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THE MODERN LIBRARY
OF THE WORLD S BEST BOOKS
SELECTED ADDRESSES
AND
PUBLIC PAPERS
O F
WOODROW WILSON
THE MODERN LIBRARY
OSCAR WILDE Dorian Gray; Poems;
Fairy Tales and Poems in Prose
STRINDBERG Married;
Miss Julie and other plays
KIPLING Soldiers Three
STEVENSON Treasure Island
HENRIK IBSEN A Doll s House, Etc. ;
HeddaGabler, Etc.;
The Wild Duck; Rosmersholm;
The League of Youth
ANATOLE FRANCE The Red Lily;
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
DE MAUPASSANT
Une Vie; Mademoiselle Fifi, Etc.
DOSTOYEVSKY Poor People
MAETERLINCK
A Miracle of St. Anthony, Etc.
SCHOPENHAUER
Studies in Pessimism
SAMUEL BUTLER
The Way of All Flesh
GEORGE MEREDITH
Diana of the Crossways
G. B. SHAW An Unsocial Socialist
GEO. MOORE
Confessions of a Young Man
THOMAS HARDY
Mayor of Casterbridge
THOS. SELTZER Best Russian Stories
NIETZSCHE Beyond Good and Evil;
Thus Spake Zarathustra;
Genealogy of Morals
TURGENEV Fathers and Sons
SWINBURNE Poems
WM. DEAN HOWELLS
A Hazard of New Fortunes
W. S. GILBERT
The Mikado and other Plays
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Madame Bovary
JAMES STEPHENS Mary, Mary
ANTON CHEKHOV
Rothschild s Fiddle, Etc.
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
Anatol and other Plays;
Bertha Garlan
SUDERMANN Dame Care
LORD DUNSANY A Dreamer s Tales;
The Book of Wonder
G. K. CHESTERTON
The Man Who Was Thursday
H. G. WELLS The War in the Air ;
Ann Veronica
HAECKEL, WEISMANN, Etc.
Evolution in Modern Thought
FRANCIS THOMPSON
Complete Poems
RODIN Art of Rodin
AUBREY BEARDSLEY
Art of Aubrey Beardsley
BALZAC Short Stories
EDWARD CARPENTER
Love s Coming of Age
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Seven that Were Hanged
MAXIM GORKY
Creatures that Once Were Men
MAX BEERBOHM Zuleika Dobson
MAX STIRNER
The Ego and His Own
GEORGE GISSING
Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
VOLTAIRE Candide
W. B. YEATS
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
Mile. De Maupin
WOODROW WILSON
Addresses and Messages
JOHN MACY
The Spirit-of American Literature
FRANQOIS VILLON Poemi
ELLEN KEY, HAVELOCK ELLIS,
G. LOWES DICKINSON, Etc.
The Woman Question
FRANK NORRIS McTeague
HENRY JAMES
Daisy Miller and an Interna
tional Episode
LEO TOLSTOY
The Death of Ivan Ilyitch and
Other Stories
GABRIELE D ANNUNZIO
The Flame of Life
MODERN BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE
Edited by Richard LeGallienne
MODERN BOOK OF AMERICAN VERSE
Edited by Richard LeGallienne
MAY SINCLAIR The Belfry
Other Titles in Preparation
Many volumes contain introductions by well-known modern Authors
written specially for The Modern Library
SELECTED ADDRESSES
AND
PUBLIC PAPERS
OF
WOODROW WILSON
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC.
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1918, by
Boni & Liveright, Inc.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION i-v
YEAR 1913 1-21
A NEW PRESIDENT S PRINCIPLES (FIRST INAUGURAL AD
DRESS) 1-5; GROVER CLEVELAND (LETTER ON DEDICATION
OF CLEVELAND S BIRTHPLACE) 5-6; REFORM OF THE
TARIFF (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS) 6-8; THE TARIFF
LOBBY (STATEMENT GIVEN TO THE PRESS) 9; THE
NATION AND THE SOLDIER (ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG) _
10-13; To THE CITIZENS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
(MESSAGE SENT BY GOVERNOR-GENERAL HARRISON) 13;
IDEALS OF THE COLLEGE (ADDRESS AT SWARTHMORE COL
LEGE) 14-16; RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA (AD
DRESS BEFORE THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS
AT MOBILE) 16-21
YEAR 1914 22-60
REGULATION OF TRUSTS (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS) 21-27;
TOLLS ON THE PANAMA CANAL (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS)
27-28; PATRIOTISM AND THE SAILOR (ADDRESS AT THE
UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF COMMODORE JOHN BARRY)
28-32; THE MEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE UNION
(MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS AT ARLINGTON) 32-34;
UNION OF SPIRIT BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH (AD
DRESS AT A MONUMENT IN MEMORY OF THE CONFEDER
ATE DEAD AT ARLINGTON) 34-36; THE NAVAL SERVICE
(ADDRESS AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS) 36-39;
AMERICA AS A WORLD POWER (ADDRESS AT INDEPEND
ENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA) 39-44; NEUTRALITY OF
FEELING (A PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION) 44-46; IN
TERNATIONAL AND MUNICIPAL LAW (ADDRESS BEFORE
THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION) 46-48; THE YOUNG
MEN S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION (ADDRESS BEFORE THE
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION) 49-55; FOREIGN TRADE
AND SHIP BUILDING (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS) 55-60.
YEAR 1915 61-94
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY (JACKSON DAY ADDRESS AT
INDIANAPOLIS) 61-67; PROPER TESTS OF IMMIGRANTS
(VETO MESSAGE OF THE LITERACY TEST BILL) 67-70;
NATIONAL COMMERCE (ADDRESS TO THE UNITED STATES
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, AT WASHINGTON) 70-77; A
CONFUSED WORLD AT WAR (ADDRESS TO THE CONFER
ENCE OF METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH AT WASH-
386420
CONTENTS
PAGE
INGTON) 77-78; AMERICA FIRST (ADDRESS AT A MEET
ING OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AT NEW YORK) 78-83;
THE LAWS OF NEUTRALITY (DESPATCH SENT THROUGH
SECRETARY BRYAN TO GERMANY) 83-85; CITIZENS OF
FOREIGN BIRTH (ADDRESS TO NATURALIZED CITIZENS AT
CONVENTION HALL, PHILADELPHIA) 85-89; SINKING OF
THE "LUSITANIA" (DESPATCH OF PROTEST THROUGH SEC
RETARY BRYAN TO GERMANY) 89-90; WHAT THE FLAG
MEANS (ADDRESS AT FLAG DAY EXERCISES, WASHING
TON) 90-93; PREPAREDNESS FOR DEFENSE (ADDRESS TO >JW
<^THE CIVILIAN ADVISORY BOARD OF THE NAVY AT THE
WHITE HOUSE) 93-94.
YEAR 1916 95-170
WHAT Is PAN-AMERICANISM? (ADDRESS TO PAN-AM
ERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS AT WASHINGTON) 95-100;
NEED OF AN, ARMY AND NAVY (ADDRESS AT NEW YORK)
100-105; How TO AKOID WAR (LETTER TO SENATOR
STONE) 105-107; BASIS OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
(ADDRESS TO THE GRIDIRON CLUB AT WASHINGTON)
107-109; RIGHT OF AMERICANS TO TRAVERSE THE SEAS
(LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE Pou ON THE McLEMORE
RESOLUTION) 109-110; EXPEDITION INTO MEXICO*
(STATEMENT TO THE PRESS) 110-111; ULTIMATUM ON
SUBMARINE WARFARE (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS) 111^116;
QUALIFICATIONS OF A SUPREME COURT JusTicflT(LET-
TER TO SENATOR CULBERSON ON MR. BRANDEIS) 117-
120; GERMAN ABANDONMENT .OF_ THE SUBMARINE POL
ICY (DESPATCH TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH
SECRETRY LANSING) 120-121; How TO ENFORCE PEACE
(ADDRESS TO THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE AT WASH
INGTON) ; 121-125; PREPAREDNESS TO THE SOLDIER (AD
DRESS AT THE MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT) 125- *
131; DEMOCRACY OF BUSINESS (ADDRESS AT SALESMAN- ~
SHIP CONGRESS, DETROIT) 132-137; PREPAREDNESS TO
PRESERVE PEACE (ADDRESS AT TOLEDO) 138-139; LOY- -*
ALTY (ADDRESS AT CITIZENSHIP CONVENTION, WASH
INGTON) 139-143; AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY FOR RAILROAD -
MEN (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS) 143-150; ABRAHAM LIN
COLN (ADDRESS AT THE LINCOLN BIRTHPLACE FARM,
AT HODGENVILLE) 150-154; THE FORCES OF FREEDOM
(ADDRESS AT SUFFRAGE CONVENTION, ATLANTIC CITY)
154-157 ; WORLD BUSINESS OF AMERICA (ADDRESS TO -
THE GRAIN DEALERS ASSOCIATION, AT BALTIMORE)
157-162; A SOCIETY OF NATIONS (ADDRESS AT CINCIN
NATI) 162-164; THE END OF ISOLATION (ADDRESS AT
SHADOW LAWN) 164-165; THE RIGHT HAND TO LA
BOR (ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR,
AT THE WHITE HOUSE) 165-166; THE WAY TO PEACE
--(DESPATCH PARTLY IN REPLY TO GERMAN OPPOSITION
OF PEACE, THROUGH SECRETARY LANSiNG^^167-170.
CONTENTS
PACE
YEAR 1917 171-240
SUPPORT FOR THE RED CROSS (PUBLIC APPEAL AS PRESI
DENT OF THE RED CROSS) 171-172; CONDITIONS OF
PEACE (ADDRESS TO THE SENATE) 172-179 ; BREACH
WITH GERMANY (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS) 179-183; A
GREAT INVENTOR (LETTER TO THOMAS A. EDISON ON
His 70TH BIRTHDAY) 183; POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OF
-AMERICANS (SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS) 184-188;
NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY (ADDRESS TO
CONGRESS) 188-197; THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST
SUPPORT THE WAR (PUBLIC APPEAL BY THE PRESIDPNT
TO His FELLOW COUNTRYMEN) 197-201; THE RED
CROSS (ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE RED CROSS
BUILDING IN WASHINGTON) 202-204; OBJECTS IN GO
ING TO WAR (LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE HEFLIN)
204-205 ; NEED OF A CENSORSHIP LAW (LETTER TO REPRE
SENTATIVE WEBB) 205-206; FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA
(CABLEGRAM TO RUSSIA) 206-208; DEFENDERS OF
AMERICAN HONOR (ADDRESS AT ARLINGTON CEMETERY)
209-210; INSULTS AND AGGRESSIONS OF GERMANY (AD
DRESS ON FLAG DAY AT WASHINGTON) 210-211 ; GREET
ING TO FRENCH DEMOCRACY (CABLEGRAM TO THE FRENCH
GOVERNMENT) 217; THE BIBLE AND THE SOLDIER
(MESSAGE TO SOLDIERS AND SAILORS) 217-218; PATRI
OTIC TEACHING IN SCHOOLS (PUBLIC APPEAL TO SCHOOL
OFFICERS) 218-219; PAPAL PROPOSITIONS OF PEACE
(REPLY TO THE POPE THROUGH SECRETARY LANSING)
219-222; To THE SOLDIERS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY
(PUBLIC MESSAGE TO THE DRAFTED MEN) 222-223;
THE JUNIOR RED CROSS (PROCLAMATION TO THE SCHOOL
CHILDREN OF THE UNITED STATES) 223-224; WOMEN
AND THE SUFFRAGE (REPLY TO A DELEGATION FROM THE
NEW YORK STATE WOMAN S SUFFRAGE PARTY, AT THE
WHITE HOUSE) 224-226; LABOR AND THE WAR (AD
DRESS TO THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR CONVEN
TION AT BUFFALO) 226-230; UNIVERSAL LOYALTY
(TELEGRAM TO THE NORTHWEST LOYALTY MEETINGS,
ST. PAUL) 231; SYMPATHY WITH THE BELGIANS
(CABLEGRAM TO KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM) 231-232;
EXTENSION OF THE WAR TO AUSTRIA-HUNGARY (AD
DRESS TO CONGRESS) 232-238; GOVERNMENT CONTROL
OF RAILROADS (PUBLIC STATEMENT) -238-240.
YEAR 1918 241-289
ORGANIZATION FOR THE WAR (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS)
241-244 ; FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE (ADDRESS TO
CONGRESS) 244-251; THE FARMERS PATRIOTISM (MES
SAGE TO THE FARMERS CONFERENCE AT URBANA, ILL.)
251-255; HONOR TO THE RED CROSS (ADDRESS TO THE
PUBLIC MEETING IN NEW YORK, OPENING A CAMPAIGN
FOR THE SECOND RED CROSS FUND) 256-260; WAR-TIME
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROHIBITION (LETTER TO SENATOR SHEPPARD) 260-261;
DISINTERESTED SERVICE TO LATIN AMERICA (ADDRESS TO
MEXICAN EDITORS AT THE WHITE HOUSE) 261-266;
FOUR FACTORS OF WORLD PEACE (ADDRESS AT MOUNT
VERNON) 266-269; LYNCHING Is UNPATRIOTIC (PuB-
Lie ADDRESS TO FELLOW COUNTRYMEN) 270-271; RE-
BUILDING OF PALESTINE (LETTER TO RABBI WlSE) 272;
GERMAN WAR AGAINST LABOR (PUBLIC MESSAGE TO
LABOR ON LABOR DAY) 272-274; A FEW WORDS TO
AUSTRIA (DESPATCH TO THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT
THROUGH SECRETARY LANSING) 275; FIVE NEEDS OF
PERMANENT PEACE (ADDRESS TO PUBLIC MEETING IN
NEW YORK, OPENING THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN)
275-282; COLLEGE SOLDIERS (PUBLIC MESSAGE TO THE^
*"" STUDENT CORPS) 282-283; QUESTION OF AN ARMISTICE
(DESPATCH TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH
SECRETARY LANSING) 283-284; No NEGOTIATED PEACE
WITH GERMANY (DESPATCH TO THE GERMAN GOVERN
MENT THROUGH SECRETARY LANSING) 284-286; THE
ARMISTICE WITH GERMANY (ADDRESS TO CONGRESS)
286-289; ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD (ADDRESS TO
CONGRESS ) 289-303.
INDEX 305-316
INTRODUCTION
This collection of the public communications of President
Wilson to the American people can only be a selection,
inasmuch as the space available is not sufficient for more
than a third of the full text of -the public materials pro
ceeding from Woodrow Wilson. The principles upon which
the selection is made should be made clear. Nothing ap
pears in this volume of earlier date than the first inaugura
tion of President Wilson; at the other time extremity, it is
brought down as closely as possible to the date of publica
tion. Previous collections have been examined, but have
no influence on the choice of pieces: naturally the most
significant utterances of the President will find a place in
any collection. The foundation for the text is a set of
pamphlet editions of the President s public addresses oblig
ingly furnished to the publishers by the President s office,
and referred to throughout, wherever used, as White House
Pamphlet. Titles are inserted by the editor, since few of the
documents were originally printed under subject captions.
Many very characteristic addresses and letters, however,
are not included in these printed materials, and have been
searched for through the public records of Congress and the
periodical and newspaper press. Indications of origin in
previous collections have furnished useful clues to some
originals. Other pieces have been found through the pri
vate collections of the editor. He has had throughout the
advantage of the professional skill of David M. Matteson,
whose knowledge of the sources of current history has en
abled him to run down some important speeches and has
greatly aided the editor in the selection and identificaton
of the documents. The pieces, long and short, number
ninety- two. All omissions are indicated by asienSrwS (* * *).
i
ii INTRODUCTION
The reader will at once notice that this book includes a
variety of forms of communication between the President
and the People. First come the public expositions of the
President s policy, in his first inaugural address, some of his
annual messages, and the numerous addresses to Congress
which have been a feature of the administration. No Presi
dent between John Adams and Wilson approached Con
gress in any other way than through the written messages
sent by a subordinate, which were begun by President
Thomas Jefferson. The three Presidents who immediately
preceded President Wilson had the habit of expressing views
intended to affect Congress, through newspaper interviews
and official statements given out at the White House. They
often succeeded in creating public opinion that reacted upon
Congress. President Wilson has accomplished the same end
by the more dramatic method of making addresses to Con-
gress intended for the people at large. These speeches have
usually been spread widely through the press; most of
them are brief. Each of them enforces one or at most a
few suggestions and appeals. In those speeches will be
found clear and forceful statements of the President s policy
upon such topics as the tariff, trusts, foreign trade, ship
building, submarine warfare, conditions of the railroad men,
and the declaration of war. Only a part of those addresses
can be brought within the limits of a modest volume such
as this.
Some very characteristic short pieces in this volume are
the letters and telegrams, sent on various occasions, such as
the dedication of Cleveland s birthplace, the seventieth birth
day of the great scientific man, Edison, and greetings to the
French and Russian governments.
The White House is well acquainted with the effect of
short, snappy statements circulated through the unofficial
methods of the press such are the political bomb on the
tariff lobby in 1913; the announcement on the expedition
into Mexico in 1916; an appeal for support for the Red
Cross and a call to school officers in 1917; proclamations
to the school children and to the drafted men in Septem
ber, 1917; and the taking over of the railroads.
Another group is made up of letters written to public
INTRODUCTION iii
men, especially Senators and Representatives, making clear
the President s attitude on some particular question, and
thus endeavoring to affect the minds of Congress. Such
are the letter to Senator Culberson on a pending nomina
tion to the Supreme Court, in 1916; to Representative
Webb on censorship, in 1917; to Senator Stone on foreign
difficulties in 1916.
More than half of this volume is chosen from the numer
ous public addresses of the President on occasions of all
sorts. Like his immediate predecessors, he has taken the
ground that a President is the President of the whole people,
and ought to set forth his policies in all parts of the country
and to groups of every kind. Hence such addresses as that
on the Union soldier and the Confederate soldier in 1914;
to graduating classes of the Naval and Military Academy;
before tihe American Bar Association ; at a Y. M. C. A.
celebration; to the United States Chamber of Commerce;
to the Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church; to
the Associated Press meeting; to naturalized citizens; to the
Pan- American Scientific Congress; to the Gridiron Club; to
the Convention of the American Federation of Labor; to a
Woman s Suffrage delegation. These addresses set forth the
difficulties of the President, often point the moral of some
desirable proposition or action then pending, and always
appeal to patriotic sentiment.
Among the most important documents are the despatches
to Germany, upon the relation of -the United States to the
great war. These are usually signed by the Secretary of
State; but those reproduced in this volume were well known
at the time to proceed from the President s pen. Among
them are several despatches on the submarine and Lusitania
questions, and the snappy communications of October and
November, 1918, on peace.
The year and a half since war broke out with Germany
has called out so many striking and powerful expressions
from the President that nearly half cf the ninety-two num
bers have been taken from that period. For several years
previous, the President had been reflecting and speaking
on the European war, the neutral duties of the United
States, and the questions of defense. Upon his mind, as
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT
WOODROW WILSON
YEAR 1913
i. A NEW PRESIDENT S PRINCIPLES
(March 4, 1913)
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
There has been a change of government. It began two
years ago, when the House of Representatives became Demo
cratic by a decisive majority. It has now been completed.
The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic.
The offices of President and Vice President have been put
into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean?
That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day.
That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order,
if I may, to interpret the occasion.
It means much more than the mere success of a party.
The success of a party means little except when the Nation
is using that party for a large and definite purpose. No
one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now
seeks to use the Democratic party. It seeks to use it to
interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.
Some old things with which we had grown familiar, and
which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought
and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we have lat
terly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes;
have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and
sinister. Some new things, as we look frankly upon them,
willing to comprehend their real character, have come to
assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar,
i
2 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a
new insight into our own life.
We see that in many things life is very great. It is
incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of
wealth, in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the
industries which have been conceived and built up by the
.genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of
groups of men. It is great, also, very great, in its moral
force. Nowhere else in the world have noble men and
women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the
energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their
efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak
in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, more
over, a great system of government, which has stood through
a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek
to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against
fortuitous change, against storm and accident. Our life con
tains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance.
But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold
has been corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste.
We have squandered a great part of what we might have
used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding
bounty of nature, without which our genius for enterprise
would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be
careful, shamefully prodigal as well as admirably efficient.
We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we
have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the
human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies over
taxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual cost to
the men and women and children upon whom the dead
weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years
through. The groans and agony of it all had not yet reached
our ears, the solemn, moving undertone of our life, coming
up out of the mines and factories and out of every home
where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat. With
the great Government went many deep secret things which
we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid,
fearless eyes. The great Government we loved has too
often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and
those who used it had forgotten the people.
Mar. 4] A NEW PRESIDENT S PRINCIPLES 3
At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a
whole. We see the bad with the good, the debased and
decadent with the sound and vital. With this vision we
approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider,
to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good,
to purify and humanize every process of our common life
without weakening or sentimentalizing it. There has been
something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste
to succeed and be great. Our thought has been "Let every
man look out for himself, let every generation look out for
itself," while we reared giant machinery which made it im
possible that any but those who stood at the levers of control
should have a chance to look out for themselves. We had
not forgotten our morals. We remembered well enough that
we had set up a policy which was meant to serve the hum
blest as well as the most powerful, with an eye single to the
standards of justice and fair play, and remembered it with
pride. But we were very heedless and in a hurry to be
great.
We have come now to the sober second thought. The
scales of heedlessness have fallen from our eyes. We have
made up our minds to square every process of our national
life again with the standards we so proudly set up at the
beginning and have always carried at our hearts. Our
work is a work of restoration.
We have itemized with some degree of particularity the
things that ought to be altered and here are some of the
chief items: A tariff which cuts us off from our proper
part in the commerce of the world, violates the just prin
ciples of taxation, and makes the Government a facile in
strument in the hands of private interests; a banking and
currency system based upon the necessity of the Government
to sell its bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted to
concentrating cash and restricting credits; an industrial
system which, take it on all its sides, financial as well as
administrative, holds capital in leading strings, restricts the
liberties and limits the opportunities of labor, and exploits
without renewing or conserving the natural resources of
the country; a body of agricultural activities never yet
given the efficiency of great business undertakings or served
4. ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
as it should be through the instrumentality of science taken
directly to the farm, or afforded the facilities of credit best
suited to its practical needs; watercourses undeveloped, waste
places unreclaimed, forests untended, fast disappearing with
out plan or prospect of renewal, unregarded waste heaps at
every mine. We have studied as perhaps no other nation
has the most effective means of production, but we have not
studied cost or economy as we should either as organizers of
industry, as statesmen, or as individuals.
Nor have we studied and perfected the means by which
government may be put at the service of humanity, in safe
guarding the health of the Nation, the health of its men
and its women and its children, as well as their rights in the
struggle for existence. This is no sentimental duty. The
firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are
matters of justice. There can be no equality or opportunity,
the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and
women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very
vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social
processes which they can not alter, control, or singly cope
with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or
weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty
of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws,
pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor
which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves
are intimate parts of the very business of justice and legal
efficiency.
These are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave
the others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected,
fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right.
This is the high enterprise of the new day: To lift every
thing that concerns our life as a Nation to the light that
shines from the hearthfire of every man s conscience and
vision of the right. It is inconceivable that we should do
this as partisans; it is inconceivable we should do it in
ignorance of the facts as they are or in blind haste. We
shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic
system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might
be il we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and
step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit
Mar. 4] A NEW PRESIDENT S PRINCIPLES 5
of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel
and knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excite
ment of excursions whither they can not tell. Justice / and
only justice, shall always be our motto.
And yet it will be no cool process ot mere science. The
Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred bv a solemn passion,
stirred by the knowledge of wrong, ot ideals lost, of govern
ment too often debauched and made an instrument of evil.
The feelings with which we face this new age of right and
opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out
of God s own presence, where justice and mercy are recon
ciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our
task to be no mere task of politics, but a task which shall
search us through and through, whether we be able to
understand our time and the need of our people, whether we
be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have
the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose
our high course of action.
This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication.
Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of
humanity. Men s hearts wait upon us; men s lives hang in
the balance; men s hopes call upon us to say what we will
do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail
to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-
looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail
them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!
White House Pamphlet.
2. GROVER CLEVELAND
(March 13, 1913)
LETTER ON DEDICATION OF CLEVELAND S BIRTHPLACE
I wish with all my heart that it were possible, consistently
with the performance of my new duties here, to be present
on the occasion of the dedication of Mr. Cleveland s birth
place to the public as a memorial, but inasmuch as I am
bound here by obligations I cannot escape, I must content
6 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
myself with requesting that you will read this brief message
to those assembled.
From the first, I have been deeply interested in the plan
to acquire Mr. Cleveland s birthplace for the public, and
this consummation of the plan seems to me of great sig
nificance and delightful omen. I think it must be evident
to everyone who has given attention to the matter that the
feeling of the country the feeling alike of admiration and
affection towards Mr. Cleveland grows warmer and wanner
as the years pass by. As we see him in just perspective, he
looms up as one of the most notable figures in our long
line of Presidents. I send these lines, therefore, as a sincere
tribute of respect and admiration.
May I not add also my hope that the administration of
the property may be productive of pleasure and stimulation
to those engaged in it and a real profit to the community
at large.
Boston Transcript, March 13, 1913.
3. REFORM OF THE TARIFF
(April 8, 1913)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
* * * I have called the Congress together in extraordi
nary session because a duty was laid upon the party now in
power at the recent elections which it ought to perform
promptly, in order that the burden carried by the people
under existing law may be lightened as soon as possible
and in order, also, that the business interests of the country
may not be kept too long in suspense as to what the fiscal
changes are to be to which they will be required to adjust
themselves. It is clear to the whole country that the tariff
duties must be altered. They must be changed to meet the
radical alteration in the conditions of our economic life
which the country has witnessed within the last generation.
While the whole face and method of our industrial and
comimercijJl life was being changed beyond recognition the
Apr. 8] REFORM OF THE TARIFF 7
tariff schedules have remained what they were before the
change began, or have moved in the direction they were
given when no large circumstance of our industrial develop
ment was what it is to-day. Our task is to square them
with the actual facts. The sooner that is done the sooner
we shall escape from suffering from the facts and the sooner
our men of business will be free to thrive by the law of
nature (the nature of free business) instead of by the law of
legislation and artificial arrangement.
We have seen tariff legislation wander very far afield in
our day very far indeed from the field in which our pros
perity might have had a normal growth and stimulation. No
one who looks the facts squarely in the face or knows any
thing that lies beneath the surface of action can fail to per
ceive the principles upon which recent tariff legislation has
been based. We long ago passed beyond the modest notion
of "protecting" the industries of the country and moved
boldly forward to the idea that they were entitled to the
direct patronage of the Government. For a long time a
time so long that the men now active in public policy hardly
remember the conditions "that preceded it we have sought
in our tariff schedules to give each group of manufacturers
or producers what they themselves thought that they needed
in order to maintain a practically exclusive market as
against the rest of the world. Consciously or unconsciously ~
we have built up a set of privileges and exemptions from
competition behind which it was easy by any, even the
crudest, forms of combination to organize monopoly; until
at last nothing is normal, nothing is obliged to stand the
tests of efficiency and economy, in our world of big busi
ness, but everything thrives by concerted arrangement.
Only new principles of action will save us from a final
hard crystallization of monopoly and a complete loss of the
influences that quicken enterprise and keep independent
energy alive.
It is plain what those principles must be. We must
abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privi
lege or of any kind of artificial advantage, and put our
business men and producers under the stimulation of a
constant necessity to be efficient, economical, and enter-
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
prising, masters of competitive supremacy, better workers
and merchants than any in the world. Aside from the
duties laid upon articles which we do not, and probably can
not, produce, therefore, and the duties laid upon luxuries
and merely for the sake of the revenues they yield, the
object of the tariff duties henceforth laid must be effective
competition, the whetting of American wits by contest with
the wits of the rest of the world.
It would be unwise to move toward this end headlong,
with reckless haste, or with strokes that cut at the very
roots of what has grown up amongst us by long process and
at our own invitation. It does not alter a thing to upset
it and break it and deprive it of a chance to change. It
destroys it. We must make changes in our fiscal laws, in
our fiscal system, whose object is development, a more free
and wholesome development, not revolution or upset or con
fusion. We must build up trade, especially foreign trade.
We need the outlet and the enlarged field of energy more
than we ever did before. We must build up industry as
well, and must adopt freedom in the place of artificial stimu
lation only so far as it will build, not pull down. In dealing
with the tariff the method by which this may be done will
be a matter of judgment, exercised item by item. To some
not accustomed to the excitements and responsibilities of
greater freedom our methods may in some respects and at
some points seem heroic, but remedies may be heroic and
yet be remedies. It is our business to make sure that they
are genuine remedies. Our object is clear. If our motive is
above just challenge and only an occasional error of judg
ment is chargeable against us, we shall be fortunate. * * *
White House Pamphlet.
May 26] THE TARIFF LOBBY
4. THE TARIFF LOBBY
(May 26, 1913)
STATEMENT GIVEN TO THE PRESS
I think that the public ought to know the extraordinary
exertions being made by the lobby in Washington to gain
recognition for certain alterations of the Tariff bill. Wash
ington has seldom seen so numerous, so industrious or so
insidious a lobby. The newspapers are being filled with paid
advertisements calculated to mislead the judgment of public
men not only, but also the public opinion of the country
itself. There is every evidence that money without limit is
being spent to sustain this lobby and to create an appear
ance of a pressure of opinion antagonistic to some of the
chief items of the Tariff bill.
It is of serious interest to the country that the people at
large should have no lobby and be voiceless in these matters,
while great bodies of astute men seek to create an artificial
opinion and to overcome the interests of the public for their
private profit. It is thoroughly worth the while of the
people of this country to take knowledge of this matter.
Only public opinion can check and destroy it.
The Government in all its branches ought to be relieved
from this intolerable burden and this constant interruption
to the calm progress of debate. I know that in this I am
speaking for the members of the two houses, who would
rejoice as much as I would to be released from this unbear
able situation.
Newspaper Press.
io ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
5. THE NATION AND THE SOLDIER
(July 4, 1913)
ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG
I need not tell you what the Battle of Gettysburg meant.
These gallant men in blue and gray sit all about us here.
Many of them met upon this ground in grim and deadly
struggle. Upon these famous fields and hillsides their com
rades died about th em. In their presence it were an imper
tinence to discourse upon how the battle went, how it ended,
what it signified! But 50 years have gone by since then,
and I crave the privilege of speaking to you for a few
minutes of what those 50 years have meant.
What have they meant? They have meant peace and
union and vigor, and the maturity and might of a great
nation. How wholesome and healing the peace has been!
We have found one another again as brothers and com
rades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather,
our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten except that we
shall not forget the splendid valor, the manly devotion of
the men then arrayed against one another, now grasping
hands and smiling into each other s eyes. How complete
the union has become and how dear to all of us, how
unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as State after State
has been added to this our great family of free men! How
handsome the vigor, the maturity, the might of the great
Nation we love with undivided hearts; how full of large
and confident promise that a life will be wrought out that
will crown its strength with gracious justice and with a
happy welfare that will touch all alike with deep content
ment! We are debtors to those 50 crowded years; they
have made us heirs to a mighty heritage.
But do we deem the Nation complete and finished?
These venerable men crowding here to this famous field
have set us a great example of devotion and utter sacrifice.
They were willing to die that the people might live. But
their task is done. Their day is turned into evening. They
look to us to perfect what they established. Their work is
July 4] THE NATION AND THE SOLDIER n
handed on to us, to be done in another way, but not in
another spirit. Our day is not over; it is upon us in full
tide.
Have affairs paused? Does the Nation stand still? Is
what the 50 years have wrought since those days of battle
finished, rounded out, and completed? Here is a great
people, great with every force that has ever beaten in the
lifeblood of mankind. And it is secure. There is no one
within its borders, there is no power among the nations of
the earth, to make it afraid. But has it yet squared itself
with its own great standards set up at its birth, when it
made that first noble, naive appeal to the moral judgment
of mankind to take notice that a government had now at
last been established which was to serve men, not masters?
It is secure in everything except the satisfaction that its life
is right, adjusted to the uttermost to the standards of right
eousness and humanity. The days of sacrifice and cleansing
are not closed. We have harder things to do than were
done in the heroic days of war, because harder to see clearly,
requiring more vision, more calm balance of judgment, a
more candid searching of the very springs of right.
Look around you upon the field of Gettysburg! Picture
the array, the fierce heats and agony of battle, column hurled
against column, battery bellowing to battery! Valor? Yes!
Greater no man shall see in war; and self-sacrifice, and loss
to the uttermost; the high recklessness of exalted devotion
which does not count the cost. We are made by these tragic,
epic things to know what it costs to make a nation the
blood and sacrifice of multitudes of unknown men lifted to a
great stature in the view of all generations by knowing no
limit to their manly willingness to serve. In armies thus
marshaled from the ranks of free men you will see, as it were,
a nation embattled, the leaders and the led, and may know,
if you will, how little except in form its action differs in
days of peace from its action in days of war.
May we break camp now and be at ease? Are the forces
that fight for the Naton dispersed, disbanded, gone to their
homes forgetful of the common cause? Are our forces dis
organized, without constituted leaders and the might of men
consciously united because we contend, not with armies, but
12 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
with principalities and powers and wickedness in high
places? Are we content to lie still? Does our union mean
sympathy, our peace contentment, our vigor right action,
our maturity self-comprehension and a clear confidence in
choosing what we shall do? War fitted us for action, and
action never ceases.
I have been chosen the leader of the Nation. I can not
justify the choice by any qualities of my own, but so it has
come about, and here I stand. Whom do I command?
The ghostly hosts who fought upon these battle fields long
ago and are gone? These gallant gentlemen stricken in
years whose fighting days are over, their glory won? What
are the orders for them, and who rallies them? I have in
my mind another host, whom these set free of civil strife in
order that they might work out in days of peace and settled
order the life of a great Nation. That host is the people
themselves, the great and the small, without class or dif
ference of kind or race or origin; and undivided in interest,
if we have but the vision to guide and direct them and order
their lives aright in what we do. Our constitutions are their
articles of enlistment. The orders of the day are the laws
upon our statute books. What we strive for is their freedom,
their right to lift themselves from day to day and behold the
things they have hoped for, and so make way for still better
days for those whom they love who are to come after them.
The recruits are the little children crowding in. The quar
termaster s stores are in the mines and forests and fields,
in the shops and factories. Every day something must be
done to push the campaign forward; and it must be done
by plan and with an eye to some great destiny.
How shall we hold such thoughts in our hearts and not
be moved? I would not have you live even to-day wholly
in the past, but would wish to stand with you in the light
that streams upon us now out of that great day gone by.
Here is the nation God has builded by our hands. What
shall we do with it? Who stands ready to act again and
always in the spirit of this day of reunion and hope and
patriotic fervor? The day of our country s life has but
broadened into morning. Do not put uniforms by. Put
July 4] THE NATION AND THE SOLDIER 13
the harness of the present on. Lift your eyes to the great
tracts of life yet to be conquered in the interest of righteous
peace, of that prosperity which lies in a people s hearts and
outlasts all wars and errors of men. Come, let us be com
rades and soldiers yet to serve our fellow men in quiet
counsel, when the blare of trumpets is neither heard nor
heeded and where the things are done which make blessed
the nations of the world in peace and righteousness and love.
White House Pamphlet.
6. TO THE CITIZENS OF THE PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
(October 6, 1913)
MESSAGE SENT BY GOVERNOR-GENERAL HARRISON
We regard ourselves as trustees acting not for the advan
tage of the United States but for the benefit of the people
of the Philippine Islands. Every step we take will be taken
with a view to the ultimate independence of the islands and
as a preparation for that independence; and we hope to
move toward that end as rapidly as the safety and the per
manent interests of the islands will permit. After each step
taken experience will guide us to the next.
The Administration will take one step at once. It will give
to the native citizens of the islands a majority in the ap
pointive commission and thus in the Upper as well as in the
Lower House of the Legislature a majority representation will
be secured to them. It will do this in the confident hope and
expectation that immediate proof will thereby be given, in
the action of the commission under the new arrangement, of
the political capacity of those native citizens who have al
ready come forward to represent and to lead their people in
affairs.
New York Times, Oct. 7, 1913.
i 4 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
7. IDEALS OF THE COLLEGE
(October 25, 1913)
ADDRESS AT SWARTHMORE COLLEGE
* * * No one can stand in the presence of a gathering
like this, on a day suggesting the memories which this day
suggests, without asking himself what a college is for. There
have been times when I have suspected that certain under
graduates did not know. I remember that in days of dis
couragement as a teacher I gratefully recalled the sympathy
of a friend of mine in the Yale faculty, who said that after
20 years of teaching he had come to the conclusion that the
human mind had infinite resources for resisting the intro
duction of knowledge. Yet I have my serious doubts as to
whether the main object of a college is the introduction of
knowledge. It may be the transmission of knowledge
through the human system, but not much of it sticks. Its
introduction is temporary; it is for the discipline of the
hour. Most of what a man learns in college he assiduously
forgets afterwards. Not because he purposes to forget it,
but because the crowding events of the days that follow
seem somehow to eliminate it.
What a man ought never to forget with regard to a college
is that it is a nursery of principle and of honor. I can not
help thinking of William Penn as a sort of spiritual knight
who went out upon his adventures to carry the torch that
had been put in his hands, so that other men might have
the path illuminated for them which led to justice and to
liberty. I can not admit that a man establishes his right
to call himself a college graduate by showing me his diploma.
The only way he can prove it is by showing that his eyes*
are lifted to some horizon which other men less instructed
than he have not been privileged to see. Unless he carries
freight of the spirit he has not been bred where spirits are
bred. * * *
The spirit of Penn will not be stayed. You can not set
limits to such knightly adventurers. After their own day
Oct. 25] IDEALS OF COLLEGE 15
is gone their spirits stalk the world, carrying inspiration
everywhere that they go and reminding men of the lineage,
the fine lineage, of those who have sought justice and right.
It is no small matter, therefore, for a college to have as its
patron saint a man who went out upon such a conquest.
What I would like to ask you young people to-day is: How
many of you have devoted yourselves to the like adventure?
How many of you will volunteer to carry these spiritual
messages of liberty to the world? How many of you will
forego anything except your allegiance to that which is just
and that which is right? We die but once, and we die with
out distinction if we are not willing to die the death of sac
rifice. Do you covet honor? You will never get it by
serving yourself. Do you covet distinction? You will get
it only as the servant of mankind. Do not forget, then, as
you walk these classic places, why you are here. You are
not here merely to prepare to make a living. You are here
in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater
vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You
are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if
you forget the errand.
It seems to me that there is no great difference between
the ideals of the college and the ideals of the State. Can
you not translate the one into the other? Men have not
had to come to college, let me remind you, to quaff the
fountains of this inspiration. You are merely more privi
leged than they. Men out of every walk of life, men with
out advantages of any kind, have seen the vision, and you,
with it written large upon every page of your studies, are the
more blind if you do not see it when it is pointed out. You
could not be forgiven for overlooking it. They might have
been. But they did not await instruction. They simply
drew the breath of life into their lungs, felt the aspirations
that must come to every human soul, looked out upon their
brothers, and felt their pulses beat as their fellows beat, and
then sought by counsel and action to move forward to com
mon ends that would be crowned with honor and achieve
ment. This is the only glory of America. Let every
generation of Swarthmore men and women add to the
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
strength of that lineage and the glory of that crown of
life!
White House Pamphlet.
8. RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA
(October 27, 1913)
ADDRESS BEFORE THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS
AT MOBILE
It is with unaffected pleasure that I find myself here
to-day. I once before had the pleasure, in another southern
city, of addressing the Southern Commercial Congress. I
then spoke of what the future seemed to hold in store for
this region, which so many of us love and toward the future
of which we all look forward with so much confidence and
hope. But another theme directed me here this time. I do
not need to speak of the South. She has, perhaps, acquired
the gift of speaking for herself. I come because I want to
speak of our present and prospective relations with our
neighbors to the south. I deemed it a public duty, as well
as a personal pleasure, to be here to express for myself and
for the Government I represent the welcome we all feel to
those who represent the Latin- American States.
The future, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be very
different for this hemisphere from the past. These States
lying to the south of us, which have always been our neigh
bors, will now be drawn closer to us by innumerable ties,
and, I hope, chief of all, by the tie of a common under
standing of each other. Interest does not tie nations to
gether; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and
understanding does unite them, and I believe that by the
new route that is just about to be opened, while we phys
ically cut two continents asunder, we spiritually unite them.
It is a spiritual union which we seek.
I wonder if you realize, I wonder if your imaginations
have been filled with the significance of the tides of com
merce. Your governor alluded in very fit and striking
Oct. 27] RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA 17
terms to the voyage of Columbus, but Columbus took his
voyage under compulsion of circumstances. Constantinople
had been captured by the Turks and all the routes of trade
with the East had been suddenly closed. If there was not
a way across the Atlantic to open those routes again, they
were closed forever; and Columbus set out not to discover
America, for he did not know that it existed, but to discover
the eastern shores of Asia. He set sail for Cathay and stum
bled upon America. With that change in the outlook of
the world, what happened? England, that had been at the
back of Europe with an unknown sea behind her, found that
all things had turned as if upon a pivot and she was at the
front of Europe; and since then all the tides of energy and
enterprise that have issued out of Europe have seemed to be
turned westward across the Atlantic. But you will notice
that they have turned westward chiefly north of the Equator,
and that it is the northern half of the globe that has seemed
to be filled with the media of intercourse and of sympathy
and of common understanding.
Do you not see now whafc is about to happen? These
great tides which have been running along parallels of lati
tude will now swing southward athwart parallels of latitude,
and that opening gate at the Isthmus of Panama will open
the world to a commerce that she has not known before, a
commerce of intelligence, of thought and sympathy between
North and South. The Latin-American States which, to
their disadvantage, have been off the main lines will now
be on the main lines. I feel that these gentlemen honoring
us with their presence to-day will presently find that some
part, at any rate, of the center of gravity of the world has
shifted. Do you realize that New York, for example, will
be nearer the western coast of South America than she is
now to the eastern coast of South America? Do you realize
that a line drawn northward parallel with the greater part
of the western coast of South America will run only about
one hundred and fifty miles west of New York? The great
bulk of South America, if you will look at your globes (not
at your Mercator s projection), lies eastward of the con
tinent of North America You will realize that when you
i8 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
realize that the canal will run southeast, not southwest, and
that when you get into the Pacific you will be farther east
than you were when you left the Gulf of Mexico. These
things are significant, therefore, of this, that we are closing
one chapter in the history of the world and are opening an
other of great, unimaginable significance.
There is one peculiarity about the history of the Latin-
American States which I am sure they are keenly aware of.
You hear of "concessions" to foreign capitalists in Latin
America. You do not hear of concessions to foreign capital
ists in the United States. They are not granted concessions.
They are invited to make investments. The work is ours,
though they are welcome to invest in it. We do not ask
them to supply the capital and do the work. It is an invita
tion, not a privilege; and States that are obliged, because
their territory does not lie within the main field of modern
enterprise and action, to grant concessions are in this con
dition, that foreign interests are apt to dominate their do
mestic affairs, a condition of affairs always dangerous and
apt to become intolerable. What these States are going to
see, therefore, is an emancipation from the subordination,
which has been inevitable, to foreign enterprise and an asser
tion of the splendid character which, in spite of these diffi
culties, they have again and again been able to demonstrate.
The dignity, the courage, the self-possession, the self-respect
of the Latin-American States, their achievements in the face
of all these adverse circumstances, deserve nothing but the
admiration and applause of the world. They have had
harder bargains driven with them in the matter of loans than
any other peoples in the world. Interest has been exacted
of them that was not exacted of anybody else, because the
risk was said to be greater; and then securities were taken
that destroyed the risk an admirable arrangement for those
who were forcing the terms! I rejoice in nothing so much as
in the prospect that they will now be emancipated from
these conditions; and we ought to be the first to take part
in assisting in that emancipation. I think some of these
gentlemen have already had occasion to bear witness that
the Department of State in recent months has tried to serve
Oct. 27] RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA 19
them in that wise. In the future they will draw closer and
closer to us because of circumstances of which I wish to
speak with moderation and, I hope, without indiscretion.
We must prove ourselves their friends and champions upon
terms of equality and honor. You cannot be friends upon
any other terms than upon the terms of equality. You
cannot be friends at all except upon the terms of honor.
We must show ourselves friends by comprehending their
interest whether it squares with our own interest or not. It
is a very perilous thing to determine the foreign policy of a
nation in the terms of material interest. It not only is
unfair to those with whom you are dealing, but it is degrad
ing as regards your own actions.
Comprehension must be the soil in which shall grow all
the fruits of friendship, and there is a reason and a com
pulsion lying behind all this which is dearer than anything
else to the thoughtful men of America. I mean the develop
ment of constitutional liberty in the world. Human rights,
national integrity, and opportunity as against material
interests that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue which we
now have to face. . I want to take this occasion to say that
the United States will never again seek one additional foot
of territory by conquest. She will devote herself to showing
that she knows how to make honorable and fruitful use of
the territory she has, and she must regard it as one of the
duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are material
interests made superior to human liberty and national oppor
tunity. I say this, not with a single thought that anyone
will gainsay it, but merely to fix in our consciousness what
our real relationship with the rest of America is. It is the
relationship of a family of mankind devoted to the develop
ment of true constitutional liberty. We know that that is
the soil out of which the best enterprise springs. We know
that this is a cause which we are making in common with
our neighbors, because we have had to make it for ourselves.
Reference has been made here to-day to some of the na
tional problems which confront us as a Nation. What is at
the heart of all our national problems? It is that we have
seen the hand of material interest sometimes about to close
20 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1913
upon our dearest rights and possessions. We have seen
material interests threaten constitutional freedom in the
United States. Therefore we will now know how to sympa
thize with those in the rest of America who have to contend
with such powers, not only within their borders but from
outside their borders also.
I know what the response of the thought and heart of
America will be to the program I have outlined, because
America was created to realize a program like that. This
is not America because it is rich. This is not America be
cause it has set up for a great population great opportuni
ties of material prosperity. America is a name which sounds
in the ears of men everywhere as a synonym with individual
opportunity because a synonym of individual liberty. I
would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to
a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. But
we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the nation
that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best
and be his best, and that means the release of all the splendid
energies of a great people who think for themselves. A
nation of employees cannot be free any more than a nation
of employers can be.
In emphasizing the points which must unite us in sympathy
and in spiritual interest with the Latin-American peoples we
are only emphasizing the points of our own life, and we
should prove ourselves untrue to our own traditions if we
proved ourselves untrue friends to them. Do not think,
therefore, gentlemen, that the questions of the day are mere
questions of policy and diplomacy. They are shot through
with the principles of life. We dare not turn from the
principle that morality and not expediency is the thing that
must guide us and that we will never condone iniquity be
cause it is most convenient to do so. It seems to me that
this is a day of infinite hope, of confidence in a future greater
than the past has been, for I am fain to believe that in spite
of all the things that we wish to correct the nineteenth
century that lies behind us has brought us a long stage
toward the time when, slowly ascending the tedious climb
that leads to the final uplands, we shall get our ultimate
Oct. 27] RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA 21
view of the duties of mankind. We have breasted a con
siderable part of that climb and shall presently it may be
in a generation or two come out upon those great heights
where there shines unobstructed the light of the justice of
God.
Congressional Record, L, 5845.
YEAR 1914
9. REGULATION OF TRUSTS
(January 20, 1914)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
In my report "on the state of the Union," which I had
the privilege of reading to you on the 2d of December last,
I ventured to reserve for discussion at a later date the sub
ject of additional legislation regarding the very difficult and
intricate matter of trusts and monopolies. The time now
seems opportune to turn to that great question; not only
because the currency legislation, which absorbed your atten
tion and the attention of the country in December, is now
disposed of, but also because opinion seems to be clearing
about us with singular rapidity in this other great field of
action. In the matter of the currency it cleared suddenly
and very happily after the much-debated Act was passed;
in respect of the monopolies which have multiplied about us
and in regard to the various means by which they have been
organized and maintained it seems to be coming to a clear
and all but universal agreement in anticipation of our action,
as if by way of preparation, making the way easier to see
and easier to set out upon with confidence and without con
fusion of counsel. * * *
The great business men who organized and financed mo
nopoly and those who administered it in actual everyday
transactions have year after year, until now, either denied
its existence or justified it as necessary for the effective
maintenance and development of the vast business processes
of the country in the modern circumstances of trade and
22
Jan. 20] REGULATION OF TRUSTS 23
manufacture and finance; but all the while opinion has made
head against them. The average business man is con
vinced that the ways of liberty are also the ways of peace
and the ways of success as well; and at last the masters of
business on the great scale have begun to yield their prefer
ence and purpose, perhaps their judgment also, in honorable
surrender.
What we are purposing to do, therefore, is, happily, not to
hamper or interfere with business as enlightened business
men prefer to do it, or in any sense to put it under the ban.
The antagonism between business and government is over.
We are now about to give expression to the best business
judgment of America, to what we know to be the business
of conscience and honor of the land. The Government and
business men are ready to meet each other half way in a
common effort to square business methods with both public
opinion and the law. The best informed men of the business
world condemn the methods and processes and consequences
of monopoly as we condemn them; and the instinctive judg
ment of the vast majority of business men everywhere goes
with them. We shall now be their spokesmen. That is the
strength of our position and the sure prophecy of what will
ensue when our reasonable work is done.
When serious contest ends, when men unite in opinion and
purpose, those who are to change their ways of business
joining with those who ask for the change, it is possible to
effect it in the way in which prudent and thoughtful and
patriotic men would wish to see it brought about, with as
few, as slight, as easy and simple business readjustments as
possible in the circumstances, nothing essential disturbed,
nothing torn up by the roots, no parts rent asunder which
can be left in wholesome combination. Fortunately, no
measures of sweeping or novel change are necessary. It
will be understood that our object is not to unsettle busi
ness or anywhere seriously to break its established courses
athwart. On the contrary, we desire the laws we are now
about to pass to be the bulwarks and safeguards of industry
against the forces that have disturbed it. What we have to
do can be done in a new spirit, in thoughtful moderation,
without revolution of any untoward kind.
24 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
We are all agreed that "private monopoly is indefensible
and intolerable," and our programme is founded upon that
conviction. It will be a comprehensive but not a radical or
unacceptable programme and these are its items, the changes
which opinion deliberately sanctions and for which business
waits:
It waits with acquiescence, in the first place, for laws
which will effectually prohibit and prevent such interlock-
ings of the personnel of the directorates of great corpora
tions banks and railroads, industrial, commercial, and pub
lic service bodies as in effect result in making those who
borrow and those who lend practically one and the same,
those who sell and those who buy but the same persons
trading with one another under different names and in dif
ferent combinations, and those who affect to compete in fact
partners and masters of some whole field of business. Suf
ficient time should be allowed, of course, in which to effect
these changes of organization without inconvenience or
confusion.
Such a prohibition will work much more than a mere
negative good by correcting the serious evils which have
arisen because, for example, the men who have been the
directing spirits of the great investment banks have usurped
ftie place which belongs to independent industrial manage
ment working in its own behoof. It will bring new men,
new energies, a new spirit of initiative, new blood, into the
management of our great business enterprises. It will open
the field of industrial development and origination to scores
of men who have been obliged to serve when their abilities
entitled them to direct. It will immensely hearten the young
men coming on and will greatly enrich the business activi
ties of the whole country. * * *
The business of the country awaits also, has long awaited
and has suffered because it could not obtain, further and
more explicit legislative definition of the policy and meaning
of the existing antitrust law. Nothing hampers business like
uncertainty. Nothing daunts or discourages it like the neces
sity to take chances, to run the risk of falling under the
condemnation of the law before it can make sure just what
the law is. Surely we are sufficiently familiar with the actual
Jan. 20] REGULATION OF TRUSTS 25
processes and methods of monopoly and of the many hurtful
restraints of trade to make definition possible, at any rate
up to the limits of what experience has disclosed. These
practices, being now abundantly disclosed, can be explicitly
and item by item forbidden by statute in such terms as
will practically eliminate uncertainty, the law itself and the
penalty being made equally plain.
And the business men of the country desire something more
than that the menace of legal process in these matters be
made explicit and intelligible. They desire the advice, the
definite guidance and information which can be supplied by
an administrative body, an- interstate trade commission.
The opinion of the country would instantly approve of
such a commission. It would not wish to see it empowered
to make terms with monopoly or in any sort to assume con
trol of business, as if the Government made itself responsible.
It demands such a commission only as an indispensable in
strument of information and publicity, as a clearing house for
the facts by which both the public mind and the managers
of great business undertakings should be guided, and as an
instrumentality for doing justice to business where the proc
esses of the courts or the natural forces of correction outside
the courts are inadequate to adjust the remedy to the wrong
in a way that will meet all the equities and circumstances of
the case.
Producing industries, for example, which have passed the
point up to which combination may be consistent with the
public interest and the freedom of trade, can not always be
dissected into their component units as readily as railroad
companies or similar organizations can be. Their dissolution
by ordinary legal process may often-times involve financial
consequences likely to overwhelm the security market and
bring upon it breakdown and confusion. There ought to be
an administrative commission capable of directing and shap
ing such corrective processes, not only in aid of the courts
but also by independent suggestion, if necessary.
Inasmuch as our object and the spirit of our action in
these matters is to meet business half way in its processes of
self-correction and disturb its legitimate course as little as
possible, we ought to see to it, and the judgment of practical
26 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
and sagacious men of affairs everywhere would applaud us
if we did see it, that penalties and punishments should fall,
not upon business itself, to its confusion and interruption,
but upon the individuals who use the instrumentalities of
business to do things which public policy and sound business
practice condemn. Every act of business is done at the com
mand or upon the initiative of some ascertainable person
or group of persons. These should be held individually re
sponsible and the punishment should fall upon them, not
upon the business organization of which they make illegal
use. It should be one of the main objects of our legislation
to divest such persons of their corporate cloak and deal with
them as with those who do not represent their corporations,
but merely by deliberate intention break the law. Business
men the country through would, I am sure, applaud us if
we were to take effectual steps to see that the officers and
directors of great business bodies were prevented from bring
ing them and the business of the country into disrepute and
danger.
Other questions remain which will need very thoughtful
and practical treatment. Enterprises, in these modern days
of great individual fortunes, are oftentimes interlocked, not
by being under the control of the same directors, but by the
fact that the greater part of their corporate stock is owned
by a single person or group of persons who are in some way
intimately related in interest. We are agreed, I take it, that
holding companies should be prohibited, but what of the
controlling private ownership of individuals or actually co
operative groups of individuals? Shall the private owners
of capital stock be suffered to be themselves in effect holding
companies? We do not wish, I suppose, to forbid the pur
chase of stocks by any person who pleases to buy them in
such quantities as he can afford, or in any way arbitrarily to
limit the sale of stocks to bona fide purchasers. Shall we
require the owners of stock, when their voting power in
several companies which ought to be independent of one
another would constitute actual control, to make election in
which of them they will exercise their right to vote? This
question I venture for your consideration. * * *
I have laid the case before you, no doubt as it lies in your
Jan. 20] REGULATION OF TRUSTS 27
own mind, as it lies in the thought of the country. What
must every candid man say of the suggestions I have laid
before you, of the plain obligations of which I have reminded
you? That these are new things for which the country is
not prepared? No; but that they are old things, now fa
miliar, and must of course be undertaken if we are to square
our laws with the thought and desire of the country. Until
these things are done, conscientious business men the country
over will be unsatisfied. They are in these things our men
tors and colleagues. We are now about to write the addi
tional articles of our constitution of peace, the peace that is
honor and freedom and prosperity.
White House Pamphlet.
10. TOIJ.S ON THE PANAMA CANAL
(March 5, 1914)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
I have come to you upon an errand which can be very
briefly performed, but I beg that you will not measure its
importance by the number of sentences in which I state it.
No communication I have addressed to the Congress carried
with it graver or more far-reaching implications as to the
interest of the country, and I come now to speak upon a mat
ter with regard to which I am charged in a peculiar degree,
by the Constitution itself, with personal responsibility.
I have come to ask you for the repeal of that provision
of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912, which exempts
vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States
from payment of tolls, and to urge upon you the justice, the
wisdom, and the large policy of such a repeal with the ut
most earnestness of which I am capable.
In my own judgment, very fully considered and maturely
formed, that exemption constitutes a mistaken economic
policy from every point of view, and is, moreover, in plain
contravention of the treaty with Great Britain concerning the
canal concluded on November 18, 1901. But I have not
come to urge upon you my personal views. I have come to
28 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
state to you a fact and a situation. Whatever may be our
own differences of opinion concerning this much debated
measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United
States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given
but one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the
exemption I am asking you to repeal. We consented to the
treaty; its language we accepted, if we did not originate it;
and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a nation
to interpret with a too strained or refined reading the words
of our own promises just because we have power enough to
give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing
to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a voluntary with
drawal from a position everywhere questioned and misunder
stood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the
question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more
deserve our reputation, for generosity and for the redemption
of every obligation without quibble or hesitation:
I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the
administration. I shall not know how to deal with other mat
ters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you
do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure.
