Winning a Cause | Page 4

their own way as long as they are honest
and do not interfere with him and his business. He is, to be sure,
desirous of improving them, but by peaceful means, by building dams
and railroads for them, and by giving them schools and sending them
missionaries.
It was difficult therefore for Americans to realize that the Germans
really planned and desired the war in order that they might rule the
world. It took months and even years of war for the majority of
Americans to come to a full realization of this truth. This should be
remembered when the question is asked, not why the United States
entered the war, but why she did not enter it earlier.
Americans are honorable and look upon the breaking of a pledge or an
agreement as a shameful thing. It was almost impossible for them to
believe that a nation, far advanced in science and learning of all kinds,
could look upon a treaty as a scrap of paper and consider its most
solemn promises as not binding when it was to its advantage to break
them. Americans in their homes, their churches, and their schools had
been taught that "an honest man is the noblest work of God." They had
heard the old saying that "All is fair in love and war"; but they could
not think for a moment that a whole nation of men and women had
been taught that lies and treachery and broken promises were fair
because they helped the Fatherland work out its destiny and rule the
world.
They knew that Chancellor Bismarck falsified a telegram to bring on
the war with France in 1870, and they learned to their dismay that
Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in 1914 declared the treaty with
Belgium only "a scrap of paper" when Germany wished to cross that
country to strike France. Americans kept learning that Germany's
promises to respect hospitals and hospital ships, stretcher-bearers and
the Red Cross, not to interfere with non-combatants, not to use poison
gas, not to bombard defenseless cities and towns were all "scraps of
paper." They discovered even the naturalization papers which Germans
in America took out in order to become American citizens were lies
sworn to, for the German who declared his loyalty to his new mother

country was still held by Germany as owing his first fealty and duty to
her. It must be said, however, that many Germans who became
naturalized in the United States did not agree with these secret orders of
their Fatherland; but many others did, and the rulers of Germany
encouraged such deception.
It was many months after the beginning of the World War before the
large body of American citizens would believe that the German nation
and the German people made a business of lies and deception, and
considered such a business just and proper when in the service of the
Fatherland. But when Germany--after having promised the United
States on May 4, 1916, that merchant ships would not be sunk without
warning or without giving the crews and passengers an opportunity for
safety--on January 31, 1917, informed Washington that she was not
going to keep her promise and told the German people that she had
only made it in order to get time to build a great submarine fleet which
would bring England to her knees in three months--then the American
people saw Germany as she was and in her shame.
Of all the peoples of the earth, the Americans are probably the most
sympathetic and helpful to the weak and the afflicted. They are the
most merciful, striving to be kind not only to people but even to
animals. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, another
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the numberless Bands of
Mercy show the feeling of the people of America toward the helpless.
Americans supposed that other people were like them in this respect.
They knew of the German pensions to the widows and to the aged, and
they supposed that the efficient and enlightened Germans were among
the merciful and sympathetic to the weak and dependent. The people of
the United States knew, of course, of the Zabern incident where two
German soldiers held a crippled Alsatian cobbler while a German
officer slashed his face with his sword for laughing at him,--they knew
that the German army officers were haughty and overbearing, but they
thought this came from their training and was not a part of the German
character. Americans had read the Kaiser's directions to the German
soldiers going to China during the Boxer uprising to "Show no mercy!
Take no prisoners! Use such frightfulness that a Chinaman will never

dare look at a German again. Make a name for yourselves as the Hun
did long