New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1919-10-01
A Warming To Our People.

ME! who am as the nerve DER which
do creep
The else unfelt expressions of this
earthr'- Shelley. =.
First of all the credentials of the
Prophet.
I have no nationality or national
prejudice. From childhood I got the
Irish-American slant, on England and
its Imperialistic spirit, and as | grew
up | carried the same attitude to the
judging of all other countries. Very
early 1 saw the sordid meanness Of
Frenchmen, as early as the selfish will
ness of the Italians, or the pedantry
and sentimentality Of, the Germans,
or the shiftless idealism of the Slav,
but l came to regard the German on
the whole as the strongest man in Europe,
the surest guide in the future, and be-
gan to love the Russian because he had
so much love in him for others.
All the While at the bottom of my
heart I cherished the superstition that
the American was the pick Of the bunch
for he added love of equality and JUS
tice to the English strength, and Ger
man love of abstract truth-of original
thought and frank speech-to the con-
ventional Anglo Saxon ideal and through
all like golden strand in the weaving,
went the Irish sympathy with revolt
and Kettle understanding Of the dae-
monte in man. In fact made an ideal
of the American as we are all so apt
to do with our own people.
I earned the hatred Of the English in
the Venezuelan dispute by declaring
that Dick Olney would make my Lord
of Salisbury back down and eat dirt
and when the crisis came and English
papers preached war rather than dis
graced submission, chortled in "The
Saturday Review warning Great Bri-
tain that in a fight with these states she
would pay for all her crimes against
humanity and disappear from among
the great nations falling to her true
place as another Holland. America,
cried, could whip the world in arms;
she will yet be the Conscience of the
Free Peoples and the Avenger of secular
injustice.
At the beginning of the Great War
I came to America hoping, praying
that neither side might win decisive
victory but predicting that in the drawn
battle the Germans would be easy
winners on points,
/ had no idea, no faintest fear or hope
that America would take hand in
the war It had nothing to do with her;
we we're not involved in any way MOI
even threatened. I deplored the accep.
lance Of the British blockade; like the
American government I knew it was
illegal I hated the shipping Of
munitions to Great Britain and the
Allies. I took Washington's view of
the matter and prayed for strictest
JuSLlCe anu dDSOluCe ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
Everyone knows how the Unitec
States was gradually drawn in; how We
first provided the Allies with munitions
and then with monies to buy the NUM-
tons; how we accepted the illegal
blockade which we had denounced ane
permitted the British to search Ameri
can ships and con6scate as contraband
milk for the starving children ane
rubber gloves for the Red Cross hospitals
in Germany: Babies and wounded mer
!; were put outside our pity and my sou
sickened.
| Had we kept our strict neutrality
inviolate, we should have had an immens,
moral influence, not only with the Allies
i but with Germany, and it is beyond
G doubt that at the crucial moment il
the first days Of 1917 we should have