And I speak in the firm faith that, after its people shall have shaken off and made atonement for the dreadful spell which an evil fate has cast upon them, that former Germany will arise again and, in due course of time, will again deserve and attain the good-will and respect of the world and the affectionate loyalty of all those of German blood in foreign lands.
But I know that neither Germany nor this country nor the rest of the world can return to happiness and peace and fruitful labour until it shall have been made manifest, bitterly and unmistakably manifest, to the rulers who bear the blood-guilt for this wanton war and to their misinformed and misguided peoples that the spirit which unchained it cannot prevail, that the hateful doctrines and methods in pursuance of which and in compliance with which it is conducted are rejected with abhorrence by the civilized world, and that the overweening ambitions which it was meant to serve can never be achieved.
The fight for civilization which we all fondly believed had been won many years ago must be fought over again. In this sacred struggle it is now our privilege to take no mean part, and our glory to bring sacrifices.
Our one and supreme task, the one purpose to which all others must give way, is to bring this war to a successful conclusion. One of the means toward that end is to make the Liberty Loan a veritable triumph, an overwhelming expression of our gigantic economic strength.
To accomplish that, let each one of us feel himself personally responsible, let each one of us work as if our life depended on the result. And, in a very real sense, does not our national life, aye, our individual life depend on the outcome of this war?
Would life be tolerable if the power of Prussianism, run mad and murderous, held the world by the throat, if the primacy of the earth belonged to a government steeped in the doctrines of a barbarous past and supported by a ruling caste which preaches the deification of sheer might, which despises liberty, hates democracy and would destroy both if it could?
To that spirit and to those doctrines, we, citizens of America and servants, as such, of humanity, will oppose our solemn and unshakable resolution "to make the world safe for democracy," and we will say, with a clear conscience, in the noble words which more than five hundred years ago were uttered by the Parliament of Scotland:
"It is not for glory, or for riches, or for honour that we fight, but for liberty alone which no good man loses but with his life."