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A number of boats with Americans on board were torpedoed without warning

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WHY WE WENT TO WAR

CHAPTER I

FUNDAMENTAL ANTAGONISMS

T is a mistake to believe that a declaration of

IT

war is the beginning of a conflict. It merely marks the transference of that conflict from the field of statesmanship to the field of arms. It is the last gesture of diplomacy, its non possumus in the face of an impending crisis. Wars, recent wars especially, are the final expression of seemingly fundamental and irreconcilable antagonisms between nations or races, and the entire world stands in arms to-day, not so much because boundaries are threatened as because national ideals are at stake. The declaration of war by President Wilson meant that since American principles were threatened by Germany, he, as the responsible ruler of the United States, could do no less than accept the repeated challenges and meet force with force. A love of peace he had shown from the very be

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