D 515 
 
 .K28 ________^ 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 THE 
 
 Poison GROtFTH of 
 Prussianism 
 
 ''Oh, Land of Now, oh, 
 Land of Then'* 
 
 BY 
 
 Otto H. Kahn 
 
 ADDRESS IN AUDITORIXJM 
 
 MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 
 
 JANUARY 13, 1918 
 
THE 
 
 Poison Growth of 
 Prussianism 
 
 ''Oh, Land of Now, oh, 
 Lafid of Then" 
 
 BY 
 
 Otto H. Kahn 
 
 ADDRESS IN AtTJITORIUM 
 
 MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 
 
 JANUARY 13, 1918 
 
^i 
 
 -^^^ 
 
 ^AAVGrEKess FROM 
 ^^"CC?j:.irNT DIVJ310.V 
 
The Poison Growth of Prussianism 
 
 Address in 
 
 Auditorium, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 
 
 January 13,1918 
 
 THE speech I am about to make 
 is attuned to the spirit and the 
 fact of war. 
 A few days ago, as you aU 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 mili- 
 tarists, they will grasp the hand 
 
 [3] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 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 superseded by events that may be 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 lan- 
 guage of peaceful intercourse and of 
 that new relationship which the Presi- 
 dent's leadership is seeking to bring 
 about amongst all the nations. 
 
 But until that "consummation de- 
 voutly to be wished" is attained, let us 
 take care lest we permit the hope of it 
 
 [4] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 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 resokite pursuit, to 
 the utmost of our capacity, of our high 
 and solemn purpose as it has been pro- 
 claimed in the great messages of 
 America's spokesman and leader. 
 
 In attempting to deal with the ques- 
 tions that I shall discuss, I must apolo- 
 gize for using the personal pronoun a 
 good deal more than would seem con- 
 sonant with due modesty. My excuse 
 is that whatever weight my observa- 
 tions may have with you, lies mainly in 
 the fact that I am of German birth, 
 that until the outbreak of the Avar I 
 kept in close touch with German men 
 and affairs, that I loved the old Ger- 
 
 [5] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 many 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 ob- 
 servation 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. 
 
 [6 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S 3/ 
 
 II 
 
 The world has been hurt within 
 these past three years as it was never 
 hurt before. In the gloomy and accus- 
 ing 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 invalu- 
 able 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 
 
 [7] 
 
TEE POISON GROWTH 
 
 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 ag- 
 grieved by Prussianism, and to align 
 ourselves in the very forefront of those 
 who in word and deed are fighting to 
 rid the world forever 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 Ger- 
 man birth by demonstrative zeal in 
 action or speech. 
 
 I was and am proud of the great in- 
 heritance which came to me as a 
 birthright and of the illustrious con- 
 tributions which the German people 
 have made to the imperishable assets 
 
F 
 
 R U S S I A N I >S M 
 
 of the world. Until the outbreak of 
 the war in 1914, 1 maintained close and 
 active personal and business relations 
 in Germany. I was well acquainted 
 with a number of the leading person- 
 ages 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 pubhc opinion 
 of having planned and willed war; of 
 the revolting deeds committed in Bel- 
 gium and northern France, of the m- 
 famy 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 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 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 tra- 
 ditions of that old Germany and the 
 time-honored 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 tram- 
 pled those ideals, traditions and con- 
 ceptions 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. 
 
 [10] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S 31 
 
 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 unshakeable con- 
 viction that Prussianism, in mad in- 
 fatuation, had committed the crowning 
 sin of outraging and defying the con- 
 science 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). 
 
 fill 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 In accordance with this conviction, 
 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 as 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 element- 
 ary principles of right and peace among 
 the nations, no less than for our own 
 honor and our own safety, the preserva- 
 tion of our institutions and our very 
 destiny. 
 
 To co-operate towards the success- 
 ful 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 meas- 
 
 [12] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 ure of single-minded devotion and 
 with every ounce of his power, per- 
 jured 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 
 
 [131 
 
THE POISON G R W T II 
 
 breast. We will heed the call of honor 
 beyond the call of race. 
 
 We will wear as a badge of honor 
 the abuse and spite of those who place 
 another cause, whatever it be, above 
 the Nation's cause and who see hypoc- 
 risy 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 Ameri- 
 cans 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 
 
 [14] 
 
OF PRUSSIANISM 
 
 kith and kin, however deep our detesta- 
 tion of their wrongdoing under the 
 spiritual and actual sway of the Prus- 
 sian 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 accusa- 
 tion of being time-servers or popularity 
 seekers, and to expose their motives to 
 misconstruction . 
 
