GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA
November 13, 1917
There have recently been published various books by Americans who, during the Great War, have officially represented this country in Germany and in Belgium, when the Germans conquered it. Ambassador Gerard is one writer.Mr.Gibson, secretary of our legation at Brussels, is another.Mr.Curtis Roth, until recently vice-consul at Plauen, Saxony, is a third. Their testimony is of profound significance because of their official position and personal standing.
Two facts leap to the eye from their writings. The first is that the German people have stood practically united behind their Government in upholding and insisting upon the systematic infliction of hideous brutality upon their foes. With deliberate purpose the German Government has carried on a war of horror, a war of obscene cruelty, of wholesale slaughter, of foul treachery and bestiality, a war in which civilians, including women, children, nurses, doctors, and priests, as well as wounded soldiers, have been murdered wholesale. The German people have enthusiastically supported and approved their acts. Our war is as much with the German people as with their Government, and we should regard with loathing all Americans, whether men or women, who any way attempt to justify or defend Germany’s action. The Americans who so act are traitors to their country and to humanity at large.
The second fact is the extreme malevolence of hatred with which Germany regards America, a hatred which blossomed into full growth before we went to war, and which was immensely aggravated because of the contempt inspired by our tame submission to outrage for over two years.Mr.Roth’s testimony is peculiarly interesting. He shows that the Berlin Government actively stimulated the campaign of hatred and revenge against America, thatthe German people eagerly accepted the view that Americans were cowardly, avaricious, and effeminate, and that in Germany it was constantly announced that, sooner or later, there would be a day of reckoning when America would have to pay a huge indemnity or suffer the fate of Belgium.
Mr.Roth shows that the German people think exactly as their leaders think. They now hate and despise us Americans as they hate others of their foes. SaysMr.Roth:
They are resolved to make our country drink to the dregs out of the bitter cup of humiliation. Nothing do they find more despicable than our talk about peace, which they attribute to cowardice and flabbiness. They look on the American pacifist as a weakling, as a God-given tool in the hands of German interest.... The Germans, if possible, feel more bitterly towards Americans of German extraction than towards Americans of other lines of descent.
They are resolved to make our country drink to the dregs out of the bitter cup of humiliation. Nothing do they find more despicable than our talk about peace, which they attribute to cowardice and flabbiness. They look on the American pacifist as a weakling, as a God-given tool in the hands of German interest.... The Germans, if possible, feel more bitterly towards Americans of German extraction than towards Americans of other lines of descent.
Germany has definitely decided on America’s ruin. She has definitely decided that there must be an intense anti-American spirit in both Government and people. She may bide her time, and she will doubtless try to separate us from our allies, but her purpose towards us is both relentless and ruthless.
If we are true to ourselves, if we prepare our armed strength and keep it prepared, if we show farsightedness and valor of soul, we can be sternly indifferent to this foul and evil hatred. But we must keep steadily in mind that Germany respects nothing whatever except courage and prepared strength and that the pacifists and pro-Germans, the Hunswithin our gates, the Hearsts and the La Follettes, are playing the game of our German foes, and if they have their way will bring shame and disaster to our land.