"* Once he declared that he too
came of fighting blood. Meanwhile, how ever, the German
submarines went on sinking ships; Bernstorff made his frequent
calls of studied impudence at the White House; German agents blew
up munitions factories and the warehouses where shells were
stored before shipment; and the process of spreading Prussian
gangrene throughout our country went on unchecked.
* July 14, 1916.
Worse than this, the military situation in Europe was almost
disheartening. Imperial Russia had disappeared and the Germans
were preparing to carve up the vast amorphous Russian carcass.
Having driven their way through the Balkans to Constantinople
they were on the point of opening their boasted direct route from
Berlin to Bagdad. England, France and Italy began to feel
war-weary. The German submarines threatened to cut off their
supplies of food, and unless the Allied countries could be
succored they might be starved into making peace. When they
looked across the Atlantic they beheld this mighty Republic
leaving them in the lurch, too busy piling up millions of dollars
drawn from the Allies in their distress to heed that distress,
and drugging their compunctions, if they had any, by saying to
themselves that a nation may be "too proud to fight," and that
they had the best authority for remembering that they must remain
"neutral even in thought.
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