 These scruples are honorable, 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 spokes- 
 
 [15] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 men 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 
 honored 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 
 honor 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 peo- 
 ple when no other voices can, and be- 
 cause 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 join- 
 
 fl61 
 
OF PRUSSIA N I S M 
 
 ing the war, and now, when we have 
 joined, they count upon that support 
 to agitate for an inconclusive and un- 
 righteous peace. 
 
 I beheve 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 of Germany is not in the blood, 
 but in the system of rulership, that we are 
 with them and of them wholeheartedly, 
 single-mindedly and unreservedly; be- 
 cause 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. 
 
 [17] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 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 out- 
 law 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 mar- 
 velous material progress and achieve- 
 ment and seen how the soul of Ger- 
 many was being eaten away by the 
 virulent poison of Prussianism; unless 
 you have watched and followed the 
 appalling transformation of German 
 
 [18] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 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, w ho 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 
 
 [191 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 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 na- 
 tions 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. 
 
 Less than thirty years ago, a "new 
 course" was flamboyantly proclaimed 
 by those in authority, and the term 
 "new course" became the order of the 
 day. With it and from it there came a 
 truly marvelous quickening of the 
 energies and creative abilities of the 
 nation, a period of material achieve- 
 ment and of social progress, in short, a 
 national forward movement almost 
 unequalled in history. The world 
 looked on in admiration, perhaps not 
 
 [20] 
 
OF PRUSSIANISM 
 
 entirely free from a tinge of envy. 
 Germany was conquering the earth by 
 peaceful penetration; and no one stood 
 in its way. It had free access to all 
 the seas and all the lands. 
 
 But with that "new course" and 
 from it there also came a new god, a 
 false and evil god. He exacted as sac- 
 rifices for his altars the time-honored 
 ideals of the fathers, and other high and 
 noble things. And his commands were 
 obeyed. 
 
 There came upon the German people 
 a whole train of new and baneful 
 influences and impulses, formidably 
 stimulating as a powerful drug. There 
 came, amongst other evils, materialism 
 and covetousness and irreligion; over- 
 weening arrogance, an impatient con- 
 tempt for the rights of the weak, a 
 mania for world dominion, and a 
 veritable lunacy of power worship. 
 There came also a fixed and irrational 
 
 [211 
 
TEE POISON GROWTH 
 
 distrust of the intentions of other na- 
 tions, for the evil which had crept into 
 their own souls made them see evil in 
 others, and that distrust was nurtured 
 carefully and deliberately by those in 
 authority. 
 
 And, finally, there came "the day" in 
 which the "new course," fatally and 
 inevitably, was bound to culminate. 
 There came the old temptation, as 
 old as humanity itself. The Tempter 
 took the Prussian and Prussianized 
 rulers up a high mountain and showed 
 them all the riches and power of the 
 world. Showed them the great coun- 
 tries and capitals of the earth teeming 
 with peaceful labor — Brussels, Paris, 
 London, aye, and New York, and told 
 them: "Look at these. Use your power 
 ruthlessly and they are yours." And 
 those rulers did not say: "Get thee 
 behind me, Satan;" but they said: 
 "Lead on, Satan, and we shall follow 
 
 [221 
 
F 
 
 p R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 thee." And follow him they did, and 
 brought upon the green earth the red 
 ruin of hell. 
 
 And with rejoicing they greeted "the 
 day." It was to bring them, as one 
 German in an important position here 
 expressed it to me, in August, 1914, "a 
 merry war and victory before the year 
 is out." 
 
 231 
 
THE POISON GEO W T II 
 
 IV 
 
 Truly, history affords no parallel to 
 the spiritual poisoning and the result- 
 ing horrible transmutation of a whole 
 people, such as Prussianism wrought 
 in the incredibly short period of one 
 generation. Nor would I believe that 
 such a dreadful phenomenon could pos- 
 sibly take place were it not for the 
 evidence of my own eyes and my own 
 ears. 
 
 My observations led me to think, 
 however, that Prussianism had reached 
 the crest of its influence some years 
 before the war and that liberal tenden- 
 cies were beginning to make headway 
 against it. 
 
