Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/45

 This last circumstance might have given thoughtful men to pause but for the comfortable theory every one had in those days that we were all loyal Americans, brothers living together in this land of plenty, ready to defend it against aggression from any quarter and to die for it if need be. Also there was another comfortable theory quite generally held that the Germans were a peaceful and home-loving race, thoroughly good-hearted and inoffensive, and that they were as much amused with their saber-rattling, shining-armored Kaiser as we were. Most of us looked upon the Kaiser as a joke; certainly few of us suspected that his people really regarded him as a demigod, and that many thousands of those people were even then living in the United States, under the protection of its laws and its flag.

The cruiser Raleigh, with Captain Coghlan in command, had belonged to Admiral Dewey's squadron which steamed into Manila Bay on the first of May, 1898, and sank the Spanish fleet. It had fired the first shot of the battle, and it was the first ship of that squadron to be sent home. A mighty welcome greeted it when it entered New York harbor, and on the evening of April 21, the Union League Club gave a banquet to its officers, headed by Captain Coghlan. It was an elaborate affair, with Elihu Root as toastmaster and Chauncey Depew as one of