HOW THE UNITED STATES WENT INTO WAR
One hundred and thirty years before the great war of Europe came
to the threshold of the United States a group of wise, far-sighted
statesmen met in the city of Philadelphia to make a constitution for
the governing of the Colonies whose independence had just been won.
They desired, above all things, to establish a government which would
stand the test of time and remain a government of the people, by the
people, and for the people. For months they deliberated, bringing to
the meetings all the wisdom, all the ideals, all the visioning they
had acquired from long study, and from victorious, righteous warfare.
Finally they--the fathers of our republic--completed a document that
has governed the United States of America and become to the world a
model of democratic government.
In this document, which was ratified by the States then existing and
which became the law of those States which were admitted to the nation,
its makers set down certain rules governing the making of war.
The Constitution divided the government into three branches: the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial. In order that no one of
them might have too much power, the duties of each were determined
and divided. The executive, of which the President is chief, could do
certain deeds and duties. The judicial had the final determination of
the right of enacting certain laws, saying whether or not later laws,
made by Congress, conformed to the original Constitution. But to the
legislative, represented by two houses of Congress, the Senate and the
House of Representatives, the Constitution granted certain very clear
powers.
Among these powers was the power to declare war. In autocracies
monarchs declare war; but in a democracy such as ours it is right and
just that the power of declaring war should rest with that body most
directly responsive to the people of the nation. The Congress is such
a body. The Constitution therefore gave to Congress the right of war
declaration; and nothing better illustrates the difference between
autocracy and democracy than the fact that the Emperor of Germany had
thrust his country into war three days before the German _Reichstag_,
which is the limited popular assembly of the empire, knew officially of
its existence, while the President of the United States had to summon
Congress into special session for consideration of the war problem.
On the second day of April, 1917, the President went before the
Congress which he had summoned. Beneath the dome of the white Capitol
in the city of Washington, while a world waited breathlessly for
the verdict of the great nation, he read his message to the men who
represent the people of the United States. In that message he set down
the case of the United States against Germany. Only twice before in
the history of America--at the beginning of the War of the Revolution
and at the beginning of the war between the States--had there been so
momentous an occasion. Upon the men assembled in the Senate and the
House of Representatives depended the honor, the future of the nation,
and the honor and the future of democracy.
“It is a war,” the President read to them, “against all nations.... The
challenge is to all mankind. Each nation 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
character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feelings
away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the
physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of
human right, of which we are only a single champion.”
In that spirit the Congress listened. In that spirit they heard the
voice of the man who was speaking not for himself but for our United
States, not for our generation alone but for the generations who
have passed and the generations who will come, when he said:
[Illustration: _From a photograph by G. V. Buck, Underwood & Underwood._
President Wilson delivering his war message
On the second day of April, 1917 ... while a world waited breathlessly
for the verdict of the great nation, President Wilson read his message
to the men who represent the people of the United States]
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted
upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish
ends to serve. We desire no conquests, no dominion. We seek no
indemnities for ourselves, no material compensations 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.”
With the weight of the gravest responsibility an American Congress has
ever raised falling upon their shoulders, they gave heed as the chief
executive brought to them the issue:
“It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress,
which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,
many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most
terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to
be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we
shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our
hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority
to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties
of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert
of free people 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 everything 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.”
The Congress of the United States deliberated, through three days and
three nights, while the world waited, upon the question of war. On
the 2d of April, the very day of the President’s message, the war
declaration passed the Senate with a vote of 82 yeas and 6 nays. On
the 5th of April, it passed the House of Representatives with a vote
of 373 yeas and 70 nays. America had spoken, and the voice of America
thundered this message to Germany:
“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 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.”
The United States of America had gone into its greatest war.