The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***
Dates of addresses by Woodrow Wilson in this eBook:
December 2, 1913
December 8, 1914
December 7, 1915
December 5, 1916
December 4, 1917
December 2, 1918
December 2, 1919
December 7, 1920
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State of the Union Address
Woodrow Wilson
December 2, 1913
Gentlemen of the Congress:
In pursuance of my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress informationof the state of the Union," I take the liberty of addressing you on severalmatters which ought, as it seems to me, particularly to engage theattention of your honorable bodies, as of all who study the welfare andprogress of the Nation.
I shall ask your indulgence if I venture to depart in some degree from theusual custom of setting before you in formal review the many matters whichhave engaged the attention and called for the action of the severaldepartments of the Government or which look to them for early treatment inthe future, because the list is long, very long, and would suffer in theabbreviation to which I should have to subject it. I shall submit to youthe reports of the heads of the several departments, in which thesesubjects are set forth in careful detail, and beg that they may receive thethoughtful attention of your committees and of all Members of the Congresswho may have the leisure to study them. Their obvious importance, asconstituting the very substance of the business of the Government, makescomment and emphasis on my part unnecessary.
The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and manyhappy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense ofcommunity of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settledpeace and good will. More and more readily each decade do the nationsmanifest their willingness to bind themselves by solemn treaty to theprocesses of peace, the processes of frankness and fair concession. So farthe United States has stood at the front of such negotiations. She will, Iearnestly hope and confidently believe, give fresh proof of her sincereadherence to the cause of international friendship by ratifying the severaltreaties of arbitration awaiting renewal by the Senate. In addition tothese, it has been the privilege of the Department of State to gain theassent, in principle, of no less than 31 nations, representing four-fifthsof the population of the world, to the negotiation of treaties by which itshall be agreed that whenever differences of interest or of policy arisewhich can not be resolved by the ordinary processes of diplomacy they shallbe publicly analyzed, discussed, and reported upon by a tribunal chosen bythe parties before either nation determines its course of action.
There is only one possible standard by which to determine controversiesbetween the United States and other nations, and that is compounded ofthese two elements: Our own honor and our obligations to the peace of theworld. A test so compounded ought easily to be made to govern both theestablishment of new treaty obligations and the interpretation of thosealready assumed.
There is but one cloud upon our horizon. That has shown itself to the southof us, and hangs ove