"No, no!" he said, quite confidently. "The Yankees won't come in. They are making too much money as it is. They won't fight. See, here it is in the paper. It is stated clearly here that the United States will not fight. It doesn't dare to fight!"
But when the news came that the United States had actually declared war they were a sad lot. I took the first opportunity to pump old Fritz about the views of his companions.
"It's bad, bad," he said, shaking his head dolefully.
"Then you are afraid of the Americans, after all?" I said.
Why Fritz was sorry to have America in the war.
Fritz laughed, with a short, contemptuous note. "No, it is not that," he said. "England will be starved out before the Americans can come in and then it will all be over. But—just between us, you and me—most of us here were intending to go to America, after the war, where we would be free from all this. But—now the United States won't let us in after the war!"
I shall never forget the day that the papers announced the refusal of the English labor delegates to go to Stockholm. One excited miner struck me across the face with the open newspaper in his hand.
Hatred of the English.
"Always, always the same!" he almost screamed. "The English block everything. They will not join and what good can come now of the conference? They will not be content and the war must go on!"
Shortage in necessities of life.