Office of the Historian

File No. 763.72119/151

The Ambassador in Germany (Gerard) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]
Berlin, May 31, 1916, 1 p. m.
[Received June 1, 7.30 p. m.]

3941. Delegate Stresemann of the National Liberal Party was applauded in the Reichstag yesterday by all parties except Socialists for saying that his party rejected the hand of Wilson as a mediator.1 He criticised a socialist for saying the German people would welcome American mediation and maintained that if a vote were taken only a small minority of the German people would be found in favor of the protector of the American sale of arms and ammunition and England’s starvation warfare. He said that mediation of a really neutral country, perhaps Switzerland, would be welcome. His party still advocates relentless submarine warfare.

Gerard
  1. For Von Jagow’s statement that statement that he hoped the President and the Secretary of state would not be affected by this declaration, see the Ambassador’s telegram No. 3978, June 9 (received June 10), post, p. 272.↩