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Updated: May 2, 2025
The letter comes from Mexico, from that German-infested Republic. It is written to a man of German parentage and it is written in cipher. The names of Luxburg, Caillaux, Bolo, Bernstorff are still fresh in our minds. Every day brings us word of some new attempt at sabotage in the United States. Isn't there ANY way, Mr. Vaux, for us to secure the key to this cipher letter?"
The explosions, the plots, the spies, the Lucitania, the notes, Mr. Bryan, von Bernstorff, half our country oh, more than half! in different or incredulous, nothing prepared, nothing done, no step taken, Theodore Roosevelt's and Leonard Wood's almost the only voices warning us what was bound to happen, and to get ready for it? Do you remember the bulletin boards?
Again, after the battle of the Marne, he took advantage of German discouragement, apparently receiving a hint from Johann von Bernstorff, German Ambassador in Washington, to sound the belligerents on the possibility of an arrangement. Failing a second time to elicit serious consideration of peace, he withdrew to wait for a better opportunity.
Now, on February 3, 1917, addressing both houses of Congress, he announced that those relations had been broken. Von Bernstorff was given his papers and the American Ambassador, James W. Gerard, was recalled from Berlin. No other course of action could have been contemplated in view of the formality of the President's warning and the definiteness of Germany's defiance.
"It recalls that Count von Bernstorff, when his passports were handed to him, was very reluctant to return to Germany, but expressed a preference for an asylum in Cuba. It gives a new explanation to the repeated arrests on the border of men charged by American military authorities with being German intelligence agents.
The censor has been instructed to permit the newspapers to express themselves frankly on this subject and on Secretary Bryan's reply to the von Bernstorff note, but it has been emphasised that their views reflect popular opinion and the editorial side of the matter and not the Government.
He then went into the Ambassador's room and read a secret code message which he had just received from Captain Gaunt, the British naval attaché at Washington. It was as follows: "Bernstorff has just been given his passports. I shall probably get drunk to-night!" But by February, 1917, things had gone too far.
In April, Count Bernstorff delivered his note concerning the alleged want of neutrality of the United States, referring to the numerous new industries in war materials being built up in the United States, stating, "In reality the United States is supplying only Germany's enemies, a fact which is not in any way modified by the theoretical willingness to furnish Germany as well."
Germany's precept, as laid down by Count von Bernstorff in his note of September 1, 1915, and Germany's practice, as illustrated by the foregoing defense for the sinking of the Arabic, were thus widely divergent. The situation receded to the Lusitania stage.
The submarine outbreak showed an undoubted disposition on Germany's part to violate her pledge, and if the Administration was satisfied that she had done so, its expressed attitude was that no more protests would be sent. The American answer to Germany's defiance could only be the dismissal of Count von Bernstorff from Washington and the recall of Ambassador Gerard from Berlin.
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