That is only a phase--a lurid and illuminating phase in the contest in which we have been called by the mandate of duty and of honor to bear our part. The cynical violation of the neutrality of Belgium was, after all, but a step--the first step--in a deliberate policy of which, if not the immediate, the ultimate, and the not far distant aim, was to crush the independence and autonomy of the free States of Europe. First Belgium, then Holland, then Switzerland, countries, like our own, imbued and sustained with the spirit of liberty, were one after another to be bent to the yoke, and these ambitions were fed and fostered by a body of new doctrines and new philosophies preached by professors and learned men. The free and full self-development which to these small States, to ourselves, to our great and growing dominions over the seas, to our kinsmen across the Atlantic, is the well-spring and life-breath of national existence--that free self-development is the one capital offense in the code of those who have made force their supreme divinity, and who upon its altars are prepared to sacrifice both the gathered fruits and the potential germs of the unfettered human spirit. [Cheers.] I use this language advisedly. This is not merely a material; it is also a spiritual conflict. [Cheers.] Upon its issues everything that contains promise and hope, that leads to emancipation and a fuller liberty for the millions who make up the mass of mankind will be found sooner or later to depend. Our Efforts for Peace.