lity for it. The German nation, which feels neither hatred
nor hostility against the United States of America, shall also bear
and overcome this."

The march of events went on irresistibly. At 8.35 o'clock on the
evening of Monday, April 2, 1917, President Wilson appeared before a
joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives. He had
addressed the Congress in person several times during his terms of
office, but never under circumstances or in a setting more dramatic.
The streets leading to the Capitol were packed with vast throngs.
White searchlights etched the dome and the pillars against the sky,
revealing the Stars and Stripes waving in the breeze on the flagstaff
above the dome. Two troops of United States cavalry in dress uniform,
with sabers drawn, formed a guard round the House approaches. Hundreds
of police, in uniform and in plain clothes, were scattered along the
route followed by the President's automobile from the White House.
Inside the House, which had been in almost continuous session all day,
the members assembled to receive the President. The senators appeared
carrying little American flags. The Diplomatic Corps, the whole
Supreme Court--in fact, the entire personnel of the Government,
legislative, judicial, and executive--gathered to hear the head of the
American nation present its indictment against the Imperial Government
of Germany.

The President was visibly nervous. He was pale. His voice was neither
strong nor clear. He appeared to be deeply affected by the epochal and
awesome character of his task. His distinguished audience listened in
profound silence as he stated America's case without bluster and
without rancor. The burden of his address was a request that the House
and Senate recognize that Germany had been making war on the United
States and that they agree to his recommendations, which included a
declaration that a state of war existed, that universal military
service be instituted, that a preliminary army of 500,000 be raised,
and that the United States at once cooperate with the Allied Powers as
a belligerent in every way that would operate to effect the defeat of
Germany as a disturber of the world's peace.

In adopting ruthless submarine warfare, the President told Congress,
Germany had swept every restriction aside:

"Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their
cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to
the bottom witho