United States Foreign Affairs Since

¶ … United States Foreign Affairs Since 1898 Should the United States Go to War in 1917? To those of our readers who remain convinced that the United States of America should remain neutral in this terrible European struggle against the Kaiser and his hordes, let me apologize first, and then say to you...balderdash! This newspaper, this publisher, and this editor-in-chief call upon President Wilson to declare war on the Imperial German Government and to use all the resources of this country to repel the hostile philosophies, ideas, aggressive forces, and unmitigated horrors that this villainous empire has brought and will bring on the rest of the civilized world.

This newspaper has supported the President's and the American public's desire for peace through neutrality for well over two years as we have watched the senseless brutality taking place on European battlefields and the sinking of merchant and civilian-occupied ships on our high seas. However, with the events of past few months, we have no choice but to defend our freedom against this aggressor who secretly plots to invade the United States and to resume the slaughter on this world's free oceans.

We have felt all along that the President has been justified in his neutrality stance due to the often vague and barely credible promises on the part of the German government to resist and, and at times, cease the inhumanity of their acts. Though we now mark the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as the beginning of this European struggle and the domino affect it caused with countries lining up on each side, that was not truly the beginning of the slide toward world war.

Had the United States, Great Britain, and France opened their eyes over a decade ago, we would have seen the aggressive designs that the Imperial German government had on the world. As tensions mounted in Europe between Germany, France, Great Britain and Russia, in the decade before the war, and The Imperial German Government sent warships to Morocco instead of diplomats, the signs were clear. The visible hostility of Germany's government toward the French and British "perceived" imminent attack against Germany invoked return hositility from Britain and its allies.

Finally, Wilhelm's agreement to support Austria-Hungary's Franz Joseph's bitter animousity and call for military action against Serbia after the Archduke's assassination led directly, though mistakenly, towards the Great War (Smitha, 1998). But it is the German government's more recent hostile and inhumane actions, directed at the United States, that provide three reasons this country needs to join its European allies in the great battle against the Kaiser.

First, the German Proclamation of February, 1915 that the international seas around Britain would be their own hunting grounds for any ship that enters their self-proclaimed territory became only the beginning of what would become inhumanity to man. Its repeated violations of international rules of warfare in not warning and not providing for the passengers and crews of torpedoed ships, established this country's vile attitude as the true evil in the world.

The sinking of the British ship, Lusitania, in May, 1915 with 124 American dead raised an uproar of anger in the U.S. And the first sway of opinion toward entering the war. Though Germany's 1916 Sussex Pledge temporarily halted this "unrestricted warfare," did not we presume, since it was only accomplished for the Kaiser's self-interest in avoiding America's entry into the war, that it would resume as soon as that self-interest changed? And indeed it did (Hollweg, n.d.).

Second, the economic interests of the United States and its free trade with allied nations in Europe have been interfered with and, in essence, stopped by this brutality. That alone should be reason enough for the United States to stand up, stop this deadly tyrant in its tracks, and allow the continuation of trade among nations all around the globe.

Any defeat by a foreign power of our major allies, France and Britain, would bring our international economic investments and trade to a trickle and have enormous negative impact on U.S. financial institutions and private investors. France and Britain utilized U.S. loans to pay for their part of the war with Germany. Both countries bought large quantities of all types of arms from us on credit. Those loans have to be paid back, or, with or without a military defeat, the U.S.

financial and economic situation would become desperate. Third, and probably the most significant reason that the United States must enter the war against this aggressor, is the interception of the Zimmerman telegram, just this past January. German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman sent German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhard a coded message which was decodified and translated by British cryptologists.

In that telegram, Zimmerman proposed to the government of Mexico that they join the German side of the war, and, in return, after the cause was won, Germany would offer Mexico a portion of U.S. territory for helping them win the war -- that portion of the southwest lost to America in the U.S.-Mexico War of the 1840s.

Though we of the press only learned of the Zimmerman telegram one month ago, on March 1, we have seen an uproar among the American public against Germany as none we have seen in our long publishing history. Now is the time for America to stand up. Now is the time for our President and Congress to rise to the cause of world peace.

Now is the time for all civilized nations across the globe to understand the everlasting and demonic designs of those of the Imperial government of Germany who wish not only to conquer Europe, but the entire globe as well. The Zimmerman telegram leaves no doubt of that. Surely, the unrestricted warfare on international waters and the murdering of innocent civilians and sinking of hundreds of undefended merchant ships should have been enough.

Certainly, the economic and financial threat to the entire American economic system due to a defeat of France and Britain, which looks imminent, should be enough. And most dastardly of all, now, having knowledge of the Kaiser's full intent for the rest of the world through the Zimmerman telegram, there is no course left for our peace-loving country but all-out war. Perhaps this last issue is the single greatest despite the tremendous previous loss of innocent life. And perhaps, it is the one.