Your Government has bombarded unfortified seacoast towns which Americans know from personal observation, both before the war and during the bombardment, were not defended in any way. Mothers and babies were blown to shreds, but no military damage was done in most cases. Dozens of helpless old men, women and children were killed for every soldier slain. The same is true of your Zeppelin raids. Americans believe these acts are committed for the purpose of stirring up enthusiasm among the German populace. They believe such acts are in defiance of the rules of civilised warfare, that they are utterly inhuman and barbarous, and that a nation which approves and applauds such senseless slaughter is less civilised than other modern nations. The British Government has steadfastly refused to accede to the clamour of a few of its citizens who urge a policy of wholesale reprisals against German open towns. Americans honour this respect for the rules of civilised warfare and regret that even occasionally France has yielded to the provocation for reprisal raids against such a place as Freiburg. The fact that Germany began the slaughter of babies and women in defiance of the rules of war, and has kept it up in frequent raids by warships, Zeppelins, and aeroplanes, whereas the Allies have very seldom attacked open towns, and then only as occasional reprisals following peculiarly barbarous German attacks, has won for Germany the condemnation, and for the Allies the commendation of the civilised world.
The Lusitania atrocity removed from the minds of the American people the last possible doubt as to the essential barbarity of the German Government. No other Government pretending to be civilised has ever shocked the entire world by such a sickening crime against humanity. It is utterly inconceivable that the American nation could descend so low in the scale of humanity as to order the deliberate destruction of an English ship bearing hundreds of innocent German women and children across the seas. But if such a thing were conceivable, you could not find in the American navy an officer who would obey the inhuman order. Nor do Americans believe that the English or French Governments could ever disgrace their countries' honour by such a barbarous act. I am shocked and surprised that a man of your position and intelligence can find it in his heart to defend an act which has for ever stained the fair name and honour of your country.
I read with amazement your assertions that the Lusitania was armed, that she carried ammunition in defiance of American laws, and that our official inspection of her was careless. Your own Government has itself abandoned the false charge that the Lusitania carried guns, and no longer makes such a ridiculous claim; while the German reservist who pretended to have seen the gun has admitted that he lied and is now serving a term in prison for perjury. You are not familiar with American shipping-laws which expressly permit the carrying of certain types of ammunition on passenger vessels, and you are, of course, quite ignorant as to what inspection of the vessel was made in New York, for you were in Germany at the time. Your assertions were made wholly on the basis of the false statements furnished you in Government-controlled papers. You had no means of determining the truth or falsity of the statements, on the basis of reliable and impartial evidence; yet you did not hesitate to make assertions which your own Government now practically admits were not well founded. The fact that the learned men of Germany have throughout the war violently supported the German position by reckless charges and wild assertions, paying no regard to the necessity of basing such charges and assertions on impartial evidence, instead of accepting with child-like simplicity the unsupported statements of the German Government, has destroyed the confidence of Americans in the ability of the German educated men to think and reason fairly and honestly about the war.
The manifestos of the German professors, issued to Americans, did much to alienate American sympathy from Germany; for the bitterness and unreasoning fury of the documents, combined with the entire absence of evidence to support the many reckless statements made in them, did much to convince Americans that the German position was not capable of honest, logical, dispassionate, manly defence. There has never at any time been any such outbreak of fury and bitterness among the English or French people. While there are individual exceptions, taken as a whole the press, pamphlets, and private letters of the English and French, dealing with the war, have from the first been characterised by a self-control and calm determination, which in the case of the French has especially astonished Americans; for we expected the French to be more excitable. Taken as a whole, the Teutonic literature has from the first been characterised by an uncontrollable bitterness and violent denunciation of the enemy and of neutrals; which has also surprised Americans, for we expected you to be more logical and self-contained than the French, instead of less so.
