We were not at war, but war was waged against us in so many ways—against our lives and property—that all sense of security was gone. We offered as our defense not, as yet, our Fleet or our Army, but our Department of Justice. Day and night that department at Washington, and its branches in all the great cities, in New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco, labored to clear the constantly increasing dockets, to keep down the constantly increasing heaps of suspect cases. It was evident that America was hearing from the Kaiser’s million Germans in America. But where were the lamp posts? The Department of Justice found itself flooded and submerged with work in the Bureau of Investigation, collecting evidence against German spies and German lawbreakers. It was plain what efforts now were making to undermine America. But the truth was, the grist was too much for the mill. We had never organized a system to handle covert and hidden war as Germany had done. We had fought in the open when, rarely, we had fought at all. The great mill of Justice clogged up and broke down, not from any inefficiency or inadequacy in average times, but because it never could have been predicted that “Neutrality Cases” such as these ever would be known in our history. In this war, giant figures only have ruled. The world was not prepared for them. The outrages went on. Germany, confident of the success of ruthless submarine warfare, told us when we could sail, how we must mark our ships—said, sneeringly, “Vell, you vas varned!” It had very early become plain to all Americans that we could not always submit to this. More and more now we were browbeaten and insulted. More and more also our hearts were wrung at the sight of splendid France, fighting gamely and proudly and silently for her life; at the lists of the gallant British dead; the whole story of the staggering lines of Liberty. It was plain that the great prize of free institutions, of human liberty itself, was about to be lost to the world forever. It became plain that the glorious traditions of America must perish, that her answer to humanity must be forever stilled, that she, too, must be included in the ruin of all the good things of the world. It began also to be said more and more openly that America would come next—that we must fight; if not now, then at some later day, and perhaps without these Allies. So our war spirit began in the total to outweigh and overtop our peace spirit and our pacifist spirit and our hesitant spirit. We knew we would be at war. Many of us deplored and do still deplore the fact that we waited so long in times so perilous. We lost two precious years; billions in treasure, and what is immeasurably worse, millions in lives. So much for hesitancy.