ÃÀ¹úÀúÊ·ÃûÈËÑݽ²100ƪGentlemen of the Congress:
    I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to bemade, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume theresponsibility of making.
    On the third of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial GermanGovernment that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanityand use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or thewestern coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean.