OCR Text |
Show BERNSTORFF SAYS U-BOAT WARFARE CAUSED HUN FALL . BERLIN, Sunday, March 9. (By the Associated Press.) Public opinion ' must become tho real t-overcign in Germany, but it must be enlightened opinion, based on democratic development and conscious of its great responsibility. This was tho central idea of a speech made tonight by Count von Bernstorff, former German ambassador to the United States, at a meeting to organize "the democratic club." The former ambassador told his hearers hear-ers that when he returned to Germany from the United States he endeavored to learn why ruthless submarine warfare, which, he said, was responsible for Germany's Ger-many's downfall, was decided upon instead in-stead of the acceptance of a less severe course. He added: "The answer was regularly that public pub-lic opinion In Germany would not have suffered any other solution. I will not discuss whether this judgment can stand before history, but in any event it demonstrates dem-onstrates how highly public opinion was even then regarded by us. An elemental movement in favor of peace at that time would have secured peace without victory." vic-tory." If a similar movement had come earlier, ear-lier, the count continued, it also might have prevented the carrying out of many undertakings in America which eventually eventu-ally compelled him to appeal to the Germans Ger-mans there to respect the laws of the United States. Public opinion, he added, must be developed de-veloped so that no government can stand against it, but it must not disregard the ideas and habits of thought of other people. That German public opinion had failed to do this, the count said, was demonstrated demon-strated by the 'act that all Germans who returned from America with him, with one exception, were opposed to U-boat warfare and considered lt a fatal mistake, mis-take, as did also most Germans acquainted acquaint-ed with American views of life and ways of thinking. |