It authorized the expenditure of over nineteen billions of dollars ($19,321,225,208).

Including the amount appropriated at the second session of the preceeding congress, the amount reached the unheard of total of over twenty-one billions of dollars ($21,390,730,940).
German intrigues and German ruthlessness created an additional stench in the nostrils of civilization when on September 8, the United States made public the celebrated "Spurlos Versenkt" telegram which had come into its possession.

It is a German phrase meaning "sunk without leaving a trace" and was contained in a telegram from Luxburg, the German minister at Buenos Aires.

The telegram (of May 19, 1917) advised that Argentine steamers "be spared if possible or else sunk without a trace being left." The advice was repeated July 9.

The Swedish minister at Buenos Aires sent these messages in code as though they were his own private dispatches.
On August 26, the British Admiralty had communicated to the International Conference of Merchant Seaman, a statement of the facts in twelve cases of sinkings during the previous seven months in which it was shown how "spurlos versenkt" was applied.