$B 7M7 3fiT 
 
 British Black Book 
 
 by an American 
 
 
 
 EngffLiid, allbesfroyW of NaWbns. 
 
 Germany's wonderful Rise and Success, the 
 real Caiis^ ^r J^glalid's present War. 
 
 iThe unhoHest^^nspiracy in History. 
 
 f r Hoijii soit^iqui mal y pense. 
 
 %fTm tentacles * and ink-sac of the Giant 
 ^ Octopus and how it uses them. 
 
 ^ The Germi^il^iEmperor, Lord of War or 
 -^ Prince of Peace? ^ ^ 
 
 ^^yunnmn atrocities — '*made in England." 
 
 German Militarism or British Navalism, 
 J l^^which is the Menace? 
 
 Does America need a Third War for 
 Independence.? 
 
The 
 
 British Black Book 
 
 by Rudolf Cronau 
 
 / NEW YORK 1915 
 
Of 23 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1915 by RUDOLF CRONAU 
 
 (All rights reserved) 
 
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 America, the history of its discovery from ancient to the 
 present times. (2 Vol. Leipzig, 1890-92.) 
 
 America, historia de su descubrimiento desde los tiempos 
 primitivos hasta los mas modemos. (3 Vol. Barcelona, 
 1892.) 
 
 From Wonderland to Wonderland, sketches of American 
 Sceneries and Life. (2 Vol. Leipzig, 1886.) 
 
 In the Wild West. Tales of an Artist. (Braunschweig, 1 890.) 
 
 Three Centuries of German Life in America. (Berlin, 1 909.) 
 
 Our Wasteful Nation. The Story of American Prodigality and 
 the Abuse of Our National Resources. (New York 1 908.) 
 
 Illustrative Cloud Forms for the Guidance of Observers in the 
 Classification of Clouds. (U. S. publication No. 112. 
 Washington, D. C, 1897.) 
 
 Travels in the Lands of the Sioux Indians. (Leipzig, 1886.) 
 
 Geschichte, Wesen und Praxb der Reklame. (Ulm, 1887.) 
 
 Geschichte der Solinger KKngenindustrie. (Stuttgart, 1883.) 
 
PREfACE. 
 
 "World*s History is the World's Judgment.** 
 
 The present war of the nations, the most deplorable event 
 in history, has from its outset disclosed the fact, that the 
 opponents of Germany, mainly England, fight not with fair, 
 honest weapons, but take recourse to the most despicable 
 means: slander and calumny. 
 
 While England poses as the defender of justice and right, 
 as the champion of liberty and humanity, as the benevolent 
 protector of smaller nations, and as promoter of the world's 
 peace, she charges the German nation with base brutality and 
 the most abominable infraction of international laws. She 
 accuses her of being guided in all actions by an immoral de- 
 sire of extending her rule over other countries of the globe 
 and making the inhabitants thereof slaves of her selfish aims. 
 
 Many well known British writers, poets and scholars, among 
 them Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and H. J. Wells, joined 
 in this unworthy campaign and have, in spite of their own 
 better knowledge, denounced the German people as a hord 
 of Huns, who, for the sake of humanity ought to be exter- 
 minated. 
 
 To protest against such wicked warfare is the duty of every- 
 one, who has had the opportunity of studying the German 
 nation, its beautiful empire and highly developed culture. 
 Champions for Germany's cause have appeared everywhere. 
 And among the most fearless defenders of the truth are 
 Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent. I name John W. Burgess, 
 Professor of American History and Dean of Columbia Univer- 
 sity; William R. Shepherd, Professor of History at the same 
 institution; Ferdinand Schevill, Professor of History of the 
 University of Chicago; Herbert Sanborn, Professor of Philo- 
 sophy of Vanderbilt University; Professor Wm. M. Sloane, 
 Professor of History at Columbia University; Thomas C. Hall, 
 Professor at the Union Theological Seminary of New York, not 
 to forget the five American journalists, who created a sensa- 
 tion by their splendid "round robin letter" and made the first 
 breach in the walls of falsehood, with which the Allies tried 
 to surround the German nation. 
 
 66T503 
 
To join these fearless paladines of truth, I am under double 
 obligations. First, because I am proud of Germany as of my 
 beloved Fatherland, where I spent the sunny days of my youth 
 and to which I owe my education as well as many happy years 
 amidst her beautiful sceneries, upright men and noble women. 
 Secondly, I am an American Citizen, who, having the highest 
 conception and appreciation of true American ideals, is not 
 blind to the grave dangers, lurking in this unholy war and 
 threatening our United States. 
 
 When 1, as a student of history, support my arguments with 
 historical facts, I do this in the conviction, that history is the 
 most trustworthy means of getting at the truth concerning the 
 character of a nation. As we form our opinions about in- 
 dividuals from their past so we may judge nations by their 
 history. 
 
 This book, based on irrefutable facts, intends to show the 
 chief actor in the present war, England, in her true aspect, in 
 order that henceforth all nations may take warning and proper 
 care in their political and commercial dealings. 
 
 May truth destroy the bulwarks of lies built by the Allies. 
 And may the crash of the falling walls be heard around the 
 world and compel nations to think. 
 
 What happened to other countries in the past, what menaces 
 Germany and Austria to-day, may threaten to-morrow our 
 own or any other people, whose success or riches incite the 
 envy and greed of the "Giant Octopus." 
 
 As there have already been published by the warring powers 
 Blue, Orange, Gray, Yellow, Red and Green Books, and as 
 the British Government, to whitewash itself, produced a White 
 Book, I selected for the cover of this book the only remaining 
 color: Black, for the sake of contrast as well as because it is 
 the most fitting for certain parts of British history. 
 
 RUDOLF CRONAU. 
 New York, 1915. 
 
The Giant Octopus. 
 
 Mariners of former days had among the many yarns, with 
 which they regaled their credulous audiences, a story of large 
 cuttlefish or octopus, which with their many powerful and far 
 reaching arms entangled not only large vessels, but even whole 
 islands, to capture the people and then suck their blood. 
 
 We all know these tales were merely gross exaggerations of 
 facts, for cuttlefish seldom grow to a size, as to become 
 dangerous to a swimmer. But there exists indeed a giant octo- 
 pus, that in its bulk far surpasses the imaginary creatures of the 
 mariners tales and is even far more dangerous and rapacious. 
 
 This strange animal, now several hundred years old, has 
 a most peculiar origin. It emerged from the mingling of 
 several smaller cuttlefish, that used to prey on the borders of 
 the North Sea, and are known to learned men as Octopus 
 Celtae, Octopus Picti, Octopus Angli, Octopus Saxonis, 
 Octopus Juti and Octopus Normani. The intercourse of these 
 different cuttlefish resulted in the birth of a far more 
 formidable creature, known as Octopus Anglo-Saxonis. — 
 
 The haunt of this huge mollusca is the British Island, from 
 where its countless wiry tentacles and cables run out in all di- 
 rections and entangle all the countries and islands of our 
 globe. 
 
 Its big eyes are in the ability of expression genuine 
 wonders. Generally glaring with extreme ferocity, they gain 
 a most innocent aspect when the creature feels itself observed. 
 While the dangerous tentacles begin to play in a bewitching 
 and hypnotizing way, these eyes are directed heavenward, 
 only to change again to their natural wild ferocity as soon as 
 the octopus feels free from observation. 
 
 As is the case with all cuttlefish, this monster consists 
 mainly of mouth and stomach. The capacity and power of 
 both are most remarkable. Able to swallow whole countries 
 and large islands in one gulp, it rapidly assimilates everything 
 of value. 
 
 In the quality of its food the huge monster is not at all par- 
 ticular. With the same gusto it feasts upon white and yellow 
 people, coppercolored Indians, the blackest Negroes, brown 
 Fijians and blubber-smelling Eskimos, as long as these 
 beings are juicy and have things worth acquiring. 
 
_ 8 — 
 
 Like other cuttlefish our octopus has among its organs 
 also an immense ink-sac, which produces incredible amounts 
 of black, poisonous fluid. This it expells everywhere, to prey 
 from under the rising clouds upon its victims or to make good 
 its escape from enemies. 
 
 This dangerous monster is: 
 
 England. 
 
 There was never a monster so greedy and rapacious as 
 this Giant Octopus. The following is a chronologically 
 arranged, but incomplete inventory of those islands and 
 countries, which whetted its appetite and became its prey. 
 
 First, there was a fair island towards the west, known 
 as Green Erin. It was in 1 1 69, when the big cuttlefish moved 
 to entangle this enticing morsel with its arms. The fearful 
 struggle lasted for several hundred years, but finally the 
 monster overwhelmed its victim and slowly sucked it to the 
 bones. 
 
 The next sufferer was beautiful Wales. All her efforts 
 to keep back the agressive fiend failed, and in 1294, ended in 
 disaster. 
 
 Then the evil-worker assailed Scotland, which after heroic 
 defense lasting for several hundred years, was also finally 
 crushed. 
 
 While these terrific struggles were going on, other arms 
 of the ugly monster reached toward the south, snatching from 
 France some of her most beautiful provinces, among them 
 Normandy, Gascony and Aquitaine. Constantly gaining in 
 bulkiness, the bloodsucker robbed Spain, during the 1 6th 
 century, of some of the most valuable islands in the West- 
 indies, among them that terrestrial paradise Jamaica (1655). 
 Later it deprived Holland of her colonies Cape Coast Castle 
 ( 1 661 ), New Netherland ( 1 664), and several trading stations 
 in Asia. 
 
 Becoming aware of the enormous wealth of India, the 
 octopus then engorged Madras (1639), Bombay (1661), and 
 Calcutta (1691 ). From the then weak Spain it stole in 1 704 
 Gibraltar, the key to the Mediterranean Sea, and later on, a 
 part of Honduras (1 783) and the Isle of Trinidad (1 797). 
 
 From France it wrested her great empire in North Ame- 
 rica, New France, together with the isles St. Vincent, Granada, 
 the Grenadines, Dominique and Tobago (1 763). Among the 
 
— 9 — 
 
 islands, swallowed during the 1 7th and 1 8th centuries, were 
 Barbados (1605); the Bermudas (1609); St. Kitts (1623); 
 Nevis (1628) ; the Bahamas and Turks (1629) ; Antigua and 
 Montserrat ( 1 632) ; Anguilla ( 1 650) ; St. Helena ( 1 65 1 ) and 
 the Virgin Islands (1666). 
 
 In addition, the octopus conquered Gambia in 1631, Arcadia 
 in 1690; Penang in 1786; and the Sierra Leone in 1787. 
 Again in 1800, the mischief-maker relieved France of Malta; 
 in 1803 of St. Lucia; and in 1814 of Mauritius. In 1807 it 
 robbed the Danes of Heligoland. About the same time the 
 insatiable monster devoured the Dutch Colony Cape of Good 
 Hope. Also it gradually incorporated the entire continent 
 Australia; besides New Zealand, and numerous archipelagos 
 of the Pacific Ocean, the native population of which was 
 almost entirely ruthlessly annihilated. 
 
 During the first half of the 1 9th century the ugly customer 
 got hold of the isle Ascension (1815); of Aden and Socotra 
 ( 1 839 ) ; of Ashantiland ( 1 8 1 7- 1 83 1 ); of Hongkong ( 1 84 1 ) ; 
 of Natal and Zululand (1843); of Labuan (1846—1848); 
 and of the Indian principalities Scinde, Punjab, Burma and 
 Oude (1843—1856). 
 
 At the same time his tenacles reached over toward 
 Afghanistan. 
 
 The second half of the 19th century witnessed the occu- 
 pation of the isle of Perim (1855); of Lagos (1861); of 
 Bechuanaland (1867); of large parts of South and East 
 Africa (1870 — 1890); of Griqualand (1871).; of Southeast 
 New Guinea (1884); of Nigeria (1886); of Zanzibar and 
 Uganda (1887); of Nyassaland and Rhodesia (1891); of 
 Matabeleland (1893); of the Malayan Peninsula (1895); of 
 Somaliland; Baluchistan and of some coasts and islands of the 
 Persian Gulf. Cyprus and Egypt came also under the power 
 of the glutton, and from there it stretched its tentacles over 
 Nubia and Darfur far into Central Africa. Transvaal and the 
 Orange Free State were also assailed. After a long and 
 desperate death struggle they met, in 1902, the same fate as 
 all other victims of the monster, which, feasting on their blood, 
 grew in the course of centuries to stupendous proportions. — 
 
 This register does not pretend to be complete. If one 
 would report in detail all the assaults and misdeeds committed 
 by this Giant Octopus, such an account would swell the size 
 of this pamphlet to a volume. One would have to show how 
 the cuttlefish in our days has been engaged to divide Persia 
 with Russia; how he plotted to get hold of the fine valleys 
 
— 10 — 
 
 of the Euphrates and Tigris, of Asia Minor, Muscat, Tibet, 
 Siam and other countries and islands, not sufficiently defended 
 by their inhabitants. 
 
 So we see the cruel animal at work, remorselessly thrott- 
 ling its victims, greedily sucking their life-blood and destroying 
 their hopes and happiness. 
 
 Will Germany become Siegfried, and deliver humanity 
 from this monster? 
 
England a destroyer of Nations. 
 
 It is a long list of transgressions — stretching over four cent- 
 uries — which is here enrolled before the eyes of the reader. 
 It informs him of the rise and fall of brilliantly gifted nations, 
 successful in the development of their culture, industry and 
 commerce, and who, achieving prosperity, even wealth, there- 
 by awakened the jealousy, the envy and greed of England, 
 which thereafter destroyed and despoiled them by cunning 
 and violance. I have, in the following, given only those facts, 
 the truth of which the reader can easily ascertain and from 
 which he can draw his own conclusions about England's poli- 
 cies during the past four centuries. 
 
 England, the Originator of Spain's Downfall. 
 
 The discovery of America by Columbus, the conquest of 
 Mexico and Peru by Cortes and Pizarro, the exploitation of 
 the gold-lands of Central America had made the Spain of the 
 1 6th century the richest land on the globe. Great fleets of 
 treasure-laden galleons brought, year-in, year-out, new riches 
 to Spain's rulers. But they also aroused the greed of English 
 mariners, who, with the silent approbation of their government, 
 went forth to prey upon the Spanish gold- and silver-ships 
 home bound from the Americas. 
 
 It must be stated right here, that in those days friendly re- 
 lations existed between Spain and England, that the two 
 countries were at peace, wherefor the secret approval by the 
 English Government of the piracy places the same in an un- 
 favorable light. By it the English Government made itself an 
 accomplice and abettor on a large scale. 
 
 To show the low state of the morals prevailing in England 
 in those days, it will be necessary to peruse at some length the 
 activity of those freebooters, which are heralded by English 
 histories as "the great heroes of the sea." This retrospection 
 is necessary because we wish to show that the pernicious in- 
 fluence emanating from them poisoned the morals of the 
 English nation for centuries to come and has stamped its 
 characteristics on their government to our day. 
 
 The first of these "heroes of the sea** was William Hawkins, 
 of Plymouth. He it was who undertook the first slave hunts 
 
— 12 — 
 
 to the coast of Guinea and began that African slave trade in 
 which England was engaged for nearly three centuries. 
 
 His son, John Hawkins, continued this lucrative business 
 with eager persistency and grew rich. At the same time he 
 was very pious and godfearing. When, invading a negro vil- 
 lage near Sierra Leone, he almost fell into captivity himself and 
 was exposed to the same fate, which he had inflicted, with- 
 out compunction, upon thousands of others, he wrote in his 
 logbook: **God, who worketh all things for the best, would not 
 have it so, and by Him all escaped without danger; His name 
 be praysed for it." At another time, when his vessels were be- 
 calmed for a long time in midocean and great suffering ensued: 
 **But Almighty God, who never suffereth His elect to perish, 
 sent us the sixteene of Februarie the ordinarie Breeze, which 
 is the northwest winde.*' 
 
 From which record it becomes evident that the English even 
 in those days, whatever their questionable trades might have 
 been, carried the name of God in their sacrilegeous mouths 
 but cared damnably little for His commandments of brotherly 
 love. 
 
 For the negroes, carried off in Africa, Hawkins found a 
 ready market in Brazil, the West Indies and Mexico, though 
 King Philip II. of Spain had strictly forbidden all dealings with 
 Hawkins. To give the poorer settlers a chance to obtain lab- 
 orers at low price, many officials tacitly permitted the 
 bargain. In smaller towns, where authorities objected, Haw- 
 kins hushed the officials in having the boats, carrying the neg- 
 roes, escorted by a force of some hundred men in armor, with 
 cannon sufficient to awe the authorities, whereupon the slave- 
 trade began. On account of complaints being sent to Spain 
 concerning this unusual mode of carrying on business, the for- 
 mer inhibition was made more severe. But in spite of it the 
 Englishman continued his lucrative voyages, well knowing that 
 by so doing he was winning the applause of the English crown. 
 Indeed, Queen Elizabeth, because of the riches Hawkins had 
 brought to England, knighted him and granted him a coat of 
 arms. 
 
 Translated from the jargon of heraldy, this patent of nobility 
 meant, that he might bear on his black shield a golden lion 
 rampant over blue waves. Above the lion were three golden 
 dublons, representing the riches Hawkins had brought to 
 England. To give due credit to the piety of this "nobleman" 
 there was in the upper quartering of the shield a pilgrim's 
 scallop-shell in gold, flanked by two pilgrim's staffs, indicating 
 that Hawkin's slave-hunts were genuine crusades, undertaken in 
 
— 13 — 
 
 the name of Christendom. For a crest this coat-of-arms shows 
 the half-length figure of a negro, with golden armlets on his 
 arm and ears, but bound and captive. 
 
 To show to what extent the name of Christianity was abused, 
 Hawkins, when in 1567 entering upon his greatest expedition 
 with five ships, sacrilegeously baptized his flagship: "Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 But when this slave dealer imagined himself under the spec- 
 ial protection of the heavenly host, he had made a miscalcu- 
 lation. For, when he arrived with 500 slaves in West India, 
 he unexpectedly met, in the harbor of St. Juan de Ulloa with 
 a strong Spanish fleet which burned three of his ships and de- 
 feated him so completely that he, with the remaining vessels 
 was driven to sea without provisions. 
 
