Chapter 2

_But I know that neither Germany nor this country nor the rest of the world can return to happiness and peace and fruitful labour until it shall have been made manifest, bitterly and unmistakably manifest, to the rulers who bear the blood-guilt for this wanton war and to their misinformed and misguided peoples that the spirit which unchained it cannot prevail, that the hateful doctrines and methods in pursuance of which and in compliance with which it is conducted are rejected with abhorrence by the civilized world, and that the overweening ambitions which it was meant to serve can never be achieved._

_The fight for civilization which we all fondly believed had been won many years ago must be fought over again. In this sacred struggle it is now our privilege to take no mean part, and our glory to bring sacrifices._

Our one and supreme task, the one purpose to which all others must give way, is to bring this war to a successful conclusion. One of the means toward that end is to make the Liberty Loan a veritable triumph, an overwhelming expression of our gigantic economic strength.

To accomplish that, let each one of us feel himself personally responsible, let each one of us work as if our life depended on the result. And, in a very real sense, does not our national life, aye, our individual life depend on the outcome of this war?

Would life be tolerable if the power of Prussianism, run mad and murderous, held the world by the throat, if the primacy of the earth belonged to a government steeped in the doctrines of a barbarous past and supported by a ruling caste which preaches the deification of sheer might, which despises liberty, hates democracy and would destroy both if it could?

To that spirit and to those doctrines, we, citizens of America and servants, as such, of humanity, will oppose our solemn and unshakable resolution "to make the world safe for democracy," and we will say, with a clear conscience, in the noble words which more than five hundred years ago were uttered by the Parliament of Scotland:

"_It is not for glory, or for riches, or for honour that we fight, but for liberty alone which no good man loses but with his life._"

PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY

From an address before the Harrisburg, Pa., Chamber of Commerce September 26, 1917

PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY

I speak as one who has seen the spirit of the Prussian governing class at work from close by, having at its disposal and using to the full practically every agency for moulding the public mind.

I have watched it proceed with relentless persistency and profound cunning to instil into the nation the demoniacal obsession of power-worship and world-dominion, to modify and pervert the mentality--indeed the very fibre and moral substance--of the German people, a people which until misled, corrupted and systematically poisoned by the Prussian ruling caste, was and deserved to be an honoured, valued and welcome member of the family of nations.

I have hated that spirit ever since it came within my ken many years ago; hated it all the more as I saw it ruthlessly pulling down a thing which was dear to me--the old Germany to which I was linked by ties of blood, by fond memories and cherished sentiments.

The difference in the degree of guilt as between the German people and their Prussian or Prussianized rulers and leaders for the monstrous crime of this war and the atrocious barbarism of its conduct is the difference between the man who, acting under the influence of a poisonous drug, runs amuck in mad frenzy and the unspeakable malefactor who administered that drug, well knowing and fully intending the ghastly consequences which were bound to follow.

The world fervently longs for peace. But there can be no peace answering to the true meaning of the word--no peace permitting the nations of the earth, great and small, to walk unarmed and unafraid--until the teaching and the leadership of the apostles of an outlaw creed shall have become discredited and hateful in the sight of the German people; until that people shall have awakened to a consciousness of the unfathomable guilt of those whom they have followed into calamity and shame; until a mood of penitence and of a decent respect for the opinions of mankind shall have supplanted the sway of what President Wilson has so trenchantly termed "truculence and treachery."

God strengthen the conscience and the understanding, the will and the power of the German people so that they may find the only way which will give to the world an early peace, the only road which, in time, will lead Germany back into the family of nations from which it is now an outcast.

From each successive visit to Germany for twenty-five years I came away more appalled by the sinister transmutation Prussianism had wrought amongst the people and by the portentous menace I recognized in it for the entire world.

It had given to Germany unparalleled prosperity, beneficent and advanced social legislation, and not a few other things of value, but it had taken in payment the soul of the race. _It had made a "devil's bargain."_

And when this war broke out in Europe I knew that the issue had been joined between the powers of brutal might and insensate ambition on the one side and the forces of humanity and liberty on the other; between darkness and light.

Many there were at that time--and amongst them men for whose character I had high respect and whose motives were beyond any possible suspicion--who saw their own and America's duty in strict neutrality, mentally and actually, but personally I believed from the beginning of the war, whether we liked all the elements of the Allies' combination or not--and I certainly did not like the Russia of the Czars--that the cause of the Allies was America's cause.

