Why Is America Anti-German?
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
The numerous pamphlets which German writers are now distributing in the
United States, and the many letters about the European war which
Americans are now receiving from German and German-American friends, are
convincing thoughtful people in this country that American public
opinion has some weight with the German Government and people, or, at
least, some interest for them; but that the reasons which determine
American sympathy with the Allies, rather than with Germany and
Austria-Hungary, are not understood in Germany, and are not always
appreciated by persons of German birth who have lived long in the United
States.
It would be a serious mistake to suppose that Americans feel any
hostility or jealousy toward Germany, or fail to recognize the immense
obligations under which she has placed all the rest of the world,
although they now feel that the German Nation has been going wrong in
theoretical and practical politics for more than a hundred years, and is
today reaping the consequences of her own wrong-thinking and
wrong-doing.
There are many important matters concerning which American sympathy is
strongly with Germany: (1) The unification of Germany, which Bismarck
and his co-workers accomplished, naturally commended itself to
Americans, whose own country is a firm federation of many more or less
different States, containing more or less different peoples; while most
Americans did not approve Bismarck's methods and means, they cordially
approved his accomplishment of German unification; (2) Americans have
felt unqualified admiration for the commercial and financial growth of
Germany during the past forty years, believing it to be primarily the
fruit of well-directed industry and enterprise; (3) all educated
Americans feel strong gratitude to the German Nation for its
extraordinary achievements in letters, science, and education within the
last hundred years. Jealousy of Germany in these matters is absolutely
foreign to American thought, and that any external power or influence
should undertake to restrict or impair German progress in these respects
would seem to all Americans intolerable, and, indeed incredible; (4) all
Americans who have had any experience in Governmental or educational
administration recognize the fact, that German administration--both in
peace and in war--is the most efficient in the world, and for that
efficiency they feel nothing but respect and admiration, unless the
efficiency requires an inexpedient suppression or restriction of
individual liberty; (5) Americans sympathize with a unanimous popular
sentiment in favor of a war which the people believe to be essential to
the greatness, and even the safety, of their country--a sentiment which
prompts to family and property sacrifices very distressing at the
moment, and irremediable in the future; and they believe that the German
people today are inspired by just such an overwhelming sentiment.
How is it, then, that, with all these strong American feelings tending
to make them sympathize with the German people in good times or bad, in
peace or in war, the whole weight of American opinion is on the side of
the Allies in the present war? The reasons are to be found, of course,
in the political and social history of the American people, and in its
Governmental philosophy and practice today. These reasons have come out
of the past, and are intrenched in all the present ideals and practices
of the American Commonwealth. They inevitably lead Americans to object
strongly and irrevocably to certain German national practices of great
moment, practices which are outgrowths of Prussian theories, and
experiences that have come to prevail in Germany during the past hundred
years. In the hope that American public opinion about the European war
may be a little better understood abroad it seems worth while to
enumerate those German practices which do not conform to American
standards in the conduct of public affairs:
(a) Americans object to the committal of a nation to grave measures of
foreign policy by a permanent Executive--Czar, Kaiser, or King--advised
in secret by professional diplomatists who consider themselves the
personal representatives of their respective sovereigns. The American
people have no permanent Executive, and the profession of diplomacy
hardly exists among them. In the conduct of their national affairs they
utterly distrust secrecy, and are accustomed to demand and secure the
utmost publicity.
(b) They object to placing in any ruler's hands the power to order
mobilization or declare war in advance of deliberate consultation with a
representative assembly, and of co-operative action thereby. The fact
that German mobilization was ordered three days in advance of the
meeting of the Reichstag confounds all American ideas and practices
about the rights of the people and the proper limits of Executive
authority.
(c) The secrecy of European diplomatic intercourse and of international
understandings and terms of alliance in Europe is in the view of
ordinary Americans not only inexpedient, but dangerous and
unjustifiable. Under the Constitution of the United States no treaty
negotiated by the President and his Cabinet is valid until it has been
publicly discussed and ratified by the Senate. During this discussion
the people can make their voice heard through the press, the telegraph,
and the telephone.
(d) The reliance on military force as the foundation of true national
greatness seems to thinking Americans erroneous, and in the long run
degrading to a Christian nation. They conceive that the United States
may fairly be called a great nation; but that its greatness is due to
intellectual and moral forces acting through adequate material forces
and expressed in education, public health and order, agriculture,
manufacturing, and commerce, and the resulting general well-being of the
people. It has never in all its history organized what could be called a
standing or a conscripted army; and, until twenty years ago, its navy
was very small, considering the length of its sea coasts. There is
nothing in the history of the American people to make them believe that
the true greatness of nations depends on military power.
Object to Extension by Force.