 How ill he fared on his homeward trip, Hawkins thus plain- 
 tively described in the following passage of his logbook: **With 
 many sorrowful hearts we wandred in an unknowen Sea, tyll 
 hunger enforced us to seeke the lande, for birds were thought 
 very good meat, rats, cattes, mise, and dogges, none escaped 
 that might be gotten, parrotes and monkyes, that were had 
 in great prize, were thought then very profitable if they served 
 the turn one dinner. If all the miseries and troublesome af- 
 faires of this sorrowful voyage should be perfectly and thor- 
 oughly written, there should need a paynstaking man with his 
 pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the lives and 
 deathes of the martirs." 
 
 Among the martyrs of this eventful voyage was Francis 
 Drake, who, later on, became the most famous of the "great" 
 English sea heroes.'* 
 
 From the time of that disaster Drake took up as a profession 
 the work of plundering the Spaniards, for, after his arrival in 
 England he, with the connivance of the government openly 
 set out with the sole purpose of preying upon Spanish com- 
 merce and colonies. Of him his Spanish contemporaries speak 
 only as of the "archpirate of the Universe" who, like a dragon, 
 pounced upon Spain's colonies to devastate them. The great- 
 est of his several predatory voyages covered a period of three 
 years. Well equipped, accompanied by many English "noble- 
 men" and able mariners, sure of the pious well wishes of his 
 government, this buccaneer left Plymouth on Nov. 15th, 15 77 
 with five ships. — ^When he returned, rich in booty, the Spanish 
 ambassador to the English Court demanded that Drake be ar- 
 rested and tried for piracy. But the English Government ig- 
 nored this request. Moreover, Queen Elizabeth showed her 
 approval of Drake's acts and her aversion toward Spaniards 
 
— 14 — 
 
 in the most demonstrative manner possible in proceeding April 
 4th, 1581 with her court to Deptford visiting Drake aboard 
 his ship which lay at anchor there, dining with him and knight- 
 ing him. 
 
 This open sanction of piracy and almost unbelievable insult 
 to a friendly nation started that terrible war, in which, to over- 
 come Spain's power on the high seas, every alliance with other 
 nations appeared proper to England. It not only formed an 
 alliance with the Netherlands, then in rebellion against Spain, 
 but also with its arch enemy, France, and even with Turkey. 
 
 In the hostilities ensuing, England found unexpectedly an 
 ally in the very elements. When in 1588 the famous Armada 
 appeared in the Canal, to punish England for the numberless 
 offenses against the Spanish flag, the great fleet ran into 
 terrible storms, which played such a havoc with it, that many 
 vessels became wrecks. Others were attacked and burned by 
 Dutch and English war vessels. Of the one hundred and thirty- 
 five ships, compromising the Armada, only fifty-four returned 
 to Spain. By this catastrophe Spain's power on the high seas 
 was crippled so seriously, that she could interpose but little 
 resistance against the furious attacks of Drake, Cavendish, 
 Morgan and the countless other freebooters. Spain's pre- 
 dominance on the seas was lost. Too weak to oppose, she could 
 not prevent the violent plundering of her rich West Indian 
 cities by English, French and Dutch pirates, who also despoiled 
 her of a number of her finest islands: Jamaica, San Domingo 
 and many other of the lesser Leeward Islands. 
 
 By the many wicked acts of these buccaneers the Carribbean 
 Sea became for centuries the most dangerous water on the 
 globe. He, who studies the history of the Atlantic navigation 
 of the 1 7th, 1 8th and 1 9th centuries encounters everywhere 
 striking proofs of how piracy, favored by the English Govern- 
 ment, grew like a malevolent cancer, poisoning the morals of 
 nations. Who wants to convince himself of this fact may con- 
 sult in our public libraries the books on the Buccaneers, on Sir 
 Henry Morgan, and last, not least. Captain William Kidd, 
 who had been sent by the English Government to suppress buc- 
 caneering, yet instead turned pirate himself, who covered up 
 his countless misdeeds by scuttling the vessels he captured and 
 plundered, and sending them to the bottom of the sea with 
 man and mouse. His spoils, buried somewhere, are still the 
 goal of treasure hunters. 
 
 The success gained by Hawkins, Drake and other great and 
 small "sea heroes" demonstrated to the English conclusively 
 the importance of the control of the sea. As early as 1612 
 
— 15 — 
 
 Chancellor Bacon wrote: "He who rules the sea has many ad- 
 vantages. He can, at his option, interfere in any war, while 
 the greatest land powers are often in straits." From the dis- 
 covery of this fact dates the aim of the English to gain the 
 supremacy at sea and to destroy all rivals who might dare to 
 enter into competition with them, on the ocean. 
 
 England, the Destroyer of Holland's Greatness. 
 
 When England had annihilated Spain's supremacy on the 
 seas it turned against Holland. After her separation from the 
 German Empire, Holland had by dint of indefatigable indust* 
 ry and the intelligence and energy of her inhabitants during 
 the 1 6th and the 1 7th centuries reached a state of extraordin- 
 ary prosperity. She maintained many flourishing industries 
 which were distributed over her various cities. Haarlem was 
 famous for its excellent linens, its beautiful flowers and its 
 extensive trade in tulip-bulbs; Leyden furnished the finest 
 broadcloth; Delft had gained a reputation for its hardware 
 and its excellent brews; Zaandam was celebrated for its ship- 
 building; Enkhuizen had an extensive fish trade, mainly in her- 
 rings. At the same time Holland had secured a large part 
 of the worlds commerce. Middelburg was the principal ex- 
 port harbor for French wines; Dordrecht traded with England; 
 Terweer with Scotland ; Friesland with Iceland and Greenland ; 
 Flushing with the West Indies; Amsterdam with Spain, the 
 countries bordering the Mediterranean and with East India. 
 Besides, Holland possessed many valuable colonies; in Asia, 
 for instance, Ceylon, Celebes, Java and several others of the 
 Sunda Islands. In Hindostan it maintained trading stations 
 which supplied Europe with valuable spices and products from 
 China and Japan. In the Western hemisphere the Dutch had, 
 in 1614, founded the Colony New Netherland, the chief trad- 
 ing post of which, Niew Amsterdam, had been raised to high 
 prosperity by Peter Minnewit, a German in Dutch service. In 
 South America Holland possessed Curacao and Surinam. At 
 the South end of Africa, Dutch colonists had laid the founda- 
 tion of those Boer settlements which afterward became im- 
 portant as the Free States. About 1 650, Holland had reached 
 the zenith of her power. Her commerce was five times larger 
 than Englands; her merchant marine constituted four- fifths 
 of the entire European mercantile fleet. Her national wealth 
 was much greater than that of England. Arts and sciences 
 flourished. 
 
 All through the nation pulsated that virile and joyful life. 
 
— 16 — 
 
 expressed so exquisitely in the paintings of the great contem- 
 poraneous masters of the Dutch School. — It was this very for- 
 tunate state of affairs, that the envy and rapacity of England 
 could not endure. And so it intrigued to cut off the source of 
 Dutch prosperity: its trade. The Navigation Act, issued in 
 1651, was the first blow at Holland. This law prohibited the 
 import of all foreign merchandise into England and her colon- 
 ies in ships not flying the English flag, or the flag of the coun- 
 try from which they were exported. 
 
 This utterly crushed Holland's commerce as far as England 
 and her colonies were concerned. All efforts of Holland to 
 bring about an amelioration of conditions peacefully availed 
 naught. On the contrary, Holland was soon driven to defend 
 her commerce by force of arms. Three extraordinarily bitter 
 naval wars were fought, of which the first — beginning in 
 1652, — though it remained indecisive, inflicted heavy losses 
 on Holland's commerce. In less than fifteen months she lost 
 over sixteen hundred merchant ships. The commerce with the 
 Baltic countries was almost destroyed, and the herring fishery 
 and whaling was interrupted. In Amsterdam all business came 
 to a standstill. More than three thousand houses were vacant. 
 This enormous loss was caused largely by English privateers 
 who were little better than pirates. 
 
 A second naval war began in 1 665, a year after four Eng- 
 lish frigates — without any previous declaration of war — had 
 sneaked into the harbor of Niew Amsterdam and, by directing 
 their sixty heavy guns upon the small settlement, had forced 
 the surrender of this weakly defended post. "We need a great- 
 er part of the Dutch trade; it is immaterial what we employ to 
 force war!" Thus the English Government had declared and 
 had acted accordingly. 
 
 The bitter war was renewed, resulting in victories for the 
 great Dutch Admirals Van Tromp and De Ruyter. The latter, 
 in the battle of New Foreland, defeated the English fleet so 
 completely that she was compelled to flee up the Thames 
 River. Even after England had secured the assistance of 
 France, De Ruyter beat the united fleets of the Allies on July 7 
 1672, at Southwell, and convoyed a fleet of Dutch merchant- 
 men safely to their home-harbors. 
 
 But the incessant and ravishing wars which little Holland 
 had to carry on against her mighty neighbors, England and 
 France, consumed her strength. Exhausted, she had to enter 
 into peace negotiations, in which she lost, beside her colony 
 Niew Netherland, her settlements in South Africa, beautiful 
 Ceylon, and her trading stations in Hindostan. Thus 
 
— 17 — 
 
 Holland's position as a maritime power was wrecked, and, like 
 Spain, she was reduced to the status of a minor sea power. 
 
