But, little by little, and with growing anguish, he had seen that the nation must take another step.  Little by little, as the inhuman frenzies of warfare had grown in savagery, inflicting unspeakable horror on non-combatants, women and children, he had realized that his cherished dream must be laid aside.  For the first time in human history a great nation had dared to waive pride, honour, and—­with bleeding heart—­even the lives of its own for the hope of humanity and civilization.  With face buried in his hands he reviewed the long catalogue of atrocities on the seas.  He could feel his cheeks grow hot against his palms. Arabic, Lusitania, Persia, Laconia, Falaba, Gulflight, Sussex, California—­the names were etched in his brain in letters of grief.  And now, since the “barred-zone” decree ...

He straightened in his chair.  Like a garment the mood of anguish slipped from him.  He snapped on the green desk light and turned to his personal typewriter.  As he did so, from some old student day a phrase flashed into his mind—­the words of Martin Luther, the Thuringian peasant and university professor, who four hundred years before had nailed his theses on the church door at Wittenberg: 

“Gott helfe mir, ich kann nicht anders.”

They chimed a solemn refrain in his heart as he inserted a fresh sheet of paper behind the roller and resumed his writing....

“With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves.... I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States....”

The typewriter clicked industriously.  The face bent intently over the keys was grave and quiet, but as the paper unrolled before him some of his sadness seemed to pass away.  A vision of his country, no longer divided in petty schisms, engrossed in material pursuits, but massed in one by the force and fury of a valiant ideal, came into his mind.

“It is for humanity,” he whispered to himself. “Ich kann nicht anders....”

“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.... Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies, or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest....  A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations....

    “Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to
    a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow
    interest of their own.”