EMBARGO PROCLAMATIONS

[EDITORIAL NOTE: A law approved June 15, 1917, had empowered the President, at his discretion, to prohibit export of various commodities except under regulations or licenses. This was chiefly to keep supplies from reaching the enemy through neutral countries, and to furnish means for persuading neutrals to release in exchange commodities required by the Allies. The President issued several Embargo proclamations, the first being dated July 9. They each contained a long citation from the law itself and still longer lists of commodities and countries affected. Accompanying these formal proclamations were explanatory statements by the President, which follow:]

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 9, 1917.

In controlling by license the export of certain indispensable commodities from the United States, the Government has first and chiefly in view the amelioration of the food conditions which have arisen or are likely to arise in our own country before new crops are harvested. Not only is the conservation of our prime food and fodder supplies a matter which vitally concerns our own people, but the retention of an adequate supply of raw materials is essential to our program of military and naval construction and the continuance of our necessary domestic activities. We shall therefore similarly safeguard all our fundamental supplies.

It is obviously the duty of the United States in liberating any surplus products over and above our own domestic needs, to consider first the necessities of all the nations engaged in war against the Central Empires. As to neutral nations, however, we also recognize our duty. The Government does not wish to hamper them. On the contrary, it wishes and intends, by all fair and equitable means, to co-operate with them in their difficult task of adding from

our available surpluses to their own domestic supply and of meeting their pressing necessities or deficits. In considering the deficits of food supplies the Government means only to fulfill its obvious obligation to assure itself that neutrals are husbanding their own resources and that our supplies will not become available, either directly or indirectly, to feed the enemy.

WOODROW WILSON.

[This first proclamation applied to all countries, but related only to fuels, food grains, feed, fertilizers, meats and fats, iron and steel, arms and ammunition. The second proclamation made some additions to the list, and also prohibited the export-to the enemy and to European neutrals of practically all articles of commerce. The explanatory statement accompanying the second proclamation follows:]

August 27, 1917.

The purpose and effect of this proclamation is not export prohibition, but merely export control. It is not the intention to interfere unnecessarily with our foreign trade; but our own domestic needs must be adequately safeguarded and there is the added duty of meeting the necessities of all the nations at war with the Imperial German Govern

ment.

After these needs are met, it is our wish and intention to minister to the needs of the neutral nations as far as our resources permit. This task will be discharged without other than the very proper qualification that the liberation of our surplus products shall not be made the occasion of benefit to the enemy, either directly or indirectly.

The two lists have been prepared in the interests of facility and expediency. The first list, applicable to the enemy and his allies and to the neutral countries of Europe, brings under control practically all articles of commerce, while the second list, applicable to all the other countries of the world, makes only a few additions to the list of commodities controlled by the proclamation of July 9, 1917.

It is obvious that a closer supervision and control of exports is necessary with respect to those European neutrals within the sphere of hostilities than is required for those countries further removed.

The establishment of these distinctions will simplify the administrative processes and enable us to continue our policy of minimizing the interruption of trade.

No licenses will be necessary for the exportation of coin, bullion, currency and evidences of indebtedness until required by regulations to be promulgated by the Secretary of the Treasury in his discretion. WOODROW WILSON.

[By a proclamation of September 7, the free export of coin, bullion, and currency-permitted in the paragraph above-was also prohibited except under regulations prescribed by the Treasury.]

PRESIDENT WILSON'S MESSAGE TO RUSSIA

(Delivered to the Provisional Government on May 26, 1917; made public at Washington on June 9.)

[EDITORIAL NOTE: This was written two months after the revolution which forced the abdication of Czar Nicholas II (March 15, 1917) and the establishment of a provisional democratic government. Meanwhile, the Russian peasants, workmen, and soldiers-keen to exercise their newly won liberty-had neglected tasks associated with the active prosecution of war; Germany and Austria had made overtures for a separate peace; and at best Russia seemed likely to remain for some time an impotent ally. President Wilson sent a special commission to Russia, headed by Elihu Root, and the following note was made public at about the time of the mission's arrival at Petrograd:]

In view of the approaching visit of the American delegation to Russia to express the deep friendship of the Ameri

can people for the people of Russia and to discuss the best and most practical means of co-operation between the two peoples in carrying the present struggle for the freedom of all peoples to a successful consummation, it seems opportune and appropriate that I should state again, in the light of this new partnership, the objects the United States has had in mind in entering the war. Those objects have been very much beclouded during the past few weeks by mistaken and misleading statements, and the issues at stake are too momentous, too tremendous, too significant for the whole human race to permit any misinterpretations or misunderstandings, however slight, to remain uncorrected for a

moment.

The war has begun to go against Germany, and in their desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using every possible instrumentality, are making use even of the influence of groups and parties among their own subjects to whom they have never been just or fair or even tolerant, to promote a propaganda on both sides of the sea which will preserve for them their influence at home and their power abroad, to the undoing of the very men they are using. The position of America in this war is so clearly avowed that no man can be excused for mistaking it. She seeks no material profit or aggrandizement of any kind. She is fighting for no advantage or selfish object of her own, but for the liberation of peoples everywhere from the aggressions of autocratic force. The ruling classes in Germany have begun of late to profess a like liberality and justice of purpose, but only to preserve the power they have set up in Germany and the selfish advantages which they have wrongly gained for themselves and their private projects of power all the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond. Government after Government has by their influence, without open conquest of its territory, been linked together in a net of intrigue directed against nothing less than the peace

and liberty of the world. The meshes of that intrigue must be broken, but cannot be broken unless wrongs already done are undone; and adequate measures must be taken to prevent it from ever again being rewoven or repaired.

Of course, the Imperial Government and those whom it is using for their own undoing are seeking to obtain pledges that the war will end in the restoration of the status quo ante. It was the status quo ante out of which this iniquitous war issued forth, the power of the Imperial German Government within the Empire and its widespread domination and influence outside of that Empire. That status must be altered in such fashion as to prevent any such hideous thing from ever happening again.

We are fighting for the liberty, the self-government, and the undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settlement that concludes this war must be conceived and executed for that purpose. Wrongs must first be righted, and then adequate safeguards must be created to prevent their being committed again. We ought not to consider remedies merely because they have a pleasing and sonorous sound. Practical questions can be settled only by practical means. Phrases will not accomplish the result. Effective readjustments will; and whatever readjustments are necessary must be made.

But they must follow a principle, and that principle is plain. No people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. No territory must change hands except for the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty. No indemnities must be insisted on except those that constitute payments for manifest wrongs done. No readjustments of power must be made except such as will tend to secure the future peace of the world and the future welfare and happiness of its peoples.

And then the free peoples of the world must draw together in some common covenant, some genuine and prac