PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY

September 26, 1917

THE declaration of war against Germany was passed by Congress with a vote of 461 to 56; and probably an even larger proportion of the citizens of the country was at that time in favor of resisting the Central Empires through force of arms. When the Selective Draft Law was enacted the people responded with remarkable good-will. Even in remote districts settled largely by citizens of foreign birth the burdens of military life were accepted with far less disturbance than had marked the enforcement of the draft in New York City in 1861. There was in 1917 no open resistance to the authority of the government; nevertheless there remained throughout the country numerous individual agitators of noisy dispositions and proGerman sympathies; and German propagandists were still able to arouse among pacifists, obstructionists, and some citizens of foreign birth, a babble of talk more or less seditious in its nature. Newspapers under German influence or control, abused their privilege of free speech; and by conflicting advice as well as by direct opposition, endeavored to prevent the nation from taking the speedy, vigorous, and unified action that is essential to military success.

The success of America's part in the war might have been seriously endangered had not the government and various organizations of patriotic citizens taken vigorous means to curb the action of spies and enemy agents and to impress upon pacifists the fact that it

was no time to talk of the blessings of peace when the country was at war. Citizens of foreign birth were also informed that cosmopolitan views must make way for American ideals.

When the United States first entered the Great War, much sympathy had been felt for the citizens of German birth whose friends and relatives were enrolled in the armies of the enemy. To a fault native citizens had been considerate of their feelings. As soon, however, as seditious talk, fanned by German intrigue, flared up among the foreign born population, resentment was everywhere aroused. Opposition to disloyal agitation became intense throughout the country, and organized effort was used to bring sedition to an end. Not all German-Americans were pro-German in their sympathies. Certain Americans of German birth were conspicuous for their patriotic devotion to American institutions and for their abhorrence of the aims of Prussian autocracy. If Germany had hoped that through the use of subsidized newspapers and clandestine associations, she could array the entire American citizenship of German descent on the side of the Fatherland, she was defeated as completely as in any battle of the war. Among the first to shed their blood for America were citizens with German names.

Among men of German birth who at this time rendered conspicuous service to the nation was Otto H. Kahn. It was partly through his influence that late in 1917 practically every form of disloyal utterance was discontinued or stamped out. He had faith that an argumentative and persuasive appeal addressed directly to citizens of foreign birth who were speaking sedition or were adhering to their oath of allegiance with half-hearted loyalty would be effective both to seal their lips and to change their aims and sympathies,

It

On September 26, 1917, while the country was still aroused with efforts to end seditious agitation, Mr. Kahn delivered a patriotic address before the Chamber of Commerce in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a city inhabited by people of German ancestry and situated in a region in which the German language was extensively spoken. His speech was remarkably effective. spread far beyond the hall where it was spoken and brought to the hearts of naturalized American citizens a clearer understanding of the obligations involved in the oath of citizenship. It stirred millions of GermanAmericans and other hyphenated Americans to higher standards of loyalty and recorded in English of unusual excellence a final disapproval of racial subdivisions in American citizenship.

PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY

Отто Н. KAHN

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 molding the public mind.

I have watched it proceed with relentless persistency and profound cunning to instill into the nation the demoniacal obsession of power-worship and worlddominion, 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 honored, 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 wordno 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 1 which in time will lead Germany back into the family of nations from which it is

now an outcast.

1

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 has 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 honor, 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 2 was left for all those claiming the privilige of American citizenship when after infinite forbearance the President decided