I believed that this was no ordinary war between peoples for a question of national interest, or even national honour, but a conflict between fundamental principles, aims and ideas. And so believing I was bound to feel that the natural lines of race, blood and kinship could not be the determining lines for one's attitude and alignment, but that each man, regardless of his origin, had to decide according to his judgment and conscience on which side was the right and on which was the wrong and take his stand accordingly, whatever the wrench and anguish of the decision. And thus I took my stand three years ago.

But whatever one's views and feelings, whatever the country of one's birth or kin, only one course was left for all those claiming the privilege of American citizenship when after infinite forbearance the President decided that our duty, honour and safety demanded that we take up arms against the Imperial German Government, and by action of Congress the cause and the fight against that Government were declared our cause and our fight.

The duty of loyal allegiance and faithful service to his country, even unto death, rests, of course, upon every American. But, if it be possible to speak of a comparative degree concerning what is the highest as it is the most elementary attribute of citizenship, that duty may almost be said to rest with an even more solemn and compelling obligation upon Americans of foreign origin than upon native Americans.

For we Americans of foreign antecedents are here not by the accidental right of birth, but by our own free choice for better or for worse.

We are your fellow-citizens because we made solemn oath of allegiance to America. Accepting that oath as given in good faith you have opened to us in generous trust the portals of American opportunity and freedom, and have admitted us to membership in the family of Americans, giving us equal rights in the great inheritance which has been created by the blood and the toil of your ancestors, asking nothing from us in return but decent citizenship and adherence to those ideals and principles which are symbolized by the glorious flag of America.

Woe to the foreign-born American who betrays the trust which you have reposed in him!

Woe to him who considers his American citizenship merely as a convenient garment to be worn in fair weather but to be exchanged for another one in time of storm and stress!

Woe to the German-American, so called, who, in this sacred war for a cause as high as any for which ever people took up arms, does not feel a solemn urge, does not show an eager determination to be in the very forefront of the struggle; does not prove a patriotic jealousy, in thought, in action and in speech to rival and to outdo his native-born fellow-citizen in devotion and in willing sacrifice for the country of his choice and adoption and sworn allegiance, and of their common affection and pride.

As Washington led Americans of British blood to fight against Great Britain, as Lincoln called upon Americans of the North to fight their very brothers of the South, so Americans of German descent are now summoned to join in our country's righteous struggle against a people of their own blood, which, under the evil spell of a dreadful obsession, and, Heaven knows! through no fault of ours, has made itself the enemy of this peace-loving Nation, as it is the enemy of peace and right and freedom throughout the world.

To gain America's independence, to defeat oppression and tyranny, was indeed to gain a great cause.

To preserve the Union, to eradicate slavery, was perhaps a greater still.

To defend the very foundations of liberty and humanity, the very groundwork of fair dealing between nations, the very basis of peaceable living together among the peoples of the earth against the fierce and brutal onslaught of ruthless, lawless, faithless might; to spend the lives and the fortunes of this generation so that our descendants may be freed from the dreadful calamity of war and the fear of war, so that the energies and billions of treasure now devoted to plans and instruments of destruction may be given henceforth to fruitful works of peace and progress and to the betterment of the conditions of the people--that is the highest cause for which any people ever unsheathed its sword.

He who shirks the full measure of his duty and allegiance in that noblest of causes, be he German-American, Irish-American, or any other hyphenated American, be he I.W.W. or Socialist or whatever the appellation, does not deserve to stand amongst Americans or, indeed, amongst free men anywhere.

He who tries, secretly or overtly, to thwart the declared will and aim of the Nation in this holy war is a traitor, and a traitor's fate should be his.

THE POISON GROWTH OF PRUSSIANISM

Address at a Mass Meeting in Auditorium, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 13, 1918

THE POISON GROWTH OF PRUSSIANISM

I

The speech I am about to make is attuned to the spirit and the fact of war.

A few days ago, as you all know, President Wilson once more spoke to this nation and to the world in a great and noble message of splendid vision--holding up a veritable beacon light of right and justice for all peoples.

We all pray with eager and earnest hope that the German people will recognize the spirit and meaning of that lofty utterance and that, casting aside the odious leadership of the militarists, they will grasp the hand stretched out to them in such generous and unselfish meaning.

Even as I speak the leaven of that great message may be working in Germany with potent effect. I have no information other than what you all have, but I hope I am not over-sanguine in giving heed to a feeling that some parts of what I am going to say are perhaps in process of being superseded by events that may be forming.

Let us all trust that it be so, and that we may soon be enabled to substitute for the harsh accents of arraignment and enmity the feelings and the language of peaceful intercourse and of that new relationship which the President's leadership is seeking to bring about amongst all the nations.

