en has been provided with war news and political
information free of charge by the generous Press Bureau of Berlin. In
Belgium persevering exertions have been put forth to sow discord
between Flemings and Walloons. In China, where a British adviser is
employed by the Chief of the State, Yuan Shih Kai has turned a willing
ear to the mentors from the Fatherland, with results which bear the
hall-mark of Germany. In Mexico Villa's murderous raids on American
territory, instigated, it is asserted, by German emissaries, compelled
United States troops to pursue him over the frontiers, and raised an
issue which may be decided only by a regular campaign. Thus Teuton
diplomacy, at whose failures we are so prone to rail, contrived on the
one hand to pass off the assassinations of Americans on board the
_Lusitania_ as a justifiable act, and on the other to present the New
Mexico murder, which was the work of a mere savage, as such an outrage
on the law of nations as warrants the employment of military
force.[117]

[116] On March 16, 1916.

[117] The _New York World_, in a leading article published
March 18, writes: "No pacifist proclaims the doctrine that,
although Americans had a legal right to live near the border,
they should have taken themselves out of the danger zone in
the interest of peace. No German-American Alliance holds
meetings to proclaim the dead at Columbus as 'Guardian
angels.' No German language newspaper has spoken of the New
Mexico massacre as undertaken in a holy cause, or referred to
the President as incapable of understanding either German
militarism or German Kultur. Yet the Americans who were
assassinated on the _Lusitania_ and the _Arabic_ had as much
right to be where they were as the Americans who were dragged
from their beds at Columbus and slaughtered. The _Lusitania_
murder was deliberately planned and ordered by the Government
in Berlin, which has assumed full responsibility therefore,
and presented but one excuse, that its victims were
unexpectedly numerous. The New Mexico murder was planned and
executed by a savage, with no pretence that there is a
Government behind him, the guilt of the outlaw of the border
being not one whit less than that of the outlaw of the sea."

That same diplomacy, seconded by the press organization which
invented facts and moulded opinion, scored successes in Bulgaria,
Greece, Roumania