GERMANY AND
THE UNITED STATES
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE
GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
JANUARY 24. 1908
BY
JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D.,LL.D.
DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PRESIDENT OF THE GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
New York
1913
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Publications of the Germanistic Society of America
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GERMANY AND THE UNITED
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GERMANY AND
THE UNITED STATES
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE
GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF
JANUARY 24. 1908
AMERICA
Miam
BY
JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D.,LL.D.
DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PRESIDENT OF THE GERMANISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
New York
1913
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Printed March, 1909
Reprinted February, 1913
GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
Before I begin the discussion of my subject, I wish to
utter a word of warning, it is this: that in all the ideas and
propositions which I shall advance, I am speaking solely
for myself and out of my own convictions. On account of
my late position and relations as first Roosevelt Professor
in the University of Berlin, through which I was brought
into a certain contact with President Roosevelt, on the one
side, and His Majesty, the German Emperor, on the other,
the notion may arise in some minds, that I, in some way, re-
flect the views of these high personages. I need hardly say
that I entertain the highest respect, and feel the warmest
friendship, for both the President and the Emperor. I re-
gard them as the two greatest men and statesmen among
the rulers of the world, and I sincerely hope that what I
shall say upon this all-important subject may meet with
their approval; but I bear no commission from either of
them and neither of them is, in the slightest degree, respon-
sible for my views and utterances. These are the legiti-
mate offspring of my own experiences and observations
both here and in Germany. These experiences have ex-
tended through many years and these observations have
been made under favorable, sometimes unusually favor-
able, conditions, and therefore I feel emboldened to ask for
them, on your part, an impartial consideration.
5
My really conscious life began in this country with the
outbreak of the Civil War, and in my youth I witnessed the
struggle of the Nation to maintain itself against the forces
of sectionalism and particularism, while my first experi-
ences in German life connect themselves with the same
problem there, which was solved for Germany by the con-
flict of 1866 with Austria, and that of 1870-71 with
France, and with the same result as by the Civil War for
us. From that day to this I have watched these two great
kindred Nations grow and develop apace, spending a part
of almost every year in each and seeking to bring myself
into sympathy with the inner and guiding spirit of both.
My student life was passed in an American college and in
three German universities. My friendships are about
equally distributed through the two countries, and what ed-
ucation I possess is the joint contribution of the two. It
is these things which give me my warrant to speak and
these alone.
I will state to you at the very outset the proposition
which I shall endeavor to prove in this discussion, so that
there may be no doubt whatsoever in respect to my mean-
ing or purpose. It is this, namely, that the true interests
of these United States of America and the world situation
of today require a thorough understanding, close friend-
ship and intimate relations between Germany and the
United States, and that the firm maintenance of such rela-
tions is the key to the international security of our country,
the peace of the world and the advancement of civiliza-
tion.
I will examine this proposition from two points of view,
viz.: the ethnical and the political. I claim, in the first
place, that in ethnical, moral and intellectual qualities,
the Germans stand nearer to the genuine Americans than
6
do the people of any other European Nation, even of the
English Nation. The one thing which obscures this ethni-
cal harmony is the difference of language. I admit that
this is a serious obstacle to ethnical harmony, but it is by no
means fatal. It is entirely conceivable that two or more peo-
ples of different tongues may arrive at the same ideals of
right and wrong, law and policy, while two or more peoples
of the same tongue may arrive at different ideals. Now,
the very fact of American resistance to British rule and the
winning of American independence is sound proof of this
statement from the one side, and the unbroken friendship
between Prussia and the United States and then Germany
and the United States is equally sound upon the other side.
There are today as many citizens of the United States
who are of German descent as there are who are of English
descent and the actually German-born citizens of the
United States far outnumber the English-born. Let it be
remarked that I say English-born, not British-born. I
mean by this to exclude the Irish from this calculation. I
do not regard the Irish race as representative of the English
ideals, and politically it is an unfriendly race to the English.
The citizens of the United States of German descent are
among our most intelligent, moral, prosperous, progressive
and loyal citizens. Their influence upon the development
of our national life is fully as strong and beneficial as that
of any other body of our people, and while they are entirely
loyal to the United States politically, they still preserve,
in greater or less degree, the admirable intellectual and
moral qualities of their great race in the Fatherland. Fur-
thermore, it must be remembered that almost the entire
control of the higher education in the United States is in
the hands of men who have received a large part of their
own training at the great German universities, who speak
the German language, have studied the German literature,
science and philosophy, have made deep and lasting friend-
£
world. It was this, likewise, which enabled the Prussian
King and the Prussian people, half a century later, to
break the Napoleonic tyranny in Germany and open the
way for the unity of the Nation. It was this which sus-
tained Prussia in the struggles of 1866 and 1871, and
crowned her great plan for the accomplishment of this
unity with brilliant and lasting success. And it is this
which inspires the German people today to bear the great
burden of sustaining, through the universal military ser-
vice of her sons, the peace and security of Europe.
