THE NEW MOOD.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 14 May 1917, Page 6

THE NEW MOOD.

EEVOLT OF THE HYPHENATES. 1 GERMAN-AMERICANS WHO REPUDIATE THE KAISER, ASHAMED OF IT-BOAT MURDERS. NEW YORK. German-America hardly knows itself in its new clothes of stars and stripes. Something is happening that is amazing German-America beyond all possibilities of amazement hitherto considered. It is learning how to thrill at the sight of the American flag; it is feeling spurs of spontaneous patriotism that find an outlet in cheers for President Wilson; it is talking as if it TQAlly wanted to drop the hyphen; it even seems to be ashamed of what has happened within its jurisdiction during the past two and a half years. The mood, of course, may not last. There may be a lack of developments that will still the present fervour and will result in a return to former suspicions of things American and a desire to implant Teutonic methods within the Uunited States. For the present however, all is the other way. Something has worked a miracle among the hyphenates. Perhaps it was the sudden thought of what would really happen to the freedom and liberty which they enjoy in the United States if a Germanised domination in America were really to come to pass. Perhaps the peremptory command of the Kaiser to his U boats to go forth upon the seas and commit indiscriminate murder recalled to the German-Americans the hardness of life in Germany and the absolutist ways they had come to America to escape. THE FALSE PROPHETS.

Whatever has been the cause, the German-Americans are giving too persistent evidence of the veil having been torn from their eyes, at least, for the time being, for doubt to exist as to the genuineness of the shock they have received. They are showing as completely as are the unhyphenated Americans that they do not at all relish the idea of the mailed fist striving to reach across the Atlantic to fling its submarines into American waters for a new field of crime. Count John Bernstorff has been proved wrong in his estimate of the large sup-

port tnat would lnstantij* dc given to Germany in the United States whenever the Imperial authorities at Berlin considered the time had come to put Ger-man-America to the test. It was Count John Bernstorff's frequent claim that over 4,000,000 German-Americans could be wholly counted on to throw America into a turmoil at any critical stage in relations between the United States and Germany. Perhaps the bitterest disappointment to him on his departure

from New York was the knowledge that he had been shown to be a false prophet. What he will find to say to his Imperial master it would be interesting to know. The late Professor. Munsterburg made an equally erroneous estimate of the attitude of the German-Americans. Diplomatist and psychologist both instructed in the autocratic methods of Germany, wer e totally incapable of appreciating what Anglo-Saxon freedom in America might do to a German-Ameri-can, when there arose a real question of the possibility of that freedom being threatened from across the seas. There is something in the life of liberty that appeals to the American-Germans, just as it does to other citizens of the world.

MENACE BE ALLS R J).

There is room for argument that the Germans_ on this side of the Atlantic felt more keenly even than the native born the full menace behind the Kaiser's threat of unlimited naval warfare Sagamst the world. Thus, in South America, Brazil took the lead in the firmness of her Note of protest against the German menace. Yet Brazil is the most thoroughly Germanised of all the countries of the southern continent, and might have been expected to show some reluctance to do anything at all antagonistic to Berlin. On the contrary, opposition to strong, concerted action in support of the United States came not from Brazil, but elsewhere.

This fact, coupled with the instantaneous rally of German-Americans to President Wilson, is causing a lot of hard thinking among Americans. They believe they sec in the German-Ameri-can repudiation of the Kaiser, both in North America and in South America, a warning, which the governing powers in Berlin will heed, if they are wise. The German born, it seems, are not willing to defend autocracy for ever, especially when it begins striking out blindly, and in a mad rage to injure whoever it can, regardless of the innocence of the persons attacked.

GERMANY ISOLATED. As the Gorman-American? and the German-Brazilians have res- ■■ nded to the ruthless submarining, sc -nay the Gorman jjeople at home resr 'id some . to « P «w order of the Ka: or, when they realise he is bent on murdering Bm Rirarily to save his own dynasty from the disaster which his madness is causing. The belief is spreading among Americans that the Kaiser has •done more harm to tha German causa

by his U-boat command than has been worked by any other development of the past year. The Berlin Government had previously alienated neutral nations, but before the instructions for murder-at-large were issued, there existed sympathy for the Germans among the German-Ameri-cans in North and South America. Now, however, even this support has vanished, and Germany is practically in complete isolation, as far as foreign sentiment is concerned for the first time since the war began. Once let the feelings of the GermanAmericans penetrate into Germany, and the long-expected internal explosion may come. In American opinion, however, the penetration will be a consi- ' derable time mkaing its way. It is thought to be a safe bet that never have German censors been so busy as they are now, preventing GermanAmericans from sending through the mails whisperings of the fatal mistake the Kaiser and his advisers have committed.