s, whether for the Reichstag majority or for the military party and
the men whose creed is imperial domination.

We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to admit of any
further doubt or question. An evident principle runs through the whole
program I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples
and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and
safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this
principle be made its foundation no part of the structure of
international justice can stand. The people of the United States could
act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of this principle
they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that
they possess. The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for
human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength,
their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.

FORCE TO THE UTMOST

[Speech at the Opening of the Third Liberty Loan Campaign, delivered in
the Fifth Regiment Armory, Baltimore, April 6, 1918.]

FELLOW-CITIZENS:

This is the anniversary of our acceptance of Germany's challenge to
fight for our right to live and be free, and for the sacred rights of
freemen everywhere. The nation is awake. There is no need to call to it.
We know what the war must cost, our utmost sacrifice, the lives of our
fittest men, and, if need be, all that we possess.

The loan we are met to discuss is one of the least parts of what we are
called upon to give and to do, though in itself imperative. The people
of the whole country are alive to the necessity of it, and are ready to
lend to the utmost, even where it involves a sharp skimping and daily
sacrifice to lend out of meagre earnings. They will look with
reprobation and contempt upon those who can and will not, upon those who
demand a higher rate of interest, upon those who think of it as a mere
commercial transaction. I have not come, therefore, to urge the loan. I
have come only to give you, if I can, a more vivid conception of what it
is for.

The reasons for this great war, the reason why it had to come, the need
to fight it through, and the issues that hang upon its outcome, are more
clearly disclosed now than ever before. It is easy to see just what this
particular loan means, because the cause we are fighting for stands more
sharply revealed than at any previous crisis of the momento