eople, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as
belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio
the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

UNDISGUISED WARFARE.

"I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial
Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or
challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian
Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and
acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now
without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has,
therefore, not been possible for this Government to receive Count
Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the
Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government
has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United
States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of
postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna.
We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there
are no other means of defending our rights.

"It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents
in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus,
not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or
disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible
Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of
right and is running amuck.

"We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and
shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate
relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for
them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our
hearts.

"We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter
months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance
which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still
have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and
actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native
sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to
prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the
Government in the hour of test.

TRUE AND LOYAL AMERICANS.

"They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as