which
would be necessary in the case of a European war. Of course,
in case of war we would openly recognize these secret allies,
and on the conclusion of peace we would secure to them the
advantages which they had gained. These aims are capable of
realization. The first attempt, which was made some years ago,
opened up for us the desired relations. Unfortunately these
relations were not sufficiently consolidated. Risings provoked
In time of war by political agents need to be carefully pre-
pared and by material means. They must break out simultane-
ously with the destruction of the means of communication;
they must have a controlling head to be found among the influ-
ential leaders, religious or political. The Egyptian school is
290 Democracy Today
Pace
particularly suited to this purpose; more and more it serves as
a bond between the intellectuals of the Mohammedan world. ' '
' For the detailed story of the activity in Egypt after this
and before see Times (London), History of the War, III
(1917), pp. 292-295. Von Bernstorff was then consular agent,
and after him Prince von Hatzfeldt, and they conducted them-
selves somewhat as both have done since in America.
On July 7, 1917, indictments were brought in the Federal
court at San Francisco against 98 persons, including German
consuls and consuls general. At the same time the following
statement was made by the Federal district attorney, Mr. John
W. Preston:
' ' For more than a year prior to the outbreak of the European
war certain Hindus in San Francisco and certain Germans were
preparing openly for war with England. At the outbreak of
the war Hindu leaders, members of the German consulate here
and attaches of the German Government, began to form plans
to foment revolution in India for the purpose of freeing India
and aiding Germans in their military operations.
"Hindus on the Pacific coast were canvassed and those will-
ing to take part in the revolution were registered. Emissaries
T"ere financed by the German agents here and immediately dis-
patched to Germany. Shortly thereafter what is known as th
India committee, an*adjunct of the German foreign office, was
created in Berlin. This India committee had the personal atten-
tion of Alfred Zimmermann, German Secretary of Foreign
Affairs.
"Thereafter the operations of the plotters in the United
States were directed from Berlin. The conspiracy took the
form of various military enterprises. Arms and ammunition in
large quantities were purchased with German money. Men were
recruited and sent to India."
14. On June 28, 1914, there took place at Serajevo, Bosnia
(Austrian territory since 1909), the assassination of Archduke
Ferdinand and nis wife. Serbians undoubtedly aided and
abetted the criminals. The Austrian Government asserts that
it traced the source of the deed to Serbian territory, and even
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 291
Page
it maintains, to government and court circles in Belgrade, the
Serbian capital.
145. For nearly a month nothing occurred. Then, on July 23,
almost without warning, Austria-Hungary made known her
demands upon Serbia. Their main purpose seemed to be the
complete extirpation of the Pan-Serbian movement and the pun-
ishment of all Serbians implicated in the crime at Serajevo.
The demands involved a practical denial of the sovereignty of
Serbia. A reply was, furthermore, demanded by 6 o'clock on
July 25, or within exactly 4B hours.
Serbia made a reply covering every point in the demands.
It yielded to most of the demands and showed an extremely
conciliatory spirit. On the question of allowing Austrian offi-
cers to enter Serbian territory in order to take part in the
inquiries or judicial proceedings concerning the Serajevo mur-
ders, the Serbian Government declared that it would "admit
such collaboration as agrees with the principle of international
law, with criminal procedure, and with good neighborly rela-
tions." It added finally that if the Austro-Hungarian Gov-
ernment were "not satisfied with this reply, the Serbian Gov-
ernment, considering that it is not to the common interest to
take precipitate action in the solution of tlfis question, is
ready, as always, to accept a pacific understanding, either by
referring this question to the decision of the international
tribunal at The Hague, or to the Great Powers which took
part in the drawing up of the declaration made by the Serbian
Government on the 18/31 of 'March, 1909."
A number of the Powers pleaded the Serbian cause, asking
at least an extension of the time limit or a delay in making
war, but the Austrian Government would abate not a jot or
tittle of its demands. Its unyielding attitude and brusqueness
startled the world, and have justified the suspicion that Austria-
Hungary did not desire a satisfactory reply.
As if to lend color to this suspicion it has since come to light
that in August, 1913, Austria-Hungary had already formed the
plan to attack Serbia. Italy, though at that time in alliance
with Germany and Austria-Hungary, refused to support such
292 Democracy Today
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an aggression. (Declaration of Signor Giolitti to the Italian
Parliament, Dec. 5, 1914.)
5. 1,5. Across the path of this railway to Bagdad lay Serbia
an independent country whose sovereign alone among those of
southeastern Europe had no marriage connection with Berlin, a
Serbia that looked toward Russia. That is why Europe was
nearly driven into war in 1913; that is why Germany stood
so determinedly behind Austria 's demands in 1914 and forced
war. She must have her "corridor", to the southeast; she
must have political domination all along the route of the great
economic empire she planned. She was unwilling to await the
process of ' ' peaceful penetration. ' '
16. "We must create a central Europe which will guarantee
the peace of the entire continent from the moment when it shall
have driven the Russians from the Black Sea and the Slavs
from the south, and shall have conquered large tracts to the
east of our frontiers for German colonization. We can not let
loose ex dbrupto the war which will create this central Europe.
