Page:A personal letter to the Kaiser.pdf/8

 want to know whether God didn't call them also for something better than merely dumbly doing what they are told.

It's coming, Wilhelm; I'm trying to get you prepared for it by easy stages. I call you Wilhelm. But some private soldier is like as not to walk up to you and slap you on the back and call you Bill.

I've tried to keep hate out of my heart in this war. I don't hate you; but we aren't the friends we once were. I—speaking for myself and my crowd of about a hundred million—used to buy a lot of goods made in Germany, and I can buy a lot more. I want to be friends. I don't want to hand down to my son a distrust or bitterness against any nation in the world. But, Wilhelm, right now, before the war is over, I think you ought to begin making up with me. If we're going to do business together as we used to, I've got to know that you're telling me the truth; I've got to know that you are going to be just to me in accordance with deserts, not merely in proportion to my weakness; I must know that while you are calling on me in my parlor your friends aren't around at the back door corrupting my cook.

I don't suppose Mr. von Bernstorff has ever told you about me at all. But there are a great many million of me, and the subjects that you and von Bernstorff correspond about—politics, internal or foreign—really don't amount to a hill of beans with me. What I'm interested in is, How are you and I, Wilhelm, going to be friends again?