1917 State of the Union Address

Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

The1917State of the Union Addresswas given byWoodrow Wilson,the 28th president of the United States on Tuesday, December 4, 1917, during his turbulent second term. He spoke in theUnited States House of Representativeschamber, in theUnited States Capitol.He said, "I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to need to be rehearsed." He addressed the65th United States Congress,and spoke ofWorld War I.He ended with, "A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of His own justice and mercy."In the middle of the speech, he said this about theGerman Empire,"The worst that can happen to the detriment the German people is this, that if they should still, after the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the peace of the world, men or classes of men whom the other peoples of the world could not trust, it might be impossible to admit them to the partnership of nations which must henceforth guarantee the world's peace." He is saying that empires' do not promoteworld peace.A year after he gave this speech, on December 4, 1918, theUnited States militarywould swallow Germany in victory, and the saying that is written would come true, "Death has been swallowed up in victory."