Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/254

Counter-Currents shall we look for wisdom, if not to the counsels of the copy-book!

The correspondence which ensued between the Administration in Washington and the Imperial Government in Berlin was so remarkable that it may well serve as a model for generations yet unborn. If the Polite Letter-Writer ever broadens its sphere to embrace diplomatic relations, it could not do better than reprint these admirable specimens of what was thought to be a lost art. The urbanity and firmness of each American note filled us with justifiable pride. Also with a less justifiable elation, which was always dissipated by the arrival of a German note, equally urbane and equally firm. Germany was more than willing to state at length and at leisure her reasons for sinking merchant ships, provided she could safely and uninterruptedly continue the practice. Such warfare she defined in her note of July 9 as a "sacred duty." "If the Imperial 238