A critical
weighing of evidence was regarded as pro-Germanism and lack of
patriotism. Truth was delivered bound to passion. Hatred at home,
inspired largely by feminine hysteria and official propaganda, reached
such heights that when fighting-men came back on leave their refusal
to say much against their enemy, their straightforward assertions that
Fritz was not so black as he was painted, that he fought bravely, died
gamely, and in the prison-camps was well-mannered, decent,
industrious, good-natured, were heard with shocked silence by mothers
and sisters who could only excuse this absence of hate on the score of
war-weariness.
II
The people of all countries were deeply involved in the general blood-
guiltiness of Europe. They made no passionate appeal in the name of
Christ or in the name of humanity for the cessation of the slaughter
of boys and the suicide of nations and for a reconciliation of peoples
upon terms of some more reasonable argument than that of high
explosives.
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