Must we not, we who may be defeated by starvation and by lack of war materials, must we not defend ourselves from this great danger (with which the enemy's blockade threatens us), with all our might and with all the means that the German spirit can invent, and which the honor of the German people recognizes as lawful weapons? Have those, who now raise such outcries, any right to accuse us, those who allowed their friends and relatives to trust themselves on a ship whose destruction was announced with perfect clearness in advance? When our enemy's blockade method forces us to measures in self-defense, the death of non-combatants is a matter of no consequence.
A blockade of an enemy's ports is, and always has been, a perfectly fair kind of warfare. In our Civil War, the southern ports were, from the beginning, blockaded by the northern warships. Germany was in no danger of starving, as the events since have proved. Her excuses were, as they have been in every case where she has played the part of the brute, worse than no excuses and always based on falsehoods.
"The steamer carried ammunition for England," they said. But it was bought and carried in accordance with international law. Germany had the same right to buy and carry from a neutral country. "It was a British ship," they said. But it was a passenger ship and carried nearly two thousand people, many of them Americans, who, according to all international agreements, were guaranteed safe passage even in time of war.
All nations recognize the obligation of an enemy to visit and search the vessel they think should be sunk, to make sure it carries contraband of war, and if so, to give the people an opportunity to get safely into the lifeboats. Not only did the Germans not do this, but they did not even signal the ship that it was about to be sunk. The newspaper warning put out by Bernstorff was no excuse for committing an unlawful, inhuman act.
From all points of view, the Germans, in sinking the Lusitania, committed a horrible crime, not only against international law, but against humanity and civilization. In all war, armed forces meet armed forces; never do armed forces strangle and butcher the innocent and unprotected. There is such a thing as legitimate warfare, except among barbarians.
Here again was shown the German attitude in the "scrap of paper." Evidently trusting to the great distance of the United States and her well-known unpreparedness, Germany thought that a friendly relation with this country was a matter of entire indifference to her; or, if she hoped to draw America into the war, she little dreamed to what end those hopes would come!
Around the world one verdict was pronounced against Germany. This verdict was well worded in a Russian paper, the Courier:
The right to punish these criminals who violate the laws of humanity belongs first and foremost to the great American Republic. America knows well how to use this right. The sympathy of the civilized world is guaranteed her beforehand. The world is being suffocated by poisonous gases of inhuman cruelty spread abroad by Germany, who, in the madness of her rage, is committing needless, purposeless, and senseless murder, solely from lust of blood and horrors!
The American government, upon the occurrence of the calamity, showed great forbearance, believing that "a man of proved temper and tried courage is not always bound to return a madman's blow." A strong protest was sent to the Imperial German Government, which caused Germany to abandon for a time her submarine attacks upon neutral vessels. It was the renewal of these attacks that finally led to the declaration of war by the United States of America upon Germany and her allies, and it was the Lusitania outrage more than any other one event that roused the fighting spirit of America.