solution of international disputes.
_This circular is understood to have been rather reassuring to high
officials of the United States Government, although it does not cover
the attitude of the German Government toward the treatment to be
accorded to Americans and other neutral noncombatants, men, women, and
children, on board vessels flying the flag of England, France, or
Russia. The absence of any allusion to the principle involved in the
Lusitania case is believed here to mean that the statement was prepared
and was ready for promulgation before the destruction of the Lusitania
on Friday. Several days usually have been required for messages to come
to Washington from Ambassador Gerard, by roundabout cable relay route,
and it is believed that this dispatch is no exception in this respect._
DR. DERNBURG'S DEFENSE.
_The sinking of the Lusitania as a man-of-war was justified by Dr.
Bernhard Dernburg, late German Colonial Secretary and recognized as
quasi-official spokesman of the German Imperial Government in the United
States, in a statement issued in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 8, 1915. The
statement reads:_
Great Britain declared the North Sea a war zone in the Winter. No
protest was made by the United States or any neutral. Great Britain held
up all neutral ships carrying non-contraband goods, detaining them,
buying or confiscating their cargoes.
Great Britain constantly changed the contraband lists, so no foodstuffs
of any kind have actually reached Germany since the war began.
International law says foodstuffs destined for the civil population must
pass. It does not recognize any right to starve out a whole people.
As a consequence, and in retaliation, Germany declared the waters around
England a war zone, and started a submarine warfare. It became known in
February that British ships were flying the American flag as a
protection.
Great Britain replied by officially declaring its purpose to starve
120,000,000 Germans and Austrians. The United States very thoughtfully
tried to mediate, proposing that foodstuffs should be passed and
submarine warfare be stopped.
Germany agreed; England turned the proposal down. Then, in order to
protect American passengers, they were warned by public advertisement of
the danger of sailing under the flag of a belligerent.
Vessels carrying contraband of war are liable to destruction unless they
can be taken to a port of the country that captures them. The right of
search need not be exercised if it is certain such ships carry
contraband.
Oil is contraband, like war ammunition and all metals. The master of the
Gulflight (an American oil tank steamer sunk recently) swore before
customs officials to his cargo of oil for France.
The master of the Lusitania similarly swore to his manifest of cargo of
metals and ammunition. Both the Gulflight and the Lusitania carried
contraband when attacked, it is obvious.
The Lusitania's manifest showed she carried for Liverpool 260,000 pounds
of brass; 60,000 pounds of copper; 189 cases of military goods; 1,271
cases of ammunition, and for London, 4,200 cases of cartridges.
Vessels of that kind can be seized and be destroyed under The Hague
rules without any respect to a war zone. The Lusitania was a British
auxiliary cruiser, a man-of-war. On the same day she sailed the
Cameronia, another Cunarder, was commandeered in New York Harbor for
military service.
The fact is that the Lusitania was a British war vessel under orders of
the Admiralty to carry a cargo of contraband of war. The passengers had
had full warning, first by the German note to England in February,
second by advertisement.
Germany wants to do anything reasonable so as not to make the United
States or its citizens suffer in any way. But she cannot do so unless
Americans will take necessary precautions to protect themselves from
dangers of which they are cognizant.
What Germany has done, she has done by way of retaliation after her
offer through President Wilson, regarding submarine warfare, was turned
down and after Britain declared the war was directed toward the
120,000,000 innocent noncombatants, women and children.
Americans can do their own thinking when the facts are laid before them.
I have really no authority to speak. But my mission in the United
States is to inform your people of the German attitude. The German
Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, can speak only in official phrases. I
talk straight out, bluntly.
_Dr. Dernburg put much stress on the fact that the Cunard Line officials
did not warn American passengers that the ship carried a large store of
ammunition and other contraband of war. He continued:_
Did they issue a warning? I would like an answer. If that warning was
not given, American passengers were being used as a cloak for England's
war shipments.
It is not reasonable that such a vessel could not be sunk because there
were American passengers on board. They had been warned by Germany of
the danger.
England could hire one American to travel to and fro on each of her
ships, carry on shipments of arms, and place her men-of-war anywhere, if
American passengers can be used as shields.
_Asked whether he expected action by the United States because of the
Lusitania's sinking, Dr. Dernburg said:_
That is a question I cannot discuss. I can only say that any ship flying
the American flag and not carrying contraband of war is and will be as
safe as a cradle. But any other ship, not so exempt, is as unsafe as a
volcano--or as was the Lusitania.
_When he was told that the Transylvania, another Cunard liner, sailed
from New York on May 7, to cover the same route as the Lusitania, Dr.
Dernburg said:_
I can only say that the German warnings will reappear henceforth by
advertisement. That is significant.
German Press Opinion
_Contrasting with the attitude of the German-American press since the
issuance of President Wilson's note of May 13 to the German Imperial
Government, the comment of the press in Germany has been in accordance
with the German official statements put forth prior to the receipt of
the American note. Under date of May 9, 1915, the following dispatch by
The Associated Press was received from Berlin:_
_Commenting on the destruction Lusitania, the Berliner Tageblatt says:_
With deep emotion we learn of the destruction of the Lusitania, in
which countless men lost their lives. We lament with sincere hearts
their hard fate, but we know we are completely devoid of blame.
We may be sure that through the English telegrams communicated to the
world indignation will again be raised against Germany, but we must hope
that calm reflection will later pronounce the verdict of condemnation
against the British Admiralty.
The many who are now sorrowing may raise complaint against Winston
Spencer Churchill, First Lord of the British Admiralty, who, by
conscienceless instructions which must bring him the curse of mankind,
conjured up this cruel warfare....
The Lusitania was a warship on the list of English auxiliary cruisers
and carried armament of twelve strongly mounted guns. She was more
strongly mounted with guns than any German armored cruiser. As an
auxiliary cruiser she must have been prepared for attack.
_Count von Reventlow, the naval expert, says, in the Tages Zeitung:_
The American Government probably will make the case the basis for
diplomatic action, but it could have prevented the loss of American
lives by appropriate instructions. It is the American Government's
fault, therefore, if it did not take Germany's war zone declarations
seriously enough.
_The writer declares, further, that Germany had full and trustworthy
information that the Lusitania carried a cargo of war material, as she
had on previous trips._
_The Lokal Anzeiger also assumes that the steamship was carrying
munitions of war, and maintains that this and "the fact that she was a
fully armed cruiser completely justifies her destruction under the laws
of warfare."_
_The Kreuz Zeitung, after referring to the warning issued by Ambassador
von Bernstorff, adds:_
If citizens of neutral States were lost with the sunken ship they must
bear the full blame.
_Some papers further testify the sinking of the steamer because on a
previous occasion she had resorted to the expedient of flying the
American flag. Germania, the clerical organ, deprecates probable
attempts by Germany's antagonists to make moral capital against her out
of the sinking of the Lusitania and the loss of life. The paper says:_
We can look forward to such efforts with a clear conscience, for we have
proceeded correctly. We can only answer to those who place their
sympathies above justice, that war is war.
_An editorial article in the Frankfurter Zeitung was quoted in an
Amsterdam dispatch to The London Times of May 10, as follows:_
The Lusitania has been sent to the bottom. That is the announcement
which must arouse measureless horror among many thousands.
A giant ship of the British merchant fleet, a vessel of over 31,000
tons, one of the most famous of the fast steamers of the
British-American passenger service, a ship full of people, who had
little or nothing to do with the war, has been attacked and sunk by a
German torpedo. This is the announcement which in a few words indicates
a mighty catastrophe to a ship with 2,000 people aboard.
We always feel that it is tragic and all too hard when war inflicts
wounds on those who do not carry its weapons.
We lament similarly the fate of the unfortunate villages and towns where
war rages and the innocent victims of bombs who, far behind the
trenches, and often without our being able to estimate the meaning of
this murder, are snatched from the ranks of the unarmed.
Much more terrible is the fate of those who on the high sea, many
hundreds in number, suddenly see death before their eyes.
A German war vessel has sunk the ship. It has done its duty.
For the German Navy the sinking of the Lusitania means an extraordinary
success. Its destruction demolished the last fable with which the people
of England consoled themselves; on which hostile shipping relied when it
dared to defy the German warnings.
We do not need to seek grounds to justify the destruction of a British
ship. She belonged to the enemy and brought us harm. She has fallen to
our shots.
The enemy and the whole world were warned that he who ventured to trust
himself within her staked his life.
_The London Daily Mail of May 16 quotes from Der Tag the following
article by Herr von Rath, who is described as a favorite spokesman in
the Wilhelmstrasse:_
President Wilson is very much troubled by the drowning of so many
American citizens, and we Germans sincerely share his feelings, but we
see in the Lusitania affair one of the many cruel necessities which the
struggle for existence brings with it.
If, as English reports try to make us believe, Mr. Wilson is now
meditating revenge, we will not disturb him in this occupation, but
would only hope that his demands will be addressed to the right and not
the wrong quarters.
The right address is England. On the German side, everything was done to
warn American travelers from the impending peril, while British
irresponsibility and arrogance nullified the effect of the German
admonition.
Mr. Wilson is certainly in a precarious position. After showing himself
so weak in the face of the long and ruthless British provocations, he
has to play the strong man with Germany. Otherwise he will lose what
prestige he has left, and he knows that in the background the pretender
to the throne, Mr. Roosevelt, is lurking.
But what are the gallant shouters in the United States thinking about?
Should the United States send troops to take part in the fighting in
Flanders? The gigantic losses of their Canadian neighbors should not
exactly encourage them, from a military standpoint. Moreover the United
States are so weak that they have never even been able to impose their
will on Mexico or to do anything to the still more unpleasant Japanese
than to clench their fists in their pockets.
Should their superdreadnoughts cross the Atlantic Ocean? England has
not even useful work for her own ironclads in this war. What would
American warships do?
How about our Germanic brethren in the United States--the half million
German and Austro-Hungarian reservists who are not permitted to take
part in the defense of their home lands? Will they stand with folded
arms and see their fatherlands attacked?
What the United States has already done to support our enemies is, apart
from interference with private property, the worst which she could do to
us. We have nothing more to expect or to fear. Therefore, the threats of
our erstwhile friend Roosevelt leave us quite cold.
