hing so much as the early re-establishment 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 toward 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 toward all who are,
in fact, loyal to their neighbors 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.

RIGHT MORE PRECIOUS THAN PEACE

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.

III

A STATE OF WAR

(_The President's Proclamation of April 6, 1917_)

W