g, and of the grave responsibility 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 defence, 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."

Congress voted a declaration of war April 6. Only six senators out of a
total of 96, and fifty representatives out of a total of 435, voted
against it. Congress also, at the request of the President, voted for
the creation of a national army and the raising to war strength of the
National Guard, the Marine corps and the Navy. Laws were passed dealing
with espionage, trading with the enemy and the unlawful manufacture and
use of explosives. Provision was made for the insurance of soldiers and
sailors, for priority of shipments, for the seizure and use of enemy
ships in American harbors, for conserving and controlling the food and
fuel supply of the country, for stimulating agriculture, for enlarging
the aviation branch of the service, for extending credit to foreign
governments, for issuing bonds and for providing additional revenues by
increasing old and creating new taxes.

The extra session of congress lasted a few days over six months. In that
time it passed all the above measures and others of less importance. It
authorized the expenditure of over nineteen billions of dollars
($19,321,225,208). Including the amount appropriated at the second
session of the preceeding congress, the amount reached the unheard of
total of over twenty-one billions of dollars ($21,390,730,940).

German intrigues and German ruthlessness created an additional stench in
the nostrils of civilization when on September 8, the United States made
public the celebrated "Spurlos Versenkt" telegram which had come into
its possession. It is a German phrase meaning "sunk without leaving a
trace" and was contained in a telegram from Luxburg, the German minister
at Buenos Aires. The telegram (of May 19, 1917) advised that Argentine
steamers "be spared if possible or else sunk without a trace being
l