Yet I do think that I hit it off accurately a year or a year and a half ago when I said that we could then have ended the war without any appreciable cost.

And these are my reasons: If we had then come in and absolutely prevented supplies from reaching Germany, as we are now about to do, the war would then have been much sooner ended than it can now be ended: (1) Our supplies enabled her to go on.
(2) She got time in this way to build her great submarine fleet.
She went at it the day she promised the President to reform.
(3) She got time and strength to overrun Rumania whence she got food and oil; and continues to get it.
(4) During this time Russia fell down as a military force and gave her more time, more armies for France and more supplies.

Russian guns have been sold to the Germans.
If a year and a half ago we had starved her out, it would have been over before any of these things happened.

This delay is what will cost us billions and billions and men and men.
And it cost us one thing more.

During the neutrality period we were as eager to get goods to the little neutral states which were in large measure undoubtedly bound to Germany as we are now eager to keep them out.