Address at Belle Mehus Auditorium in Bismarck, North Dakota
09/09/1919
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
We are accountable at the bar of history and must plead in utter frankness what purpose it is we seek to serve.
The military masters of Germany denied us the right to be neutral.
They are themselves in the grip of the same sinister power that has now at last stretched its ugly talons out and drawn blood from us.
The choices are ours.