Sensitive Germans.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 30, 1913:
    What is the source of your ill-will toward Germany? You never lose an opportunity to misrepresent our fatherland. You must know that this latest attack on the German Army and Navy and the great industries that serve them is of a reckless Socialist slanderer the foul work. Why do you spread it to your readers, and why as to it is your comment so unfair and offensive?

    This is an extract from a letter from a German-born American citizen in whose loyalty to his adopted land we have entire confidence, as we have in the sincerity of his feeling that The Times is unfair to his native land. Our impartial readers, we think, will regard his complaint as unfounded. Certainly we are conscious of no "ill-will" toward Germany. On the contrary, we have a warm admiration, which we have expressed often, for many of the traits of the nation, and we have frankly recognized the forces that have shaped the policy of its Government and the splendid energy, devotion, skill, and patience with which its policy has been pursued.
    As to the recent charges made in the Reichstag, we have published only the facts, mainly as reported and commented on by the German press. We have taken pains to point out that any Government following a policy involving great expenditure and corresponding profits for private interests is exposed to unscrupulous and persistent efforts to advance those interests by more or less corrupt methods and influences. We have cited the experience of the United States, which, Heaven knows, has been convincing and humiliating, quite beyond anything yet disclosed as to Germany. The history of our protective tariff generally and of our dealings with transcontinental railway building and with the Pacific Mail subsidy is not such as to warrant, or tempt, us to fling the least pebble of harsh comment at Germany from behind the fragile and transparent walls of our own glass house.
    But, as in the painful school of experience, the American Nation has slowly learned its mortifying lesson and has gradually sought with more and more success to apply it to the shameful evils from which we have suffered, so we believe that the German Nation will, in due time, deal honorably with the evils to which it is exposed. It is our hope that in that process the Germans will become a less militant people than for the last fifty years they have been. As a military nation they have attained a level never before reached and demonstrated wonderful capacity. And they have, since 1871, kept the peace. They have proclaimed their policy to be one of defense, and in its obvious alms and results it has been so. They have made any aggression upon them far too perilous to be undertaken. Whether it would otherwise have been undertaken is a question they had a right to decide for themselves.
    But assume that, now, with their great power demonstrated and recognized, it were practicable to secure a world-wide peace and to turn the tremendous energies absorbed in preparation for war to productive uses. Hardly any responsible statesman in Europe would deny that this could be done if Germany and Great Britain could come to terms, and more and more the possibility of this is being recognized. Each is exposed to grave danger from the other. Each is straining every nerve to perfect its defense against the other. Each declares, and we believe sincerely, that it has no intention or desire to attack the other. Suppose that each should take the other at its word and both should come together to arrange mutual adequate guarantees of the good faith of each.
    Undoubtedly the task would be immensely difficult, for each Power has been seeking its safety by alliances and understandings that involve all Europe, and indirectly nearly the whole world. But were agreement possible between these two countries the associates of neither would be likely to break the peace against their joint veto. We believe that in this direction it is possible for Germany to enter on a career in which its peaceful triumphs would far outweigh all that it has done in preparing for war, or could do should war come. Not the least of the advantages it would gain would be relative freedom from the risk of such corruption as has recently been charged.