Manifestly, submarines cannot be used
against merchantmen, as the last few weeks have shown, without an
inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity.
American citizens act within their indisputable rights in taking their
ships and in traveling wherever their legitimate business calls them
upon the high seas, and exercise those rights in what should be the
well-justified confidence that their lives will not be endangered by
acts done in clear violation of universally acknowledged international
obligations, and certainly in the confidence that their own government
will sustain them in the exercise of their rights.
There was recently published in the newspapers of the United States, I
regret to inform the Imperial German Government, a formal warning,
purporting to come from the Imperial German Embassy at Washington,
addressed to the people of the United States, and stating, in effect,
that any citizen of the United States who exercised his right of free
travel upon the seas would do so at his peril if his journey should take
him within the zone of waters within which the Imperial German Navy was
using submarines against the commerce of Great Britain and France,
notwithstanding the respectful but very earnest protest of the
Government of the United States. I do not refer to this for the purpose
of calling the attention of the Imperial German Government at this time
to the surprising irregularity of a communication from the Imperial
German Embassy at Washington addressed to the people of the United
States through the newspapers, but only for the purpose of pointing out
that no warning that an unlawful and inhumane act will be committed can
possibly be accepted as an excuse or palliation for that act or as an
abatement of the responsibility for its commission.
Pages:
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360