keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality,
it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect
outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against
merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their
attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would
defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving
chase upon the open sea.

It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity, indeed,
to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention.
They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.

The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at
all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the
defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned
their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed
guards which we have placed on our merchant-ships will be treated as
beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be.

Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances
and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it
is likely to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically
certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the
effectiveness of belligerents.

There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making:
we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred
rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated.
The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are not common wrongs;
they reach out to the very roots of human life.