Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1917 — QUIBBLING CEASES AS WAR THREATENS [ARTICLE]

QUIBBLING CEASES AS WAR THREATENS

U. S. Lawmakers Aroused By Disclosure of Genftkn Conspiracy—Quit Delays and Quibbling. Washington, D. C., March 1. —Count von Bemstorff, former German ambassador, was instructed from Berlin to arrange the dismantlement of German war bound ships in American harbors at the same time he received the Zimmerman note for transmission to Mexico. This added threat in the mess of German intrigue spun around this country while Germany was still protesting friendship was allowed to become known*today, with the inference that full and detailed instructions were sent von Bemstorff from Berlin to make war by tins country impossible. ' - Aroused by the disclosure of Germany’s plot to unite Japan and Mexico with her in a war upon the United States and then convinced by official evidence of its authenticity, congress today abandoned the delays and obstructions which have checked President Wilson’s efforts to be clothed with express authority *o deal with the submarine mena. The house, after n-hour debate, and by an overwhelming majority, passed a bill to empower the president to arm merchant ships and proridingfora hundredmillion dollar bond issue. The bill, however, does not contain the grant of authority to use “other instrumentalities” which the president specifically desires, and

would prevent government war insurance for munitions ships, a prohibition which the president does not approve. When the house bill “is received in the senate tomorrow the senate bill, which the administration fully commends, will be substituted and that is expected finally to be accepted by both houses as the law. ... When the house bill is received in the senate tomorrow the senate bill, which the administration fully commends, 1 will be substituted and that is expected finally to be accepted by both houses as the law. Official announcement was made at the white house today that the administration stands behind the senate ■bill?' first, last and all the time,” with its provision for “other intrumentalities.” In the senate an attempt to ask the president to disclose the government’s 'source of information of the attempted intrigue with Mexico and Japan on the suppositions that it came from one of Germany’s enemies, was defeated after a sharp, and sensational debate. Instead, the senate merely asked for official notice of the authenticity of the dispatch of instructions form German Foreign Minister Zimmerman to German minister von Eckhardt, in Mexico City. The president transmitted it immediately with the statement that it would not be compatible with the public interest to reveal, further details concerning it. Members of both houses of congress, some skeptical of the authenticity of the astounding revelations of Germany’s intrigue, others feeling that it had been permitted to become public for its effect on congress and throughout the country met the situation with mixed emotions which with a few possible exceptions as the day’s developments were unfolded solidified into a decision to stand behind the president.