Chapter II: Foreword

This book should be in every man's home; every woman should read it. It is a pity that it is not in every German's home. But before your ordinary man can grasp its full significance, it is as well that he should know something of the man who wrote it, and still more why he wrote it.

Mr. Otto H. Kahn, one of the leading financiers of America, and widely renowned for his manifold charities, his strenuous public life, and his generous patronage of the Arts, is of German blood and was born in Germany. But, from his great-grandparents, who were French Alsatians, he inherited a great love of France. His father, after taking part in the German Revolution of 1848, fled to America, became naturalized as an American citizen, and finally returned to Germany after ten years of banishment. From this father, Kahn inherited the love of liberty.

He left Germany when he was twenty-one years old, after having served his year in the army; and, deciding to find his future elsewhere, gave up his German nationality thirty years ago. Returning, however, almost every year, to visit the country of his birth, and having important relations with governmental, business, social, and other circles, he had exceptional opportunities for becoming acquainted with and studying the development of German mentality and morality under the influence of Prussianism. That development filled him with horror and dismay. Long before the war he realized the terrible menace to the entire world which was subtly concealed in the poison growth of Prussianism. As he himself here puts it in one of his speeches: "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."

When the war broke out, in 1914, Otto Kahn did not hesitate for a second on which side to take his stand. For him, neutrality in the fight between light and darkness, between right and atrocious wrong, was unthinkable. And as he felt and thought, being a man of honour, of courage, and of decision, so he acted, totally regardless of the consequences to himself. He had "searched his conscience in sorrow and in anguish"; and where it led him there he followed unhesitatingly. Although his most important business relations were in Germany, although he knew that he would be attacked in Germany and by all pro-Germans as a renegade, and would have to face a very difficult position even in America as long as America was neutral, he at once became a firm, open, and active adherent of the cause of the Allies, and threw his entire influence, personal and financial, on their side. No work for the Allies remained without his support. The calculated expectations of the German Government on German-American aid, particularly their reliance on access to the money market of America, were disappointed and defeated; the chief part of the credit for that vital result was due to Otto Kahn.

But, perhaps the greatest service to the Allied cause which Mr. Kahn rendered--which he was the first, as well as the most prominent, American of German blood to render--was his oratory through the United States. There are about twelve million Americans of German descent in the United States, and many more millions spring from races more or less affiliated with them. Most of these went to America over twenty-five years ago; they did not know modern Germany; they did not believe the accounts of German atrocities as reported in the Press; they were unable to realize the hideous change which had come over Germany since they or their parents had left it; they did not understand the origin, the cause, and the meaning of the war. And many Americans, especially in the West, held the like views.

Mr. Kahn, notwithstanding threats and malignities, went out to speak to them--individually, through newspaper articles, or at great mass meetings. He brought to bear the authority of his personality, fortified by the confidence and prestige which attach to it; and he made it plain that he spoke, not from hearsay, but from personal experience, observation, and knowledge. He succeeded in showing up modern Germany as it is, and in proving its horrible guilt for the war. He pleaded in flaming words to Americans of German birth that not only did their oath of allegiance compel them to be whole-heartedly and undividedly American, without regard to their origin, but that what could still be preserved of honour to the German name was largely in their keeping, and that even for the sake of the German blood in their veins they must prove to the world that those Germans who are not under the Prussian yoke, hate and loathe the ruling caste who have poisoned the German blood, who have made Germany a hideous, monstrous, barbarous thing, and who have robbed them of the old Germany which they loved and in which they took pride.

If, as is fortunately the case, America is now in the war by our side, unanimous, enthusiastic, undivided; if the people, East and West, realize the abominable doctrines and actions of modern Germany and the necessity at whatever cost in blood and treasure of defeating that abomination utterly, then no man is more entitled to a high place of honour among those who have brought about this happy achievement than Otto Kahn.

In his youth, Kahn had done military service in Germany; and the German youth studies and understands strategy in a far larger and broader way than even professional soldiers study it amongst us. Strategy acts in peace, as well as in war--strategy never ceases. For what is strategy? It is the leadership of a people so that its moral, its ideals, and its will shall make it develop its destiny in such vigour that it shall be safe from the assault of any enemy will that may assail it. All statesmanship worthy of the name is strategic--all other statesmanship is but a glittering bubble, floating in an empty void. If the moral and ideals of a people be not deep-rooted in vigour capable of defending those ideals, that people is doomed.

I am proud to know that Otto Kahn sees eye to eye with me. The utter degradation of the fine old Germany by Prussia was a bitter disillusion of my young manhood. What must it have been to Otto Kahn? He loved the old Germany to which he was "linked by ties of blood, by fond memories and cherished sentiments." To cast her out of his soul--to range himself in the forefront of those fighting the abomination which had made her an outcast amongst the peoples of the world--to brave attack, misunderstanding, misinterpretation of his motives, loss of lifelong friends, not to speak of financial sacrifices--these touch well-nigh upon the tragic. I am proud to think that the strategic revelation of Germany, which I published last year, receives such overwhelming proof in every page of Otto Kahn's book--this laying bare of the meaning, processes, and purposes of modern Germany by a great German of that fine school of honour which once made Germany a noble people. And it is good to know that when at last America struck for civilization, the vast mass of the Americans of German blood remembered that they were Americans, and that their ancient State was wholly departed. No man did more to steady them to nobility of action in the day of their trial than the man who wrote this book.

