should be assured a direct outlet to the great highways of the sea. Where this cannot be done by the cession of territory, it can be done by the neutralization of direct rights of way under the general guarantee which will assure the peace itself. With a right comity of arrangement no nation need be shut away from free access to the open paths of the world's commerce.

And the paths of the sea must alike in law and in fact be free. The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and coöperation. No doubt a somewhat radical reconsideration of many of the rules of international practice hitherto thought to be established may be necessary in order to make the seas indeed free and common in practically all circumstances for the use of mankind, but the motive for such changes is convincing and compelling. There can be no trust or intimacy between the peoples of the world without them. The free, constant, unthreatened intercourse of nations is an essential part of the process of peace and development. It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of the world sincerely desire to come to an agreement concerning it.

It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments and the coöperation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe. And the question of limiting naval armaments opens the wider and perhaps more difficultquestion of the limitation of armies and of all programmes of military preparation. Difficult and delicate as these questions are, they must be faced with the utmost candor and decided in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come with healing in its wings, and come to stay. Peace cannot be had without concession and sacrifice. There can be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great preponderating armaments are henceforth to continue here and there to be built up and maintained. The statesmen of the world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

I SPEAK FOR ALL FRIENDS OF HUMANITY.

I have spoken upon these great matters without reserve and with the utmost explicitness because it has seemed to me to be necessary if the world's yearning desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high authority amongst all the peoples of the world who is

at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I am speaking as an individual, and yet I am speaking, also, of course, as the responsible head of a great government, and I feel confident that I have said what the people of the United States would wish me to say. May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every programme of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear.

And in holding out the expectation that the people and Government of the United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the permanence of peace upon such terms as I have named I speak with the greater boldness and confidence because it is clear to every man who can think that there is in this promise no breach in either our traditions or our policy as a nation, but a fulfilment, rather, of all that we have professed or striven for.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE OF THE WORLD.

I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world: that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development. unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great' and powerful.

I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power; catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common protection.

I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom of the seas which in international conference after conference representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced disciples of liberty; and that moderation of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.

These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others, And they are also the principles and policies of forward-looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail.

COMMENTS ON ADDRESS ON ESSENTIAL PEACE TERMS.

New York Times: "By one bold stroke President Wilson removes the obstacles to world peace guaranteed by the world." New York World: "Our own belief is that President Wilson has enunciated the broad principles of liberty and justice upon which alone a durable peace is possible."

Washington Post: "It constitutes a shining ideal, seemingly unattainable when passions rule the world, but embodying, nevertheless, the hopes of nations, large and small."

Cleveland Plain Dealer: "President Wilson has already exerted a great influence promotive of peace. His strongest card he played before the Senate Monday.”

Philadelphia Public Ledger: "President Wilson's address to the Senate was inspired by lofty idealism, and voiced the aspiration of the whole world for a lasting peace, founded on justice and liberty."

Indianapolis Star: "Nobody knows whither this bold and puzzling step may lead."

St. Louis Globe-Democrat: "It is either a monumental mistake or an act that will fill a flaming page in history.”

Toronto Globe: "President Wilson has not aided the cause of peace in Europe by intervention at this stage."

Providence Journal: "Mr. Wilson beckons the suffering nations of the world toward him with his schoolmaster's cane, and delivers a prize oration on the millennium, while the civilization and the liberty of the world are battling for life in the shambles of a hundred bloody fields."

New York Herald: "When President Wilson emerges from the dreamland of his fancy and essays to deal with the cold hard facts of a situation which finds great nations grappling for a righteous peace, he shows that a proper realization of the sentiments impelling those people to sacrifice their all for liberty has no more found its way into the secluded cloisters of the White House than has a real understanding of the sentiments of the American people."

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Boston Transcript: "He seems to have been forced by the flash of events to the solemn conclusion that he is the keeper of the conscience of the world not only, but also the exclusive if not the ordained moral spokesman of mankind."

"

London Times: The Times refers to "the high and daring character of his pacifist ideals together with the prudence and caution of his policy. . . . It asserts that "his project is nothing less ambitious, less splendid than the establishment of a perpetual and universal reign of peace." Continuing it says: "The Times believes that President Wilson is the first statesman who has proposed as a practical policy what has been the 'dream of many thinkers for a great number of centuries.""

