Up to the time the United States entered the war, Germany, in spite of the watchful British fleet, had been obtaining large supplies from the United States through Holland, Denmark, and the Scandinavian peninsula.

But the United States now immediately closed these leaks.

In the main this country adopted a policy of "rationing"; that is, it would furnish the little nations adjoining Germany precisely the amount of food which they needed for their own consumption.

This policy was one of the chief influences in undermining the German people and forcing their surrender.

The American Government extended likewise the blacklist to South America and other countries, and, in doing so, it bettered the instruction of Great Britain herself.
Though the whole story of the blockade thus seems finally to have ended in a joke, the whole proceeding has its serious side.