White House Pamphlet.
ii. PATRIOTISM AND THE SAILOR
(May 16, 1914)
ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF COMMODORE
JOHN BARRY
I esteem it a privilege to be present on this interesting oc
casion, and I am very much tempted to anticipate some part
of what the orators of the day will say about the character
of the great man whose memory we celebrate. If I were to
attempt an historical address, 1 might, however, be led too
far afield. I am going to take the liberty, therefore, of draw
ing a few inferences from the significance of this occa
sion.
I think that we can never be present at a ceremony of
May 16] PATRIOTISM AND THE SAILOR 29
this kind, which carries our thought back to the great Revo
lution, by means of which our Government was set up,
without feeling that it is an occasion of reminder, of re
newal, of refreshment, when we turn our thoughts again to
the great issues which were presented to the little Nation
which then asserted its independence to the world; to which
it spoke both in eloquent representations of its cause and in
the sound of arms, and ask ourselves what it was that these
men fought for. No one can turn to the career of Commo
dore Barry without feeling a touch of the enthusiasm with
which he devoted an originating mind to the great cause
which he intended to serve, and it behooves us, living in this
age when no man can question the power of the Nation, when
no man would dare to doubt its right and its determination
to act for itself, to ask what it was that filled the hearts of
these men when they set the Nation up.
For patriotism, ladies and gentlemen, is in my mind not
merely a sentiment. There is a certain effervescence, I sup
pose, which ought to be permitted to those who allow their
hearts to speak in the celebration of the glory and majesty
of their country, but the country can have no glory and no
majesty unless there be a deep principle and conviction back
of the enthusiasm. Patriotism is a principle, not a mere sen
timent. No man can be a true patriot who does not feel
himself shot through and through with a deep ardor for what
his country stands for, what its existence means, what its
purpose is declared to be in its history and in its policy. I
recall those solemn lines of the poet Tennyson in which he
tries to give voice to his conception of what it is that stirs
within a nation: "Some sense of duty, something of a faith,
some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, some
patient force to change them when we will, some civic man
hood firm against the crowd;" steadfastness, clearness of
purpose, courage, persistency, and that uprightness which
comes from the clear thinking of men who wish to serve not
themselves but their fellow men.
What does the United States stand for, then, that our
hearts should be stirred by the memory of the men who set
her Constitution up? John Barry fought, like every other
man in the Revolution, in order that America might be free
30 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
to make her own life without interruption or disturbance from
any other quarter. You can sum the whole thing up in that,
that America had a right to her own self-determined life;
and what are our corollaries from that? You do not have
to go back to stir your thoughts again with the issues of the
Revolution. Some of the issues of the Revolution were not
the cause of it, but merely the occasion for it. There are
just as vital things stirring now that concern the existence of
the Nation as were stirring then, and every man who worthily
stands in this presence should examine himself and see
whether he has the full conception of what it means that
America should live her own life. Washington saw it when
he wrote his farewell address. It was not merely because of
passing and transient circumstances that Washington said
that we must keep free from entangling alliances. It was
because he saw that no country had yet set its face in the
same direction in which America had set her face. We can
not form alliances with those who are not going our way;
and in our might and majesty and in the confidence and
definiteness of our own purpose we need not and we should
not form alliances with any nation in the world. Those
who are right, those who study their consciences in determin
ing their policies, those who hold their honor higher than
their advantage, do not need alliances. You need alliances
when you are not strong, and you are weak only when you
are not true to yourself. You are weak only when you are
in the wrong; you are weak only when you are afraid to do
the right; you are weak only when you doubt your cause and
the majesty of a nation s might asserted.
There is another corollary. John Barry was an Irishman,
but his heart crossed the Atlantic with him. He did not
leave it in Ireland. And the test of all of us for all of us
had our origins on the other side of the sea is whether we
will assist in enabling America to live her separate and in
dependent life, retaining our ancient affections, indeed, but
determining everything that we do by the interests that exist
on this side of the sea. Some Americans need hyphens in
their names, because only part of them has come over; but
when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and
all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.
May 1 6] PATRIOTISM AND THE SAILOR 31
This man was not an Irish- American ; he was an Irishman
who became an American. I venture to say if he voted he
voted with regard to the questions as they looked on this side
of the water and not as they affected the other side;
and that is my infallible test of a genuine American,
that when he votes or when he acts or when he fights
his heart and his thought are centered nowhere but in the
emotions and the purposes and the policies of the United
States.
This man illustrates for me all the splendid strength which
we brought into this country .by the magnet of freedom.
Men have been drawn to this country by the same thing that
has made us love this country by the opportunity to live
their own lives and to think their own thoughts and to let
their whole natures expand with the expansion of a free and
mighty Nation. We have brought out of the stocks of all
the world all the best impulses and have appropriated them
and Americanized them and translated them into the glory
and majesty of a great country.
So, ladies and gentlemen, when we go out from this pres
ence we ought to take this idea with us that we, too, are
devoted to the purpose of enabling America to live her own
life, to be the justest, the most progressive, the most honor
able, the most enlightened Nation in the world. Any man
that touches our honor is our enemy. Any man who stands
in the way of the kind of progress which makes for human
freedom can not call himself our friend. Any man who does
not feel behind him the whole push and rush and compul
sion that filled men s hearts in the time of the Revolution
is no American. No man who thinks first of himself and
afterwards of his country can call himself an American.
America must be enriched by us. We must not live upon
her; she must live by means of us.
I, for one, come to this shrine to renew the impulses of
American democracy. I would be ashamed of myself if I
went away from this place without realizing again that every
bit of selfishness must be purged from our policy, that every
bit of self-seeking must be purged from our individual con
sciences, and that we must be great, if we would be great at
all, in the light and illumination of the example of men who
3 2 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
gave everything that they were and everything that they had
to the glory and honor of America.
White House Pamphlet.
12. THE MEN WHO FOUGHT FOR THE UNION
(May 30, 1914)
MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS AT ARLINGTON
I have not come here to-day with a prepared address.
The committee in charge of the exercises of the day have
graciously excused me on the grounds of public obligations
from preparing such an address, but I will not deny myself
the privilege of joining with you in an expression of grati
tude and admiration for the men who perished for the sake
of the Union. They do not need our praise. They do not
need that our admiration should sustain them. There is
no immortality that is safer than theirs. We come not for
their sakes but for our own, in order that we may drink at
the same springs of inspiration from which they themselves
drank.
A peculiar privilege came to the men who fought for the
Union. There is no other civil war in history, ladies and
gentlemen, the stings of which were removed before the men
who did the fighting passed from the stage of life. So that
we owe these men something more than a legal reestablish-
ment of the Union. We owe them the spiritual reestablish-
ment of the Union as well ; for they not only reunited States,
they reunited the spirits of men. That is their unique
achievement, unexampled anywhere else in the annals of man
kind, that the very men whom they overcame in battle join
in praise and gratitude that the Union was saved. There is
something peculiarly beautiful and peculiarly touching about
that. Whenever a man who is still trying to devote himself
to the service of the Nation comes into a presence like this,
or into a place like this, his spirit must be peculiarly moved.
A mandate is laid upon him which seems to speak from the
May 30] MEN v^ <O FOUGHT FOR THE UNION 33
very graves themselves. Those who serve this Nation,
whether in peace or in war, should serve it without thought
of themselves. I can never speak in praise of war, ladies and
gentlemen; you would not desire me to do so. But there is
this peculiar distinction belonging to the soldier, that he goes
into an enteiprise out of which he himself can not get any
thing at all. He is giving everything that he hath, even his
life, in order that others may live, not in order that he him
self may obtain gain and prosperity. And just so soon as
the tasks of peace are performed in the same spirit of self-
sacrifice and devotion, peace societies will not be necessary.
The very organization and spirit of society will be a guar
anty of peace.
Therefore this peculiar thing comes about, that we can
stand here and praise the memory of these soldiers in the
interest of peace. They set us the example of self-sacrifice,
which if followed in peace will make it unnecessary that
men should follow war any more.
We are reputed to be somewhat careless in our discrimina
tion between words in the use of the English language, and
yet it is interesting to note that there are some words about
which we are very careful. We bestow the adjective "great"
somewhat indiscriminately. A man who has made conquest
of his fellow men for his own gain may display such genius
in war, such uncommon qualities of organization and leader
ship that we may call him "great," but there is a word which
we reserve for men of another kind and about which we are
very careful; that is the word "noble." We never call a man
"noble" who serves only himself; and if you will look about
through all the nations of the world upon the statues that
men have erected upon the inscribed tablets where they
have wished to keep alive the memory of the citizens whom
they desire most to honor you will find that almost with
out exception they have erected the statue to those who had
a splendid surplus of energy and devotion to spend upon
their fellow men. Nobility exists in America without patent.
We have no House of Lords, but we have a house of fame
to which we elevate those who are the noble men of our
race, who, forgetful of themselves, study and serve the pub-
34
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDED WILSON [1914
lie interest, who have the courage to face any number and
any kind of adversary, to speak what in their hearts they
believe to be the truth.
We admire physical courage, but we admire above all
things else moral courage. I believe that soldiers will bear
me out in saying that both come in time of battle. I take it
that the moral courage comes in going in the battle, and the
physical courage in staying in. There are battles which are
just as hard to go into and just as hard to stay in as the
battles of arms, and if the man will but stay and think never
of himself there will come a time of grateful recollection when
men will speak of him not only with admiration but with that
which goes deeper, with affection and with reverence.
So that this flag calls upon us daily for service, and the
more quiet and self-denying the service the greater the glory
of the flag. We are dedicated to freedom, and that freedom
means the freedom of the human spirit. All free spirits
ought to congregate on an occasion like this to do homage to
the greatness of America as illustrated by the greatness of
her sons.
It has been a privilege, ladies and gentlemen, to come and
say these simple words, which I am sure are merely putting
your thought into language. I thank you for the opportunity
to lay this little wreath of mine. upon these consecrated
graves.
White House Pamphlet.
13. UNION OF SPIRIT BETWEEN NORTH
AND SOUTH
(June 4, 1914)
ADDRESS AT A MONUMENT IN MEMORY OF THE CONFED
ERATE DEAD AT ARLINGTON
I assure you that I am profoundly aware of the solemn
significance of the thing that has now taken place. The
Daughters of the Confederacy have presented a memorial
of their dead to ths Government of the United States. I
June 4] UNION OF NORTH AND SOUTH 35
hope that you have noted the history of the conception of
this idea. It was suggested by a President of the United
States who had himself been a distinguished officer in the
Union Army. It was authorized by an act of Congress of
the United States. The corner stone of the monument was
laid by a President of the United States elevated to his posi
tion by the votes of the party which had chiefly prided itself
upon sustaining the war for the Union, and who, while Sec
retary of War, had himself given authority to erect it. And,
now, it has fallen to my lot to accept in the name of the
great Government, which I am privileged for the time to rep
resent, this emblem of a reunited people. I am not so much
happy as proud to participate in this capacity on such an oc
casion, proud that I should represent such a people. Am
I mistaken, ladies and gentlemen, in supposing that nothing
of this sort could have occurred in anything but a democ
racy? The people of a democracy are not related to their
rulers as subjects are related to a government. They are
themselves the sovereign authority, and as they are neighbors
of each other, quickened by the same influences and moved
by the same motives, they can understand each other. They
are shot through with some of the deepest and profoundest
instincts of human sympathy. They choose their govern
ments; they select their rulers; they live their own life, and
they will not have that life disturbed and discolored by fra
ternal misunderstandings. I know that a reuniting of spirits
like this can take place more quckly in our time than in any
other because men are now united by an easier transmission
of those influences which make up the foundations of peace
and of mutual understanding, but no process can work these
effects unless there is a conducting medium. The conduct
ing medium in this instance is the united heart of a great
people. I am not going to detain you by trying to repeat
any of the eloquent thoughts which have moved us this after
noon, for I rejoice in the simplicity of the task which is
assigned to me. My privilege is this, ladies and gentlemen:
To declare this chapter in the history of the United States
closed and ended, and I bid you turn with me with your faces
to the future, quickened by the memories of the past, but
with nothing to do with the contests of the past, knowing,
36 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
as we have shed our blood upon opposite sides, we now face
and admire one another. I do not know how many years ago
it was that the Century Dictionary was published, but 1
remember one day in the Century Cyclopedia of Names I
had occasion to turn to the name of Robert E. Lee, and I
found him there in that book published in New York City
simply described as a great American general. The generos
ity of our judgments did not begin to-day. The generosity
of our judgment was made up soon after this great struggle
was over. Men came and sat together again in the Con
gress and united in all the efforts of peace and of govern
ment, and our solemn duty is to see that each one of us is
in his own consciousness and in his own conduct a replica of
this great reunited people. It is our duty and our privilege
to be like the country we represent and, speaking no word of
malice, no word of criticism even, stand shoulder to shoulder
to lift the burdens of mankind in the future and show the
paths of freedom to all the world.
White House Pamphlet.
14. THE NAVAL SERVICE
(June 5, 1914)
ADDRESS AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS
During the greater part of my life I have been associated
with young men, and on occasions it seems to me without
number have faced bodies of youngsters going out to take
part in the activities of the world, but I have a consciousness
of a different significance in this occasion from that which I
have felt on other similar occasions. When I have faced the
graduating classes at universities I have felt that I was facing
a great conjecture. They were going out into all sorts of pur
suits and with every degree of preparation for the particular
thing they were expecting to do; some without any prepara
tion at all, for they did not know what they expected to do.
But in facing you I am facing men who are trained for a
special thing. You know what you are going to do, and you
June 5] THE NAVAL SERVICE 37
are under the eye of the whole Nation in doing it. For you,
gentlemen, are to be part of the power of the Government of
the United States. There is a very deep and solemn signifi
cance in that fact, and I am sure that every one of you feels
it. The moral is perfectly obvious. Be ready and fit for
anything that you have to do. And keep ready and fit.
Do not grow slack. Do not suppose that your education is
over because you have received your diplomas from the
academy. Your education has just begun. Moreover, you
are to have a very peculiar privilege which not many of your
predecessors have had. You are yourselves going to become
teachers. You are going to teach those 50,000 fellow coun
trymen of yours who are the enlisted men of the Navy. You
are going to make them fitter to obey your orders and to
serve the country. You are going to make them fitter to see
what the orders mean in their outlook upon life and upon the
service; and that is a great privilege, for out of you is going
the energy and intelligence which are going to quicken the
whole body of the United States Navy. * * *
It ought to be one of your thoughts all the time that you
are sample Americans not merely sample Navy men, not
merely sample soldiers, but sample Americans and that you
have the point of view of America with regard to her Navy
and her Army; that she is using them as the instruments of
civilization, not as the instruments of aggression. The idea
of America is to serve humanity, and every time you let the
Stars and Stripes free to the wind you ought to realize that
that is in itself a message that you are on an errand which
other navies have sometimes forgotten; not an errand of
conquest, but an errand of service. I always have the same
thought when I look at the flag of the United States, for I
know something of the history of the struggle of mankind
for liberty. When I look at that flag it seems to me as if the
white stripes were strips of parchment upon which are writ
ten the rights of man, and the red stripes the streams 01
blood by which those rights have been made good. Then in
the little blue firmament in the corner have swung out the
stars of the States of the American Union. So, it is, as it
were, a sort of floating charter that has come down to us
from Runnymede, when men said, "We will not have mas-
38 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
ters; we will be a people, and we will seek our own liberty."
You are not serving a government, gentlemen; you are
serving a people. For we who for the time being constitute
the Government are merely instruments for a little while in
the hands of a great Nation which chooses whom it will to
carry out its decrees and who invariably rejects the man who
forgets the ideals which it intended him to serve. So that I
hope that wherever you go you will have a generous, compre
hending love of the people you come into contact with, and
will come back and tell us, if you can, what service the
United States can render to the remotest parts of the world;
tell us where you see men suffering; tell us where you think
advice will lift them up; tell us where you think that the
counsel of statesmen may better the fortunes of unfortunate
men; always having it in mind that you are champions of
what is right and fair all round for the public welfare, no
matter where you are, and that it is that you are ready to
fight for and not merely on the drop of a hat or upon some
slight punctillio, but that you are champions of your fellow
men, particularly of that great body one hundred million
strong whom you represent in the United States. * * *
I challenge you youngsters to go out with these concep
tions, knowing that you are part of the Government and
force of the United States and that men will judge us by
you. I am not afraid of the verdict. I can not look in your
faces and doubt what it will be, but I want you to take
these great engines of force out onto the seas like adven
turers enlisted for the elevation of the spirit of the human
race. For that is the only distinction that America has.
Other nations have been strong, other nations have piled
wealth as high as the sky, but they have come into disgrace
because they used their force and their wealth for the op
pression of mankind and their own aggrandizement; and
America will not bring glory to herself, but disgrace, by fol
lowing the beaten paths of history. We must strike out upon
new paths, and we must count upon you gentlemen to be the
explorers who will carry this spirit and spread this message
all over the seas and in every part of the civilized world.
You see, therefore, why I said that when I faced you I
felt there was .a special significance. I am not present on an
June 5] THE NAVAL SERVICE 39
occasion when you are about to scatter on various errands.
You are all going on the same errand, and I like to feel bound
with you in one common organization for the glory of Amer
ica. And her glory goes deeper than all the tinsel, goes
deeper than the sound of guns and the clash of sabers; it
goes down to the very foundation of those things that have
made the spirit of men free and happy and content.
White House Pamphlet.
15. AMERICA AS A WORLD POWER
(July 4, 1914)
ADDRESS AT INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA
* * * In one sense the Declaration of Independence has
lost its significance. It has lost its significance as a declara
tion of national independence. Nobody outside of America
believed when it was uttered that we could make good our
independence; now nobody anywhere would dare to doubt
that we are independent and can maintain our independence.
As a declaration of independence, therefore, it is a mere his
toric 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 ener
gies; 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 occa
sion mean that we shall use it to make the peoples of other
nations suffer in the way in which we said it was intolerable
to suffer when we uttered our Declaration of Independence.
The Department of State at Washington is constantly
called upon to back up the commercial enterprises and the
40 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
industrial enterprises of the United States in foreign coun
tries, and it at one time went so far in that direction that
all its diplomacy came to be designated as "dollar di
plomacy." 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 suspected cf being a poli
tician. 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 everybody 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 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 encouraged. I am willing to get anything
for an American that money and enterprise can obtain except
the suppression 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.
You know, my fellow countrymen, what a big question
there is in Mexico. Eighty-five per cent of the Mexican
people have never been allowed to have any genuine partici
pation in their own Government or to exercise any substan-
July 4] AMERICA AS A WORLD POWER 41
tial rights with regard to the very land they live upon. All
the rights that men most desire have been exercised by the
other 1 5 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 Mexico 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
conditions 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 circumstances which ought sometime,
in the proper way, 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 lib
erty 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 himself a symbol of hope and liberty. I
would be ashamed of this flag if it ever 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. Honesty 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 Independence
Square; it is holy ground which he ought not to tread upon.
42 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
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.
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? 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 can not be enthusiastic 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 attached 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 under
taking. 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
July 4] AMERICA AS A WORLD POWER 43
started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to start any
thing. 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 pro
fess 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 judg
ments, 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 tri
bunal 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 con
trol its own affairs.
It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that may
be called the original fountain of independence and liberty
in America and here drink draughts of patriotic feeling which
seem to renew the very blood in one s veins. Down in Wash
ington sometimes 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 thoughts 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 separated 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 foun
tains of youth and renewal ; that it also will turn to America
for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis of all free
dom; that the world will never fear America unless it feels
44 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
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 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.
White House Pamphlet.
16. NEUTRALITY OF FEELING
(August 18, 1914)
A PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION
I suppose that every thoughtful man in America has asked
himself, during these last troubled weeks, what influence the
European war may exert upon the United States, and I take
the liberty of addressing a few words to you in order to point
out that it is entirely within our own choice what its effects
upon us will be and to urge very earnestly upon you the sort
of speech and conduct which will best safeguard the Nation
against distress and disaster.
The effect of the war upon the United States will depend
upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who
really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of
neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and
friendliness to all concerned. The spirit of the Nation in this
Aug. 18] NEUTRALITY OF FEELING 45
critical matter will be determined largely by what individuals
and society and those gathered in public meetings do and
say, upon what newspapers and magazines contain, upon
what ministers utter in their pulpits, and men proclaim as
their opinions on the street.
The people of the United States are drawn from many
nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is
natural and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety
of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues
and circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish one nation,
others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It
will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those
responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy responsibility,
responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the
United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty
to its Government should unite them as Americans all, bound
in honor and affection to think first of her and her interests,
may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each
other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if
not in action.
Such divisions among us would be fatal to our peace of
mind and might seriously stand in the way of the proper
performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace,
the one people holding itself ready to play a part of impar
tial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommo
dation, not as a partisan, but as a friend.
I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a
solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most
subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring
out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The
United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name dur
ing these days that are to try men s souls. We must be
impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb
upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that
might be construed as a preference of one party to the strug
gle before another.
My thought is of America. I am speaking, I feel sure,
the earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful American
that this great country of ours, which is, of course, the first
in our thoughts and in our hearts, should show herself in this
46 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
time of peculiar trial a Nation fit beyond others to exhibit
the fine poise of undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-
control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a Nation that
neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her
own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what
is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace
of the world.
Shall we not resolve to put upon ourselves the restraints
which will bring to our people the happiness and the great and
lasting influence for peace we covet for them?
Department of State, White Book, No. II, 17.
17. INTERNATIONAL AND MUNICIPAL LAW
(October 20, 1914)
ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
* * * We stand now in a peculiar case. Our first thought,
I suppose, as lawyers, is of international law, of those bonds
of right and principle which draw the nations together and
hold the community of the world to some standards of ac
tion. We know that we see in international law, as it were,
the moral processes by which law itself came into existence.
I know that as a lawyer I have myself at times felt that there
was no real comparison between the law of a nation and the
law of nations, because the latter lacked the sanction that
gave the former strength and validity. And yet, if you look
into the matter more closely, you will find that the two have
the same foundations, and that those foundations are more
evident and conspicuous in our day than they have ever been
before. :.%;
The opinion of the world .is the mistress of the world;
and the processes of international law are the slow processes
by which opinion works its will. What impresses me is the
constant thought that that is the tribunal at the bar of which
Oct. 20] INTERNATIONAL AND MUNICIPAL LAW 4?
we all sit. I would call your attention, incidentally, to the
circumstance that it does not observe the ordinary rules of
evidence; which has sometimes suggested to me that the or
dinary rules of evidence had shown some signs of growing
antique. Everything, rumor included, is heard in this court,
and the standard of judgment is not so much the character
of the testimony as the character of the witness. The mo
tives are disclosed, the purposes are conjectured, and that
opinion is finally accepted which seems to be, not the best
founded in law, perhaps, but the best founded in integrity of
character and of morals. That is the process which is slowly
working its will upon the world; and what we should be
watchful of is not so much jealous interests as sound prin
ciples of action. The disinterested course is always the big
gest course to pursue not only, but it is in the long run the
most profitable course to pursue. If you can establish your
character, you can establish your credit.
What I wanted to suggest to this association, in bidding
them very hearty welcome to the city, is whether we suf
ficiently apply these same ideas to the body of municipal law
which we seek to administer. Citations seem to play so much
larger a role now than principle. There was a time when
the thoughtful eye of the judge rested upon the changes of
social circumstances and almost palpably saw the law arise
out of human life. Have we got to a time when the only
way to change law is by statute? The changing of law by
statute seems to me like mending a garment with a patch,
whereas law should grow by the life that is in it, not by the
life that is outside of it.
I once said to a lawyer with whom I was discussing some
question of precedent, and in whose presence I was ventur
ing to doubt the rational validity, at any rate, of the particu
lar precedents he cited, "After all, isn t our object justice?"
And he said, "God forbid! We should be very much con
fused if we made that our standard. Our standard is to find
out what the rule has been and how the rule that has been
applies to the case that is." I should hate to think that
the law was based entirely upon "has beens." I should hate
to think that the law did not derive its impulse from looking
forward rather than from looking backward, or, rather, that
48 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
it did not derive its instruction from looking about and seeing
what the circumstances of man actually are and what the
impulses of justice necessarily are.
Understand me, gentlemen, I am not venturing in this
presence to impeach the law. For the present, by the force
of circumstances, I am in part the embodiment of the law, and
it would be very awkward to disavow myself. But I do wish
to make this intimation, that in this time of world change, in
this time when we are going to find out just how, in what
particulars, and to what extent the real facts of human life
and the real moral judgments of mankind prevail, it is worth
while looking inside our municipal law and seeing whether the
judgments of the law are made square with the moral judg
ments of mankind. For I believe that we are custodians,
not of commands, but of a spirit. We are custodians of the
spirit of righteousness, of the spirit of equal-handed justice,
of the spirit of hope which believes in the perfectibility of the
law with the perfectibility of human life itself.
Public life, like private life, would be very dull and dry if
it were not for this belief in the essential beauty of the human
spirit and the belief that the human spirit could be translated
into action and into ordinance. Not entire. You can not go
any faster than you can advance the average moral judg
ments of the mass, but you can go at least as fast as that,
and you can see to it that you do not lag behind the average
moral judgments of the mass. I have in my life dealt with
all sorts and conditions of men, and I have found that the
flame of moral judgment burned just as bright in the man of
humble life and limited experience as in the scholar and the
man of affairs. And I would like his voice always to be
heard, not as a witness, not as speaking in his own case, but
as if he were the voice of men in general, in our courts of
justice, as well as the voice of the lawyers, remembering what
the law has been. My hope is that, being stirred to the
depths by the extraordinary circumstances of the time in
which we live, we may recover from those depths something
of a renewal of that vision of the law with which men may be
supposed to have started out in the old days of the oracles,
who communed with the intimations of divinity.
White House Pamphlet.
Oct. 24] YOUNG MEN S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 49
18. THE YOUNG MEN S CHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATION
(October 24, 1914)
ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
* * * I am interested in [this organization] * * * for
various reasons. First of all, because it is an association for
young men. I have had a good deal to do with young men
in my time, and I have formed an impression of them which
I believe to be contrary to the general impression. They are
generally thought to be arch radicals. As a matter of fact,
they are the most conservative people I have ever dealt with.
Go to a college community and try to change the least cus
tom of that little world and find how the conservatives will
rush at you. Moreover, young men are embarrassed by hav
ing inherited their fathers opinions. I have often said that
the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike
their fathers as possible. I do not say that with the least
disrespect for the fathers; but every man who is old enough
to have a son in college is old enough to have become very
seriously immersed in some particular business and is almost
certain to have caught the point of view of that particular
business. And it is very useful to his son to be taken out of
that narrow circle, conducted to some high place where he
may see the general map of the world and of the interests of
mankind, and there shown how big the world is and how
much of it his father may happen to have forgotten. It would
be worth while for men, middle-aged and old, to detach them
selves more frequently from the things that command their
daily attention and to think of the sweeping tides of hu
manity.
Therefore I am interested in this association, because it is
intended to bring young men together before any crust has
formed over them, before they have been hardened to any
particular occupation, before they have caught an inveterate
point of view; while they still have a searchlight that they
can swing and see what it reveals of all the circumstances of
the hidden world.
I am the more interested in it because it is an association
50 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
of young men who are Christians. I wonder if we attach
sufficient importance to Christianity as a mere instrumental
ity in the life of mankind. For one, I am not fond of think
ing of Christianity as the means of saving individual souls.
I have always been very impatient of processes and institu
tions which said that their purpose was to put every man in
the way of developing his character. My advice is: Do not
think about your character. If you will think about what
you ought to do for other people, your character will take
care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who
devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become
a selfish prig. The only way your powers can become great
is by exerting them outside the circle of your own narrow,
special, selfish interests. And that is the reason of Chris
tianity. Christ came into the world to save others, not to
save himself; and no man is a true Christian who does not
think constantly of how he can lift his brother, how he can
assist his friend, how he can enlighten mankind, how he can
make virtue the rule of conduct in the circle in which he lives.
An association merely of young men might be an association
that had its energies put forth in every direction, but an as
sociation of Christian young men is an association meant to
put its shoulders under the world and lift it, so that other
men may feel that they have companions in bearing the
weight and heat of the day; that other men may know that
there are those who care for them, who would go into places
of difficulty and danger to rescue them, who regard them
selves as their brother s keeper.
And, then, I am glad that it is an association. Every
word of its title means an element of strength. Young men
are strong. Christian young men are the strongest kind of
young men, and when they associate themselves together they
have the incomparable strength of organization. The Young
Men s Christian Association once excited, perhaps it is not
too much to say, the hostility of the organized churches of
the Christian world, because the movement looked as if it
were so nonsectarian, as if it were so outside the ecclesiasti
cal field, that perhaps it was an effort to draw young men
away from the churches and to substitute this organization
for the great bodies of Christian people who joined them-
selves in the Christian denominations. But after a while it
appeared that it was a great instrumentality that belonged to
all the churches; that it was a common instrument for send
ing the light of Christianity out into the world in its most
practical form, drawing young men who were strangers into
places where they could have companionship that stimulated
them and suggestions that kept them straight and occupations
that amused them without vicious practice; and then, by sur
rounding themselves with an atmosphere of purity and of
simplicity of life, catch something of a glimpse of the great
ideal which Christ lifted when He was elevated upon the
cross.
I remember hearing a very wise man say once, a man
grown old in the service of a great church, that he had never
taught his son religion dogmatically at any time; that he
and the boy s mother had agreed that if the atmosphere of
that home did not make a Christian of the boy, nothing that
they could say would make a Christian of him. They knew
that Christianity was catching, and if they did not have it,
it would not be communicated. If they did have it, it would
penetrate while the boy slept, almost; while he was uncon
scious of the sweet influences that were about him, while he
reckoned nothing of instruction, but merely breathed into his
lungs the wholesome air of a Christian home. That is the
principle of the Young Men s Christian Association to make
a place where the atmosphere makes great ideals contagious.
That is the reason that I said, though I had forgotten that I
said it, what is quoted on the outer page of the program
that you can test a modern community by the degree of its
interest in its Young Men s Christian Association. You can
test whether it knows what road it wants to travel or not.
You can test whether it is deeply interested in the spiritual
and essential prosperity of its rising generation. I know of
no test that can be more conclusively put to a community
than that.
I want to suggest to the young men of this association
that it is the duty of young men not only to combine for
the things that are good, but to combine in a militant spirit.
There is a fine passage in one of Milton s prose writings
which I am sorry to say I can not quote, but the meaning of
52 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
which I can give you, and it is worth hearing. He says
that he has no patience with a cloistered virtue that does
not go out and seek its adversary. Ah, how tired I am of
the men who are merely on the defensive, who hedge them
selves in, who perhaps enlarge the hedge enough to include
their little family circle and ward off all the evil influences
of the world from that loved and hallowed group. How
tired I am of the men whose virtue is selfish because it is
merely self-protective! How much I wish that men by the
hundred might volunteer to go out and seek an adversary
and subdue him !
I have had the fortune to take part in affairs of a con
siderable variety of s us, and I have tried to hate, as few
persons as possible but there is an exquisite combination
of contempt and hate that I have for a particular kind of
person, and that is the moral coward. I wish we could
give all our cowards a perpetual vacation. Let them go off
and sit on the side lines and see us play the game; and put
them oft the field if they interfere with tne game They
do nothing but harm, and they do it by that most subtle and
fatal thing of all. that of taking tht momentum and the
spirit and the forward dash out of things. A man who is
virtuous and a coward has no marketable virtue about him.
The virtue, I repeat, which is merely self-defensive is not
serviceable even, I suspect, to himself Foi how a man can
swallow and not taste bad when he is a coward and thinking
only of himself i can not imagine.
Be militant! Be an organization that is going to do things!
If you can find older men who will give you countenance
and acceptable leadership, follow them: but if you can not,
organize separately and dispense with them. There are only
two sorts of men worth associating with when something is
to be done. Those are young men and men who never grow
old. Now, if you find men who have grown old, about whom
the crust has hardened, whose hinges are stiff, whose minds
always have their eye over the shoulder thinking of things
as they were done, do not have anything to do with them.
It would not be Christian to exclude them from your organi
zation, but merely used them to pad the roll. If you can find
older men who will lead you acceptably and keep you in
Oct. 24] YOUNG MEN S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 53
countenance, I am bound as an older man to advise you to
follow them. But suit yourselves. Do not follow people
that stand still. Just remind them that this is not a statical
proposition; it is a movement, and if they can not get a
move on them they are not serviceable.
Life, gentlemen the life of society, the life of the world
has constantly to be fed from the bottom. It has to be
fed by those great sources of strength which are constantly
rising in new generations. Red blood has to be pumped into
it. New fiber has to be supplied. That is the reason I have
always said that I believed in popular institution^ If you
can guess beforehand whom your rulers are going to be,
you can guess with a very great certainty that most of them
will not be fit to rule./ The beauty of popular institutions
is that you do not krrow where the man is going to come
from, and you do not care so he is the right man. You do
not know whether he will come from the avenue or from
the alley. You do not know whether he will come from the
city or the farm. / You do not know whether you will ever
have heard that name before or not. Therefore you do not
limit at any point your supply of new strength. You do not
say it has got to come through the blood of a particular
family or through the processes of a particular training, or
by anything except the native impulses and genius of the
man himself. /The humblest hovel, therefore, may produce
you your greatest man. A very humble hovel did produce
you one of your greatest men. That is the process of life,
this constant surging up of the new strength of unnamed,
unrecognized, uncatalogued men who are just getting into
the running, who are just coming up from the masses of the
unrecognized multitude./ You do not know when you will see
above the level masses of the crowd some great stature
lifted head and shoulders above the rest, shouldering its way,
not violently but gently, to the front and saying, "Here am
I; follow me." And his voice will be your voice, his thought
will be your thought, and you will follow him as if you were
following the best things in yourselves.
When I think of an association of Christian young men I
wonder that it has not already turned the world upside down.
I wonder, not that it has done so much, for it has done a
54 . ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
great deal, but that it has done so little; and I can only
conjecture that it does not realize its own strength. I can
only imagine that it has not yet got its pace. I wish I could
believe, and I do believe, that at 70 it is just reaching its
majority, and that from this time on a dream greater even
than George Williams ever dreamed will be realized in the
great accumulating momentum of Christian men throughout
the world. For, gentlemen, this is an age in which the
principles of men who utter public opinion dominate the
world. It makes no difference what is done for the time
being. After the struggle is over the jury will sit, and
nobody can corrupt that jury. * * *
Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of liberty, but of a
great many other things. It is the price of everything that
is good. It is the price of one s own soul. It is the price of
the souls of the people you love; and when it comes down
to the final reckoning you have a standard that is immutable.
What shall a man give in exchange for his own soul? Will
he sell that? Will he consent to see another man sell his
soul? Will he consent to see the conditions of his community
such that men s souls are debauched and trodden under
foot in the mire? What shall he give in exchange for his
own soul, or any other man s soul? And since the world, the
world of affairs, the world of society, is nothing less and
nothing more than all of us put together, it is a great enter
prise for the salvation of the soul in this world as well as in
the next. There is a text in Scripture that has always
interested me profoundly. It says godliness is profitable in
this life as well as in the life that is to come; and if you do
not start it in this life, it will not reach the life that is to come.
Your measurements, your directions, your whole momentum,
have to be established before you reach the next world. This
world is intended as the place in which we shall show that
we know how to grow in the stature of manliness and of
righteousness.
I have come here to bid Godspeed to the great work of
the Young Men s Christian Association. I love to think of
the gathering force of such things as this in the generations
to come. If a man had to measure the accomplishments of
society, the progress of reform, the speed of the world s
Oct. 24] YOUNG MEN S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 55
betterment, by the few little things that happened in his
own life, by the trifling things that he can contribute to
accomplish, he would indeed feel that the cost was much
greater than the result. But no man can look at the past of
the history of this world without seeing a vision of the future
of the history of this world; and when you think of the
accumulated moral forces that have made one age better than
another age in the progress of mankind, then you can open
your eyes to the vision. You can see that age by age,
though with a blind struggle in the dust of the road, though
often mistaking the path and losing its way in the mire,
mankind is yet sometimes with bloody hands and battered
knees nevertheless struggling step after step up the slow
stages to the day when he shall live in the full light which
shines upon the uplands, where all the light that illumines
mankind shines direct from the face of God.
White House Pamphlet.
19. FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIP BUILDING
(December 8, 1914)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
The session upon which you are now entering will be the
closing session of the Sixty-third Congress, a Congress, I
venture to say, which will long be remembered for the great
body of thoughtful and constructive work which it has done,
in loyal response to the thought and needs of the country.
I should like in this address to review the notable record
and try to make adequate assessment of it; but no doubt
we stand too near the work that has been done and are
ourselves too much part of it to play the part of historians
toward it.
Our program of legislation with regard to the regulation
of business is now virtually complete. It has been put forth,
as we intended, as a whole, and leaves no conjecture as to
what is to follow. The road at last lies clear and firm
before business. It is a road which it can travel without fear
56 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
or embarrassment. It is the road to ungrudged, unclouded
success. In it every honest man, every man who believes
that the public interest is part of his own interest, may walk
with perfect confidence.
Moreover, our thoughts are now more of the future than
of the past. While we have worked at our tasks of peace
the circumstances of the whole age have been altered by war.
What we have done for our own land and our own people we
did with the best that was in us, whether of character or of
intelligence, with sober enthusiasm and a confidence in the
principles upon which we were acting which sustained us at
every step of the difficult undertaking; but it is done. It
has passed from our hands. It is now an established part
of the legislation of the country. Its usefulness, its effects
will disclose themselves in experience. What chiefly strikes
us now, as we look about us during these closing days of a
year which will be forever memorable in the history of the
world, is that we face new tasks, have been facing them these
six months, must face them in the months to come, face
them without partisan feeling, like men who have forgotten
everything but a common duty and the fact that we are
representatives of a great people whose thought is not of us
but of what America owes to herself and to all mankind in
such circumstances as these upon which we look amazed and
anxious.
War has interrupted the means of trade not only but also
the processes of production. In Europe it is destroying men
and resources wholesale and upon a scale unprecedented
and appalling. There is reason to fear that the time is near,
if it be not already at hand, when several of the countries
of Europe will find it difficult to do for their people what
they have hitherto been always easily able to do, many
essential and fundamental things. At any rate, they will
need our help and our manifold services as they have never
needed them before; and we should be ready, more fit and
ready than we have ever been.
It is of equal consequence that the nations whom Europe
has usually supplied with innumerable articles of manufac
ture and commerce of which they are in constant need and
without which their economic development halts and stands
Dec. 8] FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPBUILDING 57
still can now get only a small part of what they formerly
imported and eagerly look to us to supply their all but
empty markets. This is particularly true of our own
neighbors, the States, great and small, of Central and South
America. Their lines of trade have hitherto run chiefly
athwart the seas, not to our ports but to the ports of Great
Britain and of the older continent of Europe. I do not stop
to inquire why, or to make any comment on probable causes.
What interests us just now is not the explanation but the
fact, and our duty and opportunity in the presence of it.
Here are markets which we must supply, and we must find
the means of action. The United States, this great people
for whom we speak and act, should be ready, as never before,
to serve itself and to serve mankind ; ready with its resources,
its energies, its forces of production, and its means of dis
tribution.
It is a very practical matter, a matter of ways and means.
We have the resources, but are we fully ready to use them?
And, if we can make ready what we have, have we the means
at hand to distribute it? We are not fully ready; neither
have we the means of distribution. We are willing, but we
are not fully able. We have the wish to serve and to serve
greatly, generously; but we are not prepared as we should
be. We are not ready to mobilize our resources at once.
We are not prepared to use them immediately and at their
best, without delay and without waste.
To speak plainly, we have grossly erred in the way in
which we have stunted and hindered the development of our
merchant marine. And now, when we need ships, we have
not got them. We have year after year debated, without
end or conclusion, the best policy to pursue with regard to
the use of the ores and forests and water powers of our
national domain in the rich States of the West, when we
should have acted; and they are still locked up. The key
is still turned upon them, the door shut fast at which
thousands of vigorous men, full of initiative, knock clam
orously for admittance. The water power of our navigable
streams outside the national domain also, even in the eastern
States, where we have worked and planned for generations,
is still not used as it might be, because we will and we won t;
58 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON
because the laws we have made do not intelligently balance
encouragement against restraint. We withhold by regu
lation.
I have come to ask you to remedy and correct these mis
takes and omissions, even at this short session of a Congress
which would certainly seem to have done all the work that
could reasonably be expected of it. The time and the cir
cumstances are extraordinary, and so must our efforts be
also.
Fortunately, two great measures, finely conceived, the
one to unlock, with proper safeguards, the resources of the
national domain, the other to encourage the use of the navi
gable waters outside that domain for the generation of power,
have already passed the House of Representatives and are
ready for immediate consideration and action by the Senate.
With the deepest earnestness I urge their prompt passage.
In them both we turn our backs upon hesitation and make
shift and formulate a genuine policy of use and conservation,
in the best sense of those words. We owe the one measure
not only to the people of that great western country for
whose free and systematic development, as it seems to me,
our legislation has done so little, but also to the people of
the Nation as a whole; and we as clearly owe the other in
fulfillment of our repeated promises that the water power
of the country should in fact as well as in name be put at the
disposal of great industries which can make economical and
profitable use of it, the rights of the public being adequately
guarded the while, and monopoly in the use prevented. To
have begun such measures and not completed them would
indeed mar the record of this great Congress very seriously.
I hope and confidently believe that they will be completed.
And there is another great piece of legislation which
awaits and should receive the sanction of the Senate: I mean
the bill which gives a larger measure of self-government to
the people of the Philippines. How better, in this time of
anxious questioning and perplexed policy, could we show our
confidence in the principles of liberty, as the source as well
as the expression of life, how better could we demonstrate our
self-possession and steadfastness in the courses of justice and
disinterestedness than by thus going calmly forward to fulfill
Dec. 8] FOREIGN TRADE AND SHIPBUILDING 59
our promises to a dependent people, who will now look more
anxiously than ever to see whether we have indeed the liber
ality, the unselfishness, the courage, the faith we have boasted
and professed. I can not believe that the Senate will let
this great measure of constructive justice await the action
of another Congress. Its passage would nobly crown the
record of these two years of memorable labor.
But I think that you will agree with me that this does not
complete the toll of our duty. How are we to carry our
goods to the empty markets of which I have spoken if we
have not the ships? How are we to build up a great trade
if we have not the certain and constant means of trans
portation upon which all profitable and useful commerce
depends? And how are we to get the ships if we wait for
the trade to develop without them? To correct the many
mistakes by which we have discouraged and all but de
stroyed the merchant marine of the country, to retrace the
steps by which we have, it seems almost deliberately, with
drawn our flag from the seas, except where, here and there, a
ship of war is bidden carry it or some wandering yacht
displays it, would take a long time and involve many de
tailed items of legislation, and the trade which we ought
immedately to handle would disappear or find other chan
nels while we debated .the items.
The case is not unlike that which confronted us when our
own continent was to be opened up to settlement and indus
try, and we needed long lines of railway, extended means of
transportation prepared beforehand, if development was not
to lag intolerably and wait interminably. We lavishly sub
sidized the building of transcontinental railroads. We look
back upon that with regret now, because the subsidies led to
many scandals of which we are ashamed; but we know that
the railroads had to be built, and if we had it to do over
again we should of course build them, but in another way.
Therefore I propose another way of providing the means of
transportation, which must precede, not tardily follow, the
development of our trade with our neighbor states of
America. It may seem a reversal of the natural order of
things, but it is true, that the routes of trade must be actually
opened by many ships and regular sailings and moderate
60 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1914
charges before streams of merchandise will flow freely and
profitably through them.
Hence the pending , shipping bill, discussed at the last
session but as yet passed by neither House. In my judg
ment such legislation is imperatively needed and can not
wisely be postponed. The Government must open these
gates of trade, and open them wide; open them before it is
altogether profitable to open them, or altogether reasonable
to ask private capital to open them at a venture. It is not
a question of the Government monopolizing the field. It
should take action to make it certain that transportation at
reasonable rates will be promptly provided, even where the
carriage is not at first profitable ; and then, when the carriage
has become sufficiently profitable to attract and engage pri
vate capital, and engage it in abundance, f he Government
ought to withdraw. I very earnestly hope that the Congress
will be of this opinion, and that both Houses will adopt this
exceedingly important bill. * * *
I would be negligent of a very manifest duty were I not
to call the attention of the Senate to the fact that the pro
posed convention for safety at sea awaits its confirmation
and that the limit fixed in the convention itself for its
acceptance is the last day of the present month. The con
ference in which this convention originated was called by the
United States; the representatives of the United States
played a very influential part indeed in framing the provi
sions of the proposed convention; and those provisions are
in themselves for the most part admirable. It would hardly
be consistent with the part we have played in the whole
matter to let it drop and go by the board as if forgotten and
neglected. It was ratified in May last by the German
Government and in August by the Parliament of Great
Britain. It marks a most hopeful and decided advance in
international civilization. We should show our earnest faith
in a great matter by adding our own acceptance of it. * * *
White House Pamphlet.
YEAR 1915
20. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
(January 8, 1915)
JACKSON DAY ADDRESS AT INDIANAPOLIS
You have given me a most royal welcome, for which I
thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is rather lonely
living in Washington. I have been confined for two years
at hard labor, and even now I feel that I am simply out on
parole. You notice that one of the most distinguished
Members of the United States Senate is here to see that I
go back. And yet, with sincere apologies to the Senate and
House of Representatives, I want to say that I draw more
inspiration from you than I do from them. They, like
myself, are only servants of the people of the United States.
Our sinews consist in your sympathy and support, and our
renewal comes from contact with you and with the strong
movements of public opinion in tne country.
That is the reason why I for one would prefer that our
thoughts should not too often cross the ocean, but should
center themselves upon the policies and duties of the United
States. If we think rightly of the United States, when the
time comes we shall know how this country can serve the
world. I will borrow a very interesting phrase from a dis
tinguished gentleman of my acquaintance and beg that you
will "keep your moral powder dry."
But I have come here on Jackson Day. If there are
Republicans present, I hope they will feel the compelling
influences of such a day. There was nothing mild about
Andrew Jackson; that is the reason I spoke of the "com
pelling influences" of the day. Andrew Jackson was a
61
62 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
forthright man who believed everything he did believe in
fighting earnest. And really, ladies and gentlemen, in public
life that is the only sort of man worth thinking about for a
moment. If I was not ready to fight for everything I believe
in, I would think it my duty to go back and take a back
seat. I like, therefore, to breathe the air of Jackson Day.
I like to be reminded of the old militant hosts of Democracy
which I believe have come to life again in our time. The
United States had almost forgotten that it must keep its
fighting ardor in behalf of mankind when Andrew Jackson
became President; and you will notice that whenever the
United States forgets its ardor for mankind it is necessary
that a Democrat should be elected President.
The trouble with the Republican Party is that it has not
had a new idea for thirty years. I am not speaking as a
politician; I am speaking as an historian. I have looked for
new ideas in the records and I have not found any proceed
ing from the Republican ranks. They have had leaders from
time to time who suggested new ideas, but they never did
anything to carry them out. I suppose there was no harm
in their talking, provided they could not do anything. There
fore, when it was necessary to say that we had talked about
things long enough which it was necessary to do, and the
time had come to do them, it was indispensable that a
Democrat should be elected President.
I would not speak with disrespect of the Republican
Party. I always speak with great respect of the past. The
past was necessary to the present, and was a sure prediction
of the future. The Republican Party is still a covert and
refuge for those who are afraid, for those who want to con
sult their grandfathers about everything. You will notice
that most of the advice taken by the Republican Party is
taken from gentlemen old enough to be grandfathers, and
that when they claim that a reaction has taken place, they
react to the reelection of the oldest members of their party.
They will not trust the youngsters. They are fraid the young
sters may have something up their sleeve.
You will see, therefore, that I have come to you in the
spirit of Jackson Day. I got very tired staying in Washing
ton and saying sweet things. I wanted to come out and get
Jan. 8] THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 63
contact with you once more and say what I really thought.
My friends, what I particularly want you to observe is
this, that politics in this country does not depend any longer
upon the regular members of either party. There are not
enough regular Republicans in this country to take and hold
national power; and I must immediately add there are not
enough regular Democrats in this country to do it, either.
This country is guided and its policy is determined by the
independent voter; and I have come to ask you how we can
best prove to the independent voter that the instrument
he needs is the Democratic Party, and that it would be
hopeless for him to attempt to use the Republican Party. I
do not have to prove it; I admit it.
What seems to me perfectly evident is this: That if you
made a rough reckoning, you would have to admit that only
about one- third of the Republican Party is progressive; and
you would also have to admit that about two-thirds of the
Democratic Party is progressive. Therefore, the independent
progressive voter finds a great deal more company in the
Democratic ranks than in the Republican ranks. I say a
great deal more, because there are Democrats who are sitting
on the breeching strap: there are Democrats who are holding
back; there are Democrats who are nervous. I dare say
they were born with that temperament. And I respect the
conservative temper. I claim to be an animated conservative
myself, because being a conservative I understand to mean
being a man not only who preserves what is best in the
Nation but who sees that in order to preserve it you dare
not stand still but must move forward. The virtue of
America is not statical; it is dynamic. All the forces of
America are forces in action or else they are forces of inertia.
What I want to point out to you and I believe that this
is what the whole country is beginning to perceive is this,
that there is a larger body of men in the regular ranks of
the Democratic Party who believe in the progressive policies
of our day and mean to see them carried forward and per
petuated than there is in. the ranks of the Republican
Party. How can it be otherwise, gentlemen? The Demo
cratic Party, and the only Democratic Party, has carried out
the policies which the progressive people of this country have
64 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
desired. There is not a single great act of this present great
Congress which has not been carried out in obedience to the
public opinion of America; and the public opinion of America
is not going to permit any body of men to go backward with
regard to these great matters. * * *
But the Democratic Party is not to suppose that it is done
with the business. The Democratic Party is still on trial.
The Democratic Party still has to prove to the independent
voters of the country not only that it believes in these things,
but that it will continue to work along these lines and that
it will not allow any enemy of these things to break its
ranks. This country is not going to use any party that can
not do continuous and consistent teamwork. If any group
of men should dare to break the solidarity of the Democratic
team for any purpose or from any motive, theirs will be a
most unenviable notoriety and a responsibility which will
bring deep bitterness to them. The only party that is ser
viceable to a nation is a party that can hold absolutely to
gether and march with the discipline and with the zest of a
conquering host.
I am not saying these things because I doubt that the
Democratic Party will be able to do this, but because I
believe that as leader for the time being of that party I can
promise the country that it will do these things. I know my
colleagues at Washington; I know their spirit and their pur
pose; and I know that they have the same emotion, the same
high emotion of public service, that I hope I have. * * *
There is one thing I have got a great enthusiasm about,
I might almost say a reckless enthusiasm, and that is human
liberty. The Governor has just now spoken about watchful
waiting in Mexico. I want to say a word about Mexico, or
not so much about Mexico as about our attitude towards
Mexico. I hold it as a fundamental principle, and so do
you, that every people has the right to determine its own
form of government; and until this recent revolution in
Mexico, until the end of the Diaz reign, eighty per cent of
the people of Mexico never had- a "look in" in determining
who should be their governors or what their government
should be. Now, I am for the eighty per cent! It is none of
my business, and it is none of your business, how long they
Jan. 8] THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 65
take in determining it. It is none of my business, and it is
none of yours, how they go about the business. The country
is theirs. The Government is theirs. The liberty, if they
can get it, and Godspeed them in getting it, is theirs. And
so far as my influence goes while I am President nobody
shall interfere with them.
That is what I mean by a great emotion, the great emotion
of sympathy. Do you suppose that the American people
are ever going to count a small amount of material benefit
and advantage to people doing business in Mexico against
the liberties and the permanent happiness of the Mexican
people? Have not European nations taken as long as they
wanted and spilt as much blood as they pleased in settling
their affairs, and shall we deny that to Mexico because she
is weak? No, I say! I am proud to belong to a strong
nation that says, "This country which we could crush shall
have just as much freedom in her own affairs as we have."
If I am strong, I am ashamed to bully the weak. In pro
portion to my strength is my pride in withholding that
strength from the oppression of another people. And I
know when I speak these things, not merely from the gen
erous response with which they have just met from you, but
from .my long-time knowledge of the American people, that
that is the sentiment of this great people. With all due
respect to editors of great newspapers, I have to say to them
that I seldom take my opinion of the American people from
their editorials. When some great dailies not very far from
where I am temporarily residing thundered with rising scorn
at watchful waiting, my confidence was not for a moment
shaken. I knew what were the temper and principles of the
American people. If I did not at least think I knew, I would
emigrate, because I would not be satisfied to stay where I
am. There may come a time when the American people
will have to judge whether I know what I am talking about
or not, but at least for two years more I am free to think
that I do, with a great comfort in immunity in the time
being.
^ It is, by the way, a very comforting thought that the next
Congress of the United States is going to be very safely
Democratic and that, therefore, we can all together feel as
.
66 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
much confidence as Jackson did that we know what we are
about. You know Jackson used to think that everybody who
disagreed with him was an enemy of the country. I have
never got quite that far in my thought, but I have ventured
to think that they did not know what they were talking
about, knowing that my fellow Democrats expected me to
live up to the full stature of Jacksonian Democracy.
I feel, my friends, in a very confident mood to-day. I feel
confident that we do know the spirit of the American people,
that we do know the program of betterment which it will
be necessary for us to undertake, that we do have a very
reasonable confidence in the support of the American people.
I have been talking with business men recently about the
present state of mind of American business. There is nothing
the matter with American business except a state of mind.
I understand that your chamber of commerce here in Indian
apolis is working now upon the motto "If you are going to
buy it, buy it now." That is a perfectly safe maxim to
act on. It is just as safe to buy it now as it ever will be,
and if you start the buying there will be no end to it, and
you will be a seller as well as a buyer. I am just as sure of
that as I can be, because I have taken counsel with the men
who know. I never was in business and, therefore, I have
none of the prejudices of business. I have looked on and
tried to see what the interests of the country were in busi
ness; I have taken counsel with men who did know, and
their counsel is uniform, that all that is needed in America
now is to believe in the future; and I can assure you as one
of those who speak for the Democratic Party that it is
perfectly safe to believe in the future. We are so much
the friends of business that we were for a little time the
enemies of those who were trying to control business. I say
"for a little time" because we are now reconciled to them.
They have graciously admitted that we had a right to do
what we did do, and they have very handsomely said that
they were going to play the game.
I believe I always have believed that American business
men were absolutely sound at heart, but men immersed in
business do a lot of things that opportunity offers which in
other circumstances they would not do; and I have thought
Jan. 8] THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 67
all along that all that was necessary to do was to call their
attention sharply to the kind of reforms in business which
were needed and that they would acquiesce. Why, I believe
they have heartily acquiesced. There is all the more reason,
therefore, that, great and small, we should be confident in the
future.
And what a future it is, my friends! Look abroad upon
the troubled world! Only America at peace! Among all
the great powers of the world only America saving her power
for her own people! Only America using her great character
and her great strength in the interests of peace and of pros
perity! Do you not think it likely that the world will some
time turn to America and say, "You were right and we were
wrong. You kept your head when we lost ours. You tried
to keep the scale from tipping, and we threw the whole
weight of arms in one side of the scale. Now, in your self-
possession, in your coolness, in your strength, may we not
turn to you for counsel and for assistance?" Think of the
deep-wrought destruction of economic resources, of life, and
of hope that is taking place in some parts of the world, and
think of the reservoir of hope, the reservoir of energy, the
reservoir of sustenance that there is in this great land of
plenty! May we not look forward to the time when we
shall be called blessed among the nations, because we suc
cored the nations of the world in their time of distress and
of dismay? I for one pray God that that solemn hour may
come, and I know the solidity of character and I know the
exaltation of hope, I know the big principle with which the
American people will respond to the call of the world for
this service. I thank God that those who believe in America,
who try to serve her people, are likely to be also what
America herself from the first hoped and meant to be the
servant of mankind. White House Pamphlet.
21. PROPER TESTS OF IMMIGRANTS
(January 28, 1915)
VETO MESSAGE OF THE LITERACY TEST BILL
It is with unaffected regret that I find myself constrained
by clear conviction to return this bill (H. R. 6060, "An act
68 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
to regulate the immigration of aliens to and the residence of
aliens in the United States") without my signature. Not
only do I feel it to be a very serious matter to exercise the
power of veto in any case, because it involves opposing the
single judgment of the President to the judgment of a ma
jority of both the Houses of the Congress, a step which no
man who realizes his own liability to error can take without
great hesitation, but also because this particular bill is in so
many important respects admirable, well conceived, and
desirable. Its enactment into law would undoubtedly en
hance the efficiency and improve the methods of handling
the important branch of the public service to which it relates.
But candor and a sense of duty with regard to the responsi
bility so clearly imposed upon me by the Constitution in
matters of legislation leave me no choice but to dissent.
In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies
a radical departure from the traditional and long-established
policy of this country, a policy in which our people have
conceived the very character of their Government to be ex
pressed, the very mission and spirit of the Nation in respect
of its relations to the peoples of the world outside their bor
ders. It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of asylum
which have always been open to those who could find no
where else the right and opportunity of constitutional agita
tion for what they conceived to be the natural and inalienable
rights of men; and it excludes those to whom the oppor
tunities of elementary education have been denied, without
regard to their character, their purposes, or their natural
capacity.
