A little after 8:30 p.m. on Monday, 2 April 1917 President Woodrow Wilson asked the US Congress to support his declaration of war on Germany. Wilson delivered his speech with his usual careful, slightly nasal enunciation; his audience was spellbound, the silence being interrupted only by a loud and eerie crash as a soldier standing guard dropped his rifle. 'The world,' Wilson told Congress, 'must be made safe for democracy.' By 11 November 1918 it was evident that part of the price paid by the United States to ensure the safety of democracy in Europe was the weakening of its defences at home.
- From The Doughboys: America and the First World War by Gary Mead
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