All we can do is to accustom our people to the thought that
this war must come." (Quoted by Ch. Andler, pp. 21, 22,
from Paul de Lagarde, Deutsche Schriften, 4th ed., 1903,
p. 83.)
The projected Middle Europe would, -through its hold on
Constantinople, " close the chief outlet for the exports of the
Russian Republic. It would, through the election of a king-
dom of Poland, united to Middle Europe, take away from
Russia almost its entire manufacturing area. Such an Empire
would do little less than bring the Russian Republic into
economic dependence upon the Teutonic Powers. And this eco-
nomic dependence could be used as a club to bring political
dependence as well. The results of this for the future of
Russia are easy to see.
17. "And over all these; over the Germans, French, Danes,
and Poles in the German Empire; over the Magyars, Ger-
mans, Roumanians, Slovaks, Croats, and Serbs in Hungary;
over the Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and southern Slavs
in Austria, let us imagine once again the controlling concept
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 293
Page
of Mid-Europe. Mid-Europe will have a German nucleus, will
voluntarily use the German language, which is known all over
the world and is already the language of intercourse within
Central Europe, but must from the outset display toleration
and flexibility in regard to all the neighboring languages that
are associated with it." (F. Naumann, Central Europe, 1916,
pp. 108-109.)
i<5- 18. The German government of Alsace-Lorraine is typical of
what may be expected if Germany annexes more territory as
a result of this war. Belgium, Luxemburg, and Russian Poland
have no more wish to be forcibly joined to Germany today
than had Alsace-Lorraine in 1870; and if they suffer that fate
only the threat of arms will keep them in submission. In the
more than forty years since its annexation by Germany, Alsace-
Lorraine Las been largely Germanized, yet in 1914 it was still
bitterly opposed to a Prussianized Government.
Since 1911, the Alsatians have looked more than ever toward
France. In that year public demonstrations against the Prus-
sian rule became more pronounced and continued intermittently
down to the beginning of the war in 1914. In 1912 the Emperor
threatened the discontented Alsatians with complete suppres-
sion of their constitution unless they ceased their agitations.
At the same time noticeable Increases were made in the gar-
risons of the leading cities, end work upon the fortifications
was rushed. In 1913 occurred the historic Za-bern incident
which showed the complete dominance of the military power
over civilian government and rights. "Lieutenant von Forst-
ner, of the garrison, one day remarked in the street that he
would give ten marks to any soldier who would run his bayonet
through an Alsatian blackguard. In spite of popular indigna-
tion he was upheld by his superiors, . . . but he was
afraid to appear in the streets without a corporal 's guard. He
still further earned the hatred of the town by striking with his
sword a lame shoemaker who had laughed at him." Among
the unmilitaristic classes in Germany there was great indigna-
tion; but in the Eeichstag, the ministry, by order of the Em-
peror, upheld the army, without compromise or apology.
294 Democracy Today
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Prussian Poland and North Sehleswig fare little if any bet-
ter. The three and a half million Poles in Prussia have been
subjected in recent years to more severe persecutions than
their compatriots in autocratic Eussia. They have, of course,
been deprived of their own laws since 1815. More recently,
their religious liberty has been restricted, and the Polish lan-
guage forbidden in education, in public business, and (with
certain temporary exceptions) in public meetings, though the
great majority of the Polish people understand no other lan-
guage. As a supreme effort at assimilation the Prussian Gov-
ernment has been trying, partly by vast expenditure of money
and partly by force, to compel the Poles to sell their lands
tand to introduce German colonists to take their places. This
interference with the Polish laws, religion, language, and prop-
erty was not provoked in the first instance by disloyalty,
. though the Poles have become disloyal in consequence of it.
Nor have the 150,000 Danes in North Sehleswig been saved by
their inoffensive obscurity, their Lutheran religion, or even
their Teutonic blood, from similar persecutions, with similar
results. If left in German hands Belgium may expect to be
another Sehleswig, another Poland.
In Austria-Hungary the situation is even worse. The South
Slavs and the Eoumanians in Hungary have been deprived of
the right to vote (although guaranteed to them in 1867) ;
their educational institutions nave been hampered or closed,
their economic development interfered with. And this is the
work of the Hungarian Government which has Germany's
warmest approval in all such measures.
'46. 19. The German cruisers, the Goeben and Breslau, took refuge
in the Dardanelles at the outbreak of the war. Instead of
interning these fugitive ships in accordance with international
law, the Turkish Government, already under German influence,
pretended to buy them. In this manner the German Govern-
ment became master of the situation and Turkey lost what-
ever independence it may still have had; for the German
admiral and crews remained on board and a German element
was introduced into the remainder of the Turkish fleet. It
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 295
Page
was this Turco-German fleet, under effective German control,
that forced Turkey's reluctant entrance into the war. By
order of the German admiral, it bombarded Eussian Black
Sea ports, without provocation, without warning, without previ-
ous authorization of the Ottoman Government, and contrary to
the desires of a majority of its members. (Diplomatic Docu-
ments, Carnegie edition, part ii, pp. 1057-1205 and 1385-1437.)