Let the United States also preserve up from warmed-up humanitarian
platitudes, for her craven submission to England's will is promoting an
outrageous scheme to deliver Germany's women and children to death by
starvation.
_A wireless dispatch from Berlin to Sayville, L.I., on May 16 reported
this outgiving by the Overseas News Agency:_
The whole German press, particularly the Cologne Gazette, the Frankfort
Gazette and the Berliner Tageblatt, deeply regret the loss of American
lives caused by the sinking of the Lusitania.
The Tages Zeitung and other newspapers state that the responsibility
rests with the British Government, which, attempting to starve the
peaceful civilian population of a big country, forced Germany in
self-defense to declare British waters a war zone; with shipowners, who
allowed passengers to embark on an armed steamer carrying war material,
and neglected German warnings against entering the war zone, and,
finally, with the English press.
Heartfelt sympathy is expressed by the German press and public for the
victims of the catastrophe and their relatives.
_From The Hague, via London, on May 19 a special cable to_ THE NEW YORK
TIMES _reported that, acting apparently under official instructions,
several leading German newspapers had on that day joined in a fierce
attack on the United States, making a concerted demand that Germany
refuse to yield to the American protest._
_Practically all these newspapers repeat the same arguments, declaring
that neutrals entering the war zone do so at their own risk, and that
the Americans aboard the Lusitania "were shielding contraband goods with
their persons." The Berliner Tageblatt said:_
The demand of the Washington Government must be rejected. Indeed, the
whole note hardly merits serious consideration. Its "firm tone" is only
a cloak to hide America's consciousness of her own culpability. If
American citizens, in spite of the warnings of the German Admiralty,
intrusted themselves on the Lusitania, the blame for the consequences
falls on themselves and their Government.
Can the United States affirm that there were no munitions aboard? If
not, it has not the shadow of a right to protest.
GERMAN-AMERICAN PRESS COMMENTS.
_Under the heading "The President's Note," Herman Ridder, editor of the
New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, one of the leading German-American
newspapers, said in that publication on May 15:_
The attitude assumed by the President, in the note delivered yesterday
to the German Government, toward the infringement of our rights on the
seas is diplomatically correct and must compel the support of the entire
American people.
We have suffered grievously at the hands of more than one of the
belligerent nations, but for the moment we are dealing only with
Germany. The note recites a series of events which the Government of the
United States could not silently pass by, and demands reparation for
American lives lost and American property already destroyed and a
guarantee that the rights of the United States and its citizens shall be
observed in the future. All this the German Government may well grant,
frankly and unreservedly and without loss of honor or prestige. It
would be incomprehensible if it did not do so.
The note admits, as most diplomatic documents do, of two
interpretations. They will be applied to it variously, as the reader is
inclined to pessimism or to optimism. It is a document in which lies the
choice of war or peace evenly balanced. I prefer to read into it all the
optimism which can be derived from the knowledge that two nations,
historically like-minded and bound to one another by strong ties of
friendship, seldom go to war over matters which can be settled without
resort to the arbitrament of arms. There is no question outstanding
today between the United States and Germany which cannot be settled
through diplomatic channels. I am inclined all the more to this optimism
by the temperament and character of the President of the United for the
time being.
I see in the note great possibilities for good. The undersea activities
of the German Navy in their effect upon the rights of the United States
and its citizens form, properly, the burden of its argument. We are
addressing Germany, and it is only over her submarine policy that our
interests have clashed with hers. The note takes cognizance, however, of
the inter-relation of Germany's submarine policy and the British policy
of "starving out Germany." The President has opened an avenue to the
full discussion of the rights and obligations of submarines in naval
warfare, and when Germany has stated her case it is not only not
impossible but it is highly probable that he will be asked to suggest a
modus vivendi by which the objectionable features of both these policies
may be removed.
The situation is basically triangular and it is difficult to see how the
settlement of our difficulties with Germany can escape involving at the
same time the rectification of Great Britain's methods of dealing with
the trade between neutral countries and her adversaries. It is but a
step from the position of mediator in a question of this sort to that of
mediator in the larger questions which make for war or peace. I believe
that the note contains the hopeful sign that these things may come to
pass.
The possibilities are there and the President, I am confident, will
overlook no possibility of advancing the cause of an early return of
peace to Europe nor leave any unturned stone to free this country of the
dangers and inconveniences which have become the concomitants of the
European struggle. Out of the troubled waters of our present relations
with Germany may thus come a great and, we may hope, a lasting good.
Should this happily be the case, the wisdom of the President will have
been confirmed and the thankfulness of the nation secured to him. On the
other hand, should his pacific hand be forced by those who wax fat and
wealthy on strife and the end should be disaster untold to the country,
he will still have the consolation of having fought a good battle and of
knowing that he was worsted only by the irresistible force of demagogy
in this country or abroad.
The subject with which the note deals is one of the same paramount
importance to Germany as it is to this country, and we must wait in
patience for Germany's reply; and I, for one, shall wait in the
confidence that when it is received it will be found to offer a basis
for a friendly solution of the questions which exist between Germany and
the United States and, not unlikely, for those further steps which I
have intimated.
_Under the caption "A Word of Earnest Advice," the evening edition of
the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung on May 14 issued the following warning to
Germans and German-Americans:_
The times are grave--even very grave.... A conflict between America and
the old Fatherland is threatening. Such a conflict must rend the heart
of every German-American who has acquired the rights of citizenship
here, who has founded a new career for himself and brought up his
children.
It is probably unnecessary to give any advice to the American citizens
among our readers in regard to their conduct in this grave time. A
series of years must pass before an immigrant can obtain his
citizenship papers; nobody is forced to become a citizen. Of the man who
has voluntarily become a citizen of the United States we may therefore
expect that he knows the conditions here obtaining the institutions of
the country of his adoption, as well as his rights and duties. But there
are thousands upon thousands of our readers who are not citizens, and to
them a serious word of advice shall now be addressed. In the grave time
of the conflict let efforts be made to avoid every personal conflict. It
is not necessarily cowardly to deny one's descent, but it is not
necessary, either, to make demonstrations.
Where there is life there is hope. The hope still is entertained that
the conflict will be eliminated, that the bond of friendship between
Germany and America will not be torn. Through thoughtless Hotspurs, who
allow themselves to be carried away by excitement and do not dam up the
flood of their eloquence, much mischief can be done. Keeping away from
the public places where the excited groups congregate and discuss the
burning questions of the day must be urgently recommended. It was for
many a sport to participate in these discussions, and with more or less
skill, but always energetically to champion the German cause.
The American is in general very liberal in regard to expression of
opinion. He likes to hear also the "other side," but it must not be
forgotten that in times of conflict the "other side" may be regarded as
the "enemy side." What has heretofore sounded harmless may now be
interpreted as a criticism made against the United States. But the
American as a rule repels a criticism made by strangers against the
affairs of his own country. Through heated discussions and unwise
demonstrations nothing is at present to be achieved but much can be
spoiled.
Grave times!
Calmness is now the first duty of citizenship--for all non-citizens.
But whoever is a citizen--he would be doing well in any event to stay
away from the streets and squares where the noisy ones congregate.
There are very many Germans whose motto here, too, is: "We Germans fear
God and nothing else in the world." But whoever bellows that into the
ears of hundreds of persons of hostile mind in the public market place
is either a fool or--weary of life.
In submarine warfare the Germans may be superior to the British, but in
undermining the latter are superior to the former. They have now
succeeded in undermining the friendship between Uncle Sam and the
Deutsche Michel. Let us hope that the fuse can be extinguished before
the explosion follows.
_Charles Neumeyer, editor of The Louisville (Ky.) Anzeiger, in a
dispatch on May 14 to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES, _said of President Wilson's
note:_
The American note to Berlin evidences the desire of the President to
hold Germany to strict accountability for the loss of American lives in
the Lusitania disaster. This proceeding on the part of the American
Government is eminently just and proper. If the President had failed to
hold Germany to strict accountability he would have failed of his
official duty. The President's forceful action cannot be but of salutary
effect in this country also. It gives the American people the assurance
that the Government at Washington is prepared and ready for the
protection of American citizens wherever they may chance to be.
There was a time when the Government did not resort to very vigorous
measures in this respect. American citizens while traveling abroad were
frequently subject to insult and violence, and the authorities at
Washington seemingly paid little heed to complaints. The result was that
the American citizen abroad was not held in that respect which emanates
from the knowledge that his home Government is prepared to go to the
length of its ability, if necessary, to accord him protection.
One or two of the demands formulated against Germany do not meet with
our approval. The President demands a cessation of German submarine
warfare on merchant vessels, but while the interruption of the
starvation plan adopted by England against the civil population is urged
upon the latter it will continue. The starvation plan is primarily being
waged against the weak and helpless, and is, therefore, responsible. It
is also in violation of the spirit if not the letter of international
law. If the President can force a demand for the cessation of the
submarine warfare, he ought also to have the right to demand the lifting
of the starvation blockade. The tragedy was chiefly due to either
stupidity or design on the part of the British Admiralty in failing to
afford proper protection to the ship. While we do not agree with the
President on some points in his note, we repose the fullest confidence
in his patriotism as well as his deliberate judgment as giving assurance
that, whatever the outcome, the case of the American people rests in
trustworthy hands.
The people should by their action spare him unnecessary embarrassment
and rely for a satisfactory solution of the grave questions confronting
us on his patriotism and honesty.
_A dispatch on May 14 to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _from Max Burgheim, editor
of the Freie Presse of Cincinnati, Ohio, reads:_
The part of the note referring to the Lusitania catastrophe had better
been directed to London. England, not Germany, is responsible for the
destruction of the Lusitania. England, through the violation of the
rights of nations and the brutal threat to starve 70,000,000 Germans,
has forced Germany to a policy against English commerce of which the
Lusitania was a victim. Germany declared to our President her
willingness to stop submarine warfare if England would allow the
importation of food for the German civil population. England
contemptuously cast aside the President's mediation.
It has not yet been proved that submarine warfare is not in keeping with
international law. Distinguished authorities on international law have
declared that Germany was not only justified but bound to adopt this
method in the hour of need, because it is the only effective defense
against England's warfare. Germany cannot cease this warfare unless she
wishes to surrender with tied hands to a ruthless enemy. All we can
justly ask of Germany is that neutral ships be not attacked, and that
damages be paid in case of loss through mistakes. Germany has already
agreed to this.