Restrictions like these, adopted earlier in our history as a
Nation, would very materially have altered the course and
cooled the humane ardors of our politics. The right of po
litical asylum has brought to this country many a man of
noble character and elevated purpose who was marked as an
outlaw in his own less fortunate land, and who has yet
become an ornament to our citizenship and to our public
councils. The children and the compatriots of these illus
trious Americans rm;st stand amazed to see the representa
tives of their Nation now resolved, in the fullness of our
national strength and at the maturity of our great institu-
Jan. 28] THE PROPER TEST OF IMMIGRANTS 69
tions, to risk turning such men back from our shores without
test of quality or purpose. It is difficult for me to believe
that the full effect of this feature of the bill was realized
when it was framed and adopted, and it is impossible for me
to assent to it in the form in which it is here cast.
The literacy test and the tests and restrictions which ac
company it constitute an even more radical change in the
policy of the Nation. Hitherto we have generously kept our
doors open to all who were not unfitted by reason of disease
or incapacity for self-support or such personal records and
antecedents as were likely to make them a menace to our
peace and order or to the wholesome and essential relation
ships of life. In this bill it is proposed to turn away from
tests of character and of quality and impose tests which
exclude and restrict; for the new tests here embodied are not
tests of quality or of character or of personal fitness, but
tests of opportunity. Those who come seeking opportunity
are not to be admitted unless they have already had one of
the chief of the opportunities they seek, the opportunity of
education. The object of such provisions is restriction, not
selection.
If the people of this country have made up their minds to
limit the number of immigrants by arbitrary tests and so
reverse the policy of all the generations of Americans that
have gone before them, it is their right to do so. I am their
servant and have no license to stand in their way. But I do
not believe that they have. I respectfully submit that no
one can quote their mandate to that effect. Has any political
party ever avowed a policy of restriction in this fundamental
matter, gone to the country on it, and been commissioned to
control its legislation? Does this bill rest upon the conscious
and universal assent and desire of the American people?
I doubt it. It is because I doubt it that I make bold to
dissent from it. I am willing to abide by the verdict, but
not until it has been rendered. Let the platforms of parties
speak out upon this policy and the people pronounce their
wish. The matter is too fundamental to be settled otherwise.
I have no pride of opinion in this question. I am not
foolish enough to profess to know the wishes and ideals of
America better than the body of her chosen representatives
70 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
know them. I only want instruction direct from those whose
fortunes, with ours and all men s, are involved.*
White House Pamphlet.
22. NATIONAL COMMERCE
(February 3, 1915)
ADDRESS TO THE UNITED STATES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,
AT WASHINGTON
I feel that it is hardly fair to you for me to come in in
this casual fashion among a body of men who have been
seriously discussing great questions, and it is hardly fair to
me, because I come in cold, not having had the advantage of
sharing the atmosphere of your deliberations and catching
the feeling of your conference. Moreover, I hardly know
just how to express my interest in the things you are under
taking. When a man stands outside an organization and
speaks to it he is too apt to have the tone of outside com
mendation, as who should say, "I would desire to pat you
on the back and say Good boys; you are doing well! I
would a great deal rather have you receive me as if for the
time being I were one of your own number.
Because the longer I occupy the office that I now occupy
the more I regret any lines of separation ; the more I deplore
any feeling that one set of men has one set of interests and
another set of men another set of interests; the more I feel
the solidarity of the Nation the impossibility of separating
one interest from another without misconceiving it; the
necessity that we should all understand one another, in order
that we may understand ourselves.
There is an illustration which I have used a great many
times. I will use it again, because it is the most serviceable
to my own mind. We often speak of a man who cannot find
his way in some jungle or some desert as having "lost him
self." Did you never reflect that that is the only thing he
has not lost? He is there. He has lost the rest of the world.
Feb. 3] NATIONAL COMMERCE 71
He has no fixed point by which to steer. He does not know
which is north, which is south, which is east, which is west;
and if he did know, he is so confused that he would not know
in which oi those directions his goal lay Therefore, follow
ing his heart, he walks in a great circle from right to left and
comes back to where he started to himself again. To my
mind that is a picture of the world. If you have lost sight
of other interests and do not know the relation of your own
interests to those other interests, then you do not understand
your own interests, and have lost yourself. What you want
is orientation, relationship to the points of the compass; icla-
tionship to the other people in the world, vital connections
which you have for the time being severed
I am particularly glad to express my admiration for the
kind of organization which you have drawn together. I have
attended banquets of chambers of commerce in various
parts of the country and have got the impression at each
of those banquets that there was only one city in the country.
It has seemed to me that those associations were meant in
order to destroy men s perspective, in order to destroy their
sen^e of relative proportions. Worst of all, if I may be
permitted to say so, they were intended to boost something
ir particular. Boosting is a very unhandsome thing. Ad
vancing enterprise is a very handsome thing, but to exag
gerate local merits in order to create disproportion in the
general development is not a particularly handsome thing
or a particularly intelligent thing. A city cannot grow on
the face of a great state like a mushroom on that one spot.
Its roots are throughout the state, and unless the state it is
in, or the region it draws from, can itself thrive and pulse
with life as a whole, the city can have no healthy growth.
You forget the wide rootages of everything when you boost
some particular region. There are dangers which probably
you all understand in the mere practice of advertisement.
When a man begins to advertise himself there are certain
points that are somewhat exaggerated, and I have noticed
that men who exaggerate most, most quickly lose any proper
conception of what their own proportions are. Therefore,
these local centers of enthusiasm may be local centers of
mistake if they are not very wisely guided and if they do
72 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
not themselves realize their relations to the other centers of
enthusiasm and of advancement.
The advantage about a Chamber of Commerce of the
United States is that there is only one way to boost the
United States, and that is by seeing to it that the conditions
under which business is done throughout the whole country
are the best possible conditions. There cannot be any dis
proportion about that. If you draw your sap and your
vitality from all quarters, then the more sap and vitality
there is in you the more there is in the commonwealth as a
whole, and every time you lift at all you lift the whole level
of manufacturing and mercantile enterprise. Moreover, the
advantage of it is that you cannot boost the United States
in that way without understanding the United States. You
learn a great deal. I agreed with a colleague of mine in
the Cabinet the other day that we had never attended in
our lives before a school to compare with that we were
now attending for the purpose of gaining a liberal educa
tion.
Of course, I learn a great many things that are not so,
but the interesting thing about that is this: Things that
are not so do not match. If you hear enough of them, you
see there is no pattern whatever; it is a crazy quilt.
Whereas, the truth always matches, piece by piece, with
other parts of the truth. No man can lie consistently, and
he cannot lie about everything if he talks to you long. I
would guarantee that if enough liars talked to you, you
would get the truth; because the parts that they did not
invent would match one another, and the parts that they did
invent would vot match one another. Talk long enough,
therefore, and see the connections clearly enough, and you
can patch together a case as a whole. I had somewhat that
experience about Mexico, and that was about the only way
in which I learned anything that was true about it. For
there has been vivid imaginations and many special interests
which depicted things as they wished me to believe them
to be.
Seriously, the task of this body is to match all the facts
of business throughout the country and to see the vast and
consistent pattern of it. That is the reason I think you are
Feb. 3] NATIONAL COMMERCE 73
to be congratulated upon the fact that you can not do this
thing without common counsel. There isn t any man who
knows enough to comprehend the United States. It is a co
operative effort, necessarily. You can not perform the func
tions of this Chamber of Commerce without drawing in not
only a vast number of men, but men, and a number of men,
from every region and section of the country. The minute
this association falls into the hands, if it ever should, of men
from a single section or men with a single set of interests
most at heart, it will go to seed and die. Its strength must
come from the uttermost parts of the land and must be
compounded of brains and comprehensions of every sort. It
is a very noble and handsome picture for the imagination,
and I have asked myself before I came here to-day, what
relation you could bear to the Government of the United
States and what relation the Government could bear to
you?
There are two aspects and activities of the Government
with which you will naturally come into most direct contact.
The first is the Government s power of inquiry, systematic
and disinterested inquiry, and its power of scientific assist
ance. You get an illustration of the latter, for example, in
the Department of Agriculture. Has it occurred to you, I
wonder, that we are just upon the eve of a time when our
Department of Agriculture will be of infinite importance to
the whole world? There is a shortage of food in the world
now. That shortage will be much more serious a few months
from now than it is now. It is necessary that we should
plant a great deal more ; it is necessary that our lands should
yield more per acre than they do now; it is necessary that
there should not be a plow or a spade idle in this country
if the world is to be fed. And the methods of our farmers
must feed upon the scientific information to be derived from
the State departments of agriculture, and from that taproot
of all, the United States Department of Agriculture. The
object and use of that Department is to inform men of the
latest developments and disclosures of science with regard
to all the processes by which soils can be put to their proper
use and their fertility made the greatest possible. Similarly
with the Bureau of Standards. It is ready to supply those
74 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
things by which you can set norms, you can set bases, for
all the scientific processes of business.
I have a great admiration for the scientific parts of the
Government of the United States, and it has amazed me
that so few men have discovered them. Here in these de
partments are quiet men, trained to the highest degree of
skill, serving for a petty remuneration along lines that are
infinitely useful to mankind; and yet in some cases they
waited to be discovered until this Chamber of Commerce
of the United States was established. Coming to this city,
officers of that association found that there were here things
that were infinitely useful to them and with which the whole
United States ought to be put into communication.
The Government of the United States is very properly
a great instrumentality of inquiry and information. One
thing we are just beginning to do that we ought to have
done long ago : We ought long ago to have had our Bureau
of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. We ought long ago
to have sent the best eyes of the Government out into the
world to see where the opportunities and openings of Ameri
can commerce and American genius were to be found men
who were not sent out as the commercial agents of any
particular set of business men in the United States, but who
were eyes for the whole business community. I have been
reading consular reports for twenty years. In what I came
to regard as an evil day the Congressman from my district
began to send me the consular reports, and they ate up more
and more of my time. They are very interesting, but they
are a good deal like what the old lady said of the dictionary,
that it was very interesting but a little disconnected. You
get a picture of the world as if a spotlight were being dotted
about over the surface of it. Here you see a glimpse of this,
and here you see a glimpse of that, and through the medium
of some consuls you do not see anything at all; because
the consul has to have eyes and the consul has to know
what he is looking for. A literary friend of mine said that
he used to believe in the maxim that " every thing comes to
the man who waits," but he discovered after awhile by
practical experience that it needed an additional clause,
"provided he knows what he is waiting for." Unless you
Feb. 3] NATIONAL COMMERCE 75
know what you are looking for and have trained eyes to see
it when it comes your way, it may pass you unnoticed. We
are just beginning to do, systematically and scientifically,
what we ought long ago to have done, to employ the Govern
ment of the United States to survey the world in order that
American commerce might be guided.
But there are other ways of using the Government of the
United States, ways that have long been tried, though not
always with conspicuous success or fortunate results. You
can use the Government of the United States by influencing
its legislation. That has been a very active industry, but
it has not always been managed in the interest of the whole
people. It is very instructive and useful for the Govern
ment of the United States to have such means as you are
ready to supply for getting a sort of consensus of opinion
which proceeds from no particular quarter and originates
with no particular interest. Information is the very founda
tion of all right action in legislation. * * *
The trouble has been that when they [the men on the in
side of business] came in the past for I think the thing is
changing very rapidly they came with all their bristles out;
they came on the defensive; they came to see, not what they
could accomplish, but what they could prevent. They did not
come to guide ; they came to block. That is of no use what
ever to the general body politic. What has got to pervade
us like a great motive power is that we cannot, and must
not, separate our interests from one another, but must pool
our interests. A man who is trying to fight for his single
hand is fighting against the community and not fighting with
it. There are a great many dreadful things about war, as
nobody needs to be told in this day of distress and of terror,
but 4here is one thing about war which has a very splendid
side, and that is the consciousness that a whole nation gets
that they must all act as a unit for a common end. And
when peace is as handsome as war there will be no war.
When men, I mean, engage in the pursuits of peace in the
same spirit of self-sacrifice and of conscious service of the
community with which, at any rate, the common soldier
engages in war, then shall there be wars no more. You
have moved the vanguard for the United States in the pur-
76 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
Feb. 3] NATIONAL COMMERCE 77
sel with one another, prejudices will drop away, handsome
understandings will arise, a universal spirit of service will be
engendered, and that with this increased sense of community
of purpose will come a vastly enhanced individual power of
achievement; for we will be lifted by the whole mass of
which we constitute a .part.
Have you never heard a great chorus of trained voices
lift the voice of the prima donna as if it soared with easy
grace above the whole melodious sound? It does not seem
to come from the single throat that produces it. It seems
as if it were the perfect accent and crown of the great chorus.
So it ought to be with the statesman. So it ought to be with
every man who tries to guide the counsels of a great nation.
He should feel that his voice is lifted upon the chorus and
that it is only the crown of the common theme.
Issued by the Chamber of Commerce.
23. A CONFUSED WORLD AT WAR
(April 8, 1915)
ADDRESS TO THE CONFERENCE OF METHODIST PROTESTANT
CHURCH AT WASHINGTON
* * * These are days of very great perplexity, when a
great cloud of trouble hangs and broods over the greater part
of the world. It seems as if great, blind material forces had
been released which had for long been held in leash and
restraint. And yet, underneath that you can see the strong
impulses of great ideals.
It would be impossible for men to go through what men
are going through on the battlefields of Europe to go
through the present dark night of their terrible struggle if
it were not that they saw, or thought that they saw, the
broadening of light where the morning sun should come up,
and believed that they were standing, each on his side of the
contest, for some eternal principle for right.
Then, an" about them, all about us, there sits the silent,
78 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
waiting tribunal which is going to utter the ultimate judg
ment upon this struggle, tie great tribunal of the opinion
of the world, and I fancy I see, I hope that I see, I pray
that it may be that I do truly see great spiritual forces lying
waiting for the outcome of this tiling to assert themselves,
and asserting themselves even now, to enlighten our judg
ment and steady our spirits. No man is wise enough to
pronounce judgment, but we can all hold our spirits in readi
ness to accept the truth when it dawns on us and is revealed
to us in the outcome of this titanic struggle.
You will see that it is only in such general terms that one
can speak in the midst of a confused world, because, as I
have already said, no man has the key to this confusion.
No man can see the outcome, but every man can keep his
own spirit prepared to contribute to the net result when the
outcome displays itself. * * *
New York Times, April 9, 1915.
24. AMERICA FIRST
(April 20, 1915)
ADDRESS AT A MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AT
NEW YORK
I am deeply gratified by the generous reception you have
accorded me. It makes me look back with a touch of regret
to former occasions when I have stood in this place and
enjoyed a greater liberty than is granted me to-day. There
have been times when I stood in this spot and said what I
really thought, and I can not help praying that those days
of indulgence may be accorded me again. I have come here
to-day, of course, somewhat restrained by a sense of respon
sibility which I cannot escape. For I take the Associated
Press very seriously. I know the enormous part that you
play in the affairs not only of this country but of the world.
You deal in the raw material of opinion and, if my convic
tions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.
It is, therefore, of very serious things that I think as I
Apr. 20] AMERICA FIRST 79
face this body of men. I do not think of you, however, as
members of the Associated Press. I do not think of you
as men of different parties or of different racial derivations
or of different religious denominations. I want to talk to
you as to my fellow citizens of the United States, for there
are serious things which as fellow citizens we ought to con
sider. The times behind us, gentlemen, have been difficult
enough; the times before us are likely to be more difficult
still, because, whatever may be said about the present con
dition of the world s affairs, it is clear that they are drawing
rapidly to a climax, and at the climax the test will come, not
only for the nations engaged in the present colossal struggle
it will come to them, of course but the test will come for
us particularly.
Do you realize that, roughly speaking, we are the only
great Nation at present disengaged? I am not speaking,
of course, with disparagement of the greatness of those
nations in Europe which are not parties to the present war,
but I am thinking of their close neighborhood to it. I am
thinking how their lives much more than ours touch the
very heart and stuff of the business, whereas we have rolling
between us and those bitter days across the water 3,000
miles of cool and silent ocean. Our atmosphere is not yet
charged with those disturbing elements which must permeate
every nation of Europe. Therefore, is it not likely that
the nations of the world will some day turn to us for the
cooler assessment of the elements engaged? I am not now
thinking so preposterous a thought as that we should sit in
judgment upon them no nation is fit to sit in judgment
upon any other nation but that we shall some day have
to assist in reconstructing the processes of peace. Our re
sources are untouched; we are more and more becoming by
the force of circumstances the mediating Nation of the world
in respect of its finance. We must make up our minds what
are the best things to do and what are the best ways to do
them. We must put our money, our energy, our enthusiasm,
our sympathy into these things, and we must have our judg
ments prepared and our spirits chastened against the coming
of that day.
So that I am not speaking in a selfish spirit when I say
8o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
Apr. 20] AMERICA FIRST 81
direction? That is not true of the United States. The
United States has no racial momentum. It has no history
back of it which makes it run all its energies and all its
ambitions in one particular direction. And America is par
ticularly free in this, that she has no hampering ambitions
as a world power. We do not want a foot of anybody s
territory. If we have been obliged by circumstances, or
have considered ourselves to be obliged by circumstances, in
the past, to take territory which we otherwise would not
have thought of taking, I believe I am right in saying that
we have considered it our duty to administer that territory,
not for ourselves but for the people living in it, and to put
this burden upon our consciences not to think that this
thing is ours for our use, but to regard ourselves as trustees
of the great business for those to whom it does really belong,
trustees ready to hand it over to the cestui que trust at any
time when the business seems to make that possible and
feasible. That is what I mean by saying we have no ham
pering ambitions. We do not want anything that does not
belong to us. Is not a nation in that position free to serve
other nations, and is not a nation like that ready to form
some part of the assessing opinion of the world?
My interest in the neutrality of the United States is not
the petty desire to keep out of trouble. To judge by my
experience, I have never been able to keep out of trouble. I
have never looked for it, but I have always found it. I do
not want to walk around trouble. If any man wants a scrap
that is an interesting scrap and worth while, I am his man.
I warn him that he is not going to draw me into the scrap
for his advertisement, but if he is looking for trouble that
is the trouble of men in general and I can help a little, why,
then, I am in for it. But I am interested in neutrality be
cause there is something so much greater to do than fight;
there is a distinction waiting for this Nation that no nation
has ever yet got. That is the distinction of absolute self-
control and self-mastery. Whom do you admire most among
your friends? The irritable man? The man out of whom
you can get a "rise" without trying? The man who will
fight at the drop of the hat, whether he knows what the hat
is dropped for or not? Don t you admire and don t you
82 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
fear, if you have to contest with him, the self-mastered man
who watches you with calm eye and comes in only when you
have carried the thing so far that you must be disposed of?
That is the man you respect. That is the man who, you
know, has at bottom a much more fundamental and ter
rible courage than the irritable, fighting man. Now, I covet
for America this splendid courage of reserve moral force,
and I wanted to point out to you gentlemen simply this:
There is news and news. There is what is called news
from Turtle Bay that turns out to be falsehood, at any,
rate in what it is said to signify, but which, if you could
get the Nation to believe it true, might disturb our equi
librium and our self-possession. We ought not to deal in
stuff of that kind. We ought not to permit that sort of
thing to use up the electrical energy of the wires, because
its energy is malign, its energy is not of the truth, its energy
is of mischief. It is possible to sift truth. I have known
some things to go out on the wires as true when there was
only one man or one group of men who could have told the
originators of that report whether it was true or not, and they
were not asked whether it was true or not for fear it might
not be true. That sort of report ought not to go out over
the wires. There is generally, if not always, somebody who
knows whether the thing is so or not, and in these days,
above all other days, we ought to take particular pains to
resort to the one small group of men, or to the one man if
there be but one, who knows whether those things are true
or not. The world ought to know the truth; the world
ought not at this period of unstable equilibrium to be dis
turbed by rumor, ought not to be disturbed by imaginative
combinations of circumstances, or, rather, by circumstances
stated in combination which do not belong in combination.
You gentlemen, and gentlemen engaged like you, are holding
the balances in your hand. This unstable equilibrium rests
upon scales that are in your hands. For the food of opinion,
as I began by saying, is the news of the day. I have
known many a man to go off at a tangent on information
that was not reliable. Indeed, that describes the majority of
men. The world is held stable by the man who waits for the
next day to find out whether the report was true or not.
Apr 2oj AMERICA FIRST 83
We cannot afford, therefore, to let the rumors of irre
sponsible persons and origins get into the atmosphere of
ihr United States We are trustees for what I venture to
say is the greatest heritage -that any nation ever had, the
love of justice and righteousness and human liberty. For,
fundamentally, those are the things to which America is
addicted and to which she is devoted. There are groups of
selfish men in the United States, there are coteries, where
sinister things are purposed, but the great heart of the
American people is just as sound and true as it ever was.
And it is a single heart; it is the heart of America. It
is not a heart made up of sections selected out of other
countries.
What I try to remind myself of every day when I am
almost overcome by perplexities, what I try to remember,
is what the people at home are thinking about. I try to put
myself in the place of the man who does not know all the
things that I know and ask myself what he would like the
policy of this country to be. Not the talkative man, not
the partisan man, not the man who remembers first that
i<e is a Republican or a Democrat, or that his parents were
German or English, but the man who remembers first that
the whole destiny of modern affairs centers largely upon his
being an American first of all. If I permitted myself to be a
partisan in this present struggle, I would be unworthy to
represent you. If I permitted myself to forget the people
who are not partisans, I would be unworthy to be your
spokesman. I am not sure that I am worthy to represent
you, but I do claim this degree of worthiness that before
everything else I love America.
White House Pamphlet.
25. THE LAWS OF NEUTRALITY
(April 21, 1915)
DESPATCH SENT THROUGH SECRETARY BRYAN TO GERMANY
* * * In the first place, this Government has at no time
and in no manner yielded any one of its rights as a neutral
84 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
to any of the present belligerents. It has acknowledged, as
a matter of course, the right of visit and search and the
right to apply the rules of contraband of war to articles of
commerce. It has, indeed, insisted upon the use of visit and
search as an absolutely necessary safeguard against mistak
ing neutral vessels for vessels owned by an enemy and
against mistaking legal cargoes for illegal. It has admitted
also the right of blockade if actually exercised and effectively
maintained. These are merely the well-known limitations
which war places upon neutral commerce on the high seas.
But nothing beyond these has it conceded. I call Your
Excellency s attention to this, notwithstanding it is already
known to all the world as a consequence of the publication
of our correspondence in regard to these matters with sev
eral of the belligerent nations, because I can not assume
that you have official cognizance of it.
In the second place, this Government attempted to se
cure from the German and British Governments mutual
concessions with regard to the measures those Governments
respectively adopted for the interruption of trade on the
high seas. This it did, not of right, but merely as exer
cising the privileges of a sincere friend of both parties and
as indicating its impartial good will. The attempt was un
successful; but I regret that Your Excellency did not deem
it worthy of mention in modification of the impressions
you expressed. We had hoped that this act on our part had
shown our spirit in these times of distressing war as our
diplomatic correspondence had shown our steadfast refusal
to acknowledge the right of any belligerent to alter the
accepted rules of war at sea in so far as they affect the rights
and interests of neutrals.
. In the third place, I note with sincere regret that, in dis
cussing the sale and exportation of arms by citizens of the
United States to the enemies of Germany, Your Excellency
seems to be under the impression that it was within the
choice of the Government of the United States, notwith
standing its professed neutrality and its diligent efforts to
maintain it in other particulars, to inhibit this trade, and
that its failure to do so manifested an unfar attitude toward
Germany. This Government holds, as I believe Your Ex-
Apr. 21] THE LAWS OF NEUTRALITY 85
cellency is aware, and as it is constrained to hold in view of
the present indisputable doctrines of accepted international
law, that any change in its own laws of neutrality during
the progress of a war which would affect unequally the
relations of the United States with the nations at war would
be an unjustifiable departure from the principle of strict
neutrality by which it has consistently sought to direct its
actions, and I respectfully submit that none of the circum
stances urged in Your Excellency s memorandum alters the
principle involved. The placing of an embargo on the trade*
in arms at the present time would constitute such a change
and be a direct violation of the neutrality of the United
States. It will, I feel assured, be clear to Your Excellency
that, holding this view and considering itself in honor bound
by it, it is out of the question for this Government to con
sider such a course. * * *
Department of State, White Book, No. I, 74.
26. CITIZENS OF FOREIGN BIRTH
(May 10, 1915)
ADDRESS TO NATURALIZED CITIZENS AT CONVENTION HALL,
PHILADELPHIA
It warms my heart that you should give me such a recep
tion; but it is not of myself that I wish to think to-night,
but of those who have just become citizens of the United
States.
This is the only country in the world which experiences
this constant and repeated rebirth. Other countries depend
upon the multiplication of their own native people. This
country is constantly drinking strength out of new sources
by the voluntary association 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 constantly 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
86 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
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 allegiance to no one,
unless it be God certainly not of allegiance to those who
temporarily represent this great 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 every
where 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 utterance 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 seeking to perpetuate what
you intended to leave behind in them. I certainly would not
be one even to suggest 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
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 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. Humanity can be welded to-
May 10] CITIZENS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 87
gether only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by jeal
ousy 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 an
cestors, 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 thinking
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 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 beforehand. But remember
this: If we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you 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 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 enterprise.
Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more
88 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are
enriching us if you came expecting us to be better than
we are.
See, my friends, what that means. It means that Ameri
cans must have a consciousness different from the conscious
ness 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 careful and is less interested in
the neighbors than it is in its own members. So a nation
that is not constantly 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 exam
ple. 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 every
where; 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 com
mittee that accompanied him to come up from Washington
to meet this great company of newly admitted citizens, I
could not decline the invitation. I ought not to be away
from Washington, and yet I feel 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-
May 10] CITIZENS OF FOREIGN BIRTH 89
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 feeling 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.
White House Pamphlet.
27. SINKING OF THE "LUSITANIA"
(May 13, 1915)
DESPATCH OF PROTEST THROUGH SECRETARY BRYAN TO
GERMANY
* * * Recalling the humane and enlightened attitude
hitherto assumed by the Imperial German Government in
matters of international right, and particularly with regard
to the freedom of the seas; having learned to recognize the
German views and the German influence in the field of
international obligation as always engaged upon the side of
justice and humanity; and having understood the instruc
tions of the Imperial German Government to its naval com
manders to be upon the same plane of humane action pre
scribed by the naval codes of other nations, the Government
of the United States was loath to believe it can not now
bring itself to believe that these acts, so absolutely con
trary to the rules, the practices, and the spirit of modern
warfare, could have the countenance or sanction of that
great Government. It feels it to be its duty, therefore, to
address the Imperial German Government concerning them
with the utmost frankness and in the earnest hope that it is
not mistaken in expecting action on the part of the Imperial
German Government which will correct the unfortunate
impressions which have been created and vindicate once
more the position of that Government with regard to the
sacred freedom of the seas.
The Government of the United States has been apprised
that the Imperial German Government considered themselves
to be obliged by the extraordinary circumstances of the
90 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
present war and the measures adopted by their adversaries
in seeking to cut Germany off from all commerce, to adopt
methods of retaliation which go much beyond the ordinary
methods of warfare at sea, in the proclamation of a war
zone from which they have warned neutral ships to keep
away. This Government has already taken occasion to in
form the Imperial German Government that it can not admit
the adoption of such measures or such a warning of danger
to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights of
American shipmasters or of American citizens bound on law
ful errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent
nationality; and that it must hold the Imperial German
Government to a strict accountability for any infringement
of those rights, intentional or incidental. It does not under
stand the Imperial German Government to question those
rights. It assumes, on the contrary, that the Imperial Gov
ernment accept, as of course, the rule that the lives of non-
combatants, whether they be of neutral citizenship or citi
zens of one of the nations at war, can not lawfully or right
fully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruction of an
unarmed merchantman, and recognize also, as all other na
tions do, the obligation to take the usual precaution of visit
and search to ascertain whether a suspected merchantman is
in fact of belligerent nationality or is in fact carrying con
traband of war under a neutral flag. * * *
Department of State, White Book, No. I, 75.
28. WHAT THE FLAG MEANS
(June 14, 1915)
ADDRESS AT FLAG DAY EXERCISES, WASHINGTON
I know of nothing more difficult than to render an adequate
tribute to the emblem of our nation. For those of us who
have shared that nation s life and felt the beat of its pulse
it must be considered a matter of impossibility to express
the great things which that emblem embodies. I venture to
say that a great many things are said about the flag which
very few people stop to analyze. For me the flag does not
June 14] WHAT THE FLAG MEANS 91
express a mere body of vague sentiment. The flag of the
United States has not been created by rhetorical sentences
in declarations of independence and in bills of rights. It has
been created by the experience of a great people, and nothing
is written upon it that has not been written by their life.
It is the embodiment, not of a sentiment, but of a history,
and no man can rightly serve under that flag who has not
caught some of the meaning of that history.
Experience, ladies and gentlemen, is made by men and
women. National experience is the product of those who do
the living under that flag. It is their living that has created
its significance. You do not create the meaning of a national
life by any literary exposition of it, but by the actual daily
endeavors of a great people to do the tasks of the day and
live up to the ideals of honesty and righteousness and just
conduct. And as we think of these things, our tribute is
to those men who have created this experience. Many of
them are known by name to all the world, statesmen, sol
diers, merchants, masters of industry, men of letters and of
thought who have coined our hearts into action or into
words. Of these men we feel that they have shown us the
way. They have not been afraid to go before. They have
known that they were speaking the thoughts of a great people
when they led that great people along the paths of achieve
ment. There was not a single swashbuckler among them.
They were men of sober, quiet thought, the more effective
because there was no bluster in it. They were men who
thought along the lines of duty, not along the lines of self-
aggrandizement. They were men, in short, who thought of
the people whom they served and not of themselves.
But while we think of these men and do honor to them as
to those who have shown us the way, let us not forget that
the real experience and life of a nation lies with the great
multitude of unknown men. It lies with those men whose
names are never in the headlines of newspapers, those men
who know the heat and pain and desperate loss of hope that
sometimes comes in the great struggle of daily life; not the
men who stand on the side and comment, not the men who
merely try to interpret the great struggle, but the men who
are engaged in the struggle. They constitute the body of the
92 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
nation. This flag is the essence of their daily endeavors.
This flag does not express any more than what they are and
what they desire to be.
As I think of the life of this great nation it seems to me
that we sometimes look to the wrong places for its sources.
We look to the noisy places, where men are talking in the
market place; we look to where men are expressing their
individual opinions; we look to where partisans are express
ing passion: instead of trying to attune our ears to that
voiceless mass of men who merely go about their daily tasks,
try to be honorable, try to serve the people they love, try to
live worthy of the great communities to which they belong.
These are the breath of the nation s nostrils; these are the
sinew of its might.
How can any man presume to interpret the emblem of the
United States, the emblem of what we would fain be among
the family of the nations, and find it incumbent upon us to
be in the daily round of routine duty? This is Flag Day, but
that only means that it is a day when we are to recall the
things which we should do every day of our lives. There are
no days of special patriotism. There are no days when we
should be more patriotic than on other days. We celebrate
the Fourth of July merely because the great enterprise of
liberty was started on the Fourth of July in America, but
the great enterprise of liberty was not begun in America.
It is illustrated by the blood of thousands of martyrs who
lived and died before the great experiment on this side of the
water. The Fourth of July merely marks the day when we
consecrated ourselves as a nation to this high thing which
we pretend to serve. The benefit of a day like this is merely
in turning away from the things that distract us, turning
away from the things that touch us personally and absorb our
interest in the hours of daily work. We remind ourselves of
those things that are greater than we are, of those principles
by which we believe our hearts to be elevated, of the more
difficult things that we must undertake in these days of
perplexity when a man s judgment is safest only when it
follows the line of principle.
I am solemnized in the presence of such a day. I would
not undertake to speak your thoughts. You must interpret
June 14] WHAT THE FLAG MEANS 93
them for me. But I do feel that back, not only of every
public official, but of every man and woman of the United
States, there marches that great host which has brought us
to the present day; the host that has never forgotten the
vision which it saw at the birth of the nation; the host which
always responds to the dictates of humanity and of liberty;
the host that will always constitute the strength and the great
body of friends of every man who does his duty to the United
States.
I am sorry that you do not wear a little flag of the Union
every day instead of some days. I can only ask you, if you
lose the physical emblem, to be sure that you wear it in your
heart, and the heart of America shall interpret the heart of
the world.
White House Pamphlet.
29. PREPAREDNESS FOR DEFENSE
/
(October 6, 1915)
ADDRESS TO THE CIVILIAN ADVISORY BOARD OF THE NAVY
AT THE WHITE HOUSE
* * * I think the whole nation is convinced that we ought
to be prepared, not for war, but for defense, and very ade
quately prepared, and that the preparation for defense is not
merely a technical matter, that it is not a matter that the
Army and Navy alone can take care of, but a matter in
which we must have the cooperation of the best brains and
knowledge of the country, outside the official service of the
Government, as well as inside.
For my part, I feel that it is only in the spirit of a true
democracy that we get together to lend such voluntary aid,
the sort of aid that comes from interest, from a knowledge of
the varied circumstances that are involved in handling a
nation. * * *
I do not have to expound it to you; you know as well as
I do the spirit of America. The spirit of America is one of
peace, but one of independence. It is a spirit that is pro-
94 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1915
foundly concerned with peace, because it can express itself
best only in peace. It is the spirit of peace and good-will
and of human freedom; but it is also the spirit of a nation
that is self-conscious, that knows and loves its mission in the
world, and that knows that it must command the respect of
the world.
So it seems to me that we are not working as those who
would change anything of America, but only as those who
would safeguard everything in America. * * *
New York Times, Oct. 7, 1915.
YEAR 1916
30. WHAT IS PAN-AMERICANISM?
(January 6, 1916)
ADDRESS TO PAN- AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS AT
WASHINGTON
It was a matter of sincere regret with me that I was not
in the city to extend the greetings of the Government to this
distinguished body, and I am very happy that I have re
turned in time at least to extend to it my felicitations upon
the unusual interest and success of its proceedings. I wish
that it might have been my good fortune to be present at the
sessions and be instructed by the papers that were read. I
have somewhat become inured to scientific papers in the
course of a long experience, but I have never ceased to be in
structed and to enjoy them.
The sessions of this Congress have been looked forward
to with the greatest interest throughout this country, because
there is no more certain evidence of intellectual life than the
desire of men of all nations to share their thoughts with one
another.
I have been told so much about the proceedings of this
Congress that I feel that I can congratulate you upon the
increasing sense of comradeship and intimate intercourse
which has marked its sessions from day to day; and it is a
very happy circumstance in our view that this, perhaps the
most vital and successful of the meetings of this Congress,
should have occurred in the Capital of our own country, be
cause we should wish to regard this as the universal place
where ideas worth while are exchanged and shared. The
drawing together of the Americas, ladies and gentlemen, has
95
96 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
long been dreamed of and desired. It is a matter of peculiar
gratification, therefore, to see this great thing happen; to
see the Americas drawing together, and not drawing together
upon any insubstantial foundation of mere sentiment.
After all, even friendship must be based upon a perception
of common sympathies, of common interests, of common
ideals, and of common purposes. Men cannot be friends un
less they intend the same things, and the Americas have
more and more realized that in all essential particulars they
intend the same thing with regard to their thought and their
life and their activities. To be privileged, therefore, to see
this drawing together in friendship and communion, based
upon these solid foundations, affords everyone who looks on
with open eyes peculiar satisfaction and joy; and it has
seemed to me that the language of science, the language of
impersonal thought, the language of those who think, not
along the lines of individual interest but along what are in
tended to be the direct and searching lines of truth itself,
was a very fortunate language in which to express this com
munity of interest and of sympathy. Science affords an
international language just as commerce also affords a uni
versal language, because in each instance there is a universal
purpose, a universal general plan of action, and it is a pleas
ing thought to those who have had something to do Avith
scholarship that scholars have had a great deal to do with
sowing the seeds of friendship between nation and nation.
Truth recognizes no national boundaries. Truth permits no
racial prejudices; and when men come to know each other
and to recognize equal intellectual strength and equal intel
lectual sincerity and a common intellectual purpose, some of
the best foundations of friendship are already laid.
But, ladies, and gentlemen, our thought cannot pause at
the artificial boundaries of the fields of science and of com
merce. All boundaries that divide life into sections and in
terests are artificial, because life is all of a piece. You
cannot treat part of it without by implication and indirection
treating all of it, and the field of science is not to be distin
guished from the field of life any more than the field of
commerce is to be distinguished from the general field of
life. No one who reflects upon the progress of science or
Jan. 6] WHAT IS PAN-AMERICANISM? 97
the spread of the arts of peace or the extension and perfec
tion of any of the practical arts of life can fail to see that
there is only one atmosphere that these things can breathe,
and that is an atmosphere of mutual confidence and of peace
and of ordered political life among the nations. Amidst
war and revolution even the voice of science must* for the
most part be silent, and revolution tears up the very roots
of everything that makes life go steadily forward and the
light grow from generation to generation. For nothing stirs
passion like political disturbance, and passion is the enemy
of truth.
These things were realized with peculiar vividness and said
with unusual eloquence in a recent conference held in this
city for the purpose of considering the financial relations
between the two continents of America, because it was per
ceived that/ financiers can do nothing without the coopera
tion of governments, and that if merchants would deal with
one another, laws must agree with one another; that you
cannot make laws vary without making them contradict, and
that amidst contradictory laws the easy flow of commercial
intercourse is impossible, and that, therefore, a financial
congress naturally led to all the inferences of politics. For
politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of
the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest
usefulness and convenience to itself. I have never in my
own mind admitted the distinction between the other de
partments of life and politics. Some people devote them
selves so exclusively to politics that they forget there is any
other part of life, and so soon as they do they become that
thing which is described as a "mere politician." Statesman
ship begins where these connections so unhappily lost are
reestablished. The statesman stands in the midst of life
to interpret life in political action.
The conference to which I have referred marked the
consciousness of the two Americas that economically they are
very dependent upon one another, that they have a great
deal that is desirable they should exchange and share with
one another, that they have kept unnaturally and unfortu
nately separated and apart when they had a manifest and
obvious community of interest; and the object of that con-
9 8 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
ference was to ascertain the practical means by which the
commercial and practical intercourse of the continents
could be quickened and facilitated. And where events move
statesmen, if they be not indifferent or be not asleep, must
think and act.
For my own part I congratulate myself upon living in a
time when these things, always susceptible of intellectual
demonstration, have begun to be very widely and universally
appreciated, and when the statesmen of the two American
continents have more and more come into candid, trustful,
mutual conference, comparing views as to the practical and
friendly way of helping one another, and of setting forward
every handsome enterprise on this side of the Atlantic.
But these gentlemen have not conferred without realizing
that back of all the material community of interest of which
I have spoken there lies and must lie a community of political
interest. I have been told a very interesting fact I hope it
is true that while this Congress has been discussing science,
it has been, in spite of itself, led into the feeling that behind
the science there was some inference with regard to politics,
and that if the Americans were to be united in thought they
must in some degree sympathetically be united in action.
What these statesmen, who have been conferring from month
to month in Washington, have come to realize, that back of
the community of material interest there is a community of
political interest.
I hope I can make clear to you in what sense I use these
words. I do not mean a mere partnership in the things that
are expedient. I mean what I was trying to indicate a few
moments ago, that you cannot separate politics from these
things, that you cannot have real intercourse of any kind
amidst political jealousies, wilich is only another way of say
ing that you cannot commune unless you are friends, and
that friendship is based upon your political relations with
each other perhaps more than upon any other kind of re
lationship between nations. If nations are politically sus
picious of one another, all their intercourse is embarrassed.
That is the reason, I take it, if it be true, as I hope it is,
that your thoughts even during this Congress, though the
questions you are called upon to consider are apparently so
Jan. 6] WHAT IS PAN- AMERICANISM? 99
foreign to politics, have again and again been drawn back
to the political inferences. The object of American states
manship on the two continents is to see to it that American
friendship is founded on a rock.
The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by the United States
on her own authority. It always has been maintained and
always will be maintained upon her own responsibility. But
the Monroe Doctrine demanded merely that European Gov
ernments should not attempt to extend their political systems
to this side of the Atlantic. It did not disclose the use which
the United States intended to make of her power on this side
of the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but there
was no promise in it of what America was going to do with
the implied and partial protectorate which she apparently
was trying to set up on this side of the water; and I believe
you will sustain me in the statement that it has been fears
and suspicions on this score which have hitherto prevented
the greater intimacy and confidence and trust between the
Americas. The States of America have not been certain
what the United States would do with her power. That
doubt must be removed. And latterly there has been a very
frank interchange of views between the authorities in Wash
ington and those who represented the other States of this
hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and hopeful,
because based upon an increasingly sure appreciation of the
spirit in which they were undertaken. These gentlemen have
seen that if America is to come into her own, into her
legitimate own, in a world of peace and order, she must
establish the foundations of amity so that no one will here
after doubt them.
I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished. These
conferences have enabled me to foresee how it will be ac
complished. It will be accomplished in the first place, by
the States of America uniting in guaranteeing to each other
absolutely political independence and territorial integrity.
In the second place, and as a necessary corollary to that,
guaranteeing the agreement to settle all pending boundary
disputes as soon as possible and by amicable process; by
agreeing that all disputes among themselves, should they
unhappily arise, will be handled by patient, impartial in-
TOO ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
vestigation, and settled by arbitration; and the agreement
necessary to the peace of the Americas, that no State of
either continent will permit revolutionary expeditions against
another State to be fitted out on its territory, and that they
will prohibit the exportation of the munitions of war for
the purpose of supplying revolutionists against neighboring
Governments.
You see what our thought is, gentlemen, not only the
international peace of America but the domestic peace of
America. If American States are constantly in ferment, if
any of them are constantly in ferment, there will be a stand
ing threat to their relations with one another. It is just as
much to our interest to assist each other to the orderly proc
esses within our own borders as it is to orderly processes in
our controversies with one another. These are very prac
tical suggestions which have sprung up in the minds of
thoughtful men, and I, for my part, believe that they are
going to lead the way to something that America has prayed
for for many a generation. For they are based, in the first
place, so far as the stronger States are concerned, upon the
handsome principle of self-restraint and respect for the rights
of everybody. They are based upon the principles of abso-, /
lute political equality among the States, equality of right,
not equality of indulgence. They are based, in short, upon
the solid eternal foundations of justice and humanity. No
man can turn away from these things without turning away
from the hope of the world. These are things, ladies and
gentlemen, for which the world has hoped and waited .with
prayerful heart. God grant that it may be granted to
America to lift this light on high for the illumination of the
world. N ew York Times, Jan. 7, 1916.
31. NEED OF AN ARMY AND NAVY
(January 27, 1916)
ADDRESS AT NEW YORK
* * * I hear a great many things predicted about the end
of the war, but I do not know what is going to happen at
Jan. 27] NEED OF AN ARMY AND NAVY 101
the end of the war; and ne : tl-er do you. There are two
diametrically opposed views as to immigration. Some men
tell us that at least a - million , men are gcing to leave the
country and others tell us that many millions are going to
rush into it. Neither party knows what they are talking
about, and I am one of those prudent individuals who would
really like to know the facts before he forms an opinion;
not out of wisdom but out of prudence. I have lived long
enough to know that if I do not, the facts will get away with
me. I have come to have a great and wholesome respect
for the facts. I have had to yield to them sometimes before
I saw them coming and that has led me to keep a weather eye
open in order that I may see them coming. There is so much
to understand that we have not the data to comprehend that
I for one would not dare, so far as my advice is concerned,
to leave the Government without the adequate means of
inquiry but that is another parenthesis.
What I am trying to impress upon you now is that the
circumstances of the world to-day are not what they were
yesterday, or ever were in any of our yesterdays. And it is
not certain what they will be to-morrow. I can not tell you
what the international relations of this country will be to
morrow, and I use the word literally; and I would not dare
keep silent and let the country suppose that to-morrow was
certain to be as bright as to-day. America will never be the
aggressor. America will always seek to the last point at
which her honor is involved to avoid the things which disturb
the peace of the world; but America does not control the
circumstances of the world, and we must be sure that we are
faithful servants of those things which we love, and are ready
to defend them against every contingency that may affect or
impair them.
And, as I was saying a moment ago, we must seek the
means which are consistent with the principles of our lives.
It goes without saying, though apparently it is necessary
to say it to some excited persons, that one thing that this
country never will endure is a system that can be called
militarism. But militarism consists in this, gentlemen: It
consists in preparing a great machine whose only use is for
war and giving it no use upon which to expend itself. Men
102 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
who are in charge of edged tools and bidden to prepare them
for exact and scientific use grow very impatient if they are
not permitted to use them, and I -do not believe that the
creation of such an instrument is an insurance of peace. I
believe that it involves the danger of all the impulses that
skilful persons have to use the things that they know how
to use.
But we do not have to do that. America is always going
to use her Army in two ways. She is going to use it for the
purposes of peace, and she is going to use it as a nucleus for
expansion into those things which she does believe in, namely,
the preparation of her citizens to take care of themselves.
There are two sides to the question of preparation; there is
not merely the military side, there is the industrial side; and"
the ideal which I have in mind is this: We ought to have in
this country a great system of industrial and vocational edu
cation under Federal guidance and with Federal aid, in
which a very large percentage of the youth of this country
will be given training in the skilful use and application of
the principles of science in manufacture and business; and
it will be perfectly feasible and highly desirable to add to
that and combine with it such a training in the mechanism
and care and use of arms, in the sanitation of camps, in the
simpler forms of maneuver and organization, as will make
these same men at one and the same time industrially efficient
and immediately serviceable for national defense. The
point about such a system will be that its emphasis will lie
on the industrial and civil side of life, and that, like all the
rest of America, the use of force will only be in the back
ground and as the last resort. Men will think first of their
families and their daily work, of their service in the economic
ranks of the country, of their efficiency as artisans, and
only last of all of their serviceability to the Nation as sol
diers and men at arms. That is the ideal of America.
But, gentlemen, you can not create such a system over
night; you can not create such a system rapidly. It has got
to be built up, and I hope it will be built up, by slow and
effective stages; and there is much to be done in the mean
time. We must see to it that a sufficient body of citizens is
given the kind of training which will make them efficient now
Jan. 27] NEED OF AN ARMY AND NAVY 103
if called into the field in case of necessity. It is discreditable
to this country, gentlemen, for this is a country full of
intelligent men, that we should have exhibited to the world
the example we have sometimes exhibited to it, of stupid
and brutal waste of force. Think of asking men who can
be easily trained to come into the field, crude, ignorant, in
experienced, and merely furnishing the stuff for camp fever
and the bullets of the enemy. The sanitary experience of
our Army in the Spanish-American War was merely an in
dictment of America s indifference to the manifest lessons
of experience in the matter of ordinary, careful preparation.
We have got the men to waste, but God forbid that we should
waste them. Men who go as efficient instruments of national
honor into the field afford a very handsome spectacle indeed.
Men who go in crude and ignorant boys only indict those
in authority for stupidity and neglect. So it seems to me
that it is our manifest duty to have a proper citizen reserve.
I am not forgetting our National Guard. I have had the
privilege of being governor of one of our great States, and
there I was brought into association with what I am glad to
believe is one of the most efficient portions of the National
Guard of the Nation. I learned to admire the men, to respect
the officers, and to believe in the National Guard; and I
believe that it is the duty of Congress to do very much more
for the National Guard than it has ever done heretofore. I
believe that that great arm of our national defense should
be built up and encouraged to the utmost; but, you know,
gentlemen, that under the Constitution of the United States
the National Guard is under the direction of more than two-
score States; that it is not permitted to the National Govern
ment directly to have a voice in its development and
organization; and that only upon occasion of actual invasion
has the President of the United States the right to ask those
men to leave their respective States. I, for my part, am
afraid, though some gentlemen differ with me, that there is
no way in which that force can be made a direct resource as
a national reserve under national authority.
What we need is a body of men trained in association with
units of the Army, a body of men organized under the im
mediate direction of the national authority, a body of men
104 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
subject to the immediate call to arms of the national author
ity, and yet men not put into the ranks of the Regular Army;
men left to their tasks of civil life, men supplied with equip
ment and training, but not drawn away from the peaceful
pursuits which have made America great and must keep her
great. I am not a partisan of any one plan. I have had too
much experience to think that it is right to say that the plan
that I propose is the only plan that will work, because I
have a shrewd suspicion that there may be other plans that
will work. What I am after, and what every American ought
to insist upon, is a body of at least half a millien trained
citizens who will serve under conditions of danger as an im
mediately available national reserve.
I am not saying anything about the Navy to-night, be
cause for some reason there is not the same controversy
about the Navy that there is about the Army. The Navy
is obvious and easily understood; the Army apparently is
very difficult to comprehend and understand. We have a
traditional prejudice against armies which makes us stop
thinking calmly the minute we begin talking about them.
We suppose that all armies are alike and that there can not
be an American Army system, that it must be a European
system, and that is what I for one am trying to divest my
own mind of. The Navy is so obvious an instrument of
national defense that I believe that, with differences of opin
ion about the detail, it is not going to be difficult to carry
out a proper and reasonable program for the increase of the
Navy.
But that is another story; my theme to-night is national
defense on land where we seem most negligent of it. And I
do not want to leave in your minds the impression that I
have any anxiety as to the outcome, for I have not the
slightest. There is only one way for parties and individuals
to win the confidence of this Nation and that is by doing
the things that ought to be done. Nobody is going to be
deceived. Speeches are not going to win elections. The
facts are going to speak for themselves and speak louder
than anybody who controverts them. No political party,
no group of men, can afford to disappoint America. This
is a year of political accounting, and the Americans in poli-
Jan. 27] NEED OF AN ARMY AND NAVY 105
tics are rather expert accountants. They know what the
books contain and they are not going to be deceived about
them. No man is going to hide behind any excuse; the goods
must be delivered or the confidence will not be enjoyed. For
my part, I hope that every man in public life will get what is
coming to him.
If this is true, gentlemen, it is because of things that lie
much deeper than laughter, much deeper than cheers; lie
down at the very roots of our life. America refuses to be
deceived about the things that most concern her national
honor and national safety, that lie at the foundation of every
thing that you love. It is the solemn time when men must
examine not only their purposes but their hearts. Men must
purge themselves of individual ambition, and must see to it
that they are ready for the utmost self-sacrifice in the inter
ests of the common welfare. Let no man dare play the
marplot. Let no man dare bring partisan passion into these
great things. Let men honestly debate the facts and coura
geously act upon them. Then there- will come that day when
the world will say, "This America that we thought was full
of a multitude of contrary counsels now speaks with the great
volume of the heart s accord, and that great heart of America
has behind it the supreme moral force of righteousness and
hope and the liberty of mankind."
White House Pamphlet.
32. HOW TO AVOID WAR
(February 24, 1916)
LETTER TO SENATOR STONE
I very warmly appreciate your kind and frank letter of
to-day, and feel that it calls for an equally frank reply.
You are right in assuming that I shall do everything in
my power to keep the United States out of war. I think
the country will feel no uneasiness about my course in that
respect. Through many anxious months I have striven for
that object, amid difficulties more manifold than can have
been apparent upon the surface, and so far I have succeeded.
I do not doubt that I shall continue to succeed. The course
io6 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
which the central European powers have announced their
intention of following in the future with regard to undersea
warfare seems for the moment to threaten insuperable
obstacles, but its apparent meaning is so manifestly incon
sistent with explicit assurances recently given us by those
powers with regard to their treatment of merchant vessels
on the high seas that I must believe that explanations will
presently ensue which will put a different aspect upon it.
We have had no reason to question their good faith or their
fidelity to their promises in the past, and I for one feel con
fident that we shall have none in the future.
But in any event our duty is clear. No nation, no group
of nations, has the right, while war is in progress, to alter
or disregard the principles which all nations have agreed upon
in mitigation of the horrors and sufferings of war; and if the
clear rights of American citizens should very unhappily be
abridged or denied by any such action, we should, it seems
to me, have in honor no choice as to what our own course
should be.
For my own part, I cannot consent to any abridgment
of the rights of American citizens in any respect. The honor
and self-respect of the Nation is involved. We covet peace,
and shall preserve it at any cost but the loss of honor. To
forbid our people to exercise their rights for fear we might
be called upon to vindicate them would be a deep humilia
tion indeed. It would be an implicit, all but an explicit,
acquiescence in the violation of the rights of mankind every
where and of whatever nation or allegiance. It would be a
deliberate abdication of our hitherto proud position as
spokesmen, even amid the turmoil of war, for the law and
the right. It would make everything this Government has
attempted and everything that it has accomplished during
this terrible struggle of nations meaningless and futile.
It is important to reflect that if in this instance we allowed
expediency to take the place of principle the door would
inevitably be opened to still further concessions. Once ac
cept a single abatement of right, and many other humilia
tions would certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of
international law might crumble under our hands piece by
piece. What we are contending for in this matter is of the
Feb. 24] HOW TO AVOID WAR 107
very essence of the things that have made America a sovereign
nation. She cannot yield them without conceding her own
impotency as a Nation and making virtual surrender of her
independent position among the nations of the world.
I am speaking, my dear Senator, in deep solemnity, with
out heat, with a clear consciousness of the high responsi
bilities of my office and as your sincere and devoted friend.
If we should unhappily differ, we shall differ as friends,
but where issues so momentous as these are involved we
must, just because we are friends, speak our minds without
reservation.
Congressional Record, LIII, 3318.
33. BASIS OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
(February 26, 1916)
ADDRESS TO THE GRIDIRON CLUB AT WASHINGTON
* * * It is not a new feeling on my part, but one which
I entertain with a greater intensity than formerly that a
man who seeks the Presidency of the United States for any
thing that it will bring to him is an audacious fool. The
responsibilities of the office ought to sober a man even before
he approaches it. One of the difficulties of the office seldom
appreciated/! dare say,|: is that it is very difficult to think
while so many people are talking in a way that obscures
counsel and is entirely off the p*)int.
The point in national affairs, gentlemen, : never lies along
the lines of expediency. It al-ways rests in the field of prin
ciple. The United States was not founded upon any prin
ciple of expediency; it was founded upon a profound prin
ciple orf human liberty and of humanity, and whenever it
bases its policy upon any other foundations than those it
builds on the sand and not upon the solid rock. * * *flt
seems to me that if you do not think of the things that lie
beyond and away from and disconnected from this scene in
which we attempt to think and conclude, you will inevitably
be led astray. I would a great deal rather know what they
are talking about around quiet firesides all over the country
than what they are talking about in the cloakrooms of Con-
io8 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
gress. I would a great deal rather know what the men on
the trains and by the wayside and in the shops and on the
farms are thinking about and yearning for than hear any
of the vociferous proclamations of policy which it is so easy
to hear and so easy to read by picking up any scrap of
printed paper. There is only one way to hear these things,
and that is constantly to go back to the fountains of American
action. |Those fountains are not to be found in any recently
discovered sources. * * * "]
America ought to keep out of this war. She ought to
keep out of this war at the sacrifice of everything except
this single thing upon which her character and history are
founded, her sense of humanity and justice. If she sacri
fices that, she has ceased to be America; she has ceased
to entertain and to love the traditions which have made us
proud to be Americans; and when we go about seeking
safety at the expense of humanity, then I, for one, will be
lieve that I have always been mistaken in what I have con
ceived to be the spirit of American history.
You never can tell your direction excepTTby long measure
ments. You can not establish a line by two posts; you have
got to have three at least to know whether they are straight
with anything, and the longer your line the more certain
your measurement. There is only one way in which to
determine how the future of the United States is going to
be projected, and that is by looking back and seeing which
way the lines ran which led up to the present moment of
power and of opportunity. There is no doubt about that.
There is no question what the roll of honor in America is.
The roll of honor consists of the names of men who have
squared their conduct by ideals of duty. There is no one
else upon the roster; there is no one else whose name we
care to remember when we measure things upon a national
scale. And I wish that whenever an impulse of impatience
comes upon us, whenever an impulse to settle a thing some
short way tempts us, we might close the door and take down
some old stories of what American idealists and statesmen
did in the past, and not let any counsel in that does not
sound in the authentic voice of American tradition. Then
we shall be certain what the lines of the future are, because
Feb. 26] BASIS OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 109
we shall know we are steering by the lines of the past. We
shall know that no temporary convenience, no temporary
expediency will lead us either to be rash or to be cowardly.
I would be just as much ashamed to be rash as I would to
be a coward. Valor is self-respecting. Valor is circumspect.
Valor strikes only when it is the right to strike. Valor with
holds itself from all small implications and entanglements
and waits for the great opportunity when the sword will
flash as if it carried the light of heaven upon its blade.
Congressional Record, LIII, 3308.
S4- RIGHT OF AMERICANS TQ TRAVERSE
THE SEAS
(February 29, 1916)
LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE Pou ON THE MCLEMORE
RESOLUTION
Inasmuch as I learn that Mr. Henry, the chairman of
the Committee on Rules, is absent -in Texas, I take the liberty
of calling your attention, as ranking member of the com
mittee, to a matter of grave concern to the country which
can, I believe, be handled, under the rules of the House, only
by that committee.
The report that there are divided counsels in Congress
in regard to the foreign policy of the Government is being
made industrious use of in foreign capitals. I believe that
report to be false, but so long as it is anywhere credited it
can not fail to do the greatest harm and expose the country
to the most serious risks. I therefore feel justified in asking
that your committee will permit me to urge an early vote
upon the resolutions with regard to travel on armed mer
chantmen which have recently been so much talked about, in
order that there may be afforded an immediate opportunity
for full public discussion and action upon them and that all
doubts and conjectures may be swept away and our foreign
relations once more cleared of damaging misunderstandings.