 England, the Arch-foe of France. 
 
 After the British had humiliated Spain and Holland, they 
 forced France, her whilom ally in the struggle with Holland, 
 to the knees. 
 
 The position of France at this period was supreme on the 
 European continent and she was almost the equal of England 
 on the high seas. Her commerce was flourishing. As early as 
 the 15 th century and at the beginning of the 16th, French 
 sailors visited the New Foundland Banks, known for their 
 enormous wealth in fishes. The French furnished the Catholic 
 countries of Europe with dried fish, which formed the prin- 
 cipal diet during the many religious fasting days. In connec- 
 tion with these trips the French discovered vast stretches of 
 the North-American continent. Verrazano explored, as the 
 first, in 1524 the whole coast from North Carolina to Maine, 
 whereby he also discovered New York Bay. Ten years later 
 Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence River as well as the coasts 
 of New Brunswick and Canada. Then followed the import- 
 ant explorations by Ribault, Champlain, La Salle and many 
 other so-called 'Voyageurs.'* In these great areas, comprising 
 the system of the St. Lawrence as well as of the Mississippi, 
 the French founded two great empires: New France and Loui- 
 siana. The first stretched from the mouth of the St. Lawrence 
 westward to the Great Lakes, and across the Ohio and down to 
 the mouth of the Mississippi. Louisiana included all the terri- 
 tory west of the "Father of Waters.** In time it became more 
 and more evident that France had gotten the best and most 
 fertile part of North America. The British were not slow to 
 perceice this fact and with this perception began their un- 
 tiring efforts to dislodge their more fortunate rivals from their 
 rich possessions. Encroaching constantly on French territory 
 they started that system of border war-fare, which lasted with 
 short intervals from 1689 to 1763. These wars reached an 
 appaling character when the English as well as the French per- 
 suaded the Indians under their influence, to help in the mutual 
 murder. In this savage butchery German emigrants from the 
 Palatinate, which the English had settled at the most 
 exposed points, had to bear the brunt of the hostile assaults. 
 The chronicles of the Germans in Maine, in the valleys of the 
 Mohawk and Schoharie of the Colony New York, in the Blue 
 Mountains of Pennsylvania, and of numerous other places con- 
 
— 18 — 
 
 tain many stories of horrible excesses to which these settlers 
 were exposed, without the Colonial Government bothering it- 
 self much about the fate of these unfortunate outposts. In 1 754 
 the great war, which was to settle the predominance in America, 
 broke out. It lasted nine years and brought new sufferings 
 to the German settlers in the frontier districts. 
 
 The terrible struggle, which was also carried on in Europe, 
 ended by the Peace of Paris in 1 763. It cost France her colo- 
 nial empires in North America, that she had established and 
 developed with enormous efforts and outlay of money. More- 
 over the French lost the West Indian Islands Granada, St. Vin- 
 cent, Dominique and Tobago. England's magnamity left 
 France nothing but the two minute islets of St. Pierre and Mi- 
 quelon, south of New Foundland, in the neighborhood of which 
 the French sailors are allowed to fish, in order that they might 
 supply their co-religiously with cod fish. 
 
 But England was not yet satisfied with these results. Con- 
 stantly keeping in view the idea of becoming the sole mistress 
 of the seas, it was incessantly busy destroying also France's 
 maritime power. This desire was satisfied during the wars of 
 all Europe against Napoleon I, in the two naval battles at 
 Aboukir (July 1st, 1798) and Trafalgar (October 2 1st, 1805) 
 both of which were won by England's greatest admiral. Nelson. 
 On account of these defeats. Napoleon had to forego his in- 
 tention of attacking his most hated enemies, the English, in 
 their own country, as he had no vessels left to transport his 
 armies thither. With the battle of Trafalgar the French flag 
 was driven from the ocean, and France, as a sea power, became 
 a negligible factor for many years to come. 
 
 England destroys Commerce and Flteet of Neutral Denmark. 
 
 During the Napoleonic period England seized the opportun- 
 ity to deprive another nation of its fleet and commerce: the 
 Danes. Denmark had succeeded in obtaining a part of the 
 world's trade, and, for its protection, had created a navy, small 
 but efficient. During the Napoleonic wars Denmark remained 
 strictly neutral, had however entered a so-called neutral con= 
 federacy with Sweden, Russia and Prussia. This confederacy 
 had been formed to prevent England from searching vessels 
 of the various neutral countries for contraband of war. Such 
 a neutral alliance was so much the more necessary as England 
 had repeatedly seized Swedish and Danish frigates, which were 
 to prevent such search, and had taken them to English ports. 
 To force Denmark's withdrawal from this confederacy and 
 
— 19 — 
 
 to make it the unconditional vassal of England, there appeared 
 in Spring 1801, an enormous English fleet before Copenhagen 
 and opened on the 2nd day of April a bombardment on the 
 peaceful city and its fortifications. This unwarranted assault, 
 which took place while the two nations were at peace, worked 
 great havoc everywhere. Though the Danes could not hope 
 for victory, they nevertheless sturdily defended their city, 
 causing the English a loss of one thousand men and consider- 
 able damage to their ships. The hostilities ceased when the 
 news arrived of the assassination of the Czar Paul, whereby 
 the neutral confederacy appeared to be dissolved. Averse to 
 becoming a vassal of England, Denmark maintained its neu- 
 tral position also during the following years, thereby provok- 
 ing the wrath of England to an even greater degree. It was 
 July 31st, 1807, when Lord Castlereagh in open Parliament 
 declared: "A large expedition will be fitted out, but those, 
 whom it concerns, will not hear of it until they feel the death- 
 blow in their neck." And indeed, on the 1 6th of August there 
 appeared before unsuspecting Copenhagen thirty-six English 
 warships and five hundred large transports. While the latter 
 landed an army of 30,000 men which besieged the city from 
 the landside, the fleet blockaded the harbor and shelled the 
 city five days and nights. After twenty-eight streets with all 
 the palaces, houses and churches had been utterly destroyed 
 and more than 2,000 inhabitants had perished, the survivors 
 submitted to the terms of the brutal intruders. Denmark was 
 forced to surrender her whole navy, consisting of eighteen bat- 
 tleships, fifteen frigates, six briggs and twenty-five gunboats 
 to the English, who, before their departure, destroyed also on 
 the wharves all machines and equipment which they could not 
 carry off. With one blow Denmark's commerce and defense 
 were destroyed for decades to come. All this was done in a 
 time of peace between the two nations, and without declara- 
 tion of war by the nation, which to-day poses as the protecting 
 arch-angel of Belgium and as the upholder of morals in the 
 international dealings. 
 
 The celebrated German historian Onken declared this act 
 as an outrage unparralleled in history^ committed against a 
 neutral state, the only transgression of which was its weak de- 
 fense and which, in consequence was attacked from ambush, 
 pirate-fashion, strangled almost to death, robbed and then left 
 bleeding by the way-side, a glaring example of the tyrannical 
 depravity the armed English shop-keepers were capable of and 
 who on their domain, — the sea, feared no longer any rival." 
 
 After this ignoble exploit the English Government declared 
 
— 20 — 
 
 by ministerial Ordinance (18th and 26th of November 1807) 
 that all European harbors, which, on account of Napoleon's 
 Continental System refused to admit English vessels, would be 
 blockaded. Moreover, all ships of neutrals had to submit to 
 contraband search by English cruisers and they were ordered 
 under threat of confiscation to stop in English harbors before 
 proceeding to the points of their destination. By this England 
 bluntly declared that it would not recognize neutral states, 
 ships, harbors and flags, but would treat every one as an en- 
 emy, who would not submit to English omnipotence. 
 
 Englsmd, the Scourge of Ireland. 
 
