Part 28

In the new year of 1917, as through our acceptance of world responsibilities so plainly indicated in the President's utterances in regard to a league of nations we felt ourselves now drawing nearer to a full accord with the Powers of the Entente; and, as on the other hand, we found ourselves more and more outraged at the German Government's methods of conducting warfare and their brutal treatment of people in their conquered lands; as we more and more uncovered their hostile intrigues against the peace of the New World; and, above all, as the sinister and anti-democratic ideals of their ruling class became manifest in their manoeuvres for a peace of conquest--the Imperial German Government abruptly threw aside the mask.

On the last day of January, 1917, Count Bernstorff handed to Mr. Lansing a note, in which his Government announced its purpose to intensify and render more ruthless the operations of their submarines at sea, in a manner against which our Government had protested from the beginning. The German Chancellor also stated before the Imperial Diet that the reason this ruthless policy had not been earlier employed was simply because the Imperial Government had not then been ready to act. In brief, under the guise of friendship and the cloak of false promises, it had been preparing this attack.

This was the direct challenge. There was no possible answer except to hand their Ambassador his passports and so have done with a diplomatic correspondence which had been vitiated from the start by the often proved bad faith of the Imperial Government.

On the same day, February 3, 1917, the President addressed both houses of our Congress and announced the complete severance of our relations with Germany. The reluctance with which he took this step was evident in every word. But diplomacy had failed, and it would have been the hollowest pretense to maintain relations. At the same time, however, he made it plain that he did not regard this act as tantamount to a declaration of war. Here for the first time the President made his sharp distinction between government and people in undemocratic lands:

"We are the sincere friends of the German people," he said, "and earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for them. * * * God grant we may not be challenged by acts of willful injustice on the part of the Government of Germany."

In this address of the President, and in its indorsement by the Senate, there was a solemn warning; for we still had hope that the German Government might hesitate to drive us to war. But it was soon evident that our warning had fallen on deaf ears. The tortuous ways and means of German official diplomacy were clearly shown in the negotiations opened by them through the Swiss Legation on the 10th of February. In no word of their proposals did the German Government meet the real issue between us. And our State Department replied that no minor negotiations could be entertained until the main issue had been met by the withdrawal of the submarine order.

By the 1st of March it had become plain that the Imperial Government, unrestrained by the warning in the President's address to Congress on February 3, was determined to make good its threat. The President then again appeared before Congress to report the development of the crisis and to ask the approval of the representatives of the nation for the course of armed neutrality upon which, under his constitutional authority, he had now determined. More than 500 of the 531 members of the two houses of Congress showed themselves ready and anxious to act; and the armed neutrality declaration would have been accepted if it had not been for the legal death of the Sixty-fourth Congress on March 4.

No "overt" act, however, was ordered by our Government until Count Bernstorff had reached Berlin and Mr. Gerard was in Washington. For the German Ambassador on his departure had begged that no irrevocable decision should be taken until he had had the chance to make one final plea for peace to his sovereign. We do not know the nature of his report to the Kaiser; we know only that, even if he kept his pledge and urged an eleventh-hour revocation of the submarine order, he was unable to sway the policy of the Imperial Government.

And so, having exhausted every resource of patience, our Government on the 12th of March finally issued orders to place armed guards on our merchant ships.

With the definite break in diplomatic relations there vanished the last vestige of cordiality toward the Government of Germany. Our attitude was now to change. So long as we had maintained a strict neutrality in the war, for the reason that circumstances might arise in which Europe would have need of an impartial mediator, for us to have given official heed to the accusations of either party would have been to prejudge the case before all the evidence was in.

But now at last, with the breaking of friendly relations with the German Government, we were relieved of the oppressive duty of endeavoring to maintain a judicial detachment from the rights and wrongs involved in the war. We were no longer the outside observers striving to hold an even balance of judgment between disputants. One party by direct attack upon our rights and liberties was forcing us into the conflict. And, much as we had hoped to keep out of the fray, it was no little relief to be free at last from that reserve which is expected of a judge.

