The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1917-04-05


done by any government that had hith-
erto subscribed TO the humane prac-
tees of civilized nations. Interna-
tional law had it's origin in the at
tempt to set up some law which would
be respected and observed on the
seas, where no nations had right of
dominion and where lay the free high
ways of the world. BY painful stage
after stage has that law been built
up with meager enough results, in
deed, after all was accomplished that
could be accomplished, but always
with a clear view, at least, OF what
the heart and conscience of mankind
demanded.
This minimum of right the German
government has swept aside under the
plea of retaliation and necessity, and
because it had no weapons which it
could use at sea except these, which
it is impossible to employ as it is en-
: ploying them without throwing to the
winds all scruples of humanity or Of
respect for the understandings that
were supposed to underlie the inter
course of the world.
} 81 am not now thinking of the loss
: of property involved, immense and
! serious as that is, but only of the
; wanton and wholesale destruction OF
: the lives of non-combatants, men, wo-
: men, and children, engaged in pur-
suits which have always, even in the
darkest periods of modern history,
been deemed innocent and legitimate.
Property can be paid for; the lives of
peaceful and innocent people cannot
be.
: "The present German submarine
warfare against commerce is a war
fare against mankind. 1t is a war
, against all nations. American ships
have been sunk, American lives taken,
, in ways which it has stirred us very
deeply to learn of, but the ships and
| people Of other neutral and friendly
nations have been sunk and over
: whelmed in the waters in the same
way.
There has been no discrimination.
The challenge is to all mankind. Each
nation must decide for itself how IL
will meet it. The choice we make for
ourselves must be made with a mod
Grafton of counsel and a temperate
ness of judgment BETTING our char
acter and our motives as nation.
> I'VE must put excited feelings away.
Our motive will not be revenge or
the victorious assertion of the physi-
cal might of the nation, but only the
4. vindication of right of human right,
t OF which we are only a single cham
= pion.
Armed Neutrality Not Enough.
when | addressed the congress on
: the twenty-sixth of February last,
: thought that it would suffice to assert
our neutral rights with arms, our
right to use the seas against unlawful
interference, our right to keep our
people safe against unlawful violence.
; But armed neutrality, it now appears,
+ is impracticable.
Because submarines are in effect
outlaws, when used as the German
submarines have been used against
4 merchant shipping, it is impossible to
J, defend ships against their attacks as
e the law of nations has assumed that
e merchantmen would defend them
a selves against privateers or cruisers,
= visible craft giving chase upon the
open sea. 1t is common prudence in
y such circumstances, grim necessity In
deed, to endeavor to destroy them be-
: fore they have shown their own inten-
l. ton. They must be dealt with now
t If dealt with at ALL
d 1.-THE German government denies
II the right Of neutrals to use arms at
y all within the areas of the sea, which
& 1t has prescribed, even in the defense
IS Of rights which no modern publicist
d has ever before questioned their right
a, to defend.
u The intimation is conveyed that
- the armed guards, which we have
~ placed on our merchant ships, will be
u treated as beyond the pale of law and
'e subject to be dealt with as pirates
M would be. Armed neutrality is inef
fectual enough at best; in such cir
cumstances, and in the face Of such
70 pretentions. It is worse than ineffec