Falaba, Cushing, Gulflight
CASE OF THE FALABA.
_A Washington dispatch to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _on March 31, 1915,
reported that the records of the State Department's Passport Bureau show
that a passport was issued on June 1, 1911, to Leon Chester Thrasher, a
passenger aboard the British African steamship Falaba, which was
torpedoed by a German submarine in the "zone of naval warfare" on March
28. The American citizenship of Thrasher, who was drowned, has been
established._
[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
LONDON, Wednesday, March 31.--An American citizen, Leon Chester
Thrasher, an engineer, was among the victims of the German submarine
that sank the British steamer Falaba in St. George's Channel last Sunday
with a loss of 111 lives. Mr. Thrasher's name is included in the
official list of the missing. For the last year he had been employed on
the Gold Coast, British West Africa, and it is presumed he was returning
to his post when he met his death at the hands of the German sea
raiders.
The Daily Mail says Mr. Thrasher was bound for Secondee, West Africa.
Reference to the form which has to be filled out to satisfy the Board of
Trade and customs requirements by every passenger embarking at a British
port before tickets will be issued shows that Mr. Thrasher was a citizen
of the United States. Here are the particulars:
Name, Leon Chester Thrasher; age, last birthday, 31; single; sex, male;
profession, engineer; country of residence for last twelve months, Gold
Coast Colony, West Africa; country of intended residence for next twelve
months, the same; country of which citizen or subject, United States of
America; present address, 29 Cartwright Gardens, St. Pancras, W.C.
When Mr. Thrasher went on board the Falaba he produced an American
passport.
_The British Official Press Bureau on April 8 issued the following
report on the destruction of the Falaba:_
It is not true that sufficient time was given the passengers and the
crew of this vessel to escape. The German submarine closed in on the
Falaba, ascertained her name, signaled her to stop, and gave those on
board five minutes to take to the boats. It would have been nothing
short of a miracle if all the passengers and crew of a big liner had
been able to take to their boats within the time allotted.
While some of the boats were still on their davits the submarine fired a
torpedo at short range. This action made it absolutely certain that
there must be great loss of life and it must have been committed
knowingly with the intention of producing that result.
The conduct of all on board the Falaba appears to have been excellent.
There was no avoidable delay in getting out the boats. To accuse the
Falaba's crew of negligence under the circumstances could not easily be
paralleled.
THE GERMAN DEFENSE.
[By The Associated Press.]
_BERLIN, April 13, (via Amsterdam to London, April 14.)--A semi-official
account of the sinking of the British steamer Falaba by a German
submarine on March 28 was made public here today. It follows:_
On receiving the signal "Stop, or I fire," the Falaba steamed off and
sent up rocket signals to summon help, and was only brought to a
standstill after a chase of a quarter of an hour.
Despite the danger of an attack from the steamer or from other vessels
hurrying up, the submarine did not immediately fire, but signaled that
the steamer must be abandoned within ten minutes. The men of the Falaba
quickly entered the boats, although the launching took place in an
unseamanlike manner. They failed to give assistance, which was possible,
to passengers struggling in the water.
From the time of the order to leave the ship until the torpedo was
discharged not ten but twenty-three minutes elapsed, prior to which
occurred the chase of the steamer, during which period time might have
been used to get the boats ready.
The torpedo was fired only when the approach of suspicious-looking
vessels, from which an attack was to be expected, compelled the
commander of the submarine to take quick action. When the torpedo was
discharged nobody was seen on board the ship except the Captain, who
bravely stuck to his post.
Afterward some persons became visible who were busy about a boat.
Of the crew of the submarine, the only ones on deck were those serving
the cannon or those necessary for signaling. It was impossible for them
to engage in rescue work, because the submarine could not take on
passengers.
Every word is superfluous in defending our men against malignant
accusations. At the judicial proceedings in England no witness dared
raise accusations. It is untrue that at any time the submarine displayed
the English flag. The submarine throughout the affair showed as much
consideration for the Falaba as was compatible with safety.
COMMANDER SCHMITZ'S STORY.
[From The New York Times, May 6, 1915.]
_J.J. Ryan, the American cotton broker who went to Germany on March 30
and sold 28,000 bales of cotton he had shipped to Bremen and Hamburg,
returned yesterday on the Cunard liner Carpathia very well satisfied
with the results of his trip. He said:_
While I was in Bremen I met Commander Schmitz of the German submarine
U-28, which sank the British African liner Falaba off the English coast
on March 28. He told me that he regretted having been compelled to
torpedo the vessel, as she had passengers on board. In explanation, he
said:
"I warned the Captain of the Falaba to dismantle his wireless apparatus
and gave him ten minutes in which to do it and get his passengers off.
Instead of acting upon my demand he continued to send messages out to
torpedo destroyers that were less than twenty miles away, to come as
quickly as possible to his assistance.
"At the expiration of the ten minutes I gave him a second warning about
dismantling his wireless apparatus and waited twenty minutes, and then I
torpedoed the ship, as the destroyers were getting close up and I knew
they would go to the rescue of the passengers and crew."
I mentioned the fact to the commander that it had been reported by some
of the survivors of the liner that while the men and women were
struggling for their lives in the icy water his crew were standing on
the deck of the submarine laughing. He looked very gravely at me and
replied, "That is not true, and is most cruelly unjust to my men. They
were crying, not laughing, when the boats were capsized and threw the
people into the water."
CASE OF THE CUSHING.
[Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
_WASHINGTON, May 1.--Secretary Bryan today received from American
Minister Henry van Dyke at The Hague a report on the attack by German
aviators on the American steamship Cushing and said tonight that this
report would be immediately cabled to Ambassador Gerard at Berlin for
his information. Ambassador Gerard will bring the matter to the
attention of the German Government. The report from Minister van Dyke
was very brief, and read as follows:_
The American Consul at Rotterdam reports that the American steamship
Cushing, Captain Herland, with petroleum from New York to Rotterdam,
flying the American flag, was attacked by German aeroplanes near the
North Hinder Lightship, afternoon April 29. Three bombs dropped, one
struck ship, causing damage, but no life lost.
_The report of Captain Lars Larsen Herland, master of the American tank
steamer Cushing, made upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Penn., on May
19, 1915, is as follows:_
The airmen swept in narrow circles over the tanker, trying to get
directly over the funnel, with the idea, apparently, of dropping a bomb
into it and wrecking the engine room.
When attacked the Cushing was about twenty-five miles from Antwerp and
eight miles from the North Hinder Lightship. It was near 7 o'clock in
the evening, but the sun had barely touched the horizon, and there was
ample light for the pilot of the biplane to see the words, "Cushing, New
York, United States of America," painted on each side of the vessel in
letters eight feet high, and to note the Stars and Stripes at the
masthead and the taffrail.
When the airship was first noted it was several thousand feet in the
air, but dropped as it approached the ship, and soon was only about 500
feet up. Suddenly it swooped down to about 300 feet above the Cushing.
Then there was a tremendous explosion, and a wave flooded the stern
deck. A second bomb missed the port quarter by a foot or so, and sent
another wave over the lower deck.
The biplane swung up into the wind, hung motionless for a second or so,
then came the third bomb, which just grazed the starboard rail and shot
into the sea.
The airship hung around for a few minutes, then headed toward the Dutch
coast. She was flying a white flag, with a black cross in the centre,
the pennant of the German air fleet.
CASE OF THE GULFLIGHT.
_Official confirmation of the attack on May 1, 1915, by a German
submarine on the American oil tank steamer Gulflight off the Scilly
Islands came to the State Department at Washington on May 3 in
dispatches from Joseph G. Stephens, the United States Consul at
Plymouth, England. Two members of the crew were drowned, the Captain
died of heart failure, and thirty-four members of the crew were saved.
Following is the sworn statement of Ralph E. Smith, late chief officer
and now master of the Gulflight, received from Ambassador Page and
published by the State Department at Washington on May 11:_
I am Ralph E. Smith, now master of the steamship Gulflight. At the
commencement of the voyage I was chief officer. The ship left port at
Port Arthur on the 10th day of April, 1915, about 4 P.M., laden with a
tank cargo of gasoline and wooden barrels of lubricating oil. The voyage
was uneventful.
When about half way across the Atlantic the wireless operator told me
there was a British cruiser in our vicinity and that he had heard
messages from this ship the whole time since leaving Port Arthur, but
she made no direct communication with or to our ship. From the sound of
the wireless messages given out by the British ship, she seemed to
maintain the same distance from us until about three days before we
reached the mouth of the English Channel.
On the first day of May, about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, we spoke two
British patrol vessels named Iago and Filey. We were then about
twenty-two miles west of the Bishop Lighthouse. The patrol vessels asked
where we were bound. After informing them we were bound for Rouen, they
ordered us to follow them to the Bishop. The Filey took up a position a
half mile distant on our port bow, the Iago off our starboard quarter
close to us. We steered as directed, and at about 12:22, the second
officer, being on watch, sighted a submarine on our port bow--slightly
on the port bow--steaming at right angles to our course. The submarine
was in sight for about five minutes, when she submerged about right
ahead of us. I saw her, but could not distinguish or see any flag flying
on her.
The Gulflight was then steering about true east, steaming about eight
miles an hour, flying a large American ensign, six feet by ten feet.
The wind was about south, about eight miles an hour in force. I
personally observed our flag was standing out well to the breeze.
Immediately after seeing the submarine I went aft and notified the crew
and came back and went on the bridge and heard the Captain make the
remark that that must be a British submarine, as the patrol boats took
no notice of it.
About 12:50 an explosion took place in the Gulflight on the bluff of the
starboard bow, sending vast quantities of water high in the air, coming
down on the bridge and shutting everything off from our view. After the
water cleared away our ship had sunk by the head so that the sea was
washing over the foredeck, and the ship appeared to be sinking.
Immediately after I went aft to see to the boats. On my way I saw one
man overboard on the starboard side. The water at that time was black
with oil. The boats were lowered and the crew got into them without
delay or damage. After ascertaining there was no one left on board the
ship I got in my boat and we were picked up by the patrol vessel Iago
and were advised by her crew to leave the scene. We proceeded toward St.
