the House, contains 43,000 voters, of whom 32,000 are Republicans. Mr. Schall is a blind man. He spoke from the front of the House, leaning on a cane. The pith of Mr. Schall's speech was that both parties should sink partisanship and co-operate with the President, and that the best way to do it was to give him a Congress controlled by his own party.

“I, with my sightless eyes,” he said, "would be of little use to my country on the field of battle, but I can cast my vote to help it. I know of no better way to stand by the President than to return his party to the control of the House."

James R. Mann was nominated by the Republicans. The vote stood: Clark, 217; Mann, 205; six Republicans declined to vote for Mr. Mann. The organization of the House was completed by 5 o'clock and adjournment was then taken until 8:30 to meet in joint session with the Senate to receive the President's address.

President Wilson came to the Capitol escorted by a squadron of cavalry.

The House an hour before had taken a recess. When it met again it was in a scene that the hall had never presented before. Directly in front of the Speaker and facing him sat the members of the Supreme Court without their gowns. Over at one side sat the members of the Diplomatic Corps in evening dress. It was the first time any one could remember when the foreign envoys had ever sat together officially in the Hall of Representatives.

Then the doors opened, and in came the Senators, headed by Vice President Marshall, each man wearing or carrying a small American flag. There were three or four exceptions, including Senators La Follette and Vardaman, but one had to look hard to find them, and Senator Stone was no exception. It was at 8:32 that they came in, and five minutes later the Speaker announced:

"The President of the United States."

President Delivers Address

As he walked in and ascended the speakers' platform he got such a reception as Congress had never given him before in any of his visits to it. The

Supreme Court Justices rose from their chairs, facing the place where he stood, and led the applause, while Representatives and Senators not only cheered, but yelled. It was two minutes before he could begin his address.

When he did begin it, he stood with his manuscript before him typewritten on sheets of note paper. He held it in both hands, resting his arm on the green baize covered desk, and at first he read without looking up, but after a while he would glance occasionally to the right or the left as he made a point, not as if he were trying to see the effect but more as a sort of gesture-the only one he employed.

Congress listened intently and without any sort of interruption while he recited the German crimes against humanity, his own and his country's effort to believe that the German rulers had not wholly cut themselves off from the path which civilized nations follow, and how the truth has been forced upon unwilling minds. Congress was waiting for his conclusions, and there was no applause or demonstration of any kind for the recital.

But when he finished his story of our efforts to avoid war and came to the sentence "armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable because submarines are in fact outlaws when used as the German submarines are used," the close attention deepened into a breathless silence, so painfully intense that it seemed almost audible.

The President ended at 9:11, having Then spoken thirty-six minutes. the great scene which had been enacted at his entrance was repeated. The diplo mats, Supreme Court, the galleries, the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike, stood in their places and the Senators waved flags they had brought in with them. Those who were wearing, not carrying, flags tore them from their lapels or their sleeves and waved with the rest, and they all cheered wildly.

Senator Robert Marion La Follette, however, stood motionless with his arms folded tight and high on his chest, so

that nobody could have any excuse for mistaking his attitude, and there he stood, chewing gum with a sardonic smile.

The President walked rapidly out of the hall, and when he had gone the Senators and the Supreme Court and the diplomats went their ways.

[The address of the President appears in preceding pages.]

After the departure of the President both houses of Congress were assembled and resolutions were introduced in each house embodying the President's recommendations that the state of war with Germany be declared. The resolutions were introduced in the House by Chairman Flood of the Foreign Relations Committee, and in the Senate by Senator Martin, both of Virginia, and at once referred to the respective committees, and the two houses thereupon adjourned. [The text of the joint resolution is printed on page 198.]

Debate in the Senate

The war resolution was passed by the Senate at 11:11 P. M. Wednesday, April 4, after thirteen hours' debate, by a vote of 82 to 6, eight Senators being unavoidably absent-all the absentees favored the resolution, hence the true sentiment of the Senate was 90 to 6. The six Senators who voted nay were La Follette of Wisconsin, Gronna of North Dakota, Norris of Nebraska, Stone of Missouri, Lane of Oregon, and Vardaman of Mississippi, the first three being Republicans, the last three Democrats.

The opening speech was delivered by Senator Hitchcock of Nebraska, who was in charge of the resolution in substitution for Chairman Stone of the Foreign Relations Committee, who was in opposition. In his address the Senator said that Germany's resumption of submarine activity was not a violation of her word, but a revocation of it, a step taken in desperation.

