prompts it to
say to the Imperial Government that repetition by the commanders
of German naval vessels of acts in contravention of those rights
must be regarded by the Government of the United States when they
affect American citizens as deliberately unfriendly."

The first act of the German-American negotiations on the subject
of submarine warfare thus closed with this open threat that war
would follow any further action by Germany on the lines of the
torpedoing of the _Lusitania_.

I think it well to reproduce here four of my reports, dated from
Cedarhurst, a suburb of New York, where the Embassy usually had
its headquarters during the hot summer months.

(1) CIPHER

"Cedarhurst, June 9th, 1915.

"The political outlook in America appears at present as calm as a
summer's day. The position abroad is perhaps reacting on internal
affairs to some extent, as Mr. Wilson, as is usual in this country,
considers foreign affairs primarily from the point of view of their
influence on the prospects of next year's presidential campaign.

"The tide of anti-German feeling aroused by the _Lusitania_ incident
is still running pretty high, but it may now be regarded as certain,
that neither the President nor the American people want a war with
Germany. Mr. Wilson, then, will, I believe, have public opinion on
his side, if he can find an honorable solution to his differences
with us, and make use of this solution as the basis for a peace
movement on a large scale. I am now even more convinced than I was
a short time ago, at the time of my long interview with him, that
the President's ideas are developing in this direction, and that this
is the cause of his suddenly taking up the Mexican question again,
as he hopes to find in it a means of diverting public opinion. I am
unwilling to give any grounds for exaggerated optimism, but my recent
observations incline me to the belief that the President and his
Cabinet are more neutral than is commonly supposed. England's influence
here is tremendous, permeating as it does through many channels,
which we have no means of closing; but the Central Government,
none the less, is really trying to maintain a neutral attitude.
It is an astonishing thing, no doubt, but well established none
the less, that all influential Americans who come from New York,
Boston, and Philadelphia, the English headquarters in this country,
to Washington, complain about the pro-German feeling there. I feel