New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-11-23

vote to resort to anything but notes in the
cases of murder abroad.
We have domestic disorder to-day be-
cause on the morrow of the Lusitania mas
sacre Mr.. Wilson wavered between duty
and politics ard in the presence Ct muir
dered American citizens hesitated to take
the only step consonant with honor be-
cause of the possible peril to himself ana
his party-a peril utterly and completely
mag the German-American
vote might constitute. The eyes of the
nation and OF the NO. ld-above all, the
Eyes OF Berln-were upon Mr.. Wilson in
those critical hours. When ne broke his
silence with his Philadelphia speech. made
after he had completed his first Lusitania
note. there was no installing the eject OF
IS words IN Ec-i,.. For Won Tirpitz they
@cre . License 10 Kill; for the German
Ancricans in this country they were a
guarantee that their own political influence
was he'd so potent that they could pursue
their campaign of anarchy, then just be-
ginning. with complete immunity.
On the morrow Of the Lusitania. if Mr..
Wilson had made it clear that at all costs,
political and otherwise. American lives
we're to be protected II he had demanded
Of Germany that diaayowal which alone
could havc served as Q reason TO- with
holding declaration OF wa. we m ght or
might not have had war abroad, but we
certainly would have had peace at home.
To such a note, to sucn leadership, Amer
;cans without regard to party or to politics
would have responded with such unanimity
that the alien fringes would have seen in
American solidarity the utter Illustration
of all their plots and the complete answer
70 their menace.
There never was in human history
better example of the impossibilty OF es-
GAPING duty or running away from re-
sLorsibility han that supplied by the Lusl-
tania. We sacrificed our citizens, we fore
bore to give them the protection in honor
after death that we had promised them IN
life. We uttered notes, we compromised,
we twisted and turned, we adopted every
device Of the coward and every subterfuge
of the weak to avoid having to take any
action which carried with it the possibility
of war. And in consequence we not only
failed to escape the ultimate possibility Of
war abroad, but we invited and reaped
harvest of sedition and anarchy at home.
Months after our citizens were muir
dered on the Lusitania We have failed to
get a disavowal from Germany we have
not dared and the present administration
does not now dare to demand such dis
avowal, because this would destroy the
poor fiction of its alleged diplomatic tri-
umph in the case of the Arabic, dplo-
matte triumph which is fully comprehended
in the details of the slaughter of the men,
women and children of the Ancona. For
weeks after the Lusitania the Germans
continued to sink passenger ships when
they could; they gave over the practice
only when the British fleet had put ap-
proximate term to the submarine cam
paign in the North Sea and the Channel,
and they promptly resumed 1t, through
Austrian agency in the Mediterranean,
when there was a military purpose to be
served thereby.
In the German mind the American for
eign policy is dictated by fear and coward
ice. Germans believe that we are afraid
to defend our citizens abroad because Of
the political menace Of COMMUNICATIONS
at home. and too timid to risk the dollars
of our business by taking the stand that
might involve action. The view in Eng
land and France is not different The
British censorship has already warned
British journals to refrain from that criti-
cism of American policy which is alike on
German and British lips. The world be-
leves that Americans hold dollars above
their dead; it finds the proof of this in
the fact that our dead of the Lusitania
still drift with the tides, forgotten it would
seem by men and government alike.
And for all this what have VIC gained?
Peace? Certainly not peace abroad, since
the sinking of the Ancona raises anew the
whole question and the most eager of the
Washington apologists for Austro-German
activity confess that it may prove I'M
possible for the American government to
find an adequate excuse for Austro-Ger-
nan murder of American citizens. Peace
at home? Assuredly not, when every days
rews contains further disclosures of plots
and conspiraces and further proof of