this, the culminating and final war for human liberty, has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity, and devotion to the test.

And when we reflect further on some of the issues which are involved in the war, we are again led to understand how conclusively this is a contest between the two systems of government, two civilizations. We ought to get away, if we can, from the idea that it is a conflict over national lines in Europe; that it is a question of the redistribution of territory in Europe; that it is a question of securing compensation for injuries which have been done us; and understand that, whatever the cause was in the beginning, we have now arrived at a point where it is distinctly a conflict between two systems of government, between peoples and nations, and that one or the other will have to go down.

In other words, Mr. President, whatever may have been our opinion in the beginning of the war, both sides realize now that this is not only a war between great nations, involving the interests of all their citizens, but that it is distinctly a war between systems of government, and it is so recognized.

Mr. President, the German historian, Professor Meyer, in a book written since the beginning of the war, in which

1 From a speech made in the United States Senate, March 18, 1918, by Mr. Borah as Senator from Idaho.

he sums up the issues involved, or rather the issue, because it all resolves itself into one, uses this language:

"The truth of the whole matter undoubtedly is that the time has arrived when two distinct forms of State organization must face each other in a life-and-death struggle."

2

That is undoubtedly the understanding and belief of those who are responsible for this war. It is coming to be the understanding and belief of those who have had the war forced upon them. We have finally put aside the tragedy at the Bosnian capital and the wrongs inflicted upon Belgium as the moving causes of the war. They were but the prologue to the imperial theme. We now see and understand clearly and unmistakably the cause at all times lying back of these things. Upon the one hand is Magna Charta,1 the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the principles of human liberty which they embody and preserve. Upon the other hand is that peculiar form of State organization which, in the language of the Emperor, rests alone upon the strength of the army and whose highest creed finds expression in the words of one of its greatest advocates, that war is a part of the eternal order instituted by God. We go back to Runnymede, where fearless men wrenched from the hands of power habeas corpus and the trial by jury.

1 The great charter won by the Barons of England from King John at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. It is the legal basis of English liberty and thus of American also, securing a legal procedure for all acts of government against its citizens.

2 An Act of Parliament in 1689, confirming and re-defining the rights guaranteed in the Magna Charta. The first six amendments to the American Constitution are often called "The American Bill of Rights."

They point us to Breslau1 and Mollwitz,2 where Frederick the Great, in violation of his plighted word, inaugurated the rule of fraud and force and laid the foundation for that mighty structure whose central and dominating principle is that of power.

It is that power with which we are at war today. Shall men, shall the people, be governed by some remorseless and soulless entity softly called the "State," or shall the instrumentalities of government yield alone and at all times to the wants and necessities, the hopes and aspirations, of the masses? That is now the issue. Nothing should longer conceal it. It is but another and more stupendous phase of the old struggle, a struggle as ancient and as inevitable as the thirst for power and the love of liberty, a struggle in which men have fought and sacrificed all the way from Marathon to Verdun.

It seems strange now, and it will seem more extraordinary to those who come after us, that we did not recognize from the beginning that this was the issue. But, obscured by the débris of European life, confused with the dynastic quarrels and racial bitterness of the Old World, it was difficult to discern, and still more difficult to realize, that the very life of our institutions was at stake, that the scheme of the enemy, amazing and astounding, was not alone to control territory and dominate commerce, but to change the drift of human progress and to readjust the standards of the world's civilization. Perhaps, too, our love of peace, our traditional friendship for all nations, lulled suspicion and discouraged inquiry. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt now.

A treaty between Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary, and Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, signed in 1742.

2 The battle preceding the treaty of peace.

Whatever the cause, however perverse the fates which bring us to this crisis, we are called upon not to settle questions of territory or establish new spheres of national activity, but to defend the institutions under which we live. Who doubts should we fail that the whole theory and system of government for which we have labored and struggled, our whole conception of civilization, would be discredited utterly? Who but believes that, should we lose, militarism would be the searching test of all Governments and that the world would be an armed camp harried and tortured and decimated by endless wars?

But what we have determined in this crisis, as I understand it, is that we will keep the road of democracy open. No one shall close it. If any nation shall hereafter rise to the sublime requirement of self-government and choose to go that way, it shall have the right to do so. Above all things we have determined, cost what it may in treasure and blood, that this experiment here upon this Western Continent shall justify the faith of its builders, that there shall remain here in all the integrity of its powers, neither wrenched nor marred by the passions of war from within nor humbled nor dishonored by military power from without, the Republic of the fathers; that since the challenge has been thrown down that this is a war unto death between two opposing theories of government, we are determined that whatever else happens as a result of this war this form of organization, this theory of State, this last great hope, this fruition of one hundred and thirty years of struggle and toil, "shall not perish from the earth."

OUR RESPONSIBILITIES 1

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858- )

Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth; and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other Powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population,

1 No statesman has furnished a more virile example of the American spirit to our own generation than ex-President Roosevelt. From inaugural address, March 4, 1905, in The Works of Theodore Roosevelt. Executive Edition of His Presidential Addresses and State Papers, Vol. III. Published by P. F. Collier.