20. The Imperial Government will continue to maneuver for
peace, but, in its present spirit, for a peace to be arranged
in conference at a " green table, ' ' with Germany holding as
trumps the overrun territories now in her possession, and not
for a peace guaranteed "by the major force of mankind."
When the Eeichstag voted for peace without annexations, the
recent chancellor, Michaelis, spoke vaguely at first, but then
hastened to reassure the alarmed Pan-Germans. When the
Pope's proposals were brought forward, he welcomed them,
but remained hopelessly indefinite as to whether Germany
would assent to the details.
147. 21. The rapid industrial development of Germany after the
war of 1870, though due to economic causes, greatly enhanced
the prestige of the military classes, who assumed the credit
for it. Their present position on the war map is highly advan-
tageous to them from an economic point of view, for they now
control the chief centers of European industry outside Great
Britain. They 'hold the greater part of Belgium, one of the
most highly developed industrial centers of the world. They
are exploiting the chief mining and manufacturing part of
France, the oil and wheat fields of Koumania and one of the
few important manufacturing districts of Russia. They have
secured the Balkan corridor to the Near East, with its bound-
less possibilities of commercial exploitation and of further
political aggression in the direction of Egypt and India. If
they can retain these conquests they will be permanently
enriched at the expense of their impoverished neighbors. If
they can capitalize their present advantageous positions on
the war map, whether by annexations or otherwise, this war
also, like that of 1870, will appear in the light of a profitable
296 Democracy Today
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business adventure. War itself will indeed have become one
of the greatest of national industries, with the military caste
necessarily in supreme political control. In such an atmos-
phere democracy cannot develop. Nor can the triumph of
democracy be expected in Germany till the prestige of the mili-
tary caste has been destroyed. The celebrated Prof. Hans
Delbriick, of the University of Berlin, wrote early in 1914:
' ' Anyone who has any familiarity at all with our officers and
generals knows that it would take another Sedan, inflicted on
us instead of by us, before they would acquiesce in the con-
trol of the army by the German Parliament."
"8- 22. America no longer occupies a position of charmed isola-
tion. In this war, navies have transported great armies thou-
sands of miles. The wireless has kept Germany informed almost
constantly of developments in the United States. German
submarines have appeared in our ports and have sunk ships
off our coasts. Already we are within the menace. Let dis-
aster come to the British and American navies and the war
may be brought within our borders.
Today more than ever before we face the problem of defend-
ing with a real force or with adequate guaranties our tradi-
tional policy the Monroe doctrine. The facilities of the
entire Holy Alliance in 1823 for the violation of American
territory were small as compared with the power of Germany
alone today. If Germany emerges from this war victorious
and unreformed, then we, like France, Holland, Belgium, and
Switzerland during the past decades, must prepare indeed for
self-defense. We must shoulder a burden of military prepared-
ness in time of peace such as America has never known.
23. See note 20.
24. The terrifying bitterness of the struggle between the
Imperial Government and the Social Democratic Party came
to light in a speech by the Kaiser to the army recruits in
1891, in which he referred to his political" opponents as "the
internal foe, ' ' and said : ' ' . . . It may come to pass
that you will have to shoot down and stab your own relations
and brothers. ' ' Upon another occasion he .said ; ' ' , ,
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 297
fuse
To me every Social Democrat is synonymous with an enemy
of the realm and of the Fatherland."
At the outbreak of the war the Socialists abandoned their
opposition to the Government and the Kaiser announced that
there were no longer any parties in Germany. "In time of
peace this or that party has attacked me; I forgive them now
with all my heart." Nevertheless some Socialists who sub-
sequently adopted an independent tone are now in jail. The
majority seem content to be the cat 's-paw of the military
authorities in -working upon the Russian Socialists for a sepa-
rate peace. The hollowness of the reconciliation and the Gov-
ernment's insincerity in permitting the use of Socialist peace
formulas (see note 20) may be inferred from a passage in
Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg's speech of July 7, 1917, in
which he is reported to have said that it was impossible to
accept the socialist propositions in behalf of peace "because
they had proved unsuccessful in Eussia. "
FRANKLIN KNIGHT LANE (1864- )
Franklin Knight Lane, born 1864 in Prince Edward 's Island,
Canada, removed in childhood to California, where he was edu-
cated at the State University. After a successful career in the
law he entered politics and became later a member of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission, until appointed Secretary of the
Interior by President Wilson.
WHY WE ARE AT WAR
'57- 1. See Flag Day Address, Note 4.
'58. 2. In the Revolution and the War of 1812.
|6 - 3. At the beginning of the ruthless submarine war by Ger-
many von Bethmann-Hollweg explained that the reason it had
not been entered upon earlier was because Germany was not
ready. In other words, the promise to respect international
law in this matter made by Germany at the time of the Sussex
case was merely a dishonest piece of temporizing.
