Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 110, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1915 — HAS THE UNITED STATES BEEN NEUTRAL? [ARTICLE]

HAS THE UNITED STATES BEEN NEUTRAL?

The sinking of the Lusitania promotes grave problems that must be firmly handled. President Wilson is receiving much advice and- a considerable part of it is for radical steps. The act of Germany is pronounced barbarous and there are indications that it was performed with the expectation of bringing this country into the conflict. Many who have been friendly to Germany since the war started have been turned away because of the sinking of the Lusitania and there have been few newspapers to defend the German policy on the seas. The writer has given some overSunday thought to this grave question and has become convinced that this paper was right last fall when it said that we could never be neutral so long as we sold contraband of war to the allied nations.

The Republican does not believe it was consistent to pray for peace and to manufacture and sell cannon, rifles, powder, cortridges, horses, mules, shoes, clothing, blannets and foodstuffs to England and France. The United States has tried to justify this right on a commercial basis, because it kept our factories busy. But we could not accept the attitude of any person as friendly or neutral if he handed our enemy a gun to kill us with.

Organizations have been formed in this country to promote peace and to - point out to the frenzied foreign nations the criminal folly of their murderous conflict, but Germany has had some reason to question the sincerity of our nation’s desire for peace when we have given endorsement to the making and sale of contraband to the enemies of Germany. The Lusitania contained over four thousand boxes of ammunition and cartridges for the British government. Its value was placed at $152,400. The Lusitania was a converted steamer and was carrying contraband and therefore was legitimate prey when it reached the war zone. The bullets in the cargo were to be used to shoot German soldiers, to make widows, orphans and cripples in Germany. German submarines surrounded the Lusitania and held it in their power. To permit it to escape meant the delivery of the ammunition to the British army. To sink it meant the terrible death of the passengers and crew. German officers commanding the sub-

marines decided that their course was plainly outlined. They sank the Lusitania and the 4,000 boxes of ammunition.

England had no right, the owners of the Lusitania had no right and in neutral, fair and unimpassioned America, where justice is the first thing sought, we must hold that Germany acted not without provocation. It was a horrible deed, one that you or I as individuals could never have made up our minds to do. But humanity is obscured in the madness of war and England had proclaimed with Some gusto that it proposed to starve permany into submission. London dispatches said that Germany was actually suffering for the want of food. Women and children, as dear to their loved ones as any who were passengers on the Lusitania were to be starved to death if England could enforce its policy. War is worse a hell than when Sherman so characterized

it and Germany, hemmed in on all sides by warring nations, with its ports blockaded by England, the proud master of the sea, was to be starved out. Perhaps the wives or children or the aged mothers of the crew of the submarine were suffering for want of food and the submarine had the power to retaliate by sinking a vessel with $152,400 worth of bullets and ammunition to be used to make further distress in their country. Americans had bhen warped. They knew the chances they were taking. If they did not know that the Lusitania contained contraband they were deceived by the British government.

These facts do not make the act any less terrible, nor lessen the anguish of the relatives of the unfortunates who lost their lives when the Lusitania was torpedoed, but The Republican feels that our failure to fulfill the neutrality of which we had boasted enter sextensively into the disaster. It is a consequence of our commercial greed, which made falsehoods of our neutrality claims and put the brand of hypocrite upon our prayers for peace. We dare say that Germany would now enter into an agreement with the United States to respect our rights at sea and our flag wherever it floats if we in return would quit manufacturing and selling to the allies ammunition and other contraband. Until we do this we may expect to have our part in the hell that conthe European war.