ermany offered to furnish proofs to show
that the American rules recognizing merchantmen armed for defensive
purposes as peaceful ships could not now apply.

There was a division of sentiment in the Senate as to the stand the
United States should take, and a wider one in the House of
Representatives, where a panic-stricken feeling arose that the country
was slowly but surely heading toward war with Germany. A vociferous
demand was made by a minority of congressmen for strong action warning
Americans off armed merchantmen of belligerents to prevent the United
States raising further critical issues with Germany. The House leaders
informed the President that they could not control their following,
and that on a vote the House would be two to one in favor of such
legislation. They even were tempted to force the passage of such a
resolution on the patriotic ground that in doing so they would merely
be seeking to prevent American citizens from jeopardizing the peace of
the nation. The President suspected that pro-German propaganda was
behind the hysteria in Congress, and objected to any legislative
interference in his handling of the submarine controversy. A
resolution was actually pending in the House forbidding Americans to
travel on armed merchantmen. The President finally stated his position
in a forceful letter to Senator Stone on February 24, 1916, refusing
to assent to any such abridgment of the rights of American citizens.
This letter followed an emphatic rejection by him of a proposal made
by the Democratic leaders in Congress that that body should relieve
him of all responsibility of forcing an issue with Germany.

"The course which the Central European Powers have announced their
intention of following in the near future with regard to undersea
warfare," the President wrote, "seems for the moment to threaten
insuperable obstacles, but its apparent meaning is so manifestly
inconsistent with explicit assurances recently given us by those
powers with regard to their treatment of merchant vessels on the high
seas that I must believe that explanations will presently ensue which
will put a different aspect upon it.... But in any event our duty is
plain. No nation, no group of nations, has the right, while war is in
progress, to alter or disregard the principles which all nations have
agreed upon in mitigation of the horrors or sufferings of war, and if
the clear rights of American citizens should ever unhappily be
abri