4. The Treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, so
called by von Bethmann-Hollweg in a speech in the Reichstag
at the opening of the war in 1914.
298 Democracy Today
Page
5. For the Zimmermann Note, see War Message, Note 22.
6. In the feudal system there was no such thing as political
.equality. The vassal was bound by fealty to his lord and
forced to render certain dues including war-service. The lord
did as he willed, the vassal had to serve him and obey.
161. 7. This is the German adaptation of the political maxim of
absolutism, "The King can do no wrong." The Emperor
who tells his people that he rules by divine right alone and
not by the will and sanction of his people and parliament,
etill acts on this principle of irresponsibility.
8. On the departure of the German troops for China in July,
1900, the Emperor addressed them as follows:
"If you come to grips with him (the enemy) be assured
quarter will not be given, no prisoners will be taken. Use
your weapons in such a way that for a thousand years no
Chinese shall dare to look upon a German askance. Show your
manliness. . . . Open the way for Kultur once for all!"
ELIHU ROOT (1845 )
Elihu Root, born 1845 in New York State, and graduated
from Hamilton College in 1864, rose rapidly to recognition as
one of the greatest legal minds of his day and one of the fore-
most interpreters of our Constitution. He filled with distin-
guished ability the posts of Secretary of War under President
McKinley and Secretary of State under Roosevelt. In 1917
he was chosen by President Wilson as Head of the American
Mission to Russia.
THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN
|M - 1. See the Preamble to the Constitution, Appendix. Indeed,
it will be well for the reader to read through the Constitution
in connection with this address, made by one of its greatest
interpreters.
2. Constitution, Article I, Section 8.
3. Constitution, Article II, Section 2.
165. 4. The Senate voted 82 to 6 for war and the House of Repre-
sentatives, 373 to 50,
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 299
Page
171- 5. This philosophy of the Notrecht, "Necessity knows no
law," as Bethmann-Hollweg put it, has been expounded with
favor by many of the leading German authorities on Inter-
national Law. (See International Law Imperilled, by Prof. E.
S. Corwin, in the World Peril, Princeton University Press,
1917.)
'72. 6. The Tartar conqueror, 1162-1227.
174. 7. Frederick of Hohenzollern came into possession of Bran-
denburg by very questionable methods in 1411, but the real
power of the house in Europe dates back only to the time of
the Great Elector who ruled from 1640 to 1688. In the latter
year the population of Prussia was 1,500,000.
8. Frederick the Great, whose principles were given by Mr.
Root in the quotation on page 172. Born 1712, he ruled from
1740 to 1786 and laid the foundations both of Germany's
present power and her present international morality.
'76. 9. This characteristically imperialistic pronouncement was
made by the German Kaiser to an Englishman who reported
it to the English statesman, Joseph Chamberlain: "If I had
had a larger fleet I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff
of the neck. ' ' Probably the statement was not made at the
time of the Venezuelan Dispute; in any ease, the Emperor was
referring to the time of our war with Spain in 1898. (See
The Life and Letters of John Hay by William Roscoe Thayer,
Boston, 1915. Vol. II., Page 279.)
The Emperor's conduct in the Venezuelan Dispute was
none the less interesting. In 1902 Venezuela owed Ger-
many, England, and Italy considerable sums, which she was
either unwilling or unable to pay. Germany and England
brdke off relations with her and established a "pacific block-
ade" of Venezuelan ports. John Hay, our Secretary of State,
protested and England and Italy came to an understanding.
Germany refused. She stated that if she took possession of
territory, such possession would be ' ' temporary. ' ' Such a threat
of occupation of South American territory was a serious chal-
lenge to the Monroe Doctrine and President Eoosevelt took
up the challenge. He told Dr. Holleben, the German Ambassa-
300 Democracy Today
Page
dor, that unless Germany consented to arbitrate, Dewey 's
American squadron would in ten days be given orders to pro-
ceed to the coast of Venezuela and prevent any occupation.
Eoosevelt refused to argue the question. When a week later,
Holleben called upon the President, Eoosevelt inquired as he
was leaving about Venezuela. When Holleben said he had
received no word, Eoosevelt said he would send Dewey one
day sooner unless the Emperor agreed to arbitrate within
forty-eight hours. The Emperor agreed to do so the next day.
(See Life and Letters of Hay, Vol. II, pp. 288-289.)
'78. 10. In the Hague Peace Conference, at which the United
States was represented, the rights and status of neutrals were
defined.
WHAT DEMOCRACY MEANS
184. 1. Oerman industries are organized into combinations called
"Kartells" which have some of the characteristics both of our
pools and trusts. The government has consistently favored
these Kartells in their efforts at home and also in their efforts
to capture the foreign markets with subsidies direct or indirect.
In many cases they are given especially low transportation
rates over government owned or controlled railroad or steam-
ship lines to foreign points, to enable them to get their goods
there more cheaply than their competitors, the government
accepting the loss in transportation charges. This leads to the
policy of ' ' dumping ' ' goods at points outside of Germany.
