No further interchanges took place on the subject. The answer clarified the situation and disposed of doubts caused by the veil the President had thrown about the workings of his mind. It told the country that its Executive was not wavering and would brook no compromise.
Little hope prevailed in Berlin that war with the United States could be avoided, since the bait offered with a view to formulating a _modus vivendi_ for reconciling the divergent attitudes of the two governments had failed. It was said that behind Dr. Ritter's overtures was a proposal that American vessels would be spared in order to avoid actual war if the United States assented to the continuance of the extended blockade against England. This implied that all other vessels, neutral or belligerent, were marked for destruction. However that might be, Berlin, finding its approaches repulsed, boldly denied that the German Government had been a party to initiating any overtures at all. No recession of the submarine program was thought of or proposed; no change of policy was possible In fact, this denial brought with it tidings that the periods of grace Germany granted to neutral ships entering the prohibited zones had expired and that all immunity from attack and destruction had therefore ceased. Then it developed that Dr. Ritter's overtures had been traced to pacific elements in the United States, represented by William J. Bryan, who was said to have been in league with the ex-ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, and the Washington correspondent of a Cologne newspaper, in a plan to avert hostilities. Part of this propaganda was the transmission of dispatches from Washington to the German press stating that the President's message to Congress must not be construed literally, and that there was no desire for war with Germany. The purpose of these dispatches was to prevail on Germany to abate her submarine warfare by way of convincing the United States that her new policy was not so ruthless as had been described. The pacifists knew very well that the President had no intention of yielding to half measures, and that the only course Germany could take to obtain a resumption of negotiations was the absolute withdrawal of her order revoking the _Sussex_ pledge. The Administration resented the pacifists' activities as an attempt to undermine the uncompromising position it had taken. Their dealings with a foreign government were actually unlawful; but no action was taken.
