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MOST IMPORTANT CABINET MEETING OF WILSON ADMINISTRATION HELD MARCH 20, 1917, WHEN IT WAS DECIDED TO CALL CONGRESS IN SPECIAL SESSION TO DECLARE WAR—"I WANT TO DO RIGHT, WHETHER IT IS POPULAR OR NOT," SAID THE PRESIDENT—FLEET ORDERED NORTH—NAVY AND MARINE CORPS INCREASED TO EMERGENCY STRENGTH.

Tuesday, March 20, 1917, is not fixed in the war chronologies, so far as I can find. But it should be, for that was the Day of Decision. That was the occasion of the most important Cabinet meeting of the Wilson administration, in fact without doubt the most important of our generation.

Eleven days earlier the President had called Congress to meet in special session April 16th, "to receive such communication as may be made by the Executive." But events were moving rapidly. Four American vessels had been sunk without warning—the Algonquin, City of Memphis, Illinois, and Vigilancia—with the loss of American lives. German U-boats were destroying shipping by the hundred thousand tons. We had been arming merchant vessels, but it was evident that this "armed neutrality" in itself was insufficient, valuable as it was.