It is not of material interest merely that we are thinking. It is,
rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the right of life
itself. I am thinking not only of the rights of Americans to go and
come about their proper business by way of the sea, but also of
something much deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking
of those rights of humanity without which there is no civilization.
My theme is of those great principles of compassion and of protection
which mankind has sought to throw about human lives--the lives of non-
combatants, the lives of men who are peacefully at work keeping the
industrial processes of the world quick and vital, the lives of women
and children, and of those who supply the labor which ministers to
their sustenance.

We are speaking of no selfish material rights, but of rights which our
hearts support, and whose foundation is that righteous passion for
justice upon which all law, all structures alike of family, of state,
and of mankind must rest, and upon the ultimate base of our existence
and our liberty. I cannot imagine any man with American principles at
his heart hesitating to defend these things.




IV

WE MUST ACCEPT WAR

Message to the Congress
April 2, 1917