First, then, let me picture the background of public opinion toward Germany and the Germans as I saw it before the war began. Inasmuch as one’s vision may be affected favourably or unfavourably by his personal experiences, it is only fair that I state briefly my own experiences with people of German birth or parentage. One of my earliest recollections is of a German maid in our household who taught me to make my wants known in the German language, and also taught me to love her as I did members of my own family. In college, one of my two favourite professors and one of my college chums were of German parentage. Both these men are still valued friends, and both believe in the righteousness of Germany’s cause. I have spent parts of three summers in Germany, and have many German friends, both in America and in Europe. The two Europeans in my special field of science for whom I have the greatest personal affection are German professors in Berlin and Leipzig respectively. I have more personal friends in the German army than in the Allied armies. My sister is married to a professor of German descent and German sympathies. Surely, therefore, if personal relationships prejudice me at all, they should prejudice me in favour of Germans and things German.

In my opinion, the American estimate of Germany and her citizens prior to the war was, in general, most favourable. Certainly America looked with admiration upon the remarkable advance achieved by Germany in the short space of forty years. To your universities we have always acknowledged a great debt. We have profited much by your advances in economic lines and admired the combination of scientific research and business which made your countrymen efficient in many lines. The large number of your people who have emigrated to America have, in the main, made good citizens, and we have welcomed them as among the best of the foreigners who flock to our shores. German music and German musicians find nowhere a more cordial welcome than here where admiration for their achievements is unstinted. Nor have we forgotten the heroic services of the many Germans who laid down their lives in defence of our flag, that the Union might live. The Germans’ love of honour and family has touched the American heart in a tender spot, and many of my acquaintances admit that with no other foreigners do they establish such intimate and affectionate relations as with their German friends.

This admiration and friendship has not blinded us to certain defects in the German character, any more than has your friendship for Americans closed your eyes to our defects. The bad manners of Germans are proverbial, not only among Americans, but all over the world; so much so that certain German writers, admitting that Germans as a nation are ill-mannered, have sought to find in this fact an explanation for the world-wide antagonism toward Germany’s policy in the war. I do not believe, however, that, so far as American sentiment is concerned, there is any considerable element of truth in this explanation. It is true that we do not like the lack of respect accorded to women by the average German; that the position of woman in Germany seems to us anomalous in a nation claiming a superior type of civilisation; that the bumptious attitude of the German “intellectual” amuses or disgusts us; and that the insolence of your young officers who elbow us off the sidewalks in your cities makes us long to meet those individuals again outside the boundaries of Germany, where no military Government, jealous of their “honour,” could protect them from the thrashing they deserve. It is also true that, at international congresses, excursions and banquets, attended by both men and women representatives of all nations, the Germans have gained an unenviable reputation for bad manners because they have pushed themselves into the best places, crowded into the trains ahead of the women, and generally ignored the courtesies due to ladies and gentlemen associated with them. But, in spite of our full recognition of this undesirable national trait, I doubt whether any great number of Americans have permitted a dislike of German manners to affect their opinion as to German morals in the conduct of war, though some do hold that lack of good manners is a characteristic mark of inferior civilisation. On the whole, we have been inclined to be tolerant of German rudeness, regarding it as in part due to the rapid material development of a young nation, and possibly as, in part, the result of over-aggressiveness fostered by a military training.

It is only fair to say, also, that our admiration of Germany’s achievements in art, literature, and science never led us so far as to accept the claim of superiority in these lines advanced by many Germans on behalf of their country. The insistence with which this claim has been reiterated and proclaimed abroad by Germans, often with more of patriotism than of good taste, may have led a part of the public to believe it. But the more intelligent and thoughtful portion of the people, accustomed to analyse such claims by careful comparison with the products of non-Teutonic civilisation, has been unable to find any adequate basis for the assumed superiority. Indeed, while intelligent and fair-minded Americans are not slow to recognise Germany’s great contributions to the world’s art, literature, and science, they believe that, with the possible exception of music, greater contributions have been made in these lines by France, England, and other nations. In the realm of invention, we fully appreciate the skill and resourcefulness manifested by the German people in adapting new discoveries to their own needs; but we cannot deny the fact that most of the discoveries which have played so vital a part in the development of modern civilisation have been made, not in Germany, but in other countries.

