144 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XV 



On my settling down to the business of the embassy, it 

 appeared that the changes in public sentiment since my 

 former stay as minister, eighteen years before, were great 

 indeed. At that time German feeling was decidedly 

 friendly to the United States. The Germans had sided 

 with us in our Civil War, and we had come out victorious ; 

 we had sided with them in their war of 1870-1871, and 

 they had come out victorious. But all this was now 

 changed. German feeling toward us had become gener 

 ally adverse and, in some parts of the empire, bitterly hos 

 tile. The main cause of this was doubtless our protective 

 policy. Our McKinley tariff, which was considered almost 

 ruinous to German manufactures, had been succeeded by 

 the Dingley tariff, which went still further ; and as Ger 

 many, in the last forty years, had developed an amazing 

 growth of manufactures, much bitterness resulted. 



Besides this, our country was enabled, by its vast extent 

 of arable land, as well as by its cheap conveyance and skil 

 ful handling of freights, to sweep into the German markets 

 agricultural products of various sorts, especially meats, 

 and to undersell the native German producers. This natu 

 rally vexed the landed proprietors, so that we finally had 

 against us two of the great influential classes in the em 

 pire : the manufacturers and the landowners. 



But this was not all. These real difficulties were greatly 

 increased by fictitious causes of ill feeling. Sensational 

 articles, letters, telegrams, caricatures, and the like, sent 

 from America to Germany and from Germany to America, 

 had become more and more exasperating, until, at the time 

 of my arrival, there were in all Germany but two news 

 papers of real importance friendly to the United States. 

 These two journals courageously stood up for fairness 

 and justice, but all the others were more or less hostile, 

 and some bitterly so. The one which, on account of its 

 zeal in securing news, I read every morning was of the 

 worst. During the Spanish War it was especially virulent, 

 being full of statements and arguments to show that cor 

 ruption was the main characteristic of our government, 