There is nothing so generally misunderstood in these
United States as the character and purpose of Germany's
military organization. I can appreciate that misunder-
standing, for I once shared it myself. Perhaps I can best
remove it for others by relating how it was corrected in my
own case. It was more than thirty-five years ago that I
was a student at the University of Berlin and pursued my
work in Prussian history under the direction of the re-
nowned Prussian Historiographer, Professor Gustav
Droysen. Among the hearers of the Professor's lectures
at the time was one of his own sons, with whom I became
somewhat nearly acquainted. One day young Droysen
came into the lecture room clad in military uniform. This
signified that he had entered on the discharge of his mili-
tary duty. A few days later I went to his father's resi-
dence to attend a session of the Seminar in Prussian history,
and I expressed to the Professor my regret that his son
should be interrupted in his university studies to do mili-
tary service. The Professor lifted his glasses from his eyes
to his forehead and said to me, "My young friend, you do
not understand this matter. If you were a German I
would not take that trouble to explain it to you, but as you
are a foreigner, I will. Our universal military service,"
said he, "is the best possible thing for our young men them-
10
selves and for the entire country and for all Europe. In
the first place it is a school of physical culture. It adds, on
the average, ten years to the life of our men and twenty-
five per cent to their efficiency in any line of work which
they afterward pursue. Instead of a loss in physical force,
it produces a very considerable gain. In the second place,
it is a school of intellectual culture. Every company is a
class which is instructed in many of the most important and
practical subjects of knowledge by its officers. The lower
officers are instructed by the higher, and the whole system
of such instruction culminates in the Military Academy at
Berlin, where the highest officers study not only the mili-
tary system of Germany and of other countries, but also
all the conditions and resources of every nature of all coun-
tries. In the third place," said he, "our universal military
service is a school of morals. During the two or three years
of their service our young men are restrained from all dissi-
pation and are forced to introduce strict order and disci-
pline into their lives and their work. In the fourth place,
said he, "it is a school of manners. It requires of the young
men politeness in their intercourse with one another and re-
spect for their superiors. The rudest peasant is trans-
formed by it into something like a gentleman. And in the
fifth place, it is a school of patriotism and National devel-
opment. It lifts our young men in early life out of the ruts
of selfishness and gives them an ideal in life to struggle for,
and to inspire them to higher action,-the good of their
country, and it brings our young men from the different
parts of the country together in the same regiments, divi-
sions and corps, whereby they come to know each other per-
sonally and form a net-work of friendships reaching over
the entire country, which removes local prejudices and hos-
tilities, promotes national good feeling and cements the na-
tion morally and politically. Finally," said he, "the pres-
ent German army and military system is an engine of
11
peace rather than an engine of war. It originated in the
effort of the people to beat back the Napoleonic invasion
and to protect themselves against the repetition of the suf-
ferings which that entailed. Its historic purpose is, there-
fore, entirely defensive and peaceful, and I predict that it
will maintain the peace of Europe for many decades to
come." This, to me, most interesting conversation took
place, as I have indicated, thirty-five years ago, and the
prediction which the great Historian then uttered has been
fully verified. In these three and a half decades the Ger-
man Empire and its great military power have done more
to maintain the peace and security of Europe than all the
other forces in European politics put together.
We Americans must learn to disassociate the ideas of
peace and disarmament, at least under certain conditions.
Under the conditions which prevail in Europe today, Ger-
man disarmament would mean war, speedy and terrible, in-
stead of peace. And we must learn to view the German
military system as a duty rather than as a burden,
a duty whose faithful discharge, though from a narrow
point of view appearing burdensome, brings with
it compensations, both material and spiritual, which far
overbalance the hardships and exertions which it costs.
There are few important duties whose discharge does
not appear at times, both to him who fulfills them
and to him who looks on, as a hardship and a burden.
