Washington Journal., 1916-07-28
B8IIigerant Blockade
Of a Neutral Nation.
By NELSON DUVAL BREcHr

war IneTe mas DeSn i'll lOISS
a virtual blockade Of the Atlantic Coast
OF the United States by warships Of
the allies. The result has been great
hardship TO mariners and incalculable
loss of time and money to navigation
entering and leaving our seaports. As
the United States is at present a neutral
nation at peace with the entire world
it is difficult to conceive the justifca-
ton of such a blockade. According to
International law, the employment OF
blockades is restricted tc the coasts Of
bclligerent or warning nations. The
United States has an efficient coast
guard and a navy, which costs the
country more money than hat of any
other nation except Great Britain. 1t
is to be presumed that these two serv-
ices are capable of enforcing the neu-
trality laws Of the United States with
out foreign assistance.
Therefore, why the necessity and why
the liberation of a blockade by foreign
nations? Warships are the police YES
sells Of the seas. The United States
would not be permitted to station its
policeman in European countries in
order to assist the foreign police forces
in enforcing the laws. 1t is not very
questionable how long Great Britain
would permit a patrol fleet OF Amerl-
AN inen-of-war TO remain at the mouth
# the Thames, outside the ports OF
liverpool or Dublin, or likewise France
t lie mouth of the Seine.
History states chat the principal cdSnS
yeli Of the war Of 1872 was the en-
forccment Of the so-called right OF
search by British war vessels upon
American ships both on the high seas
and within a few miles of the Amer
AN coast. AS the immediate result OF
Ibis war America failed to compel Ems
and to relinquish what by a perversion
of language she calls the right to
iearch." In the year 1912, when Daniel
Webster and Lord Ashburton made the
agreement known as the Webster-Ash-
burton Treaty, that immortal statesman
Webster declared and stipulated that IN
he future England must understand
hat our flag would protect American
vessels against Great Britain's so-called
rich, Of search and yet the right OF
| search is being employed today two
hundred miles from the capital OF the
nation. Has the United States attained
he decree of national decadence, where
has become Chinahed? Are the
/ treaties of this, the greatest nation or
the face Of the earth, to be considered
IS but scraps of paper, to be ruthlessly
lsstroyed or ignored at will by n OF
The signatories?
The breaches and violations Of Ameri-
can neutrality by foreign warships are
| real and fragrant, as these vessels are
patrolling about three and a hall miles
from Ii coast at Sandy Hook, the
mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and other
places.
The territorial limits of a country,
where it borders on the ocean,, are de-
termined by the law OF nations, and
bv that law it has been held to extend
outward into the ocean as far as a
cannon ball will reach. This distance
has been estimated as a marine league,
or about three and a half English miles,
which was the distance that a cannon
could fire a ball shortly after the IN
vention of gunpowder by the German
monk Berthold Schwarz in Freiburg IN
1859. 1t is likely that the marine terri
torial limits of countries were deter
mined before the invention of firearms
bv the distance from shore that a bow
could shoot an arrow or a cross-boW
a bolt or a c~atapult a tone. At the
present time a modern Krupp gun can
throw a projectile tw%enty-one miles.
The United States has discarded the
distance of one marine league from
shore as the limits of its territorial
waters. The Delaware and Chesapeake
Bays, although the latter between the
outside headlands is twelve miles or
more wide, SO that a marine league
measured from each shore would not
cover the entire width, are claimed to be
within the territorial limits of the
United States. 1t has ever been said
that the United States would have the
right, if deemed necessary, to extend
its jurisdiction over the adjacent waters
Of the ocean to lines stretching between
flstant headlands as, for instance, from
Cape Ann to Cape Cod, from Nantucket
10 Montauk Point, and from the south
cape of Florida to the mouth of the
Mississippi River. If the marine ter
ritorial limits of the nation are ever de-
limited by a twentieth century court of
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