“It is the same old threat that is always made when America undertakes to assert her rights against the British Government. We do not want to get into trouble with Great Britain, nor any other country, but we do want to protect our own rights; and if in order to do it we must suffer retaliation in some other line or at some other place, why, Mr. President, let us at whatever cost make the effort to protect ourselves and let these retaliatory measures come whenever and wherever they see fit to bring them.

“Why, there are some of our friends so tender-footed and so fearful of offending the majesty of Great Britain that they do not want to retain any of these so-called retaliatory provisions in this bill; and, yet, in violation of every treaty obligation, we find that Great Britain has not only been interfering with our commerce but is doing the very things that this measure is intended to relieve against; not only blacklisting our merchants but opening and censoring our mails. Only a few days ago I got a letter from a constituent of mine inclosing a letter from his good old mother in Germany, who wrote him that she had not heard from him for months, and yet he has been writing to her every week. Why? Because on the plea of military or other necessity Great Britain is invading the mails of the United States even when addressed to neutrals or neutral countries, and taking from the mail pouches private letters and every other kind, except such as may be protected not by international law—because they violate international law—but by special agreement between that country and this; not only letters but drafts and money and papers and everything else. I have letters from a prominent man in Pennsylvania who tells me that letters containing orders to his house from neutral countries are opened, the orders taken out and sent to British manufacturing establishments, and there filled; and the Government that has done these things has the impudence, as suggested by the letter addressed to the Senator from Washington, to insist that if we enact such legislation as that proposed and which we deem necessary to protect our people and our country, she will retaliate in some way. She can not retaliate any worse than she has done, Mr. President, without law, without authority, and in violation of every national and international right.

“I know that there are Senators here who do not agree with me. I heard a distinguished gentleman say tonight that Great Britain was fighting our battles. If that be true, does she find it necessary, in fighting our battles, to destroy our commerce, to rifle our mail sacks, to take our money, to prevent our intercourse with neutrals, and to do everything or anything to our injury, whether sanctioned by the laws of nations or in spite of them?

“I get tired of hearing this, Mr.President. Until the United States has the courage that Great Britain has always had to assert her rights and dare maintain them, the United States may expect to be imposed upon. One of my reasons for advocating preparation for self-defense was to let the world know that from this time on the United States expected to protect her citizens and her country and her country’s interests at all hazards; and the very fact that she is prepared to assert those rights when occasion requires and demands is all that it will be necessary to do. She will never have to utilize her resources for war.

“Mr.President, I serve notice on the Senate now that I propose to introduce a bill at the next session of Congress embodying the provision under consideration and try to call it to the attention of the Senate, and, if necessary, to the attention of the country, and to show the country who is responsible for this base surrender of our rights to the demands of the Canadian Government. I want to protest as loudly as I can against Sir Joseph Pope or any other Canadian official or the representatives of any other foreign Government coming over here, either to the Executive Chambers or to the Department of State or to any other department of the Government, unless duly accredited, and interfering with the enactment of laws by the American Congress that the American people feel are necessary for their protection and the protection of their commerce. I think if any American citizen ever dared to enter upon such a course without an invitation, there ought to be some way found to punish him for attempting to interfere with the legislation proposed by a foreign government in its own way and for its own purposes.”

Mr.WILLIAMS. MrPresident, there is just one thing that even my friend George Chamberlain cannot do. He cannot create war between us and the men and the women and the children of Canada. We are too near akin to one another in blood and in language and in literature and in law and in everything else that makes men and women akin to one another for that.

The greatest crime that the world could possibly witness would be a war between the people of the United States and the people of Canada. It is unthinkable from a sane man’s standpoint, no matter what happens, no matter what occurs....

The Senator says that we assert and we dare to maintain our rights. Of course we do. So do they assert and so do they dare maintain their rights, and they are weaker than we. All the more reason why we should be considerate in our treatment of them, and by God’s blessing we are going to be. We are not hunting retaliation with Canada, either from her ports or from ours. We are seeking nothing except justice in the world.

There is one more thing to be said, Mr.President. A pathway of commercial retaliation is a pathway of war. In the long run it means that. It can not mean anything else. What we want is the old Democratic standpoint of the utmost free-trade relations with everybody on the earth. The utmost they grant us we ought to grant them. That spells peace; that spells amity; that spells friendship. The opposite course spells war in the long run, and to attempt to convert these 3,000 miles of boundary between us and Canada into an area of retaliation and trade hostility is to convert it ultimately into a relationship of war.

I, for one, have been opposed to it all the time, and I am opposed to it now. I can not conceive of a greater crime than having our children kill the children of the Canadians or have their children kill our children in an absolutely useless species of hostility. If we start with trade hostilities, we will wind up with warlike hostilities.