A war crime – and a president’s dilemma

From ‘Germany and the United States’, The Spectator, 15 May 1915: The text of President Wilson’s Note to Germany on the sinking of the Lusitania has not been published at the time when we write, but there is no doubt that the unofficial summaries convey its sense accurately enough. It asks that some assurance shall be given that in future unarmed merchantmen carrying noncombatants shall be searched by the German Navy, and that the passengers and crew shall be transferred to a place of safety, before the prize is destroyed…