eople, so far as we may, against the
very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of
the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.
MUST SUPPLY THE ALLIES
"In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be
accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering
as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of
our own military forces with the duty--for it will be a very practical
duty--of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the
materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They
are in the field, and we should help them in every way to be effective
there.
"I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive
departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees,
measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned.
I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them, as having been
framed after very careful thought by the branch of the government upon
which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the
nation will most directly fall.
SEEKS FREEDOM OF WORLD
"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 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 twenty-second of January last; the same that
I had in mind when I addressed the congress on the third of February
and on the twenty-sixth 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 insure 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 c
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