at body in person, solemnly informing the
legislators that "a situation has arisen in the foreign relations of
the country of which it is my plain duty to inform you very frankly."
This he proceeded to do, speaking, he said, on behalf of the rights of
the United States and its citizens and the rights of humanity in
general. He announced that he had notified Germany that "unless the
Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an
abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare against
passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the Government of the United
States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the
German Empire altogether."

The President's address was more or less a paraphrase of the note he
had that day sent to Berlin, and was in fulfillment of a promise he
made to notify Congress of any action he took to bring Germany to
realize the serious condition of her relations with the United
States.

CHAPTER LIX

THE AMERICAN ULTIMATUM--GERMANY YIELDS

The American note was an indictment of Germany's conscienceless
practices and broken faith. Secretary Lansing informed the kaiser's
advisers that their note denying any attack on the _Sussex_, but
acknowledging that another vessel had been torpedoed under identical
circumstances as to time, place, and result, confirmed the inferences
the American Government had drawn from information it possessed
establishing "the facts in the case of the _Sussex_."

A "statement of facts" relating to the _Sussex_ accompanied the
virtual American ultimatum. It set forth a chain of testimony, citing
the source thereof, showing that the passengers of the _Sussex_, which
included about twenty-four American citizens, were of several
nationalities, many of them women and children, and half of them
subjects of neutral states; that the _Sussex_ carried no armament;
that the vessel has never been employed as a troopship, but solely as
a Channel ferryboat, and was following a route not used for
transporting troops from Great Britain to France; that a torpedo was
seen driving toward the vessel and the captain was unable to swing the
vessel out of the torpedo's course; that on a subsequent inspection of
the broken hull a number of pieces of metal were found which American,
French, and British naval experts decided were not parts of a mine,
but of a torpedo, with German markings, and were otherwise different
from parts of torpedoes used by the F