ourse."

_That it is possible for the United States to hold Germany "strictly
accountable" for the destruction of American lives on the Lusitania
without resort to war is Mr. Taft's opinion, reported in the following
dispatch from Philadelphia to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _on May 11:_

"We must bear in mind that if we have a war it is the people, the men
and women, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, who must pay with
lives and money the cost of it, and therefore they should not be hurried
into the sacrifices until it is made clear that they wish it and know
what they are doing when they wish it."

This was the keynote of a speech by ex-President Taft at the celebration
of the fiftieth anniversary of the Union League's occupancy of the
historic home which it occupies in this city.

"Is war the only method of making a nation accountable? Let us look into
our own history. England connived at the fitting out of armed vessels,
to prey on our commerce, to attack our navy, and to kill our sailors. We
protested, and what did we do then? We held her strictly accountable in
the Geneva Conference. Was not our honor as much preserved by this
method as it would have been had we declared war?

"I agree that the inhumanity of the circumstances in the case now
presses us on, but in the heat of even just indignation is this the best
time to act, when action involves such momentous consequences and means
untold loss of life and treasure? There are things worse than war, but
delay, due to calm deliberation, cannot change the situation or minimize
the effect of what we finally conclude to do.

"With the present condition of the war in Europe, our action, if it is
to be extreme, will not lose efficiency by giving time to the people,
whose war it will be, to know what they are facing.

"A demand for war that cannot survive the passion of the first days of
public indignation and will not endure the test of delay and
deliberation by all the people is not one that should be yielded to."

President Wilson's Note

By Ex-President William H. Taft.

_At the dinner of Methodist laymen in New York on May 14, 1915,
following the publication of President Wilson's note to Germany,
ex-President Taft said:_

"Admirable in tone, moderate in the judicial spirit that runs through
the entire communication, dignified in the level that the writer takes
with respect to international obligations, accurate in its statement of
international l