This process of "dumping" goods in the United States and
selling them cheaper in one section than another is forbidden
by our antitrust legislation. It was the basis of many
indictments against the now discredited methods of the Stand-
ard Oil Company of former years. In fact, the German gov-
ernment acted like a gigantic trust and inaugurated a policy of
' ' Cut-throat ' ' international competition. Plans for economic
domination after the war are receiving much attention in
Germany at present. As German traveling salesmen will not be
welcome in Eussia for some years after the war, it is reported
on good authority that Eussian prisoners are being utilized
to teach Eussian to thousands of young women who are to act as
Biographical and Explanatory Notes 301
Page
agents for German companies after peace is declared. The
German government in 1917 voted a large sum to German
ship owners on condition that they build ships now. Since
the cost of construction is greater now than in peace times,
the government agrees to give as rebate to the builders from
fifty to seventy percent of this added cost.
|85 - 2. Berlin to Bagdad railway. See Note 15 Flag Day Speech.
186. 3. The Pan-German movement has been a force in Ger-
man politics, for at least two decades. It insisted upon a
greater army and navy, and a policy of colonization and expan-
sion directed toward world domination. It begins to' find its
reflection in the speeches of Wilhelm II. about 1896.
The designs of this very important party in Germany at
present are best illustrated in the speeches of von Tirpitz, who
loudly insists upon annexation and indemnities for Germany
both from the East and the West. They of course plan to retain
Belgium.
l87 - 4. Colonel E. M. House was head of the American Com-
mission which arrived in London early in November, 1917, to
take part in the Allied War Council to be held in Paris in
that month. The Commission included Admiral Benson, Chief
of Naval Operations, and General Bliss, Chief of War Opera-
tions, as well as representatives of the various war boards.
In announcing the arrival of the Commission in London, Sec-
retary of State Lansing was careful to emphasize that the
Paris conference was primarily a war conference to bring
about more effective cooperation of the Allies against the
Central Powers.
ISI - 5. In the autumn of 1917 a number of persons in various
parts of the country were seized by mobs and submitted to pun-
ishment and indignities for supposed or real pacifist or Pro-
German sentiments. The most striking case was probably that
of the Eev. Herbert Bigelow who was severely maltreated and
beaten in the neighborhood of Cincinnati by a body of masked
men.
6. President Wilson doubtless had in mind groups like the
Industrial Workers of the World, who in 1917 caused dis-
turbances in various labor centers.
302 Democracy Today
Pe
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (1863- )
David Lloyd George was born, 1863, in Manchester, England,
of Welsh parentage, and was educated for the law. He became
President of the Board of Trade 1905-1908 and Chancellor of
the Exchequer 1908-1915. Long before the outbreak of the
war he was recognized as one of the leaders in the liberal
movement in England. In 1915 he was made Minister of Muni-
tions, in 1916 Secretary of State for War, and then Premier.
His speeches are distinguished by their clearness of vision and
tonic, optimistic spirit, as well as by their forceful, original,
incisive manner of statement.
MEANING OF AMERICA'S ENTRANCE INTO THE "WAB
219 1. See President Wilson's War Message, April 2, 1917.
220 2. Against Denmark for a portion of her territory, 1864;
against Austria, to establish Prussian supremacy over the
German States, 1866 ; against France, for Alsace-Lorraine and a
huge indemnity, 1870.
3. The Kaiser in his speeches to his troops has always
impressed them with the idea of their invincibility. In them
occur phrases such as: "The only pillar on which the Empire
rested was the army. So it is today." (Oct. 18, 1894.)
4. Since the early sixties the main interest of the rulers of
Germany has been in the development of the army, and since
the nineties, of the army and navy.
221 5. With respect to the French Colonies in Africa Germany's
course has been that of a swaggering bully and both in 1905
and 1911 she seemed to have brought France to the verge of
war. On the latter occasion she forced France to a humiliating
cession of African territory. That Germany did not precipitate
actual war was looked upon as a regrettable weakness by many
leaders of German opinion.
6. Delcasse, in connection with the African Colonies question
(see note 5), was driven from his position as French Minister
of Foreign Affairs by the Germans.
226 7. Battle of Vimj Eidge, April 9, 1917.
