Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-04-21
Here Is Foil Text Of Wilson's
Last Word to Berlin on U-Boat

allowed to those on board. Great
liners like the Lusitania and Ara
bic and mere passenger boats like
the Sussex have been attacked with
out a moments warning, often be-
fore they have even become aware
that they were in the presence of an
armed ship of the enemy, and the
lives of noncomhantants, passengers.
and crew have been destroyed
wholesale and in "a manner which
the government of the United
States cain not but regard as wan
ton and without the slightest color
of justification.
NO LIMIT SET.
No limit of any kind has in fact
been set to their indiscriminate
pursuit and destruction of mer-
chantmen of all kinds and nationali-
ties within the waters which the
imperial government has chosen to
designate as lying within the seat
of war
The roll of Americans who have
lost their lives upon ships thus
attacked and destroyed has grown,
month by month, until the ominous
toll has mounted into the hum
dreds.
The government of the United
States has been very patient. At
every stage of this distressing eX-
perience of tragedy after tragedy,
it has sought to be governed by the
most thoughtful consideration of
the extraordinary circumstances of
an unprecedented war, and to be
guided by sentiments of very gen.
uine friendship for the people and
government of Germany.
1t has accepted the successive
explanations and assurances of the
imperial government as, of course,
given in entire sincerity and good
faith, and has hoped, even against
hope, that it would prove to be
possible for the imperial govern
ment so to order and control the
acts of it's naval commanders as
to square it's policy with the recog-
nized principles of humanity as
embodied in the law of nations.
1t has made every allowance for
unprecedented conditions, and has
been willing to wait until the facts
became unmlstakable and were sus-
ceptible of only one Interpretation.
ACTION NOW NECESSARY.
i now owes it to a just regard
for its own rights to say to the
imperial government that that time
has come 1t has become painfully
evident to it that the position which
it took at the very outset is in
evitable, namely, the use of sub
marines for the destruction of an
enemy's commerce, is. of necessity,
because of the very character of the
vessels employed and the very meth
L.
ment of course involves, utterly
incompatible with the principles of
humanity, the long established and
incontrovertible rights of neutrals,
and the sacred immunities of nom
combatants.
If it is still the purpose of the
imperial government to prosecute
relentless and indiscriminate war
fare against vessels of commerce by
the use of submarines without re-
gard to what the government of the
United States must consider the sa-
cred and indisputable rules of in
ternational 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 imperial government
shonld now Immediately declare and
effect an abandonment of it's pres
ent methods of submarine warfare
against passenger and freight car
rying vessels, the government or
the United States can have no
choice but to sever diplomatic rela-
lions with the German empire al
together This action the govern
ment of the United States contem-
plates with the greatest reluctance
but feels constrained to take in be-
half of humanity and the rights or
neutral nations.