always felt it, but now I know it. When I get home I shall rub that
fact into everyone I meet. What our people at home don't grasp is the
fact that America is inhabited by two distinct races--Americans, and
others. The others appear to me--mind you, I'm only giving you a
personal impression--to consist either of alien immigrants who have
not yet absorbed their new nationality, or professional anti-Ally
propagandists, or people of mixed nationality with strong commercial
interests in Germany, whose heart is where their treasure is. These
make a surprising amount of noise, and attract a disproportionate
amount of attention: but I know, and I intend the people at home to
know, that the genuine American is with us in this business heart and
soul.

"What's that? The Blockade? Yes, I want to talk to you about that. I
take it you will admit that a blockade is a justifiable expedient of
war. There have been one or two of them in history. In the American
Civil War, for instance, the North established a pretty successful
blockade against the Southern ports. British cotton ships were
everlastingly trying to run through that cordon. In fact, I rather
think we exchanged a few cousinly notes on the subject. Of course
blockades are irksome and irritating to neutrals. But we look to you
here to endure the inconvenience, not merely as one of the chances of
war, but rather to show us that you in this country do recognize and
indorse the ideal for which we are fighting. We _are_ fighting for an
ideal, you know: I think the way the old country came into this war,
all unprepared and spontaneously, just because she felt she _must_
stand by her friends, was the finest thing she has ever done. Of
course no sane person expected America to saddle herself gratuitously
with a European War--without good and sufficient reason, that is--but
we in England would like to feel that your acquiescence in the