Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1917 — LINER CALIFORNIA SUNK WITHOUT WARNING [ARTICLE]

LINER CALIFORNIA SUNK WITHOUT WARNING

Latest Act May Be the One Which Forces Us Into War—Americans Aboard Liner. < • Washington, Feb. 7.—The steady, stream ot reports telling of the destruction of merchant ships by Ger man submarines was brought to a cli--max-tonight by a cablegram to-tSer state department from ConsuT/Ffost at Queenstown announcing that the British passenger liner California had been torpedoed without warning, and that an American citizen was among .he survivors. Whether this will prove to be the .flXfirt act to drive the United States into war no one would attempt to say tonight. President Wilson, who must make the decision, had retired when the news came and officials did not wake him. Late in the afternoon he had been informed of a message from Consul Frost telling of the sinking of the California but giving no details as to warning or the presence of Americans.

The con,sail’s first report said there was “one death and thirty hospital cases,” among the more than 200 people on board the liner. The second added no information concerning casualties except that the survivors were landed at Queenstown tonight, among them being John A. Lee, of Montgomery, Ala., the only American Known to have been on board and that some still were missing including two women and several children. Lee is supposed to have been a member of the crew as his name does not appear on the passenger list made. pu olic at New - York. The fact that the American escaped lessened in a degree the excitement created by the.news, but only in a degree. More than a score bf merchant craft have been sent to the bottom withiji the past 24 hours. It is realized that if no citizen of the United States was among the victims it merely was a fortunate accident and uhat it can be only a matter of hours before Americans are caught in such wholesale destruction. Tfte sinking of the California has about swept away the last lingering hope here that Germany after all would permit passenger carriers to escape in an effort to avoid driving the U. S. to hostilities. The message from Consul Frost came at the close of another day devoted to energetic preparations for the war regarded a 3 virtually inevitable and to guarding against any act by the United States which might precipitate hostilities.