 [241 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 There were many men in Germany 
 before the war who were opposed to and 
 saw the dangers arising from militarist 
 ambition and jingo teaching and raised 
 their voices against them in warning. 
 There was the ever-increasing Sociahst 
 vote which, although Socialism in the 
 German Empire does not mean what it 
 means in Russia and amongst the 
 extremists in our country, did mean 
 opposition to Junker methods and 
 reactionary tendencies. 
 
 I am by no means sure that the very 
 growth and spread of that liberal spirit 
 did not have some influence in causing 
 the militarist clique to precipitate the 
 war, as throughout history autocracy 
 has resorted frequently to the unity- 
 compelling force of war in order to 
 arrest, divert and thwart liberalism 
 and independence. 
 
 To deceive the German people, and 
 steel them to patriotic determination 
 
 [25] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 and sacrifice, the Prussian rulers and 
 their spokesmen affirmed at the begin- 
 ning of the war, and have kept re- 
 affirming ever since with nauseating 
 reiteration and disgusting hypocrisy, 
 that theirs was a defensive war, forced 
 upon them by wicked and envious 
 neighbors. A defensive war, indeed! 
 
 Let me review very rapidly the cir- 
 cumstances which surrounded the be- 
 ginning of the war. Austria, after the 
 friction of long standing between the 
 two countries, which had reached its 
 culminating point in the murder of 
 the Austrian heir-apparent on Serbian 
 soil, sent an ultimatum to Serbia. 
 The conditions of that ultimatum, 
 although unexampled in their severity 
 and sweeping demands, were accepted 
 by Serbia almost in their entirety. 
 
 Austria insisted on acceptance to 
 the very letter, unconditional and 
 absolute, within twenty-four hours 
 
 [26] 
 
F 
 
 p R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 or war, whereupon Russia declared 
 that, if war was thus forced upon 
 Httle Serbia, she would stand by 
 her. After much backing and filling, at 
 the last minute, Austria shrank from 
 the calamity of a world conflagration 
 and declared herself ready to enter into 
 friendly negotiations with Russia. 
 The frightful danger which threatened 
 the world seemed to be on the way of 
 being removed. 
 
 But the Prussian militarist party, 
 seeing in their grasp the opportunity 
 for which they had planned and plotted 
 these thirty years, were not wiUing to 
 let it go by, and they did not shrink 
 from the catastrophe which was in- 
 volved. 
 
 Heretofore Austria had held the cen- 
 tre of the stage and Germany had pro- 
 fessed herself unable to interfere. But 
 when Austria was on the point of re- 
 ceding, Germany did interfere, and, on 
 
 [27] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 the plea of the menace of the Russian 
 mobihzation (a mobihzation which 
 there is reason to suspect was dehb- 
 erately provoked through machina- 
 tions from Berhn), started the war by 
 an ultimatum to Russia, which was 
 tantamount to declaring war, on the 
 very day on which Austria yielded. 
 Let it be remembered that whatever 
 menace the Russian mobilization may 
 have contained was infinitely greater 
 against Austria than against Germany, 
 and yet Austria, on the last day in 
 July, 1914, declared herself ready to 
 negotiate. 
 
 I know something from actual and 
 personal experience of the plotting of 
 the Prussian war party, and how for a 
 full generation they had endeavored 
 again and again to bring about a situa- 
 tion which would force war upon the 
 world. I know of my personal knowl- 
 edge that the stage was set for it six 
 
 [28] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 or seven years ago in connection with 
 the Agaclir episode. 
 
 I know that the Pan-Germans meant 
 to have a footing in South America, 
 and, once there, would have threatened 
 and had prepared to threaten, this very 
 country of ours. 
 
 I know that Austria, in 1913, meant 
 to conquer Serbia, and so informed her 
 then ahy, Italy, believing that she 
 could do so with impunity. 
 
 And I know that Austria did not 
 believe that her ultimatum to Serbia in 
 July, 1914, would bring on a serious war. 
 
 I know it, because the week following 
 the outbreak of the war I saw a letter 
 just arrived from a gentleman in high 
 position in Austria, connected with 
 the Austrian Foreign Office, in which, 
 writing to New York under date of 
 about July 20, 1914, he said: 
 
 "We are now passing through a nerve-wear- 
 ing time because of our difficulty with Serbia, 
 
 [29] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 but by the time this letter reaches you every- 
 thing will be all right again. The Serbians 
 have been intriguing against us these many 
 years, and this time they must be settled with 
 for good and all. We shall go in and take 
 Belgrade, but inasmuch as we have given as- 
 surance to Russia that we shall not perma- 
 nently interfere with the integrity and inde- 
 pendence of Serbia, and inasmuch as neither 
 Russia nor her Allies are ready to fight, the 
 whole thing will be a military promenade and 
 will have no serious consequences." 
 
