Wilson asks Congress to arm merchant ships

At one o’clock in the afternoon on 26 February 1917 President Woodrow Wilson appeared for the second time that month before a joint session of Congress. He recalled that on 3 February, when he broke off relations with Germany, he had said he would return if Germany began sinking American ships and killing Americans. Now he asked for authority to supply merchant ships, if necessary, with defensive arms and the men to use them, and to employ “any other instrumentalities or methods” that might prove necessary to protect American ships and citizens at sea. He also asked for credit for these purposes, including insurance against war risks.

The President admitted that the “overt act” which he hoped the Germans would avoid had not yet occurred. Submarines had indeed sunk two American ships: on 3 February the freighter Housatonic, whose crew was saved, and on 12 February the schooner Lyman M. Law, carrying staves for lemon boxes to Sicily. In neither case was anyone killed. Something else was more dangerous: American shipowners were unwilling to send their ships to sea without insurance and protection, so they lay in port, and goods piled up in the congested harbours. According to Wilson, this alone might give Germany what it wanted to achieve by submarine warfare. Moreover, the term of Congress expired by constitutional limitation on 4 March, and assembling and organising a new one would take a long time. The President stressed that he probably had the necessary powers even without a special act, but preferred to act with the backing of Congress.

“It may be that we shall have nothing left but an armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is abundant American precedent,” he said. He assured his listeners that he was not proposing war or any steps that need lead to it. “War can come only by the wilful acts and aggressions of others.” The President did not mention that he already knew of the Zimmermann Telegram with its German offer of an alliance to Mexico. The British had passed it to the American ambassador in London, and his cable had reached Washington on the evening of 24 February. That same day news reached Washington that during the night a submarine had torpedoed the British liner Laconia off the coast of Ireland, with Americans also on board.

Filibuster

The bill quickly met resistance. Some Republican senators had earlier announced that they would drag out the debate on important bills until the end of the term, in order to force the President to call a special session of the new Congress and not leave him a free hand for many months. Opponents of the war feared that armed ships would sooner or later clash with submarines and drag the country into war. Wilson sharply criticised these intentions in a statement on 26 February itself.

On 1 March, the day the press published the Zimmermann Telegram, the House of Representatives passed the bill by 403 votes to 13. It removed, however, the authority to use “other instrumentalities or methods” and banned insurance for ships carrying munitions. In the Senate a small group of senators, led by the Republican Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, spoke through the night until noon on 4 March, when the term expired and the bill died. That same day Wilson declared: “A little group of wilful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.” A few days later the new Senate for the first time adopted a rule allowing debate to be closed by a two-thirds majority.

The President had his way all the same. In mid-March, invoking his own powers, he ordered guns and naval guards to be placed on merchant ships sailing through the war zone. Armed neutrality, however, did not last long. When submarines sank more American ships in March, Wilson judged it ineffective, and on 2 April he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.