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GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:
Eight months have elapsed since I last had the honor of addressing you.
They have been months crowded with events of immense and grave
significance for us. I shall not undertake to retail or even to
summarize those events. The practical particulars of the part we have
played in them will be laid before you in the reports of the Executive
Departments. I shall discuss only our present outlook upon these vast
affairs, our present duties, and the immediate means of accomplishing
the objects we shall hold always in view.
I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable
wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany
have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true
American to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to consider again
and with a very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures by which
we mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place
is action, and our action must move straight towards definite ends. Our
object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer
ourselves to be diverted until it is won.
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