board.

We always feel that it is tragic and all too hard when war inflicts
wounds on those who do not carry its weapons.

We lament similarly the fate of the unfortunate villages and towns where
war rages and the innocent victims of bombs who, far behind the
trenches, and often without our being able to estimate the meaning of
this murder, are snatched from the ranks of the unarmed.

Much more terrible is the fate of those who on the high sea, many
hundreds in number, suddenly see death before their eyes.

A German war vessel has sunk the ship. It has done its duty.

For the German Navy the sinking of the Lusitania means an extraordinary
success. Its destruction demolished the last fable with which the people
of England consoled themselves; on which hostile shipping relied when it
dared to defy the German warnings.

We do not need to seek grounds to justify the destruction of a British
ship. She belonged to the enemy and brought us harm. She has fallen to
our shots.

The enemy and the whole world were warned that he who ventured to trust
himself within her staked his life.

_The London Daily Mail of May 16 quotes from Der Tag the following
article by Herr von Rath, who is described as a favorite spokesman in
the Wilhelmstrasse:_

President Wilson is very much troubled by the drowning of so many
American citizens, and we Germans sincerely share his feelings, but we
see in the Lusitania affair one of the many cruel necessities which the
struggle for existence brings with it.

If, as English reports try to make us believe, Mr. Wilson is now
meditating revenge, we will not disturb him in this occupation, but
would only hope that his demands will be addressed to the right and not
the wrong quarters.

The right address is England. On the German side, everything was done to
warn American travelers from the impending peril, while British
irresponsibility and arrogance nullified the effect of the German
admonition.

Mr. Wilson is certainly in a precarious position. After showing himself
so weak in the face of the long and ruthless British provocations, he
has to play the strong man with Germany. Otherwise he will lose what
prestige he has left, and he knows that in the background the pretender
to the throne, Mr. Roosevelt, is lurking.

But what are the gallant shouters in the United States thinking about?
Should the United States send troops to take part in the fighting in
Flanders? The gigantic losses of their