AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE: IV- 1899 311 



ever failure may come will be imputed to Germany and 

 to its Emperor. In any case, whether failure or suc 

 cess may come, the Emperor of Russia will be hailed in 

 all parts of the world as a deliverer and, virtually, as a 

 saint, while there will be a wide-spread outburst of hatred 

 against the German Emperor. 



And this will come not alone from the anti-social forces 

 which are hoping that the conference may fail, in order 

 that thereby they may have a new weapon in their hands, 

 but it will also come from the middle and substantial 

 classes of other nations. 



It is sure to make the relations between Germany and 

 the United States, which have been of late improving, 

 infinitely more bitter than they have ever before been, 

 and it is no less sure to provoke the most bitter hatred 

 of the German monarchy in nearly all other nations. 



Should his advisers permit so noble and so gifted a 

 sovereign to incur this political storm of obloquy, this 

 convergence of hatred upon him ? Should a ruler of such 

 noble ambitions and such admirable powers be exposed 

 to this! I fully believe that he should not, and that his 

 advisers should beg him not to place himself before the 

 world as the antagonist of a plan to which millions upon 

 millions in all parts of the world are devoted. 



From the United States come evidences of a feeling 

 wide-spread and deep on this subject beyond anything 

 I have ever known. This very morning I received a 

 prayer set forth by the most conservative of all Protes 

 tant religious bodies namely, the American branch of 

 the Anglican Church to be said in all churches, begging 

 the Almighty to favor the work of the peace conference ; 

 and this is what is going on in various other American 

 churches, and in vast numbers of households. Something 

 of the same sort is true in Great Britain and, perhaps, 

 in many parts of the Continent. 



Granted that expectations are overwrought, still this 

 fact indicates that here is a feeling which cannot be dis 

 regarded. 



