CHAPTER IV

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

German Submarine Campaign - Policy of the Administration - Place of the United States in the World-Basis of American Protest — Attitude of the Government Toward Mexico Pan-American Conference and Solution for Mexico Championship of Integrity of Neutral Rights - German Propaganda in the United States - President's Position on PreparedDuties of the United States — International Peace.

ness

EARLY in the conflict, as in former European wars, the Atlantic had seemed a barrier that separated the United States from the struggle. But as the war progressed the ocean seemed the highway that might lead to American participation. In attempting to make good the claim that changes in rules of the sea should be ratified by all nations President Wilson was following in the path long chosen by American diplomats, but to a greater degree than his predecessors he faced the necessity of making good the contention of neutrals in face of attack, not only upon property, but upon life itself. The United States had never in its history been quite able to ignore conflicts upon the sea. In the Great War it was the phase of the struggle that involved freedom of the sea that in time came to affect the vital interests of the United States.

Toward the close of April of 1915 it was apparent that

the German government was preparing to test the full value of the submarine for bringing into being the German conception of freedom of the seas.1 The activity of German submarines in the "war zone " claimed increasing notice from the American public. On March 28, 1915, an American had been lost when a British steamer, the Falaba, had been sunk, and a month later an American vessel, the Cushing, had been shelled by an aeroplane. On May 1, 1915, an American steamer, the Gulflight, was sunk by a submarine and two American citizens were lost. Prior to this two American ships had been sunk by German mines. Moreover, the William P. Frye, also of American registry, had been captured and sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. These events and the increasingly aggressive character of propaganda in America had brought American excitement to a high pitch. German agencies had entered upon a campaign of intimidation, citing these attacks and threatening others, in an avowed effort to compel Americans and American shipping to keep out of the "war zone." On April 22, 1915, the German embassy at Washington was responsible for publication in the newspapers of a warning to Americans not to travel in British vessels.

When on May 7, 1915, the British liner Lusitania was sunk without warning and one hundred and twenty-four Americans were lost, the public mind was prepared for a crisis, and consequently for the administration the time of

1 See C. P. Anderson, "Freedom of the Seas," Annals of American Academy, LXXII, 65. Also C. G. Fenwick, "The Freedom of the Seas," American Political Science Review, XI, 386.

greatest test had come. All precedent and the President's earlier words, not in his speeches, it is true, but in his dispatches, pointed to a break with Germany. Six days X elapsed before a communication was sent to the German government. In the interim, three days after the sinking, the President addressed an audience of newly naturalized citizens at Philadelphia. (Statement No. 35.) What he said was scanned for a clue to his proposed action. The statement of basic principles that he had so often iterated from his entrance upon office was overlooked partly because the ideas were so familiar, but more perhaps because it was thought that the President would in some concrete way foreshadow a new treatment for this specific situation.

Two short paragraphs only could by any interpretation be regarded as an indication of what the President intended to do. He had led up to a call to America to set an example to a world rent with strife, and then suddenly astonished most of his countrymen by saying, "There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight." So astonished were they, and so obsessed with prevailing personifications of nations, that the sentence following was quite generally forgotten and its significance lost. Yet the second sentence contained the spirit of the President's policy since the outbreak of the war, and the spirit of his reply to Germany. He said, "There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right." By this the President meant that the United States was adhering to

international law and still maintained the position, often taken, that of reliance upon other means than trial by battle. This was not a new thought with the President. Indeed he had said to the Associated Press some weeks before: "My interest in the neutrality of the United States is not the petty desire to keep out of trouble. . . I am interested in neutrality because there is something so much greater to do than fight. . . . There is a distinction waiting for this nation that no nation has ever yet got. That is the distinction of absolute self-control and self-mastery." (Statement No. 33.)

Because of recent events, particularly the continuance of German propaganda, lines of division based on national stocks had deepened, and the President took the opportunity to say to these recently naturalized citizens: "You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. . . . A man who thinks himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes." But perhaps wishing to avoid too great an emphasis upon Americanism at this time, he went on, "My urgent advice to you would be not only always to think first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. . . . America was created to unite mankind. . . .'

The following day the cabinet considered the communication to be sent to Germany and on May 13, 1915, it was delivered to the German ambassador.1 (Statement No. 36.). The series of attacks, including those upon the Cushing and the Gulflight, and culminating in that on the Lusitania, had been viewed by the government of the United States "with growing concern, distress and amazement." No abbreviation of the neutral rights of American shipmasters or American citizens could be permitted. But the basis for the American case was put on other than the grounds merely of the rights of American citizens, important though they were,-" The Government of the United States . . . desires to call the attention of the Imperial German Government with the utmost earnestness to the fact that the objection to their present method of attack against the trade of their enemies lies in the practical impossibility of employing submarines in the destruction of commerce without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, justice, and humanity, which all modern opinion regards as imperative. It is practically impossible for the officers of a submarine to visit a merchantman at sea and examine her papers and cargo. It is practically impossible for them to make a prize of her; and, if they can not put a prize crew on board of her, they can not sink her without leaving her crew and all on board of her to the mercy of the sea in her small boats.

1 Two days after the sinking of the Lusitania the German government had presented a note dealing with treatment of neutral vessels in the "war zone," and the next day, May 10, 1915, a message of sympathy on loss of American lives.