The matter is of so grave importance and lies so clearly
within the field of Executive initiative that I venture to hope
that your committee will not think that I am taking an un-
7)
no ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
warranted liberty in making this suggestion as to the business
of the House; and I very earnestly commend it to their
immediate consideration.
Congressional Record, LIII, App. 68 1.
35. EXPEDITION INTO MEXICO
(March 25, 1916)
STATEMENT TO THE PRESS
As has already been announced, the expedition into
Mexico was ordered under an agreement with the de facto
Government of Mexico\for the single purpose of taking the
bandit Villa, whose forces had actually invaded the territory
of the United States, and is in no sense intended as an
7 invasion of that republic or as an infringement of its
sovereignty, jf
I have, therefore, asked the several news services to be
good enough to assist the Administration in keeping this
view of the expedition constantly before both the people of
this country/ and the distressed and sensitive people of
Mexico, who are very susceptible, indeed, to impressions
received from the American press not only, but also very
ready to believe that those impressions proceed from the
views and objects of our Government itself. Such con-
elusions, it must be said, are not unnatural, because the
main, if not the only, source of information for the people
on both sides of the border is the public press of the United
States.
\ In order to avoid the creation of erroneous and danger
ous impressions in this way I have called upon the several
news agencies to use the utmost care not to give news stories
regarding this expedition the color of war, to withhold
stories of troop movements and military preparations which
might be given that interpretation, and to refrain from
publishing unverified rumors of unrest in Mexico. /
I feel that it is most desirable to impress upon both our
own people and the people of Mexico the fact that the
expedition is simply a necessary punitive measure, aimed
solely at the elimination of the maurauders who raided
Mar. 25] EXPEDITION INTO MEXICO in
Columbus and who infest an unprotected district near the
border, which they use as a base in making attacks upon the
lives and property of our citizens within our own territory.
It is the purpose of our commanders to cooperate in every
possible way with the forces of General Carranza in re
moving this cause of irritation to both Governments, and
retire from Mexican territory so soon as that object is ac
complished.
\It is my duty to warn the people of the United States
that there are persons all along the border who are actively
engaged in originating and giving as wide currency as they
can to rumors of the most sensational and disturbing sort,
which are wholly unjustified by the facts. The object of I
this traffic in falsehood is obvious. It is to create intolerable
friction between the Government of the United States and
the de facto Government of Mexico for the purpose of
bringing about intervention in the interest of certain Ameri
can owners of Mexican properties./ This object can not be
attained so long as sane and honorable men are in control
of this Government, but very serious conditions may be
created, unnecessary bloodshed may result, and the relations
between the two republics may be very much embarrassed.
The people of the United States should know the sinister
and unscrupulous influences that are afoot, and should be
on their guard against crediting any story coming from the
border; and those who disseminate the news should make it
a matter of patriotism and of conscience to test the source
and. authenticity of every report they receive from that
quarter. New York Times, March 26, 1916.
36. ULTIMATUM ON SUBMARINE WARFARE
(April 19, 1916)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
A situation has arisen in the foreign relations of the country
of which it is my plain duty to inform you very franklv.
It will be recalled that in February, 1915, the Imperial
German Government announced its intention to treat the
waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland as embraced
within the seat of war and to destroy all merchant ships
ii2 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
owned by its enemies that might be found within any part
of that portion of the high seas, and that it warned all
vessels, of neutral as well as of belligerent ownership, to
keep out of the waters it had thus proscribed or else enter
them at their peril. The Government of the United States
earnestly protested. It took the position that such a policy
could not be pursued without the practical certainty of gross
and palpable violations of the law of nations, particularly if
submarine craft were to be employed as its instruments,
inasmuch as the rules prescribed by that law, rules founded
upon principles of humanity and established for the pro
tection of the lives of non-combatants at sea, could not in
the nature of the case be observed by such vessels. It based
its protest on the ground that persons of neutral nationality
and vessels of neutral ownership would be exposed to extreme
and intolerable risks, and that no right to close any part of
the high seas against their use or to expose them to such
risks could lawfully be asserted by any belligerent govern
ment. The law of nations in these matters, upon which the
Government of the United States based its protest, is not
of recent origin or founded upon merely arbitrary principles
set up by convention. It is based, on the contrary, upon
manifest and imperative principles of humanity and has long
been established with the approval and by the express assent
of all civilized nations.
Notwithstanding the earnest protest of our Government,
the Imperial German Government at once proceeded to carry
out the policy it had announced. It expressed the hope that
the dangers involved, at any rate the dangers to neutral
vessels, would be reduced to a minimum by the instructions
v/hich it had issued to its submarine commanders, and assured
the Government of the United States that it would take
every possible precaution both to respect the rights of neutrals
and to safeguard the lives of non-combatants.
What has actually happened in the year which has since
elapsed has shown that those hopes were not justified, those
assurances insusceptible of being fulfilled. In pursuance of
the policy of submarine warfare against the commerce of its
adversaries, thus announced and entered upon by the Im
perial German Government in despite of the solemn protest
Apr. 19] ULTIMATUM ON SUBMARINE 113
of this Government, the commanders of German undersea
vessels have attacked merchant ships with greater and greater
activity, not only upon the high seas surrounding Great
Britain and Ireland but wherever they could encounter them,
in a way that has grown more and more ruthless, more and
more indiscriminate as the months have gone by, less and
less observant of restraints of any kind and have delivered
their attacks without compunction against vessels of every
nationality and bound upon every sort of errand. Vessels
of neutral ownership, even vessels of neutral ownership bound
from neutral port to neutral port, have been destroyed along
with vessels of belligerent ownership in constantly increasing
numbers. Sometimes the merchantmen attacked has been
warned and summoned to surrende** before being fired on or
torpedoed; sometimes passengers or crews have been vouch
safed the poor security of being allowed to take to the ship s
boats before she was sent to the bottom. But again and
again no warning has been given, no escape even to the ship s
boats allowed to those on board. What this Government
foresaw must happen has happened. Tragedy has followed
tragedy on the seas in such fashion, with such attendant
circumstances, as to make it grossly evident that warfare
of such a sort, if warfare it be, cannot be carried on without
the most palpable violation of the dictates alike of right and
of humanity. Whatever the disposition and intention of the
Imperial German Government, it has manifestly proved im
possible for it to keep such methods of attack upon the
commerce of its enemies within the bounds set by either
reason or the heart of mankind.
In February of the present year the Imperial German
Government informed this Government and the other neutral
governments of the world that it had reason to believe that
the Government of Great Britain had armed all merchant
vessels of British ownership and had given them secret orders
to attack any submarine of the enemy they might encounter
upon the seas, and that the Imperial German Government
felt justified in the circumstances in treating all armed mer
chantmen of belligerent ownership as auxiliary vessels of
war, which it would have the right to destroy without warn
ing. The law of nations has long recognized the right of
H4 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
merchantmen to carry arms for protection and to use them
to repel attack, though to use them, in such circumstances,
at their own risk; but the Imperial German Government
claimed the right to set these understandings aside in circum
stances which it deemed extraordinary. Even the terms in
which it announced its purpose thus still further to relax
the restraints it had previously professed its willingness and
desire to put upon the operations of its submarines carried
the plain implication that at least vessels which were not
armed would still be exempt from destruction without warn
ing and that personal safety would be accorded their pas
sengers and crews; but even that limitation, if it was ever
practicable to observe it, has in fact constituted no check at
all upon the destruction of ships of every sort.
Again and again the Imperial German Government has
given this Government its solemn assurances that at least
passenger ships would not be thus dealt with, and yet it has
again and again permitted its undersea commanders to dis
regard those assurances with entire impunity. Great liners
like the Lusitania and the Arabic and mere ferryboats like
the Sussex have been attacked without a moment s warning,
sometimes before they had even become aware that they were
in the presence of an armed vessel of the enemy, and the lives
of non-combatnats, passengers and crew, have been sacrificed
wholesale, in a manner which the Government of the United
States can not but regard as wanton and without the slight
est color of justification. No limit of any kind has in fact
been set to the indiscriminate pursuit and destruction of
merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities within the
waters, constantly extending in area, where these operations
have been carried on; and the roll of Americans who have
lost their lives on ships thus attacked and destroyed has
grown month by month until the ominous toll has mounted
into the hundreds.
One of the latest and most shocking instances of this
method of warfare was that of the destruction of the French
cross-Channel steamer Sussex. It must stand forth, as the
sinking of the steamer Lusitania did, as so singularly tragical
and unjustifiable as to constitute a truly terrible example of
the inhumanity of submarine warfare as the commanders of
Apr. 19] ULTIMATUM ON SUBMARINE 115
German vessels have for the past twelvemonth been conduct
ing it. If this instance stood alone, some explanation, some
disavowal by the German Government, some evidence of
criminal mistake or wilful disobedience on the part of the
commander of the vessel that fired the torpedo might be
sought or entertained; but unhappily it does not stand alone.
Recent events make the conclusion inevitable that it is only
one instance, even though it be one of the most extreme and
distressing instances, of the spirit and method of warfare
which the Imperial German Government has mistakenly
adopted, and which from the first exposed that Government
to the reproach of thrusting all neutral rights aside in pursuit
of its immediate objects.
The Government of the United States has been very pa
tient. At every stage of this distressing experience of tragedy
after tragedy in which its own citizens were involved it has
sought to be restrained from any extreme course of action
or of protest by a thoughtful consideration of the extraordi
nary circumstances of this unprecedented war, and actuated
in all that it said or did by the sentiments of genuine friend
ship which the people of the United States have always
entertained and continue to entertain towards the German
nation. It has of course accepted the successive explana
tions and assurances of the Imperial German Government as
given in entire sincerity and good faith, and has hoped, even
against hope, that it would prove to be possible for the Ger
man Government so to order and control the acts of its naval
commanders as to square its policy with the principles of hu
manity as embodied in the law of nations. It has been willing
to wait until the significance of the facts became absolutely
unmistakable and susceptible of but one interpretation.
That point has now unhappily been reached. The facts
are susceptible of but one interpretation. The Imperial
German Government has been unable to put any limits or
restraints upon its warfare against either freight or passenger
ships. It has therefore become painfully evident that the
position which this Government took at the very outset is
inevitable, namely, that the use of submarines for the de
struction of an enemy s commerce is of necessity, because of
the very character of the vessels employed and the very
n6 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
methods of attack which their employment of course in
volves, incompatible with the principles of humanity, the
long established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and
the sacred immunities of non-combatants.
I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial
German Government that if it is still its purpose to prose
cute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of
commerce by the use of submarines, notwithstanding the now
demonstrated impossibility of conducting that warfare in
accordance with what the Government of the United States
must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of interna
tional law and the universally recognized dictates of human
ity, the Government of the United States is at last forced
to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue;
and that unless the Imperial German Government should
now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its
present methods of warfare against passenger and freight
carrying vessels this Government can have no choice but to
sever diplomatic relations with the Government of the Ger
man Empire altogether.
This decision I have arrived at with the keenest regret;
the possibility of the action contemplated I am sure all
thoughtful Americans will look forward to with unaffected
reluctance. But we cannot forget that we are in some sort
and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesmen
of the rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent
while those rights seem in process of being swept utterly
away in the maelstrom of this terrible war. We owe it to a
due regard for our own rights as a nation, to our sense of
duty as a representative of the rights of neutrals the world
over, and to a just conception of the rights of mankind to
take this stand now with the utmost solemnity and firmness.
I have taken it, and taken it, in the confidence that it will
meet with your approval and support. All sober-minded
men must unite in hoping that the Imperial German Govern
ment, which has in other circumstances stood as the champion
of all that we are now contending for in the interest of
humanity, may recognize the justice of our demands and
meet them in the spirit in which they are made.
White House Pamphlet.
Mays] QUALIFICATIONS OF A JUSTICE 117
37. QUALIFICATIONS OF A SUPREME COURT
JUSTICE
(May 5, 1916)
LETTER TO SENATOR CULBERSON ON MR. BRANDEIS
I am very much obliged to you for giving me an oppor
tunity to make clear to the Judiciary Committee my reasons
for nominating. Mr. Louis D. Brandeis to fill the vacancy in
the Supreme Court of the United States created by the death
of Mr. Justice Lamar, for I am profoundly interested in the
confirmation of the appointment by the Senate.
There is probably no more important duty imposed upon
the President in connection with the general administration
of the Government than that of naming members of the
Supreme Court; and I need hardly tell you that I named
Mr. Brandeis as a member of that great tribunal only be
cause I knew him to be singularly qualified by learning, by
gifts, and by character for the position.
Many charges have been made against Mr. Brandeis; the
report of your subcommittee has already made it plain to
you and to the country at large how unfounded those charges
were. They threw a great deal more light upon the character
and motives of those with whom they originated than upon
the qualifications of Mr. Brandeis. I myself looked into
them three years ago when I desired to make Mr. Brandeis
a member of my Cabinet and found that they proceeded
for the most part from those who hated Mr. Brandeis
because he had refused to be serviceable to them in the
promotion of their own selfish interests, and from those whom
they had prejudiced and misled. The propaganda in this
matter has been very extraordinary and very distressing to
those who love fairness and value the dignity of the great
professions.
I perceived from the first that the charges were intrin
sically incredible by anyone who had really known Mr.
Brandeis. I have known him. I have tested him by seeking
his advice upon some of the most difficult and perplexing
public questions about which it was necessary for me to form
nS ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
a judgment. I have dealt with him in matters where nice
questions of honor and fair play, as well as large questions
of justice and the public benefit, were involved. In every
matter in which I have made test of his judgment and
point of view I have received from him counsel singularly
enlightening, singularly clear-sighted and judicial, and, above
all, full of moral stimulation. He is a friend of all just men
and a lover of right; and he knows more than how to talk
about the right he knows how to set it forward in the face
of its enemies. I knew from direct personal knowledge of
the man what I was doing when I named him for the highest
and most responsible tribunal of the Nation.
Of his extraordinary ability as a lawyer no man who is
competent to judge can speak with anything but the highest
admiration. You will remember that in the opinion of the
late Chief Justice Fuller he was the ablest man who ever
appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States.
"He is also," the Chief Justice added, "absolutely fearless
in the discharge of his duties."
Those who have resorted to him for assistance in settling
great industrial disputes can testify to his fairness and love
of justice. In the troublesome controversies between the
garment workers and manufacturers of New York City, for
example, he gave a truly remarkable proof of his judicial
temperament and had what must have been the great satis
faction of rendering decisions which both sides were willing
to accept as disinterested and even-handed.
Mr. Brandeis has rendered many notable services to the
city and state with which his professional life has been
identified. He successfully directed the difficult campaign
which resulted in obtaining cheaper gas for the city of Boston.
It was chiefly under his guidance and through his efforts
that legislation was secured in Massachusetts which author
ized savings banks to issue insurance policies for small sums
at much reduced rates. And some gentlemen who tried very
hard to obtain control by the Boston Elevated Railroad
Company of the subways of the city for a period of ninety-
nine years can probably testify as to his ability as the peo
ple s advocate when public interests call for an effective
Mays] QUALIFICATIONS OF A JUSTICE 119
champion. He rendered these services without compensation,
and earned, whether he got it or not, the gratitude of every
citizen of the state and city he served. These are but a few
of the services of this kind he has freely rendered. It will
hearten friends of community and public rights throughout
the country to see his quality signally recognized by his
elevation to the Supreme Bench; for the whole country is
aware of his quality and is interested in this appointment.
I did not in making choice of Mr. Brandeis ask for or
depend upon "endorsements." I acted upon public knowl
edge and personal acquaintance with the man, and preferred
to name a lawyer for this great office whose abilities and
character were so widely recognized that he needed no en
dorsement. I did, however, personally consult many men in
whose judgment I had great confidence, and am happy to
say was supported in my selection by the voluntary recom
mendation of the Attorney General of the United States, who
urged Mr. Brandeis upon my consideration independently
of any suggestion from me.
Let me say by way of summing up, my dear Senator, that
I nominated Mr. Brandeis for the Supreme Court because it
was, and is, my deliberate judgment that, of all the men
now at the bar whom it has been my privilege to observe,
test, and know, he is exceptionally qualified. I cannot speak
too highly of his impartial, impersonal, orderly, and con
structive mind, his rare analytical powers, his deep human
sympathy, his profound acquaintance with the historical roots
of our institutions and insight into their spirit, or of the
many evidences he has given of being imbued to the very
heart with our American ideals of justice and equality of
opportunity; of his knowledge of modern economic condi
tions and of the way they bear upon the masses of the people,
or of his genius in getting persons to unite in common and
harmonious action and look with frank and kindly eyes into
each other s minds, who had before been heated antagonists.
This friend of justice and of men will ornament the high
court of which we are all so justly proud. I am glad to have
had the opportunity to pay him this tribute of admiration
and of confidence ; and I beg that your committee will accept
i2o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
this nomination as coming from me quick with a sense of
public obligation and responsibility.
Congressional Record, LIII, 7628.
38. GERMAN ABANDONMENT OF THE SUB
MARINE POLICY
(May 8, 1916)
DESPATCH TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH
SECRETARY LANSING
The note of the Imperial German Government under date
of May 4, 1916, has received careful consideration by the
Government of the United States. It is especially noted, as
indicating the purpose of the Imperial Government as to the
future, that it "is prepared to do its utmost to confine the
operations of the war for the rest of its duration to the
fighting forces of the belligerents," and that it is determined
to impose upon all its commanders at sea the limitations of
the recognized rules of international law upon which the
Government of the United States has insisted. Throughout
the months which have elapsed since the Imperial Govern
ment announced, on February 4, 1915, its submarine policy,
now happily abandoned, the Government of the United
States has been constantly guided and restrained by motives
of friendship in its patient efforts to bring to an amicable
settlement the critical questions arising from that policy.
Accepting the Imperial Government s declaration of its aban
donment of the policy which has so seriously menaced the
good relations between the two countries, the Government of
the United States will rely upon a scrupulous execution
henceforth of the now altered policy of the Imperial Govern
ment, such as will remove the principal danger to an inter
ruption of the good relations existing between the United
States and Germany.
The Government of the United States feels it necessary
to state that it takes it for granted that the Imperial Ger
man Government does not intend to imply that the main-
May 8 ] SUBMARINE POLICY 1 2 1
tenance of its newly announced policy is in any way con
tingent upon the course or result of diplomatic negotiations
between the Government of the United States and any other
belligerent Government, notwithstanding the fact that cer
tain passages in the Imperial Government s note of the 4th
instant might appear to be susceptible of 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 authori
ties 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. Re
sponsibility in such matters is single, not joint; absolute, not
relative.
Department of State, White Book, No. Ill, 306.
39. HOW TO ENFORCE PEACE
(May 27, 1916)
ADDRESS TO THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE AT
WASHINGTON
When the invitation to be here to-night came to me, I was
glad to accept it, not because it offered me an opportunity
to discuss the programme of the League, that you will, I
am sure, not expect of me, but because the desire of the
whole world now turns eagerly, more and more eagerly,
towards the hope of peace, and there is just reason why we
should take our part in counsel upon this great theme. It is
right that I, as spokesmen of our Government, should attempt
to give expression to what I believe to be the thought and
purpose of the people of the United States in this vital
matter.
This great war that broke so suddenly upon the world two
years ago, and which has swept within its flame so great a
part of the civilized world, has affected us very profoundly,
122 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
and we are not only at liberty, it is perhaps our duty, to
speak very frankly of it and of the great interests of civiliza
tion which it affects.
With its causes and its objects we are not concerned. The
obscure fountains from which its stupendous flood has burst
forth we are not interested to search for> or explore. But
so great a flood, spread far and wide to every quarter of
the globe, has of necessity engulfed many a fair province
of right that lies very near to us. Our own rights as a
Nation, the liberties, the privileges, and the property of our
people have been profoundly affected. We are not mere
disconnected lookers-on. The longer the war lasts, the more
deeply do we become concerned that it should be brought to
an end and the world be permitted to resume its normal life
and course again. And when it does come to an end we shall
be as much concerned as the nations at war to see peace
assume an aspect of permanence, give promise of days from
which the anxiety of uncertainty shall be lifted, bring some
assurance that peace and war shall always hereafter be reck
oned part of the common interest of mankind. We are par
ticipants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world.
The interests of all nations are our own also. We are part
ners with the rest. What affects mankind is inevitably our
affair as well as the affair of the nations of Europe and of
Asia.
One observation on the causes of the present war we are
at liberty to make, and to make it may throw some light
forward upon the future, as well as backward upon the past.
It is plain that this war could have come only as it did,
suddenly and out of secret counsels, without warning to the
world, without discussion, without any of the deliberate
movements of counsel with which it would seem natural
to approach so stupendous a contest. It is probable that
if it had been foreseen just what would happen, just what
alliances would be formed, just what forces arrayed against
one another, those who brought the great contest on would
have been glad to substitute conference for force. If we
ourselves had been afforded some opportunity to apprise
the belligerents of the attitude which it would be our duty
to take, of the policies and practices against which we would
May 27] HOW TO ENFORCE PEACE 123
feel bound to use all our moral and economic strength, and
in certain circumstances even our physical strength also,
our own contribution to the counsel which might have
averted the struggle would have been considered worth
weighing and regarding.
And the lesson which the shock of being taken by sur
prise in a matter so deeply vital to all the nations of the
world has made poignantly clear is, that the peace of the
world must henceforth depend upon a new and more whole
some diplomacy. Only when the great nations of the world
have reached some sort of agreement as to what they hold
to be fundamental to their common interest, and as to some
feasible method of acting in concert when any nation or group
of nations seeks to disturb those fundamental things, can we
feel that civilization is at last in a way of justifying its
existence and claiming to be finally established. It is clear
that nations must in the future be governed by the same
high code of honor that we demand of individuals.
We must, indeed, in the very same breath with which we
avow this conviction admit that we have ourselves upon
occasion in the past been offenders against the law of diplo
macy which we thus forecast; but our conviction is not the
less clear, but rather the more clear, on that account. If
this war has accomplished nothing else for the benefit of the
world, it has at least disclosed a great moral necessity and
set forward the thinking of the statesmen of the world by a
whole age. Repeated utterances of the leading statesmen
of most of the great nations now engaged in war have made
it plain that their thought has come to this, that the prin
ciple of public right must henceforth take precedence over
the individual interests of particular nations, and that the
nations of the world must in some way band themselves to
gether to see that that right prevails as against any sort of
selfish aggression; that henceforth alliance must not be set
up against alliance, understanding against understanding, but
that there must be a common agreement for a common
object, and that at the heart of that common object must lie
the inviolable rights of peoples and of mankind. ,- The nations
of the world have become each other s neighbors. It is to
their interest that they should understand each other. In
124 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
order that they may understand each other, it is imperative
that they should agree to cooperate in a common cause, and
that they should so act that the guiding principle of that
common cause shall be even-handed and impartial justice.
This is undoubtedly the thought of America. This is what
we ourselves will say when there comes proper occasion to
say it. In the dealings of nations with one another arbitrary
force must be rejected and we must move forward to the
thought of the modern world, the thought of which peace
is the very atmosphere. That thought constitutes a chief
part of the passionate conviction of America.
We believe these fundamental things: First, that every
people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which
they shall live. Like other nations, we have ourselves no
doubt once and again offended against that principle when
for a little while controlled by selfish passion, as our franker
historians have been honorable enough to admit; but it has
become more and more our rule of life and action. Second,
that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy the
same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial
integrity that great and powerful nations expect and insist
upon. And, third, that the world has a right to be free
from every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in
aggression and disregard of the rights of peoples and
nations.
So sincerely do we believe in these things that I am sure
that I speak the mind and wish of the people of America
when I say that the United States is willing to become a
partner in any feasible association of nations formed in order
to realize these objects and make them secure against vio
lation.
There is nothing that the United States wants for itself
that any other nation has. We are willing, on the contrary,
to limit ourselves along with them to a prescribed course of
duty and respect for the rights of others which will check
any selfish passion of our own, as it will check any aggressive
impulse of theirs.
If it should ever be our privilege to suggest or initiate a
movement for peace among the nations now at war, I am
sure that the people of the United States would wish their
May 2 7 ] HOW TO ENFORCE PEACE 1 2 5
Government to move along these lines: First, such a settle
ment with regard to their own immediate interests as the
belligerents may agree upon. We have nothing material of
any kind to ask for ourselves, and are quite aware that we
are in no sense or degree parties to the present quarrel.
Our interest is only in peace and its future guarantees.
Second, an universal association of the nations to maintain
the inviolate security of the highway of the seas for the
common and unhindered use of all the nations of the world,
and to prevent any war begun either contrary to treaty
covenants or without warning and full submission of the
causes to the opinion of the world, a virtual guarantee of
territorial integrity and political independence.
But I did not come here, let me repeat, to discuss a
programme. I came only to avow a creed and give expres
sion to the confidence I feel that the world is even now
upon the ove of a great consummation, when some common
force will be brought into existence which shall safeguard
right as the first and most fundamental interest of all peoples
and all governments, when coercion shall be summoned not
to the service of political ambition or selfish hostility, but
to the service of a common order, a common justice, and a
common peace. God grant that the dawn of that day of
frank dealing and of settled peace, concord, and cooperation
may be near at hand!
White House Pamphlet.
40. PREPAREDNESS TO THE SOLDIER
(June 13, 1916)
ADDRESS AT THE MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT
I look upon this body of men who are graduating to-day
with a peculiar interest. I feel like congratulating them
that they are living in a day not only so interesting, because
so fraught with change, but also because so responsible.
Days of responsibility are the only days that count in time,
because they are the only days that give test of quality.
126 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
They are the only days when manhood and purpose is tried
out as if by fire. I need not tell you young gentlemen that
you are not like an ordinary graduating class of one of our
universities. The men in those classes look forward to the
life which they are to lead after graduation with a great
many questions in their mind. Most of them do not know
exactly what their lives are going to develop into. Some
of them do not know what occupations they are going to
follow. All of them are conjecturing what will be the line
of duty and advancement and the ultimate goal of success
for them.
There is no conjecture for you. You have enlisted in
something that does not stop when you leave the Academy,
for you then only begin to realize it, which then only begins
to be filled with the full richness of its meaning, and you
can look forward with absolute certainty to the sort of
thing that you will be obliged to do.
This has always been true of graduating classes at West
Point, but the certainty that some of the older classes used
to look forward to was a dull certainty. Some of the old
days in the army, I fancy, were not very interesting days.
Sometimes men like the present Chief of Staff, for example,
could fill their lives with the interest of really knowing and
understanding the Indians of the Western plains, knowing
what was going on inside their minds and being able to be
the intermediary between them and those who dealt with
them, by speaking their sign language, could enrich their
lives; but the ordinary life of the average officer at a
Western post can not have been very exciting, and I think
with admiration) of those dull years through which officers
who had not a great deal to do insisted, nevertheless, upon
being efficient and worth while and keeping their men fit, at
any rate, for the duty to which they were assigned.
But in your case there are many extraordinary possi
bilities, because, gentlemen, no man can certainly tell you
what the immediate future is going to be either in the history
of this country or in the history of the world. It is not by
accident that the present great war came in Europe. Every
element was there, and the contest had to come sooner or
later, and it is not going to be by accident that the results
June 13] PREPAREDNESS OF THE SOLDIER 127
are worked out, but by purpose by the purpose of the men
who are strong enough to have guiding minds and indom
itable wills when the time for decision and settlement comes.
And the part that the United States is to play has this dis
tinction in it, that it is to be in any event a disinterested part.
There is nothing that the United States wants that it has
to get by war, but there are a great many things that the
United States has to do. It has to see that its life is not
interfered with by anybody else who wants something.
These are days when we are making preparation, when
the thing most commonly discussed around every sort of
table, in every sort of circle, in the shops and in the streets,
is preparedness, and undoubtedly, gentlemen, that is the
present imperative duty of America, to be prepared. But
we ought to know what we are preparing for. I remember
hearing a wise man say once that the old maxim that "every
thing comes to the man who waits" is all very well provided
he knows what he is waiting for; and preparedness might
be a very hazardous thing if we did not know what we
wanted to do with the force that we mean to accumulate
and to get into fighting shape.
America, fortunately, does know what she wants to do
with her force. America came into existence for a par
ticular reason. When you look about upon these beautiful
hills, and up this stately stream, and then let your imagina
tion run over the whole body of this great country from
which you youngsters are drawn, far and wide, you remem
ber that while it had aboriginal inhabitants, while there were
people living here, there was no civilization which we dis
placed. It was as if in the Providence of God a continent
had been kept unused and waiting for a peaceful people who
loved liberty and the rights of men more than they loved
anything else, to come and set up an unselfish common
wealth. It is a very extraordinary thing. You are so
familiar with American history, at any rate in its general
character I don t accuse you of knowing the details of it,
for I never found the youngster who did but you are so
familiar with the general character of American history that
it does not seem strange to you, but it is a very strange
history. There is none other like it in the whole annals of
128 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
mankind of men gathering out of every civilized nation
of the world on an unused continent and building up a polity
exactly to suit themselves, not under the domination of any
ruling dynasty or of the ambitions of any royal family;
doing what they pleased with their own life on a free space
of land which God had made rich with every resource which
was necessary for the civilization they meant to build up.
There is nothing like it.
Now, what we are preparing to do is to see that nobody
mars that and that, being safe itself against interference
from the outside, all of its force is going to be behind its
moral idea, and mankind is going to know that when America
speaks she means what she says. I heard a man say to
another, "If you wish me to consider you witt) , I must really
trouble you to make a joke." We have a right to say to
the rest of mankind, "If you don t want to interfere with
us, if you are disinterested, we must really trouble you to
give evidence of that fact." We are not in for anything
selfish, and we want the whole mighty power of America
thrown into that scale and not into any other.
You know that the chief thing that is holding many people
back from enthusiasm for what is called preparedness is the
fear of militarism. I want to say a word to you young
gentlemen about militarism. You are not militarists because
you are military. Militarism does not consist in the exist
ence of an army, not even in the existence of a very great
army. Militarism is a spirit. It is a point of view. It is a
system. It is a purpose. The purpose of militarism is to
use armies for aggression. The spirit of militarism is the
opposite of the civilian spirit, the citizen spirit. In a country
where militarism prevails the military man looks down upon
the civilian, regards him as inferior, thinks of him as intended
for his, the military man s, support and use; and just so
long as America is America that spirit and point of view is
impossible with us. There is as yet in this country, so far
as I can discover, no taint of the spirit of militarism. You
young gentlemen are not preferred in promotion because of
the families you belong to. You are not drawn into the
Academy because you belong to certain influential circles.
June 13] PREPAREDNESS OF THE SOLDIER 129
You do not come here with a long tradition of military pride
back of you.
You are picked out from the citizens of the United States
to be that part of the force of the United States which makes
its polity safe against interference. You are the part of
American citizens who say to those who would interfere,
"You must not" and "You shall not." But you are American
citizens, and the idea I want to leave with you boys to-day
is this: No matter what comes, always remember that first
of all you are citizens of the United States before you are
officers, and that you are officers because you represent in
your particular profession what the citizenship of the United
States stands for. There is no danger of militarism if you
are genuine Americans, and I for one do not- doubt that
you are. When you begin to have the militaristic spirit
not the military spirit, that is all right then begin to doubt
whether you are Americans or not.
You know that one thing in which our forefathers took
pride was this, that the civil power is superior to the military
power in the United States. Once and again the people of
the United States have so admired some great military man
as to make him President of the United States, when he
became commander-in-chief of all the forces of the United
States, but he was commander-in-chief because he was Presi
dent, not because he had been trained to arms, and his
authority was civil, not military. I can teach you nothing
of military power, but I am instructed by the Consitution to
use you for constitutional and patriotic purposes. And that
is the only use you care to be put to. That is the only
use you ought to care to be put to, because, after all, what
is the use in being an American if you do not know what
it is?
You have read a great deal in the books about the pride
of the old Roman citizen, who always felt like drawing him
self to his full height when he said, "I am a Roman," but as
compared with the pride that must have risen to his heart,
our pride has a new distinction, not the distinction of the
mere imperial power of a great empire, not the distinction
of being masters of the world, but the distinction of carry-
130 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
ing certain lights for the world that the world has never so
distinctly seen before, certain guiding lights of liberty and
principle and justice. We have drawn our people, as you
know, from all parts of the world, and we have been some
what disturbed recently, gentlemen, because some of those
though I believe a very small number whom we have drawn
into our citizenship have not taken into their hearts the
spirit of America and have loved other countries more than
they loved the country of their 5 adoption ; and we have talked
a great deal about Americanism. It ought to be a matter of
pride with us to know what Americanism really consists in.
Americanism consists in utterly believing in the principles
of America and putting them first as above anything that
might by chance come into competition with it. And I, for
my part, believe that the American test is a spiritual test.
If a man has to make excuses for what he had done as an
American, I doubt his Americanism. He ought to know at
every step of his action that the motive that lies behind what
he does is a motive which no American need be ashamed of
for a moment. Now, we ought to put this test to every
man we know. We ought to let it be known that nobody
who does not put America first can consort with us.
But we ought to set them the example. We ought to
set them the example by thinking American thoughts, by
entertaining American purposes, and those thoughts and
purposes will stand the test of example anywhere in the
world, for they are intended for the betterment of mankind.
So I have come to say these few words to you to-day,
gentlemen, for a double purpose; first of all to express my
personal good wishes to you in your graduation, and my
personal interest in you, and second of all to remind you
how we must all stand together in one spirit as lovers and
servants of America. And that means something more than
lovers and servants merely of the United States. You have
heard of the Monroe Doctrine, gentlemen. You know that
we are already spiritual partners with both continents of
this hemisphere and that America means something which is
bigger even than the United States, and that we stand here
with the glorious power of this country ready to swing it
out into the field of action whenever liberty and inde-
June 13] PREPAREDNESS OF THE SOLDIER 131
pendence and political integrity are threatened anywhere in
the Western Hemisphere. And we are ready nobody has
authorized me to say this, but I am sure of it we are ready
to join with the other nations of the world in seeing that the
kind of justice prevails everywhere that we believe in.
So that you are graduating to-day, gentlemen, into a new
distinction. Glory attaches to all these men whose names
we love to recount who have made the annals of the Ameri
can Army distinguished. They played the part they were
called upon to play with honor and with extraordinary char
acter and success. I am congratulating you, not because
you will be better than they, but because you will have a
wider world of thought and conception to play your part in.
I am an American, but I do not believe that any of us loves
a blustering nationality, a nationality with a chip on its
shoulder, a nationality with its elbows out and its swagger on.
We love that quiet, self-respecting, unconquerable spirit
which does not strike until it is necessary to strike, and
then strikes to conquer. Never since I was a youngster have
I been afraid of the noisy man. I have always been afraid
of the still man. I have always been afraid of the quiet
man. I had a classmate at college who was most dangerous
when he was most affable. When he was maddest he seemed
to have the sweetest temper in the world. He would ap
proach you with the most ingratiating smile, and then you
knew that every red corpuscle in his blood was up and
shouting. If you work things off in your elbows, you do
not work them off in your mind; you do not work them off
in your purposes.
So my conception of America is a conception of infinite
dignity, along with quiet, unquestionable power. I ask you,
gentlemen, to join with me in that conception, and let us all
in our several spheres be soldiers together to realize it.
New York Times, June 14, 1916.
132 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
41. DEMOCRACY OF BUSINESS
(July 10, 1916)
ADDRESS AT SALESMANSHIP CONGRESS, DETROIT
* * * Some Democrats had noticed that the. inclination
to suppose that only some persons understood the business
of America had a tendency to run into the assumption that
the number of persons who understood that business was
very small, and that there were only certain groups and asso
ciations of gentlemen who were entitled to be trustees of
that business for the rest of us. I have never subscribed,
in any walk of life, to the trustee theory. I have always
been inclined to believe that the business of the world was
best understood by those men who were in the struggle for
maintenance not only, but for success. The man who knows
the strength of the tide is the man who is swimming against
it, not the man who is floating with it. The man who is
immersed in the beginnings of business, who is trying to get
his foothold, who is trying to get other men to believe in
him and lend him money and trust him to make profitable
use of that money, is the man who knows what the business
conditions in the United States are, and I would rather take
his counsel as to what ought to be done for business than the
counsel of any established captain of industry. The captain
of industry is looking backward and the other man is look
ing forward. The conditions of business change with every
generation; change with every decade; are now changing at
an almost breathless pace, and the men who have made good
are not feeling the tides as the other men are feeling them.
The men who have got into the position of captaincy, unless
they are of unusual fiber, unless they are of unusually catholic
sympathy, unless they have continued to touch shoulders
with the ranks, unless they have continued to keep close
communion with the men they are employing and the young
men they are bringing up as their assistants, do not belong
to the struggle in which Twe should see that every unreason
able obstacle is removed and every reasonable help afforded
that public policy can afford. \
July 10] DEMOCRACY OF BUSINESS 133
So I invite your thoughts, in what I sincerely believe to be
an entirely nonpartisan spirit, to the democracy of business.
An act was recently passed in Congress that some of the
most intelligent business men of this country earnestly op
posed, men whom I knew, men whose character I trusted,
men whose integrity I absolutely believed in. I refer to the
Federal Reserve Act, by which we intended to take, and suc
ceeded in taking credit out of the control of a small number
of men and making it available to everybody who had real
commercial assets, and the very men who opposed that act,
and opposed it conscientiously, now admit that it saved the
country from a ruinous panic when the stress of war came
on, and that it is the salvation of every average business
man who is in the midst of the tides that I Have been trying
to describe. What does that mean, gentlemen? It means
that you can get a settled point of view and can conscien
tiously oppose progress if you do not need progress yourself.
That is what it means. I am not impugning the intelligence
even of the men who opposed these things, because the same
thing happens to every man if he is not of extraordinary
make-up, if he can not see the necessity for a thing that he
does not himself need. When you have abundant credit and
control of credit, you, of course, do not need that the area
should be broadened.
The suspicion is beginning to dawn in many quarters that
the average man knows the business necessities of the coun
try just as well as the extraordinary man does. I believe in
the ordinary man. If I did not believe in the ordinary man
I would move out of a democracy and, if I found an en
durable monarchy, I would live in it. The very conception
of America is based upon the validity of the judgments of
the average man, and I call you to witness that there have
not been many catastrophes in American history. I call
you to witness that the average judgments of the voters of
the United States have been sound judgments. I call you to
witness that this great impulse of the common opinion has
been a lifting impulse, and not a depressing impulse. What
is the object of associations like that which is gathered here
to-day, this Salesmanship Congress? The moral of it is
that a few men can not determine the interests of a large
134 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
body of men, and that the only way to determine them and
advance them is to have a representative assembly chosen by
themselves get together and take common counsel regarding
them. And do you not notice that in every great occupa
tion in the United States there is beginning to be more and
more of this common counsel? And have you not noticed
that the more common counsel you have the higher the
standards are that are insisted upon?
I attended the other day the Congress of the Advertising
Men, and their motto is "Truth and fair dealing in what you
represent your business to be and your goods to be." I have
no doubt that in every association like this the prevailing
sentiment is that only by the highest standards I mean the
highest moral standards can you achieve the most perma
nent and satisfactory business results. Was that the preva
lent conception before these associations were drawn to
gether? Have you not found the moral judgment of the
average man steady the whole process and clarify it? Do
you not know more after every conference with your fellows
than you did before? I never went into a committee of
any kind upon any important public matter, or private
matter so far as that is concerned, that I did not come out
with an altered judgment and knowing much more about the
matter than when I went in; and not only knowing much
more, but knowing that the common judgment arrived at was
better than I could have suggested when I went in. That
is the universal experience of candid men. If it were not
so, there would be no object in congresses like this. Yet
whenever we attempt legislation, we find ourselves in this
case: We are not in the presence of the many who can
counsel wisely, but we are in the presence of the few who
counsel too narrowly, and the means by which we have been
trying to break away from that is not by excluding these
gentlemen who constituted the narrow circles of advice, but
by associating them with hundreds of thousands of their
fellow citizens.
I have had some say that I was not accessible to them,
and when I inquired into it I found they meant that I did
not personally invite them. They did not know how to
come without being invited, and they did not care to come
July 10] DEMOCRACY OF BUSINESS 135
if they came upon the same terms with everybody else,
knowing that everybody else was welcome whom I had time
to confer with.
Am I telling you things unobserved by you? Do you not
know that these things are true? And do you not believe
with me that the affairs of the Nation can be better con
ducted upon the basis of general counsel than upon the
basis of special counsel? Men are colored and governed
by their occupations and their surroundings and their habits.
If I wanted to change the law radically, I would not con
sult a lawyer. If I wanted to change business methods
radically, I would not consult a man who had made a con
spicuous success by using the present methods that I wanted
to change. Not because I would distrust these men, but
because I would know that they would not change their
thinking over night, that they would have to go through a
long process of reacquaintance with the circumstances of
the time, the new circumstances of the time, before they
could be converted to my point of view. You get a good
deal more light on the street than you do in the closet. You
get a good deal more light by keeping your ears open among
the rank and file of your fellow citizens than you do in any
private conference whatever. I would rather hear what the
men are talking about on the trains and in the shops and by
the fireside than hear anything else, because I want guidance
and I know I could get it there, and what I am constantly
asking is that men should bring me that counsel, because
I am not privileged to determine things independently of
this counsel. I am your servant, not your ruler.
One thing that we are now trying to convert the small
circles to that the big circles are already converted to is that
this country needs a merchant marine and ought to get one.
I have found that I had a great deal more resistance when
I tried to help business than when I tried to interfere with
it. I have had a great deal more resistance of counsel, of
special counsel, when I tried to alter the things that are
established than when I tried to do anything else. We call
ourselves a liberal nation, whereas, as a matter of fact, we
are one of the most conservative nations in the world. If
you want to make enemies, try to change something. You
136 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
know why it is. To do things to-day exactly the way you
did them yesterday saves thinking. It does not cost you
anything. You have acquired the habit; you know the
routine; you do not have to plan anything, and it frightens
you with a hint of exertion to learn that you will have to do
it a different way to-morrow. , Until I became a college
teacher, I used to think that the young men were radical,
but college boys are the greatest conservatives I ever tackled
in my life, largely because they have associated too much
with their fathers. What you have to do with them is to
take them up upon some visionary height and show them
the map of the world as it is. Do not let them see their
father s factory. Do not let them see their father s counting-
house. Let them see the great valleys teeming with labori
ous people. Let them see the great struggle of men in
realms they never dreamed of. Let them see the great emo
tional power that is in the world, the great ambitions, the
great hopes, the great fears. Give them some picture of
mankind, and then their father s business and every other
man s business will begin to fall into place. They will see
that it is an item and not the whole thing; and they will
sometimes see that the item is not properly related to the
whole, and what they will get interested in will be to relate
the item to the whole, so that it will form part of the force,
and not part of the impediment.
This country, above every country in the world, gentle
men, is meant to lift; it is meant to add to the forces that
improve. It is meant to add to everything that betters the
world, that gives it better thinking, more honest endeavor, a
closer grapple of man with man, so that we will all be pulling
together like one irresistible team in a single harness. That
is the reason why it seemed wise to substitute for the harsh
processes of the law, which merely lays its hand on your
shoulder after you have sinned and threatens you with
punishment, some of the milder and more helpful processes of
counsel. That is the reason the Federal Trade Commission
was established, so that men would have some place where
they could take counsel as to what the law was and what
the law permitted; and also take counsel as to whether the
law itself was right and advice had not better be taken as
July 10] DEMOCRACY OF BUSINESS 137
to its alteration. The processes of counsel are the only
processes of accommodation, not the processes of punish
ment. Punishment retards but it does not lift up. Punish
ment impedes but it does not improve. And we ought to
substitute for the harsh processes of the law, wherever we
can, the milder and gentler and more helpful processes of
counsel.
* * * There is a task ahead of us of most colossal dif
ficulty. We have not been accustomed to the large world
of international business and we have got to get accustomed
to it right away. All provincials have got to take a back
seat. All men who are afraid of competition have got to
take a back seat. All men who depend upon anything except
their intelligence and their efficiency have got to take a
back seat. * * *
We are done with provincialism in the statesmanship of
the United States, and we have got to have a view now
and a horizon as wide as the world itself. And when I
look around upon an alert company like this, it seems to me
in my imagination they are almost straining at the leash.
They are waiting to be let loose upon this great race that is
now going to challenge our abilities. For my part, I shall
look forward to the result with absolute and serene confi
dence, because the spirit of the United States is an inter
national spirit, if we conceive it right. This is not the home
of any particular race of men. This is not the home
of any particular set of political traditions. This is a home
the doors of which have been opened from the first to man
kind, to everybody who loved liberty, to everybody whose
ideal was equality of opportunity, to everybody whose heart
was moved by the fundamental instincts and sympathies of
humanity. That is America, and now it is as if the nations of
the world, sampled and united here, were in their new union
and new common understanding turning about to serve the
world with all the honest processes of business and of enter
prise. I am happy that I should be witnessing the dawn of
the day when America is indeed to come into her own.
White House Pamphlet.
138 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
42. PREPAREDNESS TO PRESERVE PEACE
(July 10, 1916)
ADDRESS AT TOLEDO
This is an entire surprise party to me. I did not know I
was going to have the pleasure of stopping long enough to
address any number of you, but I am very glad indeed to
give you my very cordial greetings and to express my very
great interest in this interesting city.
General Sherwood said that there were many things we
agreed about, there is one thing we disagree about. General
Sherwood has been opposing preparedness, and I have been
advocating it, and I am very sorry to have found him on the
other side. Because, I think, you will bear me witness,
fellow citizens, that in advocating preparedness I have not
been advocating hostility. You will bear me witness that I
have been a persistent friend of peace and that nothing but
unmistakable necessity will drive me from that position. I
think it is a matter of sincere congratulation to us that our
neighbor Republic to the south shows evidences of at last
believing in our friendly intentions; that while we must pro
tect our border and see to it that our sovereignty is not
impugned, we are ready to respect their sovereignty also, and
to be their friends, and not their enemies.
The real uses of intelligence, my fellow citizens, are the
uses of peace. Any body of men can get up a row, but only
an intelligent body of men can get together and cooperate.
Peace is not only a test of a nation s patience; it is also a,
test of whether the nation knows how to conduct its rela
tions or not. It takes time to do intelligent things, and
it does not take any time to do unintelligent things. I
can lose my temper in a minute, but it takes me a long
time to keep it, and I think that if you were to subject my
Scotch-Irish blood to the proper kind of analysis, you would
find that it was fighting blood, and that it is pretty, hard
for a man born that way to keep quiet and do things in the
way in which his intelligence tells him he ought to do them.
I know just as well as that I am standing here that I rep-
July 10] PREPAREDNESS AND PEACE 139
resent and am the servant of a Nation that loves peace, and
that loves it upon the proper basis; loves it not because it is
afraid of anybody; loves it not because it does not under
stand and mean to maintain its rights, but because it knows
that humanity is something in which we are all linked to
gether, and that it behooves the United States, just as long
as it is possible, to hold off from becoming involved in a strife
which makes it all the more necessary that some part of the
world should keep cool while all the rest of it is hot. Here
in America, for the time being, are the spaces, the cool
spaces, of thoughtfulness, and so long as we are allowed to
do so, we will serve and not contend with the rest of our
fellow men. We are the more inclined to do this because the
very principles upon which our Government is based are
principles of common counsel and not of contest.
So, my fellow citizens, I congratulate myself upon this
opportunity, brief as it is, to give you my greetings and to
convey to you my congratulations that the signs that sur
round us are all signs of peace.
White House Pamphlet.
43. LOYALTY
(July 13, 1916)
ADDRESS AT CITIZENSHIP CONVENTION, WASHINGTON
-I have come here for the simple purpose of expressing 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 inti
mate 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 communities in
which we live and the nation to which we belong. It has
140 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
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 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 les
sons. America was intended to be a spirit among the nations
of the world, and it is the purpose of conferences like this
to find out the best way to introduce the newcomers to this
spirit, and by that very interest m 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 coun
tries 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
benefit and promote the progress of the world.
So my interest in this movement is as much an interest 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 teach
ing, no amount of exposition of the Constitution, which I
find very few persons understand, no amount of dwelling
upon the 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
July 13] LOYALTY 141
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 per
sons 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 Constitu
tion, expressing itself in these laws, intending to express
itself iiTthe exposition of those laws by the courts; and the
idea of America is not so much that men are to be restrained
and punished 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 com
munity 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 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 maintain 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 cannot 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 main-
i 4 2 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
taining 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 calam
ity 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 view, 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 force for ideal objects and not for self-
aggrandizement.
We have been disturbed recently, my fellow-citizens, by
certain symptoms which have showed themselves in our body
politic. Certain men, I have never believed a great num
ber, 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 organ
ization from the rest of us to accomplish some special object
of their own. 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. No man has ever risen to the
July 13] LOYALTY 143
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 influence upon others unless
we practice them also. This process of Americanization is
going to be a process of self-examination, a process of puri
fication, 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 fellow-citizens, to
represent ideal things than to represent anything else. It is
easy to lose your temper, and hard to keep it. It is easy to
strike and sometimes very difficult to refrain from striking,
and I think you will agree with me that we are most justified
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 complication just that
much the more profound and inextricable, 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 con
duct.
White House Pamphlet.
44. AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY FOR RAILROAD MEN
(August 29, 1916)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
I have come to you to seek your assistance in dealing with
a very grave situation which has arisen out of the demand
of the employees of the railroads engaged in freight train
service that they be granted an eight-hour working day,
i 4 4 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
safeguarded by payment for an hour and a half of service
for every hour of work beyond the eight.
The matter has been agitated for more than a year. The
public has been made familiar with the demands of the men
and the arguments urged in favor of them, and even more
familiar with the objections of the railroads and their counter
demand that certain priviliges now enjoyed by their men
and certain bases of payment worked out through many years
of contest be reconsidered, especially in their relation to the
adoption of an eight-hour day. The matter came some three
weeks ago to a final issue and resulted in a complete deadlock
between the parties. The means ^provided by law for the
mediation of the controversy failed and the means of arbitra
tion for which the law provides were rejected. The represen
tatives of the railway executives proposed that the demands
of the men be submitted in their entirety to arbitration, along
with certain questions of readjustment as to pay and condi
tions of employment which seem^i t6 them to be either closely
associated with the demands or to call for reconsideration on
their own merits; the men absolutely declined arbitration,
especially if any of their established -privileges were by that
means to be drawn again in question-. The law in the matter
put no compulsion upon them. The four hundred thousand
men from whom the demands proceeded had voted to strike
if their demands were refused; the strike was imminent; it
has since been set for the fourth of September next. It affects
the men who man the freight trains on practically every rail
way in the country. The freight service throughout the
United States must stand still until their places are filled, if,
indeed, it should prove possible to fill them at all. Cities
will be cut off from their food supplies, the whole commerce
of the nation will be paralyzed, men of every sort and occu
pation will be thrown out of employment, countless thousands
will in all likelihood be brought, it may be, to the very point
of starvation, and a tragical national calamity brought on,
to be added to the other distresses of the time, because no
basis of accommodation or settlement has been found.
Just as soon as it became evident that mediation under
the existing law had failed and that arbitration had been
rendered impossible by the attitude of the men, I considered
Ang. 29] EIGHT HOURS FOR RAILROAD MEN 145
it my duty to confer with the representatives of both the
railways and the brotherhoods, and myself offer mediation,
not as an arbitrator, but merely as spokesman of the nation,
in the interest of justice, indeed, and as a friend of both
parties, but not as judge, only as the representative of one
hundred millions of men, women, and children who would
pay the price, the incalculable price, of loss and suffering
should these few men insist upon approaching and concluding
the matters in controversy between them merely as employers
and employees, rather than as patriotic citizens of the United
States looking before and after and accepting the larger re
sponsibility which the public would put upon them.
It seemed to me, in considering the subject-matter of the
controversy, that the whole spirit of the time and the pre
ponderant evidence of recent economic experience spoke for
the eight-hour day. It has been adjudged by the thought and
experience of recent years a thing upon which society is
justified in insisting as in the interest of health, efficiency,
contentment, and a general increase of economic vigor. The
whole presumption of modern experience would, it seemed to
me, be in its favor, whether there was arbitration or not, and
the debatable points to settle were those which arose out of
the acceptance of the eight-hour day rather than those which
affected its establishment. I, therefore, proposed that the
eight-hour day be adopted by the railway managements and
put into practice for the present as a substitute for the exist
ing ten-hour basis of pay and service ; that I should appoint,
with the permission of the Congress, a small commission to
observe the results of the change, carefully studying the fig
ures of the altered operating costs, not only, but also the
conditions of labor under which the men worked and the
operation of their existing agreements with the railroads,
with instructions to report the facts as they found them to
the Congress at the earliest possible day, but without recom
mendation ; and that, after the facts had been thus disclosed,
an adjustment should in some orderly manner be sought of
all the matters now left unadjusted between the railroad
managers and the men.
These proposals were exactly in line, it is interesting to
note, with the position taken by the Supreme Court of the
146 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
United States when appealed to to protect certain litigants
from the financial losses which they confidently expected if
they should submit to the regulation of their charges and
of their methods of service by public legislation. The Court
has held that it would not undertake to form a judgment upon
forecasts, but could base its action only upon actual ex
perience; that it must be supplied with facts, not with calcu
lations and opinions, however scientifically attempted. To
undertake to arbitrate the question of the adoption of an
eight-hour day in the lights of results merely estimated and
predicted would be to undertake an enterprise of conjecture.
No wise man could undertake it, or, if he did undertake it,
could feel assured of his conclusions.
I unhesitatingly offered the friendly services of the admin
istration to the railway managers to see to it that justice
was done the railroads in the outcome. I felt warranted in
assuring them that no obstacle of law would be suffered to
stand in the way of their increasing their revenues to meet
the expenses resulting from the change ?so far as the develop
ment of their business and of their administrative efficiency
did not prove adequate to meet them. The public and the
representatives of the public, I felt justified in assuring them,
were disposed to nothing but justice in such- cases and were
willing to serve those who served them.
The representatives of the brotherhoods accepted the plan ;
but the representatives of the railroads declined to accept it.
In the face of what I cannot but regard as the practical cer
tainty that they will be ultimately obliged to accept the
eight-hour day by the concerted action of organized labor,
backed by the favorable judgment of society, the representa
tives of the railway management have felt justified in de
clining a peaceful settlement which would engage all the
forces of justice, public and private, on their, side to take
care of the event. They fear the hostile influence of ship
pers, who would be opposed to an increase of freight rates
(for which, however, of course, the public itself would pay) ;
they apparently feel no confidence that the Interstate Com
merce Commission could withstand the objections that would
be made. They do not care to rely upon the friendly assur
ances of the Congress or the President. They have thought
Aug. 29] EIGHT HOURS FOR RAILROAD MEN 147
it best that they should be forced to yield, if they must yield,
not by counsel, but by the suffering of the country. While
my conferences wifch them were in progress, and when to all
outward appearance those conferences had come to a stand
still, the representatives of the brotherhoods suddenly acted
and set the strike for the fourth of September.
The railway managers based their decision to reject my
counsel in this matter upon their conviction that they must
at any cost to themselves or to the country stand firm for
the principle of arbitration which the men had rejected. I
based my counsel upon the indisputable fact that there was
no means of obtaining arbitration. The law supplied none;
earnest efforts at mediation had failed -to influence the men in
the least. To stand firm for the principle of arbitration and
yet not get arbitration seemed to me futile, and something
more than futile, because it involved incalculable distress to
the country and consequences in some respects worse than
those of war, and that in the midst of peace.
I yield to no man in firm adherence, alike of conviction
and of purpose, to the principle of arbitration in industrial
disputes; but matters have come to a sudden crisis in this
particular dispute and the country had been caught unpro
vided with any practicable means of enforcing that conviction
in practice (by whose fault we will not now stop to inquire) .
A situation had to be met whose elements and fixed condi
tions were indisputable. The practical and patriotic course
to pursue, as it seemed to me, was to secure immediate peace
by conceding the one thing in the demands of the men which
society itself and any arbitrators who represented public
sentiment were most likely to approve, and immediately lay
the foundations for securing arbitration with regard to every
thing else involved. The event has confirmed that judgment.
I was seeking to compose the present in order to safeguard
the future; for I wished an atmosphere of peace and friendly,
cooperation in which to take counsel with .the representa
tives of the nation with regard to the best means for provid
ing, so far as it might prove possible to provide, against the
recurrence of such unhappy situations in the future, the
best and most practicable means of securing calm and fair
arbitration of all industrial disputes in the days to come.
148 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
This is assuredly the test way of vindicating a principle,
namely, having failed to make certain of its observance
in the present, to make certain of its observance in the fu
ture.
But I could only propose. I could not govern the will of
others who took an entirely different view of the circum
stances of the case, who even refused to admit the circum
stances to be what they have turned out to be.
Having failed to bring the parties to this critical contro
versy to an accommodation, therefore, I turn to you, deeming
it clearly our duty as public servants to leave nothing undone
that we can do to safeguard the life and interests of the
nation. In the spirit of such a purpose, I earnestly recom
mend the following legislation:
First, immediate provision for the enlargement and admin
istrative reorganizaton of the Interstate Commerce Commis
sion along the lines embodied in the bill recently passed by
the House of Representatives and now awaiting action by
the Senate; in order that the Commission may be enabled
to deal with the many great and various duties now devolving
upon it with a promptness and thoroughness which are with
its present constitution and means of action practically im
possible.