One of the first tributes I received from across the seas was a copy of one of his addresses from Otto Kahn; and I am proud that it should have fallen to my good fortune to pay back that tribute between the covers of this noble volume on its issue to our people. There has been no more valuable testimony written upon the war than this small book.

Otto Kahn tells us that the hideous thing "Prussianism" must be struck down--or peace will have left the earth. There is no other way to victory; no other way from bondage for the whole wide world.

HALDANE MACFALL.

CONTENTS

PAGE
AMERICANS OF GERMAN ORIGIN AND THE WAR 1
PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 11
THE POISON GROWTH OF PRUSSIANISM 23
FRENZIED LIBERTY 57
THE MYTH OF "A RICH MAN'S WAR" 75
LETTER TO A GERMAN 101

AMERICANS OF GERMAN ORIGIN AND THE WAR

Extracts from an address before The Merchants Association of
New York at its Liberty Loan Meeting June 1, 1917

AMERICANS OF GERMAN ORIGIN AND THE WAR

We have met to-day in pursuance of a high purpose, a purpose which at this fateful moment is one and the same wherever, throughout the world, the language of free men is spoken and understood.

It is the purpose of a common determination to fight and to bear and to dare everything and never to cease nor rest until the accursed thing which has brought upon the world the unutterable calamity, the devil's visitation of this appalling war, is destroyed beyond all possibility of resurrection.

That accursed thing is not a nation, but an evil spirit, a spirit which has made the government possessed by it and executing its abhorrent and bloody bidding an abomination in the sight of God and men.

What we are now contending for by the side of the splendidly brave and sorely tried Allied Nations, after infinite forbearance, after delay which many of us found it hard to bear, are the things which are amongst the highest and most cherished that the civilized world has attained through the toil, sacrifices and suffering of its best in the course of many centuries.

They are the things without which darkness would fall upon hope, and life would become intolerable.

They are the things of humanity, liberty, justice and mercy, for which the best men amongst all the nations--including the German nation--have fought and bled these many generations past, which were the ideals of Luther, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and a host of others who had made the name of Germany great and beloved until Prussianism came to make its deeds a byword and a hissing.

This appalling conflict which has been drenching the world with blood is not a mere fight of one or more peoples against one or more other peoples.

It goes far deeper. It challenges the soul and conscience of the world. It transcends vastly the bounds of racial allegiance. It is ethically fundamental.

In determining one's attitude towards it, the time has gone by--if it ever was--when race and blood and inherited affiliations were permitted to count.

A century and a half ago Americans of English birth rose to free this country from the oppression of the rulers of England. To-day Americans of German birth are called upon to rise, together with their fellow-citizens of all races, to free not only this country but the whole world from the oppression of the rulers of Germany, an oppression far less capable of being endured and of far graver portent.

Speaking as one born of German parents, I do not hesitate to state it as my deep conviction that the greatest service which men of German birth or antecedents can render to the country of their origin is this: To proclaim, and to stand up for those great ideals and national qualities and traditions which they inherited from their ancestors, and to set their faces like flint against the monstrous doctrines and acts of a rulership that has robbed them of the Germany they loved and in which they took just pride, the Germany which had the good-will, respect and admiration of the entire world.

I do not hesitate to state it as my solemn conviction that the more unmistakably and whole-heartedly Americans of German origin throw themselves into the struggle which this country has entered in order to rescue Germany, no less than America and the rest of the world, from those sinister forces that are, in President Wilson's language, the enemy of all mankind, the better they protect and serve the repute of the old German name and the true advantage of the German people.

Gentlemen, I measure my words. They are borne out all too emphatically by the hideous eloquence of deeds which have appalled the conscience of the civilized world. They are borne out by numberless expressions, written and spoken, of German professors employed by the State to teach its youth.

The burden of that teaching is that might makes right, and that the German nation has been chosen to exercise morally, mentally and actually, the over-lordship of the world and must and will accomplish that task and that destiny whatever the cost in bloodshed, misery and ruin.

The spirit of that teaching, in its intolerance, its mixture of sanctimoniousness and covetousness, and its self-righteous assumption of a world-improving mission, is closely akin to the spirit from which were bred the religious wars of the past through the long and dark years when Protestants and Catholics killed one another and devastated Europe.

I speak in sorrow, for I am speaking of the country of my origin and I have not forgotten what I owe to it.

I speak in bitter disappointment, for I am thinking of the Germany of former days, the Germany which has contributed its full share to the store of the world's imperishable assets and which, in not a few fields of endeavour and achievement, held the leading place among the nations of the earth.

And I speak in the firm faith that, after its people shall have shaken off and made atonement for the dreadful spell which an evil fate has cast upon them, that former Germany will arise again and, in due course of time, will again deserve and attain the good-will and respect of the world and the affectionate loyalty of all those of German blood in foreign lands.

_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