Department of War for more adequate national defense were conceived which will be laid before you, and which I urge you to sanction and put into effect as soon as they can be properly scrutinized and discussed. They seem to me the essential first steps, and they seem to me for the present sufficient.

THE PAN-AMERICAN PROGRAM OF THE

ADMINISTRATION

48. Extract from an Address of President Wilson. January 6, 1916

(New York Times, January 7, 1916)

The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by the United States on her own authority. It has always been maintained, and always will be maintained, upon her own responsibility. But the Monroe Doctrine demanded merely that European Governments should not attempt to extend their political systems to this side of the Atlantic. It did not disclose the use which the United States intended to make of her power on this side of the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but there was no promise in it of what America was going to do with the implied and partial protectorate which she apparently was trying to set up on this side of the water, and I believe you will sustain me in the statement that it has been fears and suspicions on this score which have hitherto prevented the greater intimacy and confidence and trust between the Americas. The states of America have not been certain what the United States would do with her power. That doubt must be removed. And latterly there has been a very frank

interchange of views between the authorities in Washington and those who represented the other states of this hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and hopeful, because based upon an increasingly sure appreciation of the spirit in which they were undertaken. These gentlemen have seen that, if America is to come into her own, into her legitimate own, in a world of peace and order, she must establish the foundations of amity, so that no one will hereafter doubt them.

I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished. These conferences have enabled me to foresee how it will be accomplished. It will be accomplished, in the first place, by the states of America uniting in guaranteeing to each other absolute political independence and territorial integrity. In the second place, and as a necessary corollary to that, guaranteeing the agreement to settle all pending boundary disputes as soon as possible and by amiable process; by agreeing that all disputes among themselves, should they unhappily arise, will be handled by patient, impartial investigation and settled by arbitration; and the agreement necessary to the peace of the Americas, that no state of either continent will permit revolutionary expeditions against another state to be fitted out on its territory, and that they will prohibit the exportation of the munitions of war for the purpose of supplying revolutionists against neighboring Governments.1

You see what our thought is, gentlemen, not only the international peace of America, but the domestic peace of America. If American states are constantly in ferment, if any of them are constantly in ferment, there will be a standing threat to their relations with one another. It is

1 This paragraph contains the gist of proposals made by Secretary Lansing to the Latin American governments earlier in the year. The complete text of the proposals was not published.

just as much to our interest to assist each other to the orderly processes within our own borders as it is to orderly processes in our controversies with one another. These are very practical suggestions which have sprung up in the minds of thoughtful men, and I, for my part, believe that they are going to lead the way to something that America has prayed for for many a generation. For they are based, in the first place, so far as the stronger states are concerned, upon the handsome principle of self-restraint and respect for the rights of everybody. They are based upon the principles of absolute political equality among the states, equality of right, not equality of indulgence.

They are based, in short, upon the solid, eternal foundations of justice and humanity. No man can turn away from these things without turning away from the hope of the world. These are things, ladies and gentlemen, for which the world has hoped and waited with prayerful heart. God grant that it may be granted to America to lift this light on high for the illumination of the world.

ARMED MERCHANTMEN

49. Extract from a Communication of Secretary Lansing to the British Ambassador.1 January 18, 1916

(Department of State, Diplomatic Correspondence, European War Series, No. 3, p. 162)

It is matter of the deepest interest to my Government to bring to an end, if possible, the dangers to life which attend the use of submarines as at present employed in destroying enemy commerce on the high seas, since on any merchant vessel of belligerent nationality there may

1 The same note was sent to the diplomatic representatives at Washington, of Belgium, France, Italy, Japan and Russia.

be citizens of the United States who have taken passage or are members of the crew, in the exercise of their recognized rights as neutrals. I assume that your excellency's Government are equally solicitous to protect their nationals from the exceptional hazards which are presented by their passage on a merchant vessel through those portions of the high seas in which undersea craft of their enemy are operating.

While I am fully alive to the appalling loss of life among noncombatants, regardless of age or sex, which has resulted from the present method of destroying merchant vessels without removing the persons on board to places of safety, and while I view that practice as contrary to those humane principles which should control belligerents in the conduct of their naval operations, I do not feel that a belligerent should be deprived of the proper use of submarines in the interruption of enemy commerce since those instruments of war have proven their effectiveness in this particular branch of warfare on the high seas.

In order to bring submarine warfare within the general rules of international law and the principles of humanity without destroying its efficiency in the destruction of commerce, I believe that a formula may be found which, though it may require slight modifications of the practice generally followed by nations prior to the employment of submarines, will appeal to the sense of justice and fairness of all the belligerents in the present war.

Your excellency will understand that in seeking a formula or rule of this nature I approach it of necessity from the point of view of a neutral, but I believe that it will be equally efficacious in preserving the lives of all noncombatants on merchant vessels of belligerent nationality.

My comments on this subject are predicated on the following propositions:

1. A noncombatant has a right to traverse the high seas in a merchant vessel entitled to fly a belligerent flag and to rely upon the observance of the rules of international law and principles of humanity if the vessel is approached by a naval vessel of another belligerent.

2. A merchant vessel of enemy nationality should not be attacked without being ordered to stop.

3. An enemy merchant vessel, when ordered to do so by a belligerent submarine, should immediately stop.

4. Such vessel should not be attacked after being ordered to stop unless it attempts to flee or to resist, and in case it ceases to flee or resist, the attack should discontinue.

5. In the event that it is impossible to place a prize crew on board of an enemy merchant vessel or convoy it into port, the vessel may be sunk, provided the crew and passengers have been removed to a place of safety.

In complying with the foregoing propositions which, in my opinion, embody the principal rules, the strict observance of which will insure the life of a noncombatant on a merchant vessel which is intercepted by a submarine, I am not unmindful of the obstacles which would be met by undersea craft as commerce destroyers.

Prior to the year 1915 belligerent operations against enemy commerce on the high seas had been conducted with cruisers carrying heavy armaments. Under these conditions international law appeared to permit a merchant vessel to carry an armament for defensive purposes without losing its character as a private commercial vessel. This right seems to have been predicated on the superior defensive strength of ships of war, and the limitation of armament to have been dependent on the fact that it could not be used effectively in offense against enemy naval vessels, while it could defend the merchantmen against the generally inferior armament of piratical ships and privateers.