My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

During this period of trouble with Mexico, the German Press, almost without exception, and especially that part of it controlled by the Government and by the Conservatives or Junkers, was most bitter in its attitude towards America.

The reason for this was the underlying hatred of an autocracy for a successful democracy, envy of the wealth, liberty and commercial success of America, and a deep and strong resentment against the Monroe Doctrine which prevented Germany from using her powerful fleet and great military force to seize a foothold in the Western hemisphere.

Germany came late into the field of colonisation in her endeavour to find "a place in the sun." The colonies secured were not habitable by white men. Togo, Kameroons, German East Africa, are too tropical in climate, too subject to tropical diseases, ever to become successful German colonies. German Southwest Africa has a more healthy climate but is a barren land. About the only successful industry there has been that of gathering the small diamonds that were discovered in the sands of the beaches and of the deserts running back from the sea.

On the earnest request of Secretary Bryan, I endeavoured to persuade the German authorities to have Germany become a signatory to the so-called Bryan Peace Treaties. After many efforts and long interviews, von Jagow, the Foreign Minister, finally told me that Germany would not sign these treaties because the greatest asset of Germany in war was her readiness for a sudden assault, that they had no objection to signing the treaty with America, but that they feared they would then be immediately asked to sign similar treaties with Great Britain, France and Russia, that if they refused to sign with these countries the refusal would almost be equivalent to a declaration of war, and, if they did sign, intending in good faith to stand by the treaty, that Germany would be deprived of her greatest asset in war, namely, her readiness for a sudden and overpowering attack.

I also, during this first winter, studied and made reports on the commercial situation of Germany and especially the German discriminations against American goods. To these matters I shall refer in more detail in another chapter.

Opposition and attention to the oil monopoly project also occupied a great part of my working hours. Petroleum is used very extensively in Germany for illuminating purposes by the poorer part of the population, especially in the farming villages and industrial towns. This oil used in Germany comes from two sources of supply, from America and from the oil wells of Galicia and Roumania. The German American Oil Company there, through which the American oil was distributed, although a German company, was controlled by American capital, and German capital was largely interested in the Galician and Roumanian oil fields. The oil from Galicia and Roumania is not so good a quality as that imported from America.

PROGRAMME OF THE MUSIC AFTER DINNER WITH THE KAISER AT THE ROYAL PALACE, BERLIN.

Before my arrival in Germany the government had proposed a law creating the oil monopoly; that is to say, a company was to be created, controlled by the government for the purpose of carrying on the entire oil business of Germany, and no other person or company, by its provisions, was to be allowed to sell any illuminating oil or similar products in the Empire. The bill provided that the business of those engaged in the wholesale selling of oil, and their plants, etc., should be taken over by this government company, condemned and paid for. The German American Company, however, had also a retail business and plant throughout Germany for which it was proposed that no compensation should be given. The government bill also contained certain curious "jokers"; for instance, it provided for the taking over of all plants "within the customs limit of the German Empire," thus leaving out of the compensation a refinery which was situated in the free part of Hamburg, although, of course, by operation of this monopoly bill the refinery was rendered useless to the American controlled company which owned it.

In the course of this investigation it came to light that the Prussian state railways were used as a means of discriminating against the American oil. American oil came to Germany through the port of Hamburg, and the Galician and Roumanian oil through the frontier town of Oderberg. Taking a delivery point equally distant between Oderberg and Hamburg, the rate charged on oil from Hamburg to this point was twice as great as that charged for a similar quantity of oil from Oderberg.

I took up this fight on the line that the company must be compensated for all of its property, that used in retail as well as in wholesale business, and, second, that it must be compensated for the good-will of its business, which it had built up through a number of years by the expenditure of very large sums of money. Of course where a company has been in operation for years and is continually advertising its business, its good-will often is its greatest asset and has often been built up by the greatest expenditure of money. For instance, in buying a successful newspaper, the value does not lie in the real-estate, presses, etc., but in the good-will of the newspaper, the result of years of work and expensive advertising.