rning to the United States in
ballast; hence their destruction could not be justified on the ground
that they were carrying freight for the Allies. The _City of Memphis_
was first shelled and then torpedoed off the Irish coast on March 17,
1917. Her crew of fifty-seven escaped in five boats and were picked up
by a steamer. The _Illinois_ was torpedoed the next day. The
_Vigilancia_ was similarly sunk on March 16, 1917, by a submarine
which did not appear on the surface. Fifteen of the crew, including
five Americans, were lost.

These sinkings occasioned gratification in Germany. Count Reventlow, a
notable German publicist, thus welcomed them in the "Deutsche
Tageszeitung":

"It is good that American ships have been obliged to learn that the
German prohibition is effective, and that there is no question of
distinctive treatment for the United States. In view of such losses,
there is only one policy for the United States, as for the small
European maritime powers, namely, to retain their ships in their own
ports as long as the war lasts."

Another German press comment was that the sinkings were certain to
produce special satisfaction throughout the empire.

German contempt for American feeling could no further go. A cabinet
meeting held on March 20, 1917, disclosed that the President's
colleagues, even reputed pacifists like Secretaries Daniels and Baker,
were a unit in regarding a state of armed neutrality as inadequate to
meet the serious situation. The President was confronted with the
necessity of immediately taking more drastic action rather than
continuing to pursue measures of passive defense against the submarine
peril represented by arming ships. The cabinet's demand was for an
earlier convocation of Congress and a declaration that a state of war
existed between the United States and Germany. The President listened,
and that evening attended a theater supposedly to divert and prepare
his mind for coping with the gravest of problems. Events proved that
he had already determined his course.

Armed neutrality was a delusive phrase and misrepresented actual
conditions; it merely glozed over a state of undeclared hostility and
deceived no one. Yet it had its adherents; they wanted to give it a
fair trial before discarding the pretense that it existed. The
Government, they said, should wait and see how armed ships fared at
the hands of German submarines. If they proved equal to encounters
with U-boats, or, bette