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| Wikimedia image from the London Illustrated News |
A weak America does seem to invite ill treatment from enemies.
I blame President Woodrow Wilson. And I'm not the only one.
On 21 June 1915, former president Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a letter to John H. Lorimer of the Union League Club in Philadelphia: "Personally I do not believe that Wilson was right on the Lusitania matter. Had he acted with reasonable firmness in the Gulflight business the thousand men, women and children who were murdered on the Lusitania on the high seas would be alive today."
The Gulflight tanker bound for France had been torpedoed by German U-Boat U-30 on 1 May 1915, in spite of America's neutrality. When Germany announced its sink-all-shipping policy, Wilson did not protest. When Gulflight was sunk, Wilson did not protest. In true progressive style, he put his best people on it to gather information. A week later they were gathering more than information -- they were recovering bodies.
"Had he acted with reasonable firmness..."
"To forgive and forget is to surrender dearly bought experience."
-- Shopenhauer
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