Chapter 3: of The Hague Convention of Oct. 18, 1907, for the peaceful (2)

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.

Whose Assassination at Serajevo Precipitated the European War]

King of Montenegro, the Smallest of the Allied Powers

_(Photo (C) 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.