better American national purposes."

During 1915 and 1916 our diplomatic relations with Germany have been
expressed in one series of notes after another, and the burden of
affairs has been as much on the shoulders of Ambassador Gerard as on
those of any other one American, for he has been the official who has
had to transmit, interpret and fight for our policies in Berlin. Mr.
Gerard had a difficult task because he, like President Wilson, was
constantly heckled and ridiculed by those pro-German Americans who were
more interested in discrediting the Administration than in maintaining
peace. Of all the problems with which the Ambassador had to contend,
the German-American issue was the greatest, and those who believed that
it was centred in the United States are mistaken, for the capital of
German-America was _Berlin_.

"I have had a great deal of trouble in Germany from the American
correspondents when they went there," said Ambassador Gerard in an
address to the American Newspapers Publishers Association in New York
on April 26th.

"Most of them became super-Ambassadors and proceeded to inform the
German Government that they must not believe me--that they must not
believe the President--they must not believe the American people--but
believe these people, and to a great extent this war is due to the fact
that these pro-German Americans, a certain number of them, misinformed
the German Government as to the sentiments of this country."

James W. Gerard's diplomatic career in Germany was based upon
bluntness, frankness and a kind of "news instinct" which caused him to
regard his position as that of a reporter for the United States
Government.

Berlin thought him the most unusual Ambassador it had ever known. It
never knew how to take him. He did not behave as other diplomats did.
When he went to the Foreign Office it was always on business. He did
not flatter and praise, bow and chat or speak to Excellencies in the
third person as European representatives usually do. Gerard began at
the beginning of the war a policy of keeping the United States fully
informed regarding Germany. He used to report daily the political
developments and the press comment, and the keen understanding which he
had of German methods was proved by his many forecasts of important
developments. Last September he predicted, in a message to the State
Department, ruthless submarine warfare before Spring unless peace was
made. He notified