If the above statements seem in the eyes of my German friends hostile to Germany, let me emphasize the fact that they are predicated upon a course of action which if extended and applied as it should be extended and applied would range the United States on the side of Germany if any such assault were made upon Germany as has been made upon Belgium, or if either Belgium or any of the other allies committed similar wrong-doing. Many Germans assert and believe that if Germany had not acted as she did France and England would have invaded Belgium and have committed similar wrongs. In such case it would have been our clear duty to behave toward them exactly as we ought now to behave toward Germany. But the fact that other powers might under other conditions do wrong, affords no justification for failure to act on the wrong that has actually been committed. It must always be kept in mind, however, that we cannot expect the nation against whose actions we protest to accept our position as warranted, unless we make it clear that we have both the will and the power to interfere on behalf of that nation if in its turn it is oppressed. In other words, we must show that we believe in right and therefore in living up to our promises in good faith; and, furthermore, that we are both able and ready to put might behind right. As I have before said, I think that the party in Germany which believes in a policy of aggression represents but a minority of the nation. It is powerful only because the great majority of the German people are rightfully in fear of aggression at the expense of Germany, and sanction striking only because they fear lest they themselves be struck. The greatest service that could be rendered to peace would be to convince Germany, as well as other powers, that in such event we would do all we could on behalf of the power that was wronged. Extremists in England, France, and Russia talk as if the proper outcome of the present war would be the utter dismemberment of Germany and her reduction to impotence such as that which followed for her upon the Thirty Years’ War. I have actually received letters from Frenchmen and Englishmen upbraiding me for what they regard as a pro-German leaning in these articles I have written. To these well-meaning persons I can only say that Americans who remember the extreme bitterness felt by Northerners for Southerners, and Southerners for Northerners, at the end of the Civil War, are saddened but in no wise astonished that other peoples should show a like bitterness. I can only repeat that to dismember and hopelessly shatter Germany would be a frightful calamity for mankind, precisely as the dismemberment and shattering of the British Empire or of the French Republic would be. It is right that the United States should regard primarily its own interests. But I believe that I speak for a considerable number of my countrymen when I say that we ought not solely to consider our own interests. Above all, we should