"That he will support the constitution of the United States, and that he absolutely and entirely, renounces all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty; that he will support and defend the constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same."

All these naturalized citizens who are taking part in this obstruction to our government in the conduct of the war are false to their oaths, are forfeiting their rights of citizenship, are repudiating their honorable obligations, are requiting by evil the good that has been done them in the generous and unstinted hospitality with which the people of the United States have welcomed them to the liberty and the opportunities of this free land. We must believe that in many cases this is done because of failure to understand what this war really is.

This is a war of defense. It is perfectly described in the words of the constitution which established this nation: "To provide for the common defense" and "To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

The national defense demands not merely force, but intelligence. It requires foresight, consideration of the policies and purposes of other nations, understanding of the inevitable or probable consequences of the acts of other nations, judgment as to the time when successful defense may be made, and when it will be too late, and prompt action before it is too late.

By entering this war in April, the United States availed itself of the very last opportunity to defend itself against subjection to German power before it was too late to defend itself successfully.

For many years we have pursued our peaceful course of internal development protected in a variety of ways. We were protected by the law of nations to which all civilized governments have professed their allegiance. So long as we committed no injustice ourselves we could not be attacked without a violation of that law.

We were protected by a series of treaties under which all the principal nations of the earth agreed to respect our rights and to maintain friendship with us. We were protected by an extensive system of arbitration created by or consequent upon the peace conferences at The Hague, and under which all controversies arising under the law and under treaties were to be settled peaceably by arbitration and not by force.

We were protected by the broad expanse of ocean separating us from all great military powers, and by the bold assertion of the Monroe Doctrine that if any of those powers undertook to overpass the ocean and establish itself upon these western continents that would be regarded as dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, and would call upon her to act in her defense.

We were protected by the fact that the policy and the fleet of Great Britain were well known to support the Monroe Doctrine. We were protected by the deli

cate balance of power in Europe which made it seem not worth while for any power to engage in a conflict here at the risk of suffering from its rivals there.

All these protections were swept away by the war which began in Europe in 1914. The war was begun by the concerted action of Germany and Austria-the invasion of Serbia on the east by Austria and the invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium on the west by Germany. Both invasions were in violation of the law of nations, and in violation of the faith of treaties.

Everybody knew that Russia was bound in good faith to come to the relief of Serbia, that France was bound by treaty to come to the aid of Russia, that England was bound by treaty to come to the aid of Belgium, so that the invasion of these two small states was the beginning of a general European war.

These acts, which have drenched the world with blood, were defended and justified in the bold avowal of the German government that the interests of the German state were superior to the obligations of law and the faith of treaties, that no law or treaty was binding upon Germany which it was for the interest of Germany to violate.

5

All pretense of obedience to the law of nations and of respect for solemn promises was thrown off; and, in lieu of that system of lawful and moral restraint upon power which Christian civilization has been building up for a century was reinstated the cynical philosophy of Frederick the Great, the greatest of the Hohenzollerns, who declares:

"Statesmanship can be reduced to three principles: First, to maintain your power, and, according to circumstances, to extend it. Second, to form an alliance only for your own advantage. Third, to command fear and respect, even in the most disastrous times. "Do not be ashamed of making interested alliances from which you yourself can derive the whole advantage. Do not make the foolish mistake of not breaking them when you believe your interests require it.

"Above all, uphold the following maxim: To despoil your neighbors is to deprive them of the means of injuring you.

"When he is about to conclude a treaty with some foreign power, if a sovereign remembers he is a Christion, he is lost."

She

From 1914 until the present, in a war waged by Germany with a revolting barbarity unequaled since the conquests of Genghis Khan,6 Germany has violated every rule agreed upon by civilized nations in modern times to mitigate the barbarities of war or to protect the rights of noncombatants and neutrals. had no grievance against Belgium except that Belgium stood upon her admitted rights and refused to break the faith of her treaties by consenting that the neutrality of her territory should be violated to give Germany an avenue for the attack upon France.

She has taken possession of the territory of Belgium and subjected her people to the hard yoke of a brutal soldiery. She has extorted vast sums from her peaceful cities. She has burned her towns and battered down her noble churches. She has strinned the Rel

gian factories of their machinery and deprived them of the raw material of manufacture.

She has carried away her workmen by tens of thousands into slavery, and her women into worse than slavery. She has slain peaceful noncombatants by the hundred, undeterred by the helplessness of age, of infancy, or of womanhood. She has done the same in northern France, in Poland, in Serbia, in Roumania.

In all of these countries women have been outraged by the thousand, by tens of thousand, and who ever heard of a German soldier being punished for rape, or robbery, or murder? These revolting outrages upon humanity and law are not the casual incidents of war, but are the results of a settled policy of frightfulness answering to the maxim of the Great Frederick to "command respect through fear.

Why were these things done by Germany? The answer rests upon the accumulated evidence of German acts and German words so conclusive that no pretense can cover it, no sophistry can disguise it. The answer is that this war was begun and these crimes against humanity were done because Germany was pursuing the hereditary policy of the Hohenzollerns and following the instincts of the arrogant military caste which rules Prussia, to grasp the over-lordship of the civilized world and establish an empire in which she should play the rôle of ancient Rome.

They were done because Prussian militarism still pursues the policy of power through conquest, of aggrandizement through force and fear, which in little more than two centuries has brought the puny mark