Because of France, invaded, desecrated France, a million of whose heroic sons have died to save the land of Lafayette. Glorious, golden France, the preserver of the arts, the land of noble spirit, the first land to follow our lead into republican liberty. Because of England, from whom came the laws, traditions, standards of life, and inherent love of liberty which we call Anglo-Saxon civilization. We defeated her once upon the land and once upon the sea. But Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Canada are free because of what we did. And they are with us in the fight for the freedom of the seas. Because of Russia--new Russia. She must not be overwhelmed now. Not now, surely, when she is just born into freedom. Her peasants must have their chance; they must go to school to Washington, to Jefferson, and to Lincoln, until they know their way about in this new, strange world of government by the popular will. Because of other peoples, with their rising hope that the world may be freed from government by the soldier. We are fighting Germany because she sought to terrorize us and then to fool us. We could not believe that Germany would do what she said she would do upon the seas. We still hear the piteous cries of children coming up out of the sea where the _Lusitania_ went down. And Germany has never asked the forgiveness of the world. We saw the _Sussex_ sunk, crowded with the sons and daughters of neutral nations. We saw ship after ship sent to the bottom--ships of mercy bound out of America for the Belgian starving, ships carrying the Red Cross and laden with the wounded of all nations, ships carrying food and clothing to friendly, harmless, terrorized peoples, ships flying the Stars and Stripes--sent to the bottom hundreds of miles from shore, manned by American seamen, murdered against all law, without warning. We believed Germany's promise that she would respect the neutral flag and the rights of neutrals, and we held our anger and outrage in check. But now we see that she was holding us off with fair promises until she could build her huge fleet of submarines. For when spring came, she blew her promise into the air, just as at the beginning she had torn up that "scrap of paper." Then we saw clearly that there was but one law for Germany, her will to rule. We are fighting Germany because in this war feudalism is making its last stand against on-coming democracy. We see it now. This is a war against an old spirit, an ancient, outworn spirit. It is a war against feudalism--the right of the castle on the hill to rule the village below. It is a war for democracy--the right of all to be their own masters. Let Germany be feudal if she will. But she must not spread her system over a world that has outgrown it.