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Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

"President Wilson's Addresses"


But they will make no headway. Falsehood betrays them in every accent.
These facts are patent to all the world, and nowhere more plainly than
in the United States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts, not
sophistries; and the great fact that stands out above all the rest is
that this is a peoples' war for freedom, justice and self-government
among all the nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for the
peoples who live upon it, the German people included, and that with us
rests the choice to break through all these hypocrisies, the patent
cheats and masks of brute force, and help set the world free, or else
stand aside and let it be dominated through sheer weight of arms and the
arbitrary choices of the self-constituted masters by the nation which
can maintain the biggest armies, the most irresistible armaments, a
power to which the world has afforded no parallel, in the face of which
political freedom must wither and perish.
For us there was but one choice. We have made it, and woe be to that
man, or that group of men, that seeks to stand in our way in this day of
high resolution, when every principle we hold dearest is to be
vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nation.


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