It was not intended to provoke war with us, but it was followed by acts of war upon us. They were not made for the deliberate purpose of injuring us but rather to starve the English people. The effect, however, was the same. We were ordered off the high seas. We could not submit; no great nation could remain great and independent, if it did so.

No great nation could maintain its place in history if it permitted another to order it off the sea, if it permitted another to bottle up its commerce, if it permitted another to dictate to it in the exercise of its unquestioned right and to impose the penalty of murder of its citizens in case of refusal.

Words of Senator Lodge

Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, who had been precipitated into a personal affray in the Senate corridor the day before by a committee of pacifists and had knocked down one who attacked him, in the course of his remarks, said:

We have never been a military nation. We are not prepared for war in the modern sense; but we have vast resources and unbounded energies and the day when war is declared we should devote ourselves to calling out those resources and organizing those energies so that they can be used with the utmost effect in hastening the complete victory. The worst of all wars is a feeble war. War is too awful to be entered upon halfheartedly. If we fight at all, we must fight for all we are worth. It must be no weak, hesitating war. The most merciful war is that which is most vigorously waged and which comes most quickly to an end.

But there are, in my opinion, some things worse for a nation than war. National degeneracy is worse; national cowardice is worse. The division of our people into race groups, striving to direct the course of the United States in the interest of some other country when we should have but one allegiance, one hope, and one tradition-all these dangers have been gathering about us and darkening the horizon during the last three years. Whatever suffering and misery war may bring, it will at least sweep these foul things away. It will unify us into one

nation.

This war is a war against barbarism, panoplied in all the devices for destruction of human life which science, beneficent science, can bring forth. We are resisting an effort to thrust mankind back to forms of government, to political creeds, and methods of conquest which we had hoped had disappeared forever from the world. We are fighting against a nation which, in the fashion of centuries ago, drags the inhabitants of conquered lands into slavery; which carries off women and girls for even worse purposes; which in its mad desire to conquer mankind and trample them under foot has stopped at no wrong, has regarded no treaty.

The work that we are called upon to do when we enter this war is to preserve the principles of human liberty, the principles of democracy, and the light of modern civilization; all that we most love, all that we hold dearer than life itself. We wish only to preserve our own peace and our own security, to uphold the great doctrine which

guards the American Hemisphere, and to see the disappearance of all wars or rumors of wars from the East, if any dangers there exist.

What we want most of all by this victory, which we shall help to win, is to secure the world's peace, based on freedom and democracy, a world not controlled by a Prussian military autocracy, but by the will of the free people of the earth. We shall achieve this result, and when we achieve it we shall be able to say that we have helped to confer a great blessing upon mankind, and that we have not fought in vain.

Senator Norris, in his opposition, said: We are going into war upon command of gold. We are about to do the bidding of wealth's terrible mandate and make millions of our countrymen suffer and untold generations bear burdens and shed their life blood, all because we want to preserve our commercial right to deliver munitions to the belligerents. I feel that we are about to put the dollar sign on the American flag.

Senator Reed, Democrat, of Missouri, replied to Senator Norris by declaring that his charge that the war resolution was placing the dollar sign on the American. flag was "almost treason." The assertion that the nation was going to war on the demand of gold was “an indictment of the President of the United States, an indictment of Congress, of the American people, and of the truth."

"It is not the truth!" shouted the Missouri Senator.

Opposition by La Follette

He

Senator La Follette of Wisconsin delivered the principal speech against the resolution. He read a number of telegrams reporting straw votes, postcard, and other polls in various communities in the Central West, where the sentiment was overwhelmingly against war. asserted that, of 15,000 or 20,000 letters and telegrams he had received regarding his vote on the armed ship bill, 80 to 90 per cent. had approved his stand. He referred to the President's statement that Germany had violated her submarine pledges, and continued:

Her promise, so called, was conditional upon England being brought to obedience of international law. Was it quite fair to lay before the country the statement that Germany made an unconditional promise and had deliberately violated it?

It was England, not Germany, who refused to obey the Declaration of London, containing the most humane ideas of naval

warfare which could be framed by the civilized world up to that time. Keep that in mind.

If this is war upon all mankind, is it not peculiar that the United States is the only nation of all neutrals which regards it as necessary to declare war upon Germany? All have refused to join in a combination against Germany. Some may have a clearer view than we. This suspicion of a desire for war profits does not attach to them.