I very often feel it burdensome to teach the students
of Columbia University constitutional law and I doubt
not that they more frequently find it burdensome to
attend my instruction, but I know that it has been and is,
on the whole, a great advantage to me to have done so and
if it has not been an advantage to them, it has at least been
a wholesome discipline. But all levity aside, and in deep-
est seriousness, I do not believe that there is any practice or
12
institution which keeps the sense of duty to home, country
and fellowmen so alive and active as a period in early man-
hood of military service, and this is especially true when the
soldier serves without compensation, as is the German prac-
tice. The whole matter is then fully and continuously
seen in the light of a great duty, as the "Wehrpflicht" of
every man. Its influence in the forming of the entire char-
acter of the man is lasting and highly beneficial. No one
who has lived so long and constantly as I have in Germany
and has watched so closely the German life and character,
in its essence and in its development, can fail to discover
that the great directing principle in it is the clear and all-
controlling sense of duty, what the philosophers term the
ethical sense, and that the German military system is at the
same time one of the highest expressions and one of the
chief producing forces of this sense.
I have dwelt upon this point at such length because it is
quite common for Americans to regard the militarism of
Germany, as they term it, as the great point of contradic-
tion between German and American civilization, while, in
fact, it corresponds, in deepest principle, with our own gen-
uine Puritanism. The great traits of character which it has
helped powerfully in producing correspond with those
which genuine Puritanism has begotten;-the same con-
scientiousness, the same sense of justice, the same ideals of
right, the same idealism modified by sound practicality, the
same spirit of self-control, the same mutual good will and
the same youthful vigor and hopeful spirit of enterprise.
Some months ago I said something in this strain in a lec-
ture in the University at Bonn and the criticism of a certain
American newspaper of standing upon it was, that differ-
ent nations may have the same characteristics and yet be
enemies. My answer to that is that it depends upon what
these traits are. If they are narrowmindedness, selfishness
1
13
and obstinacy, they will very likely lead to strife. If, on
the other hand, they are liberality in views, generosity,
love of justice and devotion to duty, they will always make
for peace and friendship. It is in such traits that I find the
likeness between the Germans and the genuine Americans,
and I contend that they point to a closer and closer friend-
ship between these two great Nations.
When, now, in the second place, we advance from these
considerations of moral harmony to the contemplation of
the political structure of the two countries and their politi-
cal relations to each other and to the world, we find our-
selves upon lines of progress which are ever converging
and pointing to an ever closer political harmony in purpose
and action. Germany and the United States furnish the
two great examples of Federal government for the world.
They are not, in all their details, exactly the same, but in
essential principle they are, and their effect in the develop-
ment of political ideas and forms is as nearly identical as is
practically possible. The Federal system has for its fun-
damental principle the distribution of governmental pow-
ers, according to their nature, between the local and general
organs of government, and the recognition of the substan-
tial independence of the local and general spheres of action.
This principle involves the larger and larger participation
of the governed in the affairs of government and excites
constant inquiry and thought in the adjustment of
these spheres to each other. It is the system of gov-
ernment which furnishes the objective occasions for the
thoroughgoing analysis and criticism necessary to the con-
struction of a sound political science and an enlightened
political practice. It is also the system in which the civil
liberty of the individual is most clearly defined and most
securely protected, because, in the effort to distribute the
powers of government between the local and general
14
organs, the sovereign distributing hand back of both sets of
governmental organs must be found, recognized and or-
ganized, and this is the power alone which can truly formu-
late and defend the civil liberty of the individual against
the encroachments of government. This Federal system,
therefore, produces a political civilization which is not only
unique but which is of a far higher order than any other
form can create. It produces, finally, a nationality which
is developed from below upward and from within outward
and which is not artificially imposed, a self-conscious na-
tionality, whose cultural effects differ most widely from
those developed by other systems.
Now, this great fundamental political harmony in inter-
nal structure between these two great countries must in-
evitably lead to a mutual understanding between them in
regard to the fundamental principles of sovereignty, gov-
ernment and liberty. It has already in very considerable
measure done so. If you will only examine carefully the
German and American literatures of Political Science
you will find them, both in concept and treatment, in far
closer agreement than those of any other countries. The
significance of this fact is very great and its results wide
reaching. It means harmony in political and legal ideas
and ideals. It means intellectual and moral friendship,
which must tend to produce political and economic friend-
ship.
But this is not all. It is not the half. There is a still
higher point of view from which we may survey the rela-
tions of these two leading powers of the two hemispheres
to each other. That point of view is the present situation
of the world and the tendencies which that situation re-
veals. The political world today is in ferment, chiefly be-
cause the three great modern powers in continental Eu-
15
rope, America and Asia have attained the status of national
consolidation and have entered upon the period of world
politics. These three great powers are Germany, the
United States and Japan. These three great states repre-
sent above all others the civilization of the future and they
are bound to transmit that civilization to the rest of the
world. It is not simply the policy of their governments or
rulers which is here involved. It is the expansive power of
three great, progressive, modern peoples who feel their
power and their duty, not only to develop themselves, but
to help the world.