Americans believe that the German people are a great people, capable of great and good things. They honour and admire the Germany which finds her best expression in the literature, music, and science which has justly made you famous. But they distrust and abhor the German Government which has made the name of Germany infamous. The heroic bravery of the German soldiers dying for their Fatherland, and the heroic fortitude of the German women who bear and suffer—all fail to evoke any enthusiasm in this country, or in other neutral countries, because of the stain which the German military Government has put upon their sacrifices. Your greatest victories bring no world honour to your armies because of the cloud of dishonour which hangs over every achievement of the German military machine. There is no enthusiasm, and very little praise, for the captors of Warsaw and Vilna, for Americans remember that it was German soldiers who murdered innocent hostages from "military necessity," who destroyed much of Louvain from "military necessity," who violated every rule of civilised warfare and humanity in Belgium from "military necessity," who executed a noble English nurse from "military necessity," who wrecked priceless monuments of civilisation in France from "military necessity," who have dropped bombs from the sky in the darkness upon sleeping women and children in unfortified places, and slaughtered hundreds of innocent non-combatants from "military necessity," who sent babes at the breast and their innocent mothers shrieking and strangling to a watery grave in mid-ocean from "military necessity," and who have defended every barbarous act, every crime against humanity on the specious and selfish plea that it was justified by "military necessity." Your Government has robbed your soldiers of all honour in the eyes of the world by making them the instruments of a military policy which the rest of the world unanimously condemns as brutal and barbarous.
It seems to thoughtful Americans who know Germany and Germans best, that the highest duty of intelligent German professors like yourself is not to attempt the hopeless task of converting the rest of the world to an approval of the methods of the German Government, but rather to use your whole influence to establish a German Government which shall have a decent respect for the opinions of the rest of the world, and shall restore Germany to the place it used to have among civilised nations. Your greatest enemy is not the Russian, nor the French, nor the British Government. They might defeat you in war, but they never could take away your honour. Your greatest enemy is the Government which has dragged the fair name of Germany in the mire of dishonour, shocking the moral instincts of the whole world by acts no other civilised country would think of committing. Your greatest enemy is the Government which stifles your individual development by making you the obedient tools of the "State," which smothers your free thought by a muzzled press under police control, which makes your learned men ridiculous in the eyes of the world by training them to blind, unthinking support of the Government and credulous belief in whatever falsehoods it chooses to impose upon you for military and political purposes, which hurls you into a disastrous war without your knowledge or consent, and which brings down upon you the contempt of the whole world for crimes you would not yourselves commit, but which you must forsooth defend "for the good of the State."
Americans believe that a Government which provokes a war and deceives its people to secure their support, should be destroyed; that a Government which breaks its treaties and murders an innocent neutral nation, shooting innocent hostages to prevent sniping by those whose homes are violently attacked, should be destroyed; that a Government which systematically and repeatedly bombards unfortified towns and villages, killing hundreds of innocent women and children, should be destroyed; that a Government which torpedoes unarmed passenger ships, drowning helpless men, women, and children by the thousand in shameful defiance of law and every instinct of humanity, should be destroyed; that a Government which in cold blood executes a woman nurse like Miss Cavell should be destroyed; that a Government which ruthlessly destroys works of art and monuments of civilisation and levies crushing indemnities on captured cities, in defiance of the well-established laws of war, should be destroyed. In the opinion of Americans, a Government which did any one of these things would not be fit to exist in a civilised world. A Government which has done all of them and much more that is equally barbarous and brutal, must, in the opinion of the American people, be utterly destroyed.
Americans hoped for many long years that the German people would themselves throw off the incubus of the military Government which was crushing out their individuality and making their country an object of distrust and fear to all those interested in the progress of civilisation; but if you will not rid yourselves of the monster which has dishonoured and disgraced you before the world, then, in American opinion, the safety of the world and the future of Germany require that the present German Government shall be destroyed through military defeat. For this reason the American people are praying earnestly for Allied victory. While there is a sincere effort to maintain the technical neutrality enjoined by the President, there is no neutrality possible on the moral issues involved. Americans may not violate the neutrality of the nation by giving concerted military support to the Allies; but they are practically unanimous in giving their whole moral support to the nations engaged in the necessary task of destroying the monstrosity of Prussian militarism. Every aid which they can render the Allies without violating national neutrality is being given, not because they do not admire the German people, but because the destruction of the present German Government is regarded as the essential first step in enabling the German people to return to the place of honour they once held in the world. Americans would regard ultimate German victory as an intolerable disaster to civilisation; and they will never be satisfied until the German armies are decisively defeated. They believe that the ultimate defeat of Germany is assured, and that the least suffering will result to the German people if they will themselves repudiate the Government which brought upon them their present sufferings, and will start anew with a modern Government responsible to the will of the people.
Sincerely yours,