Senator La Follette said that the United States had not the confidence of the other American republics because of its war policies. He predicted that entrance of the United States would not shorten the conflict, "but will vastly extend it by drawing other nations in.” It is idle, the Senator went on, to talk of a war on the German Government and not on the German people.

We are leagued, (he continued,) or are about to be, according to the President's speech, with the hereditary enemies of the German people. Words are not strong enough to protest against a combination with the Entente Allies which would have us indorse the violations of international law by Great Britain and her purpose to wreak vengeance on the German people. We do not know what is in the minds of those who made the compacts in which we are to share.

Reverting to the President's assertion that the German people were thrown into war without an opportunity to say anything about it, the Senator asked: "Will the supporters of this war bill have a vote on it before it goes into effect? Unless they do that, it ill becomes us to speak of Germany. Submit this question to the people. By a vote of ten to one they would register their declaration against war."

The German people, he asserted, were more solidly behind their Government than the people of the United States would be behind the President in waging war on Germany.

"The Espionage bill and the Military bill that have been drawn by the war machine in this country," he said, "are complete proof that those responsible. know that it has not popular support. The armies, necessary to be raised to aid the Entente Allies, cannot be raised by voluntary enlistment."

Praising the character and services of German-Americans in this country, Senator La Follette said that they were

being "dogged" by Secret Service men. He denied that any one Government was responsible for the war, saying that it was caused by European secret diplomacy. He cited the Anglo-French Moroccan secret treaty as "the most reprehensible, dishonest, and perjured on record."

"England first began the ruthless naval warfare," he asserted, “by repudiating the declaration of London."

Senator Knox, Republican, of Pennsylvania, interrupted to suggest that England did not ratify the declaration. Senator La Follette replied that British representatives signed it, and Senator Stone said England had not actually rejected it.

"It has pleased those who have been conducting this campaign (for war) through the press to make a jumble of issues," Senator La Follette continued, "until now it is impossible to get an intelligent answer regarding the real issues. They say that Americans are being killed by German submarines. We haven't a leg to stand on in support of this war declaration."

That the United States did not protest more vigorously against the British mine field blockade was the Administration's great mistake, the Senator said, and the real and primary cause of an American war declaration. He added:

we

We have wallowed in the mire at the feet of Great Britain and submitted in silence to her dictation. Because we acquiesce have a legal and moral responsibility to Germany. Thus we have been actively aiding her enemy in starving German women, children, and old men. Germany waited three long months for this Government to protest. In principle, therefore, Germany had the right to destroy, blindly, ships by submarines and mines, in her own blockade zone. Germany is only doing what England is doing. Germany has been patient with us, standing strictly on her right to be accorded the same treatment as England by us.

Reply of Senator Williams Senator Williams of Mississippi, in replying to Senator La Follette, said:

The Senator from Wisconsin labored to establish an identity of purpose and action in the violations of our neutral rights by Great Britain and Germany. He proved that he did not know the difference between a prize court and a torpedo. Great Britain has drowned none of our citizens.

I am a little tired of utterances like that of the Senator from Wisconsin, denouncing the Entente Allies. He endeavors to twist the British lion's tail. Demagogues have been doing that ever since the Revolution, but it is a matter of history that most of the people of England were against the war on the colonies.

Which would you rather do, fight Germany now with France and Great Britain and Russia, or fight her alone later? You've got to do one or the other. I tell you that if Germany does win that fight on the Continent of Europe she will begin building and getting ready to whip us, unless the English fleet prevents it.

Referring to the Wisconsin Senator's statement that the United States had nothing to lose, no matter which side won the war, Senator Williams said:

Let's see. Have we no honor? No regard for the future sovereignty of our country? No regard for our flag? Is sentiment rot? Is patriotism rot? Is there nothing precious except money?

a

I'm getting tired of this talk that this is Wall Street war. That's a lie. Wall Street did not sink the Lusitania, the Arabic, the Sussex, and these other ships. I'm tired of lies like that, and I think it is the duty of the American Congress and people to brand them as lies.

Senator Williams said that the resolution did not propose that the United States enter the European war, but that it go into an American war to protect American rights and for the sake of honor, justice, safety, liberty, and equality. Once at war, he added, the United States should stay until it became assured the houses of Hohenzollern and Hapsburg would no longer reign in Germany and Austria, and that the Turk would be forced back into Asia.

