nt, could enter with
confidence on any contention with a foreign power. His most earnest
representations and most solemn protestations might be rendered
meaningless by the intrusion of a Congress influenced by incorrect
reports or overcome by personal antagonism. Such a condition of
executive impotence was viewed as endangering rather than safeguarding
the country's tranquillity. The paramount need then was that Congress
should support the presidency, not the temporary occupant of the White
House. The country was in a controversy with a European power and the
American stand had been taken on definite and well-understood
principles.

In the midst of that dispute the demand had been voiced that the
American attitude be radically changed and the conditions seriously
altered. The inevitable effect of such a change in American policy, it
was felt, would be to hearten the power that was at issue with the
United States, to embarrass the President, and encourage the belief
that those to whom he must look for support would withhold it from
him. That injury could only be repaired by the repudiation by Congress
of the influences at work within it aiming at the overthrow of the
President's policy, and by a convincing exhibition of the unity of the
republic.

The Senate was the first to act. The armed-ship resolution, forbidding
Americans to travel on such craft, was introduced by Senator Gore, of
Oklahoma, who thus explained his purpose in doing so:

"I introduced this resolution because I was apprehensive that we were
speeding headlong upon war; perhaps, I ought to go further and say
what I have hitherto avoided saying, that my action was based on a
report which seemed to come from the highest and most responsible
authority, that certain Senators and certain members of the House, in
a conference with the President of the United States, received from
the President the information, if not the declaration, that if Germany
insisted upon her position the United States would insist upon her
position, and that it would result probably in a breach of diplomatic
relations, and that a breach of diplomatic relations would probably be
followed by a state of war, and that a state of war might not be of
itself and of necessity an evil to this republic, but that the United
States, by entering upon war now, might be able to bring it to a
conclusion by midsummer and thus render a great service to
civilization.

"Mr. President," added the Sen