AMERICA'S CASE AGAINST GERMANY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY No war in which the United States has ever engaged has had greater justification than the one recognized on April 6, 1917. The language of the congressional resolution, which asserted that the Imperial German Government had "committed repeated acts of war" and formally declared a status which had been "thrust upon" the United States of America, was strictly accurate, because for more than two years President Wilson attempted in vain to persuade Germany to abandon the wanton sinking of merchant vessels in disregard of the undisputed rules of international law and elementary dictates of humanity. In the refusal of the Imperial Government to cease the murder of American citizens and the destruction of American property is to be found the immediate cause of the entrance of the United States into the European conflict; and while our abandonment of the intolerable rôle of neutral enables us formally to declare what many of us have long felt that the Allies have been fighting for our ideals; that the submarine warfare is simply symptomatic of an international ruthlessness which cannot be allowed to triumph; that, in President Wilson's phrase, it is a warfare against all mankind, against all nations-nevertheless the reason why the United States finally decided to substitute force for argument was the continued assertion by Germany of the right to use the submarine against commerce. This, he maintained, could not be done except in violation of principles of international law so humane and so fundamental that their abandonment by a proud, self-respecting nation was unthinkable. The immediate cause of a war may be lost sight of in larger issues and this is abundantly true in the present instance. We are prone to justify our entrance on the basis of American |