Debate in the House

The resolution declaring war was reported to the House of Representatives after its passage by the Senate on Thursday, April 5. In presenting the resolution for passage the Committee on Foreign Affairs submitted an exhaustive report, in which the American indictment against the German Government was reviewed. The full text of this report is printed on pages 214-222.

The resolution was discussed in the House from 10 A. M. Thursday until 3:12 A. M. Friday, when it was passed by a vote of 373 yeas and 50 nays, 9 not vot

ing. Miss Rankin, the woman member of the House, voted "no" after being called three times; she prefaced her vote in a voice choked by emotion, with the words: "I want to stand by my country—but I cannot vote for war."

The first important speech against the resolution was made by Representative Cooper of Wisconsin of the Foreign AfHe maintained that fairs Committee. Germany had not violated her promise regarding submarines; that she specifically reserved the right to withdraw it unless the United States Government would induce Great Britain to modify the blockade regulations. He argued that Great Britain had violated American rights upon the seas, that America had not been neutral. He defended German militarism with the query:

What has overthrown Russia? The tremendous struggle of the Central Powers. Now, then, I ask you this question: If we were in the situation of the German people and had just across an imaginary boundary, say like the Rio Grande River, a country of 120,000,000 or 130,000,000 or 140,000,000 people, having the most absolute, tyrannical, corrupt despotism of modern times, with an army of 1,300,000, what would we have done to secure our own safety and how long before this would we have had universal military service?

He quoted from a speech of Lloyd George delivered in Queen's Hall, London, July 28, 1908, in which he justified Germany's military preparedness, and quoted Lloyd George as follows:

Here is Germany, in the middle of Europe, with France and Russia on either side, and with a combination of their armies greater than hers. Suppose we had here a possible combination which would lay us open to invasion-suppose Germany and France, or Germany and Russia, or Germany and Austria had fleets which in combination would be stronger than ours.

Would not we be frightened; would not we build; would not we arm? Of course we should. I want our friends, who think that because Germany is a little frightened she really means mischief to us, to remember that she is frightened for a reason which would frighten us under the same circumstances.

British Blockade Defended Representative Harrison of Mississippi, in replying, said regarding England's blockade:

When she executed that order she said to the United States, "We have mined certain places in the North Sea, but if any of your

vessels wish to go through we will furnish you a diagram, so to speak; we will furnish you pilot boats, so that you may not run against the mines." Did Germany do that? No. Germany said, "Here is a zone 1,500 miles long and 1,100 miles wide your vessels cannot enter except once a week, and then only at a certain port and along a certain path, and your vessel shall be painted a certain color-like a barber's sign, So to speak." And then they said, so far as the Mediterranean is concerned, "You enter it except in a strip of twenty miles wide." Can you not see the difference between the actions of Germany and the actions of England? A man who cannot is unable to see the difference between, as some one has said, a torpedo and a prize court.

cannot

England's prize courts have awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars for affecting the property rights of the citizens of this country. Their courts are open, and they have said, "We will try the cases coming before us, and award damages not upon the orders in council but upon international law." And on that principle hundreds of our citizens have collected the full market value of their cargoes taken. And yet men say that we ought to go to war against England for violating property rights and excuse Germany for destroying the lives of American citizens. By that argument you say to me I shall not be permitted to choose my assailant. If one comes into my home and steals my pocketknife, he can be prosecuted for petit larceny. The penalty will be light. But if he comes into my home and kills some one who is dear to me, the punishment will be death.

For nearly three years we have tried every avenue of diplomacy commensurate with a nation's honor to avoid war. So intense has been our desire for peace that at home our Government has been criticised and abroad our patience and forbearance have been marveled at.

Indictment by Mr. Foss

Representative Foss of Illinois denounced Germany's attitude in these terms:

German belief in German power has fattened on the blood of innocents. She no longer seeks to hide behind her broken promise, but tells us she will sink on sight any ship within a certain zone, save one poor ship per week, and then only under conditions which, to accept, was to surrender each and all our dearly bought liberties.

At the same moment we caught her redhanded in the basest act of international treachery ever committed by a civilized nation. She offers as barter a part of our sovereign territory in exchange for an attack on us by two friendly nations-Mexico and Japan.

Now Germany has dropped her diplomatic mask and stands revealed in all her naked