its people to secure their support, should be destroyed; that a
Government which breaks its treaties and murders an innocent neutral
nation, shooting innocent hostages to prevent sniping by those whose
homes are violently attacked, should be destroyed; that a Government
which systematically and repeatedly bombards unfortified towns and
villages, killing hundreds of innocent women and children, should be
destroyed; that a Government which torpedoes unarmed passenger ships,
drowning helpless men, women, and children by the thousand in shameful
defiance of law and every instinct of humanity, should be destroyed;
that a Government which in cold blood executes a woman nurse like Miss
Cavell should be destroyed; that a Government which ruthlessly destroys
works of art and monuments of civilisation and levies crushing
indemnities on captured cities, in defiance of the well-established laws
of war, should be destroyed. In the opinion of Americans, a Government
which did any one of these things would not be fit to exist in a
civilised world. A Government which has done all of them and much more
that is equally barbarous and brutal, must, in the opinion of the
American people, be utterly destroyed.

Americans hoped for many long years that the German people would
themselves throw off the incubus of the military Government which was
crushing out their individuality and making their country an object of
distrust and fear to all those interested in the progress of
civilisation; but if you will not rid yourselves of the monster which
has dishonoured and disgraced you before the world, then, in American
opinion, the safety of the world and the future of Germany require that
the present German Government shall be destroyed through military
defeat. For this reason the American people are praying earnestly for
Allied victory. While there is a sincere effort to maintain the
technical neutrality enjoined by the President, there is no neutrality