President Wilson's Addresses   By: Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

"The virtue of books is the perfecting of reason, which is indeed the happiness of man."

Richard De Bury.

"On bokès for to rede I me delyte."

Chaucer.

English Readings for Schools

GENERAL EDITOR

WILBUR LUCIUS CROSS

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN YALE UNIVERSITY

[Illustration: Woodrow Wilson]

PRESIDENT WILSON'S ADDRESSES

EDITED BY

GEORGE MCLEAN HARPER

PROFESSOR IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF "MASTERS OF FRENCH LITERATURE," "LIFE OF SAINTE BEUVE," AND "WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, HIS LIFE, WORKS, AND INFLUENCE"

NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Copyright 1918, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

CONTENTS

Introduction

First Inaugural Address First Address to Congress Address on the Banking System Address at Gettysburg Address on Mexican Affairs Understanding America Address before the Southern Commercial Congress The State of the Union Trusts and Monopolies Panama Canal Tolls The Tampico Incident In the Firmament of Memory Memorial Day Address at Arlington Closing a Chapter Annapolis Commencement Address The Meaning of Liberty American Neutrality Appeal for Additional Revenue The Opinion of the World The Power of Christian Young Men Annual Address to Congress A Message Address before the United States Chamber of Commerce To Naturalized Citizens Address at Milwaukee The Submarine Question American Principles The Demands of Railway Employees Speech of Acceptance Lincoln's Beginnings The Triumph of Women's Suffrage The Terms of Peace Meeting Germany's Challenge Request for Authority Second Inaugural Address The Call to War To the Country The German Plot Reply to the Pope Labor must be Free The Call for War with Austria Hungary Government Administration of Railways The Conditions of Peace Force to the Utmost

INTRODUCTION

These addresses of President Woodrow Wilson represent only the most recent phase of his intellectual activity. They are almost entirely concerned with political affairs, and more specifically with defining Americanism. It will not be forgotten, however, that the life of Mr. Wilson as President of the United States is but a short period compared with the whole of his public career as professor of jurisprudence, history, and politics, as President of Princeton University, as Governor of New Jersey, as an orator, and as a writer of many books.

Surprise has been expressed that a man, after reaching the age of fifty, should be able to step from the "quiet" life of a teacher and author into the resounding regions of politics; but Mr. Wilson's life as a scholar, professor, and author was not at all quiet in the sense of being easy or untouched with exciting chances and changes, and, in the second place, he carried into politics the steadying ideals and the methodical habits of his former occupation.

As these addresses themselves prove, he has retained something of the teacher's interest in showing the relation between specific instances and the general forms of thought or action of which they are a part. Not fact alone, but principle, is what he seeks to discover to his audiences. In the addresses made in 1913 it is apparent that his main effort was to fasten attention upon the principles of international justice and good will and to restrain the impulses of those Americans who were inclined to hasty action with reference to Mexico. From the beginning of the Great War to a point not much earlier than our own entrance into the struggle, he counselled neutrality and inaction, with what motives one must judge from his statements and from events. Only a few speeches belonging to this period have been included in the present collection. When it became practically certain that war between the United States and Germany was inevitable, there came into his utterances a new temper and a more direct kind of eloquence. With scarcely an exception, this collection includes every one of his addresses made between August, 1916, and February, 1918.