o us unless and until
we are obliged to believe it; and we purpose nothing more than the
reasonable defense of the undoubted rights of our people. We wish to
serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and
in action to the immemorial principles of our people which I sought to
express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago,--seek merely to
vindicate our right to liberty and justice and an unmolested life. These
are the bases of peace, not war. God grant we may not be challenged to
defend them by acts of wilful injustice on the part of the Government of
Germany!

REQUEST FOR AUTHORITY

[Address delivered at a joint session of the two Houses of Congress,
February 26, 1917.]

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

I have again asked the privilege of addressing you because we are moving
through critical times during which it seems to me to be my duty to keep
in close touch with the Houses of Congress, so that neither counsel nor
action shall run at cross purposes between us.

On the third of February I officially informed you of the sudden and
unexpected action of the Imperial German Government in declaring its
intention to disregard the promises it had made to this Government in
April last and undertake immediate submarine operations against all
commerce, whether of belligerents or of neutrals, that should seek to
approach Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic coasts of Europe, or
the harbors of the eastern Mediterranean, and to conduct those
operations without regard to the established restrictions of
international practice, without regard to any considerations of humanity
even which might interfere with their object. That policy was forthwith
put into practice. It has now been in active execution for nearly four
weeks.

Its practical results are not yet fully disclosed. The commerce of other
neutral nations is suffering severely, but not, perhaps, very much more
severely than it was already suffering before the first of February,
when the new policy of the Imperial Government was put into operation.
We have asked the cooeperation of the other neutral governments to
prevent these depredations, but so far none of them has thought it wise
to join us in any common course of action. Our own commerce has
suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact, rather
because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports
than because American ships have been sunk.

Two