If that proposal had
been accepted actual controversy would have been settled with honor to
everybody, and the whole of this terrible welter would have been
avoided. ["Hear, hear!"]
Germany's Responsibility.
And with whom does the responsibility rest [cries of "The Kaiser!"] for
this refusal and for all the illimitable suffering which now confronts
the world? One power and one power only, and that power--Germany. [Loud
hisses.] That is the fount and origin of this worldwide catastrophe. We
are persevering to the end. No one who has not been confronted as we
were with the responsibility of determining the issues of peace and war
can realize the strength and energy and persistency with which we
labored for peace. We persevered by every expedient that diplomacy could
suggest, straining almost to the breaking point our most cherished
friendships and obligations, even to the last making effort upon effort,
and hoping against hope. Then, and only then, when we were at last
compelled to realize that the choice lay between honor and dishonor,
between treachery and good faith, when at last we reached the dividing
line which makes or mars a nation worthy of the name, it was then, and
then only, that we declared for war.
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