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renounced to Germany, and retaining still equal opportunities to trade there, lost practically nothing in the transfer. Secretary Hay considered that Germany had made "the least valuable bargain of the three," and was probably led into doing it by her eagerness to have the Samoan and other colonial questions settled with the British Government before the Emperor's visit to England. Whatever the reasons, the proposition was the result of an arrangement between Germany and England. The United States merely accepted the offer made by agreement of the other two powers.

The whole of the third period of Samoan diplomacy was characterized by better feeling between the treaty powers in regard to their interests in the islands. Germany, at the time of the Berlin treaty, apparently abandoned all attempts to make her "preponderating interests" the basis of policies of administration in the islands. There continued to be the participation of the white residents of Samoa according to their nationalities in the disputes of native factions. But the representation of the three powers had been fairly well regulated by the Berlin Act, so that, although defective as a means to control the native Samoans, it was not without value in relieving friction between the foreign governments. Its failure, however, as a practical means for maintaining law and order in the islands, gave renewed evidence to the powers243 of the difficulties of continuing a tripartite government there. There was therefore little opposition when the plan of division was presented by Germany. By the removal of a long continued source of controversy, this solution had a favorable effect on the relations between that country and the United States.

The long history of the Samoan controversy gives a clear demonstration of the contrasting foreign policies of Germany and the United States. With Germany the Samoan Islands and the German commercial developments there were merely a factor of a great expansion system, a factor therefore to be both supported and utilized by the home Government toward that end. The United States' object in the islands was the retention unquestioned

243 F. R., 1899, p. XXVI ff. (President McKinley's Annual Message to Congress.)

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CONTRASTING POLICIES OF GERMANY AND UNITED STATES 215

and unlimited of the harbor of Pago-Pago as a protective point for trade already established between the American west coast and the British colonies, and for the increased trade expected after the building of an Isthmian Canal. The American policy was also directed toward preserving the independence of the islands. As we have seen, therefore, throughout both the negotiations of the home governments and the activities in Samoa, the American policy was on the defensive. The German Government, on the other hand took constantly the offensive in measures in and concerning the islands. The contrast is marked in the treatment of the native Samoans. The German authorities dictated terms to the native kings and did not hesitate to resort to military measures if their terms were not promptly met. The American representatives at no time exacted by force concessions from the Samoans. The different attitudes of the two nations toward self-government were demonstrated. With the Germans the problem was always as to how a strong government could be secured. With the Americans the problem was how an independent native government244 might be maintained. The Germans do not appear to have misruled the Samoans. Reports from non-German sources testify to the well-kept plantations and the general well-being of the workers, but the rule was to be thoroughly German and favorable to German interests. The rights of the natives did not factor in the measures adopted. The effect was clearly reflected in the measures initiated from time to time by the Samoan chiefs. Several attempts were made by them to secure annexation of the Islands by either Great Britain or the United States. But there is no record of a Samoan king or council appealing for annexation to Germany.

244 Root, "Military and Colonial Policy of the United States," pp. 161 and 162. Mr. Root, American Secretary of War, voices clearly the American Government's principles of colonization. In his report for 1899 on Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines, the Secretary writes:

"I assume, also, that the obligations correlative to this great power are of the highest character, and that it is our unquestioned duty to make the interests of the people over whom we assert sovereignty, the first and controlling consideration in all legislation and administration which concerns them, and to give them, to the greatest possible extent, individual freedom, self-government in accordance with their capacity, just and equal laws, and opportunity for education, for profitable industry, and for development in civilization."

CHAPTER VI

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

THE years from 1897 through 1900 represent the time of greatest friction between the United States and Germany in the forty-year period under consideration. Dr. Andrew D. White, who was sent on his second mission to Germany in 1897, testifies in his Autobiography to the marked change of sentiment in that country from the time of his earlier mission in 1879. At that time the cordial relations of 18702 still prevailed. Upon his second arrival in Berlin, however, he found public opinion generally adverse to the United States, and among some classes bitterly hostile. The German press was overwhelmingly anti-American and featured whenever possible accounts of administrative frauds and scandals in the United States. The American press replied in kind, published anti-German articles and editorials, and republished the anti-American editorials from German newspapers. The hostile attitude toward the United States was not confined to the press and to the rival commercial interests, but was shared by men who stood high at German universities and who had once been warm friends of America.◄

1 White: Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 144 ff.

See Chapter I, Relations between the United States and the German Empire, 1870.

