Page:A personal letter to the Kaiser.pdf/4

 that lived beside us had one of your fellow countrymen as a coachman. They were Prussians; they had decided they would rather be coachmen in a country where they could walk on the grass if they felt like it than to dwell in a land where too many things were verboten. And, generally speaking, they were pretty useful citizens. I remember once, though, that we got into a snow-ball fight—the two men against the ten-year-old boy. And I remember how they chased me across an open lot, throwing hard, icy snow-balls; and how I fell down and cut myself on the crust, and cried; and how they stood one on either side of me and continued to throw, after I was flat in the snow, and how they laughed when they saw me cry.

It's funny, Wilhelm, but I had forgotten all about that boyhood incident until the day when the Lusitania sank; and then suddenly, all in an instant, it flashed over me again. We've read very attentively everything that has been sent out from your side about the Lusitania, and I think we're broad enough to give you credit if any was coming to you. You claimed the Lusitania was armed, which you knew was not true. She did carry munitions, but she also carried women and children, and you knew that also. The submarine commander was under orders; he had no discretion; it was not his to ask, but to act.

And yet, Wilhelm, this is the simple truth: If that commander had been an American instead of a Prussian, he might have fired his torpedo, but he would have managed somehow to miss; and he would have come back to port and taken his punishment like a gentleman. You may not believe it; you may not understand; but it's true. No American would have sunk a boat full of women and children; no American theater audience would have cheered at jokes about it; no American school children would have been given a holiday to celebrate such a sinking. We just aren't built that way, Wilhelm, and if you and I are going to be friends again, you've got to make an effort to understand that.

There have been atrocities enough on both sides in this war, God knows, and we, over here, are no Recording Angels, to sit in judgment upon either you or England. We have read everything that you have published about England's atrocities; and we would like to believe that everything England has published about you is untrue. But, unfortunately, Wilhelm, we have the bitter testimony of too many Americans who have been serving the wounded in France. Only a few days ago an American author whose accuracy I have had occasion to test many times, sat and talked with me in my office. He has been working as a stretcher-bearer in France, and he said:

"We don't wear the Geneva cross any more. It makes too good a mark for the German sharpshooters."

Then he told me how he saw a German aeroplane circle over a French hospital tent, glaringly marked on the top with red crosses,