The anger which these disclosures produced knew no bounds.  Hun apologists—­the type of men who invariably believe that there is a good deal to be said on both sides—­quickly faded into patriots.  There had been those who had cried out for America’s intervention from the first day that Belgium’s neutrality had been violated.  Many of these, losing patience, had either enlisted in Canada or were already in France on some errand of mercy.  Their cry had reached Washington at first only as a whisper, very faint and distant.  Little by little that cry had swelled, till it became the nation’s voice, angry, insistent, not to be disregarded.  The most convinced humanitarian, together with the sincerest admirer of the old-fashioned kindly Hans, had to join in that cry or brand himself a traitor by his silence.

America came into the war, as every country came, because her life was threatened.  She is not fighting for France, Great Britain, Belgium, Serbia; she is fighting to save herself.  I am glad to make this point because I have heard camouflaged Pro-Germans and thoughtless mischief-makers discriminating between the Allies.  “We are not fighting for Great Britain,” they say, “but for plucky France.”  When I was in New York last October a firm stand was being made against these discriminators; some of them even found themselves in the hands of the Secret Service men.  The feeling was growing that not to be Pro-British was not to be Pro-Ally, and that not to be Pro-Ally was to be anti-American.  This talk of fighting for somebody else is all lofty twaddle.  America is fighting for America.  While the statement is perfectly true, Americans have a right to resent it.

In September, 1914, I crossed to Holland and was immensely disgusted at the interpretation of Great Britain’s action which I found current there.  I had supposed that Holland would be full of admiration; I found that she was nothing of the sort.  We Britishers, in those early days, believed that we were magnanimous big brothers who could have kept out of the bloodshed, but preferred to die rather than see the smaller nations bullied.  Men certainly did not join Kitchener’s mob because they believed that England’s life was threatened.  I don’t believe that any strong emotion of patriotism animated Canada in her early efforts.  The individual Briton donned the khaki because he was determined to see fair play, and was damned if he would stand by a spectator while women and children were being butchered in Belgium.  He felt that he had to do something to stop it.  If he didn’t, the same thing would happen in Holland, then in Denmark, then in Norway.  There was no end to it.  When a mad dog starts running the best thing to do is to shoot it.

But the Hollanders didn’t agree with me at all.  “You’re fighting for yourselves,” they said.  “You’re not fighting to save us from being invaded; you’re not fighting to prevent the Hun from conquering France; you’re not fighting to liberate Belgium.  You’re fighting because you know that if you let France be crushed, it will be your turn next.”