Armed guards on American merchant ships.
And so, having exhausted every resource of patience, our Government on the 12th of March finally issued orders to place armed guards on our merchant ships.
With the definite break in diplomatic relations there vanished the last vestige of cordiality toward the Government of Germany. Our attitude was now to change. So long as we had maintained a strict neutrality in the war, for the reason that circumstances might arise in which Europe would have need of an impartial mediator, for us to have given official heed to the accusations of either party would have been to prejudge the case before all the evidence was in.
Germany is forcing the United States into war.
But now at last, with the breaking of friendly relations with the German Government, we were relieved of the oppressive duty of endeavoring to maintain a judicial detachment from the rights and wrongs involved in the war. We were no longer the outside observers striving to hold an even balance of judgment between disputants. One party by direct attack upon our rights and liberties was forcing us into the conflict. And, much as we had hoped to keep out of the fray, it was no little relief to be free at last from that reserve which is expected of a judge.
Perfidy of the German Government.
Much evidence had been presented to us of things so abhorrent to our ideas of humanity that they had seemed incredible, things we had been loath to believe, and with heavy hearts we had sought to reserve our judgment. But with the breaking of relations with the Government of Germany that duty at last was ended. The perfidy of that Government in its dealings with this nation relieved us of the necessity of striving to give them the benefit of the doubt in regard to their crimes abroad. The Government which under cover of profuse professions of friendship had tried to embroil us in war with Mexico and Japan could not expect us to believe in its good faith in other matters. The men whose paid agents dynamited our factories here were capable of the infamies reported against them over the sea. Their Government's protestations, that their purpose was self-defense and the freeing of small nations, fell like a house of cards before the revelation of their "peace terms."
The German record.
Arrogant intolerance of the Prussians.
And judging the German Government now in the light of our own experience through the long and patient years of our honest attempt to keep the peace, we could see the great autocracy and read her record through the war. And we found that record damnable. Beginning long before the war in Prussian opposition to every effort that was made by other nations and our own to do away with warfare, the story of the autocracy has been one of vast preparations for war combined with an attitude of arrogant intolerance toward all other points of view, all other systems of governments, all other hopes and dreams of men.