During the first months of the war the German propaganda, carried on with extraordinary activity, was easily able to deceive a considerable part of American opinion as to the true origin of, and the responsibility for, the carnage going on in Europe. Afterwards, when the war dragged on, and the Allies placed considerable orders in the United States, the understrappers of the professional German spies engaged in an extraordinary series of outrages in order to terrorize the American workmen employed in executing the orders of the Allies. The object of these acts of violence, combined with the frivolous and interminable discussions which Count Bernstorff carried on with the Government of Washington, was first to induce the United States to issue an order prohibiting the Allies from arming their merchant ships for the purpose of self-defence against the German submarines; second, to persuade the Americans that the blockade of Germany by England was maintained in a manner contrary to the rules of international law; third, to slacken or stop the production of munitions of war destined for the Allies; and lastly, supposing that the principal acquisitions contemplated by Pangermany had been effected in Europe, to induce President Wilson to intervene in favour of peace under colour of putting an end to the European butchery—an intervention which, if it took place, would have the practical result of opening the negotiations for peace under conditions eminently favourable to the German plans of annexation.
But at last the crimes of violence committed by the Germans in the United States opened the eyes of the American people and roused them to anger. We must understand that it was only gradually, and in spite of great difficulties, that the real citizens of the United States, hemmed in by the German organization as by a ring fence, were able to acquire true notions as to the European war. This progress of American opinion was further retarded by the circumstance that before the war, for various reasons, the Allied countries unquestionably occupied a much lower place in the esteem of the United States than Germany, which had gained for herself very great prestige by her extraordinary activity in commerce, industry, and science.
As to Russia, the Americans knew scarcely anything about it except the hardships of which the Jews in that country complained. As many of these people have emigrated to the United States, and there exercise a great influence on the press, they have naturally fostered anything but a sympathy for the Empire of the Tsars. The Irish-Americans devoted themselves to the similar task of blackening England, from which the United States had in days gone by to extort her independence. As to France, the Americans, on the faith of superficial observations, considered her to be in a state of hopeless decadence. The flagrant atrocity of the prodigious German crimes committed in the United States; on the high seas against neutral passengers; in Belgium against the Belgians; in Serbia against the Serbians; in Armenia against the Armenians; and, on the other hand, the magnificent resistance of the Allies, these things have at last produced a revulsion of feeling. The prejudices of the Americans against Russia and England have been to a great extent mitigated, and the grand, the noble attitude of the people of France, the tenacity and the heroism of her soldiers, have proved that France is far indeed from decadent. To-day we may say, for it is the truth, that France has won the deep and enthusiastic admiration of all the really independent American citizens of the United States. This progressive change of opinion has ranged the Americans more and more on the side of the Allies.
But American opinion has still one stage to travel. It is this. The American people must understand with the utmost clearness that the victory of Germany would unquestionably mean the end of the independence of the United States. Indeed, some Americans, more clearsighted than the rest, have already travelled this last stage on the road to truth. In March, 1916, Dr. Elliot, formerly President of Harvard University, and an intimate friend, we are told, of President Wilson, declared in the New York Times: “The quickest, the best, the surest means for Americans to defend themselves against a German invasion is to conclude with France and England a permanent alliance, offensive and defensive, having for its aim the maintenance of the freedom of the seas for the Allies, and resistance to any maritime attack. It is time for all Americans to take sides openly with the European peoples who for so many long months have been standing up against the military despotism of Prussia.” (Quoted by Le Temps, 15th March, 1916.)
Dr. Elliot has thus stated in terms as exact as they are complete the real problem which the Americans have to solve. Clearly it reached far beyond the controversies about the submarine warfare. It is not enough, indeed, for the Americans to constitute themselves the champions of right and justice against Teutonic barbarity; they must understand that the maintenance of the independence of the United States absolutely depends on the complete victory of the Allies in Europe. Already many Americans come near to accepting this view. Thus at Carnegie Hall, New York, at the end of May, 1916, Major Putnam, addressing 3000 members of the “Committee of American Rights,” excited great enthusiasm by demanding that America should at once take part in the war on the side of the Allies. His chief argument was: “If Germany wins in this war, her next aggression will be against our Republic.” (Quoted by Le Temps, May 22nd, 1916.)
But these clear ideas, involving immediate and decisive action, are as yet shared only by a minority of Americans, better informed than the rest.
The progress of American opinion in general will be complete when from a general view of the facts of the war, as these have occurred in America as well as in Europe, the people shall logically infer the formidable consequences which a German victory would entail on the United States.
That general view, which the great American Republic will probably take in time, is as follows. It will necessarily be based on an exact knowledge of the German plan for dealing with the United States, a plan, by the way, which is of long standing.
In 1898, before Manilla, the German Rear-Admiral von Goetzen, a friend of the Kaiser, said to the American Admiral Dewey: “In about fifteen years my country will begin a great war.... Some months after we have done our business in Europe we shall take New York and probably Washington, and we shall keep them for a time. We do not intend to take any territory from you, but only to put your country in its proper place with reference to Germany. We shall extract one or two billions of dollars from New York and other towns.” (See Naval and Military Record, quoted by L’Echo de Paris, September 24th, 1915.) These words at the time were regarded as mere gasconade. But now it is indisputable that even before 1898 the Germans of Berlin had, by means of the processes described above (p. 200), been systematically laying the foundations of a State within the United States, a State that has long been silently sapping the ground on which stands the American Republic.
A multitude of recent and striking facts—pressure brought to bear on politicians, monster strikes, plots and outrages against public order executed by order of the official agents of the Kaiser, such as von Papen, Boy-Ed, von Igel, &c—have abundantly demonstrated that the German organization in America threatens the independence of the United States, and is of a definitely criminal and treasonable character. A phrase in a letter of Baron de Meysenburg, German consul at New Orleans, written on December 4th, 1915, to von Papen, German military attaché at Washington, who organized the principal outrages in the United States, proves that in the minds of Germans behind the scenes the turn of the United States was to come in due course. The latter was lately seized by the English: “May the day of the settling of accounts come here also, and when that day comes may our Government have found again that will of iron without which no impression can be made on this country.” (Quoted by Le Temps, January 17th, 1916.)