The copper era and Morenci leader., 1917-02-09
REASON FOR POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES.


 dent Wilson announced the severance of dip lomatic relations, gives some excellent reason why this country should now call the hand of that country in the following editorial:
 ''In the note of December IS, which Sec+ retary Lansing addressed to all the belliger- ent governments, President Wilson acted avowedly as ''the representative of neutral nation whose interests have been seriously affected by the war and whose concern for its early conclusion arises out of a manifest necessity to determine how best to safeguard those interests if the war is to continue.
 ''The president further insisted that it was both his right and his duty to take the course he had adopted, lest the situation of neutral nations, now exceedingly hard to en- dure, be rendered altogether intolerable.
 ''What the president foresaw has already come to pass. The situation of neutrals has been rendered altogether intolerable' by the German submarine decree of January 3I, and they must now safeguard their interests by force The German government, by proclaim ing its determination to destroy their ships without warning and to murder their citizens without warning, has left no other course open to them
 "So far as the United States is concern ed, this country for two years has endured at the hands of Germany what 1t would not have endured for two weeks at the hands of Eng land We have been the victims of reign of terror on sea and on land Not only have our citizens been slaughtered and our proper ty destroyed, but form of civil war has been waged against us on our soil. Conspiracy has followed conspiracy Plot has followed plot. German agents have defed both the laws of the United States and the sovereign ty of the United States. The very founda- ton of our institutions have been assailed and the mailed fist of Prussian mllitarism has even attempted to drive president from the White House.
 '> "The new German proclamation of ruth less submarine warfare in which all ships within prescribed zone are to be sunk IS not an isolated wrong against the United States. It is the continuation of long series of calcu- lated wrongs and insults. It IS not some thing that we are bound to consider as the re- suit of temporary fit of alteration from which we may expect an equally sudden res toration of reason and sanity. It is the ripe product of deliberate policy which has cx- tended through the whole period of the war, and in which Germany by deeds and acts has proclaimed time after time that the United States had no rights that desperate auto cracy was bound to respect. It IS unique only in the infamy of having been treacher- ously promulgated at time when an honor able peace was possible, and the president was exerting all his influence to that end.
 "Mr. Bryan declared yesterday that re- Lof III duty is now and has been to keep out of war Let MT. Bryan first persuade the kaiser to refrain from dragging us into war. If the German government will stop making war upon the United States, all of us will be more than glad to keep out of war, but no human power can keep us out of war when Germany wages war against us. We may re- fuse to fight. We may refuse to act i'll self defense We may rassivey submit to all the crimes against person and property that Ger many chooses to commit. We may surrender all our sovereign rights and prostrate our selves before the triumphant chariot of Prus- sian mlitarSm. but :Ne shall not have been kept out of war We shall merely have been kept from defending ourselves against wan ton acts of war
 'For the United States there is. no peaceful or honorable way out of this situa- ton except through unconditional withdraw al by Germany of the submarine decree and unqualified adherence to the rules of cruiser warfare Unless Germany does that, the only question for the American people to consider relates to the means and extent of the meas ures that they will adopt to protect them selves against barbarian warfare"