In the present state of feeling it is impossible to weigh from available data the question of how far there was some sort of “understanding” between the government at Berlin and persons of German sympathies in the United States that when _Der Tag_ dawned for the precipitation of the great scheme of world domination they would stand ready to assist by various processes of resistance and interference. For the many German-Americans who stood steadfastly for the American cause at all times it is unfortunate that much testimony points to some such arrangement. At this time it is difficult to be just about this, and it is far from my purpose to support an indictment that is an affront to the intelligence and honor of the many for the offenses of scattered groups and individuals; and yet through fifty years German organizations, a German-language press, the teaching of German in public schools fostered the German spirit, and the efforts made to preserve the solidarity of the German people lend color to the charge. It cannot be denied that systematic German propaganda, either open or in pacifist guise, was at work energetically throughout the West from the beginning of the war to arouse sentiment against American resistance to German encroachments. Americans of German birth have been controlled very largely by leaders, often men of wealth, who directed them in their affairs great and small. This “system” took root in times when the immigrant, finding himself in a strange land and unfamiliar with its language, naturally sought counsel of his fellow countrymen who had already learned the ways of America. This form of leadership has established a curious habit of dependence, and makes against freedom of thought and action in the humble while augmenting the power of the strong. It has been a common thing for German parents to encourage in their children the idea of German superiority and Germany’s destiny to rule the world. A gentleman whose parents, born in Germany, came to the Middle West fifty years ago told me recently that his father, who left Germany to escape military service, had sought to inculcate these ideas in the minds of his children from their earliest youth. The sneer at American institutions has been very common among Germans of this type. Another young man of German ancestry complained bitterly of this contemptuous attitude toward things American. There was, he said, a group of men who met constantly in a German clubhouse to belittle America and exalt the joys of the fatherland. Their attitude toward their adopted country was condensed into an oft-repeated formula: “What shall we think of a people whose language does not contain an equivalent for _Gemütlichkeit_!”