AMERICA, GERMANY, AND SPAIN -1897 -1903 



arms for use against us in Cuba, was about to leave that 

 port, I hastened to the Foreign Office and urged that 

 vigorous steps be taken, with the result that the vessel, 

 which in the meantime had left Hamburg, was overhauled 

 and searched at the mouth of the Elbe. The German Gov 

 ernment might easily have pleaded, in answer to my re 

 quest, that the American Government had generally shown 

 itself opposed to any such interference with the shipments 

 of small arms to belligerents, and had contended that it 

 was not obliged to search vessels to find such contraband 

 of war, but that this duty was incumbent upon the bel 

 ligerent nation concerned. This evidence of the fairness 

 of Germany I took pains to make known, and in my ad 

 dress at the American celebration in Leipsic on the Fourth 

 of July declared my belief that the hostility of the Ger 

 man people and press at large was only temporary, and 

 that the old good relations would be restored. Knowing 

 that my speech would be widely quoted in the German 

 press, I took even more pains to show the reasons why 

 we could bide our time and trust to the magnanimity of 

 the German people. Of one thing I then and always re 

 minded my hearers namely, that during our Civil War, 

 when our national existence was trembling in the balance 

 and our foreign friends were few, the German press and 

 people were steadily on our side. 



The occasion was indeed a peculiar one. On the morn 

 ing of the Fourth, when we had all assembled, bad news 

 came. Certain German presses had been very prompt to 

 patch together all sorts of accounts of American defeats, 

 and to present them in the most unpleasant way possible ; 

 but while we were seated at table in the evening came 

 a despatch announcing the annihilation of the Spanish 

 fleet in Cuban waters, and this put us all in good humor. 

 One circumstance may serve to show the bitterness at 

 heart among Americans at this period. On entering the 

 dining-hall with our consul, I noticed two things: first, 

 that the hall was profusely decorated in a way I had never 

 seen before and had never expected to see namely, by 