(e) They object to the extension of national territory by force,
contrary to the wishes of the population concerned. This objection is
the inevitable result of democratic institutions; and the American
people have been faithful to this democratic opinion under circumstances
of considerable difficulty--as, for example, in withdrawing from Cuba,
the rich island which had been occupied by American troops during the
short war with Spain, (1898,) and in the refusing to intervene by force
in Mexico for the protection of American investors, when that contiguous
country was distracted by factional fighting. This objection applies to
long-past acts of the German Government an well as to its proceedings in
the present war--as, for example, to the taking of Schleswig-Holstein
and Alsace-Lorraine, as well as to the projected occupation of Belgium.
(f) Americans object strenuously to the violation of treaties between
nations on the allegation of military necessity or for any other reason
whatever. They believe that the progress of civilization will depend in
future on the general acceptance of the sanctity of contracts or solemn
agreements between nations and on the development by common consent of
international law. The neutralization treaties, the arbitration
treaties, The Hague Conferences, and some of the serious attempts at
mediation, although none of them go far enough, and many of them have
been rudely violated on occasion, illustrate a strong tendency in the
civilized parts of the world to prevent international wars by means of
agreements deliberately made in time of peace. The United States has
proposed and made more of these agreements than any other power, has
adhered to them, and profited by them. Under one such agreement, made
nearly a hundred years ago, Canada and the United States have avoided
forts and armaments against each other, although they have had serious
differences of opinion and clashes of interests, and the frontier is
3,000 miles long and for the most part without natural barriers.
Cherishing the hope that the peace of Europe and the rights of its
peoples may be secured through solemn compacts, (which should include
the establishment of a permanent international judicial tribunal,
supported by an international force,) Americans see, in the treatment by
the German Government of the Belgian neutralization treaty as nothing
but a piece of paper which might be torn up on the ground of military
necessity, evidence of the adoption by Germany of a retrograde policy of
the most alarming sort. That single act on the part of Germany--the
violation of the neutral territory of Belgium--would have determined
American opinion in favor of the Allies, if it had stood alone by
itself--the reason being that American hopes for the peace and order of
the world are based on the sanctity of treaties.
(g) American public opinion, however, has been greatly shocked in other
ways by the German conduct of the war. The American common people see no
justification for the dropping of bombs, to which no specific aim can be
given, into cities and towns chiefly inhabited by non-combatants, the
burning or blowing up of large portions of unfortified towns and cities,
the destruction of precious monuments and treasuries of art, the
strewing of floating mines through the North Sea, the exacting of
ransoms from cities and towns under threat of destroying them, and the
holding of unarmed citizens as hostages for the peaceable behavior of a
large population under threat of summary execution of the hostages in
case of any disorder. All these seem to Americans unnecessary,
inexpedient, and unjustifiable methods of warfare, sure to breed hatred
and contempt toward the nation that uses them, and therefore to make it
difficult for future generations to maintain peace and order in Europe.
They cannot help imagining the losses civilization would suffer if the
Russians should ever carry into Western Europe the kind of war which the
Germans are now waging in Belgium and France. They have supposed that
war was to be waged in this century only against public, armed forces
and their supplies and shelters.
These opinions and prepossessions on the part of the American people
have obviously grown out of the ideals which the early English colonists
carried with them to the American wilderness in the seventeenth century,
out of the long fighting and public discussion which preceded the
adoption of the Constitution of the United States in the eighteenth
century, and out of the peculiar experiences of the free Commonwealths
which make up the United States, as they have spread across the almost
uninhabited continent during the past 125 years.
The experience and the situation of modern Germany have been utterly
different. Germany was divided for centuries into discordant parts, had
ambitious and martial neighbors, and often felt the weight of their
attacks. Out of war came accessions of territory for Prussia, and at
last German unity. The reliance of intelligent and patriotic Germany on
military force as the basis of national greatness is a natural result of
its experiences. Americans, however, believe that this reliance is
unsound both theoretically and practically. The wars in Europe since
1870-71, the many threatenings of war, and the present catastrophe seem
to Americans to demonstrate that no amount of military preparedness on
the part of the nations of Europe can possibly keep the peace of the
Continent, or indeed prevent frequent explosions of destructive warfare.
They think, too, that preparation for war on the part of Germany better
than any of her neighbors can make will not keep her at peace or protect
her from invasion, even if this better preparation include advantages of
detail which have been successfully kept secret. All the nations which
surround Germany are capable of developing a strong fighting spirit; and
all the countries of Europe, except England and Russia, possess the
means of quickly assembling and getting into action great bodies of men.
