d 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 few who may be
of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will
be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its
head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance
except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress,
which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be,
many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful
thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most
terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be
in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall
fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our
hearts--for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to
have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of
small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of
free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the
world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and
our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with
the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is
privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave
her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God
helping her, she can do no other.

His address to Congress on November 11, 1918, while all the Allied
Nations were celebrating with exultant hearts the victory that had come
to them, was no less dramatic than the speech that had marked the
beginning of the war. He prefaced it by reading the drastic terms of the
armistice granted to Germany. Continuing he said:

The war thus comes to an end; for, having accepted these terms of
armistice, it will be impossible for the German command to renew it.

It is not now possible to assess the consequences of this great
consummation. We know only that this tragical war, whose consuming
flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire,
is at an end and that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it
at its most critical juncture in such fashion and in such force as to