Apart from this matter, the sympathies of the United States, in spite of the fact that some 30,000,000 of its inhabitants were of German extraction, were favourable to the Allies and not to the Teutonic Powers. The German case was set forth in many American newspapers with all the force of which the German Press Bureau was capable; and many well-known German professors used their influence to show that the struggle was one between culture and barbarism, the culture being represented by Germany and the barbarism by Russia. Whatever sympathy such statements as these aroused at first was speedily transferred to the other side when the American public began to hear, not merely of the German atrocities in Belgium, but of the brutal manner in which the neutrality of small and friendly countries such as Belgium and Luxembourg had been violated by the invaders. The German Ambassador at Washington, Count Bernstorff, was kept busy explaining why "strictness" was necessary in warfare; but no one took kindly to his explanation regarding the burning of Louvain, viz.: "War is not an afternoon tea-party." By the end of August, some of the American papers began to wonder why the German Press agents in America were able to flood the Press with what they alleged to be the only trustworthy news respecting the situation at the front. It was said that this news was being sent by wireless to the German Embassy at Washington by way of the Sayville Wireless Station. An investigation at Washington disclosed the interesting fact that the Sayville Wireless Station could not possibly be in direct communication with Germany, as the distance was too great. The German Ambassador's explanation was that the messages were being relayed by German warships; but this was not credited, as it was known that very few German warships were in the Atlantic and that they were being kept continually on the move by the British and French Fleets. Various organisations, both in Germany and in the United States, attempted to appeal to American sentiments by issuing pamphlets containing alleged facts regarding the campaign. The influence of these pamphlets, however, was a great deal more than balanced by the Chancellor's contemptuous reference to the "scrap of paper," described in the first chapter of this book.