 A defensive war! Was it a defensive 
 war which Prussianism was thinking of 
 when it decHned England's repeated 
 offer for a reduction by both countries 
 of the building of warships ; when it re- 
 fused at the last Hague conference to 
 discuss the hmitation of standing armies 
 and armaments ; when Germany — alone 
 amongst the great nations — rejected 
 our offer of a treaty of arbitration? 
 
 Years before the war, Nietzsche, 
 than whom no man had greater influ- 
 
 [30] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 ence in shaping the trend of German 
 thought in the past thirty years, wrote : 
 
 "You shall love peace as a means to prepare 
 for new wars. You say that a good cause 
 may hallow even war, but I say to you that it 
 is a good war which hallows every cause." 
 
 On July 29, 1914, the well informed 
 German newspaper, "Vorwaerts," de- 
 clared : 
 
 "The camarilla of war-lords is working with 
 absolutely unscrupulous means to carry out 
 their fearful designs to precipitate a world 
 war." 
 
 In October, 1914, three months after 
 the outbreak of the war, Maximilian 
 Harden, one of the ablest and most 
 influential of German publicists, wrote : 
 
 "Let us renounce those miserable efforts to 
 excuse the actions of Germany in declaring 
 war. It is not against our will that we have 
 thrown ourselves into this gigantic adventure. 
 The war has not been imposed upon us by 
 
 [311 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 others and by surprise. We have willed the 
 war. It was our duty to will it. We decline 
 to appear before the tribunal of united Europe. 
 We reject its jurisdiction. One principle alone 
 counts and no other — one principle which 
 contains and sums up all the others — might.'' 
 
 I could go on for hours quoting sim- 
 ilar views and sentiments from the 
 utterances of leading German writers 
 and educators before and since the 
 war. (It is worth mentioning, though, 
 that Maximilian Harden has seen a new 
 Hght, and for some time has been cour- 
 ageously speaking and writing in a very 
 different strain. There are a number 
 of influential men in Germany who, 
 like him, have undergone a change of 
 mind and heart. Strong and outspoken 
 assertions of liberal sentiment and in- 
 dependent aspirations have found ut- 
 terance in that country in the course of 
 the last six months, such as have not 
 been heard within its frontiers these 
 many years. 
 
 [321 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 A defensive war! There are certain 
 telegrams from Sir Edward Grey, the 
 British Minister for Foreign Affairs, to 
 the British Ambassador in Germany, 
 sent during the week preceding the 
 outbreak of the war in Europe, which 
 even to this day are unknown in Ger- 
 many, as they were never permitted to 
 be pubhshed. In these messages the 
 British Foreign Minister went almost 
 on his knees to beg Germany to consent 
 to a conference in order to avoid war. 
 
 He went to the utmost limits in 
 promising benevolent consideration for 
 Germany's viewpoint and wishes, then 
 and in the future, and he stated that if 
 Germany would put forward any reason- 
 able proposition honestly calculated to 
 maintain peace, England would sup- 
 port it with all of its influence, and if 
 France and Russia would not fall in line 
 
 [331 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 England would promptly separate it- 
 self from these two countries. 
 
 These overtures and pleas met with 
 no response from the Masters of Ger- 
 many. They declared war. 
 
 It is probably true that the Russian 
 Pan-Slavists had planned war sooner or 
 later, just as the Pan-Germans did. 
 War might perhaps have come then or 
 at some other time, even if the Prus- 
 sian rulers had not precipitated it. 
 But the fact remains that it was the 
 Imperial German Government which 
 did declare war. For having antici- 
 pated that "perhaps," and resolved it 
 according to their own plans and wishes, 
 for that, their initial crime, and for 
 those which followed, the rulers of the 
 German people will have to answer 
 before the judgment stool of God and 
 history. Upon them rests the blood- 
 guilt for this dreadful catastrophe 
 which has befallen the world. 
 
 [341 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 V 
 
 A few days ago I read a poem ad- 
 dressed to Germany, of which these 
 Hnes have remained in my memory : 
 
 "Oh, land of now, oh, land of then, 
 Dear God, the dreams, the dreams of men! 
 Enslaved, immersed in greed and hate. 
 Where are the things which made you great?" 
 
