s statement to insist
upon as a precondition of any peace conference with Germany? Simply
this--that behind the word of the Kaiser there must be the word of the
German people.

That word must be given in advance and in a way which will satisfy both
the Allies and the United States. It is for the German people to find
the way.

We cannot honorably talk peace with Germany until that way is found.

3. The third condition antecedent to a conference on peace is the
renunciation and abandonment of the German submarine warfare upon
merchant shipping.

On this point I do not speak with any kind of authority or official
sanction. What I say is based, indeed, upon words uttered with the
highest authority. But the conclusion drawn from them is merely my own
judgment and has no force beyond that of the reasoning that has led me
to it.

The American position in regard to this submarine warfare--its
illegality, its inhumanity--has been clearly and eloquently defined by
our Government again and again.

"The Government of the United States has been apprised that the Imperial
German Government considered themselves to be obliged, by the
extraordinary circumstances of the present war and the measures adopted
by their adversaries in seeking to cut Germany off from all commerce, to
adopt methods of retaliation which go much beyond the ordinary methods
of warfare at sea, in the proclamation of a war zone from which they
have warned neutral ships to keep away. This Government has already
taken occasion to inform the Imperial German Government that it cannot
admit the adoption of such measures or such a warning of danger to
operate as in any degree an abbreviation of the rights of American
shipmasters or of American citizens bound on lawful errands as
passengers on merchant ships of belligerent neutrality; and that it must
hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for any
infringement of those rights, intentional or incidental. It does not
understand the Imperial German Government to question those rights. It
assumes, on the contrary, that the Imperial German Government accept, as
of course, the rule that the lives of non-combatants, whether they be
of neutral citizenship or citizens of one of the nations at war, cannot
lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruction
of an unarmed merchantman, and recognize also, as all other nations do,
the obligation to take the usual precaution of visit