BELLIGERENCY THRUST UPON US

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the
step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves,
but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty,
I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial
German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the
Government and people of the United States. That it formally accept
the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it and that
it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough
state of defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its
resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and
end the war.


WHAT THIS WILL INVOLVE

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost
practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments
now at war with Germany, and as incident to that the extension to
those Governments of the most liberal financial credits in order that
our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs.

It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material
resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the
incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most
economical and efficient way possible.