resistance or continued efforts to escape by flight when ordered to stop for the purpose of visit on the part of the merchantman has ever been held to forfeit the lives of her passengers or crew. The Government of the United States, however, does not understand that the Imperial German Government is seeking in this case to relieve itself of liability, but only intends to set forth the circumstances which led the commander of the submarine to allow himself to be hurried into the course which he took. Your Excellency's note, in discussing the loss of American lives resulting from the sinking of the steamship Lusitania, adverts at some length to certain information which the Imperial German Government has received with regard to the character and outfit of that vessel, and your Excellency expresses the fear that this information may not have been brought to the attention of the Government of the United States. It is stated in the note that the Lusitania was undoubedly equipped with masked guns, supplied with trained gunners and special ammunition, transporting troops from Canada, carrying a cargo not permitted under the laws of the United States to a vessel also carrying passengers, and serving, in virtual effect, as an auxiliary to the naval forces of Great Britain. Fortunately these are matters concerning which the Government of the United States is in a position to give the Imperial German Government official information. Of the facts alleged in your Excellency's note, if true, the Government of the United States would have been bound to take official cognizance in performing its recognized duty as a neutral power and in enforcing its national laws. It was its duty to see to it that the Lusitania was not armed for offensive action, that she was not serving as a transport, that she did not carry a cargo prohibited by the statutes of the United States, and that, if in fact she was a naval vessel of Great Britain, she should not receive clearance as a merchantman; and it performed that duty and enforced its statutes with scrupulous vigilance through its regularly constituted officials. It is able, therefore, to assure the Imperial German Government that it has been misinformed. If the Imperial German Government should deem itself to be in possession of convincing evidence that the officials of the Government of the Unted States did not perform these duties with thoroughness the Government of the United States sincerely hopes that it will submit that evidence for consideration. Whatever may be the contentions of the Imperial German Government regarding the carriage of contraband of war on board the Lusitania or regarding the explosion of that material by the torpedo, it need only be said that in the view of this Government these contentions are irrelevant to the question of the legality of the methods used by the German naval authorities in sinking the vessel. But the sinking of passenger ships involves principles of humanity which throw into the background any special circumstances of detail that may be thought to affect the cases, principles which lift it, as the Imperial German Government will no doubt be quick to recognize and acknowledge, out of the class of ordinary subjects of diplomatic discussion or of international controversy. Whatever be the other facts regarding the Lusitania, the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers, and carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the conduct of the war, was torpedoed and sunk without so much as a challenge or a warning, and that men, women, and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare. The fact that more than one hundred American citizens were among those who perished made it the duty of the Government of the United States to speak of these things and once more, with solemn emphasis, to call the attention of the Imperial German Government to the grave responsibility which the Government of the United States conceives that it has incurred in this tragic occurrence, and to the indisputable principle upon which that responsibility rests. The Government of the United States is contending for something much greater than mere rights of property or privileges of commerce. It is contending for nothing less high and sacred than the rights of humanity, which every Government honors itself in respecting and which no Government is justified in resigning on behalf of those under its care and authority. Only her actual resistance to capture or refusal to stop when ordered to do so for the purpose of visit could have afforded the commander of the submarine any justification for so much as putting the lives of those on board the ship in jeopardy. This principle the Government of the United States understands the explicit instructions issued on August 3, 1914,* by the Imperial German Admiralty to its commanders at sea to have recognized and embodied, as do the naval codes of all other nations, and upon it every traveler and seaman had a right to depend. It is upon this principle of humanity as well as upon the law founded upon this principle that the United States must stand. The reference made by President Wilson in his first note of May 13 to the German Government regarding the sinking of the Lusitania to the humane and enlightened attitude hitherto assumed by the Imperial German Government in matters of international right, and particularly with regard to the freedom of the seas," was based, it was learned in Washington on June 12, upon the instructions of Aug. 3, 1914, which the German Government sent to its naval commanders. These German rules are now in the possession of the State Department. While no mention is made in them of submarine warfare, the extent and method of the exercise of the right of search and the stoppage of ships is prescribed with great nicety, and provision is made for the safety of passengers and crew. After outlining the purpose of visiting and searching vessels, the regulations state: All measures are to be carried out in a