Second, the establishment of an eight-hour day as the legal
basis alike of work and of wages in the employment of all
railway employees who are actually engaged in the work of
operating trains in interstate transportation.
Third, the authorization of the appointment by the Presi
dent of a small body of men to observe the actual results in
experience of the adoption of the eight-hour day in railway
transportation alike for the men and for the railroads; its
effects in the matter of operating costs, in the application of
the existing practices and agreements to the new conditions,
and in all other practical aspects, with the provision that the
investigators shall report their conclusions to the Congress at
the earliest possible date, but without recommendation as
to legislative action; in order that the public may learn from
an unprejudiced source just what actual developments have
ensued.
Fourth, explicit approval by the Congress of the consider-
Aug. 29] EIGHT HOURS FOR RAILROAD MEN 149
ation by the Interstate Commerce Commission of an increase
of freight rates to meet such additional expenditures by the
railroads as may have been rendered necessary by the adop
tion of the eight-hour day and which have not been offset
by administrative readjustments and economies, should the
facts disclosed justify the increase.
/ Fifth, an amendment of the existing federal statute which
provides for the mediation, conciliation, and arbitration of
such controversies as the present by adding to it a provision
that in case the methods of accommodation now provided
for should fail, a full public investigation of the merits of
every such dispute shall be instituted and completed before
a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted.
i - " And, sixth, the lodgment in the hands of the Executive of
the power, in case of military necessity, to take control of
such portions and such rolling stock of the railways of the
country as may be required for military use and to operate
them for military purposes, with authority to draft into the
military service of the United States such train crews and
administrative officials as the circumstances require for their
safe and efficient use.
This last suggestion I make because we cannot in any
circumstances suffer the nation to be hampered in the essen
tial matter of national defense. At the present moment pir-
cumstances render this duty particularly obvious. Almost
the entire military force of the nation is stationed upon the
Mexican border to guard our territory against hostile raids.
It must be supplied, and steadily supplied, with whatever it
needs for its maintenance and efficiency. If it should be
necessary for purposes of national defense to transfer any
portion of it upon short notice to some other part of the
country, for reasons now unforeseen, ample means of trans
portation must be available, and available without delay.
The power confessed in this matter should be carefully and
explicitly limited to cases of military necessity, but in all
such cases it should be cleam and ample.
There is one other thing we should do if we are true cham
pions of arbitration. We should make all arbitral awards
judgments by record of a court of law in order that their
interpretation and enforcement may lie, not with one of the
150 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
parties to the arbitration, but with an impartial and authori
tative tribunal.
These things I urge upon you, not in haste or merely as a
means of meeting a present emergency, but as permanent
and necessary additions to the law of the land, suggested,
indeed, by circumstances we had hoped never to see, but im
perative as well as just, if such emergencies are to be pre
vented in the future. I feel that no extended argument is
needed to commend them to your favorable consideration.
They demonstrate themselves. The time and the occasion
only give emphasis to their importance. We need them now
and we shall continue to need them.
White Home Pamphlet.
45. ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(September 4, 1916)
ADDRESS AT THE LINCOLN BIRTHPLACE FARM, AT HODGEN-
VILLE
No more significant memorial could have been presented
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 submits its
processes. Nature pays no tribute to aristocracy, 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 spe
cial tribute to universities or learned societies or conventional
standards of greatness, but serenely chooses its own com
rades, its own haunts, its own cradle even, and its own life
of adventure and of training. Here is proof of it. This little
Sept. 4] ABRAHAM LINCOLN 151
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, himself
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 and 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 vital
ity 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 richness to be the familiar of men of
every way of life. This is the sacred mystery of democ
racy, that its richest fruits spring up out of soils which no
man has prepared and in circumstances amidst which they
are the least experienced. This is a place alike of mystery
and of reassurance.
It is likely tha.t 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 democ
racy 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, stimula
tion, and force of democracy, he is only one example among
many. The permeating and all-pervasive virtue of the free
dom which challenges us in America to make the most of
152 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
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 con
summation of that great life seem remote and a bit incredible.
And yet there was no break anywhere between beginning and
end, no lack of natural sequence anywhere. Nothing really
incredible happened. 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 permanently 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 significance, that it is always what he was
that really arrests our thought and takes hold of our imagina
tion. It is the spirit always that is sovereign. Lincoln, like
the rest of us, was put through the discipline of the world,
a very rough and exacting discipline! for him, an indispen
sable 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 Washing
ton as typical Americans, but no man can be typical who is
so unusual as these great men were. It was typical of Amer
ican life that it should produce such men with supreme in
difference as to the manner in which it produced them, and
as readily here in this hut as amidst the little circle of culti
vated gentlemen to whom Virginia owed so much in leader
ship 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 intimate stories that
Sept. 4] ABRAHAM LINCOLN 153
are told of him, the narratives of nearby friends, the sketches
at close quarters, in which those who had the privilege of
being associated with him have tried to depict for us the very
man himself "in his habit as he lived;" but I have nowhere
found a real intimate of Lincoln s. I nowhere get the im
pression in any narrative or reminiscence 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 on 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 con
science 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 assembling and deploying thoughts.
I have come here today, not to utter an 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 man
kind may from age to age be rekindled? For these hopes
must constantly 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 democ
racy is to translate 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 serv
ice and enlightened purpose. The commands of democracy
are as imperative as its privileges and opportunities are wide
154 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
and generous. Its compulson 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 spiritual exaltation of the great nation which
shelters and nurtures us.
White House Pamphlet.
46. THE FORCES OF FREEDOM
(September 8, 1916)
ADDRESS AT SUFFRAGE CONVENTION, ATLANTIC CITY
I have found it a real privilege to be here to-night and to
listen to the addresses which you have heard. Though you
may not all of you believe it, I would a great deal rather hear
somebody else speak than speak myself; but I should feel
that I was omitting a duty if I did not address you to-night
and say some of the things that have been in my thought as
I realized the approach of this evening and the duty that
would fall upon me.
The astonishing thing about the movement which you
represent is, not that it has grown so slowly, but that it has
grown so rapidly. No doubt for those who have been a long
time in the struggle, like your honored president, it seems
a long and arduous path that has been trodden, but when you
think of the cumulative force of this movement in recent
decades, you must agree with me that it is one of the most
astonishing tides in modern history. Two generations ago,
no doubt Madam President will agree with me in saying, it
was a handful of women who were fighting this cause. Now
it is a great multitude of women who are fighting it.
And there are some interesting historical connections which
I would like to attempt to point out to you. One of the most
striking facts about the history of the United States is that
Sept. 8] THE FORCES OF FREEDOM 155
at the outset it was a lawyers history. Almost all of the
questions to which America addressed itself, say a hundred
years ago, were legal questions, were questions of method,
not questions of what you were going to do with your Gov
ernment, but questions of how you were going to constitute
your Government, how you were going to balance the powers
of the States and the Federal Government, how you were
going to balance the claims of property against the processes
of liberty, how you were going to make your governments
up so as to balance the parts against each other so that the
legislature would check the executive, and the executive the
legislature, and the courts both of them put together. The
whole conception of government when the United States be
came a Nation was a mechanical conception of government,
and the mechanical conception of government which underlay
it was the Newtonian theory of the universe. If you pick up
the Federalist, some parts of it read like a treatise on astron
omy instead of a treatise on government. They speak of the
centrifugal and the centripital forces, and locate the Presi
dent somewhere in a rotating system. The whole thing is a
calculation of power and an adjustment of parts. There was
a time when nobody but a lawyer could know enough to run
the Government of the United States, and a distinguished
English publicist once remarked, speaking of the complexity
of the American Government, that it was no proof of the
excellence of the American Constitution that it had been
successfully operated, because the Americans could run any
constitution. But there have been a great many technical
difficulties in running it.
And then something happened. A great question arose
in this country which, though complicated with legal ele
ments, was at bottom a human question, and nothing but a
question of humanity. That was the slavery question. And
is it not significant that it was then, and then for the first
time, that women became prominent in politics in America?
Not many women; those prominent in that day were so few
that you can name them over in a brief catalogue, but, never
theless, they then began to play a part in writing, not only,
but in public speech, which was a very novel part for women
156 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
to play in America. After the Civil War had settled some
of what seemed to be the most difficult legal questions of our
system, the life of the Nation began not only to unfold, but
to accumulate. Life in the United States was a compara
tively simple matter at the time of the Civil War. There
was none of that underground struggle which is now so
manifest to those who look only a little way beneath the sur
face. Stories such as Dr. Davis has told to-night were
uncommon in those simpler days. The pressure of low
wages, the agony of obscure and unremunerated toil, did
not exist in America in anything like the same proportions
that they exist now. And as our life has unfolded and
accumulated, as the contacts of it have become hot, as the
populations have assembled in the cities, and the cool spaces
of the country have been supplanted by the feverish urban
areas, the whole nature of our political questions has been
altered. They have ceased to be legal questions. They have
more and more become social questions, questions with re
gard to the relations of human beings to one another, not
merely their legal relations, but their moral and spiritual
relations to one another. This has been most characteristic
of American life in the last few decades, and as these ques
tions have assumed greater and greater prominence, the
movement which this association represents has gathered
cumulative force. So that, if anybody asks himself, "What
does this gathering force mean," if he knows anything about
the history of the country, he knows that it means something
that has not only come to stay, but has come with conquering
power.
I get a little impatient sometimes about the discussion of
the channels and methods by which it is to prevail. It is
going to prevail, and that is a very superficial and ignorant
view of it which attributes it to mere social unrest. It is
not merely because the women are discontented. It is be
cause the women have seen visions of duty, and that is
something which we not only can not resist, but, if we be
true Americans, we do not wish to resist. America took its
origin in visions of the human spirit, in aspirations for the
deepest sort of liberty of the mind and of the heart, and as
visions of that sort come up to the sight of those who are
Sept. 8] THE FORCES OF FREEDOM 157
spiritually minded in America, America comes more and
more into her birthright and into the perfection of her de
velopment.
So that what we have to realize in dealing with forces of
this sort is that we are dealing with the substance of life
itself. I have felt as I sat here to-night the wholesome con
tagion of the occasion. Almost ever/ other time that I ever
visited Atlantic City, I came to fight somebody. I hardly
know how to conduct myself when I have not come to fight
against anybody, but with somebody. I have come to sug
gest, among other things, that when the forces of nature
are steadily working and the tide is rising to meet the moon,
you need not be afraid that it will not come to its flood.
We feel the tide; we rejoice in the strength of it; and we
shall not quarrel in the long run as to the method of it.
Because, when you are working with masses of men and
organized bodies of opinion, you have got to carry the organ
ized body along. The whole art and practice of government!
consists, not in moving individuals, but in moving masses.
It is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but, after all,
you have got to wait for the body to follow. I have not come
to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have
come to congratulate you that there was a force behind you
that will beyond any peradventure be triumphant, and for
which you can afford a little while to wait.
White House Pamphlet.
47. WORLD BUSINESS OF AMERICA
(September 25, 1916)
ADDRESS TO THE GRAIN DEALERS ASSOCIATION, AT
BALTIMORE
* * * I have come to discuss the general relation of the
United States to the business of the world in the decades
immediately ahead of us. We have swung out, my fellow
citizens, into a new business era in America. I suppose that
there is no man connected with your association who does
158 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
not remember the time when the whole emphasis of Ameri
can business discussion was laid upon the domestic market.
I need not remind you how recently it has happened that our
attention has been extended to the markets of the world;
much less recently, I need not say, in the matters with which
you are concerned than in the other export interests of the
country. But it happened that American production, not
only in the agricultural field and in mining and in all the
natural products of the earth, but also in manufacture, in
creased in recent years to such a volume that American busi
ness burst its jacket. It could not any longer be taken care
of within the field of the domestic markets; and when that
began to disclose itself as the situation, we also became aware
that American business men had not studied foreign mar
kets, that they did not know the commerce of the world,
and that they did not have the ships in which to take their
proportionate part in the carrying trade of the world; that
our merchant marine had sunk to a negligible amount, and
that it had sunk to its lowest at the very time when the tide
of our exports began to grow in most formidable volume.
One of the most interesting circumstances of our business
history is this: The banking laws of the United States, I
mean the Federal banking laws, did not put the national
banks in a position to do foreign exchange under favorable
conditions, and it was actually true that private banks, and
sometimes branch banks drawn out of other countries, notably
out of Canada, were established at our chief ports to do what
American bankers ought to have done. It was as if America
was not only unaccustomed to touching all the nerves of the
world s business, but was disinclined to touch them, and had
not prepared the instrumentality by which it might take part
in the great commerce of the round globe. Only in very
recent years have we been even studying the problem of
providing ourselves with the instrumentalities. Not until
the recent legislation of Congress known as the Federal re
serve act were the Federal banks of this country given the
proper equipment through which the) could assist American
commerce, not only in our own country, but in any part
of the world where they chose to set up branch institutions.
British banks had been serving British merchants all over
Sept. 25] WORLD BUSINESS OF AMERICA 159
the world, German banks had been serving German mer
chants all over the world, and no national bank of the United
States had been serving American merchants anywhere in
the world except in the United States. We had, as it were,
deliberately refrained from playing our part in the field in
which we prided ourselves that we were most ambitious and
most expert, the field of manufacture and of commerce. All
that is past, and the scene has been changed by the events
of the last two years, almost suddenly, and with a complete
ness that almost daunts the planning mind. Not only when
this war is over, but now, America has her place in the world
and must take her place in the world of finance and com
merce upon a scale that she never dreamed of before.
My dream is that she will take her place in that great field
in a new spirit which the world has never seen before; not the
spirit of those who would exclude others, but the spirit of
those who would excel others. I want to see America pitted
against the world, not in selfishness, but in brains. The first
thing that brains have to feed upon is knowledge, and when
I hear men proposing to deal with the business problems of
the United States in the future as we dealt with them in the
past, I do not have to inquire any further whether they are
equipped with knowledge. I dismiss them from the reckon
ing, because I know that the facts are going to dominate
and they know nothing about the facts. And the most that
we can supply ourselves with just now is, not the detailed
program of policy, but the instrumentalities of gaining thor
ough knowledge of what we are about. Every man of us
must for some time to come be "from Missouri!" We must
want to know what the facts are, and when we know what
the facts are we shall know what the policy ought to be. * * *
* * * It has always been a fiction, I don t know who in
vented it or why he invented it, that there was a contest
between the law and business. There has always been a
contest in every government between the law and bad busi
ness, and I do not want to see that contest softened in any
way; but there has never been any contest between men who
intended the right thing and the men who administered the
law. * * *
You know that we have just now done what it was common
i6o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
sense to do about the tariff. We have not put this into
words, but I do not hesitate to put it into words: We have
admitted that on the one side and on the other we were
talking theories and managing policies without a sufficient
knowledge of the facts upon which we were acting, and,
therefore, we have established what is intended to be a non-
partisan tariff commission to study the conditions with which
legislation has to deal in the matter of the relations of Amer
ican with foreign business transactions. Another eye created
to see the facts! And I am hopeful that I can find the men
who will see the facts and state them, no matter whose
opinion those facts contradict. For an opinion ought always
to have a profound respect for a fact; and when you once
get the facts, opinions that are antagonistic to those facts
are necessarily defeated. I have never found a really cour
ageous man who was afraid to put his opinion to the test
of facts, or a morally sincere man who was not ready to sur
render to the facts when they were contrary to his opinion.
The Tariff Commission is going to look for the facts no
matter who is hurt. We are creating one after another the
instrumentalities of knowledge, so that the business men of
this country shall know what the field of the world s business
is and deal with that field upon that knowledge.
Then, when the knowledge is obtained, what are we going
to do? One of the things that interests me most about an
association of this sort is that the intention of it is that the
members should share a common body of information, and
that they should concert among themselves those operations
of business which are beneficial to all of them; that, instead
of a large number of dealers in grain acting separately and
each fighting for his own hand, you are willing to come to
gether and study the problem hb if you were partners and
brothers and co-operators in this field of business. That has
been going on in every occupation in the United States of
any consequence. Even the men that do the advertising have
been getting together, and they have made this startling and
fundamental discovery, that the only way to advertise suc
cessfully is to tell the truth. There are many reasons for
that. One of the chief reasons is that when you get found
out, it is worse for you than it was before; but the great
i
Sept. 25] WORLD BUSINESS OF AMERICA 161
reason, the sober reason, is that business must be founded on
the truth, and you men get together in order to create a
clearing house for the truth about your business.
Very well ; that is a picture in small of what we must do in
the large. We must cooperate in the whole field of busi
ness, the Government with the merchant, the merchant with
his employee, the whole body of producers with the whole
body of consumers, to see that the right things are produced
in the right volume and find the right purchasers at the right
place, and that, all working together, we realize that nothing
can be for the individual benefit which is not for the common
benefit. * * *
And it is absolutely necessary now to make good our new
connections. Our new connections are with the great and
rich Republics to the south of us. For the first time in my
recollection they are beginning to trust and believe in us and
want us, and one of my chief concerns has been to see that
nothing was done that did not show friendship and good faith
on our part. You know that it used to be the case that if
you wanted to travel comfortably in your own person from
New York to a South American port, you had to go by way
of England or else stow yourself away in some uncomfortable
fashion in a ship that took almost as long to go straight, and
within whose bowels you got in such a temper before you got
there that you did not care whether she got there or not. The
great interesting geographical fact to me is that by the open
ing of the Panama Canal there is a straight line south from
New York through the canal to the western coast of South
America, which hitherto has been one of the most remote
coasts in the world so far as we are concerned. The west
coast of South America is now nearer to us than the eastern
coast of South America ever was, though we have the open
Atlantic upon which to approach the east coast. Here is the
loom all ready upon which to spread the threads which can
be worked into a fabric of friendship and wealth such as we
have never known before!
The real wealth of foreign relationships, my fellow-citizens,
whether they be the relationships of trade or any other kind
of intercourse, the real wealth of those relationships is the
wealth of mutual confidence and understanding. If we do not
1 62 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
understand them and they do not understand us, we can hot
trade with them, much less be their friends, and it is only by
weaving these intimate threads of connection that we shall
be able to establish that fundamental thing, that psychologi
cal, spiritual nexus which is, after all, the real warp and woof
of trade itself. We have got to have the knowledge, we have
got to have the cooperation, and then back of all that has
got to lie what America has in abundance and only has to
release, that is to say, the self-reliant enterprise.
There is only one thing I have ever been ashamed of about
in America, and that was the timidity and fearfulness of
Americans in the presence of foreign competitors. I have
dwelt among Americans all my life and am an intense ab
sorbent of the atmosphere of America, and I know by per
sonal experience that there are as effective brains in America
as anywhere in the world. An American afraid to pit Amer
ican business men against any competitors anywhere! En
terprise, the shrewdness which Americans have shown, the
knowledge of business which they have shown, all these things
are going to make for that peaceful and honorable conquest
of foreign markets which is our reasonable ambition. * * *
White House Pamphlet.
48. A SOCIETY OF NATIONS
(October 26, 1916)
ADDRESS AT CINCINNATI
* * * What I intend to preach from this time on is that
America must show that as a member of the family of na
tions she has the same attitude toward the other nations that
she wishes her people to have toward each other: That
America is going to take this position, that she will lend her
moral influence, not only, but her physical force, if other
nations will join her, to see to it that no nation and no group
of nations tries to take advantage of another nation or group
of nations, and that the only thing ever fought for is the
common rights of humanity.
Oct. 26] A SOCIETY OF NATIONS 163
A great many men are complaining that we are not fight
ing now in order to get something not something spiritual,
not a right, not something we could be proud of, but some
thing we could possess and take advantage of and trade on
and profit by. They are complaining that the Government
of the United States has not the spirit of other Governments,
which is to put the force, the army and navy, of that Gov
ernment behind investments in foreign countries. Just so
certainly as you do that, you join this chaos of competing
and hostile ambitions.
Have you ever heard what started the present war? If
you have, I wish you would publish it, because nobody else
has, so far as I can gather. Nothing in particular started it,
but everything in general. There had been growing up in
Europe a mutual suspicion, an interchange of conjectures
about what this Government and that Government was going
to do, an interlacing of alliances and understandings, a com
plex web of intrigue and spying, that presently was sure to
entangle the whole of the family of mankind on that side of
the water in its meshes.
Now, revive that after this war is over and sooner or later
you will have just such another war, and this is the last war
of the kind or of any kind that involves the world that the
United States can keep out of.
I say that because I believe that the business of neutrality
is over; not because I want it to be over, but I mean this,
that war now has such a scale that the position of neutrals
sooner or later becomes intolerable. Just as neutrality would
be intolerable to me if I lived in a community where every
body had to assert his own rights by force and I had to go
around among my neighbors and say: "Here, this cannot last
any longer; let us get together and see that nobody disturbs
the peace any more." That is what society is and we have
not yet a society of nations.
We must have a society of nations, not suddenly, not by
insistence, not by any hostile emphasis upon the demand, but
by the demonstration of the needs of the time. The nations
of the world must get together and say, "Nobody can here
after be neutral as respects the disturbance of the world s
peace for an object which the world s opinion can not sane-
1 64 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
tion." The world s peace ought to be disturbed if the fun
damental rights of humanity are invaded, but it ought not to
be disturbed for any other thing that I can think of, and
America was established in order to indicate, at any rate in
one Government, the fundamental rights of man. America
must hereafter be ready as a member of the family of na
tions to exert her whole force, moral and physical, to the
assertion of those rights throughout the round globe. * * *
New York Times, Oct. 27, 1916.
49. THE END OF ISOLATION
(November 4, 1916)
ADDRESS AT SHADOW LAWN
* * * The world will never be again what it has been.
The United States will never be again what it has been. The
United States was once in enjoyment of what we used to call
splendid isolation. The three thousand miles of the Atlan
tic seemed to hold all European affairs at arm s length from
us. The great spaces of the Pacific seemed to disclose no
threat of influence upon our politics.
Now, from across the Atlantic and from across the Pacific
we feel to the quick the influences which are affecting our
selves, and, in the meantime, whereas we used to be always
in search of assistance and stimulation from out of other
countries, always in search of the capital of other countries
to assist our investments, depending upon foreign markets
for the sale of our securities, now we have bought in more
than 50 per cent of those securities; we have become not
the debtors but the creditors of the world, and in what other
nations used to play in promoting industries which extended
as wide as the world itself, we are playing the guiding part.
We can determine to a large extent who is to be financed
and who is not to be financed. That is the reason I say that
the United States will never be again what it has been. So
it does not suffice to look, as some gentlemen are looking,
back over their shoulders, to suggest that we do again what
Nov. 4] THE END OF ISOLATION 165
we did when we were provincial and isolated and uncon
nected with the great forces of the world, for now we are in
the great drift of humanity which is to determine the poli
tics of every country in the world.
With this outlook, is it worth while to stop to think of
party advantage? Is it worth stopping to think of how we
have voted in the past? We are now going to vote, if we
be men with eyes open that can see the world, as those who
wish to make a new America in a new world mean the same
old thing for mankind that it meant when this great Repub
lic was set up ; mean hope and justice and righteous judgment
and unselfish action. Why, my fellow-citizens, it is an un
precedented thing in the world that any nation in determining
its foreign relations should be unselfish, and my ambition is
to see America set the great example; not only a great ex
ample morally, but a great example intellectually. * * *
Every man who has read and studied the great annals of
this country may feel his blood warm as he feels these great
forces of humanity growing stronger and stronger, not only,
but knowing better and better from decade to decade how to
concert action and unite their strength. In the days to come
men will no longer wonder how America is going to work
out her destiny, for she will have proclaimed to them that her
destiny is not divided from the destiny of the world ; that her
purpose is justice and love of mankind.
New York Times, Nov. 5, 1916.
50. THE RIGHT HAND TO LABOR
(November 18, 1916)
ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AT THE
WHITE HOUSE
I need not say that, coming to me as you do -on such an
errand, I am very deeply gratified and very greatly cheered.
It would be impossible for me off-hand to say just what
thoughts are stirred in me by what Mr. Gompers has said
to me as your spokesman, but perhaps the simplest thing I
i66 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
can say is, after all, the meat of the whole matter. What I
have tried to do is to get rid of any class division in this
country, not only, but of any class consciousness and feeling.
The worst thing that could happen to America would be that
she should be divided into groups and camps in which there
were men and women who thought that they were at odds
with one another, that the spirit of America was not ex
pressed except in them, and that possibilities of antagonism
were the only things that we had to look forward to.
As Mr. Gompers said, achievement is a comparatively
small matter, but the spirit in which things are done is of the
essence of the whole thing, and what I am striving for, and
what I hope you are striving for, is to blot out all the lines
of division in America, and create a unity of spirit and of
purpose founded upon this, the consciousness that we are all
men and women of the same sort, and that if we do not un
derstand each other we are not true Americans. If we
cannot enter into each other s thoughts, if we cannot com
prehend each other s interests, if we cannot serve each oth
er s essential welfare, then we have not yet qualified as repre
sentatives of the American spirit.
Nothing alarms America so much as rifts, divisions, the
drifting apart of elements among her people, and the thing
we ought all to strive for is to close up every rift; and the
only way to do it, so far as I can see, is to establish justice
not only, but justice with a heart in it, justice with a pulse
in it, justice with sympathy in it. Justice can be cold and
forbidding, or can be warm and welcome, and the latter is
the only kind of justice that Americans ought to desire. I do
not believe I am deceiving myself when I say that I think
this spirit is growing in America. I pray God it may con
tinue to grow, and all I have to say is to exhort every one
whom my voice reaches here or elsewhere to come into this
common movement of humanity.
New York Times, Nov. 19, 1916.
Dec. 18] THE WAY TO PEACE 167
51. THE WAY TO PEACE
(December 18, 1916)
DESPATCH PARTLY IN REPLY TO GERMAN PROPOSITION OF
PEACE, THROUGH SECRETARY LANSING
The President of the United States has instructed me to
suggest to the [here is inserted a designation of the Gov
ernment addressed] a course of action with regard to the
present war which he hopes that the * * * Government will
take under consideration as suggested in the most friendly
spirit, and as coming not only from a friend but also as
coming from the representative of a neutral nation whose
interests have been most seriously affected by the war and
whose concern for its early conclusion arises out of a manifest
necessity to determine how best to safeguard those interests
if the war is to continue.
The suggestion which I am instructed to make the Presi
dent has long had it in mind to offer. He is somewhat em
barrassed to offer it at this particular time because it may
now seem to have been prompted by a desire to play a part
in connection with the recent overtures of the Central Pow
ers. It has in fact been in no way suggested by them in
its origin and the President would have delayed offering it
until those overtures had been independently answered but
for the fact that it also concerns the questions of peace and
may best be considered in connection with other proposals
which have the same end in view. The President can only
beg that his suggestion be considered entirely on its own
merits and as if it had been made in other circumstances.
The President suggests that an early occasion be sought
to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal
of their respective views as to the terms upon which the
war might be concluded and the arrangements which would
be deemed satisfactory as a guaranty against its renewal or
the kindling of any similar conflict in the future as would
make it possible frankly to compare them. He is indifferent
as to the means taken to accomplish this. He would be
1 63 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
happy himself to serve, or even to take the initiative in its
accomplishment, in any way that might prove acceptable,
but he has no desire to determine the method or the instru
mentality. One way will be as acceptable to him as another
if only the great object he has in mind be attained.
He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that
the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both
sides have in mind in this war are virtually the same, as
stated in general terms to their own people and to the world.
Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak
peoples and small states as secure against aggression or
denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great
and powerful states now at war. Each wishes itself to be
made secure in the future, along with all other nations and
peoples, against the recurrence of wars like this, and against
aggression or selfish interference of any kind. Each, would
be jealous of the formation of any more rival leagues to
preserve an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying
suspicions; but each is ready to consider the formation of
a league of nations to insure peace and justice throughout
the world. Before that final step can be taken, however, each
deems it necessary first to settle the issues of the present war
upon terms which will certainly safeguard the independence,
the territorial integrity, and the political and commercial free
dom of the nations involved.
In the measures to be taken to secure the future peace of
the world the people and Government of the United States
are as vitally and as directly" interested as the Governments
now at war. Their interest, moreover, in the means to be
adopted to relieve the smaller and weaker peoples of the
world of the peril of wrong and violence is as quick and
ardent as that of any other people or Government. They
stand ready, and even eager, to cooperate in the accomplish
ment of these ends, when the war is over, with every influence
and resource at their command. But the war must first
be concluded. The terms upon which it is to be concluded
they are not at liberty to suggest; but the President does
feel that it is his right and his duty to point out their inti
mate interest in its conclusion, lest it should presently be
too late to accomplish the greater things which lie beyond
Dec. 18] THE WAY TO PEACE 169
its conclusion, lest the situation of neutral nations, now ex
ceedingly hard to endure, be rendered altogether intolerable,
and lest, more than all, an injury be done civilization itself
which can never be atoned for or repaired.
The President therefore feels altogether justified in sug
gesting an immediate opportunity for a comparison of views
as to the terms which must precede those ultimate arrange
ments for the peace of the world, which all desire and in
which the neutral nations as well as those at war are ready
to play their full responsible part. If the contest must
continue to proceed toward undefined ends by slow attrition
until the one group of belligerents or the other is exhausted,
if millions after millions of human lives must continue to
be offered up until on the one side or the other there are
no more to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can
never cool and despairs engendered from which there can
be no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert of
free peoples will be rendered vain and idle.
The life of the entire world has been profoundly affected.
Every part of the great family of mankind has felt the
burden and terror of this unprecedented contest of arms.
No nation in the civilized world can be said in truth to
stand outside its influence or to be safe against its disturb
ing effects. And yet the concrete objects for which it is
being waged have never been definitively stated.
The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been
said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in
general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never
yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed
the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them
and their people that the war had been fought out. The
world has been left to conjecture what definitive results,
what actual exchange of guaranties, what political or terri
torial changes or readjustments, what stage of military suc
cess even, would bring the war to an end.
It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that the
terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the
other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not so
irreconciliable as some have feared; that an interchange of
views would clear the way at least for conference and make
1 70 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1916
-
the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the imme
diate future, a concert of nations immediately practicable.
The President is not proposing peace; he is not even
offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings
be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations
with the belligerent, how near the haven of peace may be
for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing
longing. He believes that the spirit in which he speaks
and the objects which he seeks will be understood by all
concerned, and he confidently hopes for a response which
will bring a new light into the affairs of the world.
Congressional Record, LIV, App. 36.
YEAR 1917
52. SUPPORT FOR THE RED CROSS
(January 7, 1917)
PUBLIC APPEAL AS PRESIDENT OF THE RED CROSS
Another Winter closes around the great European struggle
and, with the cold, there comes greater need among soldiers
in the fighting line and in the hospitals, and still more among
the women and children in ruined homes or in exile. This
country, at peace, blessed with prosperity, can hardly imagine
the needs, but it can help to meet them.
Of great importance among the agencies which have ex
pressed our sympathy with suffering humanity among the
belligerent nations has been the American Red Cross. This
organization of our countrymen has brought relief to every
nation in the great war. Its skilled workers have cared for
the wounded in every army, have gone forth through the des
olate Siberian plains to bring help to thousands of prisoners,
have fought disease in pestilence-ridden Serbia, and have
brought hope to countless non-combatants, women, and chil
dren.
Wherever these Red Cross men and women go, they are
carrying the message that Americans cannot rest without
seeking to relieve such suffering. Organized, persistent work,
like that conducted by our American Red Cross, requires a
great deal of money. Since the beginning of the war, money
has come to us from men and women in all walks of life.
We have received checks in five figures and pennies wrapped
in smudged envelopes. What we have done with the money
is told in the accompanying statement.
But now our funds are well-nigh exhausted. We find
171
172 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
ourselves at the point where activities must be seriously cur
tailed and we must turn away from the heart-breaking appeals
brought by every European mail, unless by your contribu
tion you help us to continue.
It is for you to decide whether the most prosperous nation
in the world will allow its national relief organization to keep
up its work or withdraw from a field where there exists the
greatest need ever recorded in history. We leave the decision
in your hands, confident of its outcome.
New York Times, Jan. 8, 1917.
53. CONDITIONS OF PEACE
(January 22, 1917)
ADDRESS TO THE SENATE
On the eighteenth of December last I addressed an identic
note to the governments of the nations now at war request
ing 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 be
half of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like
our own, many of whose most vital interests the war puts in
constant jeapardy. The Central Powers united in a reply
which stated merely that they were ready to meet their an
tagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace. The En
tente Powers have replied much more definitely and have
stated, in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definite-
ness to imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts
of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable con
ditions 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 inter
national concert which must thereafter hold the world at
peace. In every discussion of the peace that must end this
war it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed
by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually
impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm
Jan. 22] CONDITIONS OF PEACE 173
us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thought
ful man must take that for granted.
I have sought this opportunity to address you because 1
thought that I owed it to you, as the council associated with
me in the final determination of our international obliga
tions, 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 the days to come when it
will be necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the
foundations 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 pur
poses 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 conditions under which they will feel free/
to render it.
That service is nothing less than this, to add their authority
and their power to the authority and force of other nations
to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world. Such
a settlement cannot now be long postponed. It is right that
before it comes this Government should frankly formulate
the conditions upon which it would feel justified in asking
our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a
League for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those con
ditions.
The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to
candour and to a just regard for the opinion of mankind to
say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future
peace is considered, 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,
174 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
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 cove
nant; and our judgment upon what is fundamental and es
sential as a condition precedent to permanency should be
spoken now, not afterwards when it may be too late.
No covenant of cooperative peace that does not include
the peoples of the New World can suffice to keep the future
safe against war; and yet there is only one sort of peace that
the peoples of America could join in guaranteeing. The
elements of that peace must be elements that engage the
confidence and satisfy the principles of the American gov
ernments, elements consistent with their political faith and
with 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 government 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, whatever they might be. I only take it
for granted that mere terms of peace between the belligerents
will not satisfy even the belligerents themselves. Mere agree
ments may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely
necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the per
manency of the settlement so much greater than the force of
any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or
projected that no nation, no probable combination of na
tions 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 deter
mine whether it is a peace for which such a guarantee can
be secured. The question upon which the whole future peace
and policy of the world depends is this: Is the present war a
struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance
of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance, of
power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable
equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe
Jan. 22] CONDITIONS OF PEACE 175
can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of
power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries,
but an organized common peace.
Fortunately we have received very explicit assurances on
this point. The statesmen of both 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 pur
pose 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 I
permitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it
may be understood that no other interpretation was in my
thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them
without soft concealments, yictory wouloLmean peace forced
upon the losei^a^yjctor s terms imposed upon the van-
quisfiegrTt woulcTbe acceptedjn humiliation, under duress,
at aoTntqlerable sacrifice^ajid would leave a sting, a resent-
ment/a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest,
not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace
between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of
which is equality and a common participation in a common
benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between
nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the justi
settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and
national allegiance. - .- , . -J
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, between those that are pow
erful and those that are weak. Right 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 peace
ful and legitimate development of the peoples themselves.
I 7 6 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
But no one asks or expects anything 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 right among organized nations. No peace can last, or
ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the prin
ciple that governments derive all their just powers from the
consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists
to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if
they were property. I take it for granted, for instance, if I
may venture upon a single example, that statesmen every
where are agreed that there should be a united, independent,
and autonomous Poland, and that henceforth inviolable secur
ity of life, of worship, and of industrial and social develop
ment 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 Amer
ica, 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 con
victions of mankind. The ferment of spirit of whole popu
lations 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 tranquility of spirit
and a sense of justice, of freedom, and of right.
So far as practicable, moreover, every great people now
struggling towards a full development of its resources and
of its powers should be assured a direct outlet to the great
highways of the sea. Where this cannot be done by the cession
of territory, it can 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 arrange
ment no nation need be shut away from free access to the
open paths of the world s commerce.
Jan. 22] CONDITIONS OF PEACE 177
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. No doubt a somewhat radical
reconsideration of many of the rules of international prac
tice hitherto thought to be established may be necessary in
order to make the seas indeed free and common in practically
all circumstances for the use of mankind, but the motive for
such changes is convincing and compelling. There can be
no trust or intimacy between the peoples of the world without
them. The free, constant, unthreatened intercourse of na
tions is an essential part of the process of peace and of
development. It need not be difficult either to define or to
secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of the
world sincerely desire to come to an agreement concerning
it.
It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of
naval armaments and the cooperation of the navies of the
world in keeping the seas at once free and safe. And the
question of limiting naval armaments opens the wider and
perhaps more difficult question of the limitation of armies
and of all programmes of military preparation. Difficult and
delicate as these questions are, they must be faced with the
utmost candour 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 armaments are henceforth to
continue here and there to be built up and maintained. 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 armaments, whether on land or sea,
is the most immediately and intensely practical question con
nected 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 amongst all the peoples of the
178 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
world who is at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I
am speaking as an individual, and yet I am speaking 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 pro
gramme of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking
for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet
had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out
concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already
upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear.
And in holding out the expectation that the people and
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 confidence because it is clear to every
man who can think that there is in this promise no breach
in either our traditions or our policy as a nation, but a ful
filment, 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 Monroe as the
doctrine of the world: that no nation should seek to extend
its polity over any other nation or people, but that every
people should be left free to determine its own polity, its
own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid,
| the little along with the great and powerful.
^jrn^j^jisjng_dLat all nations henceforth avoid entangling
alliances which would draw them into competitions of
gower7~caTch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry,
arid disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from
without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of
power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with
the same purpose all act in the common interest and are
free to live their own lives under a common protection.
~"-f~am proposing government by the consent of the governed;
that freedom of the seas which in international conference
after conference representatives of the United States have
urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced
disciples of liberty; and that moderation of armament?
Jan. 22] CONDITIONS OF PEACE 179
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
could stand for no others. And they are also the prin
ciples 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. White House Pamphlet.
54. BREACH WITH GERMANY
(February 3, 1917)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
The Imperial German Government on the thirty-first of
January announced to this Government and to the govern
ments of the other neutral nations that on and after the
first day of February, the present month, it would adopt a
policy with regard to the use of submarines against all
shipping seeking to pass through 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 eighteenth of
April last, in view of the sinking on the twenty-fourth 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 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 con
sider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law
and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the
Government of the United States is at last forced to the
conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue. Un
less the Imperial Government should now immediately de-
i8o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
dare 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 Imperial German Govern
ment gave this Government the following assurance:
"The German Government is prepared to do its utmost to
confine the operations of war for the rest of its duration to
the fighting forces of the belligerents, thereby also 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 accord
ance with the general principles of visit and search and de
struction 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," it added, "neutrals can not 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 continue to apply at will methods of war
fare violating the rules of international law. Such a demand
would be incompatible with the character of neutrality, and
the German Government is convinced that the Government
of the United States does not think of making such a de
mand, 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 quarter
it has been violated."
To this the Government of the United States replied on
the eighth of May, accepting, of course, the assurances 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
Feb. 3] BREACH WITH GERMANY 181
of its newly announced policy is in any way contingent upon
the course or result of diplomatic negotiations between the
Government of the United States and any other belligerent
Government, notwithstanding the fact that certain passages
in the Imperial Government s note of the 4th instant might
appear to be susceptible of that construction. In order,
however, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, the Gov
ernment of the United States notifies the Imperial Govern
ment that it can not for a moment entertain, much less
discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval authori
ties 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 Govern
ment affecting the rights of neutrals and noncombatants.
Responsibility in such matters is single, not joint; absolute,
not relative."
To this note of the eighth of May the Imperial German
Government made no reply.
On the thirty-first of January, the Wednesday of tfce pres
ent week, the German Ambassador handed to the Secretary
of State, along with a formal note, a memorandum 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 the 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 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 Feb
ruary i, 1917, in a zone around Great Britain, France,
Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean all navigation, that
of neutrals included, from and to England and from and to
France, etc., 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
i82 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
any kind deliberately withdraws the solemn assurance given
in the Imperial Government s note of the fourth of May,
1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with
the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the
course which, in its note of the eighteenth 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 an
nounce to His Excellency the German Ambassador that all
diplomatic relations between the United States and the
German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambas
sador 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 German
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 govern
ments, I refuse to believe that it is the intention of the
German authorities to do in fact what they have warned
us they will feel at liberty to do. I can not 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 prosecution of the ruthless naval pro
gramme they have announced their intention to adopt. Only
actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it even
now.
If this inveterate confidence on my part in the sobriety
and prudent foresight of their purpose should unhappily
prove unfounded; if American ships and American lives
should in fact be sacrificed by their naval commanders in
heedless contravention of the just and reasonable under
standings 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 sea-
Feb. 3] BREACH WITH GERMANY 183
men 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 governments will
take the same course.
We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial
German Government. We are the sincere friends of the
German people and earnestly desire to remain at peace with
the Government which spgaks for them. We shall not be-
lieve that they are hostile to us unless and until 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 prin
ciples of our people which I sought to express in my address
to the Senate only two weeks ago, seek merely to vindi
cate our right to liberty and justice and an unmolested life.
These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant we may
not be challenged to defend them by acts of wilful injustice
on the part of the Government of Germany !
White House Pamphlet.
55. A GREAT INVENTOR
(February 10, 1917)
LETTER TO THOMAS A. EDISON ON His oTH BIRTHDAY
I wish with all my heart that I might be present to take
part in celebrating Mr. Edison s seventieth birthday. It
would be a real pleasure to be able to say in public with what
deep and genuine admiration I have followed his remarkable
career of achievement. I was an undergraduate at the
university when his first inventions captured the imagination
of the world, and ever since then I have retained the sense
of magic which what he did then created in my mind. He
seems always to have been in the special confidence of
Nature herself. His career already has made an indelible
impression in the history of applied science, and I hope that
he has many years before him in which to make his record
still more remarkable.
New York Times, Feb. u, 1917.
184 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
56. POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OF AMERICANS
(March 5, 1917)
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS
The four years which have elapsed since last I stood in
this place have been crowded with counsel and action of the
most vital interest and consequence. Perhaps no equal
period in our history has been so fruitful of important re
forms in our economic and industrial life or so full of sig
nificant changes in the spirit and purpose of our political
action. We have sought very thoughtfully to set our house
in order, correct the grosser errors and abuses of our indus
trial life, liberate and quicken the processes of our national
genius and energy, and lift our politics to a broader view
of the people s essential interests. It is a record of singular
variety and singular distinction. But I shall not attempt
to review it. It speaks for itself and will be of increasing
influence as the years go by. This is not the time for retro
spect. It is time, rather, to speak our thoughts and purposes
concerning the present and the immediate future.
Although we have centered counsel and action with such
unusual concentration and success upon the great problems
of domestic legislation to which we addressed ourselves four
years ago, other matters have more and more forced them
selves upon our attention, matters lying outside our own
life as a nation and over which we had no control, but which,
despite our wish to keep free of them, have drawn us more
and more irresistibly into their own current and influence.
It has been impossible to avoid them. They have affected
the life of the whole world. They have shaken men every
where with a passion and an apprehension they never knew
before. It has been hard to preserve calm counsel while the
thought of our own people swayed this way and that under
their influence. We are a composite and cosmopolitan peo
ple. We are of the blood of all the nations that are at war.
The currents of our thoughts as well as the currents of our
trade run quick at all seasons back and forth between us
and them. The war inevitably set its mark from the first
Mar. 5] AMERICAN POLITICAL PRINCIPLES 185
alike upon our minds, our industries, our commerce, our
politics, and our social action. To be indifferent to it or
independent of it was out of the question.
And yet all the while we have been conscious that we
were not part of it. In that consciousness, despite many
divisions, we have drawn closer together. We have been
deeply wronged upon the seas, but we have not wished to
wrong or injure in return; have retained throughout the
consciousness of standing in some sort apart, intent upon an
interest that transcended the immediate issues of the war
itself. As some of the injuries done us have become intol
erable we have still been clear that we wished nothing for
ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all man-
kind,-^-fair dealing, justice, the freedom to live and be at
ease against organized wrong. }
It is in this spirit and with this thought that we have
grown more and more aware, more and more certain that
the part we wished to play was the part of those who mean
to vindicate and fortify peace. We have been obliged to
arm ourselves to make good our claim to a certain minimum
of right and of freedom of action. We stand firm in armed
neutrality since it seems that in no other way can we demon
strate what it is we insist upon and cannot forego. We may
even be drawn on, by circumstances, not by our own purpose
or desire, to a more active assertion of our rights as we see
them and a more immediate association with the great
struggle itself. But nothing will alter our thought or our
purpose. They are too clear to be obscured. They are too
deeply rooted in the principles of our national life to be
altered. We desire neither conquest nor advantage. We
wish nothing that can be had only at the cost of another
people. We have always professed unselfish purpose and we
covet the opportunity to prove that our professions are
sincere.
There are many things still to do at home, to clarify our
own politics and give new vitality to the industrial processes
of our own life, and we shall do them as time and oppor
tunity serve; but we realize that the greatest things that
remain to be done must be done with the whole world for
stage and in cooperation with the wide and universal forces
186 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
of mankind, and we are making our spirits ready for those
things. They will follow in the immediate wake of the war
itself and will set civilization up again. We are provincials
no longer. The tragical events of the thirty months of vital
turmoil through which we have just passed have made us
citizens of the world. There can be no turning back. Our
own fortunes as a nation are involved, whether we would
have it so or not.
And yet we are not the less Americans on that account.
We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the
principles in which we have been bred. They are not the
principles of a province or of a single continent. We have
known and boasted all along that they were the principles
of a liberated mankind. These, therefore, are the things we
shall stand for, whether in war or in peace:
That all nations are equally interested in the peace of the
world and in the political stability of free peoples, and equally
responsible for their maintenance;
That the essential principle of peace is the actual equality
of nations in all matters of right or privilege;
That peace cannot securely or justly rest upon an armed
balance of power; t ^
That governments derive all their just powers from the
consent of the governed and that no other powers should
be supported by the common thought, purpose, or power
of the family of nations.
That the seas should be equally free and safe for the use
of all peoples, under rules set up by common agreement and
consent, and that, so far as practicable, they should be
accessible to all upon equal terms;
That national armaments should be limited to the necessi
ties of national order and domestic safety;
That the community of interest and of power upon which
peace must henceforth depend imposes upon each nation the
duty of seeing to it that all influences proceeding from its
own citizens meant to encourage or assist revolution in
other states should be sternly and effectually suppressed and
prevented.
I need not argue these principles to you, my fellow coun
trymen: they are your own, part and parcel of your own
Mar. 5] AMERICAN POLITICAL PRINCIPLES 187
thinking and your own motive in affairs. They spring up
native amongst us. Upon this as a platform of purpose
and of action we can stand together. ^^
And it is imperative that we should stand together. fWe
are being forged into a new unity amidst the fires that now
blaze throughout the world. In their ardent heat we shall,
in God s providence, let us hope, be purged of faction and
division, purified of the errant humors of party and of
private interest, and shall stand forth in the days to come
with a new dignity of national pride and spirit. Let each
man see to it that the dedication is in his own heart! the
high purpose of the Nation in his own mind, ruler w his
own will and desire.
I stand here and have taken the high and solemn oath to
which you have been audience because the people of the
United States have chosen me for this august delegation of
power and have by their gracious judgment named me
their leader in affairs. I know now what the task means.
I realize to the full the responsibility which it involves. I
pray God I may be given the wisdom and the prudence to do
my duty in the true spirit of this great people. I am their
servant and can succeed only as they sustain and guide me
by their confidence and their counsel. The thing I shall
count upon, the thing without which neither counsel nor
action will avail, is the unity of America, an America united
in feeling, in purpose, and in its vision of duty, of oppor
tunity, and of service. We are to beware of all men who
would turn the tasks and the necessities of the Nation to
their own private profit or use them for the building up of
private power; beware that no* faction or disloyal intrigue
break the harmony or embarrass the spirit of our people;
beware that our Government be kept pure and incorrupt in
all its parts. United alike in the conception of our duty and
in the high resolve to perform it in the face of all men, let
us dedicate ourselves to the great task to which we must
now set our hand. For myself I beg your tolerance, your
countenance, and your united aid. (The shadows that no
lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled and we shall
walk with the light all about us if we be but true to our
selves^te ourselves as we have wished to be known in the
bU
Wl
a
i88 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
counsels of the world and in the thought of all those who
love liberty and justice and the right exalted.
White House Pamphlet.
57. NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY
(April 2, 1917)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
I have called the Congress into extraordinary session be
cause there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be
made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor
constitutionally permissible that I should assume the respon
sibility of making.
"V On the third of February last I officially laid before you
the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German
Government that on and after the first day of February it
was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of
humanity and use its 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 Mediter
ranean. 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 that passenger boats should not be
sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels
which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resist
ance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that
their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their
lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were
meagre 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
observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside.
Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character,
their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruth-
Apr. 2] NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY 189
lessly 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 carrying relief to the sorely bereaved
and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were pro
vided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the
German 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 highways of the world. By painful stage after
stage has that law been built up, with meagre enough results,
indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accom
plished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the
heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum
of right the German Government has swept aside under the
plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no
weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is
impossible to employ as it is employing them without throw
ing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for
the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property
involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the
wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-com
batants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits
which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern
history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can
be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot
be. The present German submarine warfare against com
merce is a warfare against mankind.
A It is a war against all nations. American ships have
bfeen sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred
us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other
neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed
in the waters in the same way. There has-been no dis
crimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we
make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of
counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our char
acter and our motives as a nation. We must put excited
feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the vic
torious 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 twenty-sixth of
ebruary 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 laws of nations has assumed
that merchantmen would defend themselves against priva
teers 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 neutrals 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 pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is likely only
to produce 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 incapable of making; we will not choose
the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of
our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The
wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common
wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.
Apr. 2] NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY 191
L
With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical
character of the step I am taking and of the grave respon
sibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to
what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Con
gress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Gov
ernment to be in fact nothing less than war against the
government and people of the United States; that it for
mally 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 German Empire to terms and
end the war.
^ *What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost
practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the gov
ernments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to
that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal
financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as
possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organiza
tion and mobilization of all the material resources of the
country to supply the materials of war and serve the inci
dental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet
the most economical and efficient way possible. It will in
volve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects
but particularly in supplying it with the best means of deal
ing with the enemy s submarines. It will involve the imme
diate addition to the armed forces of the United States
already provided for by law in case of war at least five
hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen
upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also
the authorization of subsequent additional increments of
equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be
handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the
granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained,
I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the
present generation, by well conceived taxation.
Cgl say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation
because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to
base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on
money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge,
192 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
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.
^1 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 prepa
ration and in the equipment of our own military forces with
the duty, for it will be a very practical duty, of supply
ing the nations already at war with Germany with the ma
terials which they can obtain only from us or by our assist
ance. They are in the field and we should help them in
every way to be effective there.
[ I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several
executive departments of the Government, for the considera
tion of your committees, measures for the accomplishment
of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will
be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed
after very careful thought by the branch of the Government
upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and
safeguarding 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 things in mind
now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the
twenty-second of January last ; the same that I had in mind
when I addressed the Congress on the third of February and
on the twenty-sixth of February. Our object now, as then,
is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life
of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to
set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of
the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will
henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neu
trality 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 freedom lies in the existence of
autocratic governments backed by organized force whidh is
Apr. 2] NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY 193
controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their
people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circum
stances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will
be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of re
sponsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations
and their governments that are observed among the individ
ual citizens of civilized states.
*M^ e ^ ave no Q uarre ^ w i tn tne German people. We have
nofeeling towards them but one of sympathy and friend
ship. It was not upon their impulse that their government
acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous
knowledge or approval. 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
or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to
use their fellow men as pawns and toolsTl Self-governed
nations do not fill their neighbor states witH spies or set the
course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of
affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and
make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked
out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask
questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or ag
gression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation,
can be worked out and kept from the light only within
the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded con
fidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily
impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon
full information concerning all the nation s affairs.
l^)A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained ex
cept 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.
not every American feel that assurance has been
i 9 4 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the
wonderful and heartening things that have been happening
within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by
those w\o knew it best to have been always in fact demo
cratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all
the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their
natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The
autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure,
long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its
power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or pur
pose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, gen
erous Russian people have been added in all their naive
majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom
in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner
fops. League of Honor!^
V* One of the things that* has served to convince us that the
Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is
that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our
unsuspecting communities and even our offices of govern
ment with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot
against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and
without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now
evident that its spies were here even before the war began;
and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact
proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have
more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace
and dislocating the industries of the country have been car
ried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under
the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial
Government accredited to the Government of the United
States. Even in checking these things and trying to extir
pate them we have sought to put the most generous inter
pretation possible upon them because we knew that their
source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the Ger
man people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of
them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs
of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people
nothing. But they have played their part in serving to con
vince us at last that that Government entertains no real
friendship for us and means to act against our peace and
Apr. 2] NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY 195
security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies
against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the
German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.
( We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because
we know that in such a government, following such methods,
we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its
organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we
know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for
the democratic governments of the world. We are now about
to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty
and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation
to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are
glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pre
tense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the
world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peo
ples 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 democ
racy. Its peace mustjje planted upon the tested foundations
of political liberty.TWe must have no selfish ends to serve.
We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemni
ties for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices
we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions, 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.
1 Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish
object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish
to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, con-
duct our operations as belligerents without passion and our
selves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right
and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
/J(l 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 our right and
our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed,
avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the
reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without
disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has
therefore not been possible for this Government to receive
196 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to
this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of
Austria-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.
will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as
lligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we
act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with
the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage 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 reestablishment of intimate
relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard
it may be for them, for the time being, to 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 impossible. 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 share our life, and we shall be proud to
prove it towards 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; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only
here and there and without countenance except from a law-
le^s and malignant few.
ft/Jtt is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the
Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you.
Apr. 2] NECESSITY OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY 197
There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacri
fice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great
peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disas-
trous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the
balance: EnLthe right is more precious than peace, and we
shall fight for the things which we have always carried
nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those
who submit to authority to have a voice in their own govern
ments, 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 fortunes, everything that we are and every
thing that we have, with the pride of those who know that
the day has come when America is privileged to spend her
blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth
and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God
helping her, she can do no other.
White House Pamphlet.
58. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST SUPPORT THE
WAR
(April 16, 1917)
PUBLIC APPEAL BY THE PRESIDENT TO His FELLOW
COUNTRYMEN
The entrance of our own beloved country into the grim
and terrible war for democracy and human rights which has
shaken the world creates so many problems of national life
and action which call for immediate consideration and settle
ment that I hope you will permit me to address to you a few
words of earnest counsel and appeal with regard to them.
We are rapidly putting our navy upon an effective war
footing and are about to create and equip a great army, but
these are the simplest parts of the great task to which we
have addressed ourselves. There is not a single selfish ele
ment, so far as I can see, in the cause we are fighting for.
198 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
We are fighting for what we believe and wish to be the rights
of mankind and for the future peace and security of the
world. To do this great thing worthily and successfully we
must devote ourselves to the service without regard to profit
or material advantage and with an energy and intelligence
that will rise to the level of the enterprise itself. We must
realize to the full how great the task is and how many
things, and how many kinds and elements of capacity and
service and self-sacrifice, it involves.
These, then, are the things we must do, and do well, be
sides fighting, the things without which mere fighting would
be fruitless:
We must supply abundant food for ourselves and for our
armies and our seamen not only, but also for a large part of
the nations with whom we have now made common cause,
in whose support and by whose sides we shall be fighting;
We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our ship
yards to carry to the other side of the sea, submarines or no
submarines, What will every day be needed there, and abun
dant materials out of our fields and our mines and our
factories with which not only to clothe and equip our own
forces on land and sea but also to clothe and support our
people for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no
longer work, to help clothe and equip the armies with which
we are cooperating in Europe, and to keep the looms and
manufactories there in raw material; coal to keep the fires
going in ships at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of
factories across the sea; steel out of which to make arms
and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out
railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling
stock to take the place of those every day going to pieces;
mules, horses, cattle for labor and for military service;
everything with which the people of England and France
and Italy and Russia have usually supplied themselves but
can not now afford the men, the materials, or the machinery
to make.
It is evident to every thinking man that our industries,
on the farms, in the shipyards, in the mines, in the factories,
must be made more prolific and more efficient than ever
and that they must be more economically managed and
Apr. 1 6] PEOPLE MUST SUPPORT THE WAR 199
better adapted to the particular requirements of our task
than they have been; and what I want to say is that the
men and the women who devote their thought and their
energy to these things will be serving the country and con
ducting the fight for peace and freedom just as truly and
just as effectively as the men on the battlefield or in the
trenches. The industrial forces of the country, men and
women alike, will be a great national, a great international,
Service Army, a notable and honored host engaged in the
service of the nation and the world, the efficient friends and
saviors of free men everywhere. Thousands, nay, hundreds
of thousands, of men otherwise liable to military service will
of right and of necessity be excused from that service and
assigned to the fundamental, sustaining work of the fields
and factories and mines, and they will be as much part of
the great patriotic forces of the nation as the men under
fire.
