THE WORLD WAR: PERIOD OF AMERICAN NEUTRALITY 373



  Unless you think it premature or unwise to do so, I shall bring
the matter up for discussion to-morrow morning at the meeting of the
Cabinet.
  Meantime, one suggestion for your consideration, in the light of the
<authorities;
  If some British merchantmen were known to be armed, and the
]3ritish Government had in fact authorized or advised all merchant-
mnen to arm themselves against submarines, and, assuming it to
have been impracticable for the German commander to ascertain
vwhether the Falaba was armed, was he justified in the cirmumstances
-in acting upon the theory that the British authorization had in effect
transformed all British merchantmen into public armed vessels and
made them liable to attack as such?
      Faithfully Yours,
                                                        W. W.

462.11 T 41/201
The Counselor for the Department of State (Laaming) to the Secretary
                             of State

                                   [WASHINGTON,] April 7, 1915.
  DEAR MR. SECRETARY: The great importance of the Thrasher case,
to my mind, lies in the fact that a course of acticn must be adopted,
-which can be consistently applied to similar cases, if they should
arise in the future. For example, suppose another British vessel
should be sunk in the same way as the Falaba and ten Americans on
board the vessel should be drowned. What would be done in that
case? Or suppose a neutral vessel with Americans on board should
be torpedoed and the Americans drowned. Wlhat then would be
done? It seems to me that, for the sake of the future, we cannot
afford to allow expediency or avoidance of the issue to control our
action in the Thrasher case.
  Either one of two courses seems to be open:
  1. To warn Americans generally to keep out of the German war
zone, if on board a merchant vessel, which is not of American
nationality.
  2. To hold Germany to a strict accountability for every American
life lost by submarine attack on the high seas.
  The adoption of the first course amounts to an admission of the
legality of establishing a war zone, such as Germany has done, or at
least to an admission that the illegality is open to question.
  The adoption of the second course would be more nearly in accord
with our position denying the legality of the war zone and holding
Germany responsible for indiscriminate attack within that area of
the high seas.