Mary's, but the dense fog which then came on prevented us getting into
the harbor that night.
About 2:30 in the morning following I saw Captain Gunter, master of the
Gulflight, who had been sleeping in the room of the skipper of the Iago,
standing in the room with a queer look in his face. I asked him what his
trouble was, and he made no reply. Then he reached for the side of the
berth with his hands, but did not take hold. I went in the room, but he
fell before I reached him.
He was taken on deck, as the cabin was small and hot. After reaching the
deck he seemed to revive and said: "I am cold." After that he had
apparently two fainting attacks and then expired in a third one--this
being about 3:40.
We arrived at St. Mary's, Scilly, about 10 o'clock on the morning of May
2. The Gulflight was towed to Crow Sound, Scilly, on May 2 by British
patrol vessels, and Commander Oliver, senior naval officer of the Port
of Scilly, sent for some one to come on board the Gulflight, and I went,
and the ship was anchored about 6 P.M.
I again left the ship that evening--she being then in charge of the
Admiralty. I visited the ship on Monday. I went out again on Tuesday,
but it was too rough to get on board. To the best of my knowledge there
was no examination of the vessel made by divers until Wednesday about 3
P.M., when members from the American Embassy were present. The divers at
this time made an external examination only of the ship's bottom and
left the ship with me at 5:40 P.M.
Aim of Submarine Warfare
[From The London Times, April 30, 1915.]
Dr. Flamm, Professor of Ship Construction at the Technical High School
at Charlottenburg, publishes in the Vossische Zeitung an extraordinary
article on the impending destruction of the British Empire by German
submarines. Whatever Professor Flamm's professional opinion may be
worth, he is evidently attacking his task with a passionate hatred of
England that leaves nothing to be desired.
Professor Flamm begins by explaining how England has been protected for
centuries by her insularity. He writes:
This country, whose dishonorable Government produced this
terrible world war by the most contemptible means, and solely
in selfish greed of gain, has always been able to enjoy the
fruits of its unscrupulousness because it was reckoned as
unassailable. But everything is subject to change, and that
applies today to the security of England's position. Thank
God, the time has now come when precisely its complete
encirclement by the sea has become the greatest danger for the
existence of the British Nation.
The writer explains that England cannot be self-supporting, and,
strangely enough, admits that recognition of this fact justifies British
naval policy. He proceeds:
The time, however, has passed in which even the strongest
squadron of battleships or cruisers can protect England's
frontiers and secure imports from oversea. Technical progress,
in the shape of submarines, has put into the hands of all
England's enemies the means at last to sever the vital nerve
of the much-hated enemy, and to pull him down from his
position of ruler of the world, which he has occupied for
centuries with ever-increasing ruthlessness and selfishness.
What science has once begun she continues, and for every
shipbuilder in the whole world there is now no sphere which
offers a stronger stimulus to progressive activity than the
sphere of the submarines. Here an endless amount of work is
being, and will be, done, because the reward which beckons on
the horizon is an extraordinarily high one, an extraordinarily
profitable one, a reward containing the most ideal blessings
for humanity--the destruction of English world supremacy, the
liberation of the seas. This exalted and noble aim has today
come within reach, and it is German intellect and German work
that have paved the way.
It will be noted that Professor Flamm, as other contemporary German
writers, believes that submarines, like Shakespeare, are a German
invention. He is also, notwithstanding the experience of two and a half
months, confident that the German "submarine blockade" will both be
successful and become popular with neutrals. Building upon the German
myth that Captain Weddigen's submarine, U-29, was destroyed while saving
life, Professor Flamm "expects" that the neutrals will stop all traffic
with England, "in view of the cowardly and cunning method of fighting of
the English."
Professor Flamm then discusses Germany's prospects, as follows:
Anybody who wants to fight England must not attempt it by
striving to bring against England larger and more numerous
battleships and cruisers. That would be not only unwise but
also very costly. He must try another method, which makes
England's great sea power completely illusory, and gives it
practically no opportunity for activity. This method is the
cutting-off of imports by submarine fleets. Let it not be
said that the attainment of this end requires a very great
deal of material. England, as can easily be seen from the map,
possesses a fairly limited number of river mouths and ports
for rapid development of her great oversea trade. Beginning in
the northeast, those on the east coast are mainly the Firth of
Forth, the mouths of the Tyne and Humber, and then the Thames;
in the south, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Plymouth, with some
neighboring harbors; in the west, the Bristol Channel, the
Mersey, the Solway, and the Clyde. These are the entries that
have to be blocked in order to cut off imports in a way that
will produce the full impression. For this purpose 150 of the
submarines of today fully suffice, so that the goal is within
reach. Moreover, the development of this arm will enormously
increase its value, and so, come what may, England must reckon
with the fact that her world supremacy cannot much longer
exist, and that the strongest navy can make no difference.
When once the invisible necktie is round John Bull's neck, his
breathing will soon cease, and the task of successfully
putting this necktie on him is solely a question of technical
progress and of time, which now moves so fast.
Professor Flamm ends with a passage about German submarine bases. It
would be more intelligible if he had made up his mind whether Germany is
going to take Calais or whether, according to another popular German
theory, England is going to annex the north coast of France. He writes:
"The eyes of France also will one day be opened when, having been
sufficiently weakened, she is compelled to leave the north coast of
France, including Calais, to her friend of today. Precisely this coast
which England has seized may be expected now to remain in English
possession for the purpose of better and surer control of the Channel,
for there can be no doubt that this control renders, and will render,
difficult for the German submarines effective activity in the Irish
Sea--an activity which will become all the easier as soon as Calais has
been freed of the enemy, or is even in German possession.
"Thus before very long a world fate should befall England. The trees do
not grow up to heaven. England, through her criminal Government, has
stretched the bow too tight, and so it will snap."
THREE SPEECHES BY PRESIDENT WILSON
In New York at the annual luncheon of The Associated Press on
April 20, 1915; at Philadelphia in Convention Hall on May 10,
in an address to 4,000 newly naturalized citizens, and again
at New York in his speech on the navy, May 17, delivered at
the luncheon given for the President by the Mayor's Committee
formed for the naval review, Mr. Wilson set forth the
principles on which he would meet the crises of the European
war as they affect the United States. The texts of the three
speeches appear below.
I.
"AMERICA FIRST."
[_President Wilson's address on April 20, 1915, to the members of The
Associated Press at their annual luncheon in New York:_]
I am deeply gratified by the generous reception you have accorded me. It
makes me look back with a touch of regret to former occasions when I
have stood in this place and enjoyed a greater liberty than is granted
me today. There have been times when I stood in this spot and said what
I really thought, and I pray God that those days of indulgence may be
accorded me again. But I have come here today, of course, somewhat
restrained by a sense of responsibility that I cannot escape.
For I take The Associated Press very seriously. I know the enormous part
that you play in the affairs not only of this country, but the world.
You deal in the raw material of opinion and, if my convictions have any
validity, opinion ultimately governs the world.
It is, therefore, of very serious things that I think as I face this
body of men. I do not think of you, however, as members of The
Associated Press. I do not think of you as men of different parties or
of different racial derivations or of different religious denominations,
I want to talk to you as to my fellow-citizens of the United States. For
there are serious things which as fellow-citizens we ought to consider.
The times behind us, gentlemen, have been difficult enough, the times
before us are likely to be more difficult because, whatever may be said
about the present condition of the world's affairs, it is clear that
they are drawing rapidly to a climax, and at the climax the test will
come, not only of the nations engaged in the present colossal struggle,
it will come for them of course, but the test will come to us
particularly.
Do you realize that, roughly speaking, we are the only great nation at
present disengaged? I am not speaking, of course, with disparagement of
the greater of those nations in Europe which are not parties to the
present war, but I am thinking of their close neighborhood to it. I am
thinking how their lives much more than ours touch the very heart and
stuff of the business; whereas, we have rolling between us and those
bitter days across the water three thousand miles of cool and silent
ocean.
Our atmosphere is not yet charged with those disturbing elements which
must be felt and must permeate every nation of Europe. Therefore, is it
not likely that the nations of the world will some day turn to us for
the cooler assessment of the elements engaged?
I am not now thinking so preposterous a thought as that we should sit in
judgment upon them. No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other
nation, but that we shall some day have to assist in reconstructing the
processes of peace. Our resources are untouched; we are more and more
becoming by the force of circumstances the mediating nation of the world
in respect to its finances. We must make up our minds what are the best
things to do and what are the best ways to do them.
We must put our money, our energy, our enthusiasm, our sympathy into
these things; and we must have our judgments prepared and our spirits
chastened against the coming of that day. So that I am not speaking in a
selfish spirit when I say that our whole duty for the present, at any
rate, is summed up in this motto, "America first." Let us think of
America before we think of Europe, in order that America may be fit to
be Europe's friend when the day of tested friendship comes. The test of
friendship is not now sympathy with the one side or the other, but
getting ready to help both sides when the struggle is over.
The basis of neutrality, gentlemen, is not indifference; it is not
self-interest. The basis of neutrality is sympathy for mankind. It is
fairness, it is good-will at bottom. It is impartiality of spirit and of
judgment. I wish that all of our fellow-citizens could realize that.
There is in some quarters a disposition to create distempers in this
body politic. Men are even uttering slanders against the United States
as if to excite her. Men are saying that if we should go to war upon
either side there will be a divided America--an abominable libel of
ignorance. America is not all of it vocal just now. It is vocal in
spots.
But I for one have a complete and abiding faith in that great silent
body of Americans who are not standing up and shouting and expressing
their opinions just now, but are waiting to find out and support the
duty of America. I am just as sure of their solidity and of their
loyalty and of their unanimity, if we act justly, as I am that the
history of this country has at every crisis and turning point
illustrated this great lesson.
We are the mediating nation of the world. I do not mean that we
undertake not to mind our own business and to mediate where other people
are quarreling. I mean the word in a broader sense. We are compounded of
the nations of the world. We mediate their blood, we mediate their
traditions, we mediate their sentiments, their tastes, their passions;
we are ourselves compounded of those things.
We are, therefore, able to understand all nations; we are able to
understand them in the compound, not separately, as partisans, but
unitedly, as knowing and comprehending and embodying them all. It is in
that sense that I mean that America is a mediating nation. The opinion
of America, the action of America, is ready to turn and free to turn in
any direction.
