Such was our attitude when the war burst upon the world. Since that time what opportunities have the American people had to form an intelligent opinion as to who was wrong and who was right? What sources of information have been open to us, what means of getting at the facts? Have we been drowned in English lies, as several of your professors have written me is the case? Have we relied on one corrupt party newspaper, as you intimate is our habit? Have we been dependent on a press bought up with English gold, as is continually asserted by the German press?

In the first place, we have relied in part upon our previous knowledge of the German Government and the German people. The hundreds of Americans who have studied in your universities, the thousands who have visited your country, and the millions who have come into close contact with Germans in this country, all have a pretty good idea of the German type of mind, German standards of national morality, German virtues and defects. Americans have, of course, used this information in reaching a conclusion as to the truth or falsehood of charges against Germany. I talked with some of our American professors just as they landed on the pier in New York fresh from a summer in Germany which was cut short by the outbreak of the war. They came direct from your country and were as fully informed of the German points of view right up to the declaration of war as were any of your citizens. Many Americans who have spent months and even years on German soil, and who know the country and the people intimately, have made us well acquainted with German standards and German methods of thinking.

It is true that since the war began much of our news has come through cables controlled by the Allies; but Americans have too much common sense to accept such reports as final. News from biassed sources is always accepted with reservation, and not fully believed unless confirmed from independent sources. Furthermore, Americans have never lacked for first-hand information from Germany. Direct wireless reports from your country to several stations in America have given us a valuable check on cable reports. German papers come to us regularly, and are continually and extensively quoted. Germany has sent special agents to this country to represent her side of every issue. The speeches and writings of these agents have been published repeatedly and at length in almost every paper in our country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. American correspondents in Germany and in the war-zone have told as much as your censors would permit concerning what they saw of Germany and Germany’s army. Many Americans have returned from Germany during the war, and have published their experiences and impressions. Some of them have seen your army at work, suffered from its inhumanity, and been subjected to outrages and indignities by the civil officials of your Government. Others were dined and honoured as notable guests and given unusual opportunities for seeing as much as your officials wanted them to see. Both have offered valuable first-hand testimony as to the behaviour of the German nation at war. Your university professors and other prominent citizens of your country have written us circular and private letters without number, presenting Germany’s arguments in every conceivable form. Your Ambassador and other officials of your Government have been most active in keeping first-hand information before the American public. Thousands of your reservists, unable to cross the sea in safety, remain in this country to talk and write in behalf of their Fatherland.

In addition to all this, Germany’s cause has been most vigorously championed by many Germans and German-Americans long resident in America. Muensterberg and others have published numerous articles and books in Germany’s favour. Every possible plea to justify Germany’s position has been enthusiastically spread abroad by the German-American press, and with that love of “fair play” which is a widely-recognised characteristic of Americans, even those papers which believe Germany responsible for the war and its worst horrors, have printed volumes of material from pro-German authors in order that the whole truth might be known by a full and free discussion of both sides of every question. I have read many pro-German articles in the New York Times, the New York Sun, the Outlook, and other papers and magazines opposed to German policy articles by Muensterberg, Kuno Franke, Von Bernstorff, Dernburg, and other staunch defenders of Germany. The columns of our papers are freely open to every authoritative champion of the German cause, no matter what the editorial policy of the papers may be. Never was fuller and freer opportunity for defence accorded to anyone than has been given to the friends of Germany to present in print to the American public every possible justification for Germany’s acts. Only the grossest ignorance of the actual facts could ever lead anyone to make the charge in good faith that the truth about Germany has been concealed from Americans. Your letter did not contain a single statement or argument that has not been printed over and over again in papers from one end of America to the other by various defenders of the German cause. Germany’s official documents issued in defence of her position at the beginning of the war, her charges of atrocities against her enemies and her supposed proofs of the falsity of atrocity charges against the Germans, have all been published fully and widely, although you seem not to be aware of this fact.