Allow me to sketch briefly and in round terms the situa-
tion of the world. The land area of the world, so far as at
present known, measures about fifty-two and one-half mil-
lions of square miles, inhabited by about seventeen hundred
millions of people. Of this area and population Asia con-
tains some seventeen and a half millions of square miles, in-
habited by about one thousand millions of people; Europe
some three million eight hundred thousand square miles,
inhabited by something over four hundred millions of peo-
ple; Africa some twelve millions of square miles, inhabited
by about one hundred and fifty millions of people; Austral-
asia about three million six hundred thousand square
miles, inhabited by about six millions of people;
North America
America some
some seven million eight hundred
thousand square miles, inhabited by about one hun-
dred and ten millions of people; Central America and
the West Indies some two hundred and seventy thou-
sand square miles, occupied by some ten millions of people,
and South America some seven and a half millions of square
miles, occupied by about forty millions of people. More-
over it must be stated that the southern half of Asia con-
tains about nine hundred millions of the one thousand mil-
lions of Asia's inhabitants, and that the southern half of
16
North America contains more than one hundred millions of
the one hundred and ten millions inhabiting the North
American continent. The relatively unoccupied portions
of the earth as now known to us are thus the northern half
of North America, and the northern half of Asia, Austral-
asia, South America and Africa. In other words, the
southern half of Asia, Europe and the southern half
of North America, containing about one-third of
the land area of the world are inhabited by about
fifteen hundred millions of the seventeen hundred millions
of the people of the world. Naturally the great drama
of the world's civilization has been played here. And, in-
asmuch as North America is from the point of view of civil-
ization a new Europe, we may narrow still further our
field of view. That is, we may say that the two great fac-
tors in the civilization of the world have been the southern
Asiatic and the European. Whether Europe was only a
new Asia as to the source of its population and civilization
we do not exactly know. The old school of ethnologists
hold the affirmative of this question, but there is a modern
school which denies it. However that may be, we may hold
without fear of successful contradiction that while Asia has
produced all the great religions of the world, Europe
has produced the great states, especially the modern
states. The Asiatic states have been naturally and
necessarily theocracies, since the Asiatic genius is
so predominantly religious. This theocratic state-
form is a necessary first step in the development of the
state, but it is a low order of political civilization and, if not
overcome by progress to a higher order, it brings stagnation
and decay. This has been the fate of Asia, while Europe
has advanced from stage to stage in political organization
until it has not only brought itself to a high state of politi-
cal civilization, but stands forth as the bearer of the same to
all the world.
17
This latter great mission has been accomplished almost
exclusively by the establishment of colonies, depend-
encies and protectorates. Today Europe holds nearly
the half of Asia, the whole of Australasia, five-sixths
of Africa and the half of North America under these
several forms of political subordination. Two of the large
states of Asia, viz.: Japan and China, have escaped, as yet,
for the most part, this fate; Japan entirely, for the reason
that the Japanese with their great talent for imitation have
caught up the system of European political civilization and
made Japan the hope of Asia in this respect. China on the
other hand, with its vast territory of four millions of square
miles and five hundred millions of people, remains substan-
tially immobile. Will it open itself to the entrance of
European principles in political civilization like Japan and
work out thereby it own redemption? If not, will it fall
under the sway of Japan? Or under that of the several
European powers that are closing around it? One or the
other of these three fates it and the other smaller independ-
ent states of Asia must suffer. For Africa and Austral-
asia, on the other hand, there is absolutely no hope except
in the domination of Europe. While as to South America,
the great state body of the southern half of North America
protects it against further colonization from Europe and
further development under foreign guidance.
