OUTBURST OF INDIGNATION IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15913, 10 May 1915, Page 7

OUTBURST OF INDIGNATION IN AMERICA.

OFFICIALS AWAITING REPORT OF BRITISH ADMIRALTY

NEWSPAPERS VIGOROUSLY CONDEMN CALLOUS, MURDER.

MR. ROOSEVELT DEMANDS THAT ACTION BE TAKEN.

(Received May 9, 7.30 p.m.)

New York, May 8.

There is a disposition among the high officials to await the British Admiralty's report on the sinking of the Lusitania before expressing

an opinion

When informed that the Lusitania was sunk, President Wilson refused to make any comments.

The ex-President, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, states that the sinking of the Lusitania represents piracy and a vaster scale of murder than any old-time pirate ever practised. "It seems inconceivable," said Mr. Roosevelt, " that we can refrain* from action. We owe it both to humanity and to our national self-respect."

The press demands that the United States take immediate steps to safeguard the lives of its citizens travelling abroad. It is pointed out that the United States has never recognised a war zone around Britain. The press refers to the German Embassy's warning to the passengers on the Lusitania to refrain from making the voyage as evidence of a plot known to the Germans weeks ahead.

The New York Herald says that the sinking of the lasitania is a cold-blooded and premeditated outrage. The warning letters and telegrams, revealing that German contemplated this high-handed and bloody act, reveal a callousness that makes one turn away sickened as from the work of wholesale human butchers of mediaeval days. The article says that a way out may be found tor the United States with dignity and honour, but without bloodshed.

The New York Times, in an article headed "War by Assassination," says that in the history of war no single deed is comparable in its inhumanity with this horror, Germany has fallen within the scope of Mr. Wilson's admonition, and there must be a further communication to Germany, ana something more than protest. It is to be hoped that the notice America will be compelled to take of this outrage will recall the Germans to some tense of reason.

The World says that the Germans, in extenuation, claim that fair warning was given. Yet a murder does not become innocent or innocuous because the victim was warned, and because he persisted in exercising his lawful right. No single act of the war has so outraged American opinion and ; so riddled Germany's prestige. It will be decades before Germany will live down her criminal record. The Bishop of London, in a message cabled to the New York Tribune, says that the sinking of the liner is a colossal crime, which will stain the reputation of its perpetrators for ever. One official in Washington was told positively on Friday morning that the Lusitania's destruction was fixed for that day. v