ard of.

There was no doubt that the exploits of the _U-53_ were intended as a
demonstration to test American feeling as to whether Germany could
attack on this side of the water munition and other vessels bound for
Allied ports. It appeared a bold attempt to create a new precedent by
overriding one laid down in 1870 by President Grant, who ruled that
American waters must not be used by other nations for belligerent
purposes. Outside the three-mile limit, however, German submarines
could operate with the same impunity as in the Arctic Ocean, so long
as they observed the requirement of giving warning and allowing people
on board the intercepted vessels time to save their lives. But the
manifest point was that the waters outside the three-mile limit were
contiguous to the American coast, and provided highways for American
shipping, coastwise and foreign. The proximity of German submarines,
even though they confined their attention to Allied shipping to and
from American ports, constituted too great a menace to the free
movement of the American mercantile marine.

A wolf at a man's door is none the less dangerous because the wolf is
lying in wait for the appearance of an inmate of the man's house and
not for the man himself. Informal intimations persuaded Germany that
she could not safely repeat the experiment of carrying the war to
America's door.

The innovation, even in its most innocuous form, was contrary to good
international usage. Great Britain had previously offended in this
respect by permitting her patrolling cruisers to intercept and examine
merchant vessels off the port of New York. She desisted at
Washington's request. But a waiting cruiser, plain to the eye,
interfering with shipping to prevent communication with Germany, was
a mild offender compared with an unseen submarine crossing the paths
of ships and liable to err in its indiscriminate destructiveness.

Fortunately, no American lives were lost. But this was not the fault
of the submarine. No question could be raised of its behavior in
sinking four of the five ships, namely, the _Strathdene_ (British
freighter), bound from New York to Bordeaux; the _West Point_ (British
freighter), bound from London to Newport News; the _Bloomersdijk_
(Dutch freighter), bound from New York to Rotterdam; and the
_Christian Knudsen_ (Norwegian freighter), bound from New York to
London. The danger, happily averted, to American-German relations lay
in the sinking of th