Still further, in addition to the legitimate publicity in favour of Germany related above, there has been forced upon the American public the most stupendous propaganda which the world has ever witnessed. Millions of dollars have been spent by German agents in a colossal endeavour to shape public opinion. America has been literally deluged with leaflets, pamphlets, books, articles, and advertisements, subsidised by these propagandists. Money has been lavishly spent in every form of appeal which might be expected to turn American sentiment against the Allies and in favour of the Teutons. Contributions have been widely solicited to finance this propaganda, and one of my colleagues in Columbia is among those bearing German names who, in published letters, have refused to support this moneyed campaign, engineered by German agents. Strikes have been organised in our factories, newspapers have been subsidised, labour orators have been employed to incite trouble, all with gold supplied from Teutonic sources. Ambassador Dumba was forced to leave this country because of the capture of secret letters revealing plots to organise strikes in our munitions factories, to buy up orators to incite workmen to discontent, and to pay newspapers for advancing the German propaganda. For all of this the Austrian Government was to supply the necessary funds. German spies now in our prisons have admitted that they were sent here by high German officials and provided with ample supplies of money to engage in secret plots against our neutrality with the object of stopping munition shipments. German officials in this country have admitted handling millions of dollars in illegal operations carried on in defiance of our laws and in insolent disregard of international diplomatic courtesy. Our courts have convicted and sentenced to 18 months’ penal servitude three high German officials of the Hamburg-American Steamship Line for a conspiracy to help German warships in defiance of our laws. These officials admitted spending nearly two million dollars of German gold in this illegal work. Our detectives estimate that German authorities have spent twenty-seven million dollars in America alone to influence us against the Allies, to stir up trouble against us in labour circles, and to foment a revolution in Mexico to our embarrassment. Our Government asked that the German Military and Naval Attaches be removed from this country because of their insolent violations of our neutrality, by activities in connection with which they handled immense sums of German gold for the propaganda to influence us against England and in favour of Germany.

For every pamphlet, paper, or article sent to me by English, French, Russian, and Italian organisations I get several dozen from German organisations. I get but a few circulars a month from Allied countries. Not a week passes that I do not receive many from German sources. America has been flooded with German propagandist literature; very little ever comes from other countries. Full-page advertisements, paid by German agents, have appeared repeatedly in American papers, urging the merits of Germany’s case. I have never seen one on behalf of the Allies. All over New York City, before I left for my summer vacation, were giant posters on the billboards, put there by a pro-German society, urging the people to ask President Wilson to stop the exportation of arms to Germany’s enemies. I have never seen one poster of any kind put up by friends of the Allies. Indeed, America has been so deluged with German propaganda and German-paid advertisements, and requests for money to carry on the propaganda in favour of Germany, that the whole nation has become heartily sick of it, and has urged the Government to expel from the country some of your agents who have been particularly offensive in carrying on such a propaganda among our citizens. German gold, not English gold, has been lavishly used to influence American opinion. Our Government has had to employ a special detective force to discover and destroy the many plots in which German and Austrian gold has been lavishly used to influence opinion and action in America; and from other neutral countries comes abundant evidence that the same stupendous propaganda, to turn opinion and action in favour of Germany, has been carried on everywhere, with an audacity and utter disregard of cost which has astonished the world. In the face of such facts as these the German outcry against “English gold” has seemed wholly insincere, and little less than ridiculous.

Finally, American opinion has been based more than all else on Germany’s official communications, directly addressed to our Government, on certain acts which Germany has admitted, and on the nature of the defence and excuses offered by the German Government in palliation of those acts. You must not forget that the many lengthy notes addressed by your Government to Americans have been published in full in American papers. The outcry against English gold, against cable dispatches altered by the English, and against corrupt newspaper publishers cannot be raised in connection with diplomatic correspondence transmitted direct to your Ambassador here. This authentic, official correspondence has given us an excellent measure of the standards of morality and humanity which actuate the present German Government. Our opinion of Germany has been profoundly influenced by these official documents.

Germany has committed certain acts which are freely admitted by your Government. A nation, like a man, is judged by its deeds. After all excuses and explanations are made, the deeds remain. Americans have read the excuses and the explanations fully and repeatedly; and with these excuses and explanations in mind have formed an opinion of the power responsible for the deeds. No English gold, no manipulated cable dispatches can have had anything to do with that opinion. The deeds themselves have been the supreme force in shaping American opinion of Germany. Germany has defended the many acts which have brought down upon her the contempt and opprobrium of the entire civilised world. As you well know, one of the best tests of a man’s morals is the kind of a defence he offers for his acts. Americans have read most carefully the many defences offered by your Chancellor, your Minister of Foreign Affairs, your Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, your official spokesmen sent to this country, and your Ambassador here; and in the notes sent officially and directly to our Government by your Government. We have formed an opinion of the moral standards of the Government which makes and approves of such defences.

I believe you must, in sincerity and frankness, admit that the American public has had many sources of information open to it in forming its opinions about Germany. Indeed, with a free press, a large German population absolutely free from censorship or restrictions of any kind, and a Government which does not need to suppress facts for military or political reasons, we are in a far better position to learn the whole truth about Germany than are the German people themselves.