are incapable of
making; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most
sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated.
The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs;
they cut to the very roots of human life.

[Sidenote: Course of Germany actually war on the United States.]

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the
step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves,
but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I
advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial
German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the
Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the
status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it
take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough
state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its
resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end
the war.

[Sidenote: Necessary to co-operate with Ententes.]

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable
co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with
Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those Governments of
the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so
far as possible be added to theirs.

[Sidenote: Resources must be organized.]

It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material
resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the
incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most
economical and efficient way possible.

It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all
respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of
dealing with the enemy's submarines.

[Sidenote: A great army must be raised.]

It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United
States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000
men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of
universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent
additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and
can be handled in training.

[Sidenote: The Government will need adequate credits.]

It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the
Government, sustai