ce. Here is a fit
partner for a league of honor.

One of the things that have 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 council, 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 German 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 toward 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 note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent
evidence.

A CHALLENGE OF HOSTILE PURPOSE

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 the 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 pretense about
them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the
liberation of its peoples, the German people