New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
The land of the Stars and Stripes is only being asked to give its
neutrality the color of good-will. It is, for the time being, unlikely
that the United States would stand beside our opponents with army and
navy, as has been urgently counseled by Mr. Roosevelt, (who received the
honorary doctor's title in Berlin and as a private citizen reviewed a
brigade drill at the Kaiser's side.) Nevertheless, experience warns us
to be prepared for every change of weather, from the distant West, as
well as the distant East, (and to guard ourselves alike against abuse
and against flattery.)
The sentiment of the Americans is unfriendly to us. In spite of Princes'
travels, Fritz monuments, exchanges of professors, Kiel Week, and cable
compliments? Yes, in spite of all that. We can't change it. And should
avoid impetuous wooing.
The missionaries of the Foreign Office brought along with them in trunks
and bundles across the sea the prettiest eagerness; but in many cases
they selected useless and in some cases even injurious methods.
Lectures, pamphlets, defensive writings--the number of the defenders
and the abundance of their implements and talk only nursed suspicion.
Whatever could be done for the explanation of the German conduct was
done by Germania's active children, who know the country and the people.
The American business man never likes to climb mountains of paper. He
has grown up in a different emotional zone, accustomed to a different
standard of values than the Middle European. To feel his way into
foreign points of view, finally to become, in ordinary daily relations,
a psychologist, that will be one of the chief duties of the German of
tomorrow. He may no longer demand that the stranger shall be like him;
no longer denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The
North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts
and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily
understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly,
stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has
never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great
issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of
relatives, who wish to tug at and tousel each other, not to murder each
other.
Only before the comrade of Japan did the brow of Jonathan wrinkle more
deeply. But every Briton swore that his kinsman would bar the yellow
man's way to Hawaii, California, and the Philippines, and put him in the
fields of Asia only as a terror to the Russians or a scarecrow to the
Germans. A doubt remained, nevertheless; and we missed the chance of a
strong insurance against Japanese encroachment. Stroked caressingly
yesterday and boxed ears today:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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