to gain its end it does not hesitate to break faith, to violate the most sacred rights, or to prepetrate intolerable acts of inhumanity.

It needed but the words reported to have been uttered by the German Chancellor to complete the picture of the character of his Government when he announced that the only reason why the intensified submarine campaign was delayed until February last was that sufficient submarines could not be built before that time to make the

attacks on commerce effective. Do you realize that this means, if it means anything, that the promises to refrain from brutal submarine warfare, which Germany had made to the United States, were never intended to be kept, that they were only made in order to gain time in which to build more submarines, and that when the time came to act the German promises were unhesitatingly torn to pieces like other "scraps of paper"?

It is this disclosure of the character of the Imperial German Government which is the underlying cause of our entry into the war. We had doubted, or at least many Americans had doubted, the evil purposes of the rulers of Germany. Doubt remained no longer. In the light of events we could read the past and see that for a quarter of a century the absorbing ambition of the mili

tary oligarchy which was the master of the German Empire was for world dominion. Every agency in the fields of commerce, industry, science and diplomacy had been directed by the German Government to this supreme end. Philosophers and preachers taught that the destiny of Germany was to rule the world, thus preparing the mind of the German people for the time when the mighty engine which the German Government had constructed should crush all opposition and the German Emperor should rule supreme.

For nearly three years we have watched the conduct of the Imperial Government, and we have learned more and more of the character of that Government and of its aims. We came very slowly to a realizing sense that not only was the freedom of the European nations at stake, but the liberty throughout the world was threatened by the powerful autocracy which was seek-. ing to gratify its vast ambition.

Not impulsively, but with deliberation, the American people reached the only decision which was possible from the standpoint of their own national safety. Congress declared that a state of war existed between the United States and the Imperial Government of Germany, and this country united with the other liberal nations of the earth to crush the power which sought to erect

on the ruins of democracy a world empire greater than that of Greece or Rome of the Caliphs.

The President has said, with the wonderful ability which he has to express aptly a great thought in a single phrase that "the world must be made safe for democracy." In that thought there is more than the establishment of liberty and self-government for all nations, there is in it the hope of an enduring peace.

I do not know in the annals of history an instance where a people, with truly democratic institutions, permitted their government to wage a war of aggression, a war of conquest. Faithful to their treaties, sympathetic with others seeking self-development, real democracies, whether monarchical or republican in their forms of government, desire peace with their neighbors and with all mankind.

Were every people on earth able to express their will there would be no wars of aggression, and if there were no wars of aggression then there would be no wars, and lasting peace would come to this earth. The only way that a people can express their will is through democratic institutions. Therefore, when the world is made safe for democracy, when that great principle

prevails, universal peace will be an accomplished fact.

No nation or people will benefit more than the United States when that time comes. But it has not yet come. A great people, ruled in thought and word, as well as in deed, by the most sinister government of modern times, is straining every nerve to supplant democracy by the autocracy which they have been taught to worship. When will the German people awaken to the truth? When will they arise in their might and cast off the yoke and become their own masters? I fear that it will not be until a physical might of the united democracies of the world have destroyed forever the evil ambition of the military rulers of Germany, and liberty triumphs over its arch enemies.

And yet in spite of these truths which have been brought to light in these last three years I wonder how many 'Americans feel that our democracy is in peril, that our liberty needs protection, that the United States is in real danger from the malignant forces which are seeking to impose their will upon the world, as they have upon Germany and her deceived allies.

Let us understand once for all that this is no war to establish an abstract principle of right. It is a war in which the future of the United

States is at stake. If any among you have the idea that we are fighting others' battles and not our own, the sooner he gets away from that idea the better it will be for him, the better it will be for all of us.

Imagine Germany victor in Europe because the United States remained neutral. Who, then, think you, would be the next victim of those who are seeking to be masters of the whole earth? Would not this country with its enormous wealth arouse the cupidity of an impoverished though triumphant Germany? Would not this democracy be the only obstacle between the autocratic. rulers of Germany and their supreme ambition? Do you think that they would withhold their hand from so rich a prize?

Let me then ask you, would it be easier or wiser for this country single-handed to resist a German Empire, flushed with victory and with great armies and navies at its command, than to unite with the brave enemies of that Empire in ending now and for all time this menace to our future?

Primarily, then, every man who crosses the ocean to fight on foreign soil against the armies of the German Emperor goes forth to fight for his country and for the preservation of those things for which our forefathers were willing to