View source for Wilson's War Message to Congress

<font size =4> 2 April, 1917</font>
<hr>  

Woodrow Wilson, <i>War Messages</i>, 65th Cong., 1st Sess. Senate Doc. No.
5, Serial No. 7264, Washington, D.C.,  1917; pp. 3-8, <i> passim. </i><br>      
On 3 February 1917, President Wilson addressed Congress to announce that diplomatic
relations with Germany were severed.  In a Special Session of Congress held on 2 April 1917, President Wilson delivered this 'War Message.'  Four days later, Congress overwhelmingly passed the War Resolution which brought the United States into the Great War.<hr>

<i>Gentlemen of the Congress:    </i>  
<BR><BR> 
I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are
serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately,
which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should 
assume the responsibility of making.
<BR><BR> 
On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary
announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the 1st
day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or 
of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to 
approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts 
of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within 
the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine 
warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial 
Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft 
in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should 
not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which 
its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or 
escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a 
fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken 
were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance 
after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a 
certain degree of restraint was observed The new policy has swept every 
restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their 
character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been 
ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of 
help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along 
with those of belligerents.  Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief 
to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter 
were provided with safe-conduct through the proscribed areas
by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable
marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion
or of principle. 
<BR><BR> 
I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact
be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane
practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the at
tempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, 
where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free
highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built
up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that 
could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the 
heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German 
Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and 
because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it 
is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the 
winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that 
were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now 
thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that 
is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of 
noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have 
always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent 
and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent
people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is
a warfare against mankind. 
<BR><BR> 
It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American 
lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of,
but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been
sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no
discrimination. 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 feeling 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.  
<BR><BR> 
When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that
it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against
unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful
violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in
effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against
merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks 
as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves 
against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. 
It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to 
endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. 
They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German 
Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the 
areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights
which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. 
The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on 
our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject 
to be dealt with as pirates would be.  Armed neutrality is ineffectual 
enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it
is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant
to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without
either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one 
choice we can not make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose 
the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation 
and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now 
array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.
<BR><BR> 
With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step
I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in
unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that
the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to 
be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the 
United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has 
thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put 
the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its 
power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German 
Empire to terms and end the war. 
<BR><BR> 
What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable
cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with
Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of
the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far 
as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and 
mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the 
materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most 
abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will 
involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but 
particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the
enemy's submarines.  It will involve the immediate addition to the 
armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of 
war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the 
principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization 
of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be 
needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the 
granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far 
as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well 
conceived taxation....
<BR><BR> 
While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very
clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our
objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and
normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do 
not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded 
by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind 
when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I 
had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 
26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of
peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and
autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed 
peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will 
henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no
longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved 
and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom 
lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force 
which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. 
We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the
beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of
conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among
nations and their governments that are observed among the individual 
citizens of civilized states. 
<BR><BR> 
We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them
but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that
their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous
knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be 
determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere 
consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest 
of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use 
their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their 
neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about 
some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to 
strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out
only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly
contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from 
generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only 
within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences 
of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public 
opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the 
nation's affairs.
<BR><BR> 
A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a
partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be
trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a
league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals 
away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and 
render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. 
Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a 
common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest 
of their own.
<BR><BR> 
Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for
the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that
have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known 
by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic
at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate
relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their
habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit 
of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the 
reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or 
purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian 
people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces 
that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. 
Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.
<BR><BR> 
One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian
autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very
outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and
even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues 
everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within 
and without our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that 
its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a 
matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the 
intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing 
the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been
carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the
personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited 
to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things 
and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous 
interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source
lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us
(who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in
the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its 
people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us 
at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means
to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to
stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted [<a href="zimmerman.html">Zimmermann</a>] note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.
<BR><BR> 
We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in
such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and
that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to 
accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for 
the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage 
of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend 
the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its 
power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence 
about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the 
liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of 
nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their 
way of life and of obedience. 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 conquest, no dominion. We
seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation 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. 
<BR><BR> 
Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking
nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. 
<BR><BR> 
I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government
of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to 
defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, 
indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless 
and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial 
German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this 
Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited 
to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; 
but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens 
of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present 
at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities 
at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it 
because there are no other means of defending our rights. 
<BR><BR> 
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 towards 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 
reestablishment 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 towards 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 towards all who are in fact loyal to 
their neighbours 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.
<BR><BR> 
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 peoples 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.
<hr>

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