 England's nearest neighbors, the Irish, also belong to the 
 nations who had to suffer from the violence and cupidity of 
 the British. Erin, the "Emerald Isle" had in the early Middle- 
 Ages reached a high standard of culture ajid was an abode 
 of Sciences and Arts, whence the first rays of Christianity rad- 
 iated over the nations north of Europe, enveloped as yet in 
 barbarism. This opulent position of the fair island aroused 
 the Anglo-Saxon cupidity of a very early date, and they made 
 frequent raids into Ireland, until during the days of Cromwell 
 the whole island was subjected to English rule. In these 
 times the black-browed puritanism committed horrible cruel- 
 ties against the Irish, who were Catholics. From 1 641 to 1 652 
 over 500,000 perished by sword, famine and disease. Al- 
 most 100,000 others were banished and their land and prop- 
 erty confiscated. Those remaining were driven into the most 
 barren parts of Ireland, where they had difficulties to main- 
 tain their lives. The sequestrated property was handed over 
 to English and Scotch colonists or to favorites of the kings. 
 Complaisant concubines were not forgotten, as for instance 
 Elizabeth Villiers, who was created Countess of Orkney. Re- 
 bellions were suppressed with indescribable brutality and the 
 confiscation repeated, where a few of the Irish had escaped be- 
 fore. In the interest of the English landlords, manufacturers 
 and merchants, the growth of the Irish cattle breeding, industry 
 and commerce was suppressed. When the Irish started to ex- 
 port cattle, sheep, butter and eggs to England, this was for- 
 bidden upon the instigation of the English cattle raisers. When 
 they started to spin wool and manufacture worsted goods the 
 Parliament, in 1 699, passed a law forbidding their export to 
 foreign countries. The magnificent harbors of Ireland, in or- 
 der to exclude competition with the ports of England, were 
 not to be used and so finally became desolated. The suffrage 
 
— 21 — 
 
 was abolished. All these oppressions kindled in the hearts of 
 the Irish that hatred which,, becoming hereditary from gen- 
 eration to generation, evidenced itself in countless conspiracies, 
 and to-day burns in the hearts of the Irish fiercer than ever. 
 When England lost her North American colonies, it flared 
 up anew in a revolt, which, however, was suppressed at the 
 cost of some 30,000 lives. The pitiable situation of the Irish 
 became still worse. Reduced to the condition of tenants on 
 their own former property, they were dependent more than 
 ever upon the greed of their English landlords. By 1 840 their 
 misery and poverty was so abject that thousands of tenants 
 could not pay their land rent, whereupon they were driven 
 from their holdings by soldiers sent from England for this 
 purpose. At the same time crops failed and starvation ensued, 
 carrying off thousands. It was now that the exodus of the 
 masses started, which deprived Ireland of over 3,764,000 per- 
 sons, within the forty years 1841 to 1880. The majority of 
 these emigrants found an asylum in the United States, where 
 they established new homes, but still remember their "Green 
 Erin" in melancholy sorrow. 
 
 England, the Vampire of India. 
 
 India, in the 1 6th and I 7th centuries consisted of a large 
 number of independent principalities and kingdoms, the rulers 
 of which allowed the Portuguese, Dutch and French traders 
 to lease real-estate in certain places along the coast and there 
 to erect trading stations. As these traders gained enormous 
 profits an English "East India Company" was organized in, 
 1612 and by the government furnished with far reaching priv- 
 ileges. Not only did it hold within its domains the criminal 
 jurisdiction, but also the entire political administration of the 
 land. England could not have put the management of its in» 
 terests into abler hands. For, in the leaders of this "East In- 
 dia Company" were concentrated the spirit of piracy, the hy- 
 pocrisy, the crafty deceit, the audacity and brutality of the 
 "great sea heroes." They succeeded, by intrigues and force, 
 not only in driving away their Portugese, Dutch and French 
 rivals but, by cunning interference with the quarrels of the In- 
 dian princes, by supporting and playing off one ruler against 
 the others to gain so great an influence in India, that they 
 could venture from their secret to an open policy of conquest. 
 This policy found its most audacious and inscrupulous exponent 
 in Robert Clive who, in 1 744 had come to Madras and in a 
 most ingenious way exploited all occasions to increase the 
 
— 22 — 
 
 power of the Company. Madras as well as the Bengal with 
 the rich cities Calcutta, Benares and Allahabad became British 
 and by this the victims of systematic plundering, which 
 brought fabulous riches to the Company and made Clive the 
 wealthiest man of his time. Since he had, like Hawkins and 
 Drake, amassed so great a wealth for his country, it was but 
 natural that he was knighted, as had been those pirates. This, 
 however, did not prevent certain members of the Parliament, 
 who were indignant over his terrible acts and rapacity, from 
 arraigning him as a criminal and demanding his punishment 
 because he abused the power with which he was entrusted to 
 "the evil example of the servants of the public, and to the dis- 
 honor and detriment of the State." 
 
 The Government, however, could not allow the condemna- 
 tion of a man who so clearly personified its own prinicples. It 
 could not be expected to brand itself with the mark of infa- 
 my. — Therefore, the House of Commons found it proper not 
 to vote on the arraignment, but to substitute a decision instead : 
 "that Lord Clive had rendered to his country great and valu- 
 able services." Clive shortly afterward ended a suicide. Of 
 his successors Warren Hastings continued the methods used by 
 Clive. Undermining one principality after another, he brought 
 them to fall by his cunning or caused them by force to seek 
 the "high protection of England." By allowing his officers to 
 follow his example and to enrich themselves at every oppor- 
 tunity the Indian population was subjected to incessant op- 
 pression. Revolts were put down with such inhuman cruelty, 
 that a number of English philanthropists in 1 786, on account 
 of "high crimes and misdemeanors" demanded the impeach- 
 ment of Hastings. The proceedings lasted 8 years, but ended 
 in the verdict, by the House of Lords, of "not guilty." — 
 
 During the 1 9th century all principalities between the In- 
 dus and Brahmaputra were subjugated; in the West the fron- 
 tiers were extended over Baloochistan as far as Persia, in the 
 East over Burma and Siam, and in the North as far as Tibet. 
 All this was done by shocking cruelties. The famous paint- 
 ing by Vereschagin, showing captured Hindus tied to the 
 mouths of cannon to be shot into a thousand atoms, gives an 
 adequate idea of this phase of English pacification and her 
 civilization. 
 
 Even to-day India is nothing to England but an object of 
 regardless plundering. Once enormously wealthy, India is to- 
 day a luckless land in which famines, sweeping away millions of 
 people, return frequently, a land whose history is filled with 
 English crimes, with blood and tears, a land whose inhabitants 
 
— 23 — 
 
 curse the British and long for the day on which they can shake 
 off their shackles. 
 
 England as Poisoner of the Chinese Nation. 
 
 The "Most Honorable East India Company," the activity 
 of which we have just now related, committed many crimes 
 beside those in India. And these are so atrocious that probably 
 no more shocking were ever perpetrated in the history of man- 
 kind. Only cold-blooded cupidity, bare of all conscience, 
 could lead the "East India Company" to demoralize and poison 
 a whole nation numbering hundreds of millions. This was done 
 with opium. This narcotic has been known in Asia since the 
 13th century; in China however, it was only used medically, 
 as a cure against fever and dysenteria. As late as 1 750, while the 
 opium trade was in the hands of the Portuguese, the import of 
 opium into China did not exceed 200 chests per year. Things 
 changed when in 1 773 the "East India Company" snatched 
 the opium monopoly away from the Portuguese and started 
 the opium-culture in Bengal on a grand scale. As early as 1 776 
 the importation into China had increased to 1,000 chests, and 
 fourteen years later to 4054 chests at 14914 pounds each, as 
 nothing was left undone to induce the Chinese to the en- 
 snaring nature of the poison. — ^When, with the increasing con- 
 sumption of opium by the Chinese the terrible results of its 
 habitual use began to appear and when the population of 
 whole districts fell into retrogression and lingering disease, the 
 Chinese Government, thoroughly alarmed, forbade the further 
 importation of the drug and punished all opium smokers with 
 severe penalties. When these measures, taken for the pro- 
 tection of the nation, were found to be insufficient, the penal- 
 ties were made to be banishment and death. In order to re- 
 move the evil with the root, the English traders were forbid- 
 den to sell the dangerous poison. For those apostles of Euro- 
 pean civilization the opium trade was however too lucrative 
 to be given up. Instead, they organized an extensive smugg- 
 ler trade, whereby the opium trade was increased inside of ten 
 years (1820-1830) to 16,877 chests per year (See Encyclop. 
 Brittanica, Art.: Opium). — ^When all expostulations of the 
 Chinese Government were unavailing, it issued in 1 839 a pro- 
 clamation to the English traders, threatening hostile measures, 
 if the opium ships, serving as depots, were not sent away. 
 
 This demand not being complied with, the Chinese Gov- 
 ernment on April 3rd confiscated 20,291 chests of opium, val- 
 ued at $2,500,000 and destroyed the same. When, at the 
 same time English sailors killed a Chinaman and the English 
 
— 24 — 
 
 Government refused to give satisfaction, an imperial edict de- 
 clared all the trade rights of the English as void and abolished, 
 threatening with dire punishment the subjects of all other na- 
 tions who would attempt to continue to import English goods 
 into China. — John Bull, who thus felt wounded in his most 
 sensative spot, the money-bag, declared the edict as casus bel- 
 li. At the instigation of the "East India Company" there ap- 
 peared a strong English fleet of thirty-five men-of-war and 
 seventy-five transports, which blockaded first of all the har- 
 bor of Canton and the island of Tshousan opposite Ningpo. 
 In 1841 the fleet shelled the forts around the Bocca Tigris, and 
 also the cities of Amoy, Tshinghai, Ningpo, Tshapu, Shang- 
 hai and Tshingkiang. When the English made ready to also 
 bombard Nanking, the Chinese Government, to save this 
 Southern capital from destruction, sued for peace. China was 
 forced to pay $21,000,000 in war indemnity and cede Hong- 
 kong as well as open the harbors of Amoy, Futchou, Ningpo 
 and Shanghai to the English trade. The most humiliating of 
 the conditions forced upon the Chinese Government was, that 
 the latter had to revoke the edict against the opium trade. And 
 moreover the English inserted the following paragraph into 
 the treaty: "English smugglers shall be exempt from all pun- 
 ishment except the confiscation of such goods as are real con- 
 traband." And further: "British subjects and ships as well 
 as Chinese subjects who have fled aboard British vessels shall 
 be under English — not Chinese jurisdiction." After the "East 
 India Company" had thus thrust, by force, the opium upon the 
 Chinese and opened gate and door to lawlessness it turned 
 with might and main to the profitable Opium-trade. How 
 successful the Company was in her endeavors is evidenced by 
 the statement in the Encyclop. Brit, that the Opium import into 
 Chinese ports amounted in 1850 to 52,925 picul at 133 lbs. 
 and increased in 1880 to 96,839 picul or 12,911,866 lbs. 
 Europeans have often enough described the terrible effects 
 which resulted from this enormous consumption of Opium. 
 The English physician Willamson, who, in 1874 with his own 
 eyes, saw the ravages caused by the use of Opium in Southern 
 China, branded the Opium import "as the greatest outrage of 
 the 1 9th Century, which had destroyed already the health and 
 welfare of over ten million people." He writes: "The Chinese 
 Government still hopes to stop further importation of Opium; 
 and it is the wish of all well meaning foreigners that it may 
 succeed. The Government is afraid of the further distribution 
 of the narcotic. And this is the chief reason, why it is opposed 
 to build railroads and permit free intercourse with the interior 
 