INDEX
Africa, 158
Agassiz, 20
Aid and comfort to enemies,
giving, defined, 274
Algonquin, sinking of the, 264
Alien enemies, proclamation re-
lating to, 205
Alliances, entangling, 111
Allies, help from United States,
132
Alsace-Lorraine :
Bitterly opposed to Prussian
government, 293
Zabern incident, the, 293
America, example of, 79
America First, 81-89, 259
American :
Constitution, framers of, 33 ;
text of, 227-246
History, fascination of, 82
Principles, defense of, 125
Revolution, memories of, 81
Spirit, meaning of, 91
Wealth, 95 I
Americanization, as regards im-
migrants, 97
Anarchy, 160
Ancona case, the, 271
Anglo-Saxon civilization, 158
Annexations, Germany's schemes
for, 287
"Anzacs," 158
Appropriations of public moneys,
206
Arabic, sinking of the, 179, 272
Arcadia, 22
Aristotle, 20, 249
Arras, battle of, 226
Asturias, sinking of the, 263
Austria-Hungary :
America declares war against,
203
Demands upon Serbia, 144,
291
Endorses Germany's sub-
marine policy, 137
Australia, 158
Autocratic governments, not to
be trusted, 134
Aztec, sinking of the, 264
Bacon, Lord, 37
Balance of power, 106, 171, 175,
260
Bailli of Mirabeau, 44
Balkan states :
Problems of, 152, 198, 199,
210
Ruled by German Princes,
144
Banking system of U. S. re-
organized, 66
Bavarian, king, extract from
speech by, 284
Belgian relief ships, sinking of,
263
Belgium, invasion of, 156, 171,
178
Berlin to Bagdad Railway, 185,
288, 292
Bernhardi, von, "mouthpiece of
the Prussian military caste,"
274
Bernstorff, Count von, dismissed
by President Wilson, 273, 275,
276
Bethlehem Steel Works, 276
Bethmann Hollweg, fall of, 280
303
304
Democracy Today
Bill of Particulars, 64
Bismarck, 176, 278, 279, 285
Boers, the, 25, 250
Bopp, consul-general, conviction
of, 269
Bourdaloue, 26, 250
Boy-Ed, conspirator, 275
Brandenburg, 174
Brest-Litovsk, parleys at, 209,
210
Britannic, sinking of the, 263
British constitution, 27
Browning, Robert, 38
Bundesrat :
Body through which Kaiser
controls Germany, 279
Composition of, 279
Real power in German parlia-
ment, the, 279
Bunker Hill, 158
Canada, 158
Capital and labor, question of,
191
Caribbean, danger of German
naval base in, 176
Carlyle, Thomas, 36
Central Powers :
A single power, 146
Signifies desire to discuss
peace, 102
Text of note from, 115
Charles V, 26
City of Memphis, sinking of the,
264
Cleveland, Grover :
Message of Washington, The,
49-58, 256
Biography of, 256
Columbus, 27
Commercial Enterprises of the
United States, 67
Communism, meaning of, 46
Concert of powers, 111
Congress of the United States,
extraordinary session of, 126
Congress of Vienna, The, 201
Conquest, not sought for by the
United States, 137
Constitution, American, 91, 122,
164, 253
Countries controlled by Ger-
many, 186
Court of review, 56
Credit, granting to government,
131
Daughters of the American
Revolution, address of Presi-
dent Wilson before, 81-89
Days of 1776, 71
Declaration of Independence,
66, 74
Defense, national, demands of,
169
Dekker, old dramatist, 32, 252
Delcasse", French minister, driv-
en from office by Germans,
302
Democracy :
Commands of, 101
"Disease of," 24
Faith in, 98
Sacred mystery of, 97
World to be made safe for,
131
Diplomatic relations, severance
of between United States and
Germany, 113, 116
Dirigibles, 161
Disloyalty, repression of, 139
Divine right of kings, 180, 298
"Dollar diplomacy," 68
Dominion, not sought by United
States, 137
Duties of the Citizen, The, 163-
181
Effrontery, German official, 277
States, 134, 135, 142, 160, 269,
275
Emancipation of the Jews, 30
Index
305
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 43
Enemies of the Government, 205
Enemy aliens, proclamations re-
lating to, 205
England, acquisition of colonies,
175
English blockade, the, 262
Entangling alliances, 111
Equality :
Of nations, 107
Of rights, 107
Of territory, 107
Equipment of United States
navy, 131
Equitable taxation, 131
Espionage by Germany in United
States, 134, 135, 142, 160
Europe, racial and political
units of, 145
Falaba, sinking of the, 179
Federal Reserve Act, 258
Feudalism, making its last
stand, 160
First Napoleon, 44
Flag, American :
Meaning of, 70
Of humanity, 73
Flag Day Address, 141-150
France :
Acquisition of colonies, 175
Colonies of, in Africa, 302
Revolution in, 44, 253
Frederick the Great, 171, 265,
266, 280, 285, 299
Free governments, 45
Freedom :
Of life, 107
Of the seas, 109, 112, 114, 127,
151
French Revolution, 44, 253
Frye, sinking of the, 120
Genghis Khan, 172, 299
George, Henry, 45, 46, 256
