ARMED NEUTRALITY

President Wilson addressed Congress in joint session, February 26, 1917, asking authority to use the armed forces of the United States to protect American rights on the high seas. He desired to establish a state of "armed neutrality." This was not a request for a declaration of war, nor was it an act of war. It was to prepare the United States to resist what might be warlike acts by Germany.

Reviewing the maritime conditions caused by Germany's submarine order of January 31, 1917, which produced the diplomatic rupture, the President disclosed an unexpected view—that Germany's misdeeds in carrying out her new decree had not, in his opinion, so far provided the "overt act" for which the United States was waiting.

"Our own commerce has suffered, is suffering," he said, "rather in apprehension than in fact, rather because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports, than because American ships have been sunk....

"In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the actual conduct of the German submarine warfare against commerce and its effects upon our own ships and people is substantially the same that it was when I addressed you on February 3, except for the tying up of our shipping in our own ports because of the unwillingness of our shipowners to risk their vessels at sea without insurance or adequate protection, and the very serious congestion of our commerce, which has eventuated, a congestion which is growing rapidly more and more serious every day.

"This in itself might presently accomplish, in effect, what the new German submarine orders were meant to accomplish, so far as we are concerned. We can only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have ventured to hope the German commanders would in fact avoid has not occurred."

But he felt that American immunity thus far had been more a matter of happy accident than due to any consideration of German submarine commanders. Nevertheless, he pointed out, it would be foolish to deny that the situation was fraught with the gravest possibilities and dangers. Hence he sought from the Congress "full and immediate assurance of the authority which I may need at any moment to exercise."

"No doubt," he proceeded, "I already possess that authority without special warrant of law, by the plain implication of my constitutional duties and powers, but I prefer in the present circumstances not to act upon general implication. I wish to feel that the authority and the power of the Congress are behind me in whatever it may become necessary for me to do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act together and in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it....

"I am not now proposing or contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace to follow the pursuit of peace in quietness and good will—rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized nations of the world.

"I believe that the people will be willing to trust me to act with restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months, and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas."

Even before the President addressed Congress the "overt act" had been committed by Germany. News of the sinking of the Laconia, already mentioned, was published synchronously with the delivery of his message and subjected to correction his allusion to the noncommittal of any overt act by German submarines. The President, in fact, decided later that the destruction of the Cunarder without warning and at night, in rough seas, with the loss of American lives, constituted a "clear-cut" violation of the pledge the German Government gave to the United States after the Lusitania and Sussex sinkings. But it was felt that the next step in meeting the situation now rested with Congress.

The Senate and House immediately set about framing bills conforming, as far as the President's opponents permitted, to his request. There was no time to be lost. Congress expired on March 4, 1917, by constitutional limitation and the President had delayed submitting his message until the last moment, so that Congress had only eight days to debate and agree to a measure that excited the pacifists' bitter animosity in both Houses, as well as the opposition of other legislators who feared that the authority the President sought would encroach on Congress's war-making prerogative.

In the House of Representatives the opposition dwindled to negligible proportions. Public sentiment had been stirred by the sinking of the Laconia and by certain revelations the Administration published disclosing German overtures to Mexico in the event of war, the character of which will be chronicled later. Sensitive to the public pulse, the House was eager to receive the Armed-Ship Bill when it was reported on February 28, 1917, by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which had occupied a couple of days in shaping it. A stirring debate on the bill took place the next day (March 1) under cloture rule, and before the House adjourned that night it had passed the measure by a substantial vote of 403 to 13. The bill was at once sent to the Senate, and was substituted for the Senate Committee's bill, whose provisions conferred larger powers on the President. Expecting the Senate to pass its own bill as a substitute, it was the intention of the House leaders to accept the Senate's measure when it came to them for passage. The measure, however, never passed the Senate. Through the wide latitude allowed for unlimited debate a handful of Senators opposed to any action against Germany succeeded in effectually blocking the bill. The Senate sat late into the night of February 28, 1917, and took up the Armed-Ship Bill the next day. Senator La Follette, who led the successful filibuster against the bill, objected to its consideration, and, under the rule of unanimous consent, would only allow the bill to proceed on condition that no attempt was made to pass it before the next day. A precious day was lost, which sealed the fate of the measure. The bill came before the Senate for continuous debate on March 2, 1917, when it got into a parliamentary tangle. Debate was resumed on Saturday, March 3, 1917. Only a day and a half of the session now remained. Senator Stone who, though in charge of the bill, was opposed to it, found his position untenable and surrendered its conduct to Senator Hitchcock. This course enabled him to join the opponents of the bill openly by contending for an amendment excluding munition ships from armed protection—a revival of the arms embargo he had urged before. But the main obstruction to the bill came from a group of Western senators, who balked every effort for limiting debate or setting a time for a vote. As midnight neared the Administration's supporters saw that its chances of passing before Congress expired at noon the next day, Sunday, March 4, 1917, were of the slightest, and, anxious that the country should know where they stood, these senators, to the number of seventy-five, signed a manifesto reading as follows:

"The undersigned, United States senators, favor the passage of Senate bill 8322, to authorize the President of the United States to arm American merchant vessels.

"A similar bill already has passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 403 to 13. "Under the rules of the Senate, allowing unlimited debate, it now appears to be impossible to obtain a vote prior to noon March 4, 1917, when the session of Congress expires.

"We desire the statement entered in the record to establish the fact that the Senate favors the legislation and would pass it if a vote could be obtained."

