4170 HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA
decision should be taken until he had had the chance to make one final plea
for peace to his sovereign. We do not know the nature of his report to
the Kaiser; we know only that, even if he kept his pledge and urged an
eleventh-hour revocation of the submarine order, he was unable to sway
the policy of the Imperial Government.
And so, having exhausted every resource of patience, our Government on
the 12th of March finally issued orders to place armed guards on our merchant ships.
With the definite break in diplomatic relations there vanished the last
vestige of cordiality toward the Government of Germany. Our attitude
was now to change. So long as we had maintained a strict neutrality in
the war, for the reason that circumstances might arise in which Europe
would have need of an impartial mediator, for us to have given official heed
to the accusation of either party would have been to pre-judge the case before
all the evidence was in. But now at last, with the breaking of friendly
relations with the German Government, we were relieved of the oppressive
duty of endeavoring to maintain a judicial detachment from the rights and
wrongs involved in the war. We were no longer the outside observers
striving to hold an even balance of judgment between disputants. One
party by direct attack upon our rights and liberties was forcing us into the
conflict. And, much as we had hoped to keep out of the fray, it was no
little relief to be free at last from that reserve which is expected of a judge.
Much evidence had been presented to us of things so abhorrent to our
ideas of humanity that they had seemed incredible, things we had been
loath to believe, and with heavy hearts we had sought to reserve our judgment. But with the breaking of relations with the Government of Germany that duty at last was ended. The perfidy of that Government in
its dealings with this Nation relieved us of the necessity of striving to give
them the benefit of the doubt in regard to their crimes abroad. The Government which under cover of profuse professions of friendship had tried
to embroil us in war with Mexico and Japan could not expect us to believe
in its good faith in other matters. The men whose paid agents dynamited
our factories here were capable of the infamies reported against them over
the sea. Their Government's protestations, that their purpose was self defense and the freeing of small nations, fell like a house of cards before the
revelation of their "peace terms".
And judging the German Government now in the light of our own experience through the long and patient years of our honest attempt to keep
the peace, we could see the Great Autocracy and read her record through the