The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-04
BOWIE UPHOLDS HIS FORMER CONTENTION Says Difference Between Him and Persons Is Mat
 ter of Premise
To the Editor of The Age-Herald:

To the Editor of The ge-Herald:
 I read MT. Persons letter in Friday s Age-Herald with interest. The difference between us think, is more a matter of premise than of conclusion He began by saying: The whole question at issue re- wolves around the right of Germany to sink armed allied merchant ships without warning On this statement 1 beg to disagree. That question is not st issue at all in the form in which he states it. Dr. B. Dernberg, former representative of the Emperor of Germany in the United States, in an editorial reprinted in this mornings Age Herald. is quoted as say ing: "The President bases his entire case on the Lusitania, Arabic and Sus- sex-passenger ships torpedoed without warning-not on countless other ca ses in which the attempted flight of resistance justified the submarine commander in torpedofng." This Is a very different statement of the case from that of MT. Persons. If Dr. Dernberg does not know the point at issue. at least from a Ger man standpoint, it would be difficult to find one who did.
  ton is incomplete It is well settled and very necessary principle of interna- tional law that merchant ships have a right to be armed for defensive purposes. The theory is that even a merchant ship is entitled to resist capture by another merchant ship of an equal or inferior 1, size. It would be absurd to allow insig- nificant merchant ships of an enemy to arm themselves and capture others of the same type amply able to resist but for the fact that one was armed and the other was not. Therefore. merchant ships have always been allowed to arm themselves for defensive purposes This does not grant the warships of the op- posing nation any other or different right than they would have if they were un- armed The whole purpose of the rule Is to confine the war to armed forces on both sides and not to permit it to degen- crate into mere massacre by allowing armed forces on one side to murder civilians on the other.
 ] President Wilson's insistence that the war shall be confined to the armed forces | of the opposing nations is mach more than in accord with the principles of i'm 1 ternatonal law. It is in accord with the principles of humanity, and I hope the I time will never come when our own peo- l pie will give their consent in war or | otherwise to the waging of war upon non combatants.
 l The starvation business to which he refers is also quite beside the point. The l blockade has been a recognized part of the law of nations from time immemoriai. ! Tn my opinion England is clearly within | her right in declaring blockade so long as she can enforce it. It is true that this 1 government contends that a blockade to be binding must be effective. but that l is a question that affects neutrals. An | ineffective blockade cannot be complained | of by the opposing forces. If England l has the right of effective blockade. Ger many certainly cannot complain Because | the blockade is not effective. Neutral | countries are the only ones who car complain on this point and the United States has distinctly rested its case. not on the ground that blockades are not lawful but that to bind neutrals they I must be effective. That is a question of | fact and not of principle
 ! MT. Persons appeals to the right of necessity and he argues as Won Beth mann Holweg. that necessity knows Inc law. I take sharp issue with him there If Germany, who declared this war and who conspired to bring it about cannot win it according to the established rules of the game, it is cer- tainly not entitled to win it by substi tuting the assassination of innocent Icivilians for the accepted methods of war When they declared war it was war they declared, war according to the rules of the game, war according to the iaccepted practices of civilized nations 1 If they cannot win by conducting their