The President could no longer postpone drawing the sword.

Being convinced that the inevitable hour had struck, he proved himself the man of the hour and acted with energy.

A special session of congress was called for April 2.
The day is bound to stand out in history for in the afternoon the President delivered his famous message asking that war be declared against Germany.

He said that armed neutrality had been found wanting and in the end would only draw the country into war without its having the status of a belligerent.

One of the striking paragraphs of the message follows: "With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking, and of the grave responsibility which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I 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 United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defence, 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." Congress voted a declaration of war April 6.