 The things which made Germany 
 great are not dead, and the world can- 
 not afford to allow them to die. They 
 belong to the immortal possessions of 
 the human race. 
 
 They have passed, for the time being, 
 alas, out of the keeping of the mass of 
 the German people, whose glorious 
 inheritance they were. 
 
 [35] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 They are now in the keeping of that 
 minority, not perhaps, very great as 
 yet, but growing steadily, of men in 
 Germany itself from whose eyes the 
 scales have begun to fall. They are in 
 the keeping of all the nations who 
 appreciate and cherish and are deter- 
 mined to maintain those great and high 
 things which the civilized world has 
 attained through the toil, sacrifice and 
 suffering of its best in the course of 
 many centuries. And, above all, they 
 are in the keeping of the ten or 
 fifteen millions of Americans of Ger- 
 man descent. 
 
 As that great American of German 
 birth, Carl Schurz, and many other 
 brave and high-minded Germans — my 
 own father, I am proud to say, among 
 them — in 1848 stood in arms against 
 Prussian oppression, for liberal ideas 
 and right and truth and freedom, so do 
 we stand now. In fighting for the cause 
 
 [36] 
 
OF P R U S S I A N I S M 
 
 of America as loyal Americans, we are 
 fighting at the same time for the deliv- 
 erance of the country of our birth from 
 those unrighteous powers which hold it 
 enthralled and feed upon its soul. 
 
 If ever a nation entered a war after 
 having maintained infinite forbearance 
 in the face of grave menace and dangers 
 and the most intolerable affronts, and 
 from motives as pure and high as the 
 great blue dome of heaven, America 
 is that nation. 
 
 We seek no reward whatsoever of a 
 material nature. We seek no "place in 
 the sun" — to use the German Chancel- 
 lor's term — except the sun of liberty, 
 and that we do not seek selfishly, but to 
 share with all the world. 
 
 America is not waging a war of ven- 
 geance, notwithstanding all the injuries 
 and measureless provocations we have 
 received. We have lighted a fire to 
 purify, not to burn at the stake. 
 
 [371 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 America is incapable of hating an 
 entire people, but we do hate, we are 
 fighting and we shall fight with every 
 ounce of our might, the spirit which 
 has power over the people of Germany, 
 and which, if it were to prevail — as, 
 under God, it never will — would destroy 
 liberty, justice and plighted faith. It 
 was not the people of Great Britain 
 which America fought in the War of the 
 Revolution, but the spirit and the 
 ruling caste which then held sway over 
 them. America fought then for an 
 ideal and for liberty and independence, 
 and sacrificed blood and treasure and 
 suffered and endured and won. And so 
 it will be now. 
 
 The spirit of Prussianism and the 
 spirit of Americanism cannot live in 
 the same world. One or the other must 
 conquer. 
 
 In the mad pride of its contempt for 
 democracy, Prussianism has thrown 
 
 [38] 
 
OF PRUSSIANISM 
 
 down the gauntlet to us. We have 
 taken up the challenge and now stand 
 arrayed by the side of the other free- 
 dom-loving nations of the world, giving 
 our fresh strength and our boundless 
 resources to them who, heroically striv- 
 ing, have borne the heat and burden of 
 a dreadfully long and exhausting strug- 
 gle, yet stand unwearied, erect and 
 resolute. 
 
 The enemy is of formidable strength. 
 But even if he were far stronger than he 
 is, even if we did not have the men and 
 the means which are ours, even if our 
 comrades-in-arms had not demon- 
 strated their superb and indomitable 
 prowess, still must our cause prevail — 
 for there is fighting with us a force which 
 has ever proved itself stronger than any 
 other power on earth, and again and 
 again has triumphed over overwhelm- 
 ing odds. That force, God-inspired, 
 
 [39] 
 
THE POISON GROWTH 
 
 death-defying and unconquerable, is 
 the soul of man. 
 
 And when — Heaven grant it may be 
 soon! — the soul of the German people 
 will have freed itself from the sinister 
 powers that now keep it in ban and 
 bondage, when it will have found again 
 the high impulses and aims of its former 
 self, when it will once more understand 
 and speak the universal language of 
 humanity and right, then, in God's own 
 time there will be peace. 
 
 40] 
 
I TRRORY OF CONGRESS 
 
 .JH!I 
 
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