dustries 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 toward 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 of the democratic Governments of the world.

NATURAL FOE TO LIBERTY.

"We are now about to accept gage 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 as
secure as the faith and the freedom of the nations can make them.

"Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object,
seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all
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