That incident shows Germany in America, then and now, covert, sinister, sneering, confident, exultant. You could not find an answer you would dare speak to such a man. There is no deed that you could do. I pulled together, and only said, “It will cost Germany the war.” And so it did.
But we did not go to war; we tried to keep out of the war. The daily page of red horrors fresh from Europe taught us what war meant at this day of the world. Women naturally did not like the thought of casting their sons into that brutal hell. And then arose the female-men, the pacifists, forgetting their sex, forgetting their country, forgetting the large and lasting game of humanity’s good, which cannot count present cost, but must plan for the long game of the centuries.
With the pacifists suddenly and silently rose the hidden army of German espionage and German sympathy in our own country, quick to see that here was their chance! Millions of German gold now came pouring across to finance this break in America’s forces. Her high ministers to our Government began their treachery, forgetful of all ambassadorial honor, perjuring themselves and their country. The war was on, on both sides the Atlantic now.
And still America did not know, and still America did not go to war. We dreaded it, held back from it, month after month—some, as it seems to many, wrongly and unhappily even did what they could to capitalize the fact that we were not at war. But the hidden serpent raised its head and began to strike—to strike so openly, in so long a series of overt acts, that now our civil courts and the great national machinery of justice in Washington became literally helpless in their endeavors at resistance.
We were not at war, but war was waged against us in so many ways—against our lives and property—that all sense of security was gone. We offered as our defense not, as yet, our Fleet or our Army, but our Department of Justice. Day and night that department at Washington, and its branches in all the great cities, in New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco, labored to clear the constantly increasing dockets, to keep down the constantly increasing heaps of suspect cases. It was evident that America was hearing from the Kaiser’s million Germans in America. But where were the lamp posts?
The Department of Justice found itself flooded and submerged with work in the Bureau of Investigation, collecting evidence against German spies and German lawbreakers. It was plain what efforts now were making to undermine America. But the truth was, the grist was too much for the mill. We had never organized a system to handle covert and hidden war as Germany had done. We had fought in the open when, rarely, we had fought at all. The great mill of Justice clogged up and broke down, not from any inefficiency or inadequacy in average times, but because it never could have been predicted that “Neutrality Cases” such as these ever would be known in our history. In this war, giant figures only have ruled. The world was not prepared for them.
The outrages went on. Germany, confident of the success of ruthless submarine warfare, told us when we could sail, how we must mark our ships—said, sneeringly, “Vell, you vas varned!”
It had very early become plain to all Americans that we could not always submit to this. More and more now we were browbeaten and insulted. More and more also our hearts were wrung at the sight of splendid France, fighting gamely and proudly and silently for her life; at the lists of the gallant British dead; the whole story of the staggering lines of Liberty. It was plain that the great prize of free institutions, of human liberty itself, was about to be lost to the world forever. It became plain that the glorious traditions of America must perish, that her answer to humanity must be forever stilled, that she, too, must be included in the ruin of all the good things of the world. It began also to be said more and more openly that America would come next—that we must fight; if not now, then at some later day, and perhaps without these Allies.
So our war spirit began in the total to outweigh and overtop our peace spirit and our pacifist spirit and our hesitant spirit. We knew we would be at war. Many of us deplored and do still deplore the fact that we waited so long in times so perilous. We lost two precious years; billions in treasure, and what is immeasurably worse, millions in lives. So much for hesitancy.
But now, as bearing upon the purpose of this account of the American Protective League, it is to be kept in mind that for months and years the Department of Justice had been at war with the hidden German army here. And, as the Germans were pushing back the Allies over there, they were pushing us back here, because we were not ready for so unforeseen a situation.