Message to the Congress
February 3, 1917
Gentlemen of the Congress:
The Imperial German Government, on the 31st of January, announced to
this Government and to the Governments of the other neutral nations
that on and after the first day of February, the present month, it
would adopt a policy with regard to the use of submarines against all
shipping seeking to pass through certain designated areas of the high
seas to which it is clearly my duty to call your attention.
Let me remind the Congress that on the 18th of April last, in view of
the sinking on the 24th of March of the cross-Channel passenger-steamer
Sussex by a German submarine, without summons or warning, and
the consequent loss of the lives of several citizens of the United
States who were passengers aboard her, this Government addressed a
note to the Imperial German Government in which it made the following
declaration:
If it is still the purpose of the Imperial German Government to
prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels
of commerce by the use of submarines without regard to what the
Government of the United States must consider the sacred and
indisputable rules of international law and the universally
recognized dictates of humanity, the Government of the United States
is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it
can pursue. Unless the German Government should now immediately
declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine
warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels the Government
of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic
relations with the German Empire altogether.