Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-04-02
submarine warfare against commerce
$ a warfare against mankind.
War Against All Nations.

submarine warfare against commerce
Is a warfare. against mankind.
War Against All Nations.
1t is war against all nations. Ameri-
can ships have been sunk, American
lives taken, in ways which it has stir
red us very deeply to learn of, but the
ships and people of other neutral and
friendly nations have been sunk and
overwhelmed in the waters in the same
way There has been no discrimina-
ton. The challenge is to all mankind.
Each nation must decide for itself how
1t Will meet it. The choice we make
for ourselves must be made with a
moderation of counsel and temperate
ness OF judgment BETTING our char
acter and our motives as nation. We
must put excited feeling away. Our
motive will not be revenge or the vic
torious assertion of the physical might
of the nation, but only the vindication
OF right, of human right of which we
are only single champion.
When | addressed the Congress on the
18th of February last l 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 imprac-
tIcable. Because submarines are in eff
rect outlaws when used as the German
submarines have been used against
merchant shipping, it is impossible to
defend ships against their attacks as
the law of nations has assumed that
merchantmen would defend themselves
against privateers or cruisers, visible
craft giving chase upon the open sea.
1t is common prudence in such circum-
stances, grim necessity indeed to en-
deavor to destroy them before they
he in 70 haI
must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt
with at all. The German government
denies the right Of neutrals to use
arms at all within the areas of the
sea which it has prescribed. even in the
defense of rights which no modern
publicist has ever before questioned
their right to defend. The intimation
is conveyed that the armed guards
which we have placed on our mer-
chant ships will be treated as beyond
the pale of law and subject to be dealt
with pirates would be.
Armed neutrality is Intellectual enough
at best; in such circumstances and in the
face of such pretensions it is worse than
Intellectual it is likely only to produce
what it was meant to prevent it is
practically certain to draw us into the
war without either the rights or the eff
fectiveness of belligerents There is one
choice we cannot make, we are incapable
of making: We will moi, choose the path
of submission and suffer the most sacred
rights of our nation and our people to be
ignored or violated The wrongs against
which we now array ourselves are no
common wrongs; they cut to the very
roots of human life.
Nothing Less Than War.
With a profound sense of the solemn
and even tragical character of the step
am taking and of the grave responsible
ties which it involves. but in unhestating
obedience to what I deem my constitu-
tional duty, I advise that the Congress
declare the recent course of the Imperial
German Government to be in fact moth
ing less than war against the government
and people OF the United States: that 1t
formally accept the status of belligerent
which has thus been thrust upon it; and
that it take immediate steps not only to
put the country in more thorough state
Of defense but also to exert all its power
and employ all its resources to bring the
Government of the German Empire to
terms and end the war.
What this will involve is clear. 1t
will involve the utmost practicable CO.
operation In counsel and action with
the governments now at war with Ger
many, and, as Incident to that. the
extension to those governments OF the