The Call for War with Austria-Hungary
Government Administration of Railways
The Conditions of Peace
Force to the Utmost

INTRODUCTION

These addresses of President Woodrow Wilson represent only the most
recent phase of his intellectual activity. They are almost entirely
concerned with political affairs, and more specifically with defining
Americanism. It will not be forgotten, however, that the life of Mr.
Wilson as President of the United States is but a short period compared
with the whole of his public career as professor of jurisprudence,
history, and politics, as President of Princeton University, as Governor
of New Jersey, as an orator, and as a writer of many books.

Surprise has been expressed that a man, after reaching the age of fifty,
should be able to step from the "quiet" life of a teacher and author
into the resounding regions of politics; but Mr. Wilson's life as a
scholar, professor, and author was not at all quiet in the sense of
being easy or untouched with exciting chances and changes, and, in the
second place, he carried into politics the steadying ideals and the
methodical habits of his former occupation.

As these addresses themselves prove, he has retained something of the
teacher's interest in showing the relation between specific instances
and the general forms of thought or action of which they are a part. Not
fact alone, but principle, is what he seeks to discover to his
audiences. In the addresses made in 1913 it is apparent that his main
effort was to fasten attention upon the principles of international
justice and good will and to restrain the impulses of those Americans
who were inclined to hasty action with reference to Mexico. From the
beginning of the Great War to a point not much earlier than our own
entrance into the struggle, he counselled neutrality and inaction, with
what motives one must judge from his statements and from events. Only a
few speeches belonging to this period have been included in the present
collection. When it became practically certain that war between the
United States and Germany was inevitable, there came into his utterances
a new temper and a more direct kind of eloquence. With scarcely an
exception, this collection includes every one of his addresses made
between August, 1916, and February, 1918.

Some of the addresses are state papers, read to Congress, and were
carefully composed. Others, delivered in various places, appear to have
been mo