We have made it.

We in our turn serve America, and can serve her with no private purpose.

We are not the enemies of the German people and that they are not our enemies.

We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new lustre.

For us there is but one choice.

And yet, though silent, it speaks to us.

The military masters of Germany denied us the right to be neutral.

They sought by violence to destroy our industries and arrest our commerce.

It is plain enough how we were forced into the war.

We are accountable at the bar of history and must plead in utter frankness what purpose it is we seek to serve.

The whole world is at war because the whole world is in the grip of that power and is trying out the great battle which shall determine whether it is to be brought under its mastery or fling itself free.

Peace, peace, peace has been the talk of her Foreign Office for now a year and more; not peace upon her own initiative, but upon the initiative of the nations over which she now deems herself to hold the advantage.

The choices are ours.

It is hereby ordered that through the Secretary of the Navy there be taken over to the United States the immediate possession and title of and to the German vessel Staatssekretar Solf, now lying at Tutuila, Samoa, and until further…

The Civil Service Commission may, in its discretion, when it believes such action to be in the interest of the service, authorize the employment by the War Department, for such time as may be necessary during the period of the present war…

In each case in which the War Department requests authority under this order it shall furnish to the Commission a list giving the name, designation, rate of pay, and nationality of each person proposed for employment.

There are times when words seem empty and only action seems great. Such a time has come, and in the providence of God, America will once more have an opportunity to show the world that she was born to serve mankind.

I do not pity them. I envy them, rather, because theirs is the great work for liberty accomplished, and we are in the midst of a work unfinished, testing our strength where their strength has already been tested.