efeat, just as by the sun and rain in his own country. He will
doubtless remember that of all European countries Germany is the best
customer of the United States, from which she purchases yearly over
1,000,000,000 marks in cotton, food, metal, and technical products. If
Germany is economically ruined, which is the wish of Russia, France, and
England and all allied friends of wretched Servia, it would mean the
loss of a heavy buyer to America, and thereby cause a serious loss to
America which could not easily be made good. It would be a great blow to
American export trade, of which Germany handles not less than 14 per
cent. yearly.

The material loss is not the only feature. In the economic struggle in
the world markets American and German commercial men have learned
mutually to appreciate one another, to appreciate one another more
highly than do any other two rivals. The time is long past when the
American pictured the German as one of thousands, shut up in a room,
surrounded by documents and parchments, speculating about the unknown
outside world, and the same is true of the German's idea of the
American--a money-hungry barbarian. Two nations in which so much kindred
blood flows and which are connected by so many historical events
understand each other better today than formerly. Above all, they have a
mutual understanding regarding the ideal in commercial life: A man
engaged in work not for the sake of the profit, but for the sake of the
work he is doing; one who gives all his strength to his task, and who
works for the general welfare of the people as a whole, considering his
position as an office and his wealth as an obligation, not as the final
aim, but as a basis for the realization of higher attainments. He places
the value of character and the development of the creative powers of man
higher than all economic success. Two nations united by such common
inclinations [pg 272] and ideals, boldness of enterprise,
far-sightedness, quickness of decision, and admiration for intellectual
achievements, cannot help being exceedingly congenial to each other.
What concerns one today concerns the other.

Does it sound like a paradox when I say Germany's struggle concerns not
only her own destiny, but to a considerable extent that of America? Does
the United States consider itself entirely immune from the warlike
complications brought about by the Servian murder of Princes and
Russia's breach of faith? In any event, it will