— 25 — 
 
 of the country. Our own British merchants inflict upon them- 
 selves the greatest harm. Had they not forced upon China the 
 import of Opium, the whole empire from one end to the other 
 would have been opened long ago. It is the shortsighted 
 greed of our merchants, that leaves to their successors a 
 crippled trade and the curse of a numerous nation.** With 
 what hatred the Chinese are filled against the destroyers of 
 their nation is evident in a poster which was spread far and 
 wide during a revolt against the English and which, in trans- 
 lation, reads as follows: 'There is a spot on the Globe, called 
 England, inhabited by an undisciplined, lawless race. The 
 principal design of these people is to harm other nations. In 
 boundless self-conceit they swindle, trespass upon the rights 
 of other countries and become their suppressors. Their main 
 dogma speaks of Jesus Christ. In the light of this dogma, they 
 are all devils, endeavoring to lead others astray by their own 
 false doctrines. No matter whether a place be rich or poor, 
 they spare no efforts to set themselves in possession of it. 
 Following their own selfish purposes they create discord 
 wherever they go. Their plots take all kinds of forms, which 
 are as numerous as the hair on our heads. By all that is good 
 and pure: How came this devilish race in our land? How shall 
 and can we in these days of peace tolerate these shameless 
 demons, these red-bristled barbarians? As things stand, it 
 only remains for us to tie ourselves with mutually binding 
 oaths to a common purpose and to form a secret society to 
 free us from this public calamity.** 
 
 Though we find in this appeal laid open the purpose of the 
 secret societies for driving out the foreigners, the Chinese have, 
 in spite of all endeavors so far not succeeded in getting rid 
 of the "red-bristled barbarians." Exploiting regardlessly their 
 success in the Opium war, demanding of the Chinese the literal 
 fulfilment of the treaties, themselves however not being guided 
 by them, the English founded settlements in places where they 
 had no right to do so. They promoted the smuggling-trade, 
 prevented the punishment of the guilty ones and thereby 
 undermined the authority of the Chinese Government. Follow- 
 ing the advice of a correspondent of the London "Times**: 
 that the teeth of the Chinese should be pryed open and the 
 English goods driven into their body, if necessary with powder 
 and cannon" the English shopkeepers in the treaty-ports acted 
 without conscience. In his work "On the Chinese Emigration" 
 (1876) the celebrated geographer Friedrich Ratzel gave 
 proofs that among the English shopkeepers there existed a 
 regular war party, which directed its constant efforts upon the 
 
— 26 — 
 
 acquirements of more favorable mercantile privileges, and also 
 hailed with delight any revolts which might be made a pretext 
 of asking enormous indemnities for destroyed merchandise 
 and thus get rich quicker and with less effort than would 
 have been possible by honest, legitimate trade. 
 
 In regard to the opium-import in China, it must be said 
 that the Chinese Government never slackened in its efforts to 
 fight the consumption of the poison. Everywhere anti-opium 
 societies were founded, the members of which vowed to ab- 
 stain entirely from its use and to work for the conversion of 
 the habitual smokers. The Christian missionaries were called 
 upon for help and to petition, simultaneously with the Foreign 
 Office, the English Government to forbid the opium-trade. 
 On account of these representations the House of Commons, 
 in 1891, with small majority passed a resolution in which it 
 admitted that "India's opium-trade is morally indefensible, 
 but economic considerations prevent any efforts to discontinue 
 it." Since Christianity exists there has never so shamless- 
 degrading a declaration of bankruptcy of the Christian prin- 
 ciples been passed by a Christian Government. 
 
 For 1 years the situation remained unchanged. Powerless, 
 the statesmen of China had to see how the destruction of the 
 Nation by English shopkeepers proceeded. Meanwhile these 
 scoundrels had cursed also other countries of the Pacific Ocean 
 with their devilish dissemination of the opium-vice: Formosa, 
 the Philippines, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Hawaii 
 Islands, Canada and California, from whence the vice spread 
 with alarming rapidity to New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago and 
 New York. Startled by the rapid progress of this pernicious 
 vice, industrial and religious societies, Chambers of Commerce 
 and the International Reform Bureau asked the President of 
 the United States to remonstrate with the British Parliament. 
 On this instance in 1906 negotiations were renewed, and when 
 discussion came up, some very strong arguments were made. 
 Mr. T. C. Taylor, member of Parliament, outlining with force- 
 fulness the history of the opium traffic and holding England 
 responsible for its continuance, met the arguments and ob- 
 jections of the revenue officers with the unanswerable moral 
 aphorism: "Wrong cannot be justified by revenue nor misery 
 by money." This moral argument was strengthened by the 
 opinion of medical men, reference being made to the declar- 
 ation of the harmfulness of opium, signed by five thousand 
 physicians in 1 892. Embarrassed by these proofs of growing 
 anti-opium sentiment the House of Commons this time 
 expressed its feelings in the following words: "This House 
 
^ 11 ^ 
 
 reaffirms its conviction that the India-Chinese opium-trade is 
 ^morally indefensible* and requests his Majesty's Government 
 to take such steps as may be necessary to bring it speedily to 
 a close." 
 
 Instead, however, of at once enacting this deliverance from 
 the evil, China, on suggestion of Sir Edward Grey, was forced 
 into a contract by which, dating from Jan. 1st. 1908 a gradual 
 reduction of the opium-import was to take place until 1917 
 when it should cease altogether, provided "China furnished, 
 during the first 3 years, the proof that its population was really 
 decided to give up the use of Opium." This proof China 
 rendered, though in 1908 the import still amounted to 61,000 
 chests, in 1905 to 56,800, and in 1910 to 51,700 cases, or for 
 the 3 years 22,600,000 lbs. He who is interested in the recent 
 history of the Opium-trade may find information in an article 
 in the "Forum" by R. P. Chiles and entitled: "The passing of 
 the Opium trade." There he will also find the contemptible 
 clauses which are to make it possible for the English Govern- 
 ment to draw, in all future the revenues it desires from the 
 Opium- trade. The shopkeeper's spirit, which owns the English 
 Government as much as it does the nation, leads to the 
 apprehension that, after 1917 the opium-trade will find its con- 
 tinuation as well in Eastern Asia as over the rest of the world, 
 if not in legitimate roads then in illegitimate ones, which to 
 take the shopkeepers of England have never hesitated in the 
 past nor will in the future. 
 
 England, the Suppressor of the Free Boers. 
 
 English cupidity also robbed those Dutch settlers of house 
 and home, who in 1652 had colonized around the tableland of 
 South Africa and who led a peaceful existence in the pursuit 
 of agriculture and cattle raising. This pastoral life came to an 
 end when in 1 795 and 1815 England took possession of Cape- 
 land. From now on overburdened with heavy taxes and con- 
 stantly oppressed, the Boers decided to quit their old home- 
 steads and find new ones north of the Orange River, where 
 they would not be molested by English tyranny. Trekking 
 into the interior of the continent, they established the free 
 States Natal, Oranje, Transvaal and the South African Re- 
 public. But their oppressors followed them and stuck close 
 to their heels wherever they might transfer their habitation. 
 Unfortunately for the Boers diamonds and gold were found in 
 their new homesteads. This caused an influx of adventurers 
 of every description, and almost immediately England began 
 to intrigue to obtain possession. 
 
— 28 -- 
 
 In 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, High Commissioner of 
 England in South Africa, announced the annexation of the 
 country. But the Boers objected and decisively defeated the 
 British at Majuba Hill. The independence of the Boer's 
 was recognized and confirmed at the London Convention in 
 1884. 
 