Witte: Revelations of a German Attache, pp. 30 ff. V. R., '98-'00, 30 Sitz., 11 Feb., '99, p. 808.

See Chapter IV, Commercial Relations. Commercial Relations of the United States, 1899, Vol. VII, p. 244. Mr. Frank H. Mason, American Consul General at Berlin, wrote the following comment in his report of September 20, 1899.

"It is not to be denied or overlooked that while the attitude of the Imperial Government towards our country has been uniformly correct, there is in certain business circles here a feeling of enmity and resentment which did not exist prior to 1898. The heavy balance of trade which the United States now.

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A number of causes combined to create this hostile atmosphere.. Fundamental was the increasing economic rivalry between the two countries and the legislative measures enacted by the two governments to protect their rival trade interests seemed to come to a head at this time. The American cattle-raisers and meatpackers were embittered by the German decrees of prohibition against their product, and the American fruit-growers had a similar grievance. American life insurance companies were excluded from Prussia. American lumber and oil interests were protesting at the preferential rates granted by German government-owned railways to products from Austria and Russia. On the other hand German sugar-growers resented the American surtax on sugar from bounty-paying countries which they considered a discrimination. German manufacturers who had considered the McKinley tariff as ruinous to their interests were bitterly hostile over the new Dingley tariff, which went still further. At the same time they were so dependent on American raw materials that they could_not_retaliate effectively against the United States. The Agrarians were American rivals of long standing and the increase of American food exports increased their opposition and their demands on the government for restrictive measures. There was also a widespread fear of American commercial penetration of Germany and an anxiety over the trade balance in favor of the United States. Almost the only class as such which showed any

holds against the Fatherland, the decline in textile exports and the sharpened customs regulations against undervaluation, the concessions recently granted to France, and above all, the enormous growth of American manufactured exports, the aggressive competition of American metal and other products in South American and Eastern markets-all these weigh heavily on the hearts of the people here, and will be heard from when the new tariff and treaties come to open debate in the Reichstag. What most enlightened thinkers expect, or at least hope for, is that out of all these mutations will come a broad, liberal, comprehensively framed treaty, or series of treaties, between the United States and Germany, in which all the vexed and irritating questions relating to naturalized citizenship, countervailing duties, and port charges on vessels shall be regulated and liberal justice to imports of food products secured by reciprocal concessions and embodied in permanent conventions between the two countries."

'See F. R., 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1900 for correspondence on these subjects. Also, see Fisk, G. M., in Journal of Political Economy, March, 1903, pp. 223 ff., and White: Autobiography, Vol. II, p. 158 ff.

sympathy with the United States was that of the Social Democrats and other radicals."

In the political field a number of important questions were still pending. The Samoan situation had not yet received its solution through the division of the islands and was still a source of friction. In China, Germany had taken Kiao-chao and, with the subsequent seizures by the other European Powers, the dismemberment of that empire was threatened and the United States had not yet secured from any of these nations a declaration agreeing to maintain the integrity of China and to establish the "open door" to commerce there.

The most immediate and direct factor, however, in creating unfriendly relations between the United States and Germany at this time was the attitude taken by Germany during the war with Spain. From the very outbreak of the war the public sentiment in Germany was pro-Spanish and the United States was looked upon as the oppressor of a small nation in a war unjustly provoked." The cause of the Cubans, so appealing to the public in the United States, seems to have been totally disregarded. This was true not only in the case of Germany but throughout the continent of Europe, and significant evidence of the general attitude was given in the joint notes presented to President McKinley by the repre

"V. R., '98-'00, Bd. I, 3 Sitz., 12. Dez., 98 S., 27 D. Von Halle: "Deutschland und die oeffentliche Meinung in den Vereinigten Staaten," Preussische Jahrbuecher, Bd. 107, 1902, p. 205.

V. R., '98-'00, Bd. I, 3 Sitz., 12. Dez., '98 S., 25 D. White: Autobiog-. raphy, Vol. II, p. 168. Witte: Revelations of a German Attaché, p. 30 ff. F. R., '98, pp. 740 and 741.

JOINT NOTE OF THE POWERS

WASHINGTON, April 6, 1898. "The undersigned representatives of Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, duly authorized in that behalf, address, in the name of their respective Governments, a pressing appeal to the feelings of humanity and moderation of the President and of the American people in their existing differences with Spain. They earnestly hope that further negotiations will lead to an agreement which, while securing the maintenance of peace, will afford all necessary guarantees for the reestablishment of order in Cuba.

The Powers do not doubt that the humanitarian and purely disinterested