ntlemen 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, civilisation 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."

After this speech was printed in Germany, first in excerpts and then as
a whole in a few papers, there were three distinct reactions:

1. The Government press and the circles controlled by the Army
published violent articles against President Wilson and the United
States.

2. The democratic press led by the _Vorwaerts_ took advantage of
Wilson's statements to again demand election reforms.

3. Public feeling generally was so aroused that the official _North
German Gazette_ said at the end of a long editorial that the Kaiser
favoured a "people's kingdom of Hohenzollern."

The ammunition interests were among the first to express their
satisfaction with America as an enemy. The _Rheinische Westfaelische
Zeitung_, their official graphophone, said:

"The real policy of America is now fully disclosed by the outbreak of
the war. Now a flood of lies and insults, clothed in pious
phraseology, will descend on us. This is a surprise only to those who
have been reluctant to admit that America was our enemy from the
beginning. The voice of America does not sound differently from that
of any other enemy. They are all tarred with the same brush--those
humanitarians and democrats who hurl the world into war and refuse
peace."

The _Lokal Anzeiger_, which is practically edited by the Foreign
Office, said President Wilson'