The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1916-04-29
The President Tells Congress
of His Decision in the Sub
marine Controversy
With Berlin.
NOTE NOW ON ITS WAY
Last Word of United States Sent to
Berlin Before Executive Appeared
Before Joint Session-Offenses
are Wanton.

INSTRUMENTATION Wilson, in
an address to joint session of Con-
gress. announced his decision regard
ing the controversy with Germany re-
garding submarine warfare.
Before his address to Congress the
President announced that he had sent
to Germany a note containing the
warning of a break in relations.
The President made no request of
Congress. He had simply fulfilled a
promise that he would advise Congress
in case he took action such as he re-
ported.
Following is the Presidents address
in full:
Gentlemen of the Congress: A sit
uation has arisen in the foreign rela-
lions of the country of which it is my
plain duty to inform you very frankly.
ut will be recalled that in February,
1915, the imperial German government
announced its intention to treat the
waters surrounding Great Britain and
Ireland as embraced within the seat
of war and to destroy all merchant
ships owned by it's enemies that might
be found within any part of that por-
ton of the high seas and that it
warned all vessels of neutral as well
as of belligerent ownership to keep
out of the waters it had thus pre-
scribed, or else enter them at their
peril.
Americas First Protest.
"The government of the United
States earnestly protested 1t took
the position that such policy could
not be pursued without the practical
certainty of gross and palpable viola
lions of the law of nations particularly
if submarine craft were to be en-
ployed as its instruments, inasmuch as
the rules prescribed by that law, rules
founded upon principles of humanity
and established for the protection of
the lives of the non-combatants at sea,
could not, in the nature of the case,
be observed by such vessels.
'It based its protest on the ground
that persons of neutral nationality and
vessels of neutral ownership would
be exposed to extreme and intolerable
risks and that no right to close any
part of the high seas against their
use or to expose them to such risks
could lawfully be asserted by any
belligerent government.
Rules Based on Humanity.
1.-THE law of nations in these mat
tiers upon which the government of
the United States based its protests,
is not of recent origin or founded upon
merely arbitrary principles set up by
convention. 1t is based, on the con-
trary, upon manifest and imperative
principles of humanity and has long
been established with the approval and
by the express assent of all civilized
nations.
Notwithstanding the earnest pro-
test of our government, the imperial
German government at once proceed
ed to carry out the policy it had an
nounced. It expressed the hope that
the dangers involved, at any rate the
dangers to neutral vessels, would be
reduced to a minimum by the instruc-
tons which it had issued to its sub
marine commanders and assured the
government of the United States that
it would take every possible precau-
ton both to respect the rights of neu-
trails and to safeguard the lives of
noncombatants.
Offenses Grew Worse.
what actually happened in the year
which has since elapsed has shown
that those hopes were not justified,
those assurances insusceptible of be-
ing fulfilled. In pursuance of the pol
icy of submarine warfare against the
commerce of its adversaries, thus an
nounced and entered upon by the i'm
perial German government in spite of
the solemn protest of this government,
the commanders Of German undersea
vessels have attacked merchant ships
with greater and greater activity, not
only upon the high seas surrounding
Great Britain and Ireland. but where
ever they could encounter them in a
way that has grown more and more
ruthless, more and more indiscrimin-
ate as the months have gone by, less
and less observant of restraints of
any kind; and have delivered their at