We recognised the immense value of Germany’s contributions to art, literature, and science, but did not consider Germany’s contributions in these lines as equal to those of other nations.  We never have regarded German culture as superior, but rather as inferior, to that of certain other countries; and the Germans’ loud claims to superiority have seemed to us egotistical and the result of a weak point in the German character.  For your form of government and the philosophy of history taught by your university professors we could never have much admiration or respect.  Both seemed to us unworthy of an intelligent, civilised people, and sure to lead to disaster.  Your military preparations, evident to every observant visitor, have long caused us to distrust your Government and to consider your country a menace to the world’s peace.  In a word, we admired and loved your people, although we considered them neither perfect nor even superior to other people; but we disapproved and distrusted your reactionary military Government.

II.

Such was our attitude when the war burst upon the world.  Since that time what opportunities have the American people had to form an intelligent opinion as to who was wrong and who was right?  What sources of information have been open to us, what means of getting at the facts?  Have we been drowned in English lies, as several of your professors have written me is the case?  Have we relied on one corrupt party newspaper, as you intimate is our habit?  Have we been dependent on a press bought up with English gold, as is continually asserted by the German press?

In the first place, we have relied in part upon our previous knowledge of the German Government and the German people.  The hundreds of Americans who have studied in your universities, the thousands who have visited your country, and the millions who have come into close contact with Germans in this country, all have a pretty good idea of the German type of mind, German standards of national morality, German virtues and defects.  Americans have, of course, used this information in reaching a conclusion as to the truth or falsehood of charges against Germany.  I talked with some of our American professors just as they landed on the pier in New York fresh from a summer in Germany which was cut short by the outbreak of the war.  They came direct from your country and were as fully informed of the German points of view right up to the declaration of war as were any of your citizens.  Many Americans who have spent months and even years on German soil, and who know the country and the people intimately, have made us well acquainted with German standards and German methods of thinking.