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.

[Sidenote: America fights the irresponsible Government of Germany.]

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
with 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.

[Sidenote: Most Americans of German birth are loyal to the United
States.]

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. They are most
of them as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other
fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking
and restraining the