DIPLOMATIC NOTES
From March 18 to April 18
UNITED STATES AND GERMANY AT WAR
President's Address to Congress.—On April 2 President Wilson delivered the following address to Congress, convened in extra session on that day:
"Gentlemen of the Congress:
"I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.
"On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft, in conformity with its promise, then given to us, that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.
"The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.
"I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation has right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.
"This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside, under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ, as it is employing them, without throwing to the wind all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world.
"I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
"It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination.
"Challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.
"When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws, when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.
"The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defence of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretentions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making; we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.
"With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defence, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.
"What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs.
"It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible.
"It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines.
"It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.
"It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation.
"I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation, because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits, which will now be necessary, entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people, so far as we may, against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.
"In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty—for it will be a very practical duty—of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there.
"I shall take the liberty of suggesting through the several executive departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the government upon whom the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall.
"While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world, what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation had been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power, and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.
"Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments, backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.
"We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days, when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.
"Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.
"A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
"Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added, in all their naive majesty and might, to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor.
"One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities, and even our offices of government, with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues, which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country, have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government, accredited to the government of the United States.
"Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that government entertains no real friendship for us, and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.
"We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept the gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included; for the rights of nations, great and small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
"Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
"I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare, adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this government to receive Count Tarnowski, the ambassador recently accredited to this government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our right.
"It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not with enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck.
"We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for them for the time being to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible.
"We shall happily still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the government in the hour of test. They are most of them as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with, with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.
"It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.
"But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.
"God helping her, she can do no other."
Congress Passes War Resolution.—On April 4 the Senate by a vote of 82 to 6, and on April 6 the House by a vote of Z72, to 50, adopted the following declaration of a state of war between the United States and Germany:
"Whereas, The Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the United States of America; therefore, be it
"Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and
"That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the government to carry on war against the Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."
Proclamation of War.—At 1.18 p. m. on April 6 the President signed the resolution declaring a state of war with Germany, and on the same date issued a proclamation of war. According to the proclamation, citizens or subjects of Germany within the United States "shall be undisturbed in the peaceful pursuit of their lives and occupations," provided they surrender all arms and instruments of warfare, avoid prohibited areas, forts, navy yards, etc., refrain from seditious utterances, and observe in general the strict regulations applying to enemy aliens in time of war.
An Appeal to the People.—On April 15, the President issued, throughout the press of the country, an urgent appeal for energy in every pursuit that will contribute directly or indirectly to the prosecution of the war, and for the strictest economy in husbanding the country's resources. The appeal was directed particularly to shipbuilders, industrial workers, farmers, middlemen, miners, and railroad workers. "The industrial forces of the country, men and women alike, will be a great national, a great international service army—a notable and honored host engaged in the service of the nation and the world, the efficient friends and saviors of free men everywhere. Thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, of men otherwise liable to military service will of right and of necessity be excused from that service and assigned to the fundamental, sustaining work of the fields and factories and mines, and they will be as much part of the great patriotic forces of the nation as the men under fire."
Warning Against Treason.—The President's proclamation against treason, issued April 16, read as follows:
Whereas, All persons in the United States, citizens as well as aliens, should be informed of the penalties which they will incur for any failure to bear true allegiance to the United States;
Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, hereby issue this proclamation to call especial attention to the following provisions of the Constitution and the laws of the United States:
Section 3 of Article III, of the Constitution provides, in part:
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. The Criminal Code of the United States provides:
Section 1.—Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason.
Sec. 2.—Whoever is convicted of treason shall suffer death; or, at the discretion of the court, shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined not less than $10,000, to be levied on and collected out of any or all of his property, real and personal, of which he was the owner at the time of committing such treason, any sale or conveyance to the contrary notwithstanding; and every person so convicted of treason shall, however, be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
Sec. 3.—Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge or justice of a particular state, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be imprisoned not more than seven years and fined not more than $1000.
Sec. 6.—If two or more persons in any state or territory or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States, contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined not more than $5000 or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.
The courts of the United States have stated the following acts to be treasonable:
The use or attempted use of any force or violence against the government of the United States, or its military or naval forces.
The acquisition, use, or disposal of any property with knowledge that it is to be, or with intent that it shall be, of assistance to the enemy in their hostilities against the United States.
The performance of any act or the publication of statements or information which will give or supply in any way aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.
The direction, aiding, counseling, or countenancing of any of the foregoing acts.
Such acts are held to be treasonable, whether committed within the United States or elsewhere; whether committed by a citizen of the Ignited States or by an alien domiciled, or residing, in the United States, inasmuch as resident aliens, as well as citizens, owe allegiance to the United States and its laws.
Any such citizen or alien who has knowledge of the commission of such acts and conceals and does not make known the facts to the officials named in Section 3 of the Penal Code is guilty of misprision of treason.
And I hereby proclaim and warn all citizens of the United States and all aliens, owing allegiance to the government of the United States, to abstain from committing any and all acts which would constitute a violation of any of the laws herein set forth; and I further proclaim and warn all persons who may commit such acts that they will be vigorously prosecuted therefore.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this sixteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-first.
