progress of the cruel and
unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.

"The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every
kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their
destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom
without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board,
the vessels 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 area by the German government itself
and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk
with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

RELIED ON LAW OF NATIONS

"I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would be in
fact done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane
practices of civilized nations.

"International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law
which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation
had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By
painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough
results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished,
but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience
of mankind demanded.

"This minimum of right the German government has swept aside under the
plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it
could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is
employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity
or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the
intercourse of the world.

_PRESIDENT WILSON'S WAR ADDRESS_

CHALLENGE TO ALL MANKIND

"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, been
deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of
peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine
warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

"It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk,
American lives taken, in