THE LANSING PAPERS, 1914-1920, VOLUME I



with war material for England and France. They say, moreover,
that the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy
could and did restrain the shipment of war material into Mexico.
Hence he has the same power to restrain the shipment of such
material to Europe.
  Let me quote this also from a letter:
  "As I read President Madison's message to congress of January 1st,
1812, I find that the Wilson administration has practically subscribed
to conditions which in that early stage of our history were considered
an intolerable insult to our existence as an independent nation. The
blood of every man of German descent must boil with indignation
and resentment on reading how even American-born citizens are
arrested aboard neutral vessels and in British ports, their passports
ignored, confined in jails and basely humiliated because they bear
German names or have German physical characteristics. Read the
private letter of Mr. J. 0. Bennett to the Managing Editor of the
Chicago Tribune, which introduces a symposium of pro-German
essays by native American scholars in the new pamphlet 'Germany's
Just Cause.' Read the despatch of James T. Archibald to the New
York World of October 15th, in which he says: 'Americans are im-
prisoned although carrying passports and neutral ships captured.'
Similar iespatches have been sent to the Associated Press, and similar
,cases are reported in private letters finding their way into print.
The mail of American citizens doing business in London has been
rifled by Scotland Yard detectives, according to Mr. Bennett and his
wife, and American correspondents threatened with arrest and worse
for sending news favorable to Germany to American papers.
  The State Department has demanded to know of the Turkish
government whether it sanctions Turkish threats to Englishmen and
Frenchmen, but it is manifesting a supreme indifference to the
thousands of noncombatants of German and Austrian connection
languishing in English and French concentration camps who are being
judicially murdered, despite the fact that the interests of these
nations are in the hands of the United States. I refer you to a re-
markable article of Herbert Corey in the New York Globe for a
graphic description of the barbarous hardships imposed on noncom-
batants confined in one English concentration camp. We protested
against these conditions when they obtained in Cuba under Weyler,
and we are preparing to protest to Turkey before anyone has been
hurt, but we tolerate this barbarism when its victims are Germans
and Austrians.
  It seems so obvious that the administration is closing its eyes to
all manner of expedients evasive of the laws of nations and of strict
neutrality as they affect the Allies that the German-American ele-
ment is rapidly conceiving an ineradicable spite against the admin-
istration. This element is usually submissive, but it is thoroughly
aroused now and does not intend to be treated as a negligible factor
-in American political life."
  From many sides very naturally much complaint is raised against
,the treatment of American mail on Dutch and other neutral steamers.



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