ould keep constantly in mind the wis>m of interfering as little as possible in

own preparation and in the equipent of our own military forces with the uty for it will be a very practical uty of supplying the nations already at ar with Germany with the materials hich they can obtain only from us or by ur assistance. They are in the field and ve should help them in every way to be ffective there.

I shall take the liberty of suggesting, hrough the several executive departnents of the Government for the conideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall.

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them.

I have exactly the same thing in mind. now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and selfgoverned peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and free

dom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments backed by organized force, which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circum

stances.

We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their Governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval.

It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies nor set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions.

Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership

of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away, the plottings of inner circles, who could plan what they would and render account to no one, would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks. in Russia?1

Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward life.

Autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it has stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, in character, or purpose, and now it has been shaken and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their native majesty and might to the forces. that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace.

Here is a fit partner for a league of honor.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues. everywhere afoot against our national unity of council, our peace within and without, our industries and our com

merce.

Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began, and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice

"Wilson was not alone in his premature optimism concerning the Russian revolution.

that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries. of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial German Government accredited to the Government of the United States.

Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were) but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.2

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a Government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic Governments of the world.

We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty, and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples-the German people included-for the rights

2A note from Herr Zimmerman instructing the German minister to form an alliance between Mexico and Germany in the event of war between the United States and Ger many.

>f nations great and small and the priviege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the trusted foundations of political liberty.

We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of the nation can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish objects, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor.

The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna.

We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high

spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck.

We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reëstablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us-however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.

We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter months because of that friendship-exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose.

If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we

shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our ! lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day hast come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

[T IS generally acknowledged that the impulse to recount human experiences, actual or devised, is as old as the race. The reason that Narration preceded Exposition and Argumentation as a literary form is not far to seek. Narration is the result of direct observation of incident, and follows a definite time order. In its pure form it entails no interpretation and makes no judgment. The reader is left to draw his own conclusions. It is true, however, that the modern narrative is borrowing more and more the expository method. Thus we find history growing critical, and the novel and short story becoming analytic.

Narration divides itself naturally into two large classes: (1) that which adheres strictly to events that have actually occurred, or Narration of Fact; and (2)❘ that which purports to tell what might conceivably have happened, or Narration of Fiction.

It is difficult, however, to set limits to

the latter form, for the true artist can invoke in his readers a state of mind that for the time being will make plausible what an unbiased judgment would reject. Witness all stories of the supernatural or the fabulous. One pronouncement may, however, be ventured: namely, that when a writer deviates so far from the accustomed mode of popular thinking as to insult the intelligence, the exercise of his art will be futile. Hobgoblins and fairies one may accept with good grace-for after all they concern a shadowy realm of which we know little; but who can feel convinced of the reality of a hero who single-handed subdues a host? The falsity of such an incredible feat is demonstrated daily by our human experience.

It may be added that Description, seldom employed by itself, finds its chief function in supplementing Narration. Its pictorial nature is of infinite value in securing vividness, atmosphere, local color, and sheer beauty.

vey rarely if ever exactly coincides with the impression we actually give. Thus Narration of Fact is not necessarily narration of truth, for truth is no mere matter of dates and facts. It can never be achieved by reference to accepted authorities alone. One may be able to recite the dates of every battle of the American Revolution, name every Colonial statesman and general, and trace Washington from Cambridge to Yorktown without having the slightest understanding of the

its best demands imaginative power of the autobiographer in his task of selfrevelation; of the biographer who seeks to re-create a personality; and of the historian who treats of significant events in large segments of society.

These three fields-autobiography, biography, and history-comprehend the full scope of Narrative of Fact, for diaries and journals are autobiographical in nature; books of adventure and voyaging are either autobiographical or biographical; and newspaper accounts of current events are vignettes of contemporary history.