The President could not believe it until assured that the information was contained in a formal note already before the State Department. Cabinet members likewise received the news with expressions of amazement. On every hand, in official circles, the first opinion formed without detailed consideration, was that diplomatic relations with Germany would be broken if the terms of the decree were carried out.

In the case of the United States, the decision as to what the course of the American government shall be based on, is still the purpose of the imperial government to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines without regard to what the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue. Unless the imperial government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the government of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German empire altogether. 