I judge only what the German arms
have accomplished with unpitying thoroughness throughout every fair
region they have touched.
What, then are we to do? For myself, I am ready, ready still, ready even
now, to discuss a fair and just and honest peace at any time that it is
sincerely purposed--a peace in which the strong and the weak shall fare
alike. But the answer, when I proposed such a peace, came from the
German commanders in Russia and I cannot mistake the meaning of the
answer.
I accept the challenge. I know that you accept it. All the world shall
know that you accept it. It shall appear in the utter sacrifice and
self-forgetfulness with which we shall give all that we love and all
that we have to redeem the world and make it fit for free men like
ourselves to live in. This now is the meaning of all that we do. Let
everything that we say, my fellow-countrymen, everything that we
henceforth plan and accomplish, ring true to this response till the
majesty and might of our concerted power shall fill the thought and
utterly defeat the force of those who flout and misprize what we honor
and hold dear.
Germany has once more said that force, and force alone, shall decide
whether justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether
right as America conceives it or dominion as she conceives it shall
determine the destinies of mankind.
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