New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-24
Deliberately Unfriendly."


addressed by the American to the Ger
man Government is that it faces the facts
as they are. 1t tells the truth that has
ALWAYS been unmistakable and it tells it
in words that can neither provoke just
resentment nor permit honest misappre-
hension.
The issue between the United States
and Germany was plain from the outset.
There never was the smallest chance that
the United States would yield to the tor
pedo and the rapid fire gun the rights
which are ours under international law
or permit German necessities to destroy
American liberties.
Precisely as long as there was the
slightest chance that friendly representa-
ton and the ordinary words of diplo-
matte discussion could help to make clear
TO the German Government the mind and
the whole mind Of the American people,
President Wilson wisely and patiently en-
ployed these without the smallest intent
70 surrender that which was not his to
surrender, but always with the hope that
what all American citizens save few Of
German extraction felt might at last be-
come clear to the German Government.
All such hopes the last German note
DESTROYED. In it was revealed an insolent
and intolerable evasion of the real ques-
ton at issue. an arrogant and insufferable
proposal to curtail American rights at
sea. and while in words asserting the
principles Of humanity and the doctrine
of the freedom of the seas, it in fact
claimed the right to pursue programme
of murder and a policy which made Ger
man permission the sole warrant for the
exercise of American rights.
In that situation there was left to
President Wilson but a single course.
Since the German Government declined TO
heed the demand which was made in the
voice Of diplomacy and with an utter
absence Of that spirit Of anger and
passion which German acts warranted
it was necessary to make German states
manship comprehend the consequences of
further crimes against American citizens.
This Mr.. Wilson has done. Not even a
German Foreign Secretary reading the
closing paragraph of the latest note can
misunderstood its meaning, fail to com
prehend what will be the consequences of
another Lusitania massacre. The decision
for the future belongs to Germany, but
the consequences are no longer hidden.
The mistake which German diplomacy
made in England last August, in Italy last
spring. it has repeated in America. It has
believed what it desired to believe and
resolutely closed its ears to facts that
were unmistakabe 1t has permitted the
clamor Of its subsidized agents and Of a
handful Of misguided sympathizers to pre-
vent it from grasping the mind and the
determination of a united nation. Not by
anv other method Of calculation is it pos
sible to explain German action hitherto,
and to such action President Wilson has
at last made the inevitable answer, the
only possible answer.
American citizens will hope that the
bandage will now fall from German eyes.
They will hope that German rulers will
at last perceive that no nation can con
sent to the murder Of its citizens, the
invasion of its rights, the destruction of
its liberties merely because of real or
fancied advantage to Germany by such in
juries.
But with equal clarity every American
will perceive that whether German states
men recognize the fact or not it remains.
To-day as yesterday the American people
bhor the thought of war Never in his
tory has any people given evidence of