tisement
warning Americans and others from taking passage on the Cunard liner
Lusitania, intimating that it would be attacked. This was the day the
Lusitania sailed on her ill-fated voyage. A number of the prominent
passengers received personal notes when they reached the pier, advising
them not to go, but most of them scouted the thought of danger.

SUBMARINE ISSUE AND DIPLOMACY.

After the sinking of the Lusitania, on May 7, off Fastnet, Ireland, with
the loss of more than 1100 persons, among them 115 Americans, the
submarine issue assumed a large and gravely important place in the realm
of diplomacy.

The accumulation of cases affecting Americans was taken up in the first
"Lusitania note" to Germany, which was dispatched May 15, 1915. It
characterized the attacks on the Falaba, Cushing, Gulflight and
Lusitania as "a series of events which the United States has observed
with growing concern, distress and amazement." It pointed to Germany's
hitherto expressed "humane and enlightened attitude" in matters of
international right, and expressed the hope that submarine commanders
engaged in torpedoing peaceful ships without warning were in such
practice operating without the sanction of their Government. The note
closed with these words:

"The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the
United States to omit any word or act necessary to the performance of
its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its
citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment."

On May 28, 1915, Germany replied with a note which covered a wide range
of argument and was in every respect unsatisfactory. It alleged that the
Lusitania had masked guns aboard; that she in effect was a British
auxiliary cruiser; that she carried munitions of war; that her owning
company, aware of the damages she risked in the submarine war zone, was
in reality responsible for the loss of American lives, and referred to
the fact that the British Admiralty had offered large rewards to ship
captains who rammed or destroyed submarines.

PROMISED TO PAY DAMAGES.

The note met none of the contentions of the United States so far as the
Lusitania and Falaba incidents were concerned, although a supplementary
note did acknowledge that Germany was wrong in the attacks on the
Cushing and the Gulflight, expressed regret for these two cases and
promised to pay damages. While the American reply to the note was being
f