The year, 1916, opened with this great question still unsettled
and, in effect, Germany gave notice that after March first, 1916,
the German submarines would sink all armed merchantmen of the
enemies of Germany without warning. It is not my place here to
go into the agitation of this question in America or into the
history of the votes in Congress, which in fact upheld the policy
of the President. A proposal as to armed merchantmen was issued by
our State Department and the position taken in this was apparently
abandoned at the time of the settlement of the _Sussex_ case
to which I now refer.
In the latter half of March, 1916, a number of boats having Americans
on board were torpedoed without warning. These boats were the
_Eaglejoint_, the _Englishman_, the _Manchester_Engineer_ and the
_Sussex_. One American was killed or drowned on the _Englishman_,
but the issue finally came to a head over the torpedoing of the
channel passenger boat, _Sussex_ which carried passengers between
Folkstone and Dieppe, France.
On March twenty-fourth the _Sussex_ was torpedoed near the
coast of France.
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