Judson H.P. The threat of German world-politics

Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1918. — 68 p. — (The University of Chicago War Papers #1)The United States has been driven into war with Germany by the entry of that power into a policy of piracy on the high seas. Within the area of the Atlantic Ocean, some fifteen hundred miles long and six hundred miles wide, and within nearly all of the Mediterranean Sea notification has been duly given that vessels will be sunk by German submarines without regard to nationality and without regard to the purpose of their voyage. The joint resolution adopted by Congress in April, 1917, declared a state of war to exist with Germany. Eighteen American ships had already been sunk by German attacks, and two hundred thirty-seven Americans had been killed. The attacks were not only on vessels of the United States. Piratical raids were uniformly aimed at everybody. One-third of the Norwegian commercial marine had been destroyed. In May, 1915, the "Lusitania," a passenger ship, was sunk without warning, without giving any chance for the safety of those on board. More than one thousand persons were drowned. Over one hundred of these were Americans, many of them women and little children. In these German attacks on neutral rights and safety there was no remote resemblance to the acts of the British navy. While it is true that American commerce with Germany was hindered and in a large measure prevented by the British naval blockade, at the same time not one American life had been lost, not one American ship had been destroyed. It was wholly a matter of property. Each claim on the British government resulting from the blockade could be settled by courts of law, and damages could be paid in money. The only immediate effect on American prosperity was perhaps that the profits of American business might be double rather than threefold what they had been before the war. Further, the question as to the unlawfulness of the British blockade at best was in doubt. Very likely a suit before a court of arbitration on that ground would have gone against the United States. A government which does not protect the rights of its citizens on the high seas will presently have no rights left. If we permit Germany to forbid navigation within twenty miles of the coast of Spain, presently we may expect to have that navigation forbidden twenty miles from the coast of the United States.