What, then, are we to do? For myself, I am ready, ready still, ready
even now, to discuss a fair and just and honest peace at any time that
it is sincerely purposed--a peace in which the strong and the weak shall
fare alike. But the answer, when I proposed such a peace, came from the
German commanders in Russia, and I cannot mistake the meaning of the
answer.
I accept the challenge. I know that you accept it. All the world shall
know that you accept it. It shall appear in the utter sacrifice and
self-forgetfulness with which we shall give all that we love and all
that we have to redeem the world and make it fit for free men like
ourselves to live in. This now is the meaning of all that we do. Let
everything that we say, my fellow-countrymen, everything that we
henceforth plan and accomplish, ring true to this response till the
majesty and might of our concerted power shall fill the thought and
utterly defeat the force of those who flout and misprize what we honor
and hold dear.
Germany has once more said that force, and force alone, shall decide
whether justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether
right as America conceives it or dominion as she conceives it shall
determine the destinies of mankind. There is, therefore, but one
response possible from us: Force, force to the utmost, force without
stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force which shall make
right the law of the world and cast every selfish dominion down in the
dust.