President Wilson's Declaration of Neutrality
Woodrow Wilson, Message to Congress, 63rd Cong., 2d Sess., Senate Doc. No. 566 (Washington, 1914), pp. 3-4.
The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American
citizens say and do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak
in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and
fairness and friendliness to all concerned. The spirit of the nation in
this critical matter will be determined largely by what individuals and
society and those gathered in public meetings do and say, upon what
newspapers and magazines contain, upon what ministers utter in their
pulpits, and men proclaim as their opinions upon the street.
The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly
from the nations now at war. It is natural and inevitable that there
should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with
regard to the issues and circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish
one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will
be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those responsible
for exciting it will assume a heavy responsibility, responsibility for
no less a thing than that the people of the United States, whose love of
their country and whose loyalty to its government should unite them as
Americans all, bound in honor and affection to think first of her and her
interests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each
other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if not in action.
Such divisions amongst us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might
seriously stand in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the one
great nation at peace, the one people holding itself ready to play a part
of impartial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommodation,
not as a partisan, but as a friend.
I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name, during these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial in thought, as well as action, must put a curb upon our sentiments, as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.
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