But until that "consummation devoutly to be wished" is attained, let us take care lest we permit the hope of it to diminish our effort or to weaken our determination. Neither hope nor any other motive or influence must be suffered for one moment to divert us from the stern and resolute pursuit, to the utmost of our capacity, of our high and solemn purpose as it has been proclaimed in the great messages of America's spokesman and leader.

* * * * *

In attempting to deal with the questions that I shall discuss, I must apologize for using the personal pronoun a good deal more than would seem consonant with due modesty. My excuse is that whatever weight my observations may have with you, lies mainly in the fact that I am of German birth, that until the outbreak of the war I kept in close touch with German men and affairs, that I loved the old Germany and that the conclusions which I am about to state I have reached in grief and bitter disappointment.

For these reasons, also, what I shall say from personal knowledge and observation and in a personal way may have some effect upon those among my fellow-citizens of my own blood whose eyes may not have been opened fully to the difference between the Germany they knew and the Germany of 1914, and who, owing to insufficient and incorrect information, may not yet have discerned with entire clearness the path of right and duty nor perceived the true inwardness of the unprecedented tragedy which has befallen the world.

II

The world has been hurt within these past three years as it was never hurt before. In the gloomy and accusing procession of infinite sorrow and pain which was started on that thrice accursed day of July, 1914, the hurt inflicted on Americans of German descent takes its tragically rightful place.

The iron has entered our souls. We have been wantonly robbed of invaluable possessions which have come down to us through the centuries; we have been rendered ashamed of that in which we took pride; we have been made the enemies of those of our own blood; our very names carry the sound of a challenge to the world.

Surely we have all too valid a title to rank amongst those most bitterly aggrieved by Prussianism, and to align ourselves in the very forefront of those who in word and deed are fighting to rid the world for ever of that malignant growth.

Heaven knows, I do not want, by anything I may be saying or doing, to add one ounce to the burden of the world's execration which rests already with crushing weight upon the rulers of Germany and their misguided people. Nor do I seek forgiveness for my German birth by demonstrative zeal in action or speech.

I was and am proud of the great inheritance which came to me as a birthright and of the illustrious contributions which the German people have made to the imperishable assets of the world. Until the outbreak of the war in 1914, I maintained close and active personal and business relations in Germany. I was well acquainted with a number of the leading personages of the country. I served in the German army thirty years ago. I took an active interest in furthering German art in America.

I do not apologize for, nor am I ashamed of, my German birth. But I am ashamed--bitterly and grievously ashamed--of the Germany which stands convicted before the high tribunal of the world's public opinion of having planned and willed war; of the revolting deeds committed in Belgium and northern France, of the infamy of the _Lusitania_ murders, of innumerable violations of The Hague convention and the law of nations, of abominable and perfidious plotting in friendly countries and shameless abuse of their hospitality, of crime heaped upon crime in hideous defiance of the laws of God and men.

I cherish the memories of my youth, but these very memories make me cry out in pain and wrath against those who have befouled the spiritual soil of the old Germany, in which they were rooted.

I revere the high ideals and fine traditions of that old Germany and the time-honoured conceptions of right conduct which my parents and the teachers of my early youth bade me treasure throughout life, but all the more burning is my resentment, all the more deeply grounded my hostility, against the Prussian caste who trampled those ideals, traditions and conceptions in the dust.

Long before the war, I had come to look upon Prussianism as amongst the deadliest poison growths that ever sprang from the soil of the spirit of man.

When the war broke out in Europe, when Belgium was invaded, I searched my conscience and my judgment in sorrow and anguish, the powerful voice of blood arguing against the still, small voice of right.

And it became clear to me to the point of solemn and unshakable conviction that Prussianism, in mad infatuation, had committed the crowning sin of outraging and defying the conscience of the world and of challenging right to mortal combat against might, and that the cause which the Allies were defending was our cause, because it was the cause of peace, humanity, justice, and liberty (aye, liberty, even though Russia, then under autocratic rule, happened to be arrayed on that side, and even though diplomats and rulers made that sacred cause the basis and excuse for territorial barter and trade and spoils hunting).

In accordance with this conviction--a conviction that is unshakable--I have acted and spoken ever since, but I did not feel that it would be either right or fitting for me publicly to state and agitate my views so long as our country was neutral.

Now, America, the never-defeated, has thrown her sword into the scale, because to do so was indispensable for the vindication of the basic and elementary principles of right and peace among the nations, no less than for our own honour and our own safety, the preservation of our institutions and our very destiny.

