"You will desire to know how the outbreak of hostilities will be brought about. I can assure you on this point. Certainly we shall not have to go far to find a just cause for war. My army of spies scattered over Great Britain and France, as it is over North and South America, as well as all the other parts of the world, where German interests may come to a clash with a foreign power, will take good care of that. _I have issued already some time since secret orders that will, at the proper moment, accomplish what we desire._ There is even now, as you are all aware, a state of private war existing between our country on the one side, and Great Britain and France on the other, which will assume an official character as soon as I give the word. It will become the starting point of a new era in the history of the world, known to all generations as the Pan-German era. I once pledged my word that every German outside of the Fatherland, in whatever part of the globe he might live, had a just claim to my Imperial protection. At this solemn hour I repeat this pledge before you, with the addition, however, that I shall not rest and be satisfied until all the countries and territories that once were German, or where greater numbers of my former subjects now live, have become a part of the great Mother-country, acknowledging me as their supreme lord in war and peace. "Even now I rule supreme in the United States, where almost one half of the population is either of German birth, or of German descent, and where three million German voters do my bidding at the Presidential elections. No American administration could remain in power against the will of the German voters, who through that admirable organisation, the German-American National League of the United States of America, control the destinies of the vast Republic beyond the sea. If man ever was worthy of a high decoration at my hands it was Herr Dr. Hexamer, the president of the League, who may justly be termed to be, by my grace, the acting ruler of all the Germans in the United States.