I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved,
immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of
noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest
periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of
peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a
warfare against mankind.