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. The "overt act" had occurred. The Germans were sinking our ships, killing our citizens on the high seas. There were matters of vital importance to be discussed when the Cabinet met. Congress had already been summoned to meet within a month. But every day counted. Should the special session be called at an earlier date? What message should be sent to Congress in view of the situation? These were the questions propounded by the President, who was grave, feeling the deep sense of responsibility. He wished every member of the Cabinet to state his conviction of the national duty, he told us, and each spoke from his standpoint. I have often wished that it might have been possible to preserve a record of Cabinet meetings, particularly in the months preceding and during the war. If the American people could have seen the President and heard him as he spoke to us on March 20th, they would have felt a confidence and admiration which nothing else could have imparted. I do not feel at liberty to give from memory what he said, or the statements of the ten members of the Cabinet. His severest critics have praised President Wilson's power to express national sentiment and set forth problems and solutions in living sentences in his public addresses. That power was even more markedly displayed in the bosom of his official family. That day he began by sketching the steps this country had taken to protect American lives. He was disinclined to the final break. As he so often did in laying weighty matters before the cabinet, Mr. Wilson clearly stated the events culminating in repeated sinking of American ships by German submarines, and then, with a sort of seeming detachment, invited the views of the Cabinet.