The attitude of the present administration during the last five months shows how worthless the present treaties, unbacked by force, are, and how utterly ineffective mere passive neutrality is to secure even the smallest advance in world morality. I have been very reluctant in any way to criticise the action of the present administration in foreign affairs; I have faithfully, and in some cases against my own deep-rooted personal convictions, sought to justify what it has done in Mexico and as regards the present war; but the time has come when loyalty to the administration’s action in foreign affairs means disloyalty to our national self-interest and to our obligations toward humanity at large. As regards Belgium the administration has clearly taken the ground that our own selfish ease forbids us to fulfil our explicit obligations to small neutral states when they are deeply wronged. It will never be possible in any war to commit a clearer breach of international morality than that committed by Germany in the invasion and subjugation of Belgium. Every one of the nations involved in this war, and the United States as well, have committed such outrages in the past. But the very purpose of the Hague conventions and of all similar international agreements was to put a stop to such misconduct in the future. At the outset I ask our people to remember that what I say is based on the assumption that we are bound in good faith to fulfil our treaty obligations; that we will neither favor nor condemn any other nation except on the ground of its behavior; that we feel as much good-will to the people of Germany or Austria as to the people of England, of France, or of Russia; that we speak for Belgium only as we could speak for Holland or Switzerland or one of the Scandinavian or Balkan nations; and that if the circumstances as regards Belgium had been reversed we would have protested as emphatically against wrong action by England or France as we now protest against wrong action by Germany.