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.

Manifestly submarines can not be used against merchantmen, as the last few weeks have shown, without an inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity."

The United States was not here protesting so much against the injury or death of a citizen of a neutral state, a common incident of war, as it was protesting against the attack by a belligerent power upon all neutrals. As the invasion of Belgium was to Europe, so this German declaration was to the whole world, a declaration that law was not binding, not the laws of property, but the laws of humanity. But the note closed with the statement that the United States government would not " omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens." The larger significance of this note was concisely stated in an editorial in the American Journal of International Law: "A mighty belligerent has thus been brought, so to speak, before the bar of humanity and civilization to answer a no less powerful neutral for alleged infractions of the laws governing their relations in the society of nations, of which they are both members." " 1

An opportunity was afforded the President to speak more directly to his own countrymen four days later, May 17, 1915, when he spoke briefly on the occasion of a review of the Atlantic fleet. (Statement No. 37.) He felt that the people of the United States possessed an effi1 American Journal of International Law, IX, 672.

cient navy, partly, as he said, “because that navy somehow is expected to express their character not within our own borders, where that character is understood, but outside our borders, where it is hoped we may occasionally touch others with some slight vision of what America stands for."

The President reverted to this later in the same address. America "asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself. We want no nation's property; we wish to question no nation's honour; we wish to stand selfishly in the way of the development of no nation; we want nothing that we cannot get by our own legitimate enterprise and by the inspiration of our own example." This might serve as a summary of the President's endeavour in the preceding two years. He felt, as he stated, that his policies embodied the spirit and purpose of the United States. . . The force of America is the force of moral principle, . . . there is not anything else that she loves, and . . . there is nothing else for which she will contend." In such a spirit Wilson carried on the controversy with Germany.

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The German answer of May 28, 1915, was distinctly unsatisfactory.1 On June 9, 1915, a second note was

1 Note of May 28, 1915, should be carefully distinguished from German notes of May 9, 1915, and May 10, 1915. Infra, p. 75. Prior to the German note of May 28, 1915, in reply to the American note of May 13, 1915, the American steamer, Nebraskan, had on May 25, 1915, been attacked by a submarine. No lives had been lost. On June 1, 1915, the German government presented the American government reports upon the Cushing and the Gulflight. Department of State, Diplomatic Correspondence, European War Series, No. 2, p. 170.

sent. Secretary Bryan resigned on June 8, 1915. Instead of the treatment of the German issue indicated in this note, he desired to provide for an investigation by an international commission, and further that Americans be warned not to travel on vessels of the belligerent powers or on those carrying cargoes of ammunition. Mr. Bryan gave out two statements in explanation of his course. of action.1 It would seem from a fair reading of them that he felt that by the course of the United States in concluding treaties with twenty-eight nations providing for commissions of inquiry, the United States was morally bound to proceed in this matter as if such a treaty had been concluded with Germany.2 Mr. Wilson apparently believed that he had not exhausted the preliminary stage of diplomatic negotiation, and he proved to be right.3

The President in this second note maintained: "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 . . . out of the class of ordinary subjects of diplomatic discussion or international controversy. . . . The Government of the United States is contending for something much greater than mere rights of

1 New York Times, June 9, 1915; June 11, 1915.

2 For dispassionate editorial comment upon the significance of the service of Mr. Bryan as Secretary of State see American Journal of International Law, IX, 664-666.

3 Robert Lansing, who had served as Counsellor for the Department of State since April 1, 1914, was appointed Secretary of State June 23, 1915.