Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the
world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to
that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments
backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will,
not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality
in such circumstances.

We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that
the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done
shall be observed among nations and their Governments that are
observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward
them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse
that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their
previous knowledge or approval.

It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the
old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers
and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of
little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their
fellow-men as pawns and tools.

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set
the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs
which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such
designs can be successfully worked only under cover and where no one has
the right to ask questions.