Woodrow Wilson's War Message to Congress
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 (Started) 2:55 p.m.
This is a speech given to Congress on April 2, 1917 addressing them of the circumstances and situation in which the German U-boat campaign had put the American nation in. Wilson did not want to immediately go to war, but he rallied behind the notion that America was obligated to:
"...vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles." (pg. 305)
The German Government was sinking ships regardless of whether or not they were neutral (carrying cargo filled with medical supplies or non-combatants). Woodrow Wilson urged that this utter disregard for human life should not go unpunished and unhindered. I would most assuredly agree with Woodrow Wilson's plea seeing the devastation and malicious acts committed against unmistakably neutral targets. Due to the relentless sinking of ships (such as the Lusitana, a British ship carrying American passengers, 128 of which perished, in 1915), it was rather obvious that even an armed neutral stance could no longer be taken by Germany. Woodrow Wilson made it rather clear that the participation of America in World War I would be only in the fairness of self-defense and the protection of human rights. There was to be no ill will towards the people of Germany but sympathy and a hand offering friendship towards them (pg. 305).
David,
ReplyDeleteGood description of Wilson's ideas but I would have liked to have heard what you thought was most significant and why.
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