The uncivil war

One of the main reasons why America has had such a hard time getting into this war,"said my friend, thoughtfully," is that, when they started the present world conflict, the Germans sprung on humanity an entirely new kind of war. And one so amazingly different from any war with which Americans had ever been connected that for a long time they didn't believe what they were seeing was really so — like the farmer who gazing upon a giraffe for the first time, waggled his head and remarked, weakly, Go on! There ain't no such animal!