heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? 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 towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naïve 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 counsel, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. 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 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 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 towards 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.

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 peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege 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 tested 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 nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, 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 AustroHungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement 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 towards 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 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 has 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 not other.

PART XVI.

SEVERANCE OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

Ambassador Penfield to the Secretary of State.

[Telegram.]

AMERICAN EMBASSY, Vienna, February 1, 1917.

Following is text of note received from Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday:

January thirty-first.

The undersigned Minister of the Imperial and Royal Household and of Foreign Affairs had the honor to receive the communication of the twenty-second instant in which His Excellency Frederic Courtland Penfield had the kindness to communicate the message which the President of the United States of America addressed to the American Senate on the same day.

The Imperial and Royal Government did not fail to subject to an attentive consideration the contents of this significant manifestation full of high moral earnestness. It does not fail to recognize the sublime aims which the President had in view, but before all else must point out that Mr. Wilson's desire to pave the way for a permanent peace appears even now frustrated through the rejection which the offer of peace by Austria-Hungary and its allies has experienced at the hand of the enemy.

In August, 1914, Austria-Hungary and its allies took up the struggle which was forced upon them. The consciousness that it was a question of time, defense of their existence and vital interests, gave them strength to withstand the numerical superiority of their enemies and to achieve successes which those of the adversary cannot approach. In thirty months of war these successes have been strengthened and increased. In the same measure in which the enemy's plans of conquest have come to naught, Austria-Hungary and its allies were able

to consider their purely defense aims as achieved. This moderate conception and the wish to avoid further useless bloodshed, led to the peace offer of the four allied powers. Their adversaries, blinded by the delusion that they can even yet give a favorable turn to the course of events and annihilate us, have bluntly rejected this offer. They have demanded terms for the conclusion of peace which would assume the complete overthrow of the four allied powers and annihilation for their aims.

God and the world are witness as to who bears the guilt for the continuation of the war. In view of the intention of the enemy to conquer the armies of Austria-Hungary and its allies, to destroy their fleets and starve their peoples, the struggle must take its course on land and sea with all, even the sharpest weapons. The increased use of all means of warfare alone makes a shortening of the war possible. The enemies have already been intent upon stopping the maritime traffic of Austria-Hungary and its allies and preventing all importation by these powers. As on the other seas so also in the Adriatic they have torpedoed without warning hospital ships such as the Electra and unarmed passenger steamers such as the Dubrovnik, the Biokovo, the Daniel Ernoe and the Zagreb. Austria-Hungary and its allies of their part will henceforth apply the same method in that they will cut off Great Britain, France and Italy from all maritime traffic and for the accomplishment of their purpose will from February 1, 1917, prevent by every means any navigation whatsoever within a definite closed area.

In the execution of this intention all maritime traffic within the closed areas around about Great Britain, France and Italy and in the Eastern Mediterranean, as below designated and shown upon the two inclosed charts, will from February first, 1917, be opposed without further ado with all weapons.

One. Closed area in the North: This area is bounded by line twenty sea miles distant along the coast of Holland to the Terschelling Lightship by the meridian of longitude of the Terschelling Lightship to Odsire, a line from there through the position sixty-two degrees north latitude zero degree longitude to sixty-two degrees north, five degrees west further to a point three sea miles south of southern extremity of the Faroe Islands, from there through a point sixty-two degrees north latitude, ten degrees west longitude, to sixty-one degrees north latitude, fifteen degrees west longitude, then fifty-seven degrees north latitude, twenty degrees west longitude, to forty-seven degrees latitude north, twenty degrees west longitude, further to forty-three degrees north latitude, fifteen degrees west longitude, then along the parallel of forty-three degrees north latitude to twenty sea miles from Cape Finistere and all a distance of twenty sea miles along the north coast of Spain to the French boundary.

Two. The Mediterranean is declared to be a war zone. There