policy once more cleared of damaging misunderstandings." What the President wished was now quite clear. He did not wish a vote of confidence, but a direct vote on the McLemore, or some similar resolution, declaring that Americans ought not to travel on armed merchantmen. He wished every member of the House to go on record when the vote was taken that the country might know who stood by the Government, and who sought to embarrass it, in its diplomatic dealings with Germany and Austria.

Leaders in both Houses were surprised and embarrassed. With great difficulty they had a few days before prevented action on the very resolutions they were now asked to bring to a vote. Conferences were held with the President, but he did not yield, and March 3, 1916, the Senate took up the resolution offered by Senator Gore and an immediate vote was demanded. Mr. Gore, rising to a point of personal privilege, then offered a substitute which reads:

Resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring: That the sinking by a German submarine, without notice or warning, of an armed merchant vessel of her public enemy, resulting in the death of a citizen of the United States, would constitute a just and sufficient cause of war between the United States and the German Empire.

But the Senate leaders in their haste to end the business forced an immediate vote on both resolutions taken together and, amid a scene of great confusion and disorder, the roll was called on the question of laying the resolutions on the table. The yeas were 68; the nays 14, and the motion was carried. Then for the first time the Senators realized that in their haste they had tabled a resolution declaring that if a German submarine, without warning, sank an armed merchantman and an American citizen thereby lost his life, the act would be a just cause of war. This was the very principle for which the President was contending.

As soon as the vote in the Senate was known in the House the Committee on Foreign Affairs voted to report back the McLemore resolution with a recommendation that it be tabled because, "Under the practice and precedent in this country,

the conduct of diplomatic negotiations has been left with the President, and with this practice the committee does not feel it proper for the House of Representatives to interfere. We know that if the President reaches a point in any negotiations with foreign Governments at which he believes he has exhausted his powers in the premises he will, in the usual way, report all facts and circumstances to Congress for its consideratior."

March 7, the struggle began and when it ended with the roll call on the question of agreeing to the motion to lay the McLemore resolution on the table the yeas were 276 and the nays 142.

The States, all of whose representatives voted no, were Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska. The States, all of whose representatives voted yes, were Maine, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Idaho. As far as Congressional interference was concerned, the armed merchantmen issue, it was said, was settled. There were those, indeed, who held that tabling the resolutions was not decisive, and among these was Mr. Bryan. "The question was presented in such a way," he said to an audience at Columbus, Ohio, "that there is little significance in the vote. It does not represent the sentiment in Congress as to the wisdom of Americans traveling upon belligerent merchantmen. Had this question been presented and the opinion of Congress asked upon it, there is no doubt that a majority of both Senate and House would express themselves in favor of preventing Americans from traveling into the danger zone on belligerent ships."

The people, taking the words of the President, that he would rather know what men were saying around their firesides than what was said in the cloakrooms of Congress, as an invitation to give their views, now sent letters and telegrams by thousands to the White House expressing approval of his stand and conveying congratulations on his victory.

The day following the action of the Senate on the resolution of Senator Gore, March 4, 1916, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs reported a bill "for making further and more effectual provision for national defense." As explained by the Chairman, Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, the bill provided for a regular army of 178,000

men; a federal volunteer force of 261,000 to be trained for one month each year in summer camps, a strictly federal force not under the control of Governors of the States; a federalized National Guard of 250,000 men; officers' reserve corps, and a reserve officers' training corps composed of students of colleges and schools where military training was given the boys, On the sixth of March Mr. Hay, Chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs, presented a bill providing for a regular army of 143,000; a federalized National Guard which, in five years would number 400,000 men; and civilian training camps from which would come another 100,000 trained fighting men.

While the bills were under debate our countrymen were given a fine illustration of the need of preparedness. March 9, a band of Villistas, believed to be acting under orders from Villa, crossed our Mexican border, entered New Mexico, raided the town of Columbus, and killed eight soldiers and nine civilians, and the President at once announced that troops would be sent in pursuit of Villa to capture him and end his forays, and that this would be done in friendly aid of the authorities of Mexico and with scrupulous respect for the sovereignty of that republic. Carranza at once proposed an agreement under which the military forces of Mexico should be allowed to chase bandits or outlaws across the border into the United States, in return for permission for the military forces of the United States to cross the border into Mexico. March 13, our Government agreed to the proposal, and March 15 some 12,000 men under General Pershing crossed the border. Carranza on March 17 protested; complained that a false interpretation had been put on his note of the tenth; that no notification had been given to the Mexican Government, nor to the civil and military authorities of the region through which the troops were to pass, and, March 19, refused to allow supplies to be sent over the Northwestern Railway to General Pershing. While negotiations dragged along, a force of Villistas was routed by American cavalry at San Geronimo, March 29; fights and skirmishes occurred in many places during April, and May 5 some two hundred bandits crossed the border and attacked Glenn Springs, Texas. Again the Presi

dent was forced to act, and May 9 called the organized militia of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico into service, and sent them with 4,000 regulars to the border.

With this illustration of our means of defense before them, the Senate and House meanwhile labored on their bills for preparedness. March 23, the House adopted the Hay Bill. April 18, the Senate returned it with amendments providing for a regular army on a peace footing of 250,000 men, for the construction of a nitrate plant to cost $15,000,000, and for the establishment of reserve officers' training corps at universities, colleges and schools. From the conferences which followed came at last a bill providing for a regular army of 186,000; a federalized National Guard to number 425,000; officers' reserve corps for the regular army; enlisted reserve corps to supply men to the engineer, signal and quartermaster corps, medical and ordnance departments; and reserve officers' training corps at schools, colleges and universities. June 3, the President signed the bill.

CHAPTER X

PLOTS AND CRIMES ON SEA AND LAND

CONSIDERING the submarine dispute as settled, by the last of the Sussex notes the German Government bade Ambassador von Bernstorff define its position on another matter fast becoming serious, the violation of our neutrality by its consular officers and agents. The Ambassador accordingly, May 18, 1916, announced that the German Government was opposed to all plots and propaganda leading to violation of our laws and our neutrality.

"In consequence," he said, "of cases that have occurred of late, the German Ambassador has sent instructions to all the German consuls in the United States strongly to impress on German citizens living in their districts that it is their duty scrupulously to observe the laws of the states in which they reside."

German consuls needed the warning quite as much as "citizens living in their districts." It will be remembered that on December 22, 1915, Captain von Papen sailed from New York on the Oscar II. All went well with him until the steamer, January 2, 1916, touched at Falmouth, where the British seized his papers. When von Papen, according to the managing editor of World's Work, was about to depart and was packing his papers in the office of the Austrian ConsulateGeneral in New York, the stenographer, a young woman placed in the office by the Providence Journal as its secret agent, reported the contents of the box and was instructed to so mark the case that it could be identified later. "The day it was nailed up for shipment," so runs the story, "she ate her luncheon seated on the top of it. When she was in the midst of her meal von Papen came in. He asked if he might share her sandwiches. She consented. They sat on the box together.