Select the correct text in the passage. Which two
sentences in this excerpt from
President Woodrow Wilson's speech "War Message" argue that offense is the best defense for
America in the face of German aggression?
When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to
use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears,
is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping.
privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against
It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own
intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German government denies the right of neutrals to use arms
all
right to defend. The intimation within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their
pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the
only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us Armed neutrality is. ineffectual enough at bestt in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is likely into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of
cead. os
belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path
wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life. sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common of submiss. o and suffer the most