But still less were we
prepared to anticipate the terrible spectacle which now confronts us of
a contest which for the number and importance of the powers engaged, the
scale of their armaments and armies, the width of the theatre of
conflict, the outpouring of blood and the loss of life, the incalculable
toll of suffering levied upon non-combatants, the material and moral
loss accumulating day by day to the higher interests of civilized
mankind--a contest which in every one of these aspects is without
precedent in the annals of the world. ["Hear, hear!"] We were very
confident three years ago in the rightness of our position, when we
welcomed the new securities for peace. We are equally confident in it
today, when reluctantly, and against our will, but with a clear judgment
and a clean conscience, [cheers,] we find ourselves involved with the
whole strength of this empire in a bloody arbitration between might and
right [Cheers.] The issue has passed out of the domain of argument into
another field, but let me ask you, and through you the world outside,
what would have been our condition as a nation today if we had been base
enough through timidity or through perverted calculation of
self-interest, or through a paralysis of the sense of honor and duty,
[cheers,] if we had been base enough to be false to our word and
faithless to our friends?
Blind Barbarian Vengeance.
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