such payment must be
accompanied by a declaration of disavowal acknowledging that the
submarine commander committed an illegal act in sinking the _Lusitania_.

The stumbling-block lay in Germany's objection to subscribing to such
a principle as was here implicated--that her war-zone decree against
Great Britain, carried out by submarine attacks on merchant vessels,
was illegal. She held that her submarine policy was a just reprisal
for Great Britain's "starvation" blockade of Germany. The United
States held that reprisals in the form of sinking helpless ships
without warning were illegal. Germany would not admit that her
submarine policy as practiced when the _Lusitania_ went down was
illegal. To do so would be an admission that her entire submarine
campaign against Great Britain violated international law, and that
Americans surrendered none of their rights as neutral citizens in
traveling through a war zone on merchant ships of a belligerent power.
But Germany was willing to pay an indemnity for the loss of American
lives, not as an admission of wrongdoing, but as an act of grace.

Despite this deadlock the private conversations between Secretary
Lansing and Count von Bernstorff continued. Germany submitted
proposals in various forms aiming at making concessions to meet the
American demand for disavowal of an illegal act; but in each case
Secretary Lansing discerned an effort to evade acknowledging
wrongdoing.

Matters remained at this stage toward the close of January, 1916,
after negotiations extending over several weeks, apparently fruitless
in opening any acceptable channel toward a settlement. That the status
of the _Lusitania_ case was unsatisfactory was vaguely hinted, and the
alternative to Germany's meeting the American demands--a severance of
diplomatic relations--which remained the menace it was from the
outset, loomed up again. A speech by President Wilson before the
Railway Business Association in New York City on January 27, 1915,
ostensibly on preparedness for war, was interpreted as having a
bearing on the deadlock in the _Lusitania_ negotiations. At least it
was significantly coincidental both in time and subject, and did not
pass without comment in Europe, especially this passage:

"I cannot tell you what the international relations of this country
will be to-morrow. I would not dare keep silent and let the country
suppose that to-morrow was certain to be as bright as to-day. There is
something