America in World War 1 (3)

What is more, at all of the meetings of the diplomats of different
nations at the Hague, called for the purpose of trying to prevent
future wars, if possible, or at least to make them more humane and
less brutal to the women and children and others who were not actually
fighting, Germany had always upheld the right of neutral nations to
sell arms. Moreover, her representatives had fought strongly against
any proposals to settle disputes by arbitration and peaceful
agreements. At a time when many European nations signed treaties with
the United States agreeing to allow one year to elapse between a
dispute which might lead to war and the actual declaring of war
itself, Germany positively refused to consider such an agreement.

As for the English blockade, England was doing no more to Germany than
Germany or any other country would have done to England if the English
navy had not been so strong. In our own Civil War the North kept up a
like blockade of the South and no nation protested against it, for it
was recognized as an entirely legal act. In the Franco-Prussian war of
1871, the Germans were blockading the city of Paris and the country
around it. The Frenchmen tried to send their women and children
outside the lines to be fed. The Germans drove them back at the point
of the bayonet, and told them that they might "fry in their own fat."
According to the laws of war they were perfectly justified in what
they did. Then, too, the English blockade, which stopped ships which
were found to be loaded with supplies for Germany and took them
peaceably to an English port, where it was decided how much the owners
should be paid for the cargoes, was a very different matter from the
brutal drowning of helpless men, women, and children by the German
submarines. In one case, owners of the goods were caused a great deal
of annoyance and in some instances did not get their money promptly.
On the other side, there was murder of the most fiendish kind, an act
of war against neutral states.

Let us turn now to the second cause for grievance that the United
States had against Germany. At a time when American citizens who
sympathized with Germany were subscribing millions of dollars for the
relief of the German wounded, it is strongly suspected that this was
the very money, which, collected by the German government's own
agents, was being spent in plots involving the destroying of the
property of some American citizens and the death of others. The German
ambassador and his helpers were hiring men to blow up American
factories, to destroy railroad bridges, and to kill Americans who were
making war supplies for the armies of Europe. Factory after factory
was blown up with considerable loss of life. Bombs, with clock work
attachment to explode them at a certain time, were found on ships
sailing for Europe. Money was poured out in great quantities to
influence members of the United States Congress to vote against the
shipment of war supplies to France and England. Revolts paid for by
German money were organized in Mexico and the Islands of the West
Indies. For a long time there had been a series of stories and
newspaper and magazine articles trying to prove to the American people
that Japan was planning to make war on us. The same sort of stories
appeared in Japan, persuading the Japanese that they were in danger of
being attacked by the United States. It now appears that the great
part of these stories were started by the Germans, who hoped to get us
into a war with Japan and profit by the ill will which must follow
between the two countries.

At first, Americans were inclined to think that all of these things
could be traced to German-Americans, whose zeal for their Fatherland
caused them to go too far. But it has been proved beyond a doubt that
all of these acts, which were really acts of war against the United
States, were ordered by the government at Berlin and paid for by
German money, or by American money which had been contributed for the
benefit of the German Red Cross service.

In addition to these facts there were threats against the United
States which could not be ignored. The Kaiser had told our ambassador
at Berlin, Mr. Gerard, that "America had better beware after this war"
for he "would stand no nonsense from her." Admiral Von Tirpitz, the
German Secretary of the Navy, also told Mr. Gerard that Germany needed
the coast of Belgium as a place from which to start her "future war on
England and America."