File No. 763.72111/1930
The Secretary of State to the German Ambassador (Bernstorff)
Excellency: I have given thoughtful consideration to your excellency’s note of the 4th of April, 1915, enclosing a memorandum of the same date, in which your excellency discusses the action of this Government with regard to trade between the United States and Germany and the attitude of this Government with regard to the exportation of arms from the United States to the nations now at war with Germany.
I must admit that I am somewhat at a loss how to interpret your excellency’s treatment of these matters. There are many circumstances connected with these important subjects to which I would have expected your excellency to advert, but of which you make no mention, and there are other circumstances to which you do refer which I would have supposed to be hardly appropriate for discussion between the Government of the United States and the Government of Germany.
I shall take the liberty, therefore, of regarding your excellency’s references to the course pursued by the Government of the United States with regard to interferences with trade from this country, [Page 161] such as the Government of Great Britain have attempted, as intended merely to illustrate more fully the situation to which you desire to call our attention and not as an invitation to discuss that course Your excellency’s long experience in international affairs will have suggested to you that the relations of the two Governments with one another cannot wisely be made a subject of discussion with a third Government, which cannot be fully informed as to the facts and which cannot be fully cognizant of the reasons for the course pursued. I believe, however, that I am justified in assuming that what you desire to call forth is a frank statement of the position of this Government in regard to its obligations as a neutral power. The general attitude and course of policy of this Government in the maintenance of its neutrality I am particularly anxious that your excellency should see in their true light. I had hoped that this Government’s position in these respects had been made abundantly clear, but I am of course perfectly willing to state it again. This seems to me the more necessary and desirable because, I regret to say, the language which your excellency employs in your memorandum is susceptible of being construed as impugning the good faith of the United States in the performance of its duties as a neutral. I take it for granted that no such implication was intended, but it is so evident that your excellency is laboring under certain false impressions that I cannot be too explicit in setting forth the facts as they are, when fully reviewed and comprehended.
In the first place, this Government has at no time and in no manner yielded any one of its rights as a neutral to any one of the present belligerents. It has acknowledged, as a matter of course, the right of visit and search and the right to apply the rules of contraband of war to articles of commerce. It has, indeed, insisted upon the use of visit and search as an absolutely necessary safeguard against mistaking neutral vessels for vessels owned by an enemy and against mistaking legal cargoes for illegal. It has admitted also the right of blockade if actually exercised and effectively maintained. These are merely the well-known limitations which war places upon neutral commerce on the high seas. But nothing beyond these has it conceded. I call your excellency’s attention to this, notwithstanding it is already known to all the world as a consequence of the publication of our correspondence in regard to these matters with several of the belligerent nations, because I cannot assume that you have official cognizance of it.
In the second place, this Government attempted to secure from the German and British Governments mutual concessions with regard to the measures those Governments respectively adopted for the interruption of trade on the high seas. This it did, not of right, but merely as exercising the privileges of a sincere friend of both parties and as indicating its impartial good will. The attempt was unsuccessful; but I regret that your excellency did not deem it worthy of mention in modification of the impressions you expressed. We had hoped that this act on our part had shown our spirit in these times of distressing war as our diplomatic correspondence had shown our steadfast refusal to acknowledge the right of any belligerent to alter the accepted rules of war at sea in so far as they affect the rights and interests of neutrals.
[Page 162]In the third place, I note with sincere regret that, in discussing the sale and exportation of arms by citizens of the United States to the enemies of Germany, your excellency seems to be under the impression that it was within the choice of the Government of the United States, notwithstanding its professed neutrality and its diligent efforts to maintain it in other particulars, to inhibit this trade, and that its failure to do so manifested an unfair attitude towards Germany. This Government holds, as I believe your excellency is aware, and as it is constrained to hold in view of the present indisputable doctrines of accepted international law, that any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of a war which would affect unequally the relations of the United States with the nations at war would be an unjustifiable departure from the principle of strict neutrality by which it has consistently sought to direct its actions, and I respectfully submit that none of the circumstances urged in your excellency’s memorandum alters the principle involved. The placing of an embargo on the trade in arms at the present time would constitute such a change and be a direct violation of the neutrality of the United States. It will, I feel assured, be clear to your excellency that, holding this view and considering itself in honor bound by it, it is out of the question for this Government to consider such a course.
I hope that your excellency will realize the spirit in which I am drafting this reply. The friendship between the people of the United States and the people of Germany is so warm and of such long standing, the ties which bind them to one another in amity are so many and so strong, that this Government feels under a special compulsion to speak with perfect frankness when any occasion arises which seems likely to create any misunderstanding, however slight or temporary, between those who represent the Governments of the two countries. It will be a matter of gratification to me if I have removed from your excellency’s mind any misapprehension you may have been under regarding either the policy or the spirit and purposes of the Government of the United States. Its neutrality is founded upon the firm basis of conscience and good will.
Accept [etc.]