"Do I realize that you are pro-Ally over here? Well, somehow I have
always felt it, but now I know it. When I get home I shall rub that
fact into everyone I meet. What our people at home don't grasp is the
fact that America is inhabited by two distinct races--Americans, and
others. The others appear to me--mind you, I'm only giving you a
personal impression--to consist either of alien immigrants who have
not yet absorbed their new nationality, or professional anti-Ally
propagandists, or people of mixed nationality with strong commercial
interests in Germany, whose heart is where their treasure is. These
make a surprising amount of noise, and attract a disproportionate
amount of attention: but I know, and I intend the people at home to
know, that the genuine American is with us in this business heart and
soul.
"What's that? The Blockade? Yes, I want to talk to you about that. I
take it you will admit that a blockade is a justifiable expedient of
war. There have been one or two of them in history. In the American
Civil War, for instance, the North established a pretty successful
blockade against the Southern ports. British cotton ships were
everlastingly trying to run through that cordon. In fact, I rather
think we exchanged a few cousinly notes on the subject. Of course
blockades are irksome and irritating to neutrals. But we look to you
here to endure the inconvenience, not merely as one of the chances of
war, but rather to show us that you in this country do recognize and
indorse the ideal for which we are fighting. We _are_ fighting for an
ideal, you know: I think the way the old country came into this war,
all unprepared and spontaneously, just because she felt she _must_
stand by her friends, was the finest thing she has ever done. Of
course no sane person expected America to saddle herself gratuitously
with a European War--without good and sufficient reason, that is--but
we in England would like to feel that your acquiescence in the
inconveniences caused by our blockade is your contribution to the
cause--your slap on the back, signifying:--Go in and win!
"Open your mails? Yes, I'm afraid we do. And we find a good lot inside
them! Do you know, there is a great warehouse in London filled from
top to bottom with rubber, and nickel, and other commodities for which
the Hun longs, disguised as all sorts of things--rubber fruit, for
instance--taken from the most innocent-looking parcels--all dispatched
from the United States to neutral countries in touch with Germany?
But we are most punctilious about it all. Every single article retains
its original address-label, and will be forwarded direct to its proper
consignee, directly the war is over. Can you beat that?
"Would we welcome Intervention? My dear sir, is it likely? Supposing
_you_ had been caught entirely unprepared, and had been sticking your
toes in for two years--fighting for time and playing a poor hand
pretty well--and were at last ready to hit back, and hit back, until
you had rendered your opponent incapable of further outrage, and were
in a fair way to fix this war so that it never could happen
again--would you welcome Mediation, or offers of Mediation? I think
not.
"Submarines? We aren't attaching _too_ much importance to submarine
frightfulness. It is true we have lost a number of merchant ships, and
that a number of innocent lives have been sacrificed. But let us put
our hearts in the background for the present and look at the matter
from the economic and military point of view. We have lost, in
twenty-seven months, about one tenth of our original merchant fleet.
Against that you have to set the fact that we have been steadily
building new merchant ships during the same period. The dead loss of
merchandise involved amounts to about one half per cent. of the total
value--ten shillings in every hundred pounds; or fifty cents per
hundred dollars. That won't starve us into submission.
"But the Germans will build more and more submarines? Very probably.
Still, I think we can leave it to the British and French navies to
prevent undue exuberance in that direction. Our sailors have not been
exactly garrulous during this war, but I think we may take it that
they have not been entirely idle. Has it ever occurred to you that
although there are hundreds of Allied warships patrolling the ocean
to-day, you hardly ever hear of one being torpedoed by a submarine?
Passenger ships and freight ships suffer to the extent I have quoted,
but not the warships. Why is that? Don't ask me: ask Jellicoe! But it
rather looks as if the submarine, as an instrument of naval
warfare--as opposed to a baby-killing machine--had rather failed to
deliver the goods.
