mit her newspaper
correspondence to America. She was a paid soubrette in the Potsdam
troupe.

The affable and intelligent Mr. Archibald, alluded to in this chapter
(p. 169), received on April 21, 1915, according to these disclosures,
five thousand dollars from the Imperial German Embassy in Washington for
"propaganda" services. If I had known this when he came to me in
September, it is possible that I should have been less careful to spare
his feelings.

III

The record of the German submarine warfare on merchant shipping is one
of the most extraordinary chapters in history. Americans have read it
with appropriate indignation, but not always with clear understanding of
the precise issues involved. Let me try to make those issues plain,
since the submarine campaign was one of the causes which forced this war
upon the United States. (President's Message to Congress, April 2, 1917,
paragraphs 2-10.)

In war all naval vessels, including of course submarines, have the right
to attack and destroy, by any means in their power, any war-ship of the
enemy. In regard to merchant-ships the case is different, according to
international law. (See G. G. Wilson, International Law, paragraphs 1l4,
136, New York, 1901-1909.)

The war-vessel has the right of "visit and search" on all
merchant-ships, enemy or neutral. It has also the right, in case the
cargo of the merchant-ship appears to include more than a certain
percentage of contraband, to capture it and take it into a port for
adjudication as a prize. The war-vessel has also the right to sink a
presumptive prize under conditions (such as distance, stress of weather,
and so forth) which make it impossible to take it into port.

But here the right of the war-vessel stops. It has absolutely no right
to sink the merchant-ship without warning and without making efficient
provision for the safety of the passengers and crew. That is the common
law of civilized nations. To break it is to put one's self beyond the
pale.

Some Germanophile critics have faulted me for calling the Teutonic
submarines "Potsdam pirates." A commissioned vessel, these critics say,
which merely executes the orders of its government, cannot properly be
called a pirate.

Why not? Take the definition of piracy given in the New Oxford
Dictionary: "The crime of robbery or depredation on the sea by persons
not holding a commission from an established civilized state."

There's the point! Is a nation which o