Abel Read the excerpt from President Woodrow Wilson's speech, "War Message to Congress."
On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German
Government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of
humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain
and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within
the Mediterranean.
It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it 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 it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be
made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives
as a nation. We must put excited feelings 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 a single
champion.
Who is the intended audience of this speech?