American Rhetoric: Movie Speech

"Wilson" (1944)

President Wilson Delivers War Message to a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress

Audio mp3 delivered by Alexander Knox       Audio AR-XE mp3 delivered by Alexander Knox

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragic character of the step I am taking, and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, I advise that the 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, and that it formally accept the status of belligerency which has thus been thrust upon it.

In so doing, let us make clear to all the world what our motives and objectives are. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and freedom of nations can make them.

It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts: for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task, we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.

God helping her, she can do no other.