In His Farewell Audience to Professor
Peabody, of Harvard, He Said:
"We Must Stand Together."
Back from Berlin, where he occupied for a time a chair at the University,
under the existing arrangement for exchanges, Professor Peabody, of
Harvard, is aiming to straighten the American conceptions of Germany. The
Kaiser, he declares, is not a war-lord, but a man of peace, working in the
interest of civilization--a peace-lord, so to speak.
Speaking to a German audience in New York a few weeks ago, Professor
Peabody said:
There seems to be a general idea abroad that the German
Emperor is constantly looking about for somebody to fight.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Germany, by virtue
of the commercial expansion it now is working for, is
pledged to maintain the peace of the world, so far as her
own honor will allow.
The German Emperor, speaking at the opening of the
Reichstag, said:
"I consider it the most sacred duty imposed upon me by an
all-wise Providence to preserve peace."
The German Emperor has been misjudged as few characters have
been in history when he has been described as a careless,
heartless intriguer, always ready to strike a blow.
I do not think I am betraying any confidence if I repeat to
you a phrase which fell from the lips of the emperor at the
very last audience with which his imperial majesty honored
me. I was about to return to America. The emperor was
speaking not as a statesman or a diplomatist, but as an
idealist discussing the ideals of his life. At parting he
said:
"We must stand together."
What could we do better here to-night than to repeat that
phrase? I bring to you the confident assurance that in
anything you do here to-night to bring about the negotiation
of a stable treaty of arbitration with your old country you
will have with you the solid common sense of the American
people.
We must stand together, and we must find a safe, solid, and
ample ground on which to stand together. That ground is a
program in which the deliberations of reason must supplant
the folly of force.
We should have reciprocity in the fullest meaning of the
word. Not only commercial reciprocity, but a fair exchange
of truth, of trade, and of treaties. We must have the open
door, the open mind, and the open hand.
Truly, from Baron von Steuben, who lent his sword to Washington, to Carl
Schurz, who lately died after a life of patriotic devotion to his adopted
country, Germans have done much for America.