We can all give out approval to the order issued to the Four-Minute Men forbidding a campaign of hate--a methodical fanning of hatred against Germans and the German idea. This is America, where people form their own opinions and emotions. "We hate as one," said Lissauer's Hymn of Hate, and that was good German system, organization, propaganda. Here we work out our national salvation on a different plan. The individual rules. Tell him the facts and let him react as he wills. So runs the American idea.

Therefore, as a corollary to our first proposition, we suggest the truth the a propaganda of love for Germany and the Germans is equally unwarranted. Germany will earn what she gets. To argue that we must not hate because hatred will delay pepace or interfere with the beating of 75's into plough-shares when the war is over is to argue for exactly the sort of official, manufactured, governmental conscience that made the German people acclaim the rape of Belgium and the sinking of the Lusitania.

What we suggest is that the American people be left alone to hate or not to hate exactly as their individual consciences and hearts decide. Hate is destructive, a terrible thing to arouse. But there are times when it is a sound instinct of self-preservation--as sound as the instinct to fight. Just whom we shall hate (if we are impelled to hate at all), whether only the Kaiser, or only the Junkers, or the whole German nation, is equally a matter for individual thrashing out. The only criterion we can insist upon is that we shall know the facts and that we shall be sincere. We should be very sure that it is the truth by which our hearts are stirred. Once we are sure of our facts we should ask only to feel as honest, self-respecting human beings, neither trailing humbly in the wake of an Emperor nor pretending to be holier than God made us. --New York Tribune.