For the United States even to contemplate, as Germany proposed, "an alliance between Germany and the United States to break a British blockade that Germany cannot break" was viewed as unthinkable. Intellectual dishonesty, characteristic of Germany in its attitude toward the world since the war began, and especially shown in negotiations with the United States, was seen in the effort to place upon Great Britain the responsibility for wrongs committed by Germany against the United States and in the renewed attempt to convict the American Government of lapses because it has not controlled Great Britain's sea policy. In fact, the attempt to dictate the American attitude to Great Britain in return for a promise to restrict submarine warfare was generally resented as an impertinence. When all was said, however, the German reply, although having the appearance of being as little conciliatory as words could make it, did in fact yield to President Wilson on the main issue. The President, in considering this view, was guided by Ambassador Gerard's dispatches reporting his interview with the kaiser on the submarine crisis. The kaiser, he said, was animated by a keen desire that relations between the two Governments should continue amicable, but he felt that German public opinion must be considered in making concessions to the United States. From the kaiser's concern for popular approval the ambassador gathered that the German Government faced the necessity of so wording its answer to the United States that the German people would not feel that the Government had been forced to modify the rules under which submarines operated. The Administration received the impression that Germany would go to great length to avoid a rupture with the United States, and the German note must therefore be construed in the light of this feeling. The kaiser's views, as transmitted by the ambassador, tended to soften the irritating tone and language of the German note, and was not without effect on the President and cabinet when they determined to accept it provisionally. The President decided to ignore the pointed suggestion of Germany that the United States should now seek to prevail on Great Britain to abandon her blockade of Germany. One source of irritation caused by the note was the statement that should the United States fail to raise the British embargo "the German Government would then be facing a new situation in which it must reserve to itself complete liberty of action." The Administration had no intention of accepting any conditional compliance with its demand for the abandoning of illegal submarine warfare; but the opinion officially prevailed that this effort of Germany to lecture the United States as to its duty toward another nation might be overlooked in view of the accomplishment of the main object for which the Administration had been contending.