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Show WILSON DEMANDS HUMANEWHE ;ABINET APPROVES DEMANDS FOR ADHERENCE TO RULES OF MARITIME WARFARE. A Note to be Sent to Kaiser Insistinj Upon Immediate Explanation of Lusitania Horroi Must Respect Re-spect Rights of Neutrals. Washington. It is announced thai President Wilson has decided upoi the policy which the United State! government will pursue as a result o1 the sinking of the British liner Lusi tania, with the loss of more than i hundred American lives. A draft of a communication to b sent to Germany was submitted t' the cabinet on Tuesday and approvec unanimously. While no official an nouncement was made, it was learnec that the United States would preseni and insist upon an explanation of tht series of incidents which have oc curred since the proclamation of i war zone around the British isles the sinking of the Falaba, causing th( death of Leon C. Thresher, an Amer ican citizen, the attack by German air men on the American steamer Cush Ing, the torpedoing of the America! steamer Gulflight, and finally the de struction without warning of the Lusitania, with a toll of more than i thousand lives. In what are described by those fa miliar with the document as firnr and unmistakable terms, the president voices the intense feeling of the Unit ed States over these happenings, and in the name of international law de mands an adherence by Germany tc the established rules of maritime warfare. The note asks that some assurance-or assurance-or guarantee be given hereafter thai unarmed merchant vessels carrying non-combatants be visited and searched search-ed when encountered on the high seas by the German navy, and -passengers and crew transferred to a place ol safety before any prize is destroyed. The president points out, it is understood, un-derstood, that the United States, in its note which said Germany would be held "to strict accountability" for any attacks on American vessels or lives, had not admitted any right on-the on-the part of Germany to carry on such methods of warfare, and declares, moreover, that the giving of official notice of an intention to commit an unjustifiable act did not justify the act or make it lawful. |