But let us approach one step nearer to our exact subject
by viewing the part which each of the European states and
the great North American state is playing in the work of
carrying the European political civilization into the dark
places of the earth. Down to the present, England has
been, since the age of the discoveries, the most successful
colonial power. Today the British flag flies over very
nearly a quarter of the globe, and about a quarter of the
world's inhabitants owe loyalty to it. In Asia the power
18
of England extends over two millions of square miles of
territory, inhabited by three hundred and fifty millions of
people; in Australasia, over three millions of square
miles of territory, inhabited by some five millions of peo-
ple; in Africa over three millions of square miles of ter-
ritory, inhabited by some fifty millions of people; in North
America, over nearly four millions of square miles of ter-
ritory, occupied by nearly eight millions of inhabitants; in
Central America, over some eight thousand square miles of
territory, occupied by about fifty thousand people; and in
South America over something more than one hundred
thousand square miles of territory, inhabited by about three
hundred thousand people; while all over the world are
scattered the small islands and harbors and stations over
which the British Empire holds sway. Next to England
as a colonial power stands France with her great African
dependencies measuring three million eight hundred
thousand square miles of territory, inhabited by about
forty millions of people, and her Asiatic dependencies
measuring some two hundred and sixty thousand square
miles of territory, inhabited by about twenty millions
of people, and with her foothold in both Australasia
and South America. Next in order I shall mention Russia
with her great Asiatic possessions and dependencies
stretching over some six millions of square miles of terri-
tory, inhabited by some thirty millions of people. Then
Germany, which holds about a million of square miles of
African territory, inhabited by some fifteen millions of
people, one Asiatic port, Kiauchau, with two hundred
square miles of territory, inhabited by some eighteen or
twenty thousand people, and a few islands in the Pacific,
altogether not measuring one hundred thousand square
miles of territory and with a population of not over five
hundred thousand persons. Then comes the Kingdom of
the Netherlands whose colonial possessions measure about
19
eight hundred thousand square miles of territory, inhabited
by some forty millions of people, the chief part of which are
Asiatic. Then Belgium with her African dependencies
nearly nine hundred thousand square miles in extent and in-
habited by some twenty millions of souls. Then Turkey with
her African possessions and dependencies some nine hun-
dred thousand square miles in extent and inhabited by some
eight to ten millions of people. Then Italy holding sway
over some two hundred thousand square miles of African
territory, inhabited by about a million souls. Then Spain
with the remnant of her once vast colonial dominion, which
now measures only about two hundred and fifty thousand
square miles of territory, occupied by about three hundred
thousand people. It lies chiefly in Africa. And lastly the
United States of America holding sway over the Asiatic
Philippines, which measure some one hundred and ten
thousand square miles territorially and are inhabited by
nearly ten millions of souls, the Hawaiian Islands in the
Pacific Ocean, some seven thousand square miles in extent,
inhabited by about two hundred thousand souls, the island
of Porto Rico in the Atlantic and the Panama Canal Zone in
Central America, and thereto a quasi-protectorate over Cuba.
Let us now go behind these statistics of Colonial Empire
and examine the character and aims and aspirations of the
powers wielding the same, as this will bring us still a step
nearer to the solution of the proposition before us, viz.:
"Germany and the United States from the point of view of
the world situation." Ethnologically we may for our pur-
pose roughly divide the four hundred millions of Europe's
inhabitants into three parts. First in numerical strength,
physical vigor, intellectual capacity, moral soundness and
tireless enterprise stands the great Teutonic race, number-
ing about one hundred and fifty millions of souls, in its two
divisions, the English and continental branches, about
20
forty millions in the former and about one hundred and ten
millions in the latter, and increasing annually about one
and a half millions of souls by excess of births over deaths.
Again and again has it rejuvenated Europe, since the fall
of the Roman Empire, by pouring its fresh blood and vig-
orous life-force into the decaying Roman world, reorgan-
izing the disintegrating Roman provinces, and by amalga-
mation with the Roman races, saving them from demorali-
zation and decay, at the same time that it has maintained it-
self pure and hardy in the home from which its branches
have spread out. It has built England, Germany, Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland
and the United States. It organized the Visigothic state
in Spain, which finally drove the Arab power out of the
peninsula. It organized the Frankish state in Gaul which
saved all Europe from dissolution. It organized the
Lombardian power in Italy, which lives today in the reign
of the house of Savoy. It has driven back the flood of
Slavonic invasion which, in the Middle Ages, threatened to
deluge Central Europe and has planted the Hohenzollern
outposts of East Prussia and Roumania as a permanent
dam against its further advance. It has been for fifteen
hundred years and is still the great state builder of the
world and today one-third of the inhabitants of the world
recognize its sway.
Second in numerical strength is the great Slavonic race
numbering also nearly one hundred and fifty millions of
souls. Sometimes it is spoken of as the race of the future,
but so far as I can see there is not the slightest indication
that it will ever take the political sceptre of the world from
the Teutonic peoples. As a race, it has as yet shown very
little political genius and has always required the autocracy
to prevent it from falling into anarchy. The world can not
look to it for political civilization.