form whose observance, even against the enemy, will comport with the dignity of the German Empire and with a regard for neutrals conformable to the usages of international law and the German interest. The method of signaling ships to be halted is prescribed, and it is directed that "two successive blank charges are to be fired, and, if necessary, a shotted charge over the ship if the signals are not obeyed. "If the ship does not then stop or makes resistance, the Captain will compel her to stop," the instructions continue. After specifying what ships may be captured and destroyed, the regulations continue: Before destruction all persons on board, if possible with their personal effects, are to be placed in safety and all the ship's papers and other articles of evidence, which in the opinion of the interested parties are of value for the judgment of the prize court, are to be taken over by the Captain. The Government of the United States is happy to observe that your Excellency's note closes with the intimation that the Imperial German Government is willing, now as before, to accept the good offices of the United States in an attempt to come to an understanding with the Government of Great Britain by which the character and conditions of the war upon the sea may be changed. The Government of the United States would consider it a privilege thus to serve its friends and the world. It stands ready at any time to convey to either Government any intimation or suggestion the other may be willing to have it convey and cordially invites the Imperial German Government to make use of its services in this way at its convenience. The whole world is concerned in anything that may bring about even a partial accommodation of interests or in any way mitigate the terrors of the present distressing conflict. In the meantime, whatever arrangement may happily be made between the parties to the war, and whatever may in the opinion of the Imperial German Government have been the provocation or the circumstantial justification for the past acts of its commanders at sea, the Government of the United States confidently looks to see the justice and humanity of the Government of Germany vindicated in all cases where Americans have been wronged or their rights as neutrals invaded. The Government of the United States therefore very earnestly and very solemnly renews the representations of its note transmitted to the Imperial German Government on the 15th of May, and relies in these representations upon the principles of humanity, the universally recogized understandings of international law, and the ancient friendship of the German Nation. The Government of the United States cannot admit that the proclamation of a war zone from which neutral ships have been warned to keep away may be made to operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights either of American shipmasters or of American citizens bound on lawful errands as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent nationality. It does not understand the Imperial German Government to question those rights. It understands it, also, to accept as established beyond question the principle that the lives of non combatants cannot lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruction of an unresisting merchantman, and to recognize the obligation to take sufficient precaution to ascertain whether a suspected merchantman is in fact of belligerent nationality or is in fact carrying contraband of war under a neutral flag. The Government of the United States therefore deems it reasonable to expect that the Imperial German Government will adopt the measures necessary to put these principles into practice in respect of the safeguarding of American lives and American ships, and asks for assurances that this will be done. ROBERT LANSING, Secretary of State ad Interim. THE LUSITANIA'S "GUNS" In a Washington dispatch of June 2, 1915, to THE NEW YORK TIMES, the following report appeared: In his conversation with President Wilson today the German Ambassador said that he had obtained evidence through means of affidavits that the Lusitania was an armed vessel, as asserted by the German Government. The affidavits to which Count von Bernstorff referred have been placed in possession of the State Department, which has turned them over to the Department of Justice for an investigation as to the statements sworn to and the character of the individuals making them. One of the affidavits is made by Gustav Stahl of 20 Leroy Street, New York City. He says: On the day prior to the sailing of the Lusitania, I was asked by my friend, A. Lietch, who was employed as first cabin steward, to help him to bring his trunk aboard. In the course of the evening we went on board, without being hindered by the quartermaster on guard. After having remained some time in the "gloria," (steward's quarters,) we went to the stern main deck. About fifteen to eighteen feet from the entrance to the "gloria," on port and starboard, respectively, I saw two guns of twelve to fifteen centimeters. They were covered with leather, but the barrel was distinctly to be seen. To satisfy my curiosity I unfastened the buckles to ascertain the calibre of the guns. I could also ascertain that the guns were mounted on deck on wooden blocks. The guns were placed about three feet from the respective ship sides and the wall could be removed at that particular place. On the foredeck there were also two guns of the same calibre and covered in the same manner. They were placed at about fifteen to twenty feet from the entrance of the crew's quarters, and four feet from the ship side, where the wall could also be removed. Josephine Weir, who describes herself as a New York boarding house keeper, provided another affidavit. She swore that Lietch, who is named in Stahl's statement, told her he was to sail on the Lusitania as a steward, and when she spoke of the danger from German submarines, he said: "Oh, I am not afraid. We have four big brightly polished copper guns." A man named Grieve has an affidavit that he heard Lietch make this statement to Mrs. Weir. In an affidavit furnished by one Bruckner it is stated that he saw a cannon on the Lusitania. He was standing on the dock in New York at the time, he avers. The affidavits were supplied to the State Department by the German Embassy in order to support the allegation, contained in the German response to President Wilson's note of May 13, that the Lusitania was an armed vessel. By The Associated Press. WASHINGTON, June 2.