It has been a great pleasure to see from your published letter, which
has just reached us, that you so clearly understand the motive and
feelings with which Great Britain has entered on the present war.
Neither commercial rivalry nor any fancied jealousy of Germany's
greatness has led us into it, and to the German people our people bear
no ill-will whatever. Along with many others I have worked steadily
during long years for the maintenance of friendship with Germany,
admiring the splendid gifts of the German race, and recognizing their
enormous services to science, philosophy, and literature. We had hoped,
as some thoughtful statesmen in Germany had also hoped, that by a
cordial feeling between Germany and Britain the peace of Europe might be
secured and something done to bring about permanently better relations
between Germany and her two great neighbors with whom we found ourselves
on friendly terms; and we had confidently looked to the United States to
join with us in this task. But the action of the German Government in
violating the neutrality of Belgium when France had assured us that she
would respect it, the invasion of a small State whose neutrality and
independence she and England had joined in guaranteeing, evoked in this
country an almost unanimous sentiment that the faith of treaties and the
safety of small States must be protected.
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