538 RELATIONS BETWEEN UNITED STATES AND GERMANY. 



vie races has been much less and \v\\\ remain so. The intermixture 

 of the native born with the innni^rants will proceed most quickl}' 

 and in the best manner if the latter come from states having a Ger- 

 manic population. Considerably more than five millions of the in- 

 habitants of the United States continue to speak their German 

 mother tongue together with English, hold German schools, hear 

 German church service, read German books and newspapers pub- 

 lish(^d in that country, maintain German customs, and know how to 

 combine and preserve a love for their American fatherland with 

 faithful memories of their maternal home. 



The commercial and intellectual interchange between us and 

 America amounts at the i^resent time to millions of letters, telegrams, 

 and articles of merchandise, and to-day we journey as rapidly from 

 Berlin to New York as we did seventy years ago from Berlin to 

 Konigsberg. Next to the old mother country, Albion, Germany is 

 the land whose ties and common interests with America come first in 

 question and whose fostering care and requirements must above all 

 be near to the hearts of both countries, since it has an historical as 

 well as a natural foundation. The former we have endeavored to 

 briefly set forth; the latter is shown by the unusual increase of trade 

 which has developed in an entirely natural manner. 



We may also go yet further and say that the relations of Germany 

 to the North American ITnion are so determined by the geographical 

 position and most intinuite — I might almost say family — interests of 

 the two countries that they entirely forbid to either any conflicts ex- 

 ce]:)t those of a peaceful character. America and Germany are to 

 each other like brothers. There may be contentions and misunder- 

 standings even among l)rothers, yet this is soon followed in the rea- 

 sonable course of things by the restoration of harmony. There are 

 really no vital antagonistic interests between the (Jerinan coasts of 

 the North and Baltic seas and the ocean coast of America. This was 

 expressed by Carl Schurz on the Tth of October of last year, the Ger- 

 man day at St. Louis," as follows: 



No international friendship could l)e more natiu-al tlian tliat between tliis 

 Republic and the German Empire. There are not only the bonds (>f blood and 

 the common Germanic spirit tliat cement the relationship between the two 

 nations; there is also the complete absence of any antagonism of great inter- 

 ests which might separate them. In fact, no one can sh'ow a single point in 

 which the great interests of the two countries or even the directions of their 

 just ambition run counter to each other. 



These two political bodies, whose development has not as yet nearly 

 reached the noonday height — indeed, (lermany, since her unification 

 was the later eifected. mav in this sense be called the vounger — are 



a See the Westliche Post, edited by Doctor Pretorius, in St. Louis, of October 

 7, 1904. 



