President Woodrow Wilson's great speech to Congress seeking a declaration of war against Imperial Germany initiated America's involvement in World War I. Anchored in American idealism, it heralded the beginning of America's global commitment.

The world must be made safe for Democracy. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts: for democracy, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.