It is important to reflect that if in this instance we allowed expediency to take the place of principle the door would inevitably be opened to still further concessions. Once accept a single abatement of right, and many other humiliations would certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might crumble under our hands piece by piece. What we are contending for in this matter is of the very essence of the things that have made America a sovereign nation. She cannot yield them without conceding her own impotency as a Nation and making virtual surrerder of her independent position among the nations of the world.

I am speaking, my dear Senator, in deep solemnity, without heat, with a clear consciousness of the high responsibilities of my office and as your sincere and devoted friend. If we should unhappily differ, we shall differ as friends, but where issues so momentous as these are involved we must, just because we are friends, speak our minds without reservation.

Faithfully yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE POU,

FEBRUARY 29, 1916

A resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 22, 1916, requesting the President to ask all Americans to refrain from traveling upon belligerent, that is to say British merchant ships, and warning them that they did so at their own peril and that, by doing so, they forfeited the protection of the United States.' The passage of such a resolution would have embarrassed the Administration in its negotiations with Germany, which denied this right to Americans; and a very considerable vote for this resolution would have shown a division on this subject and would have been unfortunate, as indicating a division of opinion on foreign policy, in which and about which the American people should be a unit. Therefore the President wrote the following letter to bring the matter to the test of a vote in the Congress.

MY DEAR MR. POU:

Inasmuch as I learn that Mr. Henry, the chairman of the Committee on Rules, is absent in Texas, I take the liberty of calling your attention, as ranking member of the committee, to a matter of grave concern to the country which can, I believe, be handled, under the rules of the House, only by that committee.

The report that there are divided counsels in Congress in regard to the foreign policy of the Government is being made industrious use of in foreign capitals. I believe that report to be false, but so long as it is anywhere credited it cannot fail to do the greatest harm and expose the country to the most serious risks. I therefore feel justified in asking that your committee will permit me to urge an early vote upon the resolutions with regard to travel on armed merchantmen

'On this subject see the memorandum transmitted to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, March 4, 1916. Appendix, pp. 411-424.

which have recently been so much talked about, in order that there may be afforded an immediate opportunity for full public discussion and action upon them and that all doubts and conjectures may be swept away and our foreign relations once more cleared of damaging misunderstandings.

The matter is of so grave importance and lies so clearly within the field of Executive initiative that I venture to hope that your committee will not think that I am taking an unwarranted liberty in making this suggestion as to the business of the House; and I very earnestly commend it to their immediate consideration. Cordially and sincerely, yours,

WOODROW WILSON.

ADDRESS ON GERMAN SUBMARINE WARFARE, DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF

CONGRESS, APRIL 19, 1916

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

A situation has arisen in the foreign relations of the country of which it is my plain duty to inform you very frankly.

It will be recalled that in February, 1915, the Imperial German Government announced its intention to treat the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland as embraced within the seat of war and to destroy all merchant ships owned by its enemies that might be found within any part of that portion of the high seas, and that it warned all vessels, of neutral as well as of belligerent ownership, to keep out of the waters it had thus proscribed or else enter them at their peril. The Government of the United States earnestly protested. It took the position that such a policy could not be pursued without the practical certainty of gross and palpable violations of the law of nations, particularly if submarine craft were to be employed as its instruments, inasmuch as the rules prescribed by that law, rules founded upon principles of humanity and established for the protection of the lives of non-combatants at sea, could not in the nature of the case be observed by such vessels. It based its protest on the ground that persons of neutral nationality and vessels of neutral ownership would be exposed to extreme and intolerable risks, and

that no right to close any part of the high seas against their use or to expose them to such risks could lawfully be asserted by any belligerent government. The law of nations in these matters, upon which the Government of the United States based its protest, is not of recent origin or founded upon merely arbitrary principles set up by convention. It is based, on the contrary, upon manifest and imperative principles of humanity and has long been established with the approval and by the express assent of all civilized nations.

Notwithstanding the earnest protest of our Government, the Imperial German Government at once proceeded to carry out the policy it had announced. It expressed the hope that the dangers involved, at any rate the dangers to neutral vessels, would be reduced to a minimum by the instructions which it had issued to its submarine commanders, and assured the Government of the United States that it would take every possible precaution both to respect the rights of neutrals and to safeguard the lives of non-combatants.

What has actually happened in the year which has since elapsed has shown that those hopes were not justified, those assurances insusceptible of being fulfilled. In pursuance of the policy of submarine warfare against the commerce of its adversaries, thus announced and entered upon by the Imperial German Government in despite of the solemn protest of this Government, the commanders of German undersea vessels have attacked merchant ships with greater and greater activity, not only upon the high seas surrounding Great Britain and Ireland but wherever they could encounter them, in a