"The Deutschland? I take off my hat to Captain Koenig: he is a plucky
fellow. The _U 53_? I have no remarks to offer, except to repeat my
previous reference to baby-killing machines. As for the presence of
these two vessels in American waters--in American ports--I won't
presume to offer an opinion. Still, not long ago the U 53 sank six
British or neutral vessels off the American coast, just outside
territorial waters. Fortunately for the passengers, an American
cruiser was in the neighbourhood, to guard against violation of
American waters, and picked them up. But the whole incident looks to
me like a deliberate German plan to jockey an American cruiser into
becoming a German submarine tender.
"Let me see--what else? Too proud to fight? Not much! We know the
American people too well. Besides, we suffer from politicians
ourselves, and know what political catch-phrases are. So don't let
that worry you.
"National Training for America? There I am neither qualified nor
entitled to offer advice. I know the difficulties with which the true
American has to contend in this matter. I know that this vast country
of yours is more of a continent than a country, and that so long as
your enormous tide of immigration continues, it will be a matter of
immense difficulty developing a national sense of personal
responsibility. I also know that your Middle West is inhabited by
people, many of whom have never even seen the sea, who are rendered
incapable, by their very environment, of realizing the immensity of
the external dangers which threaten their country. These must see
things differently from the more exposed section of the community, and
I see how dangerous it would be to enforce upon them a measure which
they regard as ridiculous. But on this great subject of Preparedness,
I can refer you to the case of my own country--not as an example, but
as a warning. _We_ were caught unprepared. In consequence, we had to
sacrifice our best, our very best, the kind that can never be replaced
in any country, just because they hurried to the rescue and allowed
themselves to be wiped out, while the country behind them was being
aroused and prepared. That is the price that we have paid, and no
ultimate victory, however glorious, can recompense us for that
criminal waste of the flower and pride of our youth and manhood at the
outset.
"Do we expect to win the war outright? Yes, we do."
It is true that the Central Powers have recently succeeded in
devastating another little country, though they have not destroyed
its army. On the other hand, during the past few months the Allied
gains on the Somme have included, among other items, a chain of
fortresses hitherto considered impregnable, four or five hundred
pieces of artillery, fourteen hundred machine-guns, and about
ninety-five thousand unwounded German prisoners. Moreover, the French
at Verdun have regained in a few weeks all the ground that the Crown
Prince wrested from them, at the price of half a million German
casualities, in the spring. German colonies have ceased to exist;
German foreign trade is dead; the German navy is cooped up in Kiel
harbour; and Germany is so short of men that she has resorted to
outrageous deportations from Belgium in order to obtain industrial
labour. On the other hand, our supply of munitions now, at the opening
of 1917, is double what it was six months ago, and our new armies are
not yet all in the field. The British Navy, despite all losses, has
increased enormously both in tonnage and personnel. So I don't think
we are fought to a standstill yet.
"Yes, you are right. All this bloodshed is dreadful. But
responsibility for bloodshed rests not with the people who end a war
but with the people who began it. As for discussing terms of peace
now, what terms _could_ be arranged which Germany could be relied upon
to observe a moment longer than suited her? Have you forgotten the
way the War was forced on the world by Prussian militarism? The trick
played on Russia over mobilization? The violation of Belgian
neutrality? Malines, Termonde, Louvain? The official raping in the
market-place at Liége? The _Lusitania_? Edith Cavell? The Zeppelin
murders? Chlorine gas? The deportations from Belgium and Lille?
Wittenburg typhus camp, where men were left to rot, without doctors,
or medicine, or bedding? How can one talk of "honourable peace" with
such a gang of criminal lunatics? Ask yourself who would be such a
fool as to propose to end a war upon terms which left the safety of
the world exposed to the prospect of another outbreak from the same
source?
"You, sir? _Why can't you people in England be a bit kinder in their
tone to us here in America?_ Ah, now you are talking! Let us get away
from this crowd and go into the matter--get together, as you say."