Germany :
Autocracy in, 261, 280
Allies of, 161
A natural foe to liberty, 136
Commercial position of, 183
Conceptions and plans, quota-
tions showing, 282ff
Constitution of, 278
Criminal intrigues of, in
United States, 135, 143,
149, 179, 187
Cruisers of, in the Dardan-
elles, 294
Enemy of four-fifths of the
world, 152
Foments Hindu plots on Pa-
cific coast, 290
Incites plots in Mexico against
United States, 136
Industrial development of,
295
Insults and aggressions of,
142
Irresponsible government in,
138
Military statesmen of, 146
Mobilization of army of, 278
Outlines peace plans, 146
Plots in, 276, 289
Press of, 121
Ruthless naval program of,
117, 119
Social democratic party in,
296, 297
Socialists in, 148
Spies in her Embassy at
Washington, 142
Secret service, 276
Strong peace party in, 267
Submarine policy of, concern-
ing Great Britain and Ire-
land, 119
United States friendship for
people of, 117, 133
Word of present rulers of, not
to be taken, 154
306
Democracy Today
Gloucester Castle, sinking of the,
263
Gompers, Samuel, 188, 276
Government :
By consent of the governed,
107, 112
Granting credit to, 131
Great Frederick, 174
GulfligJit, sinking of the, 179
Hague, The, peace conferences
at, 170, 268, 291, 300
Hamburg to Persian Gulf, con-
trol of desired by Germany,
146
Healdton, sinking of the, 264
Henry, Patrick, 158
Hertling, von, 281
Hindenburg line, 222
Hindenburg, von, Marshal, 224
Hohenzollern :
Hereditary policy of, 173
House of, 299
Rulers of Europe, 288
Holland, acquisition of colonies,
175
Holy Roman Empire, The, 250
Hospital ships sunk by Germany,
127
Housatonic, sinking of the, 120,
264
House and Senate, members of,
65
House, Colonel, 187, 301
Hudson, George, railway king,
42, 255
Humanity, cause of, for America,
85, 110
Hyphenated Americans, 94
"Ichabod," 29
Igel, von, 275
Immigrants, instruction of, 93,
95
Indemnities, not sought by
United States, 137
Independence Square, 70
India and Egypt, Germany plots
rebellions in, 144
Industrial Workers of the World,
301
International laws :
Reasons for origin of, 127
Reconsideration of, 109
Violation of, by Germany, 113,
119, 128, 159, 160, 171, 175
International obligations,
America's, 103
Intrigue, German, in United
States, 135, 143, 149, 179,
187
Japan, 142
Jellaladeen, Persian poet, 32
Kaiser, the :
Autocratic authority of, 267
Extracts from speeches of,
284
Kings, divine right of, .180, 289
"Kultur," 174, 298
Lafayette, Marquis de la, ~>'2,
158
Lamb, Charles, 190
Lane, Franklin K., Why We Are
at War, 156-162, 297; biog-
raphy, 297
Lansing, Robert, 155, 301
Laws, international, 109
Lazarus and Dives, 26, 251
League of Honor, 134, 135
Lexington, 158
Liberty :
Principles of, 83
Statue of, 83
Liege, treaty torn to pieces at,
by Germany, 157
Limitation :
Of armies, 109
Of navies, 109
Index
307
Lloyd George, David, America's
Entrance into the War, 219-
226; biography, 302
Lincoln :
Biography of, 247
Gettysburg address, 17, 248
Preserver of republic, 62
Second inaugural address, 274
Loans, vast, not desirable, 131
Louis Napoleon, 42
Lowell, James Russell :
Address on Democracy, 19-48,
249
Biography, 248
Luaitania, sinking of the, 159,
179, 272, 275
Luxembourg, invasion of, 171
Lyman M. Law, sinking of the,
120, 264
"Made in Germany," 184
Mahomet, 158, 160
Massachusetts, state of, 22, 36,
249
Material resources, mobilization
of, 131
Meaning of the Declaration of
Independence, The, 63-74, 258
Mediterranean, Germany's sub-
marine policy concerning, 126
Mercier, Cardinal, 158
Message of Washington, The,
49-58, 256
Message to Congress, 113-118
Mexico :
Disorders in, fomented by
Germany, 269
Loss of lives of foreigners in,
69
Loss of property of foreigners
in, 69
Mexico and Japan, 142, 160, 179
Michaelis, Chancellor, 280, 288
Middle Europe, the projected,
292, 293
Military Masters of Germany :
See their mistake, 147
War begun by, 144
Mines, laying of in neutral wa-
ters, 156
Misprision of treason, penalty
for, 273
Mob spirit, 191
Mobilization of material re-
sources, 131
Monroe Doctrine :
Germany's feelings concern-
ing, 176
Imperilled by Germany, 177,
178, 296
Meaning of, 111, 170
Note on, 261
Supported by British fleet,
170, 175
Monroe, James, President, 111
Montesquieu, 26, 250
National workshops, 26, 250
Navagero, Bernardo, 25
Naval program, Germany's, 117
Navy, United States, equipment
of, 131
Neutrality :
A negative word, 84
Armed, 122, 129
Character of, 114
No longer feasible in United
States, 133
Violated by Germany, 178
Neutral nation, rights as, 121
