Summarized, the State Department's ruling laid down:

(1) That the status of an armed merchantman must in each case be
determined before it could be regarded as a warship--a neutral
government, on entry of the ship into port, presuming that the
armament was aggressive unless the belligerent proved otherwise.

(2) The belligerents on the high seas must assume that the armed ship
carried armament only for protection, and, unless resistance or an
attempt to escape was immediately made, the merchantman could not be
attacked without receiving due warning.

(3) That Americans and all others who took passage on armed ships
intermittently engaged in commerce raiding could not expect to be
immune, for such vessels acquired a "hostile taint." This was
Germany's contention; but the United States refused to agree to the
German idea that, because a few British vessels might be guilty of
wrongful use of armament, all British ships must consequently be
regarded as warships.

(4) The right of "self-protection" could be exercised by an armed
merchantman; and this was different from cruising the high seas for
the special purpose of attacking hostile ships.

(5) If belligerent vessels were under orders to attack submarines in
all circumstances they lost their status as "peaceful merchantmen."
Germany claimed England had so ordered. England denied the charge.
Evidence in each case must reconcile the difference of opinion.

The Administration's position in the submarine issue with Germany, now
that Congress had upheld the President, seemed to be that Germany's
decree condemning armed merchantmen curtailed the liberty of Americans
to travel on the high seas. The status quo had not been affected.
Germany, in the _Arabic_ case, had undertaken that merchant vessels
would not be torpedoed without first being warned, and that pledge the
United States looked to her to respect, whether the vessels were armed
for defense or not. What, then, would now happen, with Germany's
latest decree sent ringing round the world with resounding bombast, by
way of telling neutral noncombatants, including Americans, to stay at
home, as though cataclysmic destruction awaited all vessels which
dared to show a gun at the stern? The United States waited. Nothing,
so far as the German armed-merchantmen decree was concerned, did
happen. There was no appreciable increase in the number of vessels
sunk by Teutonic submarines, and armed merchantmen did not especially