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 the
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 meager 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. 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 winds all scruples of humanity or
of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the
intercourse of the world. 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 non-combatants, men, women, and
children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest
periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate.
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