on away.]

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 areas 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.

[Sidenote: International law on the seas.]

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in
fact be done by any Government that had hitherto subscribed to 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 meagre 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.

[Sidenote: Germany shows no scruples of humanity.]

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 wind all scruples of humanity
or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the
intercourse of the world.

[Sidenote: Lives cannot be paid for.]

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.

[Sidenote: American lives taken at at sea.]

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