was so. They had studied German books of politics and war, and they had told us that Germany thought differently from the rest of us. Those German books told that the German Government was planning to make itself ruler of the world. Those books said that deceit and cruelty did not matter if only Germany got what she wanted.

If all countries had read Germany's books and had believed the German people really meant them, we might all have known that this terrible war was about to come.

But almost no one had believed it. Even after so many horrors in France and Serbia and Belgium, many people could not yet believe it. It did not seem that any country could be so wicked.

It was especially hard here in America to believe evil of Germany because we knew so many people of German blood. We had found our citizens of German blood as honest, as kind, as true to the flag of Liberty as other Americans. So we could not think the Germans in Germany were very different.

But we had not known that Germany had changed her ideals since these Germans came to America. And the change of ideals had changed the nation.

What you care most about, your ideal, makes you

into its own image. If you care for money more than anything else, you grow mean and greedy. If you care most of all for show, you grow foolish and artificial. If you care most for the "Kingdom of God and His righteousness," you grow beautiful and true. And a nation is like a person.

The German nation had been taught to care about German power more than anything else. Germany was to be everything, the rest of the world nothing. Germany must grow to be a tremendous empire, ruling the world and the world's trade. It did not matter what happened to any one else or to any other nation. A greater Germany at any cost was Germany's ideal.

The Kaiser and his ruling class had taught the people that the way to get this greater Germany was to have a mighty army, and to make the army obey him absolutely. There must be no conscience but the Kaiser's word. And "frightfulness" (the German word means "things that are terrible") was to be the spirit of the army.

The sinking of the Lusitania showed to the world that Germany would violate any law, break any promise, to win the war and gain the power she wanted.

VER one hundred of the people killed on the Lusitania were American citizens. So the sinking of the Lusitania was a violation of America's neutrality as well as a violation of all International Law.

Many persons in America thought the United States ought to go to war with Germany at once. But our Government was very anxious not to add to the suffering of the world, not to make the war any bigger. We still hoped Germany might be persuaded

to regret her lawless acts, and change. America still hoped to bring back peace to the world.

Many messages were sent from the United States Government to the German Government, and back again. Such messages are called "notes."

After many notes Germany promised the United States that she would not again torpedo a passenger ship without warning.

But she broke that promise just as she had broken her promises to other nations. And the German submarines began to do still more terrible things. When they had sunk a ship, and the poor men, women, and children had got into lifeboats, the submarine crews shot at these helpless people, and killed them. They took English sailors from lifeboats and put them on their submarine deck, and then they shut the submarine up tight and dived underneath the water, so that the sailors were all swept off and drowned. They even torpedoed hospital ships full of helpless wounded men and their doctors and nurses.

All this time the German representatives to the United States were pretending that Germany was very friendly to America, and in Berlin the Kaiser was pretending to our Ambassador that he was very friendly to America.

But our Government had secret service men watching and listening. By and by they found out that the German representatives in this country were making a secret war on us. They were really officers in command of a secret army.

These men had been given money by the German Government to pay a whole army of spies. The spies found out when our ships were sailing and sent word to the submarines.

And the German representatives paid men to blow up munition factories and kill hundreds of innocent Americans. They paid men to deceive German Americans in places where there were many ignorant people, and to teach them to believe in Germany and to fight against America.

One of the worst things the German Government did was to try to get Mexico to make war on us. They had even planned to give a part of the United States to Mexico as a reward, and had planned to put German officers in charge of Mexican troops.

So at last after three years the Great World War had come across the ocean, and was threatening the American Republic. Americans were no longer safe on the open ocean, Americans were no longer safe in