763.72111 Em 1/26

The Secretary of State to President Wilson

Dear Mr. President: I think that we could dismiss the Austrian statement regarding the sale of arms and ammunition29 with an [Page 123] acknowledgment, as you suggest in your note of yesterday,30 but it seems to me that it offers an excellent opportunity to make a full and clear statement of our attitude. While the communication would be addressed to Vienna, we could by making the correspondence public present the matter in a favorable and, I believe, convincing way to the American people.

Home consumption would be the real purpose; an answer to Austria the nominal purpose.

Convinced of the strength of our position and the desirability of placing the case frankly before the people in order to remove the opposition to sales of war materials, which many persons have on moral grounds and not because of pro-German sympathy, it seems to me advisable to prepare an answer to the Austrian communication, which I will submit to you as soon as it is drafted.

Faithfully yours,

Robert Lansing
  1. Foreign Relations, 1915, supp., p. 791.
  2. Not found in Department files. A telegram from President Wilson referring to the Austrian note is printed on p. 453.