The sinister intrigue is being no less actively conducted in this country than in Russia and in every country of Europe into which the agents and dupes of the Imperial German Government can get access.  That Government has many spokesmen here, in places both high and low.  They have learned discretion; they keep within the law.  It is opinion they utter now, not sedition.  They proclaim the liberal purposes of their masters, and they declare that this is a foreign war, which can touch America with no danger either to her lands or institutions.  They set England at the center of the stage, and talk of her ambition to assert her economic dominion throughout the world.  They appeal to our ancient tradition of isolation, and seek to undermine the Government with false professions of loyalty to its principles.

But they will make no headway.  Falsehood betrays them in every accent.  These facts are patent to all the world, and nowhere more plainly than in the United States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts, not sophistries; and the great fact that stands out above all the rest is that this is a peoples’ war for freedom, justice and self-government among all the nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for the peoples who live upon it, the German people included, and that with us rests the choice to break through all these hypocrisies, the patent cheats and masks of brute force, and help set the world free, or else stand aside and let it be dominated through sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary choices of the self-constituted masters by the nation which can maintain the biggest armies, the most irresistible armaments, a power to which the world has afforded no parallel, in the face of which political freedom must wither and perish.

For us there was but one choice.  We have made it, and woe be to that man, or that group of men, that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution, when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure for the salvation of the nation.  We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster.  Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we are born, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our people.

REPLY TO THE POPE

[This important and eloquent document, though signed by the Secretary of State, was of course authorized by the President, and indeed bears internal marks of being his own composition.  The Pope had made a plea for peace, which was by our government deemed premature.]

AUGUST 27, 1917.

TO HIS HOLINESS BENEDICTUS XV, POPE: 

In acknowledgment of the communication of Your Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917, the President of the United States requests me to transmit the following reply: