Property
can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be.
The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare
against mankind.
It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American
lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of,
but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been
sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no
discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide
for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be
made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment
befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited
feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion
of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right,
of human right, of which we are only a single champion.
When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I
thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms,
our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to
keep our people safe against unlawful violence.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353