 But English greed would not let the matter rest. Promoters 
 founded the "British South African Company," better known 
 as the "Royal Chartered Co.", which soon obtained an im- 
 portance — and quite as ominous — as the "East India Co." 
 possessed in Asia. One of the leaders was the son of an English 
 dominy: Cecil Rhodes, who possessed all the qualities of his 
 English prototype Robert Clive. In a short time he had 
 amassed an enormous fortune, becoming known as the 
 "Diamond King." In 1 890 he was made Premier of the Cape 
 Colony, and conquered Matabeleland and prepared, in col- 
 lusion with the English mine owners of the South African Re- 
 public, the invasion undertaken by Dr. Jameson. This raid, put 
 in action with 1200 men on Dec. 30th 1895, had in view the 
 taking unawares, and the abolition, of the government and the 
 annexation of the State. But the Boers had been made aware 
 of this design and, surrounding the insolent intruders forced 
 them on Jan. 1 st, 1 896 to surrender. President Krueger, an all 
 too mild man, instead of making an example of the raiders by 
 having them shot, delivered them to the English Government 
 for punishment. But the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamber- 
 lain, the true type of a modern English pirate in dress coat, 
 treated the conspirators not only with great leniency, but saw 
 to it, that Jameson was indemnified properly, for the fright he 
 had suffered, by a brilliant position in South Africa. Jameson 
 as well as his conspirators were praised by the English press 
 and, by the public, lionized as "heroes." Not less was this the 
 case with Cecil Rhodes, the intellectual originator of the raid. 
 When summoned by the Parliament, he denied not only all 
 knowledge of the scheme, but moreover acted as accuser of 
 the Boers. As a matter of course he was allowed to return 
 to his post as Premier of the Cape Colony. It was only after 
 the Government of Transvaal had proven his guilt beyond all 
 doubt, that he resigned as Premier. But an English Official 
 can remain a gentleman in English eyes, even if he is a proven 
 liar and has perjured himself before the Parliament of his own 
 country. 
 
 However this did not free the Boers of their grudges. As is 
 in everybody's memory, England in October 1 899 started 
 that disgraceful war against Transvaal which lasted until 1 902, 
 
— 29 — 
 
 cost England its best troops and the reputation of its best 
 generals. Let us see, in what benevolent manner England, 
 which in her present war simulates abhorrence and dismay 
 over the alleged ruthless conduct of the war by the German 
 army, achieved finally this success. 
 
 As usual, England employed also in the Boer War savages. 
 It was General French who sent Zulus to fight the Boers and 
 destroy their property. This happened in violation of the ex- 
 press pledge given by Mr. Balfour at the outset of the war. 
 The horrible cruelties, committed by these Zulus, incited the 
 government of Natal to a strong protest against this mode of 
 warfare, which is contrary to all civilized usages. In conse- 
 quence of this protest General French was shifted from his 
 command in the northwestern Transvaal for barbarous war- 
 fare. 
 
 But General French was not the only English *'hero'* who 
 disgraced his name in this cruel war. The great fieldmarshall 
 Kitchener did likewise by dragging women and children of the 
 fighting Boers from their homes and imprisoning these poor 
 defenseless creatures in the so called concentration camps. 
 
 During the month of September 1901 there were 38,022 
 women and 54,326 children under Kitcheners tender care. 
 As Henry Labouchere, then editor of the "London Truth," 
 has stated, 20,000 of these hapless women and children 
 perished. The "London Daily News" of November 9th said: 
 "The truth is that the death rate in these concentration camps 
 is incomparably worse than anything Africa or Asia can show. 
 There is nothing to match it even in the mortality figures of the 
 Indian famines, where cholera and other epidemics have to be 
 contended with." And Reynold's Newspaper (London) of 
 October 20th 1901 speaks of the women and children 
 "perishing like flies from confinement, fever, bad food, 
 pestilential stinks and lack of nursing in these awful death- 
 traps." 
 
 Kitchener, who earned during this war the epithets "the 
 butcher" and "the blood-hound," gave together with the late 
 Lord Roberts the order, that, wherever Boers fired at military 
 trains "all the farms should be burned within a radius of ten 
 miles." 
 
 The manner in which this order was complied with, is 
 illustrated by a letter written by Leutenant Morrison, of the 
 Canadian Artillery, and published in the "London Truth." 
 From his account of the sacking of Dullstroom we quote the 
 following lines: 
 
 "During the track our progress was like the old-time forays 
 
— 30 — 
 
 in the highlands of Scotland, two centuries ago. We moved 
 on from valley to valley lifting cattle and sheep, burning, loot- 
 ing, and turning out the women and children to sit and weep 
 in despair beside the ruins of their once beautiful farmsteads. 
 It was the first touch of Kitchener s iron hand — a terrible 
 thing to witness. We burned a track about six miles wide 
 through those fertile valleys. The column left a trail of fire 
 and smoke behind it that could be seen at Belfast. . . . 
 
 "Nobody who was there will ever forget that day's work. 
 About 7 o'clock in the morning our force seized the town after 
 a little fight. The Boers went into the surrounding hills, and 
 there was nobody in the town except women and children. It 
 was a very pretty place nestling in a valley. The houses had 
 lovely flower gardens and the roses were in bloom. The Boers 
 drove in our outposts on the flank and began sniping the 
 guns, and amid the row of the cannonade and the crackle of 
 rifle fire the sacking of the place began. First there was an 
 ominous bluish haze over the town, and then the smoke rolled 
 up in volumes that could be seen for fifty miles away. The 
 Boers on the hills seemed paralyzed by the sight and stopped 
 shooting. The town was very quiet save for the roaring and 
 crackle of the flames. On the steps of the church a group of 
 women and children were huddled. The women's faces were 
 very white, but some of them had spots of red on either cheeks, 
 and their eyes were blazing. The troops were systematically 
 'looking the place over* (looting), and as they got quite 
 through with each house they burned it. As I stood looking, 
 a woman turned to me and pathetically exclaimed: *Oh, how 
 can you be so cruel!' I sympathized with her and explained 
 that it was an order and had to be obeyed. But all the same 
 it was an extremely sad sight to see the little homes burning 
 and the rose bushes withering up in the pretty garden, and the 
 pathetic groups of homeless and distressed women and little 
 children weeping in abject misery and despair among the 
 smoking ruins as we rode away." 
 
 Such is the sad story told by an officer of the British army. 
 Nothing remains for us, but to ask if men, who do not show 
 courage enough to resist against their degradation, to hang- 
 man's assistants, have any claim to the title soldier, a name, that 
 should mean a "defender of the right, a protector of homes 
 and the weak." 
 
 A brief extract from a letter, written by President Steyn, of 
 the Orange Free State, to Kitchener, in August 1901, throws 
 strong light on the behavior of the British defenders: 
 
 "Your Excellency's troops have not hesitated to turn their 
 
— 31 — 
 
 artillery on these defenseless women and children to capture 
 them when they were fleeing with their wagons or alone, whilst 
 your troops knew that they were only women and children, 
 as happened only recently at Gras-pan on the 6th of June near 
 Reitz, where a woman and children laager was captured and 
 retaken by us whilst your Excellency's troops took refuge be- 
 hind the women; and when reinforcements came they fired 
 with artillery and small arms on that woman laager. I can 
 mention hundreds of cases of this kind," etc. 
 
 In the pictures, produced by the "Illustrated London News," 
 the "Graphic" and other English periodicals, we don't see 
 Tom Atkins, as he is in reality, but as he lives in the imagina- 
 tion of Mr. Caton Woodville and other artists, who draw their 
 vivid war sketches not on the battlefield, but in their much 
 more comfortable studios. 
 
 To return to the Boers, the whole world knows, that after 
 a heroic resistance they were finally overwhelmed and 
 their land annexed. — Again the blood=tainted crown of Eng- 
 land was enriched with some scintillating jewels, though the 
 robbing of them had cost the blood, tears and welfare of thou- 
 sands of happy and peaceloving families. 
 
 England, the False Friend of the United States. 
 
 Hardly had England thrown France out of her rich colonial 
 possessions in North America when her greedy merchants 
 forced the Parliament to forbid settlers in English colonies to 
 keep up trade-relations with any non-British countries. They 
 should be forced to obtain all their necessities from the "moth- 
 er land" and deliver their own products to the same. In other 
 words: it was demanded of them, to buy their necessities in 
 England from British shopkeepers at often usurious prices, and 
 sell their own goods to those same shopkeepers for whatever 
 these were willing to offer. That these offers were always way 
 below prices paid by other countries in free competition goes 
 without saying. It was this very law which was one of the 
 causes of the Revolutionary War of the English colonies of 
 North America. To suppress this revolution the mother land 
 employed the vilest means. She committed the most atrocious 
 crime when she engaged the Indians as allies and used them 
 against her own subjects. The redskins were hired to accom- 
 plish a double task. It was expected of them to destroy 
 Western settlements and at the same time to attack the colon- 
 ists in the rear, while they were engaged in repulsing the at- 
 tacks of the British from the coast. By this arrangement the 
 British intended to compel the Americans to split up their 
 
— 32 — 
 
 forces. To crown the infamy and inflame the bloodthirstiness 
 of the Indians a prize of $8. was offered for every American 
 scalp, be it of man, woman or child. Nothing further was 
 needed to stimulate the savages to the wildest blood-orgies. 
 In small troops and large bands they roamed all over the bor- 
 der territories, attacked every settlement and committed the 
 most atrocious massacres. To accomplish this work of de- 
 struction the British secured the assistance of the powerful 
 chief of the Iroquois: Thayendanegea or Joseph Brandt, who 
 devastated with his warriors mainly the western parts of New 
 York and Pennsylvania. Burned houses, barns and stables, 
 ruined fields, the corpses of scalped men, ravished women and 
 murdered children marked the track of the redskins. And in 
 the commission of these crimes, British officers and soldiers as 
 well as loyal Tories from these localities lent helping hands. 
 
