verything advocated by Wilson must, simply by reason of
its authorship, be essentially wrong. The men of Boston, New York, and
Philadelphia were beginning to give over their attitude of isolation and
admit with Roosevelt that the United States ought to stand with the
Entente. The Wilsonian doctrine of service to the world, however, was not
to their taste, partly because they did not like Wilson.

It was to the rural districts of the upper Mississippi and to the South
that the President looked most eagerly for support of his new policy.
These were the regions where indifference to and ignorance of foreign
affairs had been most conspicuous, but they were also the regions where
the President's personal influence was strongest; finally they were the
districts where extreme pacifism was most deeply embedded. If Wilson's
championship of the rights of liberty throughout the world could be
accomplished by pacific methods, they would follow him; but if it meant
war, no one could guarantee what their attitude might be. Bryan was
popular in those parts. As yet Wilson, while he had formulated his policy
in broad terms, had not indicated the methods or mechanism by which his
principles were to be put into operation. He would without question
encounter strong opposition among the German-Americans; he would find the
attitude of the Irish foes of the Entente hostile; he would find the
Pacific coast more interested in Japanese immigration than in the ideals
of the European war. Fortunately events were to unify the heterogeneous
elements of the country, at least for the moment, in a way that
simplified greatly the President's problem. Not the least of the unifying
forces was to be found in German psychology, which led the Imperial
Government to believe that the United States could be rendered helpless
through the intrigues of German spies.

CHAPTER IV

PLOTS AND PREPAREDNESS

The Government of the German Empire was inspired by a spirit that was at
once modern and medieval, and this contradictory spirit manifested itself
in the ways and means employed to win the sympathy of the United States
and to prevent it, as a neutral power, from assisting the Entente.
Germany worked on the one hand by means of open propaganda, which is the
method of modern commercial advertisement translated into the political
field, and on the other by secret intrigue reminiscent of the days of
Louis XI. Her propaganda took the form of organized campaign