In my opinion, the American estimate of Germany and her citizens prior
to the war was, in general, most favourable. Certainly America looked
with admiration upon the remarkable advance achieved by Germany in the
short space of forty years. To your universities we have always
acknowledged a great debt. We have profited much by your advances in
economic lines and admired the combination of scientific research and
business which made your countrymen efficient in many lines. The large
number of your people who have emigrated to America have, in the main,
made good citizens, and we have welcomed them as among the best of the
foreigners who flock to our shores. German music and German musicians
find nowhere a more cordial welcome than here where admiration for their
achievements is unstinted. Nor have we forgotten the heroic services of
the many Germans who laid down their lives in defence of our flag, that
the Union might live. The Germans' love of honour and family has touched
the American heart in a tender spot, and many of my acquaintances admit
that with no other foreigners do they establish such intimate and
affectionate relations as with their German friends.

This admiration and friendship has not blinded us to certain defects in
the German character, any more than has your friendship for Americans
closed your eyes to our defects. The bad manners of Germans are
proverbial, not only among Americans, but all over the world; so much so
that certain German writers, admitting that Germans as a nation are
ill-mannered, have sought to find in this fact an explanation for the
world-wide antagonism toward Germany's policy in the war. I do not
believe, however, that, so far as American sentiment is concerned, there
is any considerable element of truth in this explanation. It is true
that we do not like the lack of respect accorded to women by the average
German; that the position of woman in Germany seems to us anomalous in a
nation claiming a superior type of civilisation; that the bumptious