In regard to municipal government and various forms of social legislation, we have long recognised the high position held by your nation. But in the more vital matter of the relation of the individual to the supreme governing power, we have always held, and still believe, that Germany is sadly reactionary. For half a century your professors, in the employ of an educational system controlled by a bureaucratic Government, have taught what we condemn as a false philosophy of government. Your histories, your books on philosophy, your whole literature, glorify the State; and you have accepted the dangerous doctrine that the individual exists to serve the State, forgetting that the State is not the mystical, divine thing you picture it, but a government carried on by human beings like yourselves, most of them reasonably upright, but some incompetent and others deliberately bad, just like any other human government. We believe that the only excuse for the existence of the State is to serve the individual, to create conditions which will insure the greatest liberty and highest possible development to the individual citizen. It has never seemed to us creditable to the German intellect that it could be satisfied with a theory of government outgrown by most other civilised nations. That you should confuse efficiency with freedom has always seemed to us a tragic mistake, and never so tragic as now, when a small coterie of human beings, subject to the same mistakes and sins as other human beings, can hurl you into a terrible war before you know what has happened, clap on a rigid censorship to keep out any news they do not want you to learn, then publish a white book which pretends to explain the causes of the war, but omits documents of the most vital importance, thereby causing the people of a confiding nation to drench the earth with their life-blood in the fond illusion that the war was forced upon them, and that they are fighting for a noble cause. Most pitiful is the sad comment of an intelligent German woman in a letter recently received in this country: “We, of course, only see such things as the Government thinks best. We were told that this war was purely a defensive one, forced upon us. I begin to believe this may not be true, but hope for a favourable ending.”

Certainly in what you wrote to me you were thoroughly sincere and honest; yet your letter was full of untrue statements because you were dependent for your information upon a Government-controlled press which has misled you for military and political reasons. How can a nation know the truth, think clearly, and act righteously when a few men, called the “State,” can commit you to the most serious enterprise in your history without your previous knowledge or consent, and can then keep you in ignorance of vitally important documents and activities in order to insure your full support of their perilous undertaking? Such is the thought which has always led America to denounce as false the old theory of “divine right of kings,” long imposed upon the German people in the more subtle and, therefore, more dangerous form of “the divine right of the State.” Our conviction that such a government as yours is reactionary and incompatible with true liberty, and that it stunts and warps the intellects of its citizens, has been amply confirmed by extended observation in your country, and more particularly by the unanswerable fact that millions of your best blood, including distinguished men of intelligence and wealth, have forsaken Germany to seek true liberty of intellect and action in America, renouncing allegiance to the Fatherland to become citizens here. Some of them still love the scenes of their childhood, but few of them would be willing to return to a life under such a Government as Germany possesses.

To summarise what I said above: Americans, prior to the war, admired the remarkable advances made by Germany in recent years in economic and commercial lines; held in high regard your universities and many of your university professors; loved your music, and felt most cordial toward the millions of Germans who came to live among us and share the benefits of our free institutions. The prevalence of bad manners among Germans we regretted, but made allowance for this defect; and we did not fail to recognise that some Germans are fine gentlemen of the most perfect culture, while most of them have traits of character which we admired.

We recognised the immense value of Germany’s contributions to art, literature, and science, but did not consider Germany’s contributions in these lines as equal to those of other nations. We never have regarded German culture as superior, but rather as inferior, to that of certain other countries; and the Germans’ loud claims to superiority have seemed to us egotistical and the result of a weak point in the German character. For your form of government and the philosophy of history taught by your university professors we could never have much admiration or respect. Both seemed to us unworthy of an intelligent, civilised people, and sure to lead to disaster. Your military preparations, evident to every observant visitor, have long caused us to distrust your Government and to consider your country a menace to the world’s peace. In a word, we admired and loved your people, although we considered them neither perfect nor even superior to other people; but we disapproved and distrusted your reactionary military Government.