In other words, all the European States are capable of developing a
passionate patriotism, and all possess the railroads, roads,
conveyances, telegraphs, and telephones which make rapid mobilization
possible. No perfection of military forces, and no amount of previous
study of feasible campaigns against neighbors, can give peaceful
security to Germany in the present condition of the great European
States. In the actual development of weapons and munitions, and of the
art of quick intrenching, the attacking force in battle on land is at a
great disadvantage in comparison with the force on the defensive. That
means indecisive battles and ultimately an indecisive war, unless each
party is resolved to push the war to the utter exhaustion and
humiliation of the other--a long process which involves incalculable
losses and wastes and endless miseries. Americans have always before
them the memory of their four years' civil war, which, although
resolutely prosecuted on both sides, could not be brought to a close
until the resources of the Southern States in men and material were
exhausted. In that dreadful process the whole capital of the Southern
States was wiped out.
But One Possible Issue.
Now that the sudden attack on Paris has failed, and adequate time has
been secured to summon the slower-moving forces of Russia and England,
and these two resolute and persistent peoples have decided to use all
their spiritual and material forces in co-operation with France against
Germany, thoughtful Americans can see but one possible issue of the
struggle, whether it be long or short, namely, the defeat of Germany and
Austria-Hungary in their present undertakings, and the abandonment by
both peoples of the doctrine that their salvation depends on militarism
and the maintenance of autocratic Executives intrusted with the power
and the means to make sudden war. They believe that no human being
should ever be trusted with such power. The alternative is, of course,
genuine constitutional government, with the military power subject to
the civil power.
The American people grieve over the fruitless sacrifices of life,
property, and the natural human joys which the German people are making
to a wrong and impossible ideal of national power and welfare. The
sacrifices which Germany is imposing on the Allies are fearfully heavy,
but there is reason to hope that these will not be fruitless, for out of
them may come great gains for liberty and peace in Europe.
All experienced readers on this side of the Atlantic are well aware that
nine-tenths of all the reports they get about the war come from English
and French sources, and this knowledge makes them careful not to form
judgments about details until the events and deeds tell their own story.
They cannot even tell to which side victory inclines in a long,
far-extended battle until recognizable changes in the positions of the
combatants show what the successes or failures must have been. The
English and French win some advantage so far as the formation of public
opinion in this country is concerned, because those two Governments send
hither official reports on current events more frequently than the
German Government does, and with more corroborative details. The amount
of secrecy with which the campaign is surrounded on both sides is,
however, a new and unwelcome experience for both the English and the
American public.
German Ignorance of Events.
The pamphlets by German publicists and men of letters which are now
coming to this country, and the various similar publications written
here, seem to indicate that the German public is still kept by its
Government in ignorance about the real antecedents of the war and about
many of the incidents and aspects of the portentous combat. These
documents seem to Americans to contain a large amount of misinformation
about the attack of Austria-Hungary on Servia, the diplomatic
negotiations and the correspondence between the sovereigns which
immediately preceded the war, and the state of mind of the Belgian and
English peoples. American believers in the good sense and good feeling
of the common people naturally imagine, when an awful calamity befalls a
nation, that the people cannot have been warned of its approach, else
they would have avoided it. In this case they fear that the Emperor, the
Chancellery, and the General Staff have themselves been misinformed in
important respects, have made serious miscalculations which they are
proposing to conceal as long as possible, and are not taking the common
people into their confidence. American sympathies are with the German
people in their sufferings and losses, but not with their rulers, or
with the military class, or with the professors and men of letters who
have been teaching for more than a generation that might makes right.
That short phrase contains the fundamental fallacy which for fifty years
has been poisoning the springs of German thought and German policy on
public affairs.
Dread of the Muscovite does not seem to Americans a reasonable
explanation of the present actions of Germany and Austria-Hungary,
except so far as irrational panic can be said to be an explanation.
Against possible, though not probable, Russian aggression, a firm
defensive alliance of all Western Europe would be a much better
protection than the single might of Germany. It were easy to imagine
also two new "buffer" States--a reconstructed Poland and a Balkan
Confederation. As to French "revenge," it is the inevitable and
praiseworthy consequence of Germany's treatment of France in 1870-71.
The great success of Germany in expanding her commerce during the last
thirty years makes it hard for Americans to understand the hot
indignation of the Germans against the British because of whatever
ineffective opposition Great Britain may have offered to that expansion.
No amount of commercial selfishness on the part of insular England can
justify Germany in attempting to seize supreme power in Europe and
thence, perhaps, in the world.
Finally, Americans hope and expect that there will be no such fatal
issue of the present struggle as the destruction or ruin of the German
Nation. On the contrary, they believe that Germany will be freer,
happier, and greater than ever when once she has got rid of the
monstrous Bismarck policies and the Emperor's archaic conception of his
function, and has enjoyed twenty years of real peace. Your obedient
servant,