If I have overlooked anything that ought to be done for the more
effective conduct of the war, your own counsels will supply the
omission. What I am perfectly clear about is that, in the present
session of the Congress, our whole attention and energy should be
concentrated on the vigorous and rapid and successful prosecution of
the great task of winning the war.
We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusiasm because we
know that for us this is a war of high principle, debased by no
selfish ambition of conquest or spoliation; because we know, and all
the world knows, that we have been forced into it to save the very
institutions we live under from corruption and destruction. The
purposes of the Central Powers strike straight at the very heart of
everything we believe in; their methods of warfare outrage every
principle of humanity and of knightly honor; their intrigue has
corrupted the very thought and spirit of many of our people; their
sinister and secret diplomacy has sought to take our very territory
away from us and disrupt the union of the States. Our safety would be
at an end, our honor forever sullied and brought into contempt, were
we to permit their triumph. They are striking at the very existence
of democracy and liberty.
It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested purpose, in
which all the free people of the world are banded together for the
vindication of right, a war for the preservation of our nation and of
all that it has held dear of principle and of purpose, that we feel
ourselves doubly constrained to propose for its outcome only that
which is righteous and of irreproachable intention, for our foes as
well as for our friends.
The cause being just and holy, the settlement must be of like motive
and quality. For this we can fight, but for nothing less noble or
less worthy of our traditions. For this cause we entered the war, and
for this cause we will battle until the last gun is fired.
I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time when it is
most necessary to speak plainly, in order that all the world may know
that even in the heat and ardor of the struggle, and when our whole
thought is of carrying the war through to its end, we have not
forgotten any ideal or principle for which the name of America has
been held in honor among the nations and for which it has been our
glory to contend in the great generations that went before us.
A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have
been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations.
He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the
clear heights of His own justice and mercy.