OCR Text |
Show AM ERICA'S CAUSE l 'OR WAR "The new German policy swept every ev-ery restriction aside. Vessels of every ev-ery kind, whatever their flag, their cli.;-r,(.ler, their cargo, their destination, destina-tion, .'..c'.r errand, have been ruthlessly ruth-lessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels ves-sels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished distin-guished by unmistakable, marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle. "I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, his-tory, been deemed innocent and legitimate. le-gitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German Ger-man submarine warfare against commerce com-merce is a warfare against mankind." Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. |