The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1917-04-06

present German submarine warfare
against commerce is a warfare against
mankind.
1t is a war against all nations Amer
lean 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 ma
tions have been sunk and overwhelm-
ed in the waters in the same way.
There has been no discrimination. The
challenge is to all mankind Each ma
ton must decide for itself how it well
meet it. The choice we make for our
selves must be made with a modera-
ton Of counsel and a temperatures
Of judgment BETTING our character
and cur motives as a 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 vindi-
cation Of right, of human right, of
which we are only a single champion.
When l addressed the congress on
the 26th of February last, thought
that it would suffice to assert our neu-
trail 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
effect outlaws when used as the Ger
man submarines have been used
against merchant shipping, it is i'm
possible to defend ships against their
attacks as the law of nations has as
sumed that merchantmen would de-
fend themselves against privateers or
cruisers, visible craft giving chase up
on the open sea. 1t is common pru-
dence in such circumstances, grim ne
cessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy
them before they have shown their
own intention. They must be dealt
with on 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 pro-
scribed, even in the defense of rights
which no modern publicist has ever be-
fore questioned their right to defend.
The intimation is conveyed that the
armed guards which we have placed on
our merchant ships will be treated as
beyond the pale of law and subject to
be dealt with as pirates would be.
Armed neutrality is Intellectual enough
at best; in such circumstances and in
the face of such pretensions it is worse
than inetfectual; it is likely only to
produce what it is meant to prevent;
1t is practically certain to draw us in
to the war without either the rights or
the effectiveness of belligerents. There
IS one choice we cannot make, we are
incapable Of making. We will not
choose the path Of submission and suf-
fer the most sacred rights of our ma
ton and our people to be ignored or
violated. The wrongs against which
we now array ourselves are no COM
mon wrongs; they cut to the very roots
of human life.
With profound sense of the solemn
and even tragical character of the step
| am taking, and of the grave respon-
sibilities which it involves, but in un-
hesitating obedience to what | deem
my constitutional duty, / advise that
the congress declare the recent course
of the imperial German government
to be in fact nothing less than war
against the government and people of
the United States; that it formally ac-
cept status of belligerent which has
thus been thrust upon it and that it
take immediate steps not only to put
the country in a 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. It
will involve the utmost practical CO.
operation in counsel and action with
the governments now at war with Ger
many, and, as incident to that, the ex-
tension to those governments of the
most liberal financial aid, in order that
our resources may so far as possible
be added to theirs. It will involve the
organization and mobilization of all
the material resources of the country
to supply the materials of war and
serve the incidental needs of the nation
IN the most abundant, and yet the most
economical and efficient way possible.
1t will involve the immediate full