The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1914. WHAT BIGELOW DISCOVERED.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 10, 13 January 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1914. WHAT BIGELOW DISCOVERED.

There does not really appear any great likelihood of Germany’s unscrupulous and persistent attempts to prejudice the American people against the Allies succeeding, even though the President is' exhibiting himselt and his country in so unfavorable a light. One of the foremost men of the day in American public life, Professor Trumbell Ladd, in a special article to the London Times, remarks that the stupid attempts of this nature arc having the very opposite effect to that intended. “This is true,” he remarks, “not only of the more definite efforts of the Government, but also of the more personal and private assurances of a united ana aggrieved Germany as represented, by the pens of her scholars and men of letters. Two months ago I felt myself sure that there was another and better Germany that could not possibly be afflicted with the obsession which had seized and conquered the Emperor and the military classes. But when professors of theology, ethics and philosophy, with whom we have been on terms of personal or professional respect, can justify such things in the name of morality and patriotism, wo can only respond with a kind of ethical amazement.” While the Boer war was in progress Mr Poultney Bigelow, whose views on the American Note to Great Britain were given a few days ago, discussed the relations of, Germany, England, and tlie United States, and the article which appeared in the “Contemporary Review” in June, 1900, attracted a good deal of interest. Mr Bigelow paid a visit to Germany to learn how German thoughts ran on tho subject of the war. Ho found even at that time that'amongst all classes a feeling of hostility .toward England prevailed. On all sides there was but one view in regard to the Boer war—that England was totally in the wrong, and tho Boers as completely in the right. They regarded Kruger as another William Tell, and the British as tyrants. It was a pet idea, ho tells us, that the Transvaal might become a Teutonic State, and afterwards absorbed by a combination of German East and West Africa. Their firm belief was that the Boers would regard Germany as their only friend, and would show their gratitude in assisting in hoisting the German flag in neighboring territory. General Botha’s fine action and the utter crushing of the rebels is a plain answer to that vain imagination. After dealing with India, the Colonies and many other matters regarding Britain about which Germany has made such woeful mistakes, Mr Bigelow crushingly reminds this

, nation of ingratcs that: “For more than a century England has been the refuge of oppressed Germans, and that in later times Germans by the thousands have found a home and good living amongst Englishmen. When Prussia rose in arms against Napoleon in 1813, many of her volunteers marched to Leipsig in British uniforms, armed with British muskets, and supported by British contributions. The venerable Emperor William took refuge in London from the mob which threatened him in Berlin in 1848, and we have yet to learn of any time when Germans in England were ever molested. Whence then this violent sympathy for the, enemy? Germans tell me that they take sides with the Boers because they are weaker. In 1864 Prussia absorbed a weaker body of people on her Danish frontier, .and to.clay those people are persecuted because theyj insist on cultivating the speech mothers taught them. They are weak-, er than the Boers, and vastly more clean in personal appearance. But hear no outcry on their behalf. Con-, trast Germany’s treatment of the French in Alsace-Lorraine with Eng-, land’s behaviour towards the French in Canada. And what can we say] of the large number of Poles who. plead in vain for the right to remain] true to their national ideals? Then there were the persecutions in the Baltic provinces. These were times for Germany to have shown that sympathy for the weaker side that now shines so luridly in favour of the Boers.” Mr Bigelow next sets out the Kaiser’s ambitions, which have ( over and over again since been given and finally describes the system of campaign by the Press, busy even at that time, with the object of making simple Germans believe that England stands in the way of German progress, and that a big German navy is necessary for the country’s good.” It is the outspokenness of such men as this that the United States needs just now to save her from acting unwisely. _