en the election and the 4th March, during which
Mr. Wilson was powerless and Mr. Hughes had not yet got the reins
into his hands, to rush through the warning of American citizens
against travelling on British passenger-ships. In that case, Mr.
Hughes, on assuming office, would have found himself faced with
a situation which would have prevented him from entering the war,
in view of the national inclination towards peace. Therefore, the
German-Americans ought to have supported Hughes. This had been
clear to the Germans in the East. They maintained that Wilson's
re-election was due to the German votes in the Western States which
had obeyed a more or less clear order from the German Embassy.

This line of argument is yet another proof that the Germans in
question had no idea of the situation in America. They kept exclusively
to themselves in the _Deutscher Verein_, and scarcely ever saw a
real, true-bred American. To begin with, it is difficult to see
why the Germans in the West should obey the alleged order from me
if the Germans in the East did not do so. But the important thing
is that Wilson had firmly made up his mind, in case Mr. Hughes
was elected, to appoint him Secretary of State immediately and,
after Hughes had informed himself on the political position in
this office, to hand over the presidency and himself retire. Mr.
Wilson considered it impossible to leave the country without firm
leadership at such a dangerous moment.

Immediately after the official announcement of his reelection,
Mr. Wilson wrote a Peace-Note, but unfortunately kept it in his
desk, because, unhappily, just at that time a new anti-German wave
swept over the country on account of the Belgian deportations. Mr.
Wilson was at that time in the habit of typing the drafts of his
Notes and speeches himself, and only submitting them to his advisers
on points of law or other technicalities. Whether he still works
in this way I do not know. If the unhappy measure of the Belgian
deportations had not been adopted, and particularly just as we had
informed the President that we did not want to annex Belgium, the
history of the world would probably have taken a different course.
The American mediation would have anticipated our peace offer and,
therefore, would probably have succeeded, because we could not
then have reopened the unrestricted submarine campaign without
letting the mediation run its course.

In November several submarine incidents occurr