nary inventive genius, and
everywhere it was believed that by some sudden lucky thought an
American would emerge from a laboratory equipped with a sovereign
remedy for the submarine evil. Prominent inventors indeed declared
their purpose of undertaking this search and went into retirement to
study the problem. From that seclusion none had emerged with a
solution at the end of ten months. When the submarine campaign was
at its very height no one was able to suggest a better remedy for it
than the building of cargo ships in such quantities that, sink as
many as they might, the Germans would have to let enough slip
through to sufficiently supply England with food and with the
necessary munitions of war.

Many cruel sufferings befell seafaring people during the period of
German ruthlessness on the high seas. An open boat, overcrowded with
refugees, hastily provisioned as the ship to which it belonged was
careening to its fate, and tossing on the open sea two or three
hundred miles from shore in the icy nights of midwinter was no place
of safety or of comfort. Yet the Germans so construed it, holding
that when they gave passengers and crew of a ship time to take to
the boats, they had fully complied with the international law
providing that in the event of sinking a ship its people must first
be given an opportunity to assure their safety.

There have been many harrowing stories of the experiences of
survivors thus turned adrift. Under the auspices of the British
government, Rudyard Kipling wrote a book detailing the agonies which
the practice inflicted upon helpless human beings, including many
women and children. Some of the survivors have told in graphic story
the record of their actual experiences. Among these one of the most
vivid is from the pen of a well-known American journalist, Floyd P.
Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago _Tribune_. He was saved from
the British liner, _Laconia_, sunk by a German submarine, and thus
tells the tale of his sufferings and final rescue:

I have serious doubts whether this is a real story. I am not
entirely certain that it is not all a dream and that in a few
minutes I will wake up back in stateroom B. 19 on the promenade
deck of the Cunarder _Laconia_ and hear my cockney steward
informing me with an abundance of "and sirs" that it is a fine
morning.

I am writing this within thirty minutes after stepping on the
dock here in Queenstown fro