Bernhard Dernburg, ex-Colonial Secretary of Germany, and read at
a pro-German mass meeting held in Portland, Me., on April 17, 1915.
After an explanatory note Dr. Dernburg divided into numbered clauses his
letter, as follows:_
(1) Whatever peace is concluded should be of a permanent nature; no
perfunctory patching up should be permitted. The horror of all the
civilized nations of the Old World slaughtering one another, every one
convinced of the perfect righteousness of their own cause--a recurrence,
if it could not be avoided absolutely, should be made most remote, so as
to take the weight from our minds that all this young blood of the best
manhood of Europe might be spilled in vain.
(2) For this purpose it must be borne in mind that the world has changed
considerably since the last big conflagration, and that all the
countries striving for humanity and civilization are now one big family,
with interests, spiritual as well as commercial, interlocking to a
degree that no disturbance of any part of the civilized globe can exist
without seriously affecting the rest. A disturbance in one quarter must
make quite innocent bystanders involuntary victims, to the serious
detriment of spiritual peace and commercial pursuits.
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