21
.........
t
And third are the Romanic peoples in the three branches
of French, Spanish-Portuguese and Italian, numbering al-
together about one hundred millions of souls, to whom be-
longed in the distant past the political leadership of the
world, but who now have yielded the sceptre to the Teu-
tonic states, and manifest, comparatively at least, both
physical and mental exhaustion. The most powerful
among them, France, is hardly able, in spite of the utterly
insignificant emigration even to her own colonies, to hold
her own in point of population, while the Teutonic peoples
increase at the rate of one and a half millions of souls annu-
ally. At the time of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 the
populations of France and Germany were substantially
equal, somewhere near forty millions of souls in each. To-
day the population of France is about the same, while that
of Germany is sixty millions of souls. It is entirely evident
that the future of the world politically does not belong to
the Romanic race.
If we reflect a moment upon all these facts, we are bound
to come to the conclusion that the present and future civil-
ization of the world, politically, lies in the hands of the
three great Teutonic states of the world, Germany, Eng-
land and the United States, and that the welfare of the
world requires that these three shall move and work in har-
mony with each other. I do not believe that the welfare
and progress of the world can be substantially and perma-
nently promoted in any other way. All the international
congresses and conferences which can be assembled
will remain practically barren and worthless unless
these three great Teutonic states stand together and
override by their united power the petty opposition
which petty states will always make to the larger in-
terests of the world.
22
Now, how can this harmony of purpose and action be-
tween these three great states be attained and maintained?
I hold that the first and most important step in this direc-
tion is close friendship between the United States and Ger-
many, and I beg you to kindly allow me to outline briefly
the course of reasoning which has led me to this conclusion.
No one will dispute the proposition, I think, that the great
world mission of the United States lies in the Pacific
Ocean, in Asia. Europe stands for herself and has fairly
grasped Africa and will in time develop the "dark Conti-
nent." There remain the broad expanses and teeming
millions of Central Asia which are to be touched and re-
juvenated by modern civilization. Now, how shall this be
accomplished? One conceivable way is that this vast terri-
tory and population shall fall under the sway of Japan,
which now regards itself as "the light of Asia." That the
Japanese entertain this ambition can hardly be doubted.
Neither can it be gainsaid that this is a perfectly natural
ambition on their part. They have themselves made such
remarkable progress in the last half century that the im-
pulse upon their part to participate in the work of extend-
ing the civilization of the modern world is no cause of sur-
prise to any student of history and politics. I have the
highest respect for their aims and the highest appreciation
of their abilities. But with all that, I nevertheless do not
think that it would be for the best interests of the United
States or of Asia or of the world for China and Central
Asia to receive their awakening under the sway of Japan.
I think that those interests require that the doors of these
great regions should be kept wide open to the commerce of
the United States and the European states both in the ma-
terial and spiritual sense, and that the peoples of China and
all Central Asia should come to their own awakening under
these peaceful but powerful, if slowly moulding, influences
from the genuine and original homes of modern civili-
23
zation. And I think that the great duty to maintain and
enforce this policy rests upon the United States above all
other powers. It seems to me that this is the great signifi-
cance of our possession of the Philippines. They furnish
us with the base of operations in the discharge of our great
duty to the civilization of Asia. Viewed from this stand-
point, our surrender of these possessions would be a crime
against the civilization of the world. I do not think this
can ever happen, for we are not here dealing with a mere
matter of selfish policy, but with a divine impulse, im-
pelling a great civilized people to bear that civilization with
all its blessings into the less fortunate parts of the world.
But in the discharge of this great duty we may possibly
run against difficulties in the Atlantic. We know that
England is allied with Japan. Exactly how far England
is bound to support the policies of Japan or would do so is
not, and can hardly be, at present, fully known. But in
casting the horoscope of the future we must always take
into the account such possibilities as are already in sight,
and we know well enough that there are already above the
horizon line points of possible dispute with Japan in which
she may be sustained by her English ally. It is certainly
conceivable that England, from her great vantage ground
in India, and to free herself from the encroachments of
Russia, may agree to divide Asia with Japan. England
may, at almost any time, have a government which may en-
tertain this gigantic plan, and that Japan would welcome
it is also, it seems to me, something more than possible, to
say
the least. Such a solution of the Asiatic question as
this would, however, as it seems to me, be hostile to the in-
terests of the United States, to those of Asia herself, and to
those of the world at large. And against the possibility of
it it is our duty to guard ourselves and to warn the world.
