argument was based upon the practice of international law, but the
American reply was based upon the commercial advantages enjoyed by the
ammunition shippers.'"

April 24th was von Tirpitz day. It was the anniversary of the entrance
of the Grand Admiral in the German Navy fifty years before, and the
eighteenth anniversary of his debut in the cabinet, a record for a
German Minister of Marine. There was tremendous rejoicing throughout
the country, and the Admiral, who spent his Prussian birthday at the
Navy Department, was overwhelmed with congratulations. Headed by the
Kaiser, telegrams came from every official in Germany. The press paid
high tribute to his blockade, declaring that it was due to him alone
that England was so terror-stricken by submarines.

I was not in Germany very long until I was impressed by the remarkable
control the Government had on public opinion by censorship of the
press. People believe, without exception, everything they read in the
newspapers. And I soon discovered that the censor was so accustomed to
dealing with German editors that he applied the same standards to the
foreign correspondents. A reporter could telegraph not what he
observed and heard, but what the censors desired American readers to
hear and know about Germany.

[Illustration: A Berlin "Extra"]

I was in St. Quentin, France (which the Germans on their 1917
withdrawal set on fire) at the headquarters of General von Below, when
news came May 8th that the _Lusitania_ was torpedoed. I read the
bulletins as they arrived. I heard the comments of the Germans who
were waging war in an enemy country. I listened as they spoke of the