The Pittsburgh Press (May 18, 1941)
U.S. MAY GO TO WAR AGAIN OVER FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Washington, May 17 –
The United States and Germany may once again go to war against each other, declared or undeclared, over the ancient but almost forgotten American doctrine of freedom of the seas.
Almost any time now, American ships manned by Americans and laden with American goods, are expected to show up in the Red Sea. Hitler has said he will sink those ships, if they come within range, and if the French allow Nazi bombers the use of Syrian bases, they will come well within range.
Thus a showdown between Germany and the United States seems to be approaching in much the same manner as it did in the World War.
On Jan. 31, 1917, Berlin notified Washington just what this country would have to do if it did not want its ships sent to the bottom of the Atlantic.
The insolent German note said:
Sailing of regular American passenger steamships may continue undisturbed after Feb. 1, 1917, provided:
the port of destination is Falmouth;
sailing to and coming from that port course is taken from the Isles of Scilly;
the steamships are marked in the following way [there followed a description of how the ships would have to be striped, etc.];
one steamship a week sails in each direction with arrival at Falmouth on Sunday and departure from Falmouth on Wednesday;
the United States government guarantees that no contraband [according to German contraband list] is carried by those steamships.
Violates all rights
President Wilson could hardly believe his eyes. The German note violated every right to the freedom of the seas for which this country had ever contended. And so he told Congress on Feb. 3, just 72 hours later, the day he handed the German ambassador, Count Bernstorff, his walking papers.
He still could not believe the note actually meant what it seemed to mean, or so the President told Congress. Therefore, he would await the “overt act” – which came on March 16 when three American vessels were sunk by German submarines.
On April 2, President Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war.
Suffers many quirks
One of the pillars of American policy since the earliest times, freedom of the seas, has suffered many a quirk, embarrassing first one side then another.
The United States tried to disown it during the Civil War when the British were using it to help the South. Next, it probably delayed our entry into the World War on the side of the Allies because Britain now chose to ignore it. Nevertheless, it helped to drag us in all the more certainly because Germany violated it with such brutal abandon.
Throughout the war, President Wilson included it in every one of his post-war settlement proposals and made it the third in his five-point outline for a League of Nations.
In Paris, after the war, it became Britain’s turn again to knife the doctrine – the same doctrine which had served her when she wanted it to in the past and which today is being invoked by Woodrow Wilson’s successor in her aid and which may again involve us in war on her side.
Delegates oppose League
When the American President arrived in Paris, he found most of the leading delegates opposed to his League of Nations idea – the idea on which he had set his heart. And the most opposed of all was David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister and chief spokesman at the conference.
But he finally came around to it – after Wilson had yielded on his freedom of the seas plank – which, of course, was what Lloyd George wanted. For Wilson’s ideas about freedom to sail the oceans were hardly consistent with England’s claims that Britannia rules the waves.
For the past couple of decades, Americans have heard little about the sea’s freedom. Congress actually voted a neutrality law which, in effect, went so far as to abdicate all rights for United States vessels to navigate the oceans in wartime.
The theory was that they might get shot at, and that might involve us in war. But now the doctrine has suddenly sprung to life again and with a bang – a bang which may yet have gunpowder behind it.