Page:The web (1919).djvu/101

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been overthrown, and it is quite possible that America will transfer English and French debts to Germany in order to give her money, for America seeks not destruction but justice. Our two countries will be brought together, and as rivalry is out of the question, this coöperation will take a more tolerable form than in the case of our neighbors." He goes on to say: "A careful economic policy, I think, will secure Germans sympathy, thereby providing economic help for our German industries, now in collapse, and possibly awaken stirring echoes in two million Americans of German origin. . . . America will have other interests in Germany allied with her by interest and by service rendered to Germany; so taking all these points of view together, one may well consider that the earliest possible reconciliation between Germany and America will be good for the future of the world and will be welcomed by the German people."

The human mind with difficulty can conceive of anything indicative of more brazen effrontery than the foregoing. That is the statement to-day of one of the arch-*traitors planted in this country by Germany. No doubt, it may awaken a "stirring echo" at least in the hearts of the quarter million of German spies who worked with Dernburg here.

The great danger to America is her unsuspiciousness. Having lived half a century cheek by jowl with these men, although in ignorance of their real quality, we are expected to go on living with them on the same terms that existed before the war. Great Britain, sterner than we, definitely has announced her intention of deporting German aliens—she intends to take no chances. What the French will do is a foregone conclusion. German "kultur" is begging at the doorsteps of the world.

Mr. Palmer, custodian of alien enemy property, can complete the story. For instance, there was loose talk around New York in the early days of the war that under one tennis court in New Jersey there was a gun emplacement from which New York could be bombarded. It was said that a German-owned factory building had a gun emplacement built into its floor with the same amiable intention. Custodian Palmer points out that there really