I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing this word to
the farmers of the country and to all who work on the
farms: The supreme need of our own nation and of the
nations with which we are cooperating is an abundance of
supplies, and especially of food stuffs. The importance of
an adequate food supply, especially for the present year,
is superlative. Without abundant food, alike for the armies
and the peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon
which we have embarked will break down and fail. The
world s food reserves are low. Not only during the present
emergency but for some time after peace shall have come
both our own people and a large proportion of the people
of Europe must rely upon the harvests in America. Upon
the farmers of this country, therefore, in large measure, rests
the fate of the war and the fate of the nations. May the
nation not count upon them to omit no step that will increase
the production of their land or that will bring about the
most effectual cooperation in the sale and distribution of
their products? The time is short. It is of the most im
perative importance that everything possible be done and
done immediately to make sure of large harvests. I call
upon young men and old alike and upon the able-bodied
boys of the land to accept and act upon this duty to turn
200 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
in hosts to the farms and make certain that no pains and
no labor is lacking in this great matter.
I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant
abundant food stuffs as well as cotton. They can show their
patriotism in no better or more convincing way than by
resisting the great temptation of the present price of cotton
and helping, helping upon a great scale, to feed the nation
and the peoples everywhere who are fighting for their liberties
and for our own. The variety of their crops will be the
visible measure of their comprehension of their national duty.
The Government of the United States and the govern
ments of the several States stand ready to cooperate. They
will do everything possible to assist farmers in securing an
adequate supply of seed, an adequate force of laborers when
they are most needed, at harvest time, and the means of
expediting shipments of fertilizers and farm machinery, as
well as of the crops themselves when harvested. The course
of trade shall be as unhampered as it is possible to make it
and there shall be no unwarranted manipulation of the
nation s food supply by those who handle it on its way to
the consumer. This is our opportunity to demonstrate the
efficiency of a great Democracy and we shall not fall short
of it!
This let me say to the middlemen of every sort, whether
they are handling our food stuffs or our raw materials of
manufacture or the products of our mills and factories: The
eyes of the country will be especially upon you. This is
your opportunity for signal service, efficient and disinter
ested. The country expects you, as it expects all others, to
forego profits, to organize and expedite shipments of sup
plies of every kind, but especially of food, with an eye to
the service you are rendering and in the spirit of those who
enlist in the ranks, for their people, not for themselves. I
shall confidently expect you to deserve and win the con
fidence of people of every sort and station.
To the men who run the railways of the country, whether
they be managers or operative employees, let me say that
the railways are the arteries of the nation s life and that
upon them rests the immense responsibility of seeing to it
tkat those arteries suffer no obstruction of any kind, no
Apr. 16] PEOPLE MUST SUPPORT THE WAR 201
inefficiency or slackened power. To the merchant let me
suggest the motto, "Small profits and quick service;" and to
the shipbuilder the thought that the life of the war depends
upon him. The food and the war supplies must be carried
across the seas no matter how many ships are sent to the
bottom. The places of those that go down must be sup
plied and supplied at once. To the miner let me say that
he stands where the farmer does: the work of the world
waits on him. If he slackens or fails, armies and statesmen
are helpless. He also is enilsted in the great Service Army.
The manufacturer does not need to be told, I hope, that the
nation looks to him to speed and perfect every process;
and I want only to remind his employees that their service
is absolutely indispensable and is counted on by every man
who loves the country and its liberties.
Let me suggest, also, that everyone who creates or culti
vates a garden helps, and helps greatly, to solve the problem
of the feeding of the nations; and that every housewife who
practices strict economy puts herself in the ranks of those
who serve the nation. This is the time for America to
correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and extrava
gance. Let every man and every woman assume the duty
of careful, provident use and expenditure as a public duty,
as a dictate of patriotism which no one can now expect ever
to be excused or forgiven for ignoring.
In the hope that this statement of the needs of the nation
and of the world in this hour of supreme crisis may stimu
late those to whom it comes and remind all who need re
minder of the solemn duties of a time such as the world has
never seen before, I beg that all editors and publishers every
where will give as prominent publication and as wide circula
tion as possible to this appeal. I venture to suggest, also,
to all advertising agencies that they would perhaps render a
very substantial and timely service to the country if they
would give it widespread repetition. And I hope that clergy
men will not think the theme of it an unworthy or inappro
priate subject of comment and homily from their pulpits.
The supreme test of the nation has come. We must all
speak, act, and serve together!
White House Pamphlet.
202 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
59. THE RED CROSS
(May 12, 1917)
ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE RED CROSS BUILDING
IN WASHINGTON
It gives me a very deep gratification as the titular head
of the American Red Cross to accept in the name of that
association this significant and beautiful gift, the gift of
the Government and of private individuals who have con
ceived their duty in a noble spirit and upon a great scale.
It seems to me that the architecture of the building, to which
the secretary alluded, suggests something very significant.
There are few buildings in Washington more simple in
their lines and in their ornamentation than the beautiful
building we are dedicating this evening. It breathes a
spirit of modesty and seems to adorn duty with its proper
garment of beauty. It is significant that it should be dedi
cated ta women who served to alleviate suffering and com
fort those who were in need during our Civil War, because
their thoughtful, disinterested, self-sacrificing devotion is the
spirit which should always illustrate the services of the Red
Cross.
The Red Cross needs at this time more than it ever needed
before the comprehending support of the American people
and all the facilities which could be placed at its disposal to
perform its duties adequately and efficiently. I believe that
the American people perhaps hardly yet realize the sacri
fices and sufferings that are before them. We thought the
scale of our Civil War was unprecedented, but in compari
son with the struggle into which we have now entered the
Civil War seems almost insignificant in its proportions and
in its expenditure of treasure and of blood. And therefore
it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should at
the outset see to it that the American Red Cross is equipped
and prepared for the things that lie before it.
It will be our instrument to do the works of alleviation
and mercy which will attend this struggle. Of course, the
scale upon which it shall act will be greater than the scale
May 12] THE RED CROSS 203
of any other duty that it has ever attempted to perform.
It is in recognition of that fact that the American Red
Cross has just added to its organization a small body of
men whom it has chosen to call its war council not be
cause they are to counsel war, but because they are to serve
in this special war those purposes of counsel which have
become so imperatively necessary. Their first duty will be
to raise a great fund out of which to draw the resources
for the performance of their duty, and I do not believe that
it will be necessary to appeal to the American people to re
spond to their call for funds, because the heart of this coun
try is in this war, and if the heart of the country is in the
war, its heart will express itself in the gifts that will be
poured out for these humane purposes. I say the heart of
the country is in this war because it would not have gone
into it if its heart had not been prepared for it. It would
not have gone into it if it had not first believed that here
was an opportunity to express the character of the United
States. We have gone in with no special grievance of our
own, because we have always said that we were the friends
and the servants of mankind.
We look for no profit. We look for no advantage. We
will accept no advantage out of this war. We go because
we believe that the very principles upon which the American
Republic was founded are now at stake and must be vindi
cated. In such a contest, therefore, we shall not fail to re
spond to the call to service that comes through the instru
mentality of this particular organization. And I think it not
inappropriate to say this: There will be many expressions of
the spirit of sympathy and mercy and philanthropy, and I
think that it is very necessary that we should not disperse
our activities in those lines too much; that we should keep
constantly in view the desire to have the utmost concen
tration and efficiency of effort, and I hope the most, if not
all of the philanthropic activities of this war may be exer
cised if not through the Red Cross, then through some
already-constituted and experienced organization.
This is no war for amateurs. This is no war for mere
spontaneous impulse. It means grim business on every side
of it, and it is the mere counsel of prudence that in our
204 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
philanthropy as well as in our fighting we should act through
the instrumentalities already prepared to our hand and
already experienced in the tasks which are going to be
assigned to them. This should be merely the expression
of the practical genius of America itself, and I believe
that the practical genius of America will dictate that the
efforts in this war in this particular field should be con
centrated in experienced hands as our efforts in other fields
will be.
There is another thing that is significant and delightful
to my thought about the fact that this building should be
dedicated to the memory of the women both of the North
and of the South. It is a sort of landmark of the unity to
which the people have been brought, so far as any old ques
tion which tore our hearts in days gone by is concerned;
and I pray God that the outcome of this struggle may be
that every other element of difference amongst us will be
obliterated and that some day historians will remember these
momentous years as the years which made a single people
out of the great body of those who call themselves Ameri
cans. The evidences are already many that this is happen
ing. The divisions which were predicted have not occurred
and will not occur. The spirit of this people is already
united, and when effort and suffering and sacrifice have
completed the union, men will no longer speak of any lines
either of race or of association cutting athwart the great
body of this Nation. So that I feel that we are now begin
ning the processes which will some day require another
beautiful memorial erected to those whose hearts uniting
united America.
Congressional Record, LV, 2500.
60. OBJECTS IN GOING TO WAR
(May 22, 1917)
LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE HEFLIN
It is incomprehensible to me how any frank or honest
person could doubt or question my position with regard to
May 22] OBJECTS IN GOING TO WAR 205
the war and its objects. I have again and again stated the
very serious and long-continued wrongs which the Imperial
German Government has perpetrated against the rights, the
commerce, and the citizens of the United States. The list
is long and overwhelming. No nation that respected itself
or the rights of humanity could have borne those wrongs any
longer.
Our objects in going into the war have been stated with
equal clearness. The whole of the conception which I take
to be the conception of our fellow countrymen with regard
to the outcome of the war and the terms of its settlement I
set forth with the utmost explicitness in an address to the
Senate of the United States qn the 22d of January last.
Again, in my message to Congress on the 2d of April last
those objects were stated in unmistakable terms. I can con
ceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the
purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and
making the part which the United States is to play in this
great struggle for human liberty an inefficient and hesitating
part. We have entered the war for our own reasons and
with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither
the reasons nor the objects. There is no hate in our hearts
for the German people, but there is a resolve which cannot
be shaken even by misrepresentation to overcome the pre
tensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon pur
poses to which the German people have never consented.
Official Bulletin, May 23, 1917.
61. NEED OF A CENSORSHIP LAW
(May 22, 1917)
LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE WEBB
I have been very much surprised to find several of the
public prints stating that the administration had abandoned
the position which it so distinctly took, and still holds, that
authority to exercise censorship over the press to the extent
that that censorship is embodied in the recent action of the
__
206 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
.
House of Representatives is absolutely necessary to the
public safety. It, of course, has not been abandoned, because
the reasons still exist why such authority is necessary for
the protection of the Nation.
I have every confidence that the great majority of the
newspapers of the country will observe a patriotic reticence
about everything whose publication could be of injury, but
in every country there are some persons in a position to do
mischief in this field who can not be relied upon and whose
interests or desires will lead to actions on their part highly
dangerous to the Nation in the midst of a war. I want to
say again that it seems to me imperative that powers of this
sort should be granted.
* -. Congressional Record, LV, 3144.
(62. FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA
^y (May 26, 1917)
CABLEGRAM TO RUSSIA
In view of the approaching visit of the American delega
tion to Russia to express the deep friendship of the Ameri
can people for the people of Russia and to discuss the best
and most practical means of cooperation between the two
peoples in carrying the present struggle for the freedom of
all peoples to a successful consummation, it seems oppor
tune and appropriate that I should state again, in the light
of this new partnership, the objects the United States has
had in mind in entering the war. Those objects have been
very much beclouded during the past few weeks by mis
taken and misleading statements, and the issues at stake
are too momentous, too tremendous, too significant for the
whole human race to permit any misinterpretations or mis
understandings, however slight, to remain uncorrected for a
moment.
The war has begun to go against Germany, and in their
desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate defeat,
those who are in authority in Germany are using every pos-
May 26] FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA
sible instrumentality, are making use even of the influence
of groups and parties among their own subjects to whom
they have never been just or fair, or even tolerant, to pro
mote a propaganda on both sides of the sea which will pre
serve for them their influence at home and their power
abroad, to the undoing of the very men they are using.
The position of America in this war is so clearly avowed
that no man can be excused for mistaking it. She seeks no
material profit or aggrandizement of any kind. She is fight
ing for no advantage or selfish object of her own, but for
the liberation of peoples everywhere from the aggressions of
autocratic force. The ruling classes in Germany have be
gun of late to profess a like liberality and justice of pur
pose, but only to preserve the power they have set up in
Germany and the selfish advantages which they have
wrongly gained for themselves and their private projects
of power all the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond.
Government after Government has by their influence, with
out open conquest of its territory, been linked together in a
net of intrigue directed against nothing less than the peace
and liberty of the world. The meshes of that intrigue must
be broken, but can not be broken unless wrongs already
done are undone, and adequate measures must be taken to
prevent it from ever again being rewoven or repaired.
Of course, the Imperial German Government and those
whom it is using for their own undoing are seeking to obtain
pledges that the war will end in the restoration of the status
quo ante. It was the status quo ante out of which this iniqui
tous war issued forth, the power of the Imperial German Gov
ernment within the Empire and its widespread domination
and influence outside of that Empire. That status must be
altered in such fashion as to prevent any such hideous thing
from ever happening again.
We are fighting for the liberty, the self-government, and
the undictated development of all peoples, and every fea
ture of the settlement that concludes this war must be con
ceived and executed for that purpose. Wrongs must first be
righted and then adequate safeguards must be created to
prevent their being committed again. We ought not to
consider remedies merely because they have a pleasing and
208 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
. ,.
sonorous sound. Practical questions can be settled only by
practical means. Phrases will not accomplish the result.
Effective readjustments will, and whatever readjustments
are necessary must be made.
But they must follow a principle and that principle is
plain. No people must be forced under sovereignty under
which it does not wish to live. No territory must change
hands except for the purpose of securing those who inhabit
it a fair chance of life and liberty. No indemnities must
be insisted on except those that constitute payments for
manifest wrongs done. No readjustments of power must
be made except such as will tend to secure the future peace
of the world and the future welfare and happiness of its
peoples.
And then the free peoples of the world must draw to
gether in some common covenant, some genuine and prac
tical cooperation that will in effect combine their force to
secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with
one another. The brotherhood of mankind must no longer
be a fair but empty phrase; it must be given a structure of
force and reality. The nations must realize their common
life and effect a workable partnership to secure that life
against the aggressions of autocratic and self-pleasing power.
For these things we can afford to pour out blood and
treasure. For these are the things we have always pro
fessed to desire, and unless we pour out blood and treasure
now and succeed we may never be able to unite or show
conquering force again in the great cause of human liberty.
The day has come to conquer or submit. If the forces of
autocracy can divide us they will overcome us; if we stand
together victory is certain and the liberty which victory
will secure. We can afford then to be generous, but we
cannot afford then or now to be weak or omit any single
guarantee of justice and security.
Official Bulletin, June 9, 1917.
May 30] DEFENDERS OF AMERICAN HONOR 209
63. DEFENDERS OF AMERICAN HONOR
(May 30, 1917)
ADDRESS AT ARLINGTON CEMETERY
The program has conferred an unmerited dignity upon
the remarks I am going to make by calling them an address,
because I am not here to deliver an address. I am here
merely to show in my official capacity the sympathy of this
great Government with the object of this occasion, and
also to speak just a word of the sentiment that is in my
own heart.
Any Memorial Day of this sort is, of course, a day touched
with sorrowful memory, and yet I for one do not see how we
can have any thought of pity for the men whose memory we
honor to-day. I do not pity them. I envy them, rather;
because theirs is a great work for liberty accomplished and
we are in the midst of a work unfinished, testing our
strength where their strength already has been tested.
There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a touch of reas
surance also in a day like this, because we know how the
men of America have responded to the call of the cause of
liberty and it fills our mind with a perfect assurance that
that response will come again in equal measures, with equal
majesty, and with a result which will hold the attention of
all mankind. When you reflect upon it, these men who
died to preserve the Union died to preserve the instrument
which we are now using to serve the world a free Nation
espousing the cause of human liberty. In one sense the great
struggle into which we have now entered is an American
struggle, because it is in the defense of American honor and
American rights, but it is something even greater than that;
it is a world struggle. It is the struggle of men who love
liberty everywhere, and in this cause America will show
herself greater than ever because she will rise to a greater
thing. We have said in the beginning that we planted this
great Government that men who wish freedom might have a
place of refuge and a place where their hope could be
realized, and now, having established such a Government,
2io ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
having preserved such a Government, having vindicated the
power of such a Government, we are saying to all mankind,
"We did not set this Government up in order that we might
have a selfish and separate liberty, for we are now ready
to come to your assistance and fight out upon the field of the
world the cause of human liberty." In this thing America
attains her full dignity and the full fruition of her great
purpose.
No man can be glad that such things have happened as
we have witnessed in these last fateful years, but perhaps
it may be permitted to us to be glad that we have an oppor
tunity to show the principles that we profess to be living
principles that live in our hearts, and to have a chance by
the pouring out of our blood and treasure to vindicate the
thing which we have professed. For, my friends, the real
fruition of life is to do the things we have said we wished
to do. There are times when words seem empty and only
action seems great. Such a time has come, and in the provi
dence of God America will once more have an opportunity
to show to the world that she was born to serve mankind.
Official Bulletin, May 31, 1917.
64. INSULTS AND AGGRESSIONS OF GERMANY
(June 14, 1917)
ADDRESS ON FLAG DAY AT WASHINGTON
My Fellow Citizens: We meet to celebrate Flag Day be- (
cause this flag which we honor and under which we serve
is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and pur
pose 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 hosts that exe
cute 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 history,
has floated on high the symbol of great events, of a great
June 14] GERMANY S AGGRESSIONS 211
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? American armies were never
before sent across the seas. Why are they sent now? For
some 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 Revo
lution?
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 accountable 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 Ger
man 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 be neutral. They filled
our unsuspecting communities with vicious spies and con
spirators 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
official Embassy of the German Government itself here in
our own capital. They sought by violence to destroy our
industries and arrest our commerce. They tried to incite
Mexico to take up arms against us and to draw Japan into a
hostile alliance with her, and that, not by indirection, but
by direct suggestion from the Foreign Office in Berlin. They
impudently denied us the use of the high seas and repeatedly
executed their threat that they would send to their death
212 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
any of our people who ventured to approach the coasts of
Europe. And many of our own people were corrupted. 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 circumstances 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 ourselves 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. 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. 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.
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, for whom
governments existed and in whom governments had their
life. They have regarded them merely as serviceable organi
zations which they could by force or intrigue bend or cor
rupt to their own purpose. They have regarded the smaller
states, in particular, and the peoples who could be over
whelmed by force, as their natural tools and instruments of
domination. Their purpose has long been avowed. The
statesmen of other nations, to whom that purpose was in
credible, paid little attention; regarded what German pro
fessors 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 pre
posterous private conceptions of German destiny, than as
the actual plans of responsible rulers; but the rulers of Ger-
June 14] GERMANY S AGGRESSIONS 213
many themselves knew all the while what concrete plans,
what well advanced intrigues lay back of what the pro
fessors and the writers were saying, and were glad to go
forward unmolested, filling the thrones of Balkan states with
German princes, putting German officers at the service of
Turkey to drill her armies and make interest with her
government, developing plans of sedition and rebellion in
India and Egypt, setting their fires in Persia. The demands
made by Austria upon Serbia were a mere single step in a
plan which compassed Europe and Asia, from Berlin to
Bagdad. 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 centre of Europe
and beyond the Mediterranean into the heart of Asia; and
Austria-Hungary was to be as much their tool and pawn as
Serbia 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! It rejected
the idea of solidarity of race entirely The choice of peoples
played no part in it at all. It contemplated binding to
gether racial and political units which could be kept together
only by force, Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Rouma
nians, Turks, Armenians, the proud states of Bohemia and
Hungary, the stout little common wealths ot the Balkans,
the indomitable Turks, the subtile peoples of the East.
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 compul
sion and await the day of revolution. 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 Berlin.
The so-called Central Powers are in fact but a single Power.
Serbia 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 Constantinople re
mind Turkish statesmen every day that they have no choice
but to take their orders from Berlin. 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 initiative, 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 Government would be willing to accept.
That government has other valuable pawns in its hands
besides those I have mentioned. It still holds a valuble part
of France, though with slowly relaxing grasp, and practically
the whole of Belgim. 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.
The military masters under whom Germany is bleeding
see very clearly to what point Fate has brought them. If
they 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 entered their
hearts. They have but one chance to perpetuate their mili-
June 14] GERMANY S AGGRESSIONS 215
tary power or even their controlling political influence. If
they can secure peace now with the immense advantages
still in their hands which they have up to this point appar
ently gained, they will have justified themselves before the
German people: they will have gained by force what they
promised to gain by it: an immense expansion 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 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. If 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.
Do you not now understand the new intrigue, 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 peoples 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 employ
ing liberals in their enterprise. They are using men, in
Germany and without, as their spokesmen whom they have
hitherto despised and oppressed, using them for their own
destruction, socialists, 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 revo
lution fostered and supported; Germany herself will lose her
chance of freedom; and all Europe will arm for the next,
the final struggle.
216 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
The sinister intrigue is being no less actively conducted 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 centre 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 govern
ment with false professions of loyalty to its principles.
But they will make no headway. The false betray them
selves always in every accent. It is only friends and par
tisans 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
Peoples War, a war for freedom and justice and self-gov
ernment amongst all the nations of the world, a war to make
the world safe 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 domi
nated 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 irre
sistible 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
June 14] GERMANY S AGGRESSIONS 217
of history, and our flag shall wear a new lustre. 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.
White House Pamphlet.
65. GREETING TO FRENCH DEMOCRACY
(July 14, 1917)
CABLEGRAM TO THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT
On this anniversary of the birth of democracy in France,
I offer on behalf of my countrymen, and on my own behalf,
fraternal greeting as befits the strong ties that unite our
peoples who to-day stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of
liberty in testimony of the steadfast purpose of our two
countries to achieve victory for the sublime cause of the
rights of the people against oppression. The lesson of the
Bastile is not lost to the world of free peoples. May the
day be near when on the ruins of the dark stronghold of
unbridled power and conscienceless autocracy, the nobler
structure, upbuilt like your own great Republic on the eternal
foundation of peace and right, shall arise to gladden an en
franchised world.
New York Times, July 17, 1917.
66. THE BIBLE AND THE SOLDIER
(August, 1917)
MESSAGE TO SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
The Bible is the word of life. I beg that you will read
it and find this out for yourselves read, not little snatches
here and there, but long passages that will really be the
road to the heart of it. You v/ill find it full of real men and
women not only but also of things you have wondered about
2i8 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
and been troubled about all your life, as men have been
always; and the more you read the more it will become plain
to you what things are worth while and what are not, what
things make men happy loyalty, right dealings, speaking
the truth, readiness to give everything for what they think
their duty, and, most of all, the wish that they may have
the real approval of the Christ, who gave everything for
them and the things that are guaranteed to make men
unhappy selfishness, cowardice, greed, and everything that
is low and mean. When you have read the Bible you will
know that it is the Word of God, because you will have
found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and
your own duty.
Congressional Record, LV, 6041.
67. PATRIOTIC TEACHING IN SCHOOLS
(August 23, 1917)
PUBLIC APPEAL TO SCHOOL OFFICERS
The war is bringing to the minds of our people a new
appreciation of the problems of national life and a deeper
understanding of the meaning and aims of democracy. Mat
ters which heretofore have seemed commonplace and trivial
are seen in a truer light. The urgent demand for the pro
duction and proper distribution of food and other national
resources has made us aware of the close dependence of
individual on individual and nation on nation. The effort
to keep up social and industrial organizations in spite of
the withdrawal of men for the army has revealed the extent
to which modern life has become complex and specialized.
These and other lessons of the war must be learned quickly
if we are intelligently and successfully to defend our institu
tions. When the war is over we must apply the wisdom
which we have acquired in purging and ennobling the life of
the world.
In these vital tasks of acquiring a broader view of human
possibilities the common school must have a large part. I
Aug. 23] PATRIOTIC TEACHING IN SCHOOLS 219
urge that teachers and other school officers increase materi
ally the tirr^ and attention devoted to instruction 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 of existing practices. Nor is it a plea
for a temporary enlargement of the school program appro
priate merely to the period of the war. It is a plea for a
realization in public education of the new emphasis which
the war has given to the ideals of democracy and to the
broader conceptions of national life.
In order that there may be definite material at hand with
which the schools may at once expand their teaching I have
asked Mr. Hoover and Commissioner Claxton to organize the
proper agencies for the preparation and distribution of suit
able lessons for the elementary grades and for the high
school classes. Lessons thus suggested will serve the double
purpose of illustrating in a concrete way what can be under
taken in the schools and of stimulating teachers in all parts
of the country to formulate new and appropriate materials
drawn directly from the communities in which they live.
Issued by U. S. Board of Education.
68. PAPAL PROPOSITIONS OF PEACE
(August 27, 1917)
REPLY TO THE POPE THROUGH SECRETARY LANSING
In acknowledgment of the communication of Your Holi
ness to the belligerent peoples, dated August i, 1917, the
President of the United States requests me to transmit the
following reply:
Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened 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 persuasively 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
ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
nothing else. It is not a mere cessation of arms he desires;
it is a stable and enduring peace. This 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 concert 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 territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplexing
problems of the Balkan States, and the restitution of Poland
be left to such conciliatory adjustments 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 success
fully 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 of the actual power of a vast military establish
ment controlled by an irresponsible government which, hav
ing secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to
carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obli
gations of treaty or the long-established 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 sub
mitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose;
but it is our business to see to it 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
Aug. 27] PAPAL PROPOSITIONS OF PEACE 221
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
newborn Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle inter
ference, and the certain counter-revolution which would be
attempted by all the malign influences 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 ac
commodation?
Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they
never saw before, that no peace can rest securely upon politi
cal 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 reprisal
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 freedom and security
and self-government and to a participation upon fair terms
in the economic opportunities of the world, the German peo
ple 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 intriguing government
on the one hand and of a group of free peoples on the other?
This is a 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 advantage of any kind. We
believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by the
furious and brutal power of the Imperial German Govern
ment ought to be repaired, but not at the expense of the sov
ereignty of any people rather a vindication of the sover-
222 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
eignty both of those that are weak and of those that are
strong. Punitive damages, the dismemberment 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 en
during peace. That must be based upon justice and fairness
and the common rights of mankind.
We can not take the word of the present rulers of Ger
many as a guaranty of anything that is to endure, unless
explicitly supported by such consclusive evidence of the will
and purpose of the German people themselves as the other
peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. With
out such guaranties treaties of settlement, agreements for
disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of
force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small na
tions, if made with the German Government, no man, no
nation could now depend on. We must await some new evi
dence of the purposes 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 covenanted peace.
White House Pamphlet.
69. TO THE SOLDIERS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY
(September 3, 1917)
PUBLIC MESSAGE TO THE DRAFTED MEN
You are undertaking a great duty. The heart of the whole
country is with you.
Everything that you do will be watched with the deepest
interest and with the deepest solicitude, not only by those
who are near and dear to you, but by the whole nation
besides. For this great war draws us all together, makes
us all comrades and brothers, as all true Americans felt
themselves to be when we first made good our national in
dependence.
The eyes of all the world will be upon you, because you
Sept. 3] TO SOLDIERS OF THE NATIONAL ARMY 223
are in some special sense the soldiers of freedom. Let it be
your pride, therefore, to show all men everywhere not only
what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you
are, keeping yourselves fit and straight in everything and
pure and clean through and through.
Let us set for ourselves a standard so high that it will
be a glory to live up to it, and then let us live up to it and
add a new laurel to the crown of America.
My affectionate confidence goes with you in every battle
and every test. God keep and guide you!
New York Times, Sept. 4, 1917.
70. THE JUNIOR RED CROSS
(September 15, 1917)
PROCLAMATION TO THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE UNITED
STATES
The President of the United States is also President of
the American Red Cross. It is from these offices joined in
one that I write you a word of greeting at this time, when so
many of you are beginning the school year.
The American Red Cross has just prepared a junior mem
bership with school activities, in which every pupil in the
United States can find a chance to serve our country. The
school is the natural centre of your life. Through it you can
best work in the great cause of freedom to which we have all
pledged ourselves.
Our junior Red Cross will bring to you opportunities of
service to your community and to other communities all over
the world and guide your service with high and religious
ideals. It will teach you how to save in order that suffering
children elsewhere may have the chance to live. It will teach
you how to prepare some of the supplies which wounded sol
diers and homeless families lack. It will send to you through
the Red Cross bulletins the thrilling stories of relief and
rescue. And, best of all, more perfectly than through any
of your other school lessons, you will learn by doing those
kind things under your teacher s direction to be the fu-
224 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
ture good citizens of this great country which we all love.
And I commend to all school teachers in the country the
simple plan which the American Red Cross has worked out
to provide for your cooperation, knowing as I do that school
children will give their best service under the direct guidance
and instruction of their teachers. Is not this perhaps the
chance for which you have been looking to give your time
and efforts in some measure to meet our national needs?
New York Times, Sept. 19, 1917.
71. WOMEN AND THE SUFFRAGE
(October 25, 1917)
REPLY TO A DELEGATION FROM THE NEW YORK STATE
WOMAN S SUFFRAGE PARTY, AT THE WHITE HOUSE
It is with great pleasure that I receive you. I esteem it a
privilege to do so. I know the difficulties which you have
been laboring under in New York State, so clearly set forth
by Mrs. Whitehouse, but in my judgment those difficulties
cannot be used as an excuse by the leaders of any party or
by the voters of any party for neglecting the question which
you are pressing upon them. Because, after all, the whole
world now is witnessing a struggle between two ideals of
government. It is a struggle which goes deeper and touches
more of the foundations of the organized life of men than
any struggle that has ever taken place before; and no set
tlement of the questions that lie on the surface can satisfy
a situation which requires that the questions which lie under
neath and at the foundation should also be settled and set
tled right. I am free to say that I think the question of
woman suffrage is one of those questions which lie at the
foundation.
The world has witnessed a slow political reconstruction,
and men have generally been obliged to be satisfied with
the slowness of the process. In a sense it is wholesome that
it should be slow, because then it is solid and sure. But I
believe that this war is going so to quicken the convictions
Oct. 25] WOMEN AND THE SUFFRAGE 225
and the consciousness of mankind with regard to political
questions that the speed of reconstruction will be greatly
increased. And I believe that just because we are quickened
by the questions of this war, we ought to be quickened to
give this question of woman suffrage our immediate con
sideration.
As one of the spokesmen of a great party, I would be do
ing nothing less than obeying the mandates of that party
if I gave my hearty support to the question of woman suf
frage which you represent, but I do not want to speak merely
as one of the spokesmen of a party. I want to speak for my
self, and say that it seems to me that this is the time for
the States of this Union to take this action. I perhaps may
be touched a little too much by the traditions of our politics,
traditions which lay such questions almost entirely upon the
States, but I want to see communities declare themselves
quickened at this time and show the consequence of the
quickening.
I think the whole country has appreciated the way in
which the women have arisen to this great occasion. They
not only have done what they have been asked to do, and
done it with ardor and efficiency, but they have shown a
power to organize for doing things of their own initiative,
which is quite a different thing, and a very much more diffi
cult thing, and I think the whole country has admired the
spirit and the capacity and the vision of the women of the
United States.
It is almost absurd to say that the country depends upon
the women for a large part of the inspirations of its life.
That is too obvious to say; but it is now depending upon the
women also for suggestions of service, which have been ren
dered in abundance and with the distinction of originality.
I, therefore, am very glad to add my voice to those which
are urging the people of the great State of New York to set
a great example by voting for woman suffrage. It would be
a pleasure if I might utter that advice in their presence.
Inasmuch as I am bound too close to my duties here to make
that possible, I am glad to have the privilege to ask you to
convey that message to them.
It seems to me that this is a time of privilege. All our
226 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
principles, all our hearts, all our purposes, are being searched;
searched not only by our own consciences but searched by
the world; and it is time for the people of the States of this
country to show the world in what practical sense they have
learned the lessons of democracy that they are fighting for
democracy because they believe it, and that there is no ap
plication of democracy which they do not believe in.
I feel, therefore, that I am standing upon the firmest
foundations of the age in bidding Godspeed to the cause
which you represent and in expressing the ardent hope that
the people of New York may realize the great occasion which
faces them on Election Day and may respond to it in noble
fashion.
New York Times, Oct. 26, 1917.
72. LABOR AND THE WAR
(November 12, 1917)
ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR CON
VENTION, AT BUFFALO
I esteem it a great privilege and a real honor to be thus
admitted to your public counsels. When your executive com
mittee paid me the compliment of inviting 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 coun
sel, for the drawing together not only of the energies but
of the minds of the Nation. I thought that it was a welcome
opportunity for disclosing to you some of the thoughts that
have been gathering in my mind during these last momentous
months. * * *
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 history. And the thing
that needs to be explained is why Germany started the war.
Remember 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
Nov. 12] LABOR AND THE WAR 227
and material achievements. All the intellectual men of
the world went to school to her. As a university rrmn 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, particularly in the prin
ciples of science and the principles that underlie modern ma
terial achievement. Her men of science had made her
industries perhaps the most competent industries of the
world, and 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 nation who
traded in those markets feared Germany because of her effec
tive and almost irresistible competition. She had a "place
in the sun."
Why was she not satisfied? 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 ex
traordinary 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 and grew faster than any American cities 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 competition. There is
no important industry in Germany upon which the Govern
ment has not laid its hands, to direct it and, when necessity
arose, control it; and 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 national competition to find
out the methods of competition which the German manufac
turers and exporters used under the patronage and support of
the Government of Germany. You will find that they were
the same sorts of 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 conditions of
228 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
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 and 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 very few of you
have thought much about the Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway.
The Berlin-Bagdad Railway was constructed in order to run
the threat of force down the flank of the industrial under
takings 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 is thrusting
upon us again and again the discussion of peace talks, about
what? Talks about Belgium; talks about northern France;
talks about Alsace-Lorraine. Well, those are deeply interest
ing subjects to us and to them, but they are not the heart
of the matter. Take the map and look at it. Germany has
absolute 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 appro
priate 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 she 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 control 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. Power can not be used with
concentrated force against free peoples if it is used by free
people. * * *
While we are fighting for freedom we must see, among
Nov. 12] LABOR AND THE WAR 229
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 rendered more onerous by the war, but also
that we shall see to it that the instrumentalities by which the
conditions 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 cour
age, his large vision, and his statesmanlike sense of what has
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 corral.
Now, to stand together means that nobody must interrupt
the processes of our energy if the interruption can possibly
be avoided without the absolute 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
settlement have been exhausted. And I might as well say
right here that I am not talking to you alone. You some
times stop the courses of labor, but there are others who do
the same, and I believe I am speaking from my own experi
ence not only, but from the experience of others when I say
that you are reasonable in a larger number of cases than the
capitalists. I am not saying these things to them personally
yet, because I have not had a chance, but they have to be
said, not in any spirit of criticism, but in order to clear the
atmosphere and come down to business. Everybody on both
sides has now got to transact business, and a 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 from a man
much more radically when he is not in the room than I can
when he is in the room, because then the awkward thing is
he can come back at me and answer what I say. It is always
dangerous for a man to have the floor entirely to himself.
Therefore, we must insist in every instance that the parties
come into each other s presence and there discuss the issues
2 3 o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
between them, and not separately in places which have no
communication with each other. I always like to remind
myself of a delightful saying of an Englishman of the past
generation, Charles Lamb. He stuttered a little bit, and once
when he was with a group of friends he spoke very harshly
of some man who was not present. One of his friends said:
"Why, Charles, I didn t know that you knew so and so."
"O-o-oh," he said, "I-I d-d-don t; I-I can t h-h-hate a m-nv
man I-I know." There is a great deal of human nature, of
very pleasant human nature, in the saying. It is hard to
hate a man you know. I may admit, parenthetically, that
there are some politicians whose methods I do not at all
believe in, but they are jolly good fellows, and if they only
would not talk the wrong kind of politics to me, I would love
to be with them.
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 coun
sel to you is this: Let us show ourselves Americans by show
ing 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 the common enterprise 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. I have been very much
distressed, my fellow citizens, by some of the things that have
happened recently. The mob spirit is displaying itself nere
and there in this country. I have no sympathy with what
some men are saying, but 1 have no sympathy with the men
who 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 in this country
whose object is anarchy and the destruction of law, but I
would not meet their efforts by making myself partner in de
stroying 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, how
ever wrong they are. * * *
White House Pamphlet.
Nov. 1 6] UNIVERSAL LOYALTY 231
73. UNIVERSAL LOYALTY
(November 16, 1917)
TELEGRAM TO THE NORTHWEST LOYALTY MEETINGS,
ST. PAUL
Nothing could be more significant than your gathering to
express the loyalty of the great Northwest. If it were pos
sible I should gladly be with you. You have come together
as the representatives of that Western empire in which the
sons of all sections of America and the stocks of all the na
tions of Europe have made the prairie and the forest the
home of a new race and the temple of a new faith.
The time has come when that home must be protected and
that faith affirmed in deeds. Sacrifice and service must come
from every class, every profession, every party, every race,
every creed, every section. This is not a banker s war or
a farmer s war or a manufacturer s war or a laboring man s
war it is a war for every straight-out American whether our
flag be his by birth or by adoption.
We are to-day a Nation in arms, and we must fight and
farm, mine and manufacture, conserve food and fuel, save
and spend, to the one common purpose. It is to the great
Northwest that the Nation looks, as once before in critical
days, for that steadiness of purpose and firmness of deter
mination which shall see this struggle through to a decision
that shall make the masters of Germany rue the day they
unmasked their purpose and challenged our Republic.
New York Times, Nov. 17, 1917.
74. SYMPATHY WITH THE BELGIANS
(November 16, 1917)
CABLEGRAM TO KING ALBERT OF BELGIUM
I take pleasure in extending to Your Majesty greetings of
friendship and good will on this your fete day.
232 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
For the people of the United States, I take this occasion
to renew expressions of deep sympathy for the sufferings
which Belgium has endured under the willful, cruel and bar
baric force of a disappointed Prussian autocracy.
The people of the United States were never more in ear
nest than in their determination to prosecute to a successful
conclusion this war against that power and to secure for the
future obedience to the laws of nations and respect for the
rights of humanity.
New York Times, Nov. 17, 1917.
75. EXTENSION OF THE WAR TO AUSTRIA-
HUNGARY
(December 4, 1917)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
* * * 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 a very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures
by which we mean to attain them; for the purpose of dis
cussion here in this place is action, and our action must move
straight towards 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 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 out
come 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
clamour of the noisily thoughtless and troublesome. I also
Dec. 4] WAR WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 233
see men here and there fling themselves in impotent disloy
alty 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 for
gotten.
But from another point of view I believe that it is neces
sary 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 set
tlement 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 for all of the sinister forces that in
terrupt peace and render it impossible, and they wish to know
how closely our thought runs with theirs and what action we
propose. They are impatient 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 com
bined intrigue and force which we now see so clearly as the
German power, A Thing without 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 the time
comes that we can discuss peace, when the German 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 hence
forth 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
234 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
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 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 coun
try have themselves done deep and abominable wrong. It is
this thought that has been expressed in the formula, " No an
nexations, no contributions, no punitive indemnities." Just
because this crude formula expresses the instinctive judgment
as to right of plain men everywhere it has been made diligent
use of by the masters of German intrigue to lead the people
of Russia 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 patronage 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 mod
ern 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 peace-maker
among the nations. But when that has been done, as, God
willing, it assuredly will be, we must at last be free to do an
unprecedented thing, and this is the time to avow our purpose
to do it. We shall be free to base peace on generosity and
justice, to the exclusion of all selfish claims to advantage on
the part of the victors.
Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present and im
mediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn us
aside from it until it is accomplished. Every power and re
source we possess, whether of men, of money, or of materials,
is being devoted and will continue to be devoted to that pur
pose until it is achieved. Those who desire to bring peace
Dec. 4] WAR WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 235
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 peoples than their
own, over the great Empire of Austria-Hungary, over hith
erto free Balkan states, over Turkey, and within Asia, which
must be relinquished.
* * * The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It
must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of Bel
gium 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 im
pudent and alien dominion of the Prussian military and com
mercial autocracy.
We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do not
wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the Austro-Hun-
garian Empire. It is no affair of ours what they do with
their own life, either industrially or politically. We do not
purpose or desire to dictate to them in any way. We only
desire to see that their affairs are left in their own hands, in
all matters, 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 her
self are of a like kind. We intend no wrong against the
German Empire, no interference with her internal affairs.
We should deem either the one or the other absolutely un
justifiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have
professed to live by and to hold most sacred throughout 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
236 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
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 candour 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 at
tack 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 Ger
man people is this, that if they should still, after the war is
over, continue to be obliged to live under ambitious and in
triguing 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 partnership of
peoples, not a mere partnership of governments. It might
be impossible, also, in such untoward circumstances, to admit
Germany to the free economic intercourse which must inevi
tably spring out of the other partnerships of a real peace.
But there would be no aggression in that; and such a situa
tion, inevitable 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 commission of similar wrongs
against Germany and her allies. The world will not permit
the commission of similar wrongs as a means of reparation
and settlement. Statesmen must by this time have learned
that the opinion of the world is everywhere wide awake and
fully comprehends the issues involved. No representative of
any self-governed nation will dare disregard it by attempting
any such covenants of selfishness and compromise as were
entered into at the Congress of Vienna. The thought of the
plain people here and everywhere throughout the world, the
people who enjoy no privilege and have very simple and un
sophisticated standards of right and wrong, is the air all
governments must henceforth breathe if they would live. It
Dec. 4] WAR WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 237
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 been able to upset the peace
of the world only because the German people were not suf
fered under their tutelage to share the comradeship of the
other peoples of the world either in thought 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 con
clusions will run with those tides. * *
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 towards 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 path
ways I was thinking, and I am thinking now, not of the
smaller and weaker nations alone, which need our counte
nance 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 thinking, 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 permanent, not temporary, founda
tions 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 impediments 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 im
mediately declare the United States in a state of war with
238 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
Austria-Hungary. Does it seem strange to you that this
should be the conclusion of the argument I have just ad
dressed 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 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 business. 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. * * *
White House Pamphlet.
76. GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF RAILROADS
(December 26, 1917)
PUBLIC STATEMENT
I have exercised the powers over the transportation sys
tems of the country which were granted me by the act of
Congress last August because it has become imperatively
necessary for me to do so.
This is a war of resources no less than of men, perhaps
even more than of men, and it is necessary for the complete
mobilization of our resources that the transportation systems
of the country should be organized and employed under a
single authority and a simplified method of coordination
which have not proved possible under private management
and control.
The Committee of Railway Executives who have been co-
Dec. 26] GOVERNMENT AND RAILROADS 239
operating with the Government in this all-important matter
have done the utmost that it was possible for them to do;
have done it with patriotic zeal and with great ability, but
there were differences that they could neither escape nor neu
tralize. Complete unity of administration in the present cir
cumstances involves upon occasion and at many points a
serious dislocation of earnings, and the committee was, of
course, without power or authority to rearrange changes or
effect proper compensations and adjustments of earnings.
Several roads which were willingly and with admirable public
spirit accepting the orders of the committee have already
suffered from these circumstances, and should not be required
to suffer further. In mere fairness to them the full authority
of the Government must be substituted. The Government
itself will thereby gain an immense increase of efficiency in
the conduct of the war and of the innumerable activities
upon which its successful conduct depends.
The public interest must be first served, and, in addition,
the financial interests of the Government and the financial in
terests of the railways must be brought under a common
direction. The financial operations of the railways need not
then interfere with the borrowings of the Government, and
they themselves can be conducted at a great advantage. In
vestors in railway securities may rest assured that their rights
and interests will be as scrupulously looked after by the?
Government as they could be by the directors of the several
railway systems.
Immediately upon the reassembling of Congress I shall
recommend that these definite guarantees be given. First, of
course, that the railway properties will be maintained during
the period of Federal control in as good repair and as com
plete equipment as when taken over by the Government, and,
second, that the roads shall receive a net operating income
equal in each case to the average net income of the three
years preceding June 30, 1917; and I am entirely confident
that the Congress will be disposed in this case, as in others,
to see that justice is done and full security assured to the
owners and creditors of the great systems which the Gov
ernment must now use under its own direction or else suffer
serious embarrassment.
240 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1917
The Secretary of War and I are agreed that, all the cir
cumstances being taken into consideration, the best results
can be obtained under the immediate executive direction of
the Hon. William G. McAdoo, whose practical experience pe
culiarly fits him for the service and whose authority as
Secretary of the Treasury will enable him to coordinate as
no other man could, the many financial interests which will
be involved and which might, unless systematically directed,
suffer very embarrassing entanglements.
The Government of the United States is the only great
Government now engaged in the war which has not already
assumed control of this sort. It was thought to be in the
spirit of American institutions to attempt to do everything
that was necessary through private management, and if zeal
and ability and patriotic motive could have accomplished
the necessary unification of administration, it would certainly
have been accomplished; but no zeal or ability could over
come insuperable obstacles and I have deemed it my duty
to recognize that fact in all candor, now that it is demon
strated, and to use without reserve the great authority re
posed in me. A great national necessity dictated the action,
and I was therefore not at liberty to abstain from it.
New York Times, Dec. 27, 1917.
YEAR 1918
77. ORGANIZATION FOR THE WAR
(January 4, 1918)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
I have asked the privilege of addressing you in order to
report to you that on the twenty-eighth of December last,
during the recess of the Congress, acting through the Secre
tary of War and under the authority conferred upon me by
the Act of Congress approved August 29, 1916, I took pos
session and assumed control of the railway lines of the coun
try and the systems of water transportation under their con
trol. This step seemed to be imperatively necessary in the
interest of the public welfare, in the presence of the great
tasks of war with which we are now dealing. As our own
experience develops difficulties and makes it clear what they
are, I have deemed it my duty to remove those difficulties
wherever I have the legal power to do so. To assume control
of the vast railway systems of the country is, I realize, a very
great responsibility, but to fail to do so in the existing cir
cumstances would have been a much greater. I assumed the
less responsibility rather than the weightier.
I am sure that I am speaking the mind of all thoughtful
Americans when I say that it is our duty as the representa
tives of the nation to do everything that it is necessary to do
to secure the complete mobilization of the whole resources of
America by as rapid and effective means as can be found.
Transportation supplies all the arteries of mobilization. Un
less it be under a single and unified direction, the whole
process of the nation s action is embarrassed.
It was in the true spirit of America, and it was right, that
241
242 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
we should first try to effect the necessary unification under
the voluntary action of those who were in charge of the great
railway properties; and we did try it. The directors of the
railways responded to the need promptly and generously.
The group of railway executives who were charged with the
task of actual coordination and general direction performed
their difficult duties with patriotic zeal and marked ability,
as was to have been expected, and did, I believe, everything
that it was possible for them to do in the circumstances. If
I have taken the task out of their hands, it has not been
because of any dereliction or failure on their part but only
because there were some things which the Government can
do and private management cannot. We shall continue to
value most highly the advice and assistance of these gentle
men and I am sure we shall not find them withholding it.
It had become unmistakably plain that only under gov
ernment administration can the entire equipment of the
several systems of transportation be fully and unreservedly
thrown into a common service without injurious discrimina
tion against particular properties. Only under government
administration can an absolutely unrestricted and unembar
rassed common use be made of all tracks, terminals, terminal
facilities and equipment of every kind. Only under that
authority can new terminals be constructed and developed
without regard to the requirements or limitations of particular
roads. But under government administration all these things
will be possible, not instantly, but as fast as practical dif-
fulties, which cannot be merely conjured away, give way be
fore the new management.
The common administration will be carried out with as
little disturbance of the present operating organizations and
personnel of the railways as possible. Nothing will be altered
or disturbed which it is not necessary to disturb. We are
serving the public interest and safeguarding the public safety,
but we are also regardful of the interest of those by whom
these great properties are owned and glad to avail ourselves
of the experience and trained ability of those who have been
managing them. It is necessary that the transportation of
troops and of war materials, of food and of fuel, and of
everything that is necessary for the full mobilization of the
Jan. 4] ORGANIZATION FOR THE WAR 243
energies and resources of the country, should be first con
sidered, but it is clearly in the public interest also that the
ordinary activities and the normal industrial and commercial
life of the country should be interfered with and dislocated
as little as possible, and the public may rest assured that the
interest and convenience of the private shipper will be as
carefully served and safeguarded as it is possible to serve and
safegard it in the present extraordinary circumstances.
While the present authority of the Executive suffices for all
purposes of administration, and while of course all private
interests must for the present give way to the public neces
sity, it is, I am sure you will agree with me, right and neces
sary that the owners and creditors of the railways, the hold
ers of their stocks and bonds, should receive from the Govern
ment an unqualified guarantee that their properties will be
maintained throughout the period of federal control in as
good repair and as complete equipment as at present, and that
the several roads will receive under federal management such
compensation as is equitable and just alike to their owners
and to the general public. I would suggest the average net
railway operating income of the three years ending June 30,
1917. I earnestly recommend that these guarantees be given
by appropriate legislation, and given as promptly as circum
stances permit.
I need not point out the essential justice of such guarantees
and their great influence and significance as elements in the
present financial and industrial situation of the country. In
deed, one of the strong arguments for assuming control of
the railroads at -this time is the financial argument. It is
necessary that the values of railway securities should be
justly and fairly protected and that the large financial oper
ations every year necessary in connection with the mainte
nance, operation and development of the roads should,
during the period of the war, be wisely related to the financial
operations of the Government. Our first duty is, of course,
to conserve the common interest and the common safety and
to make certain that nothing stands in the way of the suc-
cessful^ prosecution of the great war for liberty and justice,
but it is also an obligation of public conscience and of public
honor that the private interests we disturb should be kept
244 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
safe from unjust injury, and it is of the utmost consequence
to the Government itself that all great financial operations
should be stabilized and coordinated with the financial oper
ations of the Government. No borrowing should run athwart
the borrowings of the federal treasury, and no fundamental
industrial values should anywhere be unnecessarily impaired.
In the hands of many thousands of small investors in the
country, as well as in national banks, in insurance companies,
in savings banks, in trust companies, in financial agencies of
every kind, railway securities, the sum total of which runs
up to some ten or eleven thousand millions, constitute a vital
part of the structure of credit, and the unquestioned solidity
of that structure must be maintained. * * *
White House Pamphlet.
78. FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE
(January 8, 1918)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the
Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss the
objects of the war and the possible bases of a general peace.
Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between Rus
sian representatives and representatives of the Central Pow
ers 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 state
ment of the principles upon which they would be willing to
conclude peace but also an equally definite programme of
the concrete application of those principles. The represen
tatives of the Central Powers, on their part, presented an
outline of settlement which, if much less definite, seemed
susceptible of liberal interpretation until their specific pro
gramme of practical terms was added. That programme pro
posed no concessions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia
Jan. 8] FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE 245
or to the preferences of the populations with whose fortunes
it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires were
to keep every foot of territory their armed forces had occu
pied, 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 principles of
settlement which they at first suggested originated with the
more liberal statesmen of Germany and Austria, the men who
have begun to feel the force of their own peoples thought and
purpose, while the concrete 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 domi-/
nation.
The whole incident is full of significance. It is also full
of perplexity. With whom are the Russian representatives
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 imperialistic minority which has so far domi
nated their whole policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey
and of 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 modern democracy, that the conferences they have been
holding with the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be
held within open, not closed, doors, and^all the world has
been audience, as was desired. To whom have we been
listening, then? To those who speak the spirit and intention
of the Resolutions of the German Reichstag of the ninth 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 ut-
246 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
terances of the spokesmen of the Central 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 Central Powers, no un
certainty of principle, no vagueness of detail. The only
secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the
only failure to make definite statement 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 conception of his responsibility ought for a mo
ment to permit himself to continue this tragical and appall
ing 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 definitions 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 rilled. 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 principle
or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what it 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
Jan. 8] FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE 247
admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have re
fused 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 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 conquest 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 pur
poses are consistent with justice and the peace of the world
to avow now or at any time the objects it has in view.
We entered this war because violations of right had oc
curred 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, therefore, is nothing peculiar to our
selves. 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 own life, deter
mine 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 programme of the world s peace, therefore, is
our programme; and that programme, the only possible pro
gramme, as we see it, is this:
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which
248 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON
there shall be no private international understandings of any
kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the
public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon . JhgLseas, outside
territorial waters, alike in peace"and in war, except as the
seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action
for the enforcement of international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic bar-
rier-3-and the establishment of an equality of tra de^onditions
among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating
themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national
armaments. will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with
domestic safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjust
ment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance
of the principle that in determining all such questions of
sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must
have equal weight with the equitable claims of the govern
ment 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 unhampered and unembarrassed op
portunity for the independent determination of her own
political development 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 welcome,
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 comprehension 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 evac
uated and "restored, without any attempt to limit the sov
ereignty 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 determined for the government of
Jan. 8] FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE 249
their relations with one another. Without this healing act
the whole structure and validity of international law is for
ever 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 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 Italjk-should be
effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Aystria-Hungary, whose place among
the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be
accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evac
uated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and
secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several
X. Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel
along historically established lines of allegiance and nation
ality; and international guarantees of the political and eco
nomic independence and territorial integrity of the several
Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Em
pire 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 un
molested 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
guarantees.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected
which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably
Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure
access to the sea, and whose political and economic inde
pendence and territorial 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
guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity
to great and small states alike.
250 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and
assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners
of all the governments and peoples associated together against
the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or di
vided 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 programme does
remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and
there is nothing in this programme 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 jus
tice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept
a place 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 alteration or
modification of her institutions. But it is necessary, we must
frankly say, and necessary as a preliminary to any intelli
gent 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 prin
ciple runs through the whole programme 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 vindi
cation of this principle they are ready to devote their lives,
their honor, and everything that they possess. The moral
Jan. 8] FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE 251
climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty
has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their
own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the
test.
White House Pamphlet.
79. THE FARMERS PATRIOTISM
(January 31, 1918)
MESSAGE TO THE FARMERS CONFERENCE AT URBANA,
ILLINOIS
I am very sorry indeed that I can not be present in person
at the Urbana conference. I should like to enjoy the bene
fit of the inspiration and exchange of counsel which I know
I should obtain, but in the circumstances it has seemed im
possible for me to be present, and therefore I can only send
you a very earnest message expressing my interest and the
thoughts which such a conference must bring prominently
into every mind.
I need not tell you, for I am sure you realize as keenly as
I do, that we are as a Nation in the presence of a great task
which demands supreme sacrifice and endeavor of every one
of us. We can give everything that is needed with the
greater willingness, and even satisfaction, because the object
of the war in which we are engaged is the greatest that free
men have ever undertaken. It is to prevent the life of the
world from being determined and the fortunes of men every
where affected by small groups of military masters, who seek
their own interest and the selfish dominion throughout the
world of the Governments they unhappily for the moment
control. You will not need to be convinced that it was neces
sary for us as a free people to take part in this war. It had
raised its evil hand against us. The rulers of Germany had
sought to exercise their power in such a way as to shut off
our economic life so far as our intercourse with Europe was
concerned, and to confine our people within the Western
Hemisphere while they accomplished purposes which would
252 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
have permanently impaired and impeded every process of
our national life and have put the fortunes of America at
the mercy of the Imperial Government of Germany.
This was no threat. It had become a reality. Their -hand
of violence had been laid upon our own people and our own
property in flagrant violation not only of justice but of the
well -recognized and long-standing covenants of international
law and treaty. We are fighting, therefore, as truly for the
liberty and self-government of the United States as if the
war of our own Revolution had to be fought over again;
and every man in every business in the United States must
know by this time that his whole future fortune lies in the
balance. Our national life and our whole economic develop
ment will pass under the sinister influences of foreign control
if we do not win. We must win, therefore, and we shall win.
I need not ask you to pledge your lives and fortunes with
those of the rest of the Nation to the accomplishment of that
great end.
You will realize, as I think statesmen on both sides of the
water realize, that the culminating crisis of the struggle has
come and that the achievements of this year on the one side
or the other must determine the issue. It has turned out
that the forces that fight for freedom, the freedom of men
all over the world as well as our own, depend upon us in an
extraordinary and unexpected degree for sustenance, for the
supply of the materials by which men are to live and to fight,
and it will be our glory when the war is over that we have
supplied those materials and supplied them abundantly, and
it will be all the more glory because in supplying them we
have made our supreme effort and sacrifice.
In the field of agriculture we have agencies and instrumen
talities, fortunately, such as no other government in the world
can show. The Department of Agriculture is undoubtedly
the greatest practical and scientific agricultural organization
in the world. Its total annual budget of $46,000,000 has
been increased during the last four years more than 72 per
cent. It has a staff of 18,000, including a large number of
highly trained experts, and alongside of it stands the unique
land-grant colleges, which are without example elsewhere,
and the 69 State and Federal experiment stations. These
Jan. 3i ] THE FARMERS PATRIOTISM 253
colleges and experiment stations have a total endowment of
plant and equipment of $172,000,000 and an income of more
than $35,000,000, with 10,271 teachers, a resident student
body of 125,000, and a vast additional number receiving
instruction at their homes. County agents, joint officers of
the Department of Agriculture and of the colleges, are every
where cooperating with the farmers and assisting them. The
number of extension workers under the Smith-Lever Act and
under the recent emergency legislation has grown to 5,500
men and women working regularly in the various communi
ties and taking to the farmer the latest scientific and practi
cal information.
Alongside these great public agencies stand the very effec
tive voluntary organizations among the farmers themselves
which are more and more learning the best methods of co
operation and the best methods of putting to practical use the
assistance derived from governmental sources. The banking
legislation of the last two or three years has given the farmers
access to the great lendable capital of the country, and it
has become the duty both of the men in charge of the Fed
eral Reserve Banking System and of the Farm Loan Banking
System to see to it that the farmers obtain the credit, both
short term and long term, to which they are not only entitled
but which it is imperatively necessary should be extended to
them if the present tasks of the country are to be adequately
performed. Both by direct purchase of nitrates and by the
establishment of plants to produce nitrates the Government
is doing its utmost to assist in the problem of fertilization.
