view, the savage contempt that filled my heart left little room for other considerations. The men standing before me, every one husky, healthy, and within the military age, were holding down their peace-time jobs, while others sailed across the sea to offer their lives on the altar of American ideals. Surely the least that they could do was to think in terms of helpfulness, yet there they were, fairly quivering with eagerness to attack, to decry, and to defame.
The two words, "cryptic" and "elaboration," were fatal. Although only the three or four reporters saw me, virtually every paper carried a story the following day in which I was actually quoted as having admitted that the Gleaves cable was "cryptic" and that I "elaborated" it in the sense of supplying facts and details out of my own fancy. Senator Penrose, an ancient enemy, rose joyfully to take advantage of the opportunity for a display of scurvy partizanship. His resolution not only called for an investigation of the "Fourth of July fake," but for an inquiry into every act and activity of the Committee. Reed, Watson, Johnson, and other Senators with old angers to satisfy, joined in the attack and the press came in as chorus.
What gave a touch of malignancy to the whole affair was that reports fully corroborating Secretary Daniels's statement were regularly pouring in from independent sources. As early as July 7th The New York Times carried an account of the attack on the transports, written by its Paris correspondent. The New York World a few days later printed an interview with "the captain of an American ship" telling of the encounters and quoting him to the effect that "almost every vessel in the convoy was fired at by the U-boats, but American gunners proved too quick for the Germans." The correspondent of The Philadelphia Public Ledger cabled a graphic story of submarine
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