-The four affidavits as presented to the State Department by the German Embassy alleging that guns were carried by the Lusitania are believed to constitute the evidence to which the German Government referred in its last note. Should it develop that the Foreign Office had been misinformed, German diplomatists said, an acknowledgment of the mistake would not be withheld. These affidavits were not made public by either the embassy or the State Department, but the character of the individuals who made them and their testimony is being made the subject of a quiet investigation. Those officials who had seen the statements, however, were confident that they could not be accepted as disproving the testimony given by Inspectors whose duty it was to search for guns. THE ARREST OF STAHL. Gustav Stahl, the former German soldier who made an affidavit that he saw four guns mounted on the Lusitania on the night before it sailed from this port on its last voyage and who disappeared immediately after the affidavit was made public, was produced by Secret Service men before the Federal Grand Jury yes terday afternoon at a proceeding to determine whether Paul Koenig, alias Stemler, who is the head of the detective bureau of the Hamburg-American Line, and others unnamed, had entered into a conspiracy to defraud the United States Government. The fraud is not stated specifically, and the charge is a technical one that may cover a variety of acts. Stahl, who speaks little English, affirmed through an interpreter to the Grand Jury that he had seen the guns on the Lusitania. He was questioned for two hours and a half and told his story with great detail. As he was leaving the Grand Jury room he was arrested by United States Marshal Thomas B. McCarthy on a complaint made on information and belief by Assistant District Attorney Raymond H. Sarfaty that Stahl had committed perjury in his testimony before the Federal Grand Jury. Stahl was held in bail of $10,000 by United States Commissioner Houghton and locked up in the Tombs. Stahl was the only witness heard by the Grand Jury in the proceedings against Koenig. It was learned that Stahl had been in conference with Koenig before he made the affidavit, and that his affidavit had passed through Koenig's hands before it went to Ambassador Bernstorff, who submitted it to Secretary of State Bryan. The proceedings against Koenig were initiated to establish the charge that Koenig used improper influence to induce Stahl to make the affidavit. While Stahl was waiting in the Marshal's chamber in the Federal Building, after his arrest, for the arrival of Edward Sanford, a lawyer, of 27 William Street, who had been assigned to act as his counsel, he was asked, through an interpreter: "Would you be willing to spend twenty years in jail for your Fatherland?” "Make it a hundred!" he replied, in German, and then broke into a hearty laugh. Stahl is about 27 years old and slightly under middle size. He has a round, somewhat rosy countenance, dark hair getting very thin in front, and parted in the middle, dark-brown eyes and a small, closely-cropped dark mustache. He was calm and smiling, ready with his answers, and very insistent and emphatic in repeating that he had seen the guns on the Lusitania. He was neatly dressed in a dark mixed suit, with a new straw hat, a green tie on which was a stickpin with a dog's head in porcelain, brightly polished tan shoes, and lavender socks with scarletembroidered flowers. Following is the complaint on which he was held: Raymond H. Sarfaty, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. That on the 10th day of June, 1915, there was then and there pending before the Grand Jury of the United States in and for the Southern District of New York, a certain proceeding against one Paul Koenig, alias Stemler, and others, upon a charge of having conspired to defraud the United States, in violation of Section 37, U. S. C. C.; that on the said 10th day of June, 1915, the foreman of said Grand Jury, Frederick M. Delano, an officer duly empowered and qualified to administer oaths in the proceedings before said Grand Jury, duly administered an oath to the said Gustav Stahl, that he would testify to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, with respect to the aforesaid matter then being presented before the said Grand Jury; that the said Gustav Stahl, at the time and place aforesaid, and within the district aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this court, after said oath was administered, knowingly and fraudulently committed perjury, in that he testified in part, in substance, and effect as follows: That on the 30th day of April, 1915, the said Gustav Stahl went aboard the steamship Lusitania at the City of New York, in the Southern District of New York, with one Neal J. Leach; that while on said steamship he saw four guns on one of the decks of said steamship, two forward and two aft; that the said guns were mounted on wooden blocks; that the said guns were covered with leather. That affiant is informed and believes, and therefore avers, that, whereas, in truth and in fact, the said Gustav Stahl did not, on the 30th day of April, 1915, go aboard the steamship Lusitania at the City of New York, in the Southern District of New York, with one Neal J. Leach, nor did he, the said Gustav Stahl, go aboard the steamship Lusitania on said last mentioned date; and the said Gustav Stahl did not see four guns on the deck of the said steamship, two forward |