The Department of Agriculture and other agencies are ac
tively assisting the farmers to locate, safeguard, and secure
at cost an adequate supply of sound seed. The department
has $2,500,000 available for this purpose now and has asked
the Congress for $6,000,000 more.
The labor problem is one of great difficulty, and some of
the best agencies of the Nation are addressing themselves to
the task of solving it, so far as it is possible to solve it.
Farmers have not been exempted from the draft. I know
that they would not wish to be. I take it for granted they
would not wish to be put in a class by themselves in this
respect. But the attention of the War Department has been
/I
254 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
very seriously centered upon the task of interfering with the
labor of the farms as little as possible, and under the new
draft regulations I believe that the farmers of the country
will find that their supply of labor is very much less seriously
drawn upon than it was under the first and initial draft,
made before we had our present full experience in these per
plexing matters. The supply of labor in all industries is a
matter we must look to and are looking to with diligent care.
And let me say that the situation of the agencies I have
enumerated has been responded to by the farmers in splendid
fashion. I dare say that you are aware that the farmers of
this country are as efficient as any other farmers in the world.
They do not produce more per acre than the farmers in
Europe. It is not necessary that they should do so. It
would perhaps be bad economy for them to attempt it. But
they do produce by two to three or four times more per man,
per unit of labor and capital, than the farmers of any Euro
pean country. They are more alert and use more labor-
saving devices than any other farmers in the world. And
their response to the demands of the present emergency has
been in every way remarkable. Last spring their planting
exceeded by 12,000,000 acres the largest planting of any
previous year, and the yields from the crops were record-
breaking yields. In the fall of 1917 a wheat acreage of
42,170,000 was planted, which was 1,000,000 larger than for
any preceding year, 3,000,000 greater than the next largest,
and 7,000,000 greater than the preceding five-year average.
But I ought to say to you that it is not only necessary
that these achievements should be repeated, but that they
should be exceeded. I know what this advice involves. It
involves not only labor but sacrifice, the painstaking applica
tion of every bit of scientific knowledge and every tested
practice that is available. It means the utmost economy,
even to the point where the pinch comes. It means the kind
of concentration and self-sacrifice which is involved in the
field of battle itself, where the object always looms greater
than the individual. And yet the Government will help and
help in every way that is possible. The impression which
prevails in some quarters that while the Government has
sought to fix the prices of foodstuffs it has not sought to fix
Jan. 31] THE FARMERS PATRIOTISM 255
other prices which determine the expenses of the farmer is a
mistaken one. As a matter of fact, the Government has ac
tively and successfully regulated the prices of many funda
mental materials underlying all the industries of the country,
and has regulated them, not only for the purchases of the
Government, but also for the purchases of the general public,
and I have every reason to believe that the Congress will
extend the powers of the -Government in this important and
even essential matter, so that the tendency to profiteering,
which, is showing itself in too many quarters, may be effec
tively checked. In fixing the prices of foodstuffs the
Government has sincerely tried to keep the interests of the
farmer as much in mind as the interests of the communities
which are to be served, but it is serving mankind as well as
the farmer, and everything in these times of war takes on the
rigid aspect of duty.
I will not appeal to you to continue and renew and increase
your efforts. I do not believe that it is necessary to do so.
I believe that you will do it without any word or appeal from
me, because you understand as well as I do the needs and
opportunities of this great hour when the fortunes of mankind
everywhere seem about to be determined and when America
has the greatest opportunity she has ever had to make good
her own freedom and in making it good to lend a helping hand
to men struggling for their freedom everywhere. You remem
ber that it was farmers from whom came the first shots at
Lexington, that set aflame the revolution that made America
free. I hope and believe that the farmers of America will
willingly and conspicuously stand by to win this war also.
The toil, the intelligence, the energy, the foresight, the self-
sacrifice, and devotion of the farmers of America will, I
believe, bring to a triumphant conclusion this great last war
for the emancipation of men from the control of arbitrary
government and the selfishness of class legislation and control,
and then, when the end has come, we may look each other
in the face and be glad that we are Americans and have had
the privilege to play such a part.
White House Pamphlet.
256 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
80. HONOR TO THE RED CROSS
(May 18, 1918)
ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC MEETING IN NEW YORK, OPENING
A CAMPAIGN FOR THE SECOND RED CROSS FUND
I should be very sorry to think that Mr. Davison in any
degree curtailed his exceedingly interesting speech for fear
that he was postponing mine, because I am sure you listened
with the same intent and intimate interest with which I lis
tened to the extraordinarily vivid account he gave of the
things which he had realized because he had come in contact
with them on the other side of the water. We compassed
them with our imagination. He compassed them in his per
sonal experience.
I am not come here to-night to review for you the work of
the Red Cross. I am not competent to do so, because I have
not had the time or the opportunity to follow it in detail. I
have come here simply to say a few words to you as to what
it all seems to me to mean.
It means a great deal. There are two duties with which
we are face to face. The first duty is to win the war. The
second duty, that goes hand in hand with it, is to win it
greatly and worthily, showing the real quality of our power
not only, but the real quality of our purpose and of ourselves.
Of course, the first duty, the duty that we must keep in the
foreground of our thought until it is accomplished, is to win
the war. I have heard gentlemen recently say that we must
get five million men ready. Why limit it to five million? I
have asked the Congress of the United States to name no
limit, because the Congress intends, I am sure, as we all in
tend, that every ship that can carry men or supplies shall go
laden upon every voyage with every man and every supply
she can carry.
And we are not to be diverted from the grim purpose of
winning the war by any insincere approaches upon the sub
ject of peace. I can say with a clear conscience that I have
tested those intimations and have found them insincere. I
now recognize them for what they are, an opportunity to
May 1 8] HONOR TO THE RED CROSS 257
have a free hand, particularly in the East, to carry out pur
poses of conquest and exploitation. Every proposal with
regard to accommodation in the West involves a reservation
with regard to the East. Now, so far as I am concerned, I
intend to stand by Russia as well as France. The helpless
and the friendless are the very ones that need friends and
succor, and if any man in Germany thinks we are going to
sacrifice anybody for our own sake, I tell them now they are
mistaken. For the glory of this war, my fellow citizens, so
far as we are concerned, is that it is, perhaps for the first
time in history, an unselfish war. I could not be proud to
fight for a selfish purpose, but I can be proud to fight for
mankind. If they wish peace, let them come forward through
accredited representatives and lay their terms on the table.
We have laid ours, and they know what they are.
But behind all this grim purpose, my friends, lies the op
portunity to demonstrate not only force, which will be dem
onstrated to the utmost, but the opportunity to demonstrate
character, and it is that opportunity that we have most con
spicuously in the work of the Red Cross. Not that our men
in arms do not represent our character, for they do, and it is
a character which those who see and realize appreciate and
admire, but their duty is the duty of force. The duty of the
Red Cross is the duty of mercy and succor and friendship.
Have you formed a picture in your imagination of what
this war is doing for us and for the world? In my own mind
I am convinced that not a hundred years of peace could have
knitted this Nation together as this single year of war has
knitted it together; and better even than that, if possible, it
is knitting the world together. Look at the picture! In the
center of the scene, four nations engaged against the world,
and at every point of vantage, showing that they are seeking
selfish aggrandizement; and against them, twenty- three gov
ernments, representing the greater part of the population of
the world, drawn together into a new sense of community of
interest, a new sense of community of purpose, a new sense
of unity of life. The Secretary of War told me an interesting
incident the other day. He said when he was in Italy a
member of the Italian Government was explaining to him the
many reasons why Italy felt near to the United States.
258 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
He said, "If you want to try an interesting experiment, go
up to any one of these troop trains and ask in English how
many of them have been in America, and see what happens."
He tried the experiment. He went up to a troop train and
he asked, "How many of you boys have been in America?"
and he said it seemed to him as if half of them sprang up:
"Me from San Francisco," "Me from New York," all over.
There was part of the heart of America in the Italian Army,
people that had been knitted to us by association, who
knew us, who had lived amongst us, who had worked shoulder
to shoulder with us, and now, friends of America, were fight
ing for their native Italy.
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world
together. And this intimate contact of the great Red Cross
with the peoples who are suffering the terrors and depriva
tions of this war is going to be one of the greatest instrumen
talities of friendship that the world ever knew; and the cen
ter of the heart of it all, if we sustain it properly, will be
this land that we so dearly love.
My friends, a great day of duty has come, and duty finds
a man s soul as no kind of work can ever find it. May I say
this: The duty that faces us all now is to serve one another.
No man can afford to make a fortune out of this war. There
are men amongst us who have forgotten that, if they ever saw
it. Some of you are old enough I am old enough to re
member men who made fortunes out of the Civil War, and
you know how they were regarded by their fellow citizens.
That was a war to save one country. This is a war to save
the world. And your relation to the Red Cross is one of the
relations which will relieve you of the stigma. You cannot
give anything to the Government of the United States. It
will not accept it. There is a law of Congress against ac
cepting even services without pay. The only thing that the
Government will accept is a loan and duties performed, but
it is a great deal better to give than to lend or to pay, and
your great channel for giving is the American Red Cross.
Down in your hearts you can not take very much satisfaction
in the last analysis in lending money to the Government of
the United States, because the interest which you draw will
burn your pockets. It is a commercial transaction ; and some
May 18] HONOR TO THE RED CROSS 259
men have even dared to cavil at the rate of interest, not
knowing the incidental commentary that that constitutes upon
their attitude.
But when you give, something of your heart, something of
your soul, something of yourself goes with the gift, particu
larly when it is given in such form that it never can come
back by way of direct benefit to yourself. You know there
is the old cynical definition of gratitude, as "the lively ex
pectation of favors to come." Well, there is no expectation
of favors to come in this kind of giving. These things are
bestowed in order that the world may be a fitter place to live
in, that men may be succored, that homes may be restored,
that suffering may be relieved, that the face of the earth may
have the blight of destruction removed from it, and that
wherever force goes, there shall go mercy and helpfulness.
And when you give, give absolutely all that you can spare,
and do not consider yourself liberal in the giving. If you
give with self-adulation, you are not giving at all, you are
giving to your own vanity, but if you give until it hurts, then
your heart-blood goes into it.
Think what we have here! We call it the American Red
Cross, but it is merely a branch of a great international or
ganization which is not only recognized by the statutes of
each of the civilized governments of the world, but is recog
nized by international agreement and treaty, as the recognized
and accepted instrumentality of mercy and succor. And one
of the deepest stains that rest upon the reputation of the
German Army is that they have not respected the Red Cross.
That goes to the root of the matter. They have not re
spected the instrumentality they themselves participated in
setting up as the thing which no man was to touch because
it was the expression of common humanity. By being mem
bers of the American Red Cross, we are members of a great
fraternity and comradeship which extends all over the world.
This cross which these ladies bore to-day is an emblem of
Christianity itself.
It fills my imagination, ladies and gentlemen, to think of
the women all over this country who are busy to-night, and
are busy every night and every day, doing the work of the
Red Cross, busy with a great eagerness to find out the most
26o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
serviceable thing to do, busy with a forgetfulness of all the
old frivolities of their social relationships, ready to curtail
the duties of the household in order that they may contribute
to this common work that all their hearts are engaged in and
doing which their hearts become acquainted with each other.
When you think of this, you realize how the people of the
United States are being drawn together into a great intimate
family whose heart is being used for the service of the soldiers
not only, but for the service of civilians where they suffer and
are lost in a maze of distresses and distractions.
You have, then, this noble picture of justice and mercy as
the two servants of liberty. For only where men are free do
they think the thoughts of comradeship, only where they
are free do they think the thoughts of sympathy, only where
they are free are they mutually helpful, only where they are
free do they realize their dependence upon one another and
their comradeship in a common interest and common neces
sity. If you ladies and gentlemen could read some of the
touching despatches which come through official channels,
for even through those channels there come voices of human
ity that are infinitely pathetic; if you could catch some of
those voices that speak the utter longing of oppressed and
helpless peoples all over the world to hear something like the
Battle Hymn of the Republic, to hear the feet of the great
hosts of Liberty coming to set them free, to set their minds
free, set their lives free, set their children free; you would
know what comes into the heart of those who are trying to
contribute all the brains and power they have to this great
enterprise of Liberty. I summon you to the comradeship.
I summon you in this next week to say how much and how
sincerely and how unanimously you sustain the heart of the
world. White House Pamphlet.
Si. WAR-TIME PROHIBITION
(May 28, 1918)
LETTER TO SENATOR SHEPPARD
Thank you very much for your letter of the 2 6th. Frankly,
I was very much distressed by the action of the House. I do
May 28] WAR-TIME PROHIBITION 261
not think that it is wise or fair to attempt to put such com
pulsion on the Executive in a matter in which he has already
acted almost to the limit of his authority. What is almost
entirely overlooked is that there are, as I am informed, very
large stocks of whisky in this country, and it seems to me
quite certain that if the brewing of beer were prevented en
tirely, along with all the other drinks, many of them harm
less, which are derived from food or food stuffs, the con
sumption of whisky would be stimulated and increased to
a very considerable extent.
My own judgment is that it is wise and statesmanlike to
let the situation stand as it is for the present, until at any
rate I shall be apprised by the Food Administration that it
is necessary in the way suggested still further to conserve
the supply of food and feed stuffs. The Food Administration
has not thought it necessary to go any further than we have
in that matter already gone.
I thank you most cordially, Senator, for your kindness in
consulting me in this matter, which is of very considerable
importance, and has a very direct bearing upon many col
lateral questions.
Congressional Record, LXI, 8033.
82. DISINTERESTED SERVICE TO LATIN AMERICA
(June 7, 1918)
ADDRESS TO MEXICAN EDITORS AT THE WHITE HOUSE
I have never received a group of men who were more wel
come than you are, because it has been one of my distresses
during the period of my Presidency that the Mexican people
did not more thoroughly understand the attitude of the
United States toward Mexico. I think I can assure you, and
I hope you have had every evidence of the truth of my
assurance, that that attitude is one of sincere friendship.
And not merely the sort of friendship which prompts one not
to do his neighbor any harm, but the sort of friendship which
earnestly desires to do his neighbor service.
262 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
My own policy, the policy of my own administration, to
ward Mexico was at every point based upon this principle,
that the internal settlement of the affairs of Mexico was none
of our business; that we had no right to interfere with or to
dictate to Mexico in any particular with regard to her own
affairs. Take one aspect of our relations which at one time
may have been difficult for you to understand: When we
sent troops into Mexico, our sincere desire was nothing else
than to assist you to get rid of a man who was making the
settlement of your affairs for the time being impossible. We
had no desire to use our troops for any other purpose, and
I was in hopes that by assisting in that way and then im
mediately withdrawing, I might give substantial proof of
the truth of the assurances that I had given your Government
through President Carranza.
And at the present time it distresses me to learn that cer
tain influences, which I assume to be German in their origin,
are trying to make a wrong impression throughout Mexico
as to the purposes of the United States, and not only a
wrong impression, but to give an absolutely untrue account
of things that happen. You know the distressing things that
have been happening just off our coasts. You know of the
vessels that have been sunk. I yesterday received a quota
tion from a paper in Guadalajara which stated that thirteen
of our battleships had been sunk off the Capes of the Chesa
peake. You see how dreadful it is to have people so radically
misinformed. It was added that our Navy Department was
withholding the truth with regard to these sinkings. I have
no doubt that the publisher of the paper published that in
perfect innocence without intending to convey wrong im
pressions, but it is evident that allegations of that sort pro
ceed from those who wish to make trouble between Mexico
and the United States.
Now, gentlemen, for the time being at any rate, and I
hope it will not be a short time, the influence of the United
States is somewhat pervasive in the affairs of the world, and
I believe that it is pervasive because the nations of the world
which are less powerful than some of the greatest nations
are coming to believe that our sincere desire is to do disinter
ested service. We are the champions of those nations which
June 7] SERVICE TO LATIN AMERICA 263
have not had a military standing which would enable them
to compete with the strongest nations in the world, and I
look forward with pride to the time, which I hope will soon
come, when we can give substantial evidence, not only that
we do not want anything out of this war, but that we would
not accept anything out of it, that it is absolutely a case of
disinterested action. And if you will watch the attitude of
our people, you will see that nothing stirs them so deeply as
assurances that this war, so far as we are concerned, is for
idealistic objects. One of the difficulties that I experienced
during the first three years of the war, the years when the
United States was not in the war, was in getting the foreign
offices of European nations to believe that the United States
was seeking nothing for herself, that her neutrality was not
selfish, and that if she came in, she would not come in to get
anything substantial out of the war, any material object, any
territory or trade or anything else of that sort. In some of
the foreign offices there were men who personally knew me
and they believed, I hope, that I was sincere in assuring them
that our purposes were disinterested, but they thought that
these assurances came from an academic gentleman removed
from the ordinary sources of information and speaking the
idealistic purposes of the cloister. They did not believe that
I was speaking the real heart of the American people, and I
knew all along that I was. Now I believe that everybody
who comes into contact with the American people knows that
I am speaking their purposes.
The other night in New York, at the opening of the cam
paign for funds for our Red Cross, I made an address. I
had not intended to refer to Russia, but I was speaking with
out notes and in the course of what I said my thought was
led to Russia, and I said that we meant to stand by Russia
just as firmly as we would stand by France or England or
any other of the Allies. The audience to which I was speak
ing was not an audience from which I would have expected
an enthusiastic response to that. It was rather too well
dressed. It was not an audience, in other words, made of
the class of people whom you would suppose to have the most
intimate feeling for the sufferings of the ordinary man in
Russia; but that audience jumped into the aisles, the whole
264 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
audience rose to its feet, and nothing that I had said on that
occasion aroused anything like the enthusiasm that that sin
gle sentence roused. Now, there is a sample, gentlemen.
We cannot make anything out of Russia. We cannot make
anything out of standing by Russia at this time, the most
remote of the European nations, so far as we are concerned,
the one with which we have had the least connections in trade
and advantage, and yet the people of the United States
rose to that suggestion as to no other that I made in that
address. That is the heart of America, and we are ready
to show you by any act of friendship that you may propose
our real feelings toward Mexico.
Some of us, if I may say so privately, look back with re
gret upon some of the more ancient relations that we have
had with Mexico long before our generation ; and America, if
I may so express it, would now feel ashamed to take advan
tage of a neighbor. So, I hope that you can carry back to
your homes something better than the assurances of words.
You have had contact with our people. You know your
own personal reception. You know how gladly we have
opened to you the doors of every establishment that you
wanted to see and have shown you just what we were doing,
and I hope you have gained the right impression as to why
we were doing it. We are doing it, gentlemen, so that the
world may never hereafter have to fear the only thing that
any nation has to dread, the unjust and selfish aggression of
another nation. Some time ago, as you probably all know,
I proposed a sort of Pan-American agreement. I had per
ceived that one of the difficulties of our relationship with
Latin America was this: The famous Monroe Doctrine was
adopted without your consent, without the consent of any
of the Central or South American States. If I may express
it in terms that we so often use in this country, we said, "We
are going to be your big brother, whether you want us to be
or not." We did not ask whether it was agreeable to you
that we should be your big brother. We said we were going
to be. Now, that was all very well so far as protecting you
from aggression from the other side of the water was con
cerned, but there was nothing in it that protected you from
aggression from us, and I have repeatedly seen the uneasy
June 7] SERVICE TO LATIN AMERICA 265
feeling on the part of representatives of the states of Central
and South America that our self-appointed protection might
be for our own benefit and our own interests and not for the
interest of our neighbors. So said I, "Very well, let us make
an arrangement by which we will give bond. Let us have a
common guarantee, that all of us will sign, of political inde
pendence and territorial integrity. Let us agree that if any
one of us, the United States included, violates the political
independence or the territorial integrity of any of the others,
all the others will jump on her. I pointed out to some of
the gentlemen who were less inclined to enter into this
arrangement than others that that was in effect giving bonds
on the part of the United States, that we would enter into
an arrangement by which you would be protected from us.
Now, that is the kind of agreement that will have to be
the foundation of the future life of the nations of the world,
gentlemen. The whole family of nations will have to guar
antee to each nation that no nation shall violate its political
independence or its territorial integrity. That is the basis,
the only conceivable basis, for the future peace of the world,
and I must admit that I was ambitious to have the states
of the two continents of America show the way to the rest
of the world as to how to make a basis of peace. Peace can
come only by trust. As long as there is suspicion, there is
going to be misunderstanding, and as long as there is mis
understanding there is going to be trouble. If you can;
once get a situation of trust, then you have got a situation
of permanent peace. Therefore, everyone of us, it seems to
me, owes it as a patriotic duty to his own country to plant
the seeds of trust and of confidence instead of the seeds of
suspicion and variety of interest. That is the reason that I
began by saying to you that I have not had the pleasure
of meeting a group of men who were more welcome than
you are, because you are our near neighbors. Suspicion on
your part or misunderstanding on your part distresses us
more than we would be distressed by similar feelings on the
part of those less nearby.
When you reflect how wonderful a storehouse of treasure
Mexico is, you can see how her future must depend upon
peace and honor, so that nobody shall exploit her. It must
266 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
clepend upon every nation that has any relations with her,
and the citizens of any nation that has relations with her,
keeping within the bounds of honor and fair dealing and jus
tice, because so soon as you can admit your own capital
and the capital of the world to the free use of the resources
of Mexico, it will be one of the most wonderfully rich and
prosperous countries in the world. And when you have the
foundations of established order, and the world has come
to its senses again, we shall, I hope, have the very best con
nections that will assure us all a permanent cordiality and
friendship.
The World Court, July, 1918, pp. 445-447.
83. FOUR FACTORS OF WORLD PEACE
(July 4, 1918)
ADDRESS AT MOUNT VERNON
I am happy to draw apart with you to this quiet place
of old counsel in order to speak a little of the meaning of
this day of our nation s independence. The place seems
very still and remote. It is as serene and untouched by the
hurry of the world as it was in those great days long ago
when General Washington was here and held leisurely con
ference with the men who were to be associated with him
in the creation of a nation. From these gentle slopes they
looked out upon the world and saw it whole, saw it with the
light of the future upon it, saw it with modern eyes that
turned away from a past which men of liberated spirits
could no longer endure. It is for that reason that we cannot
feel, even here, in the immediate presence of this sacred
tomb, that this is a place of death. It was a place of achieve
ment. A great promise that was meant for all mankind was
here given plan and reality. The associations by which we
are here surrounded are the inspiriting associations of that
noble death which is only glorious consummation. From
this green hillside we also ought to be able to see with
comprehending eyes the world that lies around us and con
ceive anew the purpose that must set men free.
July 4] FOUR FACTORS OF WORLD PEACE 267
It is significant significant of their own character and
purpose and of the influences they were setting afoot that
Washington and his associates, like the Barons at Runny-
mede, spoke and acted, not for a class, but for a people.
It has been left for us to see to it that it shall be under
stood that they spoke and acted, not for a single people
only, but for all mankind. They were thinking not of them
selves and of the material interests which centered in the
little groups of landholders and merchants and men of affairs
with whom they were accustomed to act, in Virginia and
the colonies to the north and south of her, but of a people
which wished to be done with classes and special interests
and the authority of men whom they had not themselves
chosen to rule over them. They entertained no private pur
pose, desired no peculiar privilege. They were consciously
planning that men of every class should be free and America
a place to which men out of every nation might resort who
wished to share with them the rights and privileges of free
men. And we take our cue from them do we not? We
intend what they intended. We here in America believe our
participation in this present war to be only the fruitage of
what they planted. Our case differs from theirs only in this,
that it is our inestimable privilege to concert with men out
of every nation who shall make not only the liberties of
America secure but the liberties of every other people as
well. We are happy in the thought that we are permitted to
do what they would have done had they been in our place.
There must now be settled, once for all, what was settled
for America in the great age upon whose inspiration we draw
to-day. This is surely a fitting place from which calmly to
look out upon our task, that we may fortify our spirits for
its accomplishment. And this is the appropriate place from
which to avow, alike to the friends who look on and to the
friends with whom we have the happiness to be associated
in action, the faith and purpose with which we act.
This, then, is our conception of the great struggle in
which we are engaged. The plot is written plain upon every
scene and every act of the supreme tragedy. On the one
hand stand the peoples of the world not only the peoples
actually engaged, but many others, also, who suffer under
268 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
mastery but cannot act; peoples of many races and in every
part of the world the people of stricken Russia still, among
the rest, though they are for the moment unorganized and
helpless. Opposed to them, masters of many armies, stand
an isolated, friendless group of Governments, who speak no
common purpose, but only selfish ambitions of their own,
by which none can profit but themselves, and whose peoples
are fuel in their hands; Governments which fear their people,
and yet are for the time being sovereign lords, making every
choice for them and disposing of their lives and fortunes as
they will, as well as of the lives and fortunes of every people
who fall under their power Governments clothed with the
strange trappings and the primitive authority of an age that
is altogether alien and hostile to our own. The Past and the
Present are in deadly grapple, and the peoples of the world
are being done to death between them.
There can be but one issue. The settlement must be
final. There can be no compromise. No halfway decision
would be tolerable. No halfway decision is conceivable.
These are the ends for which the associated peoples of the
world are fighting and which must be conceded them before
there can be peace:
I. The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere that
can separately, secretly, and of its single choice disturb the
peace of the world; or, if it cannot be presently destroyed, at
the least its reduction to virtual impotence.
II. The settlement of every question, whether of terri
tory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political
relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that
settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not
upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any
other nation or people which may desire a different settle
ment for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.
III. The consent of all nations to be governed in their
conduct toward each other by the same principles of honor
and of respect for the common law of civilized society that
govern the individual citizens of all modern States in their
relations with one another; to the end that all promises and
covenants may be sacredly observed, no private plots or
conspiracies hatched, no selfish injuries wrought with im-
July 4] FOUR FACTORS OF WORLD PEACE 269
punity, and a mutual trust established upon the handsome
foundation of a mutual respect for right.
IV The establishment of an organization of peace which
shall make it certain that the combined power of free nations
will check every invasion of right and serve to make peace
and justice the more secure by affording a definite tribunal
of opinion to which all must submit and by which every
international readjustment that cannot be amicably agreed
upon by the peoples directly concerned shall be sanctioned.
These great objects can be put into a single sentence.
What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent
of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of
mankind.
These great ends cannot be achieved by debating and
seeking to reconcile and accommodate what statesmen may
wish with their projects for balances of power and of national
opportunity. They can be realized only by the determina
tion of what the thinking peoples of the world desire, with
their longing hope for justice and for social freedom and
opportunity.
I can fancy that the air of this place carries the accents
of such principles with a peculiar kindness. Here were
started forces which the great nation against which they
were primarily directed at first regarded as a revolt against
its rightful authority, but which it has long since seen to have
been a step in the liberation of its own people as well as
of the people of the United States; and I stand here now
to speak speak proudly and with confident hope of the
spread of this revolt, this liberation, to the great stage of
the world itself! The blinded rulers of Prussia have roused
forces they knew little of forces which, once roused, can
never be crushed to earth again; for they have at heart an
inspiration and a purpose which are deathless and of the
very stuff of triumph!
The World Court, July, 1918.
270 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
84. LYNCHING IS UNPATRIOTIC
(July 26, 1918)
,
PUBLIC ADDRESS TO FELLOW COUNTRYMEN
I take the liberty of addressing you upon a subject which
so vitally affects the honor of the nation and the very char
acter and integrity of our institutions that I trust you will
think me justified in speaking very plainly about it.
I allude to the mob spirit which has recently here and
there very frequently shown its head among us, not in any
single region but in many and widely separated parts of the
country. There have been many lynchings, and every one
of them has been a blow at the heart of ordered law and
humane justice.
No man who loves America, no man who really cares for
her fame and honor and character, or who is truly loyal to
her institutions, can justify mob action while the courts of
justice are open and the governments of the states and the
nation are ready and able to do their duty.
We are at this very moment fighting lawless passion.
Germany has outlawed herself among the nations because
she has disregarded the sacred obligations of law and has
made lynchers of her armies. Lynchers emulate her dis
graceful example. I, for my part, am anxious to see every
community in America rise above that level, with pride
and a fixed resolution which no man or set of men can
afford to despise.
We proudly claim to be the champions of democracy. If
we really are in deed and in truth let us see to it that we do
not discredit our own. I say plainly that every American
who takes part in the action of a mob or gives any sort of
countenance is no true son of this great democracy, but its
betrayer, and does more to discredit her by that single dis
loyalty to her standards of law and right than the words
of her statesmen or the sacrifices of her heroic boys in the
trenches can do to make suffering peoples believe her to be
their savior.
How shall we commend democracy to the acceptance of
July 26] LYNCHING IS UNPATRIOTIC 271
other peoples if we disgrace our own by proving that it is,
after all, no protection to the weak? Every mob contributes
to German lies about the United States what her most
gifted liars cannot improve upon by the way of calumny.
They can at least say that such things cannot happen in
Germany except in times of revolution, when law is swept
away !
I therefore very earnestly and solemnly beg that the
governors of all the states, the law officers of every com
munity, and, above all, the men and women of every com
munity in the United States, all who revere America and
wish to keep her name without stain or reproach, will co
operate not passively merely, but actively and watchfully
to make an end of this disgraceful evil. It cannot live
where the community does not countenance it.
I have called upon the nation to put its great energy into
this war, and it has responded responded with a spirit and
a genius for action that has thrilled the world. I now call
upon it, upon its men and women everywhere, to see to it
that its laws are kept inviolate, its fame untarnished.
Let us show our utter contempt for the things that have
made this war hideous among the wars of history by show
ing how those who love liberty and right and justice and
are willing to lay down their lives for them upon foreign
fields stand ready also to illustrate to all mankind their
Io3^alty to all things at home which they wish to see estab
lished everywhere as a blessing and protection to the peoples
who have never known the privilege of liberty and self-
government.
I can never accept any man as a champion of liberty either
for ourselves or for the world who does not reverence and
obey the laws of our own beloved land, whose laws we our
selves have made. He has adopted the standards of the ene
mies of his country, whom he affects to despise.
New York Times, July 27, 1918.
I have watched with deep and sincere interest the recon
structive work which the Weizmann Commission has done
in Palestine at the instance of the British Government, and
I welcome an opportunity to express the satisfaction I have
felt in the progress of the Zionist movement in the United
States and in the allied countries since the declaration by
Mr. Balfour on behalf of the British Government of Great
Britain s approval of the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people and his promise that
the British Government would use its best endeavors to
facilitate the achievement of that object, with the under
standing that nothing would be done to prejudice the civil
and religious rights of non- Jewish people in Palestine or the
rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries.
I think that all Americans will be deeply moved by the
report that even in this time of stress the Weizmann Com
mission has been able to lay the foundation of the Hebrew
University at Jerusalem with the promise that that bears
of spiritual rebirth.
New York Times, Sept. 5, 1918.
86. GERMAN WAR AGAINST LABOR
(September i, 1918)
PUBLIC MESSAGE TO LABOR ON LABOR DAY
Labor day, 1918, is not like any Labor day that we have
known. Labor day was always deeply significant with us.
Now it is supremely significant. Keenly as we were aware
a year ago of the enterprise of life and death upon which
the nation had embarked, we did not perceive its meaning
as clearly as we do now.
Sept. i] GERMAN WAR AGAINST LABOR 273
We knew that we were all partners and must stand and
strive together, but we did not realize as we do now that
we are all enlisted men, members of a single army of many
parts and many tasks, but commanded by a single obliga
tion, our faces set towards a single object. We now know
that every tool in every essential industry is a weapon
and a weapon wielded for the same purpose that an army
rifle is wielded, a weapon which if we were to lay down, no
rifle would be of any use.
And a weapon for what? What is the war for? Why are
we enlisted? Why should we be ashamed if we were not
enlisted? At first it seemed hardly more than a war of
defense against the military aggression of Germany. Bel
gium had been violated, France invaded and Germany was
afield again, as in 1870 and 1866, to work out her ambi
tions in Europe and it was necessary to meet her force with
force. But it is clear now that it is much more than a war
to alter the balance of power in Europe.
Germany, it is now plain, was striking at what free men
everywhere desired and must have the right to determine
their own fortunes, to insist upon justice and to oblige gov
ernments to act for them and not for the private and selfish
interest of a governing class. It is a war to make the nations
and peoples of the world secure against every such power as
the German autocracy represents.
It is a war of emancipation. Not until it is won can men
anywhere live free from constant fear or breathe freely
while they go about their daily tasks and know that govern
ments are their servants, not their masters.
This is, therefore, the war of all wars, which labor should
support with all its concentrated power. The world cannot
be safe, the men s lives cannot be secure, no man s rights can
be confidently and successfully asserted against the rule and
mastery of arbitrary groups and special interests so long as
governments like that which after long premeditation drew
Austria and Germany into this war are permitted to control
the destinies and the daily fortunes of men and nations,
plotting while honest men work, laying the fires of which
innocent men, women and children are to be the fuel.
You know the nature of this war. It is a war which
274 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
industry must sustain. The army of laborers at home is as
important, as essential as the army of fighting men in the
far fields of actual battle. And the laborer is not only needed
as much as the soldier. It is his war. The soldier is his
champion and representative. To fail to win would be to
imperil everything that the laborer has striven for and held
dear since freedom first had its dawn and his struggle for
justice began.
The soldiers at the front know this. It steels their muscles
to think of it. They are crusaders. They are fighting for no
selfish advantage of their own. They would despise anyone
who fought for the selfish advantage of any nation. They
are giving their lives that homes everywhere as well as the
homes they love in America may be kept sacred and safe
and men everywhere be free, as they insist upon being free.
They are fighting for the ideals of their own land great
ideals, immortal ideals, ideals which shall light the way for
all men to the places where justice is done and men live
with lifted heads and emancipated spirits. That is the reason
they fight with solemn joy and are invincible.
Let us make this, therefore, a day of fresh comprehen
sion not only of what we are about and of renewed clear-
eyed reason but a day of concentration also in which we
devote ourselves without pause or limit to the great task
of setting our own country and the whole world free to
render justice to all and of making it impossible for small
groups of political rulers anywhere to disturb our peace or
the peace of the world or in any way to make tools and
puppets of those upon whose consent and upon whose power
their own authority and their own very existence depends.
We may count upon each other. The nation is a single
mind. It is taking counsel with no special class. It is serv
ing no private or single interest. Its own mind has been
cleared and fortified by these days which burn the dross
away. The light of a new conviction has penetrated to every
class among us. We realize as we never realized before that
we are comrades dependent upon one another, irresistible
when united, powerless when divided. And so we join
hands to lead the world to a new and better day.
Boston Herald, Sept. 2, 1918.
Sept. 1 6] A FEW WORDS TO AUSTRIA 275
87. A FEW WORDS TO AUSTRIA
(September 16, 1918)
DESPATCH TO THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH
SECRETARY LANSING
The Government of the United States feels that there is
only one reply which it can make to the suggestion of the
Imperial Austro-Hungarian Government. It has repeatedly
and with entire candor stated the terms upon which the
United States would consider peace and can and will enter
tain no proposal for a conference upon a matter concern
ing which it has made its position and purpose so plain.
New York Times, Sept. 17, 1918.
88. FIVE NEEDS OF PERMANENT PEACE
(September 27, 1918)
ADDRESS TO PUBLIC MEETING IN NEW YORK, OPENING THE
FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN
I am not here to promote the loan. That will be done
ably and enthusiastically done by the hundreds of thou
sands of loyal and tireless men and women who have under
taken to present it to you and to our fellow citizens through
out the country; and I have not the least doubt of their
complete success; for I know their spirit and the spirit of
the country. My confidence is confirmed, too, by the
thoughtful and experienced cooperation of the bankers here
and everywhere, who are lending their invaluable aid and
guidance. I have come, rather, to seek an opportunity to
present to you some thoughts which I trust will serve to
give you, in perhaps fuller measure than before, a vivid
sense of the great issues involved, in order that you may
appreciate and accept with added enthusiasm the grave sig
nificance of the duty of supporting the Government by your
men and your means to the utmost point of sacrifice and
self-denial. No man or woman who has really taken in
276 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
what this war means can hesitate to give to the very limit
of what they have ; and it is my mission here to-night to try
to make it clear once more what the war really means. You
will need no other stimulation or reminder of your duty.
At every turn of the war we gain a fresh consciousness of
what we mean to accomplish by it. When our hope and
expectation are most excited we think more definitely than
before of the issues that hang upon it and of the purposes
which must be realized by means of it. For it has positive
and well-defined purposes which we did not determine and
which we cannot alter. No statesman or assembly created
them; no statesman or assembly can alter them. They have
arisen out of the very nature and circumstances of the war.
The most that statesmen or assemblies can do is to carry
them out or be false to them. They were perhaps not clear
at the outset; but they are clear now. The war has lasted
more than four years and the whole world has been drawn
into it. The common will of mankind has been substituted
for the particular purposes of individual States. Individual
statesmen may have started the conflict, but neither they nor
their opponents can stop it as they please. It has become
a peoples war, and peoples of all sorts and races, of every
degree of power and variety of fortune, are involved in its
sweeping processes of change and settlement. We came
into it when its character had become fully defined and it
was plain that no nation could stand apart or be indifferent
to its outcome. Its challenge drove to the heart of every
thing we cared for and lived for. The voice of the war had
become clear and gripped our hearts. Our brothers from
many lands, as well as our own murdered dead under the
sea, were calling to us, and we responded, fiercely and of
course.
The air was clear about us. We saw things in their full,
convincing proportions as they were ; and we have seen them
with steady eyes and unchanging comprehension ever since.
We accepted the issues of the war as facts, not as any group
of men either here or elsewhere had defined them, and we
can accept no outcome which does not squarely meet and
settle them. Those issues are these:
Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations
Sept. 27] FIVE NEEDS OF PERMANENT PEACE 277
be suffered to determine the fortunes of peoples over whom
they have no right to rule except the right of force?
Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak nations and
make them subject to their purpose and interest?
Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in their own
internal affairs, by arbitrary and irresponsible force or by
their own will and choice?
Shall there be a common standard of right and privilege
for all peoples and nations or shall the strong do as they will
and the weak suffer without redress?
Shall the assertion of right be haphazard and by casual
alliance or shall there be a common concert to oblige the
observance of common rights?
No man, no group of men, chose these to be the issues of
the struggle. They are the issues of it; and they must be
settled by no arrangement or compromise or adjustment of
interests, but definitely and once for all and with a full and
unequivocal acceptance of the principle that the interest of
the weakest is as sacred as the interest of the strongest.
This is what we mean when we speak of a permanent
peace, if we speak sincerely, intelligently, and with a real
knowledge and comprehension of the matter we deal with.
We are all agreed that there can be no peace obtained by
any kind of bargain or compromise with the Governments
of the Central Empires, because we have dealt with them
already and have seen them deal with other Governments
that were parties to this struggle, at Brest-Litovsk and
Bucharest. They have convinced us that they are without
honor and do not intend justice. They observe no cove
nants, accept no principle but force and their own interest.
We cannot "come to terms" with them. They have made
it impossible. The German people must by this time be
fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those who
forced this war upon us. We do not think the same thoughts
or speak the same language of agreement.
It is of capital importance that we should also be explicitly
agreed that no peace shall be obtained by any kind of
compromise or abatement of the principles we have avowed,
as the principles for which we are fighting. There should
exist no doubt about that. I am, therefore, going to take
278 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
the liberty of speaking with the utmost frankness about the
practical implications that are involved in it.
If it be indeed and in truth the common object of the
Governments associated against Germany and of the nations
whom they govern, as I believe it to be, to achieve by the
coming settlements a secure and lasting peace, it will be
necessary that all who sit down at the peace table shall come
ready and willing to pay the price, the only price, that will
procure it; and ready and willing, also, to create in some
virile fashion the only instrumentality by which it can be
made certain that the agreements of the peace will be honored
and fulfilled.
That price is impartial justice in every item of the settle
ment, no matter whose interest is crossed; and not only
impartial justice, but also the satisfaction of the several peo
ples whose fortunes are dealt with. That indispenasble in
strumentality is a League of Nations formed under cove
nants that will be efficacious. Without such an instru
mentality, by which the peace of the world can be guaran
teed, peace will rest in part upon the word of outlaws, and
only upon that word. For Germany will have to redeem
her character, not by what happens at the peace table but by
what follows.
And, as I see it, the constitution of that League of Nations
and the clear definition of its objects must be a part, is in a
sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement itself.
It cannot be formed now. If formed now, it would be merely
a new alliance confined to the nations associated against a
common enemy. It is not likely that it could be formed
after the settlement. It is necessary to guarantee the peace;
and the peace cannot be guaranteed as an afterthought.
The reason, to speak in plain terms again, why ft must be
guaranteed is that there will be parties to the peace whose
promises have proved untrustworthy, and means must be
found in connection with the peace settlement itself to re
move that source of insecurity. It would be folly to leave
the guarantee to the subsequent voluntary action of the
Governments we have seen destroy Russia and deceive
Rumania.
But these general terms do not disclose the whole matter.
Sept. 27] FIVE NEEDS OF PERMANENT PEACE 279
Some details are needed to make them sound less like a
thesis and more like a practical program. These, then, are
some of the particulars, and I state them with the greater
confidence because I can state them authoritatively as rep
resenting this Government s interpretation of its own duty
with regard to peace:
First, the impartial justice meted out must involve no
discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and
those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a
justice that plays no favorites and knows no standard but
the equal rights of the several peoples concerned;
Second, no special or separate interest of any single nation
or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of
the settlement which is not consistent with the common
interest of all;
Third, there can be no leagues or alliances or special cove
nants and understandings within the general and common
family of the League of Nations;
Fourth, and more specifically, there can be no special,
selfish economic combinations within the league and no em
ployment or any form of economic boycott or exclusion
except as the power of economic penalty by exclusion from
the markets of the world may be vested in the League of
Nations itself as a means of discipline and control:
Fifth, all international agreements and treaties of every
kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of
the world.
Special alliances and economic rivalries and hostilities have
been the prolific source in the modern world of the plans
and passions that produce war. It would be an insincere
as well as an insecure peace that did not exclude them in
definite and binding terms.
The confidence with which I venture to speak for our
people in these matters does not spring from our traditions
merely and the well-known principles of international action
which we have always professed and followed. In the same
sentence in which I say that the United States will enter into
no special arrangements or understandings with particular
nations let me say also that the United States is prepared
to assume its full share of responsibility for the maintenance
2 8o ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
of the common covenants and understandings upon which
peace must henceforth rest. We still read Washington s
immortal warning against "entangling alliances" with full
comprehension and an answering purpose. But only special
and limited alliances entangle; and we recognize and accept
the duty of a new day in which we are permitted to hope
for a general alliance which will avoid entanglements and
clear the air of the world for common understandings and
the maintenance of common rights.
I have made this analysis of the international situation
which the war has created, not, of course, because I doubted
whether the leaders of the great nations and peoples with
whom we are associated were of the same mind and enter
tained a like purpose, but because the air every now and
again gets darkened by mists and groundless doubtings and
mischievous perversions of counsel and it is necessary once
and again to sweep all the irresponsible talk about peace
intrigues and weakening morale and doubtful purpose on the
part of those in authority utterly, and if need be uncere- (
moniously, aside and say things in the plainest words that
can be found, even when it is only to say over again what
has been said before, quite as plainly if in less unvarnished
terms.
As I have said, neither I nor any other man in govern
mental authority created or gave form to the issues of this
war. I have simply responded to them with such vision
as I could command. But I have responded gladly and
with a resolution that has grown warmer and more con
fident as the issues have grown clearer and clearer. It is
now plain that they are issues which no man can pervert
unless it be wilfully. I am bound to fight for them, and
happy to fight for them as time and circumstance have
revealed them to me as to all the world. Our enthusiasm
for them grows more and more irresistible as they stand out
in more and more vivid and unmistakable outline.
And the forces that fight for them draw into closer and
closer array, organize their millions into more and more un
conquerable might, as they become more and* more distinct
to the thought and purpose of the peoples engaged. It is the
peculiarity of this great war that while statesmen have
Sept. 27] FIVE NEEDS OF PERMANENT PEACE 281
seemed to cast about for definitions of their purpose and
have sometimes seemed to shift their ground and their point
of view, the thought of the mass of men, whom statesmen
are supposed to instruct and lead, has grown more and
more unclouded, more and more certain of what it is that
they are fighting for. National purposes have fallen more
and more into the background and the common purpose of
enlightened mankind has taken their place. The counsels
of plain men have become on all hands more simple and
straightforward and more unified than the counsels of sophis
ticated men of affairs, who still retain the impression that
they are playing a game of power and playing for high
stakes. That is why I have said that this is a peoples war,
not a statesmen s. Statesmen must follow the clarified
common thought or be broken.
I take that to be the significance of the fact that assem
blies and associations of many kinds made up of plain
workaday people have demanded, almost every time they
came together, and are still demanding, that the leaders of
their Governments declare to them plainly what it is, exactly
what it is, that they are seeking in this war, and what they
think the items of the final settlement should be. They are
not yet satisfied with what they have been told. They still
seem to fear that they are getting what they ask for only
in statesmen s terms, only in the terms of territorial ar
rangements and divisions of power, and not in terms of
broad-visioned justice and mercy and peace and the satis
faction of those deep-seated longings of oppressed and dis
tracted men and women and enslaved peoples that seem to
them the only things worth fighting a war for that engulfs
the world. Perhaps statesmen have not always recognized
this changed aspect of the whole world of policy and action.
Perhaps they have not always spoken in direct reply to the
questions asked because they did not know how searching
those questions were and what sort of answers they de
manded.
But I, for one, am glad to attempt the answer again and
again, in the hope that I may make it clearer and clearer
that my one thought is to satisfy those who struggle in the
ranks and are, perhaps above all others, entitled to a reply
282 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
whose meaning no one can have any excuse for misunder
standing, if he understands the language in which it is spoken
or can get someone to translate it correctly into his own.
And I believe that the leaders of the Governments with which
we are associated will speak, as they have occasion, as
plainly as I have tried to speak. I hope that they will feel
free to say whether they think that I am in any degree
mistaken in my interpretation of the issues involved or in
my purpose with regard to the means by which a satisfactory
settlement of those issues may be obtained. Unity of pur
pose and of counsel are as imperatively necessary in this
war as was unity of command in the battlefield; and with
perfect unity of purpose and counsel will come assurance
of complete victory. It can be had in no other way.
"Peace drives" can be effectively neutralized and silenced
only by showing that every victory of the nations associated
against Germany brings the nations nearer the sort of peace
which will bring security and reassurance to all peoples and
make the recurrence of another such struggle of pitiless force
and bloodshed forever impossible, and that nothing, else can.
Germany is constantly intimating the "terms" she will accept;
and always finds that the world does not want terms. It
wishes the final triumph of justice and fair dealing.
New York Times, Sept. 28, 1918.
89. COLLEGE SOLDIERS
(October i, 1918)
PUBLIC MESSAGE TO THE STUDENT CORPS
The step you have taken is a most significant one. By
it you have ceased to be merely individuals, each seeking
to perfect himself to win his own place in the world, and
have become comrades in the common cause of making the
world a better place to live in. You have joined yourselves
to the entire manhood of the country, and pledged, as did
your forefathers, "your lives, your fortunes and your sacred
honor to the freedom of humanity."
Oct. i] COLLEGE SOLDIERS 283
The enterprise upon which you have embarked is a
hazardous and difficult one. This is not a war of words;
this is not a scholastic struggle. It is a war of ideals, yet
fought with all the devices of science and with the power
of machinery. To succeed, you must not only be inspired
by the ideals for which this country stands, but you must
also be masters of the technique with which the battle is
fought. You must not only be thrilled with zeal for the
common welfare, but you must also be master of the weapons
of to-day.
There can be no doubt of the issue. The spirit that is
revealed and the manner in which America has responded to
the call is indomitable. I have no doubt that you will use
your utmost strength to maintain that spirit to carry it for
ward to the final victory that will certainly be ours.
Boston Herald, Oct. 2, 1918.
90. QUESTION OF AN ARMISTICE
(October 8, 1918)
DESPATCH TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH
SECRETARY LANSING
Before making reply to the request of the Imperial Ger
man Government and in order that that reply shall be as
candid and straightforward as the momentous interests in
volved require, the President of the United States deems it
necessary to assure himself of the exact meaning of the note
of the Imperial Chancellor.
Does the Imperial Chancellor -mean that the Imperial Ger
man Government accepts the terms laid down by the Presi
dent in his address to the Congress of the United States on
the 8th of January last and in subsequent addresses and that
its object in entering into discussions would be only to agree
upon the practical details of their application?
The President feels bound to say with regard to the
suggestion of an armistice that he would not feel at liberty
to propose a cessation of arms to the governments with which
284 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
the government of the United States is associated against
the Central Powers so long as the armies of those powers are
upon their soil. The good faith of any discussion would
manifestly depend upon the consent of the Central Powers
immediately to withdraw their forces everywhere from
invaded territory.
The President also feels that he is justified in asking
whether the Imperial Chancellor is speaking merely for the
constituted authorities of the empire who have so far con
ducted the war. He deems the answer to these questions
vital from every point of view.
Boston Herald, Oct. 9, 1918.
91. NO NEGOTIATED PEACE WITH GERMANY
(October 14, 191.8)
DESPATCH TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH
SECRETARY LANSING
The unqualified acceptance by the present German Gov
ernment and by a large majority of the Reichstag of the
terms laid down by the President of the United States of
America in his address to the Congress of the United States
on the 8th of January, 1918, and in his subsequent ad
dresses, justifies the President in making a frank and direct
statement of his decision with regard to the communications
of the German Government of the 8th and i2th of October,
1918.
It must be clearly understood that the process of evacua
tion and the conditions of an armistice are matters which
must be left to the judgment and advice of the military
advisors of the Government of the United States and the
Allied Governments, and the President feels it his duty to
say that no arrangement can be accepted by the Govern
ment of the United States which does not provide abso
lutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of the main
tenance of the present military supremacy of the armies of
the United States and the Allies in the field.
Oct. 14] NO PEACE WITH GERMANY 285
He feels confident that he can safely assume that nothing
but this will also be the judgment and decision of the Allied
Governments.
The President feels that it is also his duty to add that
neither the Government of the United States nor, he is quite
sure, the Governments with which the Government of the
United States is associated as a belligerent, will consent to
consider an armistice so long as the armed forces of Germany
continue the illegal and inhumane practices which they still
persist in.
At the very time that the German Government approaches
the Government of the United States with proposals of peace,
its submarines are engaged in sinking passenger ships at sea,
and not the ships alone, but the very boats in which their
passengers and crew seek to make their way to safety;
and in their present enforced withdrawal from Flanders and
France the German armies are pursuing a course of wanton
destruction which has always been regarded as in direct
violation of the rules and practices of civilized warfare.
Cities and villages, if not destroyed, are being stripped of all
they contain, not only, but often of their very inhabitants.
The nations associated against Germany cannot be expected
to agree to a cessation of arms while acts of inhumanity,
spoliation and desolation are being continued which they
justly look upon with horror and with burning hearts.
It is necessary, also, in order that there may be no pos
sibility of misunderstanding, that the President should very
solemnly call the attention of the Government of Germany
to the language and plain intent of one of the terms of
peace which the German Government has now accepted. It
is contained in the address of the President delivered at
Mount Vernon on the Fourth of July last,
pt is as follows: "The destruction of every arbitrary power
anywhere that can separately, secretly and of its single choice
disturb the peace of the world; or, if it cannot be presently
destroyed, at least its reduction to virtual impotency. The
power which has hitherto controlled the German nation is of
the sort here described. It is within the choice of the German
nation to alter it." The President s words just quoted
naturally constitute a condition precedent to peace, if peace
286 ADDRESSES OF" PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
is to come by the action of the German people themselves.
The President feels bound to say that the whole process of
peace will, in his judgment, depend upon the definiteness
and the satisfactory character of the guarantees which can
be given in this fundamental matter. It is indispensable
that the Governments associated against Germany should
know beyond a peradventure with whom they are dealing.
Boston Herald, Oct. 15, 1918.
92. THE ARMISTICE WITH GERMANY
(November n, 1918)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
In these times of rapid and stupendous change it will in
some degree lighten my sense of responsibility to perform in
person the duty of communicating to you some of the larger
circumstances of the situation with which it is necessary to
deal.
The German authorities, who have at the invitation of the
Supreme War Council been in communication with Marshal
Foch, have accepted and signed the terms of armistice which
he was authorized and instructed to communicate to them.
These terms are as follows: * * *
The war thus comes to an end; for, having accepted these
terms of armistice, it will be impossible for the German com
mand to renew it.
It is not now possible to assess the consequences of
this great consummation. We know only that this tragical
war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to
another until all the world was on fire, is at an end and
that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its
most critical juncture in such fashion and in such force as to
contribute, in a way of which we are all deeply proud, to the
great result. We know, too, that the object of the war is
attained; the object upon which all free men had set their
hearts; and attained with a sweeping completeness which
even now we do not realize. Armed imperialism such as
Nov. ii ] THE ARMISTICE WITH GERMANY 287
the men conceived who were but yesterday the masters of
Germany is at an end, its illicit ambitions engulfed in black
disaster. Who will now seek to revive it?
The arbitrary power of the military caste of Germany
which once could secretly and of its own single choice dis
turb the peace of the world is discredited and destroyed.
And more than that much more than that has been ac
complished. The great nations which associated themselves
to destroy it have now definitely united in the common pur
pose to set up such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the
whole world for disinterested justice, embodied in settlements
which are based upon something much better and more last
ing than the selfish competitive interests of powerful States.
There is no longer conjecture as to the objects the victors
have in mind. They have a mind in the matter, not only,
but a heart also. Their avowed and concerted purpose is to
satisfy and protect the weak as well as to accord their just
rights to the strong.
The humane temper and intention of the victorious Gov
ernments have already been manifested in a very practical
way. Their representatives in the Supreme War Council at
Versailles have by unanimous resolution assured the peoples
of the Central Empires that everything that is possible in
the circumstances will be done to supply them with food
and relieve the distressing want that is in so many places
threatening their very lives; and steps are to be taken imme
diately to organize these efforts at relief in the same sys
tematic manner that they were organized in the case of
Belgium. By the use of the idle tonnage of the Central
Empires it ought presently to be possible to lift the fear of
utter misery from their oppressed populations and set their
minds and energies free for the great and hazardous tasks of
political reconstruction which now face them on every hand.
Hunger does not breed reform; it breeds madness and all
the ugly distempers that make an ordered life impossible.
For with the fall of the ancient Governments, which rested
like an incubus on the peoples of the Central Empires, has
come political change not merely, but revolution; and revo
lution which seems as yet to assume no final and ordered
form, but to run from one fluid change to another, until
283 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
thoughtful men are forced to ask themselves, with what gov
ernments and of what sort are we about to deal in the making
of the covenants of peace? With what authority will they
meet us, and with what assurance that their authority will
abide and sustain securely the international arrangements
into which we are about to enter? There is here matter for
no small anxiety and misgiving. When peace is made, upon
whose promises and engagements besides our own is it to
rest?
Let us be perfectly frank with ourselves and admit that
these questions cannot be satisfactorily answered now or at
once. But the moral is not that there is little hope of an
early answer that will suffice. It is only that we must be
patient and helpful and mindful above all of the great hope
and confidence that lie at the heart of what is taking place.
Excesses accomplish nothing. Unhappy Russia has furnished
abundant recent proof of that. Disorder immediately de
feats itself. If excesses should occur, if disorder should for
a time raise its head, a sober second thought will follow and
a day of constructive action, if we help and do not hinder.
The present and all that it holds belongs to the nations
and the peoples who preserve their self-control and the or
derly processes of their Governments; the future to those
who prove themselves the true friends of mankind. To con
quer with arms is to make only a temporary conquest; to
conquer the world by earning its esteem is to make perma
nent conquest. I am confident that the nations that have
learned the discipline of freedom and that have settled with
self-possession to its ordered practice are now about to make
conquest of the world by the sheer power of example and of
friendly helpfulness.
The peoples who have but just come out from under the
yoke of arbitrary government and who are now coming at
last into their freedom will never find the treasures of liberty
they are in search of if they look for them by the light of the
torch. They will find that every pathway that is stained
with the blood of their own brothers leads to the wilderness,
not to the seat of their hope. They are now face to face
with their initial test. We must hold the light steady until
they find themselves. And in the meantime, if it be possible.
Nov. n] THE ARMISTICE WITH GERMANY 289
we must establish a peace that will justly define their place
among the nations, remove all fear of their neighbors and of
their former masters, and enable them to live in security
and contentment when they have set their own affairs in
order. I, for one, do not doubt their purpose or their
capacity. There are some happy signs that they know and
will choose the way of self-control and peaceful accommo
dation. If they do, we shall put our aid at their disposal in
every way that we can. If they do not, we must await with
patience and sympathy the awakening and recovery that
will assuredly come at last.
New York Times, Nov. 12, 1918.
93. ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD*
(December 2, 1918)
ADDRESS TO CONGRESS
The year that has elapsed since I last stood before you to
fulfill my constitutional duty to give Congress from time to
time information on the state of the Union has been so
crowded with great events, great processes, and great results,
that I cannot hope to give you an adequate picture of its
transactions or of the far-reaching changes which have been
wrought in the life of our nation and of the world. You
have yourselves witnessed these things, as I have. It is too
soon to assess them ; and we who stand in the midst of them
and are part of them are less qualified than men of another
generation will be to say what they mean, or even what they
have been. But some great outstanding facts are unmis
takable, and constitute in a sense part of the public business
with which it is our duty to deal. To state them is to set
the stage for the legislative and executive action which must
grow out of them, and which we have yet to shape and
determine.
A year ago we had sent 145,198 men overseas. Since then
* This message was added while this volume was partly in
type. It is not referred to in any way in the Index.
290 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
we have sent 1,950,513, an average of 162,542 each month,
the number, in fact, rising in May last to 245,951, in June
to 278,850, in July to 307,182, and continuing to reach
similar figures in August and September in August 289,570,
and in September 257,438. No such movement of troops
ever took place before across 3,000 miles of sea, followed by
adequate equipment and supplies, and carried safely through
extraordinary dangers of attack dangers which were alike
strange and infinitely difficult to guard against. In all this
movement only 758 men Were lost by enemy attacks 630 of
whom were upon a single ^nglish transport which was sunk
near the Orkney Islands.
I need not tell you what lay back of this great movement
of men and material. It is not invidious to say that back
of it lay a supporting organization of the industries of the
country and of all its productive activities more complete,
more thorough in method and effective in results, more
spirited and unanimous in purpose and effort than any other
great belligerent had ever been able to effect. We profited
greatly by the experience of the nations which had already
been engaged for nearly three years in the exigent and exact
ing business, their every resource and every executive pro
ficiency taxed to the utmost. We were the pupils. But we
learned quickly and acted with a promptness and readiness
of cooperation that justify our great pride that we were able
to serve the world with unparalleled energy and quick accom
plishment.
But it is not the physical scale and executive efficiency of
preparation, supply, equipment, and despatch that I would
dwell upon, but the mettle and quality of the officers and
men we sent over and of the sailors who kept the seas, and
the spirit of the nation that stood behind them. No soldiers
or sailors ever proved themselves more quickly ready for
the test of battle or acquitted themselves with more splendid
courage and achievement when put to the test. Those of
us who played some part in directing the great processes by
which the war was pushed irresistibly forward to the final
triumph may now forget all that and delight our thoughts
with the story of what our men did. Their officers under
stood the grim and exacting task they had undertaken and
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 291
performed it with an audacity, efficiency, and unhesitating
courage that touch the story of convoy and battle with im
perishable distinction at every turn, whether the enterprises
were great or small from their chiefs, Pershing and Sims,
down to the youngest lieutenant ; and their men were worthy
of them such men as hardly need to be commanded, and go
to their terrible adventure blithely and with the quick intel
ligence of those who know just what it is they would accom
plish. I am proud to be the fellow-countryman of men of
such stuff and valor. Those of us who stayed at home did
our duty; the war could not have been won or the gallant
men who fought it given their opportunity to win it other
wise, but for many a long day we shall think ourselves
"accurs d we were not there, and hold our manhood cheap
while any speaks that fought" with these at St. Mihiel or
Thierry. The memory of those days of triumphant battle
will go with these fortunate men to their graves; and each
will have his favorite memory. "Old men forget; yes, all
shall be forgot, but he ll remember with advantages what
feats he did that day."
What we all thank God for with deepest gratitude is that
our men went in force into the line of battle just at the
critical moment when the whole fate of the world seemed
to hang in the balance, and threw their fresh strength into
the ranks of freedom in time to turn the whole tide and
sweep of the fateful struggle turn it once for all, so that
thenceforth it was back, back for their enemies, always
back, never again forward. After that it was only a scant
four months before the commanders of the Central Empires
knew themselves beaten, and now their very empires are in
liquidation.
And throughout it all, how fine the spirit of the nation
was, what unity of purpose, what untiring zeal, what eleva
tion of purpose ran through all its splendid display of
strength, its untiring accomplishment. I have said that those
of us who stayed at home to do the work of organization and
supply will always wish that we had been with the men
whom we sustained by our labor; but we can never be
ashamed. It has been an inspiring thing to be here in the
midst of fine men who had turned aside from every private
292 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained
capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole
great undertaking. Th,e patriotism, the unselfishness, the
thoroughgoing devotion and distinguished capacity that
marked their toilsome labors day after day, month after
month, have made tl(em fit mates and comrades of the men
in the trenches and on the sea. And not the men here in
Washington only. They have but directed the vast achieve
ment. Throughout innumerable factories, upon innumerable
farms, in the depths of coal mines and iron mines and copper
mines, wherever the stuffs of industry were to be obtained
and prepared, in the shipyards, on the railways, at the docks,
on the sea, in every labor that was needed to sustain the
battle lines, men have vied with each other to do their part,
and do it well. They can look any man at arms in the face
and say, We also strove to win and gave the best that was
in us to make our fleets and armies sure of their triumph.
And what shall we say of the women of their instant intel
ligence, quickening every task that they touched ; their capac
ity for organization and cooperation, which gave their action
discipline and enhanced the effectiveness of everything they
attempted; their aptitude at tasks to which they had never
before set their hands; their utter self-sacrifice alike in what
they did and in what they gave? Their contribution to the
great result is beyond appraisal. They have added a new
lustre to the annals of American womanhood.
The least tribute we can pay them is to make them the
equals of men in political rights, as they have proved them
selves their equals in every field of practical work they have
entered, whether for themselves or for their country. These
great days of completed achievements would be sadly marred
were we to omit that act of justice. Besides the immense
practical services they have rendered, the women of the
country have been moving spirits in the systematic economies
by which our people have voluntarily assisted to supply the
suffering peoples of the world and the armies of every front
with food and everything else that we had that would serve
the common cause. The details of such a story can never be
fully written, but we carry them at our hearts, and thank
God that we can say that we are the kinsmen of such.
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 293
And now we are sure of the great triumph for which every
sacrifice was made. It has come come in its completeness,
and with the pride and inspiration of these days of achieve
ment quick within us, we turn to the tasks of peace again a
peace secure against the violence of irresponsible monarchs
and ambitious military coteries, and made ready for a new
order, for new foundations of justice and fair dealing.
We are about to give order and organization to this peace,
not only for ourselves but for the other peoples of the world
as well, so far as they will suffer us to serve them. It is
international justice that we seek, not domestic safety merely.
Our thoughts have dwelt of late upon Europe, upon Asia,
upon the Near and the Far East, very little upon the acts
of peace and accommodation that wait to be performed at
our own doors. While we are adjusting our relations with
the rest of the world, is it not of capital importance that we
should clear away all grounds of misunderstanding with our
immediate neighbors and give proof of the friendship we
really feel? I hope that the members of the Senate will
permit me to speak once more of the unratified treaty of
adjustment with the Republic of Colombia. I very earnestly
urge upon them an early and favorable action upon that
vital matter. I believe that they will feel, with me, that the
stage of affairs is now set for such action as will be not only
just but generous, and in the spirit of the new age upon
which we have so happily entered.
So far as our domestic affairs are concerned, the problem
of our return to peace is a problem of economic and indus
trial readjustment. That problem is less serious for us than
it may turn out to be for the nations which have suffered
the disarrangements and the losses of the war longer than
we. Our people, moreover, do not wait to be coached and
led. They know their own business, are quick and resource
ful at every readjustment, definite in purpose, and self-
reliant in action. Any leading strings we might seek to put
them in would speedily become hopelessly tangled, because
they would pay no attention to them, and go their own way.
All that we can do as their legislative and executive servants
is to mediate the process of change here, there, and else
where, as we may. I have heard much counsel as to the
294 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
plans that should be formed, and personally conducted to a
happy consummation, but from no quarter have I seen any
general scheme of " reconstruction" emerge which I thought
it likely we could force our spirited business men and self-
reliant laborers to accept with due pliancy and obedience.
While the war lasted we set up many agencies by which
to direct the industries of the country in the services it was
necessary for them to render, by which to make sure of an
abundant supply of the materials needed, by which to check
undertakings that could for the time be dispensed with, and
stimulate those that were most serviceable in war, by which
to gain for the purchasing departments of the government a
certain control over the prices of essential articles and ma
terials, by which to restrain trade with alien enemies, make
the most of the available shipping, and systematize financial
transactions, both public and private, so that there would be
no unnecessary conflict or confusion by which, in short,
to put every material energy of the country in harness to
draw the common load and make of us one team in the ac
complishment of a great task. But the moment we knew
the armistice to have been signed we took the harness off.
Raw materials, upon which the Government had kept its
hand for fear there should not be enough for the industries
that supplied the armies, have been released and put into
the general market again. Great industrial plants whose
whole output and machinery had been taken over for the uses
of the Government have been set free to return to the uses to
which they were put before the war. It has not been pos
sible to remove so readily or so quickly the control of food
stuffs and of shipping, because the world has still to be fed
from our granaries and the ships are still needed to send
supplies to our men overseas, and to bring the men back as
fast as the disturbed conditions on the other side of the
water permit. But even these restraints are being relaxed as
much as possible, and more and more as the weeks go by.
Never before have there been agencies in existence in this
country which knew so much of the field of supply, of labor,
and of industry as the War Industries Board, the War Trade
Board, the Labor Department, the Food Administration,
and the Fuel Administration have known since the labors
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 295
became thoroughly systematized, and they have not been iso
lated agencies. They have been directed by men that rep
resented the permanent departments of the Government, and
so have been the centers of unified and cooperative action.
It has been the policy of the Executive, therefore, since the
armistice (which is in effect a complete submission of the
enemy), to put the knowledge of these bodies at the disposal
of the business men of the country, and to offer their intel
ligent mediation at every point and in every matter where
it was desired. It is surprising how fast the process of re
turn to a peace footing has moved in the three weeks since
the fighting stopped. It promises to outrun any inquiry that
may be instituted and any aid that may be offered. It will
not be easy to direct it any better than it will direct itself.
The American business man is of quick initiative.
The ordinary and normal processes of private initiative will
not, however, provide immediate employment for all of the
men of our returning armies. Those who are of trained ca
pacity, those who are skilled workmen, those who have ac
quired familiarity with established businesses, those who are
ready and willing to go to the farms, all those whose apti
tudes are known or will be sought out by employers, will
find no difficulty, it is safe to say, in finding place and em
ployment. But there will be others who will be at a loss
where to gain a livelihood unless pains are taken to guide
them and put them in the way of work. There will be a
large floating residuum of labor which should not be left
wholly to shift for itself. It seems to me important, there
fore, that the development of public works of every sort
should be promptly resumed, in order that opportunities
should be created for unskilled labor in particular, and that
plans should be made for such developments of our unused
lands and our natural resources as we have hitherto lacked
stimulation to undertake.
I particularly direct your attention to the very practical
plans which the Secretary of the Interior has developed in
his annual report, and before your committees for the recla
mation of arid, swamp, and cut-over lands, which might, if
the States were willing and able to cooperate, redeem some
three hundred million acres of land for cultivation. There
296 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
are said to be fifteen or twenty million acres of land in the
West, at present arid, for whose reclamation water is avail
able, if properly conserved. There are about two hundred
and thirty million acres from which the forests have been cut,
but which have never yet been cleared for the plow, and
which lie waste and desolate. These lie scattered all over
the Union. And there are nearly eighty million acres of
land that lie under swamps or subject to periodical overflow,
or too wet for anything but grazing, which it is perfectly
feasible to drain and protect and redeem. The Congress can
at once direct thousands of the returning soldiers to the recla
mation of the arid lands which it has already undertaken,
if it will but enlarge the plans and the appropriations which
it has intrusted to the Department of the Interior. It is
possible in dealing with our unused land to effect a great
rural and agricultural development, which will afford the
best sort of opportunity to men who want to help themselves,
and the Secretary of the Interior has thought the possible
methods out in a way which is worthy of your most friendly
attention.
I have spoken of the control which must yet for a while,
perhaps for a long time, be exercised over shipping because
of priority of service to which our forces overseas are entitled
and which should also be accorded the shipments which are
to save recently liberated peoples from starvation and many
devastated regions from permanent ruin. May I not say a
special word about the needs of Belgium and Northern
France? No sums of money paid by way of indemnity will
serve of themselves to save them from hopeless disadvantage
for years to come. Something more must be done than merely
find the money.
If they had money and raw materials in abundance to
morrow, they could not resume their place in the industry of
the world to-morrow the very important place they held
before the flame of war swept across them. Many of their
factories are razed to the ground. Much of their machinery
is destroyed or has been taken away. Their people are
scattered, and many of their best workmen are dead. Their
markets will be taken by others, if they are not in some spe
cial way assisted to rebuild their factories and replace their
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 297
lost instruments of manufacture. Thjey should not be left
to the vicissitudes of the sharp competition for materials and
for industrial facilities which is now to set in.
I hope, therefore, that the Congress will not be unwilling,
if it should become necessary, to grant to some such agency
as the War Trade Board the right to establish priorities of
export and supply for the benefit of these people whom we
have been so happy to assist in saving from the German
terror and whom we must not now thoughtlessly leave to
shift for themselves in a pitiless competitive market.
For the steadying and facilitation of our own domestic
business readjustments nothing is more important than the
immediate determination of the taxes that are to be levied
for 1918, 1919, and 1920. As much of the burden of tax
ation must be lifted from business as sound methods of fi
nancing the Government will permit, and those who conduct
the great essential industries of the country must be told as
exactly as possible what obligations to the Government they
will be expected to meet in the years immediately ahead of
them; it will be of serious consequence to the country to
delay removing all uncertainties in this matter a single day
longer than the right processes of debate justify. It is idle
to talk of successful and confident business reconstruction
before those uncertainties are resolved.
If the war had continued it would have been necessary to
raise at least $8,000,000,000 by taxation payable in the
year 1919; but the war has ended and I agree with the
Secretary of the Treasury that it will be safe to reduce the
amount to six billions. An immediate rapid decline in the
expenses of the Government is not to be looked for. Con
tracts made for war supplies will, indeed, be rapidly canceled
and liquidated, but their immediate liquidation will make
heavy drains on the Treasury for the months just ahead of
us.
The maintenance of our forces on the other side of the
sea is still necessary. A considerable proportion of those
forces must remain in Europe during the period of occupa
tion, and those which are brought home will be transported
and demobilized at heavy expense for months to come. The
interest on our war debt must, of course, be paid and pro-
298 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
vision made for the retirement of the obligations of the Gov
ernment which represent it. But these demands will, of
course, fall much below what a continuation of military oper
ations would have entailed, and six billions should suffice to
supply a sound foundation for the financial operations of the
year.
I entirely concur with the Secretary of the Treasury in
recommending that the two billions needed in addition to the
four billions provided by existing law be obtained from the
profits which have accrued and shall accrue from war con
tracts and distinctively war business, but that these taxes
be confined to the war profits accruing in 1918 or in 1919
from business originating in war contracts. I urge your
acceptance of his recommendation that provision be made
now, not subsequently, that the taxes to be paid in 1920
should be reduced from six to four billions. Any arrange
ments less definite than these would add elements of doubt
and confusion to the critical period of industrial readjust
ment through which the country must now immediately pass,
and which no true friend of the nation s essential business
interests can afford to be responsible for creating or pro
longing. Clearly determined conditions, clearly and simply
charted, are indispensable to the economic revival and rapid
industrial development which may confidently be expected,
if we act now and sweep all interrogation points away.
I take it for granted that the Congress will carry out the
naval program which was undertaken before we entered the
war. The Secretary of the Navy has submitted to your com
mittees for authorization that part of the program which
covers the building plans of the next three years. These
plans have been prepared along the lines and in accordance
with the policy which the Congress established, not under
the exceptional conditions of the war, but with the intention
of adhering to a definite method of development for the navy.
I earnestly recommend the uninterrupted pursuit of that
policy. It would clearly be unwise for us to attempt to
adjust our program to a future world policy as yet undeter
mined.
The question which causes me the greatest concern is the
question of the policy to ,be adopted toward the railroads. I
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 299
frankly turn to you for counsel upon it. I have no confident
judgment of my own. I do not see how any thoughtful man
can have who knows anything of the complexity of the prob
lem. It is a problem which must be studied, studied immedi
ately, and studied without bias or prejudice. Nothing can
be gained by becoming partisans of any particular plan of
settlement.
It was necessary that the administration of the railways
should be taken over by the Government so long as the war
lasted. It would have been impossible otherwise to establish
and carry through under a single direction the necessary
priorities of shipment. It would have been impossible other
wise to combine maximum production at the factories and
mines and farms with the maximum possible car supply to
move the products to the ports and markets; impossible to
route troop shipments and freight shipments without regard
to the advantage of the roads employed; impossible to sub
ordinate, when necessary, all questions of convenience to the
public necessity; impossible to give the necessary financial
support to the roads from the public treasury. But all these
necessities have now been served, and the question is, What
is best for the railroads and for the public in the future?
Exceptional circumstances and exceptional methods of
administration were not needed to convince us that the rail
roads were not equal to the immense tasks of transportation
imposed upon them by the rapid and continuous develop
ments of the industries of the country. We knew that al
ready. And we knew that they were unequal to it partly
because their full cooperation was rendered impossible by
law and their competition made obligatory, so that it has
been impossible to assign to them severally the traffic which
could best be carried by their respective lines in the interest
of expedition and national economy.
We may hope, I believe, for the formal conclusion of the
war by a treaty by the time Spring has come. The twenty-
one months to which the present control of the railways is
limited, after formal proclamation of peace shall have been
made, will run at the farthest, I take it for granted, only to
the January of 1921. The full equipment of the railways
which the Federal Administration had planned could not be
300 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
completed within any such period. The present law does not *
permit the use of the revenues of the several roads for the
execution of such plans except by formal contract with their
Directors, some of whom will consent while some will not,
and therefore does not afford sufficient authority to under
take improvements upon the scale upon which it would be
necessary to undertake them. Every approach to this diffi
cult subject-matter of decision brings us face to face, there
fore, with this unanswered question: What is it right that
we should do with the railroads, in the interest of the public
and in fairness to their owners? Let me say at once that I
have no answer ready. The only thing that is perfectly
clear to me is that it is not fair either to the public or to the
owners of the railroads to leave the question unanswered,
and that it will presently become my duty to relinquish con
trol of the roads, even before the expiration of the statuory
period, unless there should appear some clear prospect in the
meantime of a legislative solution. Their release would at
least produce one element of a solution, namely, certainty
and a quick stimulation of private initiative.
I believe that it will be serviceable for me to set forth as
explicitly as possible the alternative courses that lie open to
our choice. We can simply release the roads and go back to
the old conditions of private management, unrestricted com
petition, and multiform regulation by both State and Federal
authorities; or we can go to the opposite extreme and estab
lish complete control, accompanied, if necessary, by actual
Government ownership; or we can adopt an intermediate
course of modified private control, under a more unified and
affirmative public regulation and under such alterations of
the law as will permit wasteful competition to be* avoided
and a considerable degree of unification of administration
to be effected, as, for example, by regional corporations, under
which the railways of definable areas would be in effect
combined in single systems.
The one conclusion that I am ready to state with confidence
is that it would be a disservice alike to the country and to
the owners of the railroads to return to the old conditions
unmodified. Those are conditions of restraint without de
velopment. There is nothing affirmative or helpful about
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 301
them. What the country chiefly needs is that all its means
of transportation should be developed, its railways, its water
ways, its highways, and its countryside roads. Some new
element of policy, therefore, is absolutely necessary neces
sary for the service of the public, necessary for the release
of credit to those who are administering the railways, neces
sary for the protection of their security holders. The old
policy may be changed much or little, but surely it cannot
always be left as it was. I hope that the Congress will have
a complete and impartial study of the whole problem insti
tuted at once and prosecuted as rapidly as possible. I stand
ready and anxious to release the roads from the present con
trol, and I must do so at a very early date, as by waiting
until the statutory limit of time is reached I shall be merely
prolonging the period of doubt and uncertainty which is
hurtful to every interest concerned.
I welcome this occasion to announce to the Congress my
purpose to join in Paris the representatives of the Govern
ments with which we have been associated in the war against
the Central Empires for the purpose of discussing with them
the main features of the treaty of peace. I realize the great
inconveniences that will attend my leaving the country, par
ticularly at this time, but the conclusion that it was my para
mount duty to go has been forced upon me by considerations
which I hope will seem as conclusive to you as they have
seemed to me.
The Allied Governments have accepted the bases of peace
which I outlined to the Congress on the 8th of January last,
as the Central Empires also have, and very reasonably desire
my personal counsel in their interpretation and application,
and it is highly desirable that I should give it in order that
the sincere desire of our Government to contribute without
selfish purpose of any kind to settlements that will be of
common benefit to all the nations concerned may be made
fully manifest. The peace settlements which are now to be
agreed upon are of transcendent importance, both to us and
to the rest of the world, and I know of no business or in
terest which should take precedence of them. The gallant
men of our armed forces on land and sea have conspicuously
fought for the ideals which they knew to be the ideals of
302 ADDRESSES OF PRESIDENT WILSON [1918
their country. I have sought to express those ideals; they
have accepted my statements of them as the substance of
their own thought and purpose, as the associated Govern
ments have accepted them; I owe it to them to see to it, so
far as in me lies, that no false or mistaken interpretation is
put upon them, and no possible effort omitted to realize them.
It is now my duty to play my full part in making good what
they offered their life s blood to obtain. I can think of no
call to service which would transcend this.
I shall be in close touch with you and with affairs on this
side of the water, and you will know all that I do. At my
request the French and English Governments have abso
lutely removed the censorship of cable news which until
within a fortnight they had maintained, and there is now no
censorship whatever exercised at this end, except upon at
tempted trade communications with enemy countries. It
has been necessary to keep an open wire constantly available
between Paris and the Department of State, and another be
tween France and the Department of War. In order that
this might be done with the least possible interference with
the other uses of the cables, I have temporarily taken over
the control of both cables in order that they may be used
as a single system. I did so at the advice of the most ex
perienced cable officials, and I hope that the results will
justify my hope that the news of the next few months may
pass with the utmost freedom, and with the least possible
delay from each side of the sea to the other.
May I now hope, gentlemen of the Congress, that in the
delicate tasks I shall have to perform on the other side of
the sea, in my efforts truly and faithfully to interpret the
principles and purposes of the country we love, I may have
the encouragement and the added strength of your united
support? I realize the magnitude and difficulty of the duty
I am undertaking. I am poignantly aware of its grave re
sponsibilities. I am the servant of the nation. I can have
no private thought or purpose of my own in performing such
an errand. I go to give the best that is in me to the common
settlements which I must now assist in arriving at in con
ference with the other working heads of the associated Gov
ernments. I shall count upon your friendly countenance and
Dec. 2] ADDRESS BEFORE GOING ABROAD 303
encouragement. I shall not be inaccessible. The cables
and the wireless will render me available for any counsel
or service you may desire of me, and I shall be happy in
the thought that I am constantly in touch with the weighty
matters of domestic policy with which we shall have to deal.
I shall make my absence as brief as possible, and shall hope
to return with the happy assurance that it has been possible
to translate into action the great ideals for which America
has striven.
New York Times, December 3, 1918,
INDEX
AGRICULTURE, reform, 3-4; im
portance of, 252-253; De
partment, 73; war-time, 199-
201; message to farmers,
251-255 ; governmental war
time promotion, 252-253; or
ganizations, 253; loans, 253;
fertilization and seed, 253;
labor problem, 253-254; re
sponse to war demands, 254;
further demands on, 254, 255 ;
price regulation, 255. See
also Industry.
ALBERT OF BELGIUM, message
to, 231-232.
ALLEGIANCE, meaning of oath,
86, 130.
ALLIANCES, American attitude,
30; and essentials of peace,
178, 279; entangling, and
League of Nations, 280. See
also League of Nations.
ALSACE - LORRAINE, restoration
to France, 249.
AMERICA FIRST, address on,
78-83.
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION,
address before, 46-48.
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LA
BOR, address before, 226-230.
AMERICAN REVOLUTION, prin
ciples, 28-32.
AMERICANISM, elements, 130.
See also Democracy.
ANNAPOLIS, address at, 36-39.
"ARABIC," sinking, 114.
ARBITRATION, international, and
Pan-Americanism, 99-100.
ARBITRATION, labor, rejected in
railroad question, 144, 147;
limitations, 147; compulsory,
149; judicial enforcement of
awards, 149-150 ; war-time,
229-230.
ARLINGTON, addresses at, 32-36,
209-210.
ARMAMENTS, limitation in
peace terms, 177, 186, 248.
ARMED MERCHANTMEN, travel
on, 109; status and German
policy, 113-114.
ARMED NEUTRALITY, policy, 182-
183, 185; impracticable, 190.
ARMISTICE, despatches on, 283-
286; withdrawal of German
forces, 284; character of Ger
man government, 284-286 ;
guarantee of military suprem
acy, 284; as military affair,
284; and inhumanity and
devastation, 285 ; announce
ment to Congress, -286-289;
finality, 286./T
ARMS, exportation, and neu
trality, 84-85.
ARMY, American, self-sacrifice
and courage of soldier, 33-
34, 75; and industrial pre
paredness, 102; Mexican ex
pedition, 110-111; address to
West Point graduates, 125-
131 ; former service of offi
cers, 126; possibilities of
present service, 126, 131 ; and
militarism, 128; officers as
citizens, 129; officers and
Americanism, 129-131 ; and
World War, 197 ; message to
305
306
INDEX
drafted men, 222-223; draft
and farm labor, 253-254;
message to student corps,
282-283. See also Arma
ments ; Militarism ; Prepar
edness.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, address be
fore, 78-83; power, 78; and
public opinion, 82-83.
ASSOCIATED WORKERS OF THE
WORLD, and anarchy, 230.
ATLANTIC CITY, address at, 154-
157.
AUSTRIA - HUNGARY, American
attitude toward, 195-196; as
Germany s tool, 213, 214 ; and
peace conditions, 235, 249;
war with, advised, 237-238;
rejection of conference pro
posed by, 275; revolution in,
287-289. See also Peace;
World War.
AUTOCRACY, designs and World
War, 193, 205, 212-214, 220,
273; and peace concert, 193;
spies and intrigues, 194, 211-
212, 216; deceitful peace
drives, 206-207, 214-216, 228,
234, 244, 256-257; and status
quo ante, 207, 220-221; des
peration, 214-215; no peace
with, 221-222; 233, 277, 284,
285; overthrow essential to
peace, 268; as issue of the
war, 276-277 ; overthrown,
287. See also Militarism.
BALANCE OF POWER, and per
manent peace, 174-175, 186,
208.
BALFOUR, Minister, and resto
ration of Palestine, 272.
BALKANS, deliverance, 235; in
peace terms, 249. See also
Middle Europe Empire; Na
tions by Name.
BALTIMORE, address at, 157-
162.
BANKING, American, reform,
3 ; Federal Reserve, 133, 136 ;
and foreign exchange, 158-
159; loans to farmers, 253.
See also Business; Finances.
BARRY, JOHN, address at statue
of, 28-32.
BELGIAN RELIEF, German viola
tions, 189.
BELGIUM, message of sympa
thy, 231-232 ; reparation, 235 ;
essentials in peace terms, 248-
249. See also Peace; World
War.
BERLIN-BAGDAD RAILROAD, pur
pose, 228.
BIBLE, reading by soldiers, 217-
218.
BONDS, purchase, 258; fourth
loan, 275. See also Finances.
BOUNDARY DISPUTES, and Pan-
Americanism, 99.
BRANDEIS, L. D., qualifications
for Supreme Court Justice,
117-120.
BREST - LITOVSK NEGOTIATIONS,
244.
BRYAN, Secretary, communica
tions through, 83-85, 89-90.
BUFFALO, address at, 226-230.
BULGARIA, American attitude
toward, 196, 238; as German
tool, 213, 214. See also Bal
kans ; World War.
BUREAU OF FOREIGN AND DO
MESTIC COMMERCE, work, 74-
75.
BUREAU OF STANDARDS, impor
tance, 73.
BUSINESS, reform, 3; work of
Sixty-third Congress, 55-56;
problems of neutral, 56-57;
unlocking of resources, 57-
58; Democratic Party and
interests, 66-67 ; democracy,
132-137 ; conservatism of
leaders, 132-133, 135-136;
need of common counsel,
133-135 ; .American timidity in
international, 137, 162; de
velopment of foreign, 157-
159; policy of future, 159;
INDEX
307
and law, 159; Tariff Com
mission and facts, 160; co
operation, 160-161 ; with
Latin-America, 161 ; war-time
profits, 200. See also Bank
ing ; Commerce ; Finances ;
Industry; Trusts.
CENSORSHIP, need, 205-206.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF
UNITED STATES, address be
fore, 70-77.
CHRISTIANITY, reason, 50.
CINCINNATI, address at, 162-
164.
CITIZENSHIP, address to natu
ralized citizens, 85-89. See
also Immigration ; Loyalty ;
Patriotism.
CITIZENSHIP CONVENTION, ad
dress at, 139-143.
Civics, in schools, 218-219.
CIVIL WAR, meaning of years
since, 10; and present-day
tasks, 10 ; veterans and spir
itual reunion, 32, 36 ; Con
federate monument at Ar
lington, 34-36; memorial to
women, 202, 204. See also
Memorial Day.
CIVILIAN ADVISORY BOARD OF
NAVY, address to, 93-94.
CLASS DIVISIONS, dangers and
discredit, 166, 230.
CLAXTON, Commissioner, and
patriotic teaching in schools,
219.
CLEVELAND, GROVER, apprecia
tion, 5-6.
COAL, war-time problem, 198.
COLLEGE, ideals, 14-16; and
ideals of state, 15; character
of training, 36, 126; and
breadth of view, 49, 136;
message to college soldiers,
282-283.
COLONIES. See Dependencies.
COMMERCE, western outlook of
world, 17 ; influence of Pan
ama Canal, 17-18 ; address on
national, 70-77 ; cooperation,
70-73 ; governmental inquiry
and scientific assistance, 73-
75; information and legisla
tion, 75-76 ; freedom as peace
essential, 248, 279. See also
Business ; Freedom of the
Seas ; Merchant Marine :
Tariff.
COMMITTEE OF RAILWAY EXEC
UTIVES, work, 238-239, 242.
COMPROMISE, none, in World
War, 268, 277-278. See also
Peace.
CONCESSIONS IN LATIN AMER
ICA, 18.
CONFEDERATE MONUMENT AT
ARLINGTON, address, 34-36.
CONGRESS, addresses to: on
tariff, 6-8; on trusts, 22-27;
on tolls on Panama Canal,
27-28; on foreign trade and
shipping, 35-60; on eight-
hour day for railroad men,
143-150; on submarine war
fare, 111-117 ; on conditions
of peace, 172-179, 244-251;
on breach with Germany,
179-183; on war with Ger
many, 188-197; on war with
Austria-Hungary, 232-238 ; on
government control of rail
roads, 241-244 ; on Armistice,
286-289 ; work of Sixty-third,
55-56 ; veto of immigration
bill, 67-70.
CONSERVATION, need, 2-4.
CONSERVATISM, of Republican
Party, 62-63 ; animated, 63 ;
of leaders of business, 132-
133; American, 135-136.
CONSULAR REPORTS, value, 74.
COOPERATION, in commerce and
business, 70-73, 160-161.
COURAGE, of soldier, 34.
CULBERSON, Senator, letter to,
117-120.
CURRENCY, reform, 3; Federal
Reserve, 133, 136.
DARDANELLES, in peace terms,
249.
3 o8
INDEX
DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDER
ACY, and monument at Ar
lington, 34-36.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,
present significance, 39 ; and
sacrifice, 42.
DECLARATION OF WAR, advised,
against Germany, 191 ; against
Austria-Hungary, 237-238.
DEFENSE, preparedness for, 93-
94.
DEMOCRACY, America and
world, 20-21, 266-267; and
mutual understanding, 35 ;
and international justice, 40-
44; and equality of opportu
nity, 53; enthusiasm, 64; and
Democratic Party, 76; and
purpose of United States, 83,
127, 129-130; of business,
132-137 ; vigor, 150-151 ; mys
tery, 151; justification of
faith, 151-152 ; object and
commands, 154 ; in peace
terms, 176, 186, 236-237, 248;
and League of Nations, 193 ;
world made safe for, 195 ;
and American war objects,
192-193. 195, 197, 203, 207,
209-210 ; and woman suffrage,
224-226; meaning, 230; and
international friendship, 260;
and lynching, 270-271 ; as
issue of the war, 277. See
also Public Opinion.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, meaning of
control, 1-5 ; address on, 61-
67 ; progressiveness, 63 ;
teamwork, 64; and business
interests, 66-67 ; and democ
racy, 76; results of control,
184. See also Politics.
DEPENDENCIES, policy, 13, 58-59,
81; principle, 124; in peace
terms, 248.
DETROIT, address at, 132-137.
DIRECTORATES, interlocking, 24.
DOLLAR DIPLOMACY, 40.
DRAFTED MEN, message to, 222-
223.
ECONOMY, war-time, 201.
EDISON, T. A., letter on 70th
birthday, 183.
EDUCATION. See College ;
Schools.
EGYPT, German intrigue, 213.
EIGHT-HOUR DAY, controversy
on railroads, 143-150; just
ness, 145.
EQUALITY, of opportunity, 53;
in foreign relations, 162; of
nations in peace terms, 175-
176, 186, 250; of nations as
issue of the war, 277.
EUROPEAN WAR. See World
War.
EVOLUTION, moral, 55.
EXCHANGE, foreign, and Amer
ican banks, 158-159.
EXPEDIENCY, war policy and
American honor, 105-109.
FACTS, respect for, 101.
FARM LOAN BANKING SYSTEM,
253.
FARMERS. See Agriculture.
FARMERS CONFERENCE, message
to, 251-255.
FEDERAL RESERVE, purpose and
opposition, 133, 136; and ag
ricultural loans, 253.
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION,
suggested, 25.
FERTILIZATION, government aid,
253.
FILIBUSTERING, and Pan- Amer
icanism, 100, 186.
FINANCES, of Latin-America,
18; United States as creditor
nation, 79, 164; foreign ex
change, 158-159; war, 191;
of government control of
railroads, 243-244. See also
Banking; Business.
FLAG, symbolism, 37; as em
bodiment of experience, 90-
92; as emblem, 210.
FLAG DAY, addresses, 90-93;
210-217.
FOOD, war-time problems, 198-
200, 252; price regulation,
INDEX
309
255 ; for central peoples, 287.
See also Agriculture.
FOREIGN RELATIONS, meaning of
isolation, 30; altruism, 37-39,
165; United States as world
power, principles, 39-43, 107-
109 ; limit to dollar diplo
macy, 39-40; confidence in,
161-162 ; American, and
equality, 162; society of na
tions, 162-164; end of isola
tion, 164-165, 280. See also
Business; League of Na
tions ; Pan - Americanism ;
Peace ; World War.
FORTHRIGHTNESS, in public life,
62.
FOURTEEN CONDITIONS OF PEACE,
247-249.
FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN, address
at opening, 275-283.
FRANCE, greeting to, 217 ; essen
tials in peace terms, 248. See
also Peace; World War.
FRANKNESS in peace terms, 246-
247, 280-282.
FREEDOM. See Democracy?-
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS, right of
neutrals, 83-84; and subma
rine warfare, 89-90, 112-116;
no abridgment, 106-107 ;
travel on armed merchant
men, 109 ; war zones, 111-112 ;
in peace terms, 177, 186, 248.
See also Submarines.
FREIGHT RATES, and eight-hour
controversy, 146, 148.
FRIENDSHIP, as international ce
ment, 258; democracy and
international, 260.
FULLER, Chief-Justice, on Bran-
deis, 118.
GARDENS, war, 201.
GENIUS, and democracy, 150-
151.
GERMAN-AMERICANS, and war
with Germany, 196. See also
Hyphen.
GERMAN PEOPLE, and United
States in World War, 193,
195, 196, 205, 212, 220, 228;
and peace terms, 236, 277.
GERMANY, antebellum, 226-228;
internal affairs and peace
terms, 250; revolution, 287-
289. See also Autocracy;
German People; Middle Eu
rope Empire; Peace; World
War.
GETTYSBURG, address at, 10-13.
GOMPERS, Samuel, tribute to,
229.
GRAIN DEALERS ASSOCIATION,
address before, 157-162.
GREAT BRITAIN, treaty and Pan
ama Canal tolls, 27-28. See
also Peace; World War.
GRIDIRON DINNER, address at,
107-109.
HEALTH, guarding of national,
4.
HEFLIN, Representative, letter
to, 204-205.
HOLIDAYS, benefit, 92.
HOOVER, H. C, and patriotic
teaching in school, 219.
HOSPITAL-SHIPS, sinking, 189.
HYPHEN, !and Americanism, 30-
31, 130; and oath of allegi
ance, 86; and Io3ialy_^_142 ;
German-Americans and the
war, 196.
IMMIGRATION, and American
ism, 30-31, 87-88 ; veto of lit
eracy test bill, 67-70 ; strength
from, 85, 88 ; expectations
and results to immigrants, 88,
139-140; and World War,
101 ; allegiance, 130 ; policy,
137 ; influence of example on
immigrants, 140-143.
IMPERIALISM. See Autocracy.
INAUGURAL ADDRESSES, first, 1-
5; second, 184-188.
INDEMNITIES, and reparations,
war, 208, 222, 235, 236, 248-
249.
INDEPENDENCE, American, real
ity and use, 39-45.
310
INDEX
INDIA, German intrigue, 213.
INDIANAPOLIS, address at, 61-67.
INDUSTRY, preparedness, 102 ;
war-time problems, 198-201;
German antebellum subsidy,
227. See also Agriculture;
Business; Labor.
INTERNATIONAL LAW, opinion
and sanction, 46, 47 ; obedi
ence to, as peace term, 268-
269. See also Freedom of the
Seas ; Neutrality.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMIS
SION, proposed reorganiza
tion, 148.
INTRIGUE, German, in United
States, 194-195, 211-212, 216;
in Mexico, 195, 211, 262. See
also Autocracy ; World War.
INVENTOR, Edison as, 183.
ISOLATION, meaning, 30; end,
137, 164-165, 173, 178-179, 185-
186; and League of Nations,
280.
ITALY, essential peace terms,
249. See also Peace; World
War.
JACKSON, ANDREW, forthright-
ness, 61-62, 66.
JACKSON DAY ADDRESS, 61-67.
JAPAN, German intrigue, 211.
JEWS, restoration of Palestine,
272.
JUNIOR RED CROSS, 223-224.
LABOR, hours in railway service,
143-150; justness of eight-
hour day, 145; and class dis
tinction, 165-166; and the
war, 229-230, 273-274; farm
ers war problem, 253-254.
LABOR DAY MESSAGE, 272-274.
LAMB, CHARLES, anecdote, 230.
LANSING, Secretary, communi
cations through, 120-121, 219-
222, 275, 283-286.
LATIN AMERICA, address on re
lations with, 16-21 ; and Pan
ama Canal, 16-18, 161; ad
verse circumstances, 18, 20;
World War and commercial
dependence, 57 ; business
with, 161; disinterested serv
ice to, 261-266. See also
Mexico ; Monroe Doctrine ;
Pan-Americanism.
LAW, precedent and moral
judgments, 47-48; purpose,
141 ; and commerce, 159. See
also International Law.
LAWYERS history of the United
States, 155.
LEADERS, character of Ameri
can, 91, 108.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS, in peace
terms, 125, 208, 249, 265, 269,
278; United States and, 173,
178-179, 279-280; as issue of
the war, 277.
LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE, ad
dress to, 121-125.
LEE, R. E., American, 36.
LIBERTY. See Democracy.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, address at
birthplace, 150-154; and de
mocracy, 151-152 ; isolation,
153.
LLOYD-GEORGE, Premier, and
peace, 246.
LOBBY, warning on tariff, 9.
LOYALTY, oath of allegiance, 86,
130 ; address on, 139-143 ; ex
ample to immigrants, 139-141,
143; basis, 141; and the hy
phen, 142 ; meaning, 142. See
also Hyphen ; Patriotism ;
Unity.
"LUSITANIA," protest on sink
ing, 89-90, 114.
LYNCHING, denunciation, 230,
270-271.
McAooo, W. G., to control rail
roads, 240.
McKiNLEy, WILLIAM, and pub
lic opinion, ii ; and Confed
erate monument at Arlington,
35.
MCLEMORE RESOLUTION, letter
on, 109.
INDEX
MEDIATION, position of United
States, 80-81.
MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESSES, 32-
34, 209-210.
MERCHANT MARINE, need of
ships, policy, 59-60, 135 ; con
vention for safety at sea, 60 ;
decay, 158; war-time build
ing, 198, 201.
METHODIST Protestant Church,
address at conference, 77-78.
MEXICAN EDITORS, address to,
261-266.
MEXICAN WAR, regrets, 264.
MEXICO, internal conditions and
foreign relations, 40-41 ;
watchful waiting policy, 64-
66 ; facts, 72 ; expedition into,
110-111 ; trouble-makers, 111 ;
attitude toward United States,
138; border expedition and
control of railroads, 149;
German intrigue, 195, 211,
262; attitude of disinterested
service, 261-264; false news
in, 262; peace and develop
ment, 265-266. See also
Latin America; Pan-Ameri
canism.
MIDDLE EUROPE EMPIRE, and
German peace drives, 207,
214-216, 228, 257 ; German de
signs and the war, 212-214,
228; overthrow essential to
peace, 235.
MIDDLEMEN, and war-time prof
its, 200.
MILITANCY, extolled, 51-53.
MILITARISM, and preparedness,
101-102, 104, 128-129; spirit,
128. See also Autocracy.
MILITIA, and preparedness, 103.
MILTON, JOHN, on militancy, 51-
52.
MOB. See Lynching.
MOBILE, address at, 16-21.
MONROE DOCTRINE, and Pan-,
Americanism, 99, 130, 264-
265; as world doctrine, 178,
263.
MONTENEGRO, in peace terms,
249. See also Balkans, World
War.
MORALS, cowardice, 52 ; vigi
lance, 54 ; evolution, 55.
MOUNT VERNON ADDRESS, 266-
269.
NATIONALITY, recognition, in
peace terms, 176, 186, 208, 221,
268 ; as issue of the war, 277.
NATURALIZATION, address to
new citizens, 85-89 ; character
of allegiance, 86. See also
Immigration.
NAVY, address at Annapolis, 36-
39; education of officers, 36-
37 ; ideal of unselfish service,
37-39; no prejudice against,
104; and World War, 197.
See also Armaments.
NEUTRAL TRADE. See Freedom
of the Seas.
NEUTRALITY, American, appeal
for, 44-46; basis, 79-80;
United States as mediating
nation, 80-81 ; and reserve
moral force, 81-82, 131;
rights, despatch to Germany,
83-85; and exportation of
arms, 84-85 ; impossible in fu
ture, 163, 192-193. See also
Freedom of the Seas ; Sub
marines ; World War.
NEW YORK, addresses at, 100-
105, 256-260, 275-283.
NEWS, warning against false,
82-83; false, in Mexico, 262.
See also Associated Press.
NOBILITY, American, 33.
NORTHWEST LOYALTY MEETINGS,
message to, 231.
OPPORTUNITY, equality in Amer
ica, 53 ; and immigration lit
eracy test, 68-69.
PACIFIC RAILROAD BUILDING, 59.
PALESTINE, restoration for
Jews, 272.
PANAMA CANAL, and outlook of
world commerce, 17-18 ; ques-
312
INDEX
tion of tolls, 27-28, 42; and
Latin America, 161.
PAN - AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC
CONGRESS, address to, 95-100.
PAN-AMERICANISM, basis, 95-
100 ; essential unity of Amer
icas, 95-97 ; economic interde
pendence, 97-98; necessity of
political harmony, 97-99 ; and
Monroe Doctrine, 99, 130,
264-265 ; essentials of political
amity, 99-100; and domestic
peace, 100; proposed guaran
tee of territorial integrity,
264-265. See also Latin
America.
PATRIOTISM, as a principle, 29;
and honor and sacrifice, 41-
44; and holidays, 92; teach
ing in school, 218-219. See
also Hyphen ; Loyalty.
PEACE, and self-sacrifice, 33, 75 ;
and American principles, 88,
93-94, 101; enforcement of
world, 121-125 ; American
concern and attitude as neu
tral, 122, 124-125, 131, 168,
173-174 ; and open diplomacy,
122-123, 247-248, 279 ; and im
partial justice, 123-124, 278-
279, 287; fundamentals, 124;
League, 125, 172-174, 178-179,
208, 249, 265, 269, 278-280;
and preparedness, 138; justi
fiable breach of world, 164;
request to belligerents to
state terms, 167-170; replies,
172 ; address on conditions,
while still neutral, 172-179;
no balance of power, 174-175,
208; peace without victory,
175 ; equality of nations, 175-
176, 186, 250 ; democracy and
recognition of nationality,
176, 186, 208, 221, 268; outlet
to the sea, 176, 237 ; freedom
of the seas, 177, 186, 248;
limitation of armaments, 177,
186, 248; Americanism of es
sentials, 177-179, 186-187, 236-
237; concert and American
war objects, 192; concert and
democracy, 193 ; indemnity,
reparation, 208, 222, 235, 236,
248, 249; German drives, ob
ject, 206-207, 214-216, 228, 234,
244, 256-257; objections to
status quo ante, 207, 220-221 ;
answer to Papal proposi
tions, 219-222 ; test, 221 ; none
with autocracy, 221-222, 233,
277, 284, 285 ; first war state
ment of essentials, 233-237 ; no
vindictive, 234, 236, 250, 279;
and internal affairs of Cen
tral Powers, 235-236, 249,
250 ; Brest-Litovsk negotia
tions, 244-245 ; frankness,
246-247, 280-282 ; Russia and
definition of terms, 246-247;
fourteen conditions, 247-249;
colonies, 248; conditions as
to Russia, 248 ; as to Belgium,
248-249 ; as to France, 249 ; as
to Italy, 249; as to Austria-
Hungary, 249 ; as to Balkans,
249 ; as to Turkey, 249 ; as to
Poland, 249; as to Germany,
250 ; four conditions, 268-269 ;
overthrow of autocracy, 268;
respect for international law,
268-269; rejection of Aus
tria s conference proposal,
275 ; no compromise, 277-278 ;
five conditions, 279 ; commer
cial freedom, 279; basis of
common interest of all, 279;
question of armistice, 283-
286; German acceptance of
conditions, 283-284 ; armistice
signed, effect, 286-289; relief
of central peoples, 287 ; revo
lution in central governments,
problem, 287-289. See also
World War.
"PEACE without victory," 175.
PENN, WILLIAM, as spiritual
knight, 14-15.
PEOPLE. See Democracy: Pub
lic opinion.
PERSIA, German intrigue, 213.
INDEX
PHILADELPHIA, address at, 39-
44, 85-89.
PHILIPPINES, larger self-gov
ernment, 13, 58-59. See also
Dependencies.
PITTSBURGH, address at, 49-55.
POLAND, restoration, 176, 249.
POLITICS, control by independ
ents, 63 ; defined, 97 ; and pre
paredness. 104-105. See also
Democratic Party; Republi
can Party.
POPE, answer to peace proposi
tions of, 219-222.
Pou, Representative, letter to,
109.
PREPAREDNESS, for defense, 93-
94; address on, 100-105; and
uncertainty of World War,
100-101; and militarism, 101-
102, 104, 128-129; military
and industrial, 102; cruel
waste in lack, 102-103; and
militia, 103 ; immediate needs,
103-104 ; naval, 104 ; and poli
tics, 104-105; purpose, 127-
128; and peace, 138.
PRESIDENCY, responsibility, 107.
PRICES, war-time regulation,
200, 255.
PROHIBITION, war-time, 260-261.
PROPERTY, protection, 4.
PROVINCIALISM, outgrown, 137,
185-186.
PRUSSIA. See Autocracy ;
World War.
PUBLIC OPINION, and interna
tional law, 46-47 ; and munici
pal law, 47-48 ; as mainspring
of administrative action, 61,
83, 88-89, 107-108; and false
news, 82-83 ; and experience
of the nation, 91-92 ; and con
ception of America, 133; as
basis of legislation, 135; and
reform, 141 ; and issues of the
war, 281. See also Democ
racy ; Leaders.
PUNISHMENT, effect, 137.
i43-150 ; legislation recom
mended, 148-149 ; proposed
federal military operation
(1916), 149; war-time prob
lems, 200; reasons for gov
ernment control, 238-244 ;
work of Committee of Rail
way Executives, 238-239, 242 ;
guarantees, 239, 243; finan
cial aspect of control, 243-244.
RAW MATERIAL, war-time prob
lems, 198-201.
RED CROSS, American, appeal as
neutral to support war work,
171-172 ; address at dedication
of building, 202-204; import
ance of war work, 202-203;
support, 203, 258-259; junior
work, 223-224; address on
honor to, 256-260; war work
and American character, 257 ;
and world friendship, 258 ;
German violations, 259 ; work
of women, 259-260.
REFORM, dependent on popular
support, 141.
REPARATIONS. See Indemnity.
REPUBLICAN PARTY, unprogres-
siyeness, 62-64. See also Pol
itics.
RESOURCES, development and
regulation, 57-58.
REVOLUTION, no external en
couragement, 100, 186 ; in cen
tral nations, 287-289. See
also Russia.
RIGHTS, protection, 4.
ROOSEVELT, Theodore, and pub
lic opinion, ii.
RUMANIA, in peace -terms, 249.
See also Balkans.
RUSSIA, revolution, 194; mes
sage to, 206-208; German in
trigue, 234 ; Brest-Litovsk ne
gotiations, 244-245 ; condition
and faith, 246-247; essentials
in peace terms, 248 ; Ameri
can purpose to support, 257,
263-264, 268.
RAILROADS, eight-hour question, SAFETY at sea, convention, 60.
INDEX
SALESMANSHIP Congress, ad
dress at, 132-137.
SCHOOLS, patriotic teaching,
218-219; and Junior Red
Cross, 223-224.
SCOTT, H. L., Indian lore, 126.
SEA, outlet to, in peace terms,
176, 237. See also Freedom
of the seas; Merchant Ma
rine.
SEED, supply by government,
253.
SELF-DETERMINATION of Amer
ican life, 30-32, 127-128.
SERBIA, in peace terms, 249.
See also Balkans.
SHADOW LAWN, address at, 164-
165.
SHEPPAKD, Senator, letter to,
260-261.
SHERMAN Antitrust Law, need
of clarifying, 24-25. See also
Trusts.
SHERWOOD, General, and pre
paredness, 138.
SHIPPING. See Merchant ma
rine.
SLAVERY, women and question,
155.
SMITH-LEVER Act, 253.
SOCIAL questions, present, 4;
rise, 156.
SOCIALISTS, use by autocracy,
207.
SOLDIER and self-sacrifice, 33,
75; courage, 34: Bible read
ing, 217-218. See also Army.
SOUTH, self-expression, 16 ; and
war-time agriculture, 200.
SOUTHERN Commercial Con
gress, address before, 16-21.
SPANISH-AMERICAN War, un-
preparedness, 103.
SPIES. See Intrigue.
STATUS Quo ANTE BELLUM, ob
jections to return to, 207, 220-
221.
STONE, Senator, letter to, 105-
107.
STRIKES, war-time, 229. See
also Labor.
SUBMARINES, sinking of Lusi-
tania, illegality, 89-90; no
submission to illegal warfare,
105-107; violation of faith,
106, Ii4, 115; ultimatum on
warfare, 111-117, 179-186 ;
German abandonment of pol
icy, 120-121, 180 ; contingency
denied, 121, 180-181; renewal
of unrestricted warfare, 181-
182, 188-190 ; protection
against, 182-183; faith in
abandonment policy, 188 ; im
practicability of armed neu
trality against, 190. See also
Freedom of the Seas ; Neu
trality; World War.
SUBSIDIES, German industrial,
227.
SUPREME COURT, qualifications
of Brandeis, 117-120; on need
of facts, 145-146.
"SUSSEX," sinking, 114, 179.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, addreSS
at, 14-16.
TAFT, W. H., and public opin
ion, ii; and Confederate
Monument at Arlington, 35.
TARIFF, need of reform, 3 ; ad
dress on reform, 6-8 ; protec
tion as monopoly, 7 ; reform
and competition, 8 ; construc
tive reform, 8 ; warning on
lobby, 9. See also Commerce.
TARIFF COMMISSION, and facts,
160.
TENNYSON, LORD, on patriotism,
29.
TERRITORY, no further aggran
dizement of American, 19,
81 ; integrity and Pan-Ameri
canism, 99.
TOLEDO, address at, 138-139.
TOLLS, on Panama Canal, 27-28,
42.
"Too PROUD TO FIGHT," 89.
TRUSTS, regulation, 22-27 ;
agreement of opinion on, 22-
23 ; constructive reform, 23 ;
interlocking directorates, 24;
INDEX
clarifying antitrust law, 24-
25 ; administrative commis
sion, 25 ; punishment of indi
viduals, 25 ; interlocking
individual control, 26. See
also Business.
TURKEY, as German tool, 213,
214 ; American attitude to
ward, 196, 238; and peace
terms, 235, 249. See also
Middle Europe Empire ;
World War.
UNION, restoration, 10, 32, 35.
UNITED STATES, elements of
greatness, 2 ; of evil, 2-3 ;
Civil War spirit and present
tasks, 10-13; self-determined
life, 30-32; purpose, 83, 87,
127, 129-130, 136; interna
tional spirit, 137, 140; power
and its use, 142; rise of social
questions, 156.
UNITY, American, and World
War, 187, 203, 204, 209, 216,
231-233, 257, 274; war and
world, 257-258, 260. See also
League of Nations.
URBANA, message to Farmers
Conference at, 251-255.
VETO, of immigration test bill,
67-70.
VILLA, F., expedition against,
110.
VISIT AND SEARCH, 84. See
also Freedom of the Seas;
Submarines.
p;
WA
WAR, and national unity. See
also Army ; Militarism ; Pre-
)aredness ; World War.
ZONES, illegality, 90, 111-
112. See also Submarines.
WASHINGTON, GEORGE, and na
tional self-determination, 30;
as type, 152; and creation of
nation, 266, 267.
WASTE in American life, 2-3,
201.
WATCHFUL waiting, 64-66.
WATER-POWER, development and
regulation, 57-58.
WEBB, Representative, letter to,
205-206.
WEIZMANN COMMISSION, 272.
WEST POINT, address at, 125-
131.
WILLIAMS, GEORGE, and Y. M.
C. A., 54.
WILSON, WOODROW, forms of
communication with people,
ii-iii; habits of speech, iv-v;
growth, v.
WISE, RABBI, letter to, 272.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE, address on,
154-157 ; growth, 154 ; and so
cial questions, 156 ; force,
156-157; method, 157; and
principles of World War,
224-226.
WOMEN, memorial to Civil War
workers, 202, 204; in Red
Cross work, 259-260. See
also Woman Suffrage.
WORLD power, United States as,
39-44, 81, 142.
WORLD War, Wilson s ad
dresses, iii-iv ; appeal for
American neutrality, 44^46 ;
effect on neutral industry, 56 ;
and America at peace, 67 ;
ideals and spiritual forces,
77-78 ; uncertainty at end,
100-101 ; American rights and
principles, v ; expediency,
105-109, 117; ultimatum to
Germany on submarines,
111-117, 179-180; German
submission to ultimatum, 120-
121, 180-181, 188; American
interest, 121-122, 127 and se
cret diplomacy, 122-123; in
evitable, 126 ; keeping out of,
138, 139, 183; origin, 163;
severance of diplomatic rela
tions with Germany, 179-183,
188-190 ; unavoidable Ameri
can problems, 184-185 ; Amer
ican attitude, IRS-lsn; neces
sity of American unity to
ward, 187; war with Ger-
3 i6
INDEX
many, 188-197 ; American
task, 191-192, 251, 272-273;
American objects and altru
ism, 192-193, 195, 197, 198,
203, 205, 207-210, 216, 221-
222, 233, 247, 251-252, 257,
263; German designs and in
trigue, 193-195, 211-214, 216;
United States and Germany s
allies, 195-196, 237-238 ; public
appeal for support, 197-201;
food problems, 198-201, 252;
industrial problems, 198-201;
economy, 201 ; grimness, 20? -
204; American unity in, 203,
204, 209, 216, 231-233, 257, 274 ;
censorship, 205-206; message
to drafted men, 222-223; la
bor and, 229-230, 272-274;
German aggression and pur
pose, 226-228; when won,
235-236; war with Austria-
Hungary, 237-238 ; govern
ment control of railroads,
238-244 ; war-time agricul
ture, 251-255; duty to win,
256; and world unity, 257-
258, 260; prohibition during,
260-261; birth of United
States and, 267 ; opposing ele
ments, 267-268; as war of
emancipation, 273 ; purposes
and issues, 276-277, 280 ; pub
lic understanding of issues,
280-281; people s war, 281;
message to college corps, 282-
283 ; renewal impossible
under armistice, 286; Ameri
can share, 286; object at
tained, 286-287. See also
Armistice; Autocracy; Free
dom of the Seas ; Middle Eu
rope Empire; Neutrality;
Peace ; Preparedness ; Red
Cross ; Submarines.
YOUNG MEN S CHRISTIAN AS
SOCIATION, address on, 49-55;
elements of strength, 49-51;
atmosphere, 51 ; militancy, 51-
52; progressive leaders, 52-
53; progress, 53-54.
ZIONIST MOVEMENT, 272.
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