"1683-1920". Frederick Franklin Schrader
What is here set down is a statement of facts, directed not against institutions, but men. Men come and go; institutions endure if they are rooted in the hearts of the people.
The author believes in the sacredness and perpetuity of our institutions. He believes in the great Americans of the past, and in American traditions. He is content to have his Americanism measured by any standard applied to persons who, like Major George Haven Putnam, feel prompted to apologize to their English friends for “the treason of 1776,” or who pass unrebuked and secretly condone the statement of former Senator James Hamilton Lewis, that the Constitution is an obsolete instrument.
Statements of fact may be controverted; they cannot be disproved by an Espionage Act, however repugnant their telling may sound to the stagnant brains of those who have been uninterruptedly happy because they were spared the laborious process of thinking for themselves throughout the war, or that not inconsiderable host which derives pleasure and profit from keeping alive the hope of one day seeing their country reincorporated with “the mother country”—the mother country of 30 per cent. of the American people.
It is to arouse the patriotic consciousness of a part of the remaining 70 per cent. that this compilation of political and historical data has been undertaken.
European issues and questions have been included in so far only as they exercised a bearing on American affairs, or influenced and shaped public opinion, prejudice and conclusions. To the extent that they serve the cause of truth they are entitled to a place in these pages.
THE AUTHOR.
New York City, January, 1920.
Allied Nations in the War.
Allied Nations in the War.—The following countries were at war with Germany at the given dates:
| Russia | 1 | August, | 1914 |
| France | 3 | August, | 1914 |
| Belgium | 3 | August, | 1914 |
| Great Britain | 4 | August, | 1914 |
| Servia | 6 | August, | 1914 |
| Montenegro | 9 | August, | 1914 |
| Japan | 23 | August, | 1914 |
| San Marino | 24 | May, | 1915 |
| Portugal | 9 | March, | 1916 |
| Italy | 28 | August, | 1916 |
| Roumania | 28 | August, | 1916 |
| U. S. A. | 6 | April, | 1917 |
| Cuba | 7 | April, | 1917 |
| Panama | 10 | April, | 1917 |
| Greece | 29 | June, | 1917 |
| Siam | 22 | July, | 1917 |
| Liberia | 4 | August, | 1917 |
| China | 14 | August, | 1917 |
| Brazil | 26 | October, | 1917 |
| Ecuador | 8 | December, | 1917 |
| Guatemala | 23 | April, | 1918 |
| Haiti | 15 | July, | 1918 |
The following countries broke off diplomatic relations with Germany:
| Bolivia | April 13, | 1917 |
| Nicaragua | May 18, | 1917 |
| Santo Domingo | ||
| Costa Rica | Sept. 21, | 1917 |
| Peru | October 6, | 1917 |
| Uruguay | October 7, | 1917 |
| Honduras | July 22, | 1918 |
Alsace-Lorraine.
Alsace-Lorraine.—Dr. E. J. Dillon, the distinguished political writer and student of European problems, in a remarkable article printed long before the end of the war, called attention to the general misunderstanding that prevails regarding Alsace-Lorraine. He said that the two houses of the Legislature in Strasburg made a statement through their respective speakers which, “however skeptically it may be received by the allied countries, is thoroughly relied upon by Germany as a deciding factor” in the vexatious question affecting those provinces.
The president of the second chamber, Dr. Ricklin (former mayor of Dammerkirch, then occupied by the French), declared solemnly in the presence of the Stadthalter that the two provinces, while desiring modification of their status within the German empire, also desired their perpetuation of their present union with