"1683-1920" / The Fourteen Points and What Became of Them—Foreign Propaganda in the Public Schools—Rewriting the History of the United States—The Espionage Act and How It Worked—"Illegal and Indefensible Blockade" of the Central Powers—1,000,000 Victims of Starvation—Our Debt to France and to Germany—The War Vote in Congress—Truth About the Belgian Atrocities—Our Treaty with Germany and How Observed—The Alien Property Custodianship—Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes—Racial Strains in American Life—Germantown Settlement of 1683 and a Thousand Other Topics

by Frederick Franklin Schrader

The significance of this paragraph will appear from reflection on the state of distress prevailing in 1863, a period when the outlook for the success of the Union was veiled in gloom, and many of the most stout-hearted trembled for the outcome. England was sending fully-equipped and English-manned warships over to aid the Confederacy; the “Alabama” and the “Florida” were sinking our ships and sweeping American commerce from the seas. Justin McCarthy, in “The Cruise of the ‘Alabama’” (“A History of Our Own Times,” II, Chap. XLIV), says:

The “Alabama” had got to sea; her cruise of nearly two years began. She went upon her destroying course with the cheers of English sympathizers and the rapturous tirades of English newspapers glorifying her. Every misfortune that befell an American merchantman was received in this country with a roar of delight.

At that time England was on the eve of entering the war on the side of the South, and only the news of General Grant’s decisive victory at Vicksburg and Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg brought the House of Commons to a more sober reflection.

McCarthy shows that a motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy, which Minister Adams had said would mean a war with the Northern States, was already in process of passing in the House of Commons, for he writes:

The motion was never pressed to a division; for during its progress there came at one moment the news that General Grant had taken Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, and that General Meade had defeated General Lee, at Gettysburg, and put an end to all thought of a Southern invasion.... There was no more said in this country about the recognition of the Southern Confederation, and the Emperor of the French was thenceforth free to follow out his plans as far as he could, and alone.

It was during these dismal hours of trembling hope that Germany proved herself the friend of the Union. Whereas England would not loan the Lincoln administration $10,000,000, six times that amount was forthcoming from Germany.

When in 1870 a disposition developed here to supply France with arms against Germany, some heated debates took place in the Senate, in which events of 1861-65 were naturally brought up for review, and it is interesting to quote from the debates of that period as reported in the “Globe Congressional Record,” 3rd Session, 41st Congress. Part II. From pp. 953-955:

Mr. Stewart, Senator from Nevada: “Allow me to call the attention of the Senator from Tennessee to the fact, which he must recollect, of the amount of our bonds that were taken inGermany at the time we needed that they should be taken, and when they were prohibited from the Exchange in London and from the Bourse in Paris, and not allowed to be on the markets there at all on account of the state of public opinion there, while Germany alone came in and took five or $600,000,000 at a time when we needed money more than anything else, to sustain our credit. That is a fact showing sympathy, certainly.”

Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, quoted on p. 954, said:

They (the Germans) sent us men; they recruited our armies with men; they helped to save the life of this nation. Though the French were our ancient allies, the Germans have been our modern allies.