That is why, even at the risk of being called
nervous and alarmist, we want to try to make our American friends understand the risks the American Government are running, not, we are sure, out of malice, but out of ignorance. They believe that they can safely yield to the pressure put on them by the German Government, and still more to the pressure of the German vote and of traders eager for the high profits of war ventures. They cannot do so. They will find that neutrality is a matter of the spirit as well as of the letter, and that America cannot indulge in the luxury of moral indignation against German barbarity and at the same time insist that Germany shall have material aid from the United States, even if the principles of international law and of neutrality have to be strained to allow such assistance. The American Government must remember that we are fighting for our very life as a nation, and that if we do not win the fate of Belgium will be the fate of Britain, and that, in fact, they are asking us to fight with one hand tied behind our back in order to enable the State Department and the Administration generally not to disappoint Herr Dernburg and certain big trading interests.
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