e
leaders in Congress to bring them to a vote so that the world might
know whether Congress was with him or against him. The President would
not brook the continuation of an impasse which lent a spurious color
to the manufactured impression current abroad, that he was playing a
lone hand in his submarine policy, unsupported by Congress and the
country. He strove to emphasize that his insistence on the right of
Americans to travel on belligerent merchant ships, whether armed for
defense or otherwise, would not mean war with Germany, the latter
would rather surrender to the American demands to avoid war.

The immediate effect of the President's demand for a vote on the
armed-merchantmen resolutions was to clear the air regarding the
strength of their supporters in Congress. The overwhelming sentiment
in their favor rapidly diminished--if it ever really existed--under
the searchlight of careful canvassing by the Administration's
supporters, until it began to be manifest that, far from Congress
ranging itself against the President, the latter would carry the day.
Then came a reversal of tactics by the congressional factions opposed
to the President. When the belief or illusion prevailed that the
armed-merchantmen resolutions would pass the House by a big majority,
strident demands were heard for submitting them to a roll call and
unrestrained resentment against the President was expressed for
thwarting such action. But now, when national sentiment ranged itself
in support of the President, and many Congressmen had heard from their
constituents, there was a disposition in Congress to turn the tables
on the President by preventing the resolution being put to the vote
that is, by keeping them in the limbo where they had been consigned at
the President's original request, since, to be sure, the vote would
compel Congressmen to go on record as to their pro-German leanings,
and would, moreover, be defeated. This and other influences deferred
action by the House for a week.

Meantime national sentiment had rapidly crystallized to a simple
viewpoint, and Congressmen could not wisely ignore it. The general view
was that if Congress opposed the executive on the armed-merchantmen
issue, and proscribed the present rights of American citizens to travel
on the trading ships of belligerent nations, the whole diplomatic
negotiations with Germany on the submarine dispute would be reduced to
chaos. No president, oppressed by such a precede