Uncle Sam weighs the lives lost in the German sinking of the Lusitania (and other ships, as seen on the horizon) to his cash flow from selling weapons and other supplies to the combatants, particularly the allies. The moneybags have tipped the scales. A 1916 postcard by Em. Dupuis.
A l'ombre, de la LibertéIn the Shadow of LivertyOn the coffin and the ship in the distance, 'Lusitania'
"In the meantime, on 18 March [1917] came news that three American ships had been sunk in the war zone with the loss of fifteen American lives. Lansing declared that such acts amounted to 'an announcement that a state of war exists,' and House concluded that 'we are already in the war' and might as well 'throw all our resources against Germany.' Across the country newspapers clamored for war, but Wilson still hesitated."
'In the meantime' above refers to ten days, March 12 to 22, that saw the Russian Revolution, the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, and United States recognition of the new government. Russian autocracy had been one barrier to United States entry into the war, and it had been swept away. Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, renewed on February 1, 1917 and far more extensively than that of 1915, provided the greater argument for war in sinkings of American ships and loss of American lives on those and other ships. Robert Lansing was President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, Edward House his friend and advisor.
Woodrow Wilson: World Statesman by Kendrick A. Clements, page 168, copyright © 1987 by G. K. Hall & Co.; 1999 by Kendrick A. Clements, publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, publication date: 1987
1917-03-18, 1917, March, sinking, United States, neutral, neutrality, Wilson, Woodrow Wilson