New Jersey, woman suffrage in,
88
New Zealand, 158
"Nicky" and "Willy," czar and
kaiser, 281
Nippold, Professor, remarks on
jingoism in Germany, 285,
286
Non-combatants, rights of, 125
308
Democracy Today
Oath of Allegiance :
Meaning of, 75
Quoted, 169
Objectives of America, 194
Organization of material re-
sources, 131
Our Responsibilities as a Na-
tion, 59-62
Paine, Thomas, 251
Palermo, 120
Panama canal, the, 176, 258
Pan-Germans, 186, 187, 287, 288,
301
Papen, von, 269, 275
Parker, Theodore, 32, 248, 252
Peace, as outlined by Germany,
146, 148
Persia, sinking of the, 179
Peter the Great, 269
"Place in the sun," Germany's,
176, 285
Plato, 20, 249
Plots, German, 276, 289
Poison gas, 161
Poland, restitution of, 108, 152
Polish language, use of forbidden
by Germany, 294
Pope Benedict XV, 151
Portugal, acquisition of col-
onies, 175
Potsdam, 220
Powers of the world, America's
relations with, 60
Priestly, Joseph, 30, 251
Principle, American, 84
Program of the World's Peace,
209-218
Proudhon, 26, 250
Prussia :
Constitution of, 266
Voters divided into three
classes, 280
Prussian autocracy, 135, 145,
173, 176, 193, 220
Prussian-Poland, 294
Public moneys, appropriations
of, 206
Punitive damages, not' desired by
United States, 154
Red Cross ships sunk by Ger-
many, 159
Reichstag :
How chosen, 279
Powers of, 267
Resolutions of the, 211
Social democrats in, 286
Request for a Grant of Power,
119-125
Rights of man, 27, 34, 63, 64, 68,
73, 124, 129, 137, 180
Rights of nations, 137
Rintelin, von, conspirator, 275
Romanoff dynasty, 269
Roosevelt, Theodore :
Biography of, 257
Our Responsibilities as a Na-
tion, 59-62
Root, Elihu, The Duties of the
Citizen, 163-181 ; biography,
298
Russia :
Autocracy in, 135
Black Sea, ports of, bom-
barded, 295
Democracy in, 135
Scarborough, attacks on, 156
School of Citizenship, The, 90-
95, 259
"Scrap of paper," 160
Second War Message, 194-208
Sedition, 142
Serajevo, 268, 290
Serbia :
Austria's demands on, 144,
291
Invasion by Austria, 171
Service, universal liability to,
131
Index
309
Severance of diplomatic rela-
tions between United States
and Germany, 116
Sherbrooke, Lord, 44, 255
Socialism, meaning of, 46
Socialists, in Germany, 148, 279
Spain, acquisition of colonies,
175
Spanish succession, war of, 268
Statue of Liberty, meaning of,
83
Status of belligerent accepted
by United States, 130
Status quo ante bellum, 151, 152
Stephana, sinking of the, 273
Submarine warfare :
Austria-Hungary endorses Ger-
many's policy, 137
Germany's policy, 113, 121,
126, 128, 160, 161
Subsidies, 71
Supply and demand, law of, 205
Sussex, sinking of the, 113, 159,
179, 262, 272, 273, 297
Tarnowski, Count, 137
Taxation, special, 131
Terrorization, Germany's system
of, 161
Thane of Cawdor, 29
Tirpitz, von, 268
Treason, defined, 273
Treaty obligations, 71
Turco-German fleet, the, 295
Turk, dark rule of the, 229
Turkey :
Armies drilled by Germany,
146, 288
Visited by Germarf emperor,
288
Turkish statesmen take their
orders from Berlin, 146
United States:
Armed forces of, addition to,
131
Driven to state of war, 130
Friendship with German peo-
ple, 117, 133, 143
Gives help to allies, 132
Purposes in war, 213
Universal liability to service,
131
Universal suffrage, 41
Unwritten constitution, 44
Venezuelan dispute, 176, 299
"Verboten," 157
Vigilancia, sinking of the, 264
Vimy Ridge, battle of, 302
War:
Begun by military masters of
Germany, 144
For conquest, 133
Zone prescribed by Germany,
116
War message, 126-140, 262
Washington, George :
Founder of the republic, 62,
266
Speech on, 49-58
Welland Canal, destruction of,
plotted, 275
Why We Are at War, 156-162
Wilson, Woodrow, biography,
257
Wilson, Woodrow, addresses :
America First, 81-89
American of Foreign Birth,
The, 75-80
Flag Day Address, 141-150
Meaning of the Declaration
of Independence, The, 63-
74
Message to Congress, 113-118
Program of the World's Peace,
209-218
Reply to the Pope, 151-155
Request for a Grant of Power,
119-125
310
Democracy Today
School of Citizenship, The,
90-101
Second War Message, 194-208
War Message, 126-140
What Democracy Means, 182-
193
World League for Peace, 102-
112
Woman suffrage in New Jersey,
88, 259
World League for Peace, A, 102-
112, 259
World to be made safe for
democracy, 137
Young Turk movement, 289
Zabern incident, the historic,
293
Zimmerman, Alfred, supervises
Hindu plot, 290
Zimmermann note, the, 160, 270,
298
Zola, Monsieur, 24, 249
Zone, naval war, 262
War, prescribed by Germany,
116
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