Did you ever reflect upon how almost all other nations, almost every
other nation has through long centuries been headed in one direction?
That is not true of the United States. The United States has no racial
momentum. It has no history back of it which makes it run all its
energies and all its ambitions in one particular direction; and America
is particularly free in this, that she has no hampering ambitions as a
world power.
If we have been obliged by circumstances or have considered ourselves to
be obliged by circumstances, in the past to take territory which we
otherwise would not have thought of taking, I believe I am right in
saying that we have considered it our duty to administer that territory,
not for ourselves, but for the people living in it, and to put this
burden upon our consciences not to think that this thing is ours for our
use, but to regard ourselves as trustees of the great business for those
to whom it does really belong, trustees ready to hand over the cosmic
trust at any time when the business seems to make that possible and
feasible. That is what I mean by saying we have no hampering ambitions.
We do not want anything that does not belong to us. Isn't a nation in
that position free to serve other nations, and isn't a nation like that
ready to form some part of the assessing opinion of the world?
My interest in the neutrality of the United States is not the petty
desire to keep out of trouble. To judge by my experience I have never
been able to keep out of trouble. I have never looked for it, but I have
always found it. I do not want to walk around trouble. If any man wants
a scrap--that is, an interesting scrap and worth while--I am his man. I
warn him that he is not going to draw me into the scrap for his
advertisement, but if he is looking for trouble--that is, the trouble of
men in general--and I can help a little, why, then, I am in for it. But
I am interested in neutrality because there is something so much
greater to do than fight, because there is something, there is a
distinction waiting for this nation that no nation has ever yet got.
That is the distinction of absolute self-control and self-mastery.
Whom do you admire most among your friends? The irritable man? The man
out of whom you can get a "rise" without trying? The man who will fight
at the drop of the hat, whether he knows what the hat is dropped for or
not?
Don't you admire and don't you fear, if you have to contest with him,
the self-mastered man who watches you with calm eye and comes in only
when you have carried the thing so far that you must be disposed of?
That is the man you respect. That is the man who you know has at bottom
a much more fundamental and terrible courage than the irritable,
fighting man.
Now, I covet for America this splendid courage of reserve moral force,
and I wanted to point out to you gentlemen simply this: There is news
and news. There is what is called news from Turtle Bay, that turns out
to be falsehood, at any rate in what it is said to signify, and which if
you could get the nation to believe it true might disturb our
equilibrium and our self-possession. We ought not to deal in stuff of
that kind. We ought not to permit things of that sort to use up the
electrical energy of the wires, because its energy is malign, its energy
is not of the truth, its energy is of mischief.
It is possible to sift truth. I have known some things to go out on the
wires as true when there was only one man or one group of men who could
have told the originators of the report whether it was true or not, and
they were not asked whether it was true or not for fear it might not be
true. That sort of report ought not to go out over the wires.
There is generally, if not always, somebody who knows whether that thing
is so or not, and in these days above all other days we ought to take
particular pains to resort to the one small group of men or to the one
man, if there be but one, who knows whether those things are true or
not.
The world ought to know the truth, but the world ought not at this
period of unstable equilibrium to be disturbed by rumor, ought not to be
disturbed by imaginative combinations of circumstances or, rather, by
circumstances stated in combination which do not belong in combination.
For we are holding--not I, but you and gentlemen engaged like you--the
balances in your hand. This unstable equilibrium rests upon scales that
are in your hands. For the food of opinion, as I began by saying, is the
news of the day. I have known many a man go off at a tangent on
information that was not reliable. Indeed, that describes the majority
of men. The world is held stable by the man who waits for the next day
to find out whether the report was true or not.
We cannot afford, therefore, to let the rumors of irresponsible persons
and origins get into the atmosphere of the United States. We are
trustees for what I venture to say is the greatest heritage that any
nation ever had, the love of justice and righteousness and human
liberty. For fundamentally those are the things to which America is
addicted and to which she is devoted.
There are groups of selfish men in the United States, there are coteries
where sinister things are purposed, but the great heart of the American
people is just as sound and true as it ever was. And it is a single
heart; it is the heart of America. It is not a heart made up of sections
selected out of other countries.
So that what I try to remind myself of every day when I am almost
overcome by perplexities, what I try to remember, is what the people at
home are thinking about. I try to put myself in the place of the man who
does not know all the things that I know and ask myself what he would
like the policy of this country to be. Not the talkative man, not the
partisan man, not the man that remembers first that he is a Republican
or Democrat, or that his parents were Germans or English, but who
remembers first that the whole destiny of modern affairs centres largely
upon his being an American first of all.
If I permitted myself to be a partisan in this present struggle I would
be unworthy to represent you. If I permitted myself to forget the
people who are not partisans I would be unworthy to represent you. I am
not saying that I am worthy to represent you, but I do claim this degree
of worthiness--that before everything else I love America.
[Illustration: THE LATE ARCHDUKE FERDINAND
Whose Assassination at Serajevo Precipitated the European War]
[Illustration: H.M. NICHOLAS I.
King of Montenegro, the Smallest of the Allied Powers
_(Photo © American Press Assn.)_]
II.
"HUMANITY FIRST."
[_President Wilson's speech in Convention Hall, Philadelphia, Penn., May
10, 1915, before 4,000 newly naturalized citizens:_]
It warms my heart that you should give me such a reception, but it is
not of myself that I wish to think tonight, but of those who have just
become citizens of the United States. This is the only country in the
world which experiences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other
countries depend upon the multiplication of their own native people.
This country is constantly drinking strength out of new sources by the
voluntary association with it of great bodies of strong men and
forward-looking women. And so by the gift of the free will of
independent people it is constantly being renewed from generation to
generation by the same process by which it was originally created. It is
as if humanity had determined to see to it that this great nation,
founded for the benefit of humanity, should not lack for the allegiance
of the people of the world.
You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of
allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God. Certainly
not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great
Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a
great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race. You have
said, "We are going to America," not only to earn a living, not only to
seek the things which it was more difficult to obtain where you were
born, but to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit--to
let men know that everywhere in the world there are men who will cross
strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them,
knowing that, whatever the speech, there is but one longing and
utterance of the human heart, and that is for liberty and justice.
And while you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose of
leaving all other countries behind you--bringing what is best of their
spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate
what you intended to leave in them. I certainly would not be one even to
suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation of
his origin--these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of
our hearts--but it is one thing to love the place where you were born
and it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you
go. You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every
respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You
cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups.
American does not consist of groups. A man who thinks himself as
belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become
an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your
nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.
My urgent advice to you would be not only always to think first of
America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do not love
humanity if you seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can
be welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by
jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man who seeks to make personal
capital out of the passions of his fellow-men. He has lost the touch and
ideal of America, for America was created to unite mankind by those
passions which lift and not by the passions which separate and debase.
We came to America, either ourselves or in persons of our ancestors, to
better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had
seen before, to get rid of things that divide, and to make sure of the
things that unite. It was but a historical accident no doubt that this
great country was called the "United States," and yet I am very
thankful that it has the word "united" in its title; and the man who
seeks to divide man from man, group from group, interest from interest,
in the United States is striking at its very heart.
It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking of those of you
who have just sworn allegiance to this great Government, that you were
drawn across the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief,
by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a better
kind of life.
No doubt you have been disappointed in some of us; some of us are very
disappointing. No doubt you have found that justice in the United States
goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose as it does everywhere
else in the world. No doubt what you found here didn't seem touched for
you, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal which you had
conceived beforehand.
But remember this, if we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you brought
some of it with you. A man does not go out to seek the thing that is not
in him. A man does not hope for the thing that he does not believe in,
and if some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you, at any
rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal of the belief. That is the
reason that I, for one, make you welcome.
If I have in any degree forgotten what America was intended for, I will
thank God if you will remind me.
I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and
I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man that does not see visions
will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise.
Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely to
realize the dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you came
expecting us to be better than we are.
See, my friends, what that means. It means that Americans must have a
consciousness different from the consciousness of every other nation in
the world. I am not saying this with even the slightest thought of
criticism of other nations. You know how it is with a family. A family
gets centred on itself if it is not careful and is less interested in
the neighbors than it is in its own members.
So a nation that is not constantly renewed out of new sources is apt to
have the narrowness and prejudice of a family. Whereas, America must
have this consciousness, that on all sides it touches elbows and touches
hearts with all the nations of mankind.
The example of America must be a special example. The example of America
must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but
of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the
world and strife is not.
There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a
thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince
others by force that it is right.
So, if you come into this great nation as you have come, voluntarily
seeking something that we have to give, all that we have to give is
this: We cannot exempt you from work. No man is exempt from work
anywhere in the world. I sometimes think he is fortunate if he has to
work only with his hands and not with his head. It is very easy to do
what other people give you to do, but it is very difficult to give other
people things to do. We cannot exempt you from work; we cannot exempt
you from the strife and the heart-breaking burden of the struggle of the
day--that is common to mankind everywhere. We cannot exempt you from the
loads that you must carry; we can only make them light by the spirit in
which they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of
liberty, it is the spirit of justice.
When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and the committee that
accompanied him to come up from Washington to meet this great company of
newly admitted citizens I could not decline the invitation. I ought not
to be away from Washington, and yet I feel that it has renewed my spirit
as an American.
In Washington men tell you so many things every day that are not so,
and I like to come and stand in the presence of a great body of my
fellow-citizens, whether they have been my fellow-citizens a long time
or a short time, and drink, as it were, out of the common fountains with
them and go back feeling that you have so generously given me the sense
of your support and of the living vitality in your hearts, of its great
ideals which made America the hope of the world.
III.
AMERICA FOR HUMANITY.
[_President Wilson's address to the Mayor's Committee in New York, May
17, 1915, on the occasion of the naval parade and review in the
Hudson:_]
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Secretary, Admiral Fletcher, and Gentlemen of the Fleet:
This is not an occasion upon which it seems to me that it would be wise
for me to make many remarks, but I would deprive myself of a great
gratification if I did not express my pleasure in being here, my
gratitude for the splendid reception which has been accorded me as the
representative of the nation, and my profound interest in the navy of
the United States. That is an interest with which I was apparently born,
for it began when I was a youngster and has ripened with my knowledge of
the affairs and policies of the United States.
