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 Prussianized Germany 
 
 Americans of 
 
 Foreign Descent and 
 
 America's Cause 
 
 From an address before the 
 
 Harrisburg, Pa., Chamber of Commerce 
 
 September S6, 1917 
 
 By 
 OTTO H. KAHN 
 
Prussianized Germany 
 
 Americans of 
 
 Foreign Descent and 
 
 America's Cause 
 
 Otto H. Kahn 
 

 out 
 
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Prussianized 
 Germany 
 
 From an address before the 
 Harrisburg, Pa., Chamber of Commerce 
 
 September 36, 1917 
 
 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 pro- 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 found cunning to instill into the 
 nation the demoniacal obsession of 
 power-worship and world-domin- 
 ion, to modify and pervert the 
 mentality — indeed the very fibre 
 and moral substance — of the Ger- 
 man people, a people which until 
 misled, corrupted and system- 
 atically poisoned by the Prussian 
 ruling caste, was and deserved to 
 be an honored, valued and wel- 
 come member of the family of 
 nations. 
 
 I have hated and loathed that 
 spirit ever since it came within my 
 ken many years ago; hated it all 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 peo- 
 ple and their Prussian or Prus- 
 sianized rulers and leaders for the 
 monstrous crime of this war and 
 the atrocious barbarism of its con- 
 duct is the difference between the 
 man who, acting under the influ- 
 ence of a poisonous drug, runs 
 amuck in mad frenzy and the 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 unspeakable malefactor who ad- 
 ministered that drug, well know- 
 ing and fully intending the ghastly 
 consequences which were bound 
 to follow. 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 be- 
 come discredited and hateful in 
 the sight of the German people; 
 until that people shall have 
 awakened to a consciousness of 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 man- 
 kind shall have supplanted the 
 sway of what President Wilson 
 has so trenchantly termed "trucu- 
 lence 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 
 road which will give to the world 
 an early peace and in time lead 
 Germany back into the family of 
 
PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 re- 
 cognized in it for the entire world. 
 
 It had given to Germany un- 
 paralleled 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." 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 AND when this war broke out 
 in Europe I knew that the 
 - issue had been joined be- 
 tween the powers of brutal might 
 and insensate ambition on the one 
 side and the forces of humanity 
 and hberty on the other; between 
 darkness and hght. 
 
 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 
 
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P R U S S I A N I Z E D G E R M ANY 
 
 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 cer- 
 tainly did not like the Russia of 
 the Czars — that the cause of the 
 Allies was America's cause. 
 
 I believed that this w as no or- 
 dinary war between peoples for a 
 question of national interest, or 
 even national honor, but a con- 
 flict between fundamental prin- 
 ciples and ideas; and so believing 
 I was bound to feel that the 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 natural lines of race, blood and 
 kinship could not be the deter- 
 mining lines for one's attitude and 
 alignment, but that each man, 
 regardless of his origin, had to de- 
 cide 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. 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 honor and safety 
 demanded that we take up arms 
 against the Imperial German Gov- 
 ernment, and by action of Congress 
 the cause and the fight against 
 that Government were declared 
 our cause and our fight. 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 com- 
 parative degree concerning what 
 is the highest as it is the most 
 elementary attribute of citizen- 
 ship, 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 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 our own free choice for better or 
 for worse. 
 
 We are your fellow citizens be- 
 cause you accepted our oath of 
 allegiance as given in good faitli, 
 and because you have opened to us 
 in generous trust the portals of 
 American opportunity and free- 
 dom, 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 noth- 
 ing from us in return but decent 
 citizenship and adherence to those 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 ideals and principles which are 
 symbolized by the glorious flag of 
 /Vmerica. 
 
 Woe to the foreign-born Ameri- 
 can who betrays the splendid 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 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 not feel a solemn urge, does not 
 show an eager determination to 
 be in the very fore-front 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 devo- 
 tion and in willing sacrifice for 
 the country of his choice and 
 adoption and sworn allegiance, 
 and of their common affection 
 and pride. 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 Ameri- 
 cans of German descent are now 
 summoned to join in our coun- 
 try'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 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 eradi- 
 cate slavery, was perhaps a greater 
 still. 
 
 To defend the very foundations 
 of liberty and humanity, the very 
 groundwork of fair dealing be- 
 tween nations, the very basis of 
 peaceable living together among 
 the peoples of the earth against 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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 treas- 
 ure 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. 
 
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PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY 
 
 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, in- 
 deed, amongst free men anywhere. 
 
 He who, secretly or overtly, tries 
 to thwart the declared will and 
 aim of the Nation in this holy w ar 
 is a traitor, and a traitor's fate 
 should be his. 
 
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