The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1915.

Evening Star, Issue 15907, 13 September 1915, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1915.

Germany and the United States continue in a state of scarcely Americans veiled hostility the one and Germans, with the other. Nor is the reason hard to seek. As far as America is concerned, her President, her officials,"and Press are merely providing, on a somewhat elaho- j rate scale, a further illustration of the' truth of the proverb that the way of transgressors is hard. President Wilson has never he-en able to recover from the effects of his initial blunder in not denouncing Germany's crime against civilisation in the sack and devastation of Belgium, and he subsequently forfeited; what little reputation he may have retained by his- congratulatory birthday cablegram to the author of that most foul and diabolical attack. Two things, however bold the front the President has sought to assume, inevitably followed from his failure to rise to the necessities of a unique occasion. Dr Wilson lost, as far as the Allies are concerned, that moral influence which might so easily have been his, and simultaneously he brought down upon himself the contempt of the very nation he feared to offend. Next to England the American President and his Government have been the most frequent objects of German scorn. German diplomacy has almost- openly laughed in their face, and German newspapers have fulminated as only German news, papers can. We have, said the Washington correspondent of the 'Cologne Gazette.' with a' magnificent disregard for Biblical history, served as Laban served for Rachel. Wo have served even longer—longer than seven years. And we have sent our best courtiers, a Prince of the Emperor's house and princes from our land of genius. America replied to our attentions; she sent us yachting millionaires, the rough-riding"colonel, and exchange professors. They were all received with distinction. The people with f the racing boats sat at the Emperor s table and themselves entertained the Emperor. The rough-riding colonel held a review, and was allowed to lecture all the professors of the University of Berlin without being disturbed by.outbreaks of laughter. The professors from American seats of intellect saw the Emperor sit at their feet and were his guests at his august castle. All the giving was on our side. We showered upon the representatives of America everything that Ave had to give, and America took it all just as one takes a gala performance in Barnum's circus. This Press effusion is of value as an indication of the German outlook. Every nation has failed to reciprocate German courtesies as German statecraft believed it had a to. expect. Even as England was, in return for Chancellor Hollweg's friendship overtures, expected to remain neutral while Belgium was violated and France bled white, so the United States were expected, in return for ordinary international courtesies, to evolve some- sort of neutrality that would refuse to sell ammunition to the Allies as well as remain complacent while American citizens were foully and recklessly done to death on the open seas. England, to her everlasting honor and ! in defiance of a handful of her own ignoble sons and her own interests, refused to be bought, and rejected with scorn the " infamous offer" of the German Government. But America, while not openly and deliberately' choosing the wrong in preference to the right, eonght to find a way out along the path of "strict neutrality." She has failed, as was inevitable, from the first hour when national profit was putbefore national honor. Germany has laughed, cynically and sardonically, at President Wilson's protests and requests and lectures. • Germany is in arms against the world, therefore let the world do its hest—or worst. Upwards of four montlia have passed since over a hundred Americans were sent to a cruel and sudden death by a German submarine, yet the Washington officials, with the President at their head, are no nearer to-day an " explanation," an "understanding," or than they were then. Nor. is there much probability that they will get nearer to ono, although the interim lias been thick with similar unspeakably shameless and shameful violations of that civilisation of which the United States claims to bo the champion and apostle. © Against German savagery, blundering, misconceptions, and the infantile folly of thinking that beeau«& Germany says a thing is so that therefore it must be so may be placed the almost equally futile splutterings of the American Press. For months the organs of the latter have been indignantly asking in one form and another : Does there exist no power in the civilised world to keep this arrogant barbarian among nations within bounds? as the New York ' Journal of Commerce' did three weeks agp; Or is America to be regarded as a puerile, inferior, pusillanimous country, and treated as> a physical coward and mental incompetent among the nations? as the 'New York Herald' did three days ago. And to each, the answer must be that unless America decides to come boldly forth, on the tide of outraged civilisation, then punitive power does not appear, to exist in tire United States, and

that Germany -will most probably continue to regard her as "mentally incompetent" unless she gives moro clear proofs.to the contrary than those she has yet given. . Commenting, quite early in the campaign, upon ilio isolation of Germany, Prince Bulow is reported to have said-; "There must be some weak point. What •is it?" and he concludes: "We are political donkeys." A similar comment, but with less excuse, may be passed upon America. Why have the United States so signally, if not ignominiously, failed? The answer is simple. President Wilson lias sought to irun %vith the haro and hunt with the hounds. "He so far forgot himself .as to seek to remain friends with a couple of nations—Avstria and Germany—who had in coid blocd and with a light heart or "serene conscience"—to use the words of that " oldest, feeblest, and least capable of men " the Emperor of Austria—not declared war against threatening hostile Powers, as they now infamously proclaim, but embarked upon "the murdering "of millions of men of many nationalities, "the destruction of an entire kingdom, "the burning of historic cities, the' im-■ " poverishment of the rich, the starvation "of the- poor, the outraging of women, and " the slaughter of children," and at the same time to retain for America what, he called "tho force of moial principle." The world has long since known that all the President has succeeded in doing is to call down upon - his policy the condemnation of those of his countrymen whose opinion is worth having; to present America to the world as a. nation that prefers trade to righteousness; to make America's policy tho cat's-paw of German intrigue ; and, chief above all, to be no nearer the fulfilment of those " ideals which made America the hope of the world " than he was the day after the sinking of the Lusitania.