The Senate continued sitting until the stroke of twelve noon on March 4, 1917. The President was in the Capitol receiving reports of the course of his opponents' tactics. A vote not having been reached, the Armed-Ship Bill went down to defeat, having been talked to death, and the Senate automatically adjourned with the expiration of the last session of the Sixty-fourth Congress. The bill was assured of passage, had a vote been permitted, by 75 to 12. The twelve obstructionists were Senators La Follette of Wisconsin, Norris of Nebraska, Cummins of Iowa, Stone of Missouri, Gronna of North Dakota, Kirby of Arkansas, Vardaman of Mississippi, O'Gorman of New York, Works of California, Jones of Washington, Clapp of Minnesota, Lane of Oregon—seven Republicans and five Democrats.

The situation produced an indignant protest from the President, who, in a public statement, described the termination of the session by constitutional limitation as disclosing "a situation unparalleled in the history of the country, perhaps unparalleled in the history of any modern government. In the immediate presence of a crisis fraught with more subtle and far-reaching possibilities of national danger than any other the Government has known within the whole history of its international relations, the Congress has been unable to act either to safeguard the country or to vindicate the elementary rights of its citizens."

"The Senate," he proceeded, "has no rules by which debate can be limited or brought to an end, no rules by which dilatory tactics of any kind can be prevented. A single member can stand in the way of action, if he have but the physical endurance. The result in this case is a complete paralysis alike of the legislative and of the executive branches of the Government. "Although, as a matter of fact, the nation and the representatives of the nation stand back of the Executive with unprecedented unanimity and spirit, the impression made abroad will, of course, be that it is not so and that other governments may act as they please without fear that this Government can do anything at all. We cannot explain. The explanation is incredible. The Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

"The remedy? There is but one remedy. The only remedy is that the rules of the Senate shall be so altered that it can act. The country can be relied upon to draw the moral. I believe that the Senate can be relied on to supply the means of action and save the country from disaster."

The new Senate of the Sixty-fifth Congress met in extraordinary session at noon on March 6, 1917, when both parties took steps to frame a revision of the rules for preventing filibustering. Both caucuses agreed upon a cloture rule empowering the Senate to bring the debate on any measure to an end by a two-thirds vote, limiting speeches to one hour each, but sixteen senators must first make the request in the form of a signed motion presented two days previously. After several hours' discussion this rule passed the Senate on March 8, 1917. Thus the right to unlimited debate, which had been regarded as the most characteristic prerogative of senators, was at last restrained after enjoying a freedom of nearly one hundred and ten years.

The recalcitrant senators who prevented the passage of the Armed-Ship Bill were the subject of bitter criticism from the press and public throughout the country, which echoed, but in much stronger terms, the President's denunciation of them. There was none to do them reverence in the United States. The only meed of praise they received came from Germany. The essence of editorial opinion in that country regarding their action, according to a Berlin message, was that "so long as there are men in the American Congress who boldly refuse to have their country involved in the European slaughter merely for the sake of gratifying Wilson's vainglorious ambition, there is hope that the common sense of the American people will assert itself and that they will not permit the appalling insanity to spread to the new world that holds the old world in a merciless grip."

The German press, like the senators whom it eulogized, was mistaken in supposing that the President had been thwarted by the failure of the Armed-Ship Bill. Certainly he remained in doubt as to his next course. He had told Congress that he believed he had the power to arm merchant ships without its authority, but did not care to act on general implication. Now he was faced with the duty of ascertaining definitely where his freedom of action lay, since Congress had impeded, instead of facilitating, his conduct of the crisis with Germany. An old act, passed in 1819, governing piracy at sea, had been unearthed, and at first sight its terms were read as preventing the President from arming merchant ships. The law advisers of the Government, Secretary Lansing and Attorney General Gregory, examined this act and decided that it was obsolete. They were of opinion that it did not apply to the existing situation. The statute forbade American merchantmen from defending themselves against the commissioned vessels of a nation with which the United States was at "amity"; but they could resist by force any attacks made on them by any other armed vessels. In short, it legalized resistance to pirates. The word "amity" pre-supposed friendly diplomatic relations as well as a normal condition of traffic and commerce on the high seas in its application to the armed vessels of other nations. The provision forbidding conflict with them by American traders was intended primarily to prevent private citizens from embarrassing the Government's foreign relations. Now it was held that Germany's denial to Americans of the rights of the high seas was inconsistent with true amity, and caused her war vessels to lose, so far as the United States was concerned, their right to immunity from attack, both under international law and under this municipal act, which was viewed as superseded and void in its application to German war craft.

This decision disposed of an obstacle which had placed the President in a dilemma. It was true he could go to Congress again; but immediate action was imperative. Armed neutrality, under the President's powers as commander in chief of the army and navy, was thereupon determined. Every merchant ship which so desired would be provided with guns and naval gunners to operate them. Foreign governments were notified of this action in an executive memorandum which read:

"In view of the announcement of the Imperial German Government on January 81, 1917, that all ships, those of neutrals included, met within certain zones of the high seas, would be sunk without any precaution taken for the safety of the persons on board, and without the exercise of visit and search, the Government of the United States has determined to place upon all American merchant vessels sailing through the barred areas an armed guard for the protection of the vessels and the lives of the persons on board."

The President meantime was also confronted with the necessity of calling the new Congress into extra session, not so much to gain its assent to armed neutrality (since he had determined to act without it), but as a war expedient to support the measures projected against Germany. Owing to the Senate filibuster the previous Congress had been unable to pass appropriations exceeding $500,000,000, more than half of which was needed for the army. The new Congress was accordingly convened, to meet on April 16, 1917.[Back to Contents]