We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because
there are no other means of defending our rights.
It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents
in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus,
not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury
or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an
irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of
humanity and of right and is running amuck.
We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people,
and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of
intimate relations of mutual advantage between us--however hard it
may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken
from our hearts. We have borne with their present Government through
all these bitter months because of that friendship--exercising a
patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible.
We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship
in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and
women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and
share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are,
in fact, loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour
of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if
they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be
prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may
be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty it
will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it
lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and
without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.