Cuba entered the Great War. That fact was the supreme seal to her title-deeds to a place as peer among the nations; placing her in blood-brotherhood with her neighbors. She entered the war almost simultaneously with the United States, though with less delay than that country. At Washington the President addressed Congress on April 2, advising a declaration of war against Germany, and the declaration was made on April 6. At Havana the President delivered his war message on April 6, and on April 7 war was declared. In that impressive and epochal message, the most momentous and solemn that any chief of state can ever utter, President Menocal reviewed in dispassionate detail the criminal record of Germany in her unrestricted submarine warfare, and then continued: "The government of the United States, to which country we are bound by the closest ties, had during the last two years incessantly formulated energetic protests and claims based on the most elemental principles of justice in defence of its citizens who were victims on many occasions of attacks by German submarines; of the liberty of the seas and the respect due the lives and property of neutrals; and revindicating the right to navigate and engage in commerce freely, without restrictions save those sanctioned by international law, by treaties, and by the universal practise of civilized nations. "Since February 1 submarines have attacked and sunk without mercy. Such acts of war without quarter, directed against all nations, to close down the world's commerce under terrible penalties, cannot be tolerated without accepting them as legitimate to-day and always. "Cuba cannot appear indifferent to such violations, which at any moment may be carried out at the cost of the lives and interests of its own citizens. Nor can it, without loss of dignity and decorum, show indifference to the noble attitude assumed by the United States, to which we are bound by ties of gratitude and by treaties. Cuba cannot remain neutral in this supreme conflict, because a declaration of neutrality would compel it to treat alike all belligerents, denying them with equal vigor entrance to our ports and imposing other restrictions which are contrary to the sentiment of the Cuban people and which inevitably in the end would result in conflict with our friend and ally.