Many newspapers joined in calling for more drastic action on the part of the United States government. “We have but one thing in mind,” announced the New York Tribune, “that these crimes shall cease. Any answer, therefore, which fails to guarantee their stoppage as a condition precedent to diplomatic rectification cannot be expected to satisfy the just expectation of the United States.” The Washington Herald followed this by saying: “The patience of the American people in the face of contemptuous disregard of their rights and a series of outrages against their countrymen has been sublime, but surely it has a limit. Surely a way will be found, without much longer delay, to compel Germany to cease her attacks on American vessels engaged in neutral commerce and to guarantee the safety of American lives and property.”
SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT
On the other hand there was a strong element that counseled coolness and restraint. “This is not a time,” declared the Albany Knickerbocker Press, “to suggest to President Wilson what ought to be done. It is not a time to become impatient. It is a time for restraint. Nothing can be gained now by playing upon the strings of excitable public opinion in America. The President must find his way out and every true American must support him loyally.” Echoing this sentiment, the Springfield Republican added, “but the German government may fairly be required to give definite assurances that during the period of the negotiations no more torpedo attacks on passenger ships which may be carrying American citizens will be permitted.”
CHAPTER X
SWIFT REVERSAL TO BARBARISM
By Vance Thompson
[CULTURE SWEPT AWAY] — [BREAKING POINT OF CIVILIZATION] — [BARBARISM AND WOMEN] — [AFTER BARBARISM, WHAT?]
[The following article is reproduced by the courtesy of the New York Times.]
There is in Brussels—if the Uhlans have spared it—a mad and monstrous picture. It is called “A Scene in Hell,” and hangs in the Musée Wiertz. And what you see on the canvas are the fierce and blinding flames of hell; and amid them looms the dark figure of Napoleon, and around him the wives and mothers and maids of Belgium scream and surge and clutch and curse—taking their posthumous vengeance.
And since Napoleon was a notable emperor in his time, the picture is not without significance today. Paint in another face, and let it go at that.