London Chronicle: "The extreme elevation of the moral tone will command the unqualified respect of those forwardlooking, liberty-loving elements of all nations to which he frankly makes his appeals."

Manchester Guardian: "It is a splendid policy, nobly expressed. How will it be received? By people everywhere we cannot doubt joyfully and with clear perception... The mass of the nation will do well to see that their rulers render them every possible favor and support."

London Globe: "We must at your bidding lay down our arms and dream with you your foolish dream of peace.”

L'Humanité: "The most incomparably splendid historic monument that has been given to the world since our immortal Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens."

L'Information: "It will find a profound echo in the soul of

France."

Le Figaro: "His message will prove a violent shock to the horrible theory of Pan-Germanism."

Gustave Hervé in Victoire: "What a pity it is this masterly page of social philosophy is marred and almost disfigured by those three little words: 'Peace without victory.'"

Echo de Paris: "This declaration moves in the serene domain of theories."

Le Journal: "President Wilson is haunted with the fixed idea of inaugurating the golden age of universal brotherhood." JANUARY 26, 1917-RUSSIAN FOREIGN OFFICE ANNOUNCES THAT PRESIDENT WILSON'S SPEECH ON ESSENTIAL PEACE TERMS "HAS MADE A MOST FAVORABLE IMPRESSION UPON THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT."

JANUARY 31, 1917-GERMANY ANNOUNCES RUTHLESS U-BOAT WARFARE, TO BEGIN THE FOLLOWING DAY.

SUSPENSION.

FEBRUARY 3, 1917-Diplomatic RelationS WITH GERMANY BROKEN.

FEBRUARY 3, 1917-U. S. S. HOUSATONIC SUNK.

FEBRUARY 3, 1917-PRESIDENT WILSON ADDRESSES CONGRESS. (In this address President Wilson stated that diplomatic relations had been broken off, and told why. He still professed to maintain hope that Germany would respect American rights. This was the first "German People" speech, suggesting the doctrine, now abandoned by all but a few pacifists, doubtless, that the German people were driven to war by an autocracy which left them no other choice, and that they would accept an opportunity to escape from their masters if a friendly hand should make it possible. It was not then so fully comprehensible that the only hand the Germans can understand, as yet, is the hand of force-their own kind of a hand.)

"NO ALTERNATIVE."

ADDRESS ANNOUNCING THE SEVERANCE of Diplomatic RelatIONS. (Abridged)

Gentlemen of the Congress:

The Imperial German Government on the thirty-first of January announced to this Government and to the governments of the other neutral nations that on and after the first day of February, the present month, it would adopt a policy with regard to the use of submarines against all shipping seeking to pass through certain designated areas of the high seas to which it is clearly my duty to call your attention.

(Here the President presents a summary of the submarine case against Germany, quoting from notes and records.)

I think that you will agree with me that, in view of this declaration, which suddenly and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately withdraws the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government's note of the fourth of May, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course which, in its note of the

18th of April, 1916, it announced that it would take in the event that the German Government did not declare and effect an abandonment of the methods of submarine warfare which it was then employing and to which it now purposes again to resort.

RELATIONS SEVERED.

I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of State to announce to His Excellency the German Ambassador that all diplomatic relations between the United States and the German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambassador at Berlin will immediately be withdrawn; and, in accordance with this decision, to hand to His Excellency his passports.

Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the German Government, this sudden and deeply deplorable renunciation of its assurances, given this Government at one of the most critical moments of tension in the relations of the two governments, I refuse to believe that it is the intention of the German authorities to do in fact what they have warned us they will feel at liberty to do. I cannot bring myself to believe that they will indeed pay no regard to the ancient friendship between their people and our own or to the solemn obligations which have been exchanged between them and destroy American ships and take the lives of American citizens in the wilful prosecution of the ruthless naval programme they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt acts on their part can make ME BELIEVE IT EVEN NOW.

If this inveterate confidence on my part in the sobriety and prudent foresight of their purpose should unhappily prove unfounded; if American ships and American lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval commanders in heedless contravention of the just and reasonable understandings of international law and the obvious dictates of humanity, I shall take the liberty of coming again before the Congress, to ask that authority be given me to use any means that may be necessary for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do nothing less. I take it for granted that all neutral governments will take the

same course.

FRIENDS OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE.

We do not desire any hostile conflict with the German Imperial Government. We are the sincere friends of the German people and earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and until we are obliged to believe it; and we