"_With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves_.... _I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States_...." The typewriter clicked industriously. The face bent intently over the keys was grave and quiet, but as the paper unrolled before him some of his sadness seemed to pass away. A vision of his country, no longer divided in petty schisms, engrossed in material pursuits, but massed in one by the force and fury of a valiant ideal, came into his mind. "It is for humanity," he whispered to himself. "_Ich kann nicht anders_...." "_We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval_.... _Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies, or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest.... A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations_.... "_Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own_." With the gathering of the dusk the rain had stopped. He rose from his chair and walked to the window. The sky had cleared; in the west shone a faint band of clear apple green in which burned one lucent star. Distantly he could hear the murmur of the city like the pulsing heartbeat of the nation. As often, in moments of tension, he seemed to feel the whole vast stretch of the continent throbbing; the yearning breast of the land trembling with energy; the great arch of sky, spanning from coast to coast, quiver with power unused. The murmur of little children in their cradles, the tender words of mothers, the footbeat of men on the pavements of ten thousand cities, the flags leaping in air from high buildings, ships putting out to sea with gunners at their sterns--in one aching synthesis the vastness and dearness and might of his land came to him. A mingled nation, indeed, of various and clashing breeds; but oh, with what a tradition to uphold! Words were forming in his mind as he watched the fading sky, and he returned quietly to the typewriter: "_We are glad to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included.... The world must be made safe for democracy_." _The world must be made safe for democracy_! As the wires leaped and the little typewriter spoke under the pressure of his strong fingers, scenes passed in his mind of the happy, happy Europe he had known in old wander days, years before.