te to Germany and
Great Britain suggesting an agreement between them respecting the
conduct of naval warfare. The British steamship Falaba was sunk by a
submarine March 28, with a loss of 111 lives, one of which was an
American. April 8 the steamer Harpalyce, in the service of the American
commission for the aid of Belgium, was torpedoed with a loss of 15
lives. On April 22 the German embassy in America sent out a warning
against embarkation on vessels belonging to Great Britain. The American
vessel Cushing was attacked by a German aeroplane April 28. On May 1 the
American steamship Gullflight was sunk by a German submarine and two
Americans were lost. That day the warning of the German embassy was
published in the daily papers. The Lusitania sailed at 12:20 noon.

Five days later occurred the crime which almost brought America into the
second year of the war. The Cunard line steamship Lusitania was sunk by
a German submarine with a loss of 1,154 lives, of which 114 were
Americans. After the policy of frightfulness put into effect by the
Germans in Belgium and other invaded territories, the massacres of
civilians, the violation of women and killing of children; burning,
looting and pillage; the destruction of whole towns, acts for which no
military necessity could be pleaded, civilization should have been
prepared for the Lusitania crime. But it seems it was not. The burst of
indignation throughout the United States was terrible. Here was where
the terms German and Hun became synonomous, having in mind the methods
and ravages of the barbaric scourge Attilla, king of the Huns, who in
the fifth century sacked a considerable portion of Europe and introduced
some refinements in cruelty which have never been excelled.

The Lusitania went down twenty-one minutes after the attack. The Berlin
government pleaded in extenuation of the sinking that the ship was
armed, and German agents in New York procured testimony which was
subsequently proven in court to have been perjured, to bolster up the
falsehood. In further justification, the German government adduced the
fact that the ship was carrying ammunition which it said was "destined
for the destruction of brave German soldiers." This contention our
government rightly brushed aside as irrelevant.

The essence of the case was stated by our government in its note of June
9 as follows:

"Whatever be the other facts regarding the Lusitania, the principal
fact is that a g