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 n.o.ble 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not over-sanguine in giving heed to a feeling that some parts of what I am going to say are perhaps in process of being superseded by events that may be forming.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 subst.i.tute 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 p.r.o.noun 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 t.i.tle 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 ill.u.s.trious contributions which the German people have made to the imperishable a.s.sets 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 G.o.d 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 inst.i.tutions 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 G.o.d-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 circ.u.mstances 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 marvellous quickening of the energies and creative abilities of the nation, a period of material achievement and of social progress, in short, a national forward movement almost unequalled in history. The world looked on in admiration, perhaps not 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 G.o.d, a false and evil G.o.d. He exacted as sacrifices for his altars the time-honoured ideals of the fathers, and other high and n.o.ble 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; overweening arrogance, an impatient contempt 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 distrust of the intentions of other nations, 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 countries and capitals of the earth teeming with peaceful labour--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 thee." And follow him they did, and brought upon the green earth the red ruin of h.e.l.l.