The Monroe Doctrine merely rests upon the statement that the United States will do certain things if certain things happen. So nothing sustains the honor of the United States in respect of these long-cherished and long-admired promises except her own moral and physical force.

From Woodrow Wilson's campaign in the West on Military Preparedness.

OUR NEUTRALITY MISUNDERSTOOD

"I know that on the other side of the water there has been a great deal of cruel misjudgment with regard to the reasons why America has remained neutral. Those who look at us at a distance, my fellow citizens, do not feel the strong pulses of ideal principle that are in us. They do not feel the conviction of America that her mission is a mission of peace and that righteousness cannot be maintained as a standard in the midst of arms. They do not realize that back of all our energy, by which we have built up great material wealth and created great material power, we are a body of idealists, much more ready to lay down our lives for a thought than for a dollar.

"I suppose some of them think that we are

holding off because we can make money while others are dying-the most cruel misunderstanding that any nation has had to face, so wrong that it seems almost useless to try to correct it, because it shows that the very fundamentals of our life are not comprehended and understood.

"I need not tell my fellow-citizens that we have not held off from this struggle from motives of self-interest, unless it be considered self-interest to maintain our position as the trustees of the moral judgments of the world. We have believed, and I believe, that we can serve even the nations at war better by remaining at peace and holding off from this contest than we could possibly serve them in any other way.

"Your interests, your sympathies, your affections may be engaged on the one side or the other, but no matter which side they are engaged on, your duty to your affections in that matter is to stand off and not let this nation be drawn into the war.

"Somebody must keep the great stable foundations of the life of nations untouched and undisturbed; somebody must keep the great economic processes of the world of business alive; somebody must see to it that we stand ready to repair

The Monroe Doctrine merely rests upon the statement that the United States will do certain things if certain things happen. So nothing sustains the honor of the United States in respect of these long-cherished and long-admired promises except her own moral and physical force.

From Woodrow Wilson's campaign in the West on Military Preparedness.

OUR NEUTRALITY MISUNDERSTOOD

"I know that on the other side of the water there has been a great deal of cruel misjudgment with regard to the reasons why America has remained neutral. Those who look at us at a distance, my fellow citizens, do not feel the strong pulses of ideal principle that are in us. They do not feel the conviction of America that her mission is a mission of peace and that righteousness cannot be maintained as a standard in the midst of arms. They do not realize that back of all our energy, by which we have built up great material wealth and created great material power, we are a body of idealists, much more ready to lay down our lives for a thought than for a dollar.

"I suppose some of them think that we are

holding off because we can make money while others are dying-the most cruel misunderstanding that any nation has had to face, so wrong that it seems almost useless to try to correct it, because it shows that the very fundamentals of our life are not comprehended and understood.

"I need not tell my fellow-citizens that we have not held off from this struggle from motives of self-interest, unless it be considered self-interest to maintain our position as the trustees of the moral judgments of the world. We have believed, and I believe, that we can serve even the nations at war better by remaining at peace and holding off from this contest than we could possibly serve them in any other way.

"Your interests, your sympathies, your affections may be engaged on the one side or the other, but no matter which side they are engaged on, your duty to your affections in that matter is to stand off and not let this nation be drawn into the war.

"Somebody must keep the great stable foundations of the life of nations untouched and undisturbed; somebody must keep the great economic processes of the world of business alive; somebody must see to it that we stand ready to repair

the enormous damage and the incalculable losses which will result from this war and which it is hardly credible could be repaired if every great nation in the world were drawn into this contest.

From Woodrow Wilson's campaign in the West on Military Preparedness.

THE LESSON OF THE WAR

"If this war has accomplished nothing else for the benefit of the world, it has at least disclosed a great moral necessity, and set forward the thinking of the statesmen of the world by a whole age. Repeated utterances of the leading statesmen of most of the great nations now engaged in war have made it plain that their thought has come to this: That the principle of public right must henceforth take precedence over the individual interests of particular nations, and that the nations of the world must in some way band themselves together to see that that right prevails as against any sort of selfish aggression; that henceforth alliance must not be set up against alliance; understanding against understanding; but that there must be a common agreement for a common object,