ls soon told what was
happening, and Admiral Knight, with the Newport destroyer flotilla,
hurried to the rescue. These destroyers picked up two hundred and
sixteen men and acted with such promptness that not a single life was
lost.

The action of the U-53 produced intense excitement in America. The
newspapers were filled with editorial denunciation, and the people were
roused to indignation. The American Government apparently took the
ground that the Germans were acting according to law and according to
their promise to America. They had given warning in each case and
allowed the crews of the vessels which they sunk to take to their boats.
This was believed to be a fulfilment of their pledge "not to sink
merchant vessels without warning and without saving human lives, unless
the ship attempts to escape or offers resistance."

The general feeling, however, of American public opinion was that it was
a brutal act. In the case of the Stephano there were ninety-four
passengers. These, together with the crew, were placed adrift in boats
at eight o'clock in the evening, in a rough sea sixty miles away from
the nearest land. If the American destroyer fleet had not rushed to the
rescue it is extremely likely that a great many of these boats would
never have reached land. The German Government did not save these human
lives. It was the American navy which did that. But, technicalities
aside, the pride of the American people was wounded. They could not
tolerate a situation in which American men-of-war should stand idly by
and watch a submarine in a leisurely manner sink ships engaged in
American trade whose passengers and crews contained many American
citizens.

It was another one of those foolish things that Germans were constantly
doing, which gave them no appreciable military advantage, but stirred up
against them the sentiment of the world. The Germans perhaps were
anxious to show the power of the submarines, and to give America an
object lesson in that power. They wished to make plain that they could
destroy overseas trade, and that if the United States should endeavor to
send troops across the water they would be able to sink those troops.

The Germans probably never seriously contemplated a blockade of the
American coast. The U-53 returned to its base and the danger was ended.
American commerce went peacefully on, and the net result of the German
audacity was in the increase of bitterness in the popular feeling toward