the causes of the war, but omits documents of the most vital importance, thereby causing the people of a confiding nation to drench the earth with their life-blood in the fond illusion that the war was forced upon them, and that they are fighting for a noble cause.  Most pitiful is the sad comment of an intelligent German woman in a letter recently received in this country:  “We, of course, only see such things as the Government thinks best.  We were told that this war was purely a defensive one, forced upon us.  I begin to believe this may not be true, but hope for a favourable ending.”

Certainly in what you wrote to me you were thoroughly sincere and honest; yet your letter was full of untrue statements because you were dependent for your information upon a Government-controlled press which has misled you for military and political reasons.  How can a nation know the truth, think clearly, and act righteously when a few men, called the “State,” can commit you to the most serious enterprise in your history without your previous knowledge or consent, and can then keep you in ignorance of vitally important documents and activities in order to insure your full support of their perilous undertaking?  Such is the thought which has always led America to denounce as false the old theory of “divine right of kings,” long imposed upon the German people in the more subtle and, therefore, more dangerous form of “the divine right of the State.”  Our conviction that such a government as yours is reactionary and incompatible with true liberty, and that it stunts and warps the intellects of its citizens, has been amply confirmed by extended observation in your country, and more particularly by the unanswerable fact that millions of your best blood, including distinguished men of intelligence and wealth, have forsaken Germany to seek true liberty of intellect and action in America, renouncing allegiance to the Fatherland to become citizens here.  Some of them still love the scenes of their childhood, but few of them would be willing to return to a life under such a Government as Germany possesses.

To summarise what I said above:  Americans, prior to the war, admired the remarkable advances made by Germany in recent years in economic and commercial lines; held in high regard your universities and many of your university professors; loved your music, and felt most cordial toward the millions of Germans who came to live among us and share the benefits of our free institutions.  The prevalence of bad manners among Germans we regretted, but made allowance for this defect; and we did not fail to recognise that some Germans are fine gentlemen of the most perfect culture, while most of them have traits of character which we admired.