ension; I, therefore, proposed, and the President
agreed, that Meyer Gerhardt, a member of the Privy Council, who had
accompanied Dr. Dernburg to America, and was then acting on behalf
of the German Red Cross, should at once go to Germany and report in
person to the Government. Mr. Wilson, for his part, undertook that
no final decision should be taken until Meyer Gerhardt had reported
the results of his mission.

At the end of this interview I was convinced in my own mind that
the President would never enter on war with Germany, otherwise I
could not conceive why he should have concurred in my proposals
instead of breaking off relations at once. He would, had he chosen
the latter course, have had American public opinion more decidedly
behind him than it was later, at the time of the final breach. Not
a voice would have been raised in opposition, except that of the
Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, who, as it was, resigned his office
on the ground that the exchange of Notes threatened to involve the
United States in war, and could not be reconciled, therefore, with
his own pacific intentions.

It is certain that if I had not at this stage of the _Lusitania_
crisis had my interview with the President, relations would have
been broken off and war between the United States and Germany must
inevitably have followed. The view is still held in many quarters
that we might safely have disregarded American susceptibilities, as
President Wilson was entirely averse to war and would have avoided
it by whatever means; then we should have been free to carry on
our submarine campaign. This was not the opinion held by myself
or any of my colleagues at the Embassy, and later events proved
us to have been in the right, as against those Germans and
German-Americans, who, in May, 1915, and afterwards, averred that
the United States would never declare war on us, and maintained
the same view in January and February, 1917. The principles of my
later policy were based on the events of this _Lusitania_ crisis;
I had then gathered the conviction that Mr. Wilson wanted peace
but the country wanted war; that the President alone had prevented
an immediate rupture, but that as the responsible leader of the
American people, he would be compelled to bow eventually to public
opinion. When Mr. Wilson had to explain away his unlucky speech
at Philadelphia, no action was taken from the German side, and
no information given him which might lead him to unde