Evening star., 1933-07-09
US. .S.FRIENDSHIPBECKONING
WAR FOES AFTER Is YEARS
Rise and Fall of Sympathy Throughout
Difficult Conferences Provides Study
in International Psychology.
BY WILLIAM r. CASTLE, JR.,


U. s. Undersecretary Of State Prom 1927
to 1888.
~ URING the World War it seemed
that nothing would ever re-
store cordial relations between
- the United States and Ger
many. On every side we heard
Americans saying that never again
would they go to Germany. that never
again would they consciously buy Ger
man-made goods. There are undoubt-
edly a few who still maintain this
stand, but among the mass Of the people
hatred of Germany collapsed with the
end Of the war-the real end of the
war, not that later, fictitious date on
which Congress. refusing to ratify the
treaty of Versailles, declared the state
of war at an end.
The same humanitarian impulse
which had poured out assistance for
Belgian relief during the war was
equally to the fore in the far more
difficult and extensive work of feeding
Germans and Austrians and Hungarians
after the war. No man had worked
harder to win the war and to help the
allies than Herbert Hoover: no man
worked more strenuously and farsight-
edly than he in building up the physical
condition and the morale of our
enemies after the var. He knew that
we must continue to live in a world
where Germans would always play a
leading part, and that we could live
with them usefully only If we treated
them fairly.
AS Secretary of State Mr. Hughes re-
stored normal relations with Germany,
negotiated a treaty under which We
obtained the benefits of the treaty of
Vcrs ills which we're rightly ours. and
9vCi1ed such obligations as were the
concern only of Europe. There was
nothing in this formal peace treaty
which infr.nged the rights of our as
sociates in the war, nothing which was
unfair to Germany.
In the following year, 1922, Mr..
Hughes negotiated a further agreement
claims commission to determine the
amounts to be paid for American losses
during the war. This pleased the Ger
mans because it Gid away with the
unilateral imposition of fines and
penalties. German action in requesting
the President of the United States to
name an American as umpire pleased
the people Of this country.
Treaty of Friendship.
In 1923 Mr.. Hughes concluded
treaty Of friendship, commerce and
consular rights. In this treaty there
was definitely inaugurated the prln-
ciple Of unconditional most-favored-
nation treatment. combined with ma
tional treatment of shipping. The Sec.
retary of State worked long and
arduously to make it clear and compre-
hensive, to avoid possibilities of diver
gent interpretations. to make it sum-
ciertly elastic to meet changing con-
ditions and at the same time to embody
recognized principles of international
law The treaty was so accepted by
Germany, and it placed the relations
OF the two countries on sound,
friendly and permanent plane. These
three achievements of Secretary Hughes
proved to be the solid bases of a grow
ing sympathy with our former enemy;
This sympathy first became vocal
when the terms of the treaty of Yer
sailles and its companion treaties with
Austria and Hungary were understood
Americans had looked for terms OF
peace which would be fair to all con-
cerned treaties which would breathe
the ideals which President Wilson had
so firmly expressed. Instead, they saw
selfshness triumphant. a settlement
which seemed to contain the SEEDS
Of future wars because nobody was
satisfied. Certain inequities stood out.
The Polish Corridor from the first
was recognized as an inevitable stum-
bling block to good relations between
Germany and Poland. The almost
total injustice of the Austrian settle
ment, which left one of the worlds
great cities stripped of its means Of
support, struck Americans instantly as
the prime example of selfishness, and
the clause of the treaty which pre-
vented union with Germany. thus con-
denning to a precarious existence a
people with whom we ourselves had
had no quarrel, seemed the essence Of
unfairneSS.
Those among us who knew Hungary
and its problems. who liked the Hun
garians for their courage and forti-
tude-another people with whom we
had no real quarrel-were equally
shocked by the terms of the Hungarian
settlement. We could not help SYM
pathizing with the Never, never" with
realized that economic considerations
had been ignored in both cases and
that even the pernicious doctrine of
self-determination had often been
strained to the breaking point and in
certain instances discarded altogether
These things reacted indirectly, in
their turn. to create more kindly feel
ings toward Germany, the ally of Aus
tria and Hungary.
Turn Of Sympathy.
Events following in quick succession
after the war had the effect of turn
ing American sympathy away from our
allies and toward our former enemies.
There was almost universal reprobation
of France and enthusiasm for Ger
many's passive resistance at the time
of the Ruhr occupation. We may have
been wrong; perhaps the firmness of
France in upholding the letter of the
treaty of Versailles was actually wise,
in that failure to act then might have
destroyed the whole postwar treaty
structure; but there is no doubt that
when the Ruhr was occupied we saw
only one aspect of the matter-that
the treaty should never have been SO
framed as to make new invasion per-
missible.
The progressive decline Of the Ger
man mark made us feel that in every
way the terms of peace had been too
hard. 1t was not until the mark had
actually collapsed that we realized that
what had happened had been with the
connivance of the German government,
if not actually instigated by it. That
knowledge, of course, irritated Ameri-
can opinion, made us realize that the
cry of desperation had been, to say
the least, insincere. Furthermore, in
the collapse Of the mark Americans
had lost much money, and the lamen-
tations OF the spectators filled the
land. Ever since that time the De-
partment Of State has been telling
American citizens that it cannot force
the German government to redeem in
gold the paper they bought for a few
pennies because Of the urge to make
something out of nothing.
On the other hand, the rapid and
successful return of Germany to some
thing which looked like financial sta
bility was widely applauded. We saw
in it proof OF the resourcefulness and
courage of the nation So it was, in
way, but the new stability was built
on the ruins of the strong middle class