But Germany could not come and get her arms and munitions had she wished to do so. Great Britain had something to say about that. Wherefore Germany hated us, secretly and openly—hated us for doing what she once had done but could no longer do.
The enforcement of blockade made Germany hate us. Germany’s psychology has always been double-faced—one face for herself and one for the rest of the world. The Austrian double-headed eagle belongs of right also on the German coat of arms. “What I do not wish to have done to me is Wrong; what I wish to do to others is Right!” That is the sum and substance of the German public creed and the German private character—and now we fairly may say we know them both. The German is not a sportsman—he does not know the meaning of that word. He has not in his language any word meaning “fair play.” Nothing is fair play to a German which does not work to his advantage. The American neutrality in combination with the British blockade did not work to his advantage. Hence—so he thought—it was all wrong.
The Germans began to hate America more and more. We did not know, at that time, that Germany had been planning many years for “diesen aufunsangehängten Krieg”—“this war forced on us!” We did not have any idea that she had counted upon two million German-Americans to help her win this war; that she knew every nook and cranny of the United States and had them mapped; that for years she had maintained a tremendous organization of spies who had learned every vulnerable point of the American defenses, who were better acquainted with our Army than we ourselves were, and who had extended their covert activities to a degree which left them arrogantly confident of their success at war, and contemptuous of the best that America ever could do against her. Germany never doubted that she would win this war. It was charted and plotted out many years in advance, move by move, step by step, clear through to the bloody and brutal end which should leave Germany commander of the world.
Now, in the German general plan of conquest, America had had her place assigned to her. So long as she would remain passive and complaisant—so long as she would furnish munitions to Germany and not to England or France or Russia, all well, all very good. But when, by any shift of the play, America might furnish supplies to Germany’s enemies and not to Germany—no matter through whose fault—then so much the worse for America! It never was intended that America should be anything but expansion ground for Germany, whether or not she remained complaisant. But if she did not—if she began in her own idea of neutrality to transgress Germany’s two-headed idea of “neutrality”—that meant immediate and positive action against America, now, to-day, and not after a while and at Germany’s greater leisure.
“I shall have no foolishness from America!” said William Hohenzollern to the accredited representative of this country in his court—William Hohenzollern, that same pitiable figure who at the final test of defeat had not the courage of Saul to fall on his sword, not the courage of a real King to die at the head of his army, but who fled from his army like a coward when he saw all was lost—even honor. His threat of a million Germans in America who would rise against us was not ill-based. They were here. They are here now, to-day. The reply to that threat, made by Gerard, is historic. “Majesty, let them rise. We have a million lamp-posts waiting for them.” And this herein tells the story of how the million traitors at America’s too generous table were shown the lamp-posts looming.
The German anger at America grew to the fury point, and she began covertly to stir herself on this side of the sea. The rustling of the leaves began to be audible, the hissing grew unmistakable. But America, resting on her old traditions, paid no attention. We heard with sympathy for a time the classic two-faced German-American’s wail, “Germany is my mother, America my wife! How can I fight my mother?” The truth is that all too many German-Americans never cared for America at all in any tender or reverent way. Resting under their Kaiser’s Delbrueck injunction never to forget the fatherland, they never were anything but German. They used America; they never loved her. They clung to their old language, their old customs, and cared nothing for ours. They prospered, because they would live as we would not live. It would be wrong to call them all bad, and folly to call them all good. As a class they were clannish beyond all other races coming here. Many who at first were openly pro-German became more discreet; but of countless numbers of these, it is well known that at their own firesides and in supposed secrecy they privately were German, although in public they were American. Of Liberty bond buyers, many of the loudest boasters were of this “loyal German-American citizenship.” They really had not earned even the hyphen.
Open and covert action was taken by Germany on both sides of the Atlantic to bring America into line. Not fearing America, nor knowing the real America at all, Germany did much as she liked. Outrages on the high seas began. All international law was cast aside by Germany as fully as in her invasion of Belgium. She counted so surely on success and world-conquest that she was absolutely arrogant and indifferent alike to law and to humanity. The militaristic Germany began to show—brutal, crafty, bestial, lacking in all honor, ignorant of the word “fair play,” callous to every appeal of humanity, wholly and unscrupulously selfish. We began now to see the significance of that “efficiency” of which our industrial captains sometimes had prated over-much. Yes, Germany was efficient!
The strain between the two countries increased as the blockade tightened, and as the counter-plot of the German submarines developed. Then came the Lusitania.... I can not write of that. I have hated Germany since then, and thousands of loyal Americans join in hatred for her. All of good America has been at war with her at heart from that very day, because in America we never have made war on women and children. We are bound by every instinct to hate any nation that does, Turk, German or ignorant savage.
The Lusitania was Germany’s deliberate action. She arrogantly commanded us in a few newspaper advertisements not to sail on the Lusitania—as though she owned us and the sea. After the deed, she struck medals in commemoration of it. German church bells rang to glorify it. A German holiday was created to celebrate it. German preachers there and in America preached sermons lauding it. It was a national act, nationally planned, nationally ratified. From that day we were at war. Let those who like, of whatever station, say “We are not at war with the German people.” That is not true. The German people, the German rank and file, not their leaders alone, were back of all these deeds and ratified them absolutely on both sides of the Atlantic.
From that day, too, the issue might really have been known. I went into the elevator of a building in my city, a copy of a newspaper in my hand with the black headline of the Lusitania across the page. The German operator of the elevator saw it as I turned it toward him silently. “Vell, they vere varned!” he said, and grinned.