I think it is a natural, instinctive judgment of the people of the
United States that they express their power appropriately in an
efficient navy, and their interest is partly, I believe, because that
navy somehow is expected to express their character, not within our own
borders where that character is understood, but outside our borders,
where it is hoped we may occasionally touch others with some slight
vision of what America stands for.
But before I speak of the navy of the United States I want to take
advantage of the first public opportunity I have had to speak of the
Secretary of the Navy, to express my confidence and my admiration, and
to say that he has my unqualified support, for I have counseled with
him in intimate fashion. I know how sincerely he has it at heart that
everything that the navy does and handles should be done and handled as
the people of the United States wish them handled--because efficiency is
something more than organization. Efficiency runs into every
well-considered detail of personnel and method. Efficiency runs to the
extent of lifting the ideals of a service above every personal interest.
So that when I speak my support of the Secretary of the Navy I am merely
speaking my support of what I know every true lover of the navy to
desire and to purpose, for the navy of the United States is a body
specially trusted with the ideal of America.
I like to image in my thought this ideal. These quiet ships lying in the
river have no suggestion of bluster about them--no intimation of
aggression. They are commanded by men thoughtful of the duty of citizens
as well as the duty of officers--men acquainted with the traditions of
the great service to which they belong--men who know by touch with the
people of the United States what sort of purposes they ought to
entertain and what sort of discretion they ought to exercise in order to
use those engines of force as engines to promote the interests of
humanity.
For the interesting and inspiring thing about America, gentlemen, is
that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for
humanity itself. We want no nation's property; we wish to question no
nation's honor; we wish to stand selfishly in the way of the development
of no nation; we want nothing that we cannot get by our own legitimate
enterprise and by the inspiration of our own example, and, standing for
these things, it is not pretention on our part to say that we are
privileged to stand for what every nation would wish to stand for, and
speak for those things which all humanity must desire.
When I think of the flag that those ships carry, the only touch of color
about them, the only thing that moves as if it had a settled spirit in
it, in their solid structure, it seems to me I see alternate strips of
parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice and
strips of blood spilt to vindicate those rights, and then, in the
corner, a prediction of the blue serene into which every nation may swim
which stands for these great things.
The mission of America is the only thing that a sailor or soldier should
think about; he has nothing to do with the formulation of her policy; he
is to support her policy, whatever it is--but he is to support her
policy in the spirit of herself, and the strength of our policy is that
we, who for the time being administer the affairs of this nation, do not
originate her spirit; we attempt to embody it; we attempt to realize it
in action we are dominated by it, we do not dictate it.
And so with every man in arms who serves the nation--he stands and waits
to do the thing which the nation desires. America sometimes seems
perhaps to forget her programs, or, rather, I would say that sometimes
those who represent her seem to forget her programs, but the people
never forget them. It is as startling as it is touching to see how
whenever you touch a principle you touch the hearts of the people of the
United States. They listen to your debates of policy, they determine
which party they will prefer to power, they choose and prefer as
ordinary men; but their real affection, their real force, their real
irresistible momentum, is for the ideas which men embody.
I never go on the streets of a great city without feeling that somehow I
do not confer elsewhere than on the streets with the great spirit of the
people themselves, going about their business, attending to the things
which concern them, and yet carrying a treasure at their hearts all the
while, ready to be stirred not only as individuals, but as members of a
great union of hearts that constitutes a patriotic people.
And so this sight in the river touches me merely as a symbol of that,
and it quickens the pulse of every man who realizes these things to have
anything to do with them. When a crisis occurs in this country,
gentlemen, it is as if you put your hand on the pulse of a dynamo, it is
as if the things which you were in connection with were spiritually
bred. You had nothing to do with them except, if you listen truly, to
speak the things that you hear. These things now brood over the river,
this spirit now moves with the men who represent the nation in the navy,
these things will move upon the waters in the manoeuvres; no threat
lifted against any man, against any nation, against any interest, but
just a great, solemn evidence that the force of America is the force of
moral principle, that there is not anything else that she loves and that
there is not anything else for which she will contend.
Two Ex-Presidents' Views
MR. ROOSEVELT SPEAKS.
[Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]
_SYRACUSE, N.Y., May 7.--Ex-President Roosevelt, after learning details
of the sinking of the Lusitania, made this statement late tonight:_
This represents not merely piracy, but piracy on a vaster scale of
murder than old-time pirates ever practiced. This is the warfare which
destroyed Louvain and Dinant and hundreds of men, women, and children in
Belgium. It is a warfare against innocent men, women, and children
traveling on the ocean, and our own fellow-countrymen and countrywomen,
who are among the sufferers.
It seems inconceivable that we can refrain from taking action in this
matter, for we owe it not only to humanity, but to our own national
self-respect.
_On May 9 a Syracuse dispatch to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _conveyed this
statement from Mr. Roosevelt:_
On the night of the day that the disaster occurred I called the
attention of our people to the fact that the sinking of the Lusitania
was not only an act of simple piracy, but that it represented piracy
accompanied by murder on a vaster scale than any old-time pirate had
ever practiced before being hanged for his misdeeds.
I called attention to the fact that this was merely the application on
the high seas, and at our expense, of the principles which when applied
on land had produced the innumerable hideous tragedies that have
occurred in Belgium and in Northern France.
I said that not only our duty to humanity at large but our duty to
preserve our own national self-respect demanded instant action on our
part and forbade all delay.
I can do little more than reiterate what I then said.
When the German decree establishing the war zone was issued, and of
course plainly threatened exactly the type of tragedy which has
occurred, our Government notified Germany that in the event of any such
wrongdoing at the expense of our citizens we would hold the German
Government to "a strict accountability."
The use of this phrase, "strict accountability," of course, must mean,
and can only mean, that action will be taken by us without an hour's
unnecessary delay. It was eminently proper to use the exact phrase that
was used, and, having used it, our own self-respect demands that we
forthwith abide by it.
_On May 11, following the report of President Wilson's speech at
Philadelphia, Mr. Roosevelt stated the course which he considered that
this country should adopt, reported as follows in a Syracuse dispatch
to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Colonel Roosevelt announced today what action, in his opinion, this
country should take toward Germany because of the sinking of the
Lusitania. Colonel Roosevelt earnestly said that the time for
deliberation was past and that within twenty-four hours this country
could, and should, take effective action by declaring that all commerce
with Germany forthwith be forbidden and that all commerce of every kind
permitted and encouraged with France, England, and "the rest of the
civilized world."
Colonel Roosevelt said that for America to take this step would not mean
war, as the firm assertion of our rights could not be so construed, but
he added that we would do well to remember that there were things worse
than war.
The Colonel has been reading President Wilson's speech carefully, and
what seemed to impress him more than anything else was this passage from
it:
"There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such
a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince
others by force that it is right."
Asked if he cared to make any comment upon the speech of the President,
Mr. Roosevelt said:
"I think that China is entitled to draw all the comfort she can from
this statement and it would be well for the United States to ponder
seriously what the effect upon China has been of managing her foreign
affairs during the last fifteen years on the theory thus enunciated.
"If the United States is satisfied with occupying some time in the
future the precise international position that China now occupies, then
the United States can afford to act on this theory. But it cannot act on
this theory if it desires to retain or regain the position won for it by
the men who fought under Washington and by the men who, in the days of
Abraham Lincoln, wore the blue under Grant and the gray under Lee.
"I very earnestly hope that we will act promptly. The proper time for
deliberation was prior to sending the message that our Government would
hold Germany to a strict accountability if it did the things it has now
actually done. The 150 babies drowned on the Lusitania the hundreds of
women drowned with them, scores of these women and children being
Americans, and the American ship, the Gulflight, which was torpedoed,
offer an eloquent commentary on the actual working of the theory that
force is not necessary to assert, and that a policy of blood and iron
can with efficacy be met by a policy of milk and water.
"I see it stated in the press dispatches from Washington that Germany
now offers to stop the practice on the high seas, committed in violation
of the neutral rights that she is pledged to observe, if we will abandon
further neutral rights, which by her treaty she has solemnly pledged
herself to see that we exercise without molestation. Such a proposal is
not even entitled to an answer. The manufacturing and shipment of arms
and ammunition to any belligerent is moral or immoral according to the
use to which the arms and munitions are to be put. If they are to be
used to prevent the redress of the hideous wrongs inflicted on Belgium,
then it is immoral to ship them. If they are to be used for the redress
of those wrongs and the restoration of Belgium to her deeply wronged and
unoffending people, then it is eminently moral to send them.
"Without twenty-four hours' delay this country could, and should, take
effective action by declaring that in view of Germany's murderous
offenses against the rights of neutrals, all commerce with Germany shall
be forthwith forbidden, and all commerce of every kind permitted and
encouraged with France, England, and the rest of the civilized world.
This would not be a declaration of war. It would merely prevent
munitions of war being sent to a power which by its conduct has shown
willingness to use munitions to slaughter American men and women and
children. I do not believe the assertion of our rights means war, but we
will do well to remember there are things worse than war.
"Let us, as a nation, understand that peace is worthy only when it is
the handmaiden of international righteousness and of national
self-respect."
MR. TAFT SPEAKS.
[By The Associated Press.]
MILWAUKEE, May 8.--"The news of the sinking of the Lusitania as it comes
this morning is most distressing," said former President Taft on his
arrival from Madison today. "It presents a situation of the most
difficult character, properly awakening great national concern.
"I do not wish to embarrass the President of the Administration by a
discussion of the subject at this stage of the information, except to
express confidence that the President will follow a wise and patriotic
course."
_That it is possible for the United States to hold Germany "strictly
accountable" for the destruction of American lives on the Lusitania
without resort to war is Mr. Taft's opinion, reported in the following
dispatch from Philadelphia to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _on May 11:_
"We must bear in mind that if we have a war it is the people, the men
and women, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, who must pay with
lives and money the cost of it, and therefore they should not be hurried
into the sacrifices until it is made clear that they wish it and know
what they are doing when they wish it."
This was the keynote of a speech by ex-President Taft at the celebration
of the fiftieth anniversary of the Union League's occupancy of the
historic home which it occupies in this city.
