Germany compel the United States to declare war, the President
repudiated that any aggressive attitude would dictate such a course:

"We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Imperial German
Government. We are the sincere friends of the German people, and
earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks
for them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and
until we are obliged to believe it, and we purpose nothing more than
the reasonable defense of the undoubted rights of our people. We wish
to serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in
thought and in action to the immemorial principles of our people which
I have sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks
ago--seek merely to vindicate our right to liberty and justice and an
unmolested life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant that
we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of willful injustice
on the part of the Government of Germany!"

War was apparently inevitable. Submarine warfare on Atlantic shipping
made certain some "overt act" offensive to the United States. The
German attitude was that the new decree would be remorselessly acted
upon; it could not and would not be modified; it was absolute and
final; and the only security for American shipping was to avoid the
prohibited zone by abandoning its trade with Europe.

Germany frankly discounted the effect of the entrance of the United
States, as a belligerent opposed to her. Measuring her estimated gains
from the pursuit of an unbridled sea war, she decided that they would
more than outweigh the disadvantage of American hostility.

CHAPTER LIV

NOTHING SETTLED

With the Allied Powers the American Government's relations continued
to be friendly under certain diplomatic difficulties, due to a group
of unadjusted issues relating to the blockade of German ports, mail
seizures, and the blacklist. Popularly, overwhelming pro-Ally
sympathies and an enormous trade due directly to the war more than
offset commercial irritation arising from Allied infractions of
American rights; but while they continued they intruded as obstacles
to the preservation of official amity. If the Administration was
content to enter its protests and then let matters rest, its inaction
merely meant that the Allies' sins were magnanimously tolerated, not
condoned. The Allies, on the other hand, maintained that they were not
sinning at all,