Woodrow Wilson,
By the President:
Robert Lansing, Secretary of State.
Seven Billion Dollars for War.—An April 15, the House of Representatives, by a unanimous vote, passed a bill to raise seven billion dollars to carry on the war. The bill authorized $5,000,000,000 in bonds, of which $3,000,000,000 will be loaned to Entente countries, and the issuance of treasury certificates for $2,000,000,000 to be ultimately met by increased taxation. The Senate passed the bill unanimously on April 17.
Submarine Attacks.—In the period immediately preceding the declaration of war, a number of American vessels were torpedoed. The City of Memphis (5252 tons), Cardiff to New York in ballast, was sunk off Ireland, March 17, without loss of life; the Vigilancia (4115 tons). New York to Havre, was torpedoed in the Channel on the same date, with the loss of 15 of the crew; the tanker Illinois (5220 tons), London to Texas in ballast, was sunk on March 18, without loss; the tanker Healdon (4480) tons), Philadelphia to Rotterdam, was torpedoed on the night of March 21, off Terschelling, with loss of 21 men including seven Americans. The first armed American merchantman sunk was the steamer Aztec, torpedoed at 8.15 p. m. on April 1, off Ouessant, with 11 men drowned.
Break with Austria.—On April 8, Count Czernin, Austrian Foreign Minister, handed American Charge d'Affaires Grew his passports, with the following note:
"Since the United States of America has declared a state of war exists between it and the Imperial German Government, Austria-Hungary, as allies of the German Empire, have decided to break off the diplomatic relations with the United States, and the Imperial and Royal Embassy at Washington has been instructed to inform the Department of State to that effect." (Here follows reference to enclosure.)
Immediately upon notification of the severance of relations, the United States government took possession of the 14 Austrian vessels in American ports, with a total tonnage of 67,807 gross. In view of Austria's concurrence in Germany's submarine policy. Count Tarnowski, the newly appointed Austrian Ambassador to this country, had not been received.
Cuba and Panama Declare War.—On April 7, upon a message from President Menocal urgently counseling such action, the Cuban House and Senate unanimously approved a declaration of a state of war with Germany. German and Austrian ships in Cuban ports were at once seized.
On the same date the President of Panama issued a proclamation committing the Republic to "co-operate with all its energies and all its available resources" in the defence measures of the United States. Costa Rica offered her ports and territorial waters for war needs of the American Navy.
Attitude of South America.—On April 10, Brazil severed diplomatic relations with Germany; on April 13, she authorized the arming of Brazilian merchant vessels; and on April 15 she seized German and Austrian ships in Brazilian ports. The Brazilian consul at Cherbourg, was instructed to investigate the destruction of the Brazilian steamship Parana, reported sunk on April 8. Bolivia's severance of diplomatic relations with Germany was announced on April 14. Argentina, Chili, Peru, and Mexico announced continued neutrality. Argentina, however, as well as Uruguay and Paraguay, endorsed the policy of the United States.
Rumors of Peace Moves.—In an interview with a German press correspondent on March 31, Count Czernin, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, announced that the peace offers of the Central Powers were still open. He denied Austria's desire for territorial acquisitions, and suggested a conference without cessation of hostilities. Rumors of a new peace offer, to be made by Emperor Charles, arose from the meeting of rulers and statesmen of the Central Powers in the last week of March. These, however, were officially denied by Germany, according to despatches of April 5.
Efforts of Germany to secure peace with Russia by communication between Russian and German Socialist leaders were seen in the announcement (April 9) that Philip Scheidemann, head of the majority Socialists in the Reichstag, had left Germany on "a mission"; and in the unhindered passage (April 14) of Russian radicals through Germany from Switzerland to Petrograd via Stockholm.
Connected with these rumors, as indicative of unrest in Germany, was the Kaiser's order to Chancellor von Bethmann Holweg, holding out the promise of electoral reforms in Prussia after the conclusion of hostilities (despatches of April 8).
Russia.—The United States on March 22 was the first nation to recognize formally the new government in Russia. A Russian official proclamation extending to the Polish people their choice of a form of government, and assuming that this would be an independent state, was issued March 30. All laws restricting freedom of creeds and religion have been repealed.
On April 16, the "Congress of the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates" in Russia adopted a set of resolutions containing the following points: (1) That the provisional government had thus far carried out its promises of reform; (2) that influence should be exercised over the provisional government to "insure its democratizing the whole Russian life and paving the way for a common peace without annexation or indemnity, but on a basis of free national development of all the peoples"; (3) that the provisional government should be supported, "so long as it continues to consolidate and develop the conquest of the revolution and as long as the basis of its foreign policy does not rest upon aspirations for territorial expansion."
Formal Transfer of Danish West Indies.—Formal transfer of the Danish West Indies to the flag of the United States took place on March 31, when Mr. Lansing handed to the Danish Minister a United States treasury warrant for $25,000,000.—N. Y. Nation, 4/5.