Anyone who has lived some time in the United States will feel with Goethe that "America is better off than our own Continent." Owing to the almost perfect autarchy existing there, grave economic problems never really arise. Nowhere else, during the whole course of my various diplomatic wanderings, have I ever seen a happier people, who looked more cheerfully into the future. In view of the comparatively sparse population of the country, intensive agricultural production has only become necessary in a few isolated districts; there are always purchasers in plenty for the rich surplus of raw materials available, and industry has not yet been directed solely towards export. As a result of these happy conditions, the American citizen feels but little interest for what goes on in other countries. In the period preceding the Five-Years War, if the political interests of the United States ever happened to cross those of Europe, it was almost exclusively in regard to American questions. As a proof of this we have only to think of the Spanish-American War, and of the various incidents relating to Venezuela; whereas it was only with difficulty that the German Government succeeded in inducing President Roosevelt's Administration to take part in the Algeciras Conference, at which the presence of the United States representative in no way alleviated our task. Up to the time of the Five-Years War, the Foreign Policy conducted from Washington was almost entirely Pan-American, and the Monroe Doctrine was the beginning and end of it; for even if that versatile man, President Roosevelt, was fond of extending his activities to other spheres, as, for instance, when he brought the Russo-Japanese War to an end by the Peace of Portsmouth, the Panama Canal scheme remained his favorite child. But in the case of the Russo-Japanese War, it was home politics, which in America are chiefly responsible for turning the scales in regard to Foreign Policy, that again played the principal part. Mr. Roosevelt wished to win over to his side the very strong pacifist element in America; whereas the Imperialists--particularly later on--deprecated these successful attempts at mediation, because they prevented a further weakening of both of the belligerent parties. Even Roosevelt's Secretary of State, John Hay, concerned himself actively with the Far East, and was known in America as the spiritual founder of the policy of the "Open Door." In this particular matter, the German Government frequently acted hand in hand with the American, and it was owing to this circumstance that the Foreign Office at Berlin very much wished to have the United States represented at the Algeciras Conference. The German Government believed that the Americans would also declare themselves in favor of the "Open Door" even in Morocco. This assumption, however, turned out to be a false one, owing to the fact that the political and economic interest shown by the