To co-operate towards the successful conclusion of the war is the one and supreme duty of every American, regardless of birth, of sympathies and of political views. The American of German descent who, in this time of test and trial, does not serve the land of his adoption with the utmost measure of single-minded devotion and with every ounce of his power, perjured himself when he took his oath of allegiance and proves himself guilty of treacherous duplicity.

Thank Heaven! the number of those lukewarm in their patriotism, or failing in loyalty, is very small indeed, far too small to affect the record of Americans of German birth for good citizenship and service to the country in peace and war.

There is abundant evidence that the overwhelming majority, indeed all but an insignificant minority, meant what they said when they swore full and sole allegiance to America, that they will prove themselves wholly worthy of the high privilege of citizenship and of the generous trust of their native fellow-citizens, and that they will not fail or falter under any test whatsoever.

_We will not permit the blood in our veins to drown the conscience in our breast. We will heed the call of honour beyond the call of race._

We will wear as a badge of honour the abuse and spite of those who place another cause, whatever it be, above the Nation's cause and who see hypocrisy or hidden motives behind the plain profession of unconditional loyalty on the part of the American of foreign birth, because unconditional American loyalty is not in them.

Yet, it is not enough for us Americans of German descent to do our duty by our country and fellow-citizens, however fully and unreservedly, if we do it in resigned and oppressed silence. I believe we should speak out. We must give voice to our unflinching loyalty and to our deep conviction of the justice of America's cause.

It is hard indeed for us to arraign publicly the country from which we sprang and to turn against our own kith and kin, however deep our detestation of their wrongdoing under the spiritual and actual sway of the Prussian caste and however sincere our allegiance to America. It will be easily understood by all fair-minded men that right-thinking persons will shrink from so speaking and acting as to lay themselves open to the accusation of being time-servers or popularity seekers, and to expose their motives to misconstruction.

These scruples are honourable, and they are felt by many whose patriotic loyalty and devotion are beyond all question. But, to my thinking, they are stamped out by the iron tread of the times.

I believe that we should speak out, we Americans of German birth, because we have been misrepresented to our fellow-citizens and to the world by a small minority of professional spokesmen and pernicious agitators, by no means all of German birth.

We must protect the German name, as far as it is in our keeping, in America, if, alas, we cannot protect it elsewhere.

It has always, and rightly, been an honoured name here, and those who bore it have ever done their full share for the common weal, in the works of peace no less than in every crisis of the Nation's history. Let us do what in us lies to preserve the names we bear in honour and good standing amongst our fellow-citizens.

I believe that we should speak out, because our voices may reach the ear and the conscience of the German people when no other voices can, and because they _will_ reach the ear of its rulers. These, I know, counted upon the moral, if not the actual, support of the German-born in America to the extent, at least, of preventing our joining the war, and now, when we have joined, they count upon that support to agitate for an inconclusive and unrighteous peace.

I believe that we should speak out to convince our native-born fellow-citizens that our fundamental conceptions of right and wrong are like theirs, that _the taint is not in the German blood, but in the system of rulership_, that we are with them and of them wholeheartedly, single-mindedly and unreservedly; because if we failed in conveying to them that conviction in the hour of our common country's stress and trial, there would ensue the calamity of a spiritual, if not an actual, breach between them and us which it would take a generation to heal.

III

There are some of you, probably, who will still find it hard to believe that the Germany you knew can be guilty of the crimes which have made it an outlaw amongst the nations. But do you know modern Germany? Unless you have been there within the last twenty-five years, not once or twice, but at regular intervals; unless you have looked below the glittering surface of the marvellous material progress and achievement and seen how the soul of Germany was being eaten away by the virulent poison of Prussianism; unless you have watched and followed the appalling transformation of German mentality and morality under the nefarious and puissant influence of the priesthood of power-worship, you do not know the Germany of this day and generation.

It is not the Germany of old, the land of our affectionate remembrance. It is not the Germany which men now of middle age or over knew in their youth. It is not the Germany of the first Emperor William, a modest and God-fearing gentleman. It is not the Germany, even, of Bismarck, man of blood and iron though he was, who had builded a structure which, whilst not founded on liberty, yet was capable and gave promise of going down into history as one of the greatest examples of enlightened and even beneficent autocracy; who, in the contemplative and mellowed wisdom of his old age, often warned the nation against the very spirit which, alas, came to have sway over it, and against the very war which that spirit unchained.

The Germany which brought upon the world the immeasurable disaster of this war, and at whose monstrous deeds and doctrines the civilized nations of the earth stand aghast, started into definite being less than thirty years ago. I can almost lay my finger upon the date and circumstances of its ill-omened advent.