(Tumulty gives a profound nod, paying his chief the compliment of letting it be seen that he is causing him to think deeply.)
That’s what happened here. Do you remember, did you realise, Tumulty, what a power my voice was in the world—till we went in?—that, because I had the power to keep them back from war (for there my constitutional prerogative was absolute), even my opponents had to give weight to my words. They were angry, impatient, but they had to obey. And, because they could not help themselves, they accepted point by point my building up of the justice of our cause. They didn’t care for justice; but I spoke for the Nation then; and, with justice as my one end, I drove home my point. And then—we went in. After that, justice became vengeance. When our men went over the trenches, fighting with short arms, “Lusitania!” was their cry: and they took few prisoners—you know that, Tumulty.
(Over that point the Ex-President pauses, though Tumulty sees no special reason why he should pause.)
The Lusitania had been sunk, and still we had not gone to war, and no crowds came to cry it madly outside the White House as they might have done—if that was how they felt then. The Lusitania lies at the bottom of the sea. There are proposals for salving her; but I think that there she will remain. The salving might tell too much.
TUMULTY. You mean that talk about fuse caps being on board might have been true? Would it matter now?