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 note to the German Minister at Mexico City is
eloquent evidence.

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 gauge 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
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 c