I am making no rash assertions when I state that ten years ago the course which German agents should adopt toward the United States in the event of a great European war, had been determined with a reasonable amount of exactness by the General Staff, and that it was this plan that was adapted to the conditions of the moment, and set into operation at the outbreak of the present conflict. No element of hostility lay behind this planning. Germany had no grievance against you; and whatever potential causes of conflict existed between the two nations lay far in the future. That plan, so complete in detail, so menacing in its intent, was but part of a world plan that should assure to Germany when the time was ripe the submission of all her enemies and the peaceful assistance and acquiescence in her aims of whatever parts of the world should at that time remain at peace. Germany looked far ahead on that day when she first knew that war must come. She realized, if no other nation did, that however strong in themselves the combatants were, the neutrals who should command the world’s supplies, would really determine the victory. Knowing this, Germany—which does not play the game of diplomacy with gloves on—laid her plans accordingly. The United States offered a peculiarly fruitful field for her endeavors. By tradition and geography divorced from European rivalries, it was, nevertheless, from both an industrial and agricultural standpoint, obviously to become the most important of neutral nations. The United State alone could feed and equip a continent; and it needed no prophet to perceive that whichever country could appropriate to itself her resources would unquestionably win the war, if a speedy military victory were not forthcoming. It was Germany’s aim, therefore, to prepare the way by which she could secure these supplies, or, failing in that, to keep them from the enemy, England—if England it should be. In a military way such a plan had little chance of success. England’s command of the seas was too complete for Germany to consider that she could establish a successful blockade against her. It was then, I fancy, that Germany bethought herself of a greatly potential ally in the millions of citizens of German birth or parentage with whom the United States was filled. One may extract a trifle of cynical amusement from what followed. Those millions of German-Americans had never been regarded with affection in Berlin. The vast majority of them were descendants of men who had left their homes for political reasons; and of those who had been born in Germany many had emigrated to escape military service, and others had gone to seek a better opportunity than their native land provided. They had been called renegades who had given up their true allegiance for citizenship in a foreign country, and Bernstorff himself, according to the evidence of U. S. Senator Phelan, had said that he regarded them as traitors and cowards.