LETTER TO A GERMAN
New York, June 28, 1915.
Dear X.:
Many thanks for your very interesting letter of April 27th. The spirit which animates Germany is indeed a great and mighty one. It is a spirit of unity and brotherhood among her people, of willing sacrifice and heroic striving, coupled with the passionate conviction and faith that her cause is just and righteous, that it must and will win, and that not only is victory a necessity for national existence, but that in its train it will bring blessings to the whole of the universe.
Wherever and whenever in the world's history such a spirit—born of the stirring of the profoundest depths of national or religious feeling—has manifested itself, it has invariably been attended by a more or less marked fanaticism among the people concerned; by a condition of mind easily comprehensible as a psychological phenomenon, yet acutely prejudicial to the ability to preserve an objective point of view, and to arrive at an impartial judgment.
It is but natural that in the atmosphere which surrounds you and under existing circumstances, a man even of such sober, clear and independent mentality as yourself should think and feel in the way manifested by your letter. Even if it were in my power, I would not try at this time to shake your faith and patriotic determination. Since, however, you ask me to continue this exchange of opinions, I will endeavour further to make plain to you my ideas as to this most deplorable and accursed war.
The views I am expressing are, I believe, the views as well of the great majority of thinking people in America. And I would remind you that America as a whole, by reason of the racial composition of her population, is essentially free from national prejudice or racial bias. With her many millions of inhabitants of German origin, her disposition could not be anti-German in the ordinary course of affairs—and indeed never was so before the war.
With her millions of Jews and her liberal tendencies she cannot be pro-Russian. With her historical development in the course of which her only serious wars have been fought against Great Britain (which country, moreover, during certain critical periods in the Civil War between North and South, evidenced inclination to favour the South and thus aroused long continuing resentment in the Northern States), and for many other reasons, her disposition cannot be that of an English partisan—and was not so before the war.
The predominant sentiment of the American people in the Boer War was anti-English; in the Balkan War their sympathies were pro-Turkish; in the Italian-Turkish War, anti-Italian; in the Russo-Japanese War, pro-Japanese, although it was fully realized that from the point of view of America's material and national interests, the strengthening of Japan was hardly desirable.
It may sound to you very improbable, yet it is none the less true that America, of all the great nations, is probably the one least swayed by eagerness to attain material advantage for herself through her international policies. I do not claim that this arises necessarily from any particular virtue in her people. It may be rather the result of her geographical and economic situation.