The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-01
GERMAN UNITY AND AMERICAN SYM
PATHY.
FROM the N. Y. World.

FROM the N. y. World.
1t is little difficult to see precisely on
what grounds Americans are invited to
bestow their "sympathies" specially ON the
Germans in the present European war. The
German race has SO many and such solid
claims on the respect and even on the affec-
ton of mankind, it has done so much to en-
Tighten, to adorn, and to smooth human life,
that he could hardly be friend of his kind
or an intelligent believer in the principles of
civilization who should wish harm to come to
Germa1 y, and desire to see either her terri
tories parcelled ont among strangers or her
arms trailed in the dust. But between cor
dial hopes for the preservation of the national
life of Germany and ardent longings for the
triumph of the German standards over France
there is weighty difference.
That the common people of Germany
should believe German victory over France
to be essential to the maintenance of German
independence is natural enough. France
under Louis XIV and France under Napoleon
| impressed this belief in blood and fire upon
the German popular heart. The sins of the
fathers here also are visited upon the chill
dren. The ravages of Louvois, and what
proud Queen Bess would have called the
'sfouI scorn" ungenerously lavished by the
victor of Jena upon the lovely Louisa of
Prussia, have left their traces deep on the
hearts of the German people. But the more
enlightened classes of Germany know, what
is perfectly evident to the enlightened classes
of all other countries, that there has never
been the slightest real danger of any at
tempt at repeating these exploits on the
part of the actual Government of France
The loudest organs of Count Bismarck in the
present war do not pretend that Germany
went to war to prevent Napoleon III from
annexing Baden or the Palatinate by force to
France They profess that the wrong suf-
fered by Germany from France was an insult
offered by French Ambassador to the Prus-
sian King. well-considered correspond
ence from Berlin, just published in a leading
radical journal of Massachusetts,, formally
denies that any such insult was ever offered
by Count Benedetti to King William, and
charges the whole story as a malignant and
deliberate fabrication to the Prussian Premier.
But if it were true, how contemplate pre-
text would such matter offer in the middle
of the nineteenth century for so awful an
unsealing of the vials of wrath as now makes
desolate the fair plains of Lorraine and the
hilly woodlands of Champagne 1t is Ger.
tainly asking too much of Americans to re-
quest that they shall interest themselves
deeply in behalf of people which is ready
to sacrifice itself, its neighbors, and the
interests of humanity on such an issue. II
ever there was a case for settlement by arbi
tration, this case thus stated would be one
That the average radical politician, as ready
to fatter the Teuton as the negro, and the
coois as either, where any hope of votes
exists, should be ready to toss up his hat
over the glorious slaughter of thousands o.
his fellow creatures in such struggle, NIGH
be expected. Not so the statesman, tn,
patriot, the philanthropist, or the Christian.
Nor is it much more satisfactory to be tolt
that we must 60 with Germany in all her no
emotions in this crisis of her fate because he
unity is at stake, and her unity is the hope o
Continental progress 1t is simply not tru'
that German unity could not have been esta
blist ed without such a war as this, nor is