24
Moreover, we must not shut our eyes to the fact that an-
other now rapidly developing Nation divides with us the
North American Continent and has already become so
strong and solid and self-conscious that it can no longer be
ignored. It is true that it is also substantially a Teutonic
Nation and that the ethnical harmonies exist between us
and it which should make for peace and friendship. For a
long time we thought that these together with its geo-
graphical position would finally bring it into union with us,
but within the last twenty-five years that prospect has
faded, as the consciousness, upon the part of its population,
of independent power and national consolidation has devel-
oped and grown clear. It has now become practically a
very respectable power with well organized government
and with, in many respects, most admirable institutions. In
twenty-five years more it will have twenty-five millions of
inhabitants, and will be, in many respects, no mean com-
petitor of the United States. And behind this power
stands mighty England again, with her great fleet
on the Atlantic ready and able at any moment to sus-
tain the interests of her offspring. In a word, we, the
people of these United States, have got to come out of the
old fancy that we are the whole North American Conti-
nent, except a few Mexicans, Indians and half breeds in
the southwest corner of it, and face the fact that we
must come into something more like the condition of
Europe than we have before experienced. I trust that
we shall always be able to live in peace and friendship
with our growing northern competitor. I have great
respect for her and nothing but good will towards her,
but I would be a poor student of history and politics if
I did not recognize the possibility of friction with her,
and through her, with the great Empire of which she is a
part.
25
Now, the relation of the United States to the other great
Teutonic Power, regarded from the point of view of the
world situation, is quite different. There does not appear
to be any likelihood or even possibility anywhere of any
conflict of interests arising between them in this great work
of carrying modern civilization throughout the world.
Germany's greatest mission is in rejuvenating continental
Europe, and protecting Europe against the anarchic ten-
dencies of the Slavonic races and the decaying tendencies
of the Romanic races. This has been, as I have before said,
the prime mission of the Teutons for the last fifteen hun-
dred years. Ethnically, Germany is not the whole Teu-
tonic world in continental Europe but it is the greatest pol-
itical representative of the continental Teutons, and is the
great impelling force in the spread of Germanism into the
south and southeast of Europe. Silently, but irresistibly,
this great ethnic force penetrates in all directions and as si-
lently and irresistibly transforms the lands and peoples
which it touches into its own likeness. It is the great ever-
overflowing reservoir of ethnical power, sending its fructi-
fying streams in all directions, especially towards the east
and south, and as the old races decay and die out, substi-
tuting for them populations of Teutonic blood and civili-
zation. Then in the second place, Germany's colonial in-
terests lie, as we have seen, in Africa, where she holds sway
over a territory four times the size of her European Empire
and which will absorb the attention and the colonial activity
of the home government for a century to come. In this mis-
sion, again, no points of conflicting interests between Ger-
many and the United States are possible, since the United
States assumes to play no rôle in Africa. And when, in
the third place, we come to the Asiatic world, we find that
the interests of Germany and the United States are in en-
tire harmony, viz.: to redeem China and Central Asia, nei-
ther through the sway of Japan nor England nor Russia
26
over them nor by a division of them among the three, but
by holding the doors of commerce and intercourse there-
with wide open to all Nations and giving the natives a fair
chance to work out their own civilization under these great
transforming influences.
That the United States must, in the future, play the
chief rôle in the Pacific, seems to me entirely manifest and
necessary. Our geographical situation and our duty to the
world require it. I was one of those who, in 1898, doubted
whether we had advanced the solution of our domestic
questions far enough to enter upon the discharge of a world
duty in civilization, but I have never doubted that we, as
all other great national states, have such a duty, and, at the
proper time, must undertake its fulfillment. As I read the
world's history, the steps in the development of every true
state are first, the establishment of government; second, the
realization of a domain of individual liberty; third, the
welding of the nation; and fourth, and last, the world rôle
of world civilizing power. No great state can, with honor,
or even with safety, draw back from the discharge of this
last great duty when it is fairly prepared to enter upon its
performance. Whether in 1898 we were ready or not to
begin this great work, we have, nevertheless, begun it, and
it is now too late to flinch from it. We can not, in honor,
either sell, transfer or abandon our Asiatic possessions.
We must hold them and impart to them the great princi-
ples of modern civilization and then give them their nat-
ional independence when they become capable of appreci-
ating and maintaining it, or else make them integral parts
of our American Empire. To this work we are now fully
committed, whatever may be its cost, and we can no more
escape it than we can escape the voice of duty which com-
mands it, or the great providential order of the world which
requires it.
27
But this mission of the United States in the Pacific, di-
verting the chief strength of the Nation in that direction,
makes it, if not absolutely necessary, at least most highly
desirable, that we should have a truly reliable and powerful
friend in the Atlantic. Is there any doubt in the mind of
any one reflecting upon these statistics of the world's situa-
tion who that friend, in first instance, must be? I
I say in
first instance, because, as I see it, close friendship with the
great German Empire will stifle at the outset any hostile or
unfriendly tendencies on the part of any other Atlantic
Power, which tendencies might otherwise be provoked by
the situation and the relations which I have already de-
scribed, and will tend to make the friendship of the other
Atlantic Powers for us secure by demonstrating to them
the futility of any other attitude.