Much evidence had been presented to us of things so abhorrent to our ideas of humanity that they had seemed incredible, things we had been loath to believe, and with heavy hearts we had sought to reserve our judgment. But with the breaking of relations with the Government of Germany that duty at last was ended. The perfidy of that Government in its dealings with this nation relieved us of the necessity of striving to give them the benefit of the doubt in regard to their crimes abroad. The Government which under cover of profuse professions of friendship had tried to embroil us in war with Mexico and Japan could not expect us to believe in its good faith in other matters. The men whose paid agents dynamited our factories here were capable of the infamies reported against them over the sea. Their Government's protestations, that their purpose was self-defense and the freeing of small nations, fell like a house of cards before the revelation of their "peace terms."

And judging the German Government now in the light of our own experience through the long and patient years of our honest attempt to keep the peace, we could see the great autocracy and read her record through the war. And we found that record damnable. Beginning long before the war in Prussian opposition to every effort that was made by other nations and our own to do away with warfare, the story of the autocracy has been one of vast preparations for war combined with an attitude of arrogant intolerance toward all other points of view, all other systems of governments, all other hopes and dreams of men.

With a fanatical faith in the destiny of German Kultur as the system that must rule the world, the Imperial Government's actions have through years of boasting, double dealing, and deceit tended toward aggression upon the rights of others. And, if there still be any doubt as to which nation began this war, there can be no uncertainty as to which one was most prepared, most exultant at the chance, and ready instantly to march upon other nations--even those who had given no offense.

The wholesale depredations and hideous atrocities in Belgium and in Serbia were doubtless part and parcel with the Imperial Government's purpose to terrorize small nations into abject submission for generations to come. But in this the autocracy has been blind. For its record in those countries, and in Poland and in Northern France, has given not only to the Allies but to liberal peoples throughout the world the conviction that this menace to human liberties everywhere must be utterly shorn of its power for harm.

For the evil it has effected has ranged far out of Europe--out upon the open seas, where its submarines, in defiance of law and the concepts of humanity, have blown up neutral vessels and covered the waves with the dead and the dying, men and women and children alike. Its agents have conspired against the peace of neutral nations everywhere, sowing the seeds of dissension, ceaselessly endeavoring by tortuous methods of deceit, of bribery, false promises, and intimidation to stir up brother nations one against the other, in order that the liberal world might not be able to unite, in order that the autocracy might emerge triumphant from the war.

All this we know from our own experience with the Imperial Government. As they have dealt with Europe, so they have dealt with us and with all mankind. And so out of these years the conviction has grown that until the German Nation is divested of such rulers democracy cannot be safe.

There remained but one element to confuse the issue. One other great autocracy, the Government of the Russian Czar, had long been hostile to free institutions; it had been a stronghold of tyrannies reaching far back into the past, and its presence among the Allies had seemed to be in disaccord with the great liberal principles they were upholding in this war. Russia had been a source of doubt. Repeatedly during the conflict liberal Europe had been startled by the news of secret accord between the Kaiser and the Czar.

But now at this crucial time for our nation, on the eve of our entrance into the war, the free men of all the world were thrilled and heartened by the news that the people of Russia had risen to throw off their Government and found a new democracy; and the torch of freedom in Russia lit up the last dark phases of the situation abroad. Here, indeed, was a fit partner for the League of Honor. The conviction was finally crystallized in American minds and hearts that this war across the sea was no mere conflict between dynasties, but a stupendous civil war of all the world; a new campaign in the age-old war, the prize of which is liberty. Here, at last, was a struggle in which all who love freedom have a stake. Further neutrality on our part would have been a crime against our ancestors, who had given their lives that we might be free.

"The world must be made safe for democracy."

On the 2d of April, 1917, the President read to the new Congress his message, in which he asked the Representatives of the nation to declare the existence of a state of war, and in the early hours of the 6th of April the House by an overwhelming vote accepted the joint resolution which had already passed the Senate.

"Whereas, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America: Therefore be it

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on the war against the Imperial German Government, and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."

Neutrality was a thing of the past. The time had come when the President's proud prophecy was fulfilled:

"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.'"

THE WAR MESSAGE

PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because 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 responsibility of making.