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 feelings 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.

"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
endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intentions.
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 cannot 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 wron