"Is war the only method of making a nation accountable? Let us look into
our own history. England connived at the fitting out of armed vessels,
to prey on our commerce, to attack our navy, and to kill our sailors. We
protested, and what did we do then? We held her strictly accountable in
the Geneva Conference. Was not our honor as much preserved by this
method as it would have been had we declared war?
"I agree that the inhumanity of the circumstances in the case now
presses us on, but in the heat of even just indignation is this the best
time to act, when action involves such momentous consequences and means
untold loss of life and treasure? There are things worse than war, but
delay, due to calm deliberation, cannot change the situation or minimize
the effect of what we finally conclude to do.
"With the present condition of the war in Europe, our action, if it is
to be extreme, will not lose efficiency by giving time to the people,
whose war it will be, to know what they are facing.
"A demand for war that cannot survive the passion of the first days of
public indignation and will not endure the test of delay and
deliberation by all the people is not one that should be yielded to."
President Wilson's Note
By Ex-President William H. Taft.
_At the dinner of Methodist laymen in New York on May 14, 1915,
following the publication of President Wilson's note to Germany,
ex-President Taft said:_
"Admirable in tone, moderate in the judicial spirit that runs through
the entire communication, dignified in the level that the writer takes
with respect to international obligations, accurate in its statement of
international law, he puts the case of the United States in a way that
may well call for our earnest concurrence and confirmation."
Another View
By Beatrice Barry.
"When the torch is near the powder"--when a boat, f'r instance, sinks,
And the "hyphens" raise a loud hurrah and blow themselves to drinks;
When 'bout a hundred neutral lives are snuffed out like a torch,
An' "hyphens" read the news an' smoke, a-settin' on the porch--
Well, it's then the native's kind o' apt to see a little red,
An' it's hardly fair to criticise the burning things he sed.
For since the eagle's not a bird that thrives within a cage,
One kind o' hears with sympathy his screams of baffled rage.
There's something sort o' horrible, that catches at the breath,
To visualize some two score babes most foully done to death;
To see their fright, their struggles--to watch their lips turn blue--
There ain't no use denyin', it will raise the deuce with you.
O yes, God bless the President--he's an awful row to hoe,
An' God grant, too, that peace with honor hand in hand may go,
But let's not call men "rotters," 'cause, while we are standing pat,
They lose their calm serenity, an' can't see things like that!
In the Submarine War Zone
[By The Associated Press.]
LIVERPOOL, May 16.--The passengers on board the American Line steamer
Philadelphia, which arrived here today from New York, the steamer
docking at 1 P.M., experienced during the voyage much anxiety. On Friday
afternoon, out in the Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland, a cruiser
appeared and approached the liner. The chief topic of conversation
during the voyage had been about the German submarine activities, and
the sight of the warship caused some alarm. The cruiser approached near
enough to the steamer to exchange signals with her.
A number of passengers spent last night on deck in their chairs with
lifebelts beside them in case of danger. The boats of the Philadelphia
were ready for use. The steamer kept a course much further out from the
Irish coast than the Lusitania was traversing when she was torpedoed.
The port officials subjected the passengers of the Philadelphia to a
careful examination to discover if there were any spies on board, but
nobody was detained. By reason of this precaution it was more than an
hour after the steamer arrived before her passengers began to debark.
American Shipments of Arms
By Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador at Washington
Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, made public on
April 11, 1915, a memorandum addressed to the United States
Government on April 4, complaining of its attitude toward the
shipment of war munitions to the Allies and the non-shipment
of foodstuffs to Germany. After picturing the foreign policy
of the United States Government as one of futility, Count von
Bernstorff's memorandum says it must be "assumed that the
United States Government has accepted England's violations of
international law." Its full text appears below, followed by
that of the American State Department's reply.
The different British Orders in Council have altered the universally
recognized rules of international law in such a one-sided manner that
they arbitrarily suppress the trade of neutral countries with Germany.
Already, prior to the last Order in Council, the shipment of conditional
contraband, especially foodstuffs, to Germany was practically
impossible. In fact, prior to the protest which the American Government
made in London on Dec. 28, 1914, not a single shipment of such goods for
Germany has been effected from the United States.
Also, after the lodging of the protest, and as far as is known to the
German Embassy, only one such shipment has been attempted by an American
skipper. Ship and cargo were immediately seized by the British, and are
still detained at a British port. As a pretext for this unwarranted
action the British Government referred to a decree of the German Federal
Council concerning the wheat trade, although this decree only covered
wheat and flour and no other foodstuffs, although imported foodstuffs
were especially exempt from this decree, and although the German
Government had given all necessary guarantees to the United States
Government, and had even proposed a special organization in order to
secure these foodstuffs for the exclusive consumption of the civilian
population.
The seizure of an American ship under these circumstances was in
contradiction with the recognized principles of international law.
Nevertheless the United States Government has not yet obtained the
release of the ship, nor has it after eight months of war succeeded in
safeguarding the legitimate American trade with Germany. Such a delay,
especially when the supply of foodstuffs is concerned, seems equivalent
to complete failure. It is therefore to be assumed that the United
States Government has accepted England's violations of international
law.
Furthermore has to be considered the attitude of the Government of the
United States concerning the question of the exportation of war
material. The Imperial Embassy hopes to agree with the Government of the
United States in assuming that, with regard to the question of
neutrality, there is not only the formal side to be considered, but also
the spirit in which neutrality is enforced.
Conditions in the present war are different from those in any former
wars. For this reason it is not justified to point at the fact that
perhaps in former wars Germany furnished belligerents with war material,
because in those former cases the question was not whether any war
material was to be furnished to the belligerents but merely which one of
the competing countries would furnish it. In the present war, with the
exception of the United States, all the countries capable of a
noteworthy production of war material are either at war themselves or
completing their armaments, and have accordingly prohibited the
exportation of war material. Therefore the United States of America is
the only country in a position to export war material. This fact ought
to give a new meaning to the idea of neutrality, independent of the
formal law.
Instead of that, and in contradiction with the real spirit of
neutrality, an enormous new industry of war materials of every kind is
being built up in the United States, inasmuch as not only the existing
plants are kept busy and enlarged, but also new ones are continually
founded.
The international agreements for the protection of the right of neutrals
originate in the necessity of protecting the existing industries of the
neutral countries. They were never intended to encourage the creation of
entirely new industries in neutral States, as, for instance, the new war
industry in the United States, which supplies only one party of the
belligerents.
In reality the American industry is supplying only Germany's enemies. A
fact which is in no way modified by the purely theoretical willingness
to furnish Germany as well, if it were possible.
If the American people desire to observe true neutrality, they will find
means to stop the exclusive exportation of arms to one side, or at
least to use this export trade as a means to uphold the legitimate trade
with Germany, especially the trade in foodstuffs. This spirit of
neutrality should appear the more justified to the United States as it
has been maintained toward Mexico.
According to the declaration of a Congressman, made in the House
Committee for Foreign Relations Dec. 30, 1914, President Wilson is
quoted as having said on Feb. 4, 1914, when the embargo on arms for
Mexico was lifted:
"We should stand for genuine neutrality, considering the
surrounding facts of the case." He then held in that case,
because Carranza had no ports, while Huerta had them and was
able to import these materials, that "it was our duty as a
nation to treat them (Carranza and Huerta) upon an equality if
we wished to observe the true spirit of neutrality as compared
with a mere paper neutrality."
This conception of "the true spirit of neutrality," if applied to the
present case, would lead to an embargo on arms.
The American Reply
_The following note, which contains a vigorous rebuke to the German
Ambassador for the freedom of his remarks on the course taken by the
United States toward the belligerent powers, was made public at
Washington on April 21, 1916. It was then reported that the note was
finally drafted by President Wilson himself and written by him on his
own typewriter at the White House, although it is signed by Mr. Bryan as
Secretary of State:_
I have given thoughtful consideration to your Excellency's note of the
4th of April, 1915, inclosing a memorandum of the same date, in which
your Excellency discusses the action of this Government with regard to
trade between the United States and Germany, and the attitude of this
Government with regard to the exportation of arms from the United States
to the nations now at war with Germany.
I must admit that I am somewhat at a loss how to interpret your
Excellency's treatment of these matters. There are many circumstances
connected with these important subjects to which I would have expected
your Excellency to advert but of which you make no mention, and there
are other circumstances to which you do refer which I would have
supposed to be hardly appropriate for discussion between the Government
of the United States and the Government of Germany.
I shall take the liberty, therefore, of regarding your Excellency's
references to the course, pursued by the Government of the United
States, with regard to interferences with trade from this country such
as the Government of Great Britain have attempted, as intended merely to
illustrate more fully the situation to which you desire to call our
attention, and not as an invitation to discuss that course.
Your Excellency's long experience in international affairs will have
suggested to you that these relations of the two Governments with one
another cannot wisely be made a subject of discussion with a third
Government, which cannot be fully informed as to the facts, and which
cannot be fully cognizant of the reasons for the course pursued.
I believe, however, that I am justified in assuming that what you desire
to call forth is a frank statement of the position of this Government in
regard to its obligations as a neutral power.
The general attitude and course of policy of this Government in the
maintenance of its neutrality I am particularly anxious that your
Excellency should see in their true light. I had hoped that this
Government's position in these respects had been made abundantly clear,
but I am, of course, perfectly willing to state it again.
This seems to me the more necessary and desirable because, I regret to
say, the language, which your Excellency employs in your memorandum, is
susceptible of being construed as impugning the good faith of the United
States in the performance of its duties as a neutral.
I take it for granted that no such implication was intended, but it is
so evident that your Excellency is laboring under certain false
impressions that I cannot be too explicit in setting forth the facts as
they are, when fully reviewed and comprehended.
In the first place, this Government has at no time and in no manner
yielded any one of its rights as a neutral to any one of the present
belligerents.
It has acknowledged, as a matter of course, the right of visit and
search and the right to apply the rules of contraband of war to articles
of commerce. It has, indeed, insisted upon the use of visit and search
as an absolutely necessary safeguard against mistaking neutral vessels
for vessels owned by any enemy and against mistaking legal cargoes for
illegal. It has admitted also the right of blockade if actually
exercised and effectively maintained.
These are merely the well-known limitations which war places upon
neutral commerce on the high seas. But nothing beyond these has it
conceded.
I call your Excellency's attention to this, notwithstanding it is
already known to all the world as a consequence of the publication of
our correspondence in regard to these matters with several of the
belligerent nations, because I cannot assume that you have official
cognizance of it.
