Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1917-04-30
Presidents War Message To Be
Studied Ii the Public Schools

The state department OF education
has decided to have the message of
President Woodrow Wilson to the
present war congress read in tho
schools of the state and made the sub
ject Of study, for tho document Is con-
sidered rare literature not only be-
cause Of it, simplicity but compost
ton and because 1t treated q subject
that will 20 down into history as mark
| ing one OF the most important turn
! ing points In the history Of this coun-
try.
After giving the message careful
study DR.. e. o. Sisson, commissioner
Of education. and Miss Ethel Il. Red
field. state superintendent OF public In
struction, carefully extracted the
stronger passages from the message
and so briefed 1t as to present a COM
posite document that can be easily un-
derstood by the students In the public
schools.
As briefed through the excerpts
taken from the message. 1t will be
printed and freely distributed among
/ the county and city school superintend-
ents, principals and teachers. The
/ condensed message Is as follows:
II have called the congress into ex-
traordinary session because there are
serious-very serious-choices of pol
Ricy to be made, and made Immediately,
which 1t was neither right nor consti-
tutionally permissible that 1 should
assume the responsibility of making.
On the third of February last / Off
cially laid before you the extraordinary
announcement Of the imperial German
government that on and after, the first
day of February 1t was its purpose to
put aside all restraints Of law or OF
humanity and use its submarines to
sink every vessel that sought to ap-
proach either the ports Of Great Brit
ain and Ireland or the western coasts
of Europe, or any of the ports con-
trolled by the enemies of Germany
within the Mediterranean.
1.-The new policy has swept every re-
striction aSide. Vessels Of every kind,
whatever their flag, their character,
their cargo, their destination. their err
rand, have been ruthlessly sent to the
bottom without warning and without
thought of help or mercy for those on
board, the vessels Of friendly neutrals
along with those of belligerents.
Even hospital ships and ships car
rying relief to the sorely bereaved and
stricken people of Belgium, though the
latter were provided with safe con-
duct through the prescribed areas by
the German government itself and were
distinguished by unmistakable marks
OF identity. have been sunk with the
same reckless lack of compassion cr
of principle.
1.-The present German warfare against
commerce is a warfare against man
kind. 1t is a war against all nations.
American ships have been sunk, Amer
lean lives taken, in ways which 1t has
stirred US very deeply to learn of but
the ships and people of other neutral
and friendly nations have been sunk
and overwhelmed in the waters in the
same way.
There has been no discrimination.
The challenge Is to all mankind. Each
nation must decide for itself how 1t
will meet 1t. The choice we make for
ourselves must be made with a mod
Grafton Of counsel and temperatures
and our motives as nation. We must
put excited feeling away. Our motive
will not be revenge or the victorious
assertion of the physical might of the
nation, but only the vindication of
right, of human right, Of which we are
only single champion.
There is one choice We cannot make,
we are incapable Of making: We will
not choose the path Of submission and
suffer the most sacred rights of our
nation and our people to be ignored or
violated. The wrongs against which
we now array ourselves are not COM
mon wrongs; they cut to the very roots
of human life.
with a profound sense of the solemn
and even tragical character Of the step
I am taking and of the grave RESPONSE
bilities which 1t involves, but in unhes-
itating obedience to what I deem my
constitutional duty, 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 Uni
ted States; that it formally accept the
status Of belligerent which has thus
uccH THRUST upon IL anu L1QC IL take
immediate steps not only to put the
country in more thorough state of
defense, but also to exert all its power
and employ all its resources to bring
the government Of the German empire
to terms and end the war.
I'VE have no quarrel with the Ger
man people. We have no feeling to-
ward them but one of sympathy and
friendship. 1t was not upon their i'm
pulse that their government acted in
entering this war. 1t was not with
their previous knowledge or approval
1T was q war determined upon as
wars used to be determined upon in the
old. unhappy days when peoples were
nowhere consulted by their rulers and
wars were provoked and waged in the
interest Of dynasties or of little groups
Of ambitious men who were accustomed
to use their fellow men as pawns and
tools.
| aCalP ~nyarpaA caxt.-.