Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-03-13
= The Country ApplaudS
The Presidents Course.

The Presidents order that American merchant
shps be armed for defense and thus enabled to re-
sumo transatlantic voyages relieves situation
which has been both humiliating and injurious
For more than a month the greater part of our
merchant fleet has been blockaded- by U-boat ter
rorism. The avowed purpose of Germany's unre-
stricted submarine warfare was to close and lock
English ports, but its actual result has been 10
close and lock American ports. great deal
of British tonnage has been destroyed but Englsh
vessels duly armed and protected, have gone on
sailing carrying cargoes and mail to and from
their home ports. During the same time only
one or two American vessels have ventured across
the Atlantic Mail service between the United
States and Europe has been disrupted and virtually
broken down The United States Government has
had to entrust 10 vessels of foreign flags its diplo
matte correspondence to European points. Our
ships have been barred from transatlantic com
merce as effectuaIly as though feet of German
war vessels rode in triumph just outside our
harbors.
It was unthinkable that this condition of affairs
should be suffered TO continue. The damage to
the country's material interests great and was
growing more and more distressing. Eastern piers
and the interior from whose factories and farms
that merchandise came was suffering consequent
hardship and peril The cutting of of mail COM
munications alone enough to disturb American
business seriously and If prolonged to cause heavy
losses.
But infinitely more deplorable than the material
damage was the injury to the nations rights and
honor In disregard OF our Governments neutral
ity and the plainest principles of international
Auaar
ships and American lives if they dared to exercise
their simple rights on the high Not only did
she threaten but, in the of the Laconia, car
ried out her threat by sending three Americans two
of whom were women, to death. Unless the
United States ready to surrender all claims to
sovereignty and abandon all pretense of protect
ing its citizens it could not endure such injuries
and insults it could not allow the Uboat blockade
of it's ports to continue.
The only remedy short of what the
President described as armed neutrality That
policy involved a number of defensive measures,
but most important among them for immediate
needs was the arming of merchant ships followed If
necessary by naval conveys. Our merchant ships
have chung to their harbors not because of craven
scrupes but because their owners were quite natur
ally unwilling to send them forth to incalculable
dangers without any means instruments of de-
tense. The captains and crews have been ready
and eager to go; and now that arms are to be fur
nished by the Government-the only agency cap
able of furnishing them in present circumstances,
the ships will sail.
The country approves and applauds the Presi-
dents action. He has ample authority we'll as
extreme provocation for the course he has taken.
He had sufficient authority before he appealed to
Congress, authority implied beyond question in his
Constitutional duties. He went to Congress mainly
for moral support, and he received its moral sup
port unstinted measure despite the flibuster of
a little group of little in the Senate. How
stanchIy the country Endorsed his policy evil
denced by the nationwide denuncation which
whelmed the Senate obstructionists of the Armed
Neutrality bill.