AS AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY -1897-1903 145 



cowardice of our army and navy, and hypocrisy of our 

 people. Very edifying were its quasi-philosophical arti 

 cles; and one of these, showing the superiority of the 

 Spanish women to their American sisters, especially as 

 regards education, was a work of genius. The love of 

 Spanish women for bull-fights was neatly glossed over, 

 and various absurd charges against American women 

 were put in the balance against it. A few sensational 

 presses on our side were perhaps worse. Various news 

 papers in America repaid Teutonic hostility by copious 

 insults directed at everything German, and this aroused 

 the Germans yet more. One journal, very influential 

 among the aristocratic and religious public of Northern 

 Germany, regularly published letters of considerable lit 

 erary merit from its American correspondent, in which 

 every scandal which could be raked out of the gutters of 

 the cities, every crime in the remotest villages, and all 

 follies of individuals everywhere, were kneaded together 

 into statements showing that our country was the lowest 

 in the scale of human civilization. The tu-quoque argu 

 ment might have been used by an American with much 

 effect; for just about this period there were dragging 

 along, in the Berlin and other city journals, accounts of 

 German trials for fraud and worse, surpassing, in some 

 respects, anything within my memory of American tri 

 bunals. The quantity of fig-leaves required in some of 

 these trials was enormous ; and, despite all precautions, 

 some details which escaped into the press might well bring 

 a blush to the most hardened American offender. It was 

 both vexatious and comical to see the smug, Pharisaical 

 way in which many journals ignored all these things, and 

 held up their hands in horror at American shortcomings. 

 Some trials, too, which at various times revealed the bru 

 tality of sundry military officers toward soldiers, were 

 heartrending; and especially one or two duels, which oc 

 curred during my stay, presented features calculated to 

 shock the toughest American rough-rider. But all this 

 seemed not for a moment to withdraw the attention of our 



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