As I have already said, I hold that the peace and prog-
ress of the world depend more largely upon the friendship
and harmonious action of Germany, England and the
United States than all else together. But
you will say that
they are friendly now. Yes, that is true in a very large
sense, and, thank God, there is less friction between them
apparent now than there was three years ago, but there are
possibilities which should be guarded against, and the clear
appreciation of these possibilities direct us to the conclusion
that peace and harmony between these three great civilized
states of the world will be maintained more surely when the
world understands that the relations between the German
Empire and the United States are so fixed and cordial that
an attempt to inflict injury upon the one will be felt as an
offence by the other. I am not telling you anything that
you do not already know when I refer to the fact that dur-
ing the last decade there have been in the press of both
England and Germany many indications of hostile feeling.
It appears to me that most of it is attributable to commer-
cial rivalry. Germany has grown rapidly to be a great
28
naval and commercial Power. Her competition with Eng-
land on the sea has virtually broken England's great mari-
time monopoly. Many Englishmen regard this as an of-
fence which must be expiated. I do not think that the pres-
ent British government shares this feeling, but I cannot
help fearing that there may be a British government which
might. I think that the existing friendliness between Ger-
many and the United States has already had a beneficial
effect upon the relations between England and Germany.
I think there was a time, a few years ago, when, but for this
consideration, England would have been more strongly
tempted than she was to assume a hostile attitude towards
Germany. Now, it would certainly be contrary to the best
interests of the United States for the commercial rivalry
between England and Germany to be checked and for
England to regain her monopoly of the seas, and it might
even threaten our peace. It is best for us, it is best for the
world, it is best for England herself, that this competition
should continue and should come to be regarded by all par-
ties as both legitimate and beneficial. England is still a
much greater maritime power than Germany and is not
threatened in any of her just interests by German competi-
tion. On the other hand, the present overbalancing naval
power of England is a possible threat to the just interests
not only of Germany, but of the United States and of all
other countries. Whether it shall ever become an actual
danger or not depends upon England's disposition, and I
repeat, that the existence of cordial relations between Ger-
many and the United States will be no small consideration
in determining this disposition.
As I see it, Germany is today as necessary to the United
States as the United States are to Germany. The day
when we could snap our fingers at "abroad" and live in
proud and self-protected isolation has passed away. We
29
have entered upon the era of world politics in our develop-
ment and we must adjust our policy to meet the new
situation. To my mind, our course is as plain as a turn-
pike road, as Mr. Lincoln used to say, and it is made en-
tirely easy for us by the very friendly feeling of the Ger-
mans for us.
First of all, their great Emperor, the wisest, most intelli-
gent, most warm hearted, most conscientious and most able
and resourceful ruler of Europe is our most cordial friend.
Every American who has had the honor and good fortune
to come into contact with His Majesty brings away ex-
actly the same impression of him and of his exceedingly
friendly feeling for us as a Nation. He allows no oppor-
tunity to pass without manifesting it and no man can look
into those great honest eyes and doubt for one moment his
sincerity. And then there is the Imperial Chancellor, next
to his Imperial Master, the cleverest statesman in Europe,
who never tires of expressing his appreciation and regard
for us in the cordial, we might say exquisite, way, which
distinguishes him so markedly. The government which he,
under the superior oversight of His Majesty, directs, is
from top to bottom, permeated and ensoulled with the same
friendly feeling for America and for the Americans, as
they term the United States and our people. And finally,
the German people as a whole and in every class feel
their spiritual kinship with the Americans, and uni-
versally express the profoundest wish to act in harmony
with us in the solution of the great problems of civilization.
During my recent long residence in Germany, I had most
exceptional opportunities to learn the feeling of all classes
of the people towards us, and I met nowhere anything but
the most sincere regard and good will for us and the most
pronounced desire to come into the closest possible inter-
national relations with us.
30
The great, warm right hand of a powerful and ever in-
creasingly powerful people is extended to us in all sin-
cerity, and, to my mind, we shall greatly mistake our own
interests and the interests of the world if we do not grasp it
in the same spirit of cordiality in which it is offered. It
means no lack of friendship for any other power, great or
small, that we do so. On the other hand, it will confirm or
compel the friendship of all other powers, and thereby
maintain the peace of the world, the progress of civilization
and the welfare of mankind.
31
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 01103 3837