THE AMERICAN ATTITUDE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2468, 22 May 1915, Page 13

THE AMERICAN ATTITUDE

Sir,—Although feeling adverso to doing or 'saying anything which would tend to increase agitation at the present critical juncture, yet one must feel that it is impossible to remain silent altogether in the face of recent occurrences. The attitude of the President of the United States and his advisers deserves the unqualified censure of everyone with any sense of rightful feeling. To a careful reader it is evident that his speech, as reported in the cabled news this week, indicates the desire for "peace at any price"— honour, justice, and righteousness are not to be taken into consideration at all. One wonders how 6uch weakness and vacillation can belong to the leader of a nation which produced Lincoln and Garfield—it is the "scrap of paper" idea of the German rulers in another and more hypocritical form. May we ask this question? Had the Lusitania outrage or anything in the least approaching it, been the work of a weak nation, such as Spam or Brazil, or Columbia, would any such idea as letting the instigators go unpunished have been entertained for a moment? The President's Note asks, so we learn, for something in the way of compensation for damages! In other words, the really guilty ones, the Kaisor, Admiral von Tirpitz, and their seconders are to get off practically Scot-freo, as far as the United States Government are concerned, and the whole people of the German Empire are to compensate tho Americans for t'heir losses —very little of such compensation—if any — being found by the guilty parties. Shades of Washington and Franklin— what a ghastly travesty of ' justice! What a pitiful exhibition of weakness! I trust that the American Consul will be able to give some reply, in the right direction. Otherwises, when America's time of trial ever comes —as it will do—she will find very little sympathy from other nations. They are giving of their best, that the world may become' a better place for us all to live in, but to a nation or its leaders who will shirk duty and honour there must bo at the heart the beginning of ruin and decay.—l am, etc., JUSTICE.