In the second place, this Government attempted to secure from the German
and British Governments mutual concessions with regard to the measures
those Governments respectively adopted for the interruption of trade on
the high seas. This it did, not of right, but merely as exercising the
privileges of a sincere friend of both parties and as indicating its
impartial good-will.
The attempt was unsuccessful, but I regret that your Excellency did not
deem it worthy of mention in modification of the impressions you
expressed. We had hoped that this act on our part had shown our spirit
in these times of distressing war, as our diplomatic correspondence had
shown our steadfast refusal to acknowledge the right of any belligerent
to alter the accepted rules of war at sea in so far as they affect the
rights and interests of neutrals.
In the third place, I note with sincere regret that in discussing the
sale and exportation of arms by citizens of the United States to the
enemies of Germany, your Excellency seems to be under the impression
that it was within the choice of the Government of the United States,
notwithstanding its professed neutrality and its diligent efforts to
maintain it in other particulars, to inhibit this trade, and that its
failure to do so manifested an unfair attitude toward Germany.
This Government holds, as I believe your Excellency is aware and as it
is constrained to hold in view of the present indisputable doctrines of
accepted international law, that any change in its own laws of
neutrality during the progress of a war, which would affect unequally
the relations of the United States with the nations at war, would be an
unjustifiable departure from the principle of strict neutrality, by
which it has consistently sought to direct its actions, and I
respectfully submit that none of the circumstances, urged in your
Excellency's memorandum, alters the principle involved.
The placing of an embargo on the trade in arms at the present time would
constitute such a change and be a direct violation of the neutrality of
the United States. It will, I feel assured, be clear to your Excellency
that holding this view and considering itself in honor bound by it, it
is out of the question for this Government to consider such a course.
I hope that your Excellency will realize the spirit in which I am
drafting this reply. The friendship between the people of the United
States and the people of Germany is so warm and of such long standing,
the ties which bind them to one another in amity are so many and so
strong, that this Government feels under a special compulsion to speak
with perfect frankness, when any occasion arises which seems likely to
create any misunderstanding, however slight or temporary, between those
who represent the Governments of the two countries.
It will be a matter of gratification to me if I have removed from your
Excellency's mind any misapprehension you may have been under regarding
either the policy or the spirit and purposes of the Government of the
United States.
Its neutrality is founded upon the firm basis of conscience and
good-will.
Accept, Excellency, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.
W.J. BRYAN.
Munitions From Neutrals
[Colloquy in the House of Commons, May 4, 1915.]
Sir E. Grey, in reply to Sir A. Markham, (L., Mansfield,) said: The
United States Government have not at any time during the present war
supplied any war material of any kind to his Majesty's Government, and I
do not suppose that they have supplied any of the belligerents. It has
always been a recognized legitimate practice, and wholly consistent with
international law, for manufacturers in a neutral country to sell
munitions of war to belligerents. They were supplied in this way from
Germany to Russia during the Russo-Japanese war, and from Germany to
Great Britain during the Boer war, and are no doubt being supplied in
the same way from manufacturers in neutral countries to belligerents
now.
Mr. MacNeill (N., South Donegal)--Has not the rule always been, before
The Hague Conferences at all, that subjects of neutral nations are
allowed to supply munitions of war at their own risk?
Sir E. Grey--It is wholly consistent with international law that that
practice should go forward, and if there be any question of departure
from neutrality I think it will be, not in permitting that practice, but
in interfering with it. [Cheers.]
Germany and the Lusitania
By Charles W. Eliot
_President Emeritus of Harvard University._
That the sinking of the Lusitania was an act which outraged
not only the existing conventions of the civilized world but
the moral feelings of present civilized society is the view
put forth in his letter to THE NEW YORK TIMES, appearing May
15, 1915, by one of the most distinguished commentators on the
war. Dr. Eliot counsels that America's part is to resist such
a no-faith policy while keeping its neutral status.
Cambridge, Mass., May 13, 1915.
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
The sinking of a great merchant vessel, carrying 2,500 noncombatant men,
women, and children, without giving them any chance to save their lives,
was in violation of long-standing conventions among civilized nations,
concerning the conduct of naval warfare. The pre-existing conventions
gave to a German vessel of war the right to destroy the Lusitania and
her cargo, if it were impossible to carry her into port as a prize; but
not to drown her passengers and crew. The pre-existing conventions or
agreements were, however, entered into by the civilized nations when
captures at sea were made by war vessels competent to take a prize into
some port, or to take off the passengers and crew of the captured
vessel.
The German Government now alleges that submarines are today the only
vessels it can employ effectively for attack on British commerce in the
declared war zone about the British Isles, since the rest of the German
Navy cannot keep the seas in face of the superior British Navy. Germany
further alleges that the present British blockade of German ports is
conducted in a new way--that is, by vessels which patrol the German
coast at a greater distance from the actual harbors than was formerly
the international practice; and hence, that Germany is justified in
conducting her attack on British commerce in a novel way also. In short,
Germany argues that her military necessities compel her to sink enemy
commercial vessels without regard to the lives of passengers and crews,
in spite of the fact that she was party to international agreements that
no such act should be committed.
The lesson which the sinking of the Lusitania teaches is, therefore,
this: Germany thinks it right to disregard on grounds of military
necessity existing international conventions with regard to naval
warfare, precisely as she disregarded the agreed-upon neutrality of
Belgium on the ground of military necessity. As in the case of Belgium
she had decided many years beforehand to violate the international
neutrality agreement, and had made all her plans for reaching Paris in a
few weeks by passing through Belgium, so on the sea she had decided
months ago that the necessity of interfering as much as possible with
British commerce and industries warrants her total disregard of the
existing rules of naval warfare, and has deliberately contrived the
sinking of merchant vessels without regard to the lives of the people on
board.
Again, when Germany thought it necessary on her quick march toward Paris
not only to crush the Belgian Army but to terrify the noncombatant
population of Belgium into complete submission by bombarding and burning
cities, towns, and villages, by plundering and shooting noncombatants,
by imposing heavy fines and ransoms, and by holding noncombatants as
hostages for the peaceable behavior of all Belgian citizens, she
disregarded all the conventions made by the civilized nations within
seventy years for mitigating the horrors of war, and justified her
action on the ground that it was a military necessity, since in no other
way could she immediately secure the safety of her communications as
she rushed on Paris. The civilized world had supposed that each nation
would make war only on the public forces and resources of its
antagonist; but last August Germany made ferocious war on noncombatants
and private property.
The sinking of the Lusitania is another demonstration that the present
German Government will not abide by any international contracts,
treaties, or agreements, if they, at a given moment, would interfere
with any military or naval course of action which the Government deems
necessary.
These demonstrated policies and purposes of the German Empire raise the
fundamental question--how is the civilization of the white race to be
carried forward? How are the real welfare of that race and the happiness
of the individuals that compose it to be hereafter furthered? Since the
revolutions in England, America, and France, it has been supposed that
civilization was to be advanced by international agreements or treaties,
by the co-operation of the civilized nations in the gradual improvement
of these agreements, and by the increasing practical effect given to
them by nations acting in co-operation; but now comes the German Empire
with its military force, immense in numbers and efficient beyond all
former experience through the intelligent use for destructive purposes
of the new powers attained by applied science, saying not only in words,
but in terrible acts: "We shall not abide by any international contracts
or agreements into which we may have previously entered, if at the
passing moment they interfere or conflict with the most advantageous
immediate use of our military and naval force." If this doctrine shall
now prevail in Europe, the foundations of modern civilization and of all
friendly and beneficial commerce the world over will be undermined.
The sinking of the Lusitania, therefore, makes perfectly clear the
nature of the problem with which the three Allies in Europe are now
struggling. They are resisting with all the weapons of war a nation
which declares that its promises are good only till it is, in its own
judgment, under the military necessity of breaking them.
The neutral nations are looking on at this tremendous conflict between
good-faith nations and no-faith nations with intense anxiety and sorrow,
but no longer in any doubt as to the nature of the issue. The sinking of
the Lusitania has removed every doubt; because that was a deliberate act
in full sight of the world, and of a nature not to be obscured or
confused by conflicting testimonies or questions about possible
exaggeration of outrages or about official responsibility for them. The
sinking of the Lusitania was an act which outraged not only the existing
conventions of the civilized world in regard to naval warfare, but the
moral feelings of present civilized society.
The neutral nations and some of the belligerent nations feel another
strong objection to the present German way of conducting war on land and
sea, namely that it brutalizes the soldier and the sailor to an
unprecedented degree. English French, and Russian soldiers on the one
side can contend with German, Austrian and Turkish soldiers on the other
with the utmost fierceness from trenches or in the open, use new and old
weapons of destruction, and kill and wound each other with equal ardor
and resolution, and yet not be brutalized or degraded in their moral
nature, if they fight from love of country or with self-sacrificing
loyalty to its spiritual ideals; but neither soldiers nor sailors can
attack defenseless noncombatants, systematically destroy towns and
villages, and put to death captured men, women, and children without
falling in their moral nature before the brutes. That he obeyed orders
will not save from moral ruin the soldier or sailor who does such deeds.
He should have refused to obey such orders and taken the consequences.
This is true even of the privates, but more emphatically of the
officers. The white race has often been proud of the way in which its
soldiers and sailors have fought in many causes--good, bad, and
indifferent; because they fought bravely took defeat resolutely, and
showed humanity after victory. The German method of conducting war
omits chivalry, mercy, and humanity, and thereby degrades the German
Nation and any other nation which sympathizes with it or supports its
methods. It is no answer to the world's objection to the sinking of the
Lusitania that Great Britain uses its navy to cut off from Germany food
and needed supplies for its industries, for that is a recognized and
effective method of warfare; whereas the sinking of an occasional
merchant ship with its passengers and crew is a method of warfare
nowhere effective, and almost universally condemned. If war, with its
inevitable stratagems, ambuscades, and lies must continue to be the
arbiter in international disputes, it is certainly desirable that such
magnanimity in war as the conventions of the last century made possible
should not be lost because of Germany's behavior in the present European
convulsion. It is also desirable to reaffirm with all possible emphasis
that fidelity to international agreements is the taproot of human
progress.