It has therefore become painfully evident that the
position which this Government took at the very outset is inevitable,
namely, that the use of submarines for the destruction of an enemy's
commerce is of necessity, because of the very character of the vessels
employed and the very methods of attack which their employment of course
involves, incompatible with the principles of humanity, the long
established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and the sacred
immunities of non-combatants.
I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German
Government that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relentless and
indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of
submarines, notwithstanding the now demonstrated impossibility of
conducting that warfare in accordance with what the Government of the
United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of
international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity,
the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion
that there is but one course it can pursue; and that unless the Imperial
German Government should now immediately declare and effect an
abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and
freight carrying vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever
diplomatic relations with the Government of the German Empire
altogether.
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