the
_Hesperian_ follows the _Arabic_, the _Persia_ follows the
_Ancona_. "Still conferences and notes continue," these people say,
"proving that the American Government, which took so proper and
high a stand in the _Lusitania_ notes, is paralyzed--in a word is
hoodwinked and 'worked' by the Germans." And so long as these
diplomatic representatives are permitted to remain in the United
States, "to explain," "to parley" and to declare that the
destruction of American lives and property is disavowed by their
governments, atrocities on sea and land will of course continue;
and they feel that our Government, by keeping these German and
Austrian representatives in Washington, condones and encourages
them and their governments.

This is a temperate and even restrained statement of the English
feeling and (as far as I can make out) of the whole European
feeling.

It has been said here that every important journal published in
neutral or allied European countries, daily, weekly, or monthly,
which deals with public affairs, has expressed a loss of respect
for the United States Government and that most of them make
continuous severe criticisms (with surprise and regret) of our
failure by action to live up to the level of our _Lusitania_ notes.
I had (judiciously) two American journalists, resident here--men of
judgment and character--to inquire how true this declaration is.
After talking with neutral and allied journalists here and with men
whose business it is to read the journals of the Continent, they
reported that this declaration is substantially true--that the
whole European press (outside Germany and its allies) uses the same
tone toward our Government that the English press uses--to-day,
disappointment verging on contempt; and many of them explain our
keeping diplomatic intercourse with Germany by saying that we are
afraid of the German vote, or of civil war, or that the
peace-at-any-price people really rule the United States and have
paralyzed our power to act--even to cut off diplomatic relations
with governments that have insulted and defied us.

Another (similar) declaration is that practically all men of public
influence in England and in the European allied and neutral
countries have publicly or privately expressed themselves to the