THE WORLD WAR: PERIOD OF AMERICAN NEUTRALITY 397



her. [; and, if they cannot put a prize crew on board of her,] They
cannot sink her without leaving her crew and all on board of her to
the, mercy of the sea in her small boats. These facts it is understood
the Imperial German Government frankly admit. [In the instances
Of which we have spoken time enough for even that poor measure of
safety was not given, and in at least two of the cases cited not so much
as a warning was received.] Manifestly submarines [, we respect-
fully submit,] 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 interna-
tional obligations and [-] certainly in the confidence that their own
Government will sustain them in the [their] exercise [.] of their
rights.49
  There was recently published in the newspapers of the United
States, I [we] 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 re-
spectful but very earnest protest of his government, the Government
of the United States. I [We] do not refer to [speak of] 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 peo-
ple of the United States through the newspapers, but only for the
purpose of pointing out that no warning that an unlawful and inhu-
mane act will be committed, can possibly be accepted as an excuse or
palliation for that act or as an abatement of the responsibility for
the commission.
  Long acquainted as this Government has been with the character
of the Imperial German Government and with the high principles
of equity by [with] which they have [it has] in the past been actuated
and guided, the Government of the United States cannot believe that
the commanders of the vessels which committed these acts of law-

' A marginal notation to this paragraph reads, "Transferred from p.
10." See
poa8t, p. 398, first paragraph.