logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria. They also are the tools of Germany. But they are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct path of our necessary action. We shall go wherever the necessities of this war carry us, but it seems to me that we should go only where immediate and practical considerations lead us and not heed any others.

The financial and military measures which must be adopted will suggest themselves as the war and its undertakings develop, but I will take the liberty of proposing to you certain other acts of legislation which seem to me to be needed for the support of the war and for the release of our whole force and energy. . .

We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusiasm because we know that for us this is a war of high principle, debased by no selfish ambition of conquest or spoliation; because we know, and all the world knows, that we have been forced into it to save the very institutions we live under from corruption and destruction. The purposes of the Central Powers strike straight at the very heart of everything we believe in; their methods of warfare outrage every principle of humanity and of knightly honor; their intrigue has corrupted the very thought and spirit of many of our people; their sinister and secret diplomacy has sought to take our very territory away from us and disrupt the union of the States. Our safety would be at an end, our honor forever sullied and brought into contempt, were we to permit their triumph. They are striking at the very existence of democracy and liberty.

It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested purpose, in which all the free peoples of the world are banded together for the vindication of right, a war for the preservation of our Nation and of all that it has held dear of

principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves doubly constrained to propose for its outcome only that which is righteous and of irreproachable intention, for our foes as well as for our friends.

The cause being just and holy, the settlement must be of like motive and quality. For this we can fight, but for nothing less noble or less worthy of our traditions. For this cause we entered the war, and for this cause we will battle until the last gun is fired.

I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in order that all the world may know that even in the heat and ardor of the struggle and when our whole thought is of carrying the war through to its end we have not forgotten any idealor principle for which the name of America has been held in honor among the nations and for which it has been our glory to contend in the great generations that went before us. A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of His own justice and mercy.

WHEN THE GREAT GRAY SHIPS COME IN 1

GUY WETMORE CARRYL (1873-1904)

To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o'er mapless miles of sea,

On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost isles are free;

1This poem refers to the entrance of the warships into New York harbor August 20, 1898, when peace with Spain was declared.

And the furthermost isles make answer, harbor and height and hill.

Breaker and beach cry each to each, ""Tis the Mother

who calls! Be still!"

Mother! new-found beloved, and strong to hold from harm, Stretching to these across the seas the shield of her sovereign arm,

Who summoned the guns of her sailor sons, who bade her navies roam,

Who calls again to the leagues of main, and who calls them this time home!

And the great gray ships are silent, and the weary watchers rest;

The black cloud dies in the August skies, and deep in the golden west

Invisible hands are limning a glory of crimson bars,

And far above is the wonder of a myriad wakened stars! Peace! As the tidings silence the strenuous cannonade, Peace at last! is the bugle blast the length of the long blockade;

And eyes of vigil weary are lit with the glad release, From ship to ship and from lip to lip, it is "Peace! Thank God for peace!"

Ah, in the sweet hereafter Columbia still shall show The sons of these who swept the seas how she bade them rise and go;

At the outbreak of this war the white warships were painted gray for the first time in their existence, all of them having been built during the years of peace.

From "The Garden of Years." Copyright, 1914, by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Used by permission of the publishers and of the editor, Henry D. Sleeper.

How, when the stirring summons smote on her children's

ear,

South and North at the call stood forth, and the whole land answered, "Here!"

For the soul of the soldier's story and the heart of the sailor's song

Are all of those who meet their foes as right should meet with wrong,

Who fight their guns till the foeman runs, and then, on the decks they trod,

Brave faces raise, and give the praise to the grace of their country's God!

Yes, it is good to battle, and good to be strong and free,

To carry the hearts of a people to the uttermost ends of

sea,

To see the day steal up the bay where the enemy lies in wait,

To run your ship to the harbor's lip and sink her across the strait:

But better the golden evening, when the ships round heads for home,

And the long gray miles slip swiftly past in a swirl of seething foam,

And the people wait at the haven's gate to greet the men who win!

Thank God for peace! Thank God for peace! when the great gray ships come in!

A WORLD PEACE1

WOODROW WILSON

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open, and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments, and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow now or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live. its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest,

1 From address delivered before Congress, January 8, 1918. In pamphlet, "War, Labor, and Peace," issued by Committee on Public Information, Washington, D.C.