195.2/300a

The Secretary of State to President Wilson

My Dear Mr. President: We have received and read the note as you have prepared it.10 Will have it put into the private cipher. I think the changes which you made are important. You used more of what I suggested than I had expected you to use. It was written hurriedly and only in the form of suggestions for consideration.

Mr. Lansing and I have been conferring in regard to the general situation, and we are inclined to think that it would go a long way toward relieving the fear that is expressed in Great Britain if an announcement was made by the authorities that the Government had no thought of purchasing German ships under the authority which the shipping bill is intended to confer. I believe that a large part of the alarm in Great Britain arises over the fear that if the Dacia sale is allowed to stand the Government would expect to use it as a precedent and proceed to buy the German ships. That was Jusserand’s fear and you remember how agitated he was at the time. While I think that private individuals have a right to purchase these ships if the purchase is bona fide, I do not think that our Government could afford to raise an international question by purchases made by a corporation in which the Government had a controlling interest—or even a large interest.

If you said—or authorized me to say:—“To avoid misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the Government’s purpose, the press is informed that in case the shipping bill is passed the corporation authorized by that bill being partly owned by the Government will not, in the purchase of ships, acquire any vessel whose purchase would raise any international question or issue.”—I believe it would do much to calm the fears across the ocean and it would also remove one of the objections which is made against the shipping bill by its opponents in Congress.

As we could not afford and, therefore, have no intention of raising an issue by purchasing German ships, would it not be worth while to remove the fears that are based upon the possibility of such a purchase? A failure to answer these objections and put them to rest stimulates speculation and causes excitement. If such a statement could be made before the new note reaches London it would smooth the way for the strong statement which I am preparing to send and which I presume you want me to say is sent at your direction.

With assurances [etc.]

W. J. Bryan
  1. For text of the note in question, see telegram No. 1019, Jan. 23, 1915, to the Ambassador in Great Britain, Foreign Relations, 1915, supp., p. 684; for correspondence previously printed regarding sale of the Dacia and similar matters, see ibid., pp. 674 ff.