The San Francisco call., 1898-08-14
Acting Chief of the Berlin For eign Office Speaks of
 the War.
Hostility of the Press of His Country Due to Miseonception of the Motives of
 the United States. v
Copyrighted. 1898, by the Associated Press

Copyrighted 1898, by the Associated Press.
 BERLIN, Aug. 13.-The Associated Press correspondent here has had an interesting interview, on the subject of the Spanish American war, with a gen. tleman, who, in the absence of Baron von BueIow, who is away on his sum mer holidays, is acting chief of the For eign Office, and who may be regarded as voicing in this conversation the gen. eral official view of the subject dis cussed.
 The gentleman began by saying:
 Baron won BueloW, on leaving, eau toned me that no expression of opin- ion contrary to Germany's policy of strict neutrality was to be promulgated. That we mean to observe neutrality of this description I think the world now knows. From the start the For eign Office has made it invariabIe to say nothing that could be interpreted as offensive to either side, and we have in no way tried to influence the Ger man press in favor of the United States, except on a single occasion. At first there was so much hostility on the part of the German press toward the United States that we took every op- portunity to arrange for the appear ance of articles of a different tone.
 Almost the only affinity existing be- tween Germany and Spain is found in the monarchical institution, while the bonds uniting Germany and the United States are numerous. It is true that at the commencement of the war Ger mans were much influenced by the fact that a powerful nation was attacking a weak one. This was a strong strain upon German idealism, and the sense of justice which characterizes the Ger man people, and the mere fact that you were the eggressOrs in this case somewhat prejudiced the German mind against you, quite irrespective Of the merits of the controversy. Besides, 1t must not be forgotten that Germans, in the matter of political education, are still somewhat unripe. It is not long since they became a homogeneous po- litical entity. It is partly due to this fact that Germans are given to reach7, ing nasty conclusions .on questions of, politics. Hence sprang a great amount of public comment in favor of Spain in the earlier stages of the war. Such talk, however, ought not to be quoted against the German Government, In re- gard to which there has been, think, no just cause of complaint by Amerf- cans"
 As a matter of fact. durings the past fortnight the tone of the German press has been much more favorable to the United States, and hardly anything di- rectly hostile has appeared in any of the more important papers, while the number ofTjournals openly friendly has considerably increased. The papers now point out that the authorities at Madrid and Manila and the Spanish press were largely responsible for the excitement rising out of the Irene incl dent, as they misconstrued 1t, and pre- ceding incidents in a manner that necessarily aroused suspicion in the United States.
 A good sample of the average of the editorial articles nowadays is furnished in the Lokal Anzeiger, until recently one of the most violent anti American sheets in Berlin. In an article printed to-day this journal draws parallel between the Turko-Grecian and the Spanish-American wars, and says that the differences between the two eases