When most Americans came to realize that Germany was fighting a war to conquer the world, first Russia and France, then England, and then the United States--for she had written Mexico that if she would attack the United States, Germany and Mexico would make war and peace together--when they came to know the German nature and the idea of the Germans, that Might makes Right and that truth, honesty, and square dealing like mercy, pity, and love are only words of weaklings; that they were a nation of liars and falsifiers and the most brutal of all people of recorded history; when, added to this, the Americans realized that for over two years France and England had really been fighting for everything for which the United States stood and which her people held dear, for her very life and liberty, then America almost as one man declared for war.
Meanwhile Germany had declined to recognize the laws of nations which allowed America to sell munitions to the Allies. She had scattered spies through the United States to destroy property and create labor troubles. She had challenged the right of peaceful Americans to travel on the high seas. She had sunk the _Lusitania_ with a loss of one hundred twenty-four American lives; the _Sussex_, the _Laconia_ with a loss of eight Americans, the _Vigilancia_ with five, the _City of Memphis_, the _Illinois_, the _Healdton_, and others. She had tried to unite Mexico and Japan against us.
Not until then, after the American people had become fully aware of the German character and purposes, did Congress on April 6, 1917, declare a state of war existed between Germany and the United States. On that day the outcome of the war was decided. Through her hideous selfishness, her stupidity, and her brutality, Germany, after having spent nearly fifty years in preparation, lost her opportunity for world dominion. The resources and the fighting power of what she looked upon as a nation of cowardly, money-loving merchants decided the conflict.
We are coming from the ranch, from the city and the mine, And the word has gone before us to the towns upon the Rhine; As the rising of the tide On the Old-World side, We are coming to the battle, to the Line.
From the Valleys of Virginia, from the Rockies in the North, We are coming by battalions, for the word was carried forth: "We have put the pen away And the sword is out today, For the Lord has loosed the Vintages of Wrath."