 As is well known England used for the war against the 
 Americans also soldiers which they had hired at great expense 
 in Germany, the Hessians. This proceeding found even in 
 England severe critics. Chatham declared in Parliament: 
 "Were I as good an American as I am an Englishman and had 
 to behold how a foreign army appeared in my own country 
 I would never lie down my arms — never!" These words ex- 
 press precisely the deep revolt of all Americans, upon hearing 
 that for their suppression England had enlisted foreign hire- 
 lings. But the Americans soon had occasion to get enraged 
 over still other British treacheries. 
 
 When Congress attempted to meet the prevailing lack of 
 currency by the issue of paper money the perfidious Britishers 
 used this circumstance to increase the terrible difficulties of the 
 Americans. They turned counterfeiters, imitated the notes is- 
 sued by Congress and brought enormous numbers of those fal- 
 sifications in circulation. This brought the paper money in 
 such discredit that everybody shied from accepting it. The 
 depreciation in the value of the paper money increased to such 
 a degree that forty paper dollars were necessary to buy one 
 silver dollar. A pair of boots cost 400 — 600 paper dollars, 
 and the monthly wages of a soldier was just sufficient to buy 
 one dinner. That, in spite of all these dreadful obstacles, the 
 Independence of the Colonies was established, is the merit of 
 the heroism of the colonists, the admirable devotion of George 
 Washington and of the patriots who surrounded him. And 
 last not least, the co=operation of such true champions of lib- 
 erty as Steuben, Kalb, Herchheimer, Miihlenberg, Lafayette 
 and many others. And hereby was fulfilled a prediction made 
 by Napoleon when in 1 803 circumstances compelled him to 
 
— 33 — 
 
 sell Louisiana to the United States: "The English want to grab 
 the riches and the commerce of all the world. To free the 
 nations from England's unbearable commercial tyranny it is 
 necessary to balance its influence by a maritime power which 
 will be able to wrest their commercial supremacy from them. 
 If I strengthen the position of the United States by the cession 
 of the Mississippi Valley, then England will find a rival who, 
 earlier or later, will dampen her arrogance." — 
 
 That the prophetic words of the far seeing Corsican might 
 be fulfilled, became evident to England by the fast growing 
 commerce of the United States. Therefore England left noth- 
 ing undone to get rid of this new rival in the world's commerce 
 and to sustain all movements that might bring about a disrup- 
 tion of the Union. The war of 1812 to 1814 meant the first 
 attempt for the annihiliation of the Union. While the English 
 fleet carried on the war at the coast shelling the American sea- 
 ports, the commanders of the land forces again engaged the 
 redskins to attack the Americans in the rear. The incessant 
 incitement of the English agents succeeded in uniting all tribes 
 of the Northwest into one great anti-American alliance, which 
 was led by Tecumseh, the famous war chief of the Shawnees. 
 Death and destruction in their most terrific forms ruled again 
 over all border lands. The year 1812 passed luckily for the 
 English. On water and land the Americans suffered heavy 
 defeats. Michigan was lost and all western settlements were 
 ravished terribly. 
 
 In the two following years the struggle went on with vary- 
 ing success. In August 1814 the British took Washington, 
 burned the Capitol, the White House and numerous other pub- 
 lic buildings. Of course, they did not forget to destroy also 
 all American ships on the Potomac. But the enraged resistance 
 which the British found in Baltimore and elsewhere, finally 
 brought about the peace of Ghent (Dec. 24, 1 81 4), the centen- 
 ary of which Americans were impudently invited to celebrate. 
 
 How little reason America had for such a celebration should 
 be evident to its promoters when they bring home to their 
 mind that the secret and open intrigues of England against the 
 States have never ceased and that, in the heart of the English 
 shopkeepers now, as ever, glows the ardent wish to sweep 
 away this successful rival as they did the others. — Stimulated 
 by this desire and to hasten the dissolution of the Union Eng- 
 land, at the outbreak of the American Civil War solemnly 
 proclaimed her neutrality, while secretly it was a confederate 
 of the Confederacy. She assisted the slaveholders by every 
 means in ker power, recognized them officially as a belligerent 
 
— 34 — 
 
 nation, by this strengthening their cause and position material- 
 ly. More than that I She allowed that recruiting stations were 
 opened all over Great Britain for the Confederacy. She sub- 
 scribed for immense numbers of the bonds of the Southern. 
 States. She smuggled arms, ammunition and all kinds of con- 
 traband of war to the Confederates, enabling them to continue 
 the struggle. She permitted her own consuls in the Northern 
 States to act as spies for the South. She established in London 
 a press bureau for the dissemination of false reports, which 
 spread wholesale rumors of rebel victories and pernicious lies 
 about Lincoln and the Union, just as the London press bureaus 
 do to-day about the Kaiser and the successes of the Allies. 
 
 Furthermore, England allowed her newspapers to express 
 openly the hope "that the Union ,the great snake, might be cut 
 in two by the war and rendered powerless." And last but not 
 least, England not only opened her ports to the southern pir- 
 ate craft, but violated the neutrality laws by building, equip- 
 ping and manning a number of southern privateers, among 
 them the "Alabama," "Florida," "Shenandoah," "Tallaha- 
 see," "Nashville" and others, which served as commerce de- 
 stroyers. 
 
 Burning and sinking all prizes, these destroyers swept all 
 merchant vessels of the Union from the ocean, during the war, 
 causing a loss of over $1 7,000,000. They damaged the over- 
 sea trade of the United States so grievously, that, since it has 
 never recovered its former prominence. 
 
 But England had to pay for her treacheries. After the war 
 was over the States demanded indemnity for the destruction, 
 committed by these privateers. A court of arbitration, sitting in 
 Geneva, found England guilty of the charges and sentenced it 
 to pay to the States $15,500,000. Any one eager for more 
 information on this subject, may find it by studying the trans- 
 actions of the "Alabama Claims." — 
 
 Numerous acts of more recent date leave us suspicious as to 
 England's true sentiments toward our Union. With France it 
 persuaded the Austrian Archduke Maximilian to the calami- 
 tious attempt to establish an empire in Mexico, hoping there= 
 by to kill the Monroe Doctrine and to create for the States a 
 neighbor who might some day become very inconvenient. — 
 Furthermore England caused the United States endless 
 troubles and cares in the Venezuela controversy, in the ques- 
 tions regarding the Alaskan boundaries and the Bering Sea 
 fisheries; in Mexico, in the present European war and in many 
 other instances. 
 
 What future plans England may have in regard to the Pana- 
 
— 35 — 
 
 ma Canal is hidden in the folds of the future. Just as England's 
 shrewd diplomatists tried to get the better of the States in all 
 treaties concerning the Canal it can hardly be assumed that 
 during the last decenniums it has strengthened its fortifications 
 on the Bermudas, in Jamaica and elsewhere simply for the 
 sake of a passing whim. Indeed, with these strongholds in 
 the East and South of the States, with Canada in the North 
 and Japan as ally in the West, John Bull might some day get 
 Brother Jonathan in a tight hole. 
 
 If especially favorable political constellation were ever to 
 come, John Bull would hardly remember his pet-phrases: 
 *'Hands across the sea" and "Blood is thicker than water," 
 which are now used after every meal and at bed-time by our 
 anglophil Depews and, also by some degenerated American 
 diplomatists, who misrepresent our United States. 
 
Germany's wonderful rise and suc- 
 cess, the real cause for Englands 
 present war. 
 
 As it is evident from the irrefutable historical facts of the 
 former chapter, no nation, notwithstanding the high position 
 she may have obtained in culture, intellectual and material 
 wealth, will escape the envy and greed of England. Indeed, 
 the more such nation prospers, the more her efforts in in- 
 dustries and commerce are crowned with success, the surer 
 she will incite England's ill will, envy and hate. Especially 
 if that nation has a fleet and dares to compete with John Bull 
 on the high seas, which he regards as his sole monopoly. 
 
 Of this discouraging fact modern Germany is another 
 example, though the marvellous rise of that country, under 
 most averse conditions, should be regarded as the great 
 wonder of our present time and admired and imitated by all. — 
 
 When, in 1909, McClure's Magazine published a serie 
 of articles about the strained relations between England and 
 Germany, I wrote for that magazine an essay "Modern 
 Germany — an object lesson." As this article, published in the 
 December number, is still true to-day, it is, with kind per- 
 mission of McClure's Publishing Co., here partly reprinted 
 again. A few additions have been made and statistic figures 
 brought up to date. 
 
 Why Germany has a Powerful Army and Navy. 
 
 To understand the conditions of Germany, we must first 
 of all take a glance at her geographical position and her his- 
 tory. In doing this, we soon find, that there never has been 
 a country in the world, that, in political respects, is so un- 
 favorably located as Germany. Nowhere protected by such 
 natural boundaries as large rivers or high mountain ranges, 
 but easily accessible and vulnerable on both sides, Germany 
 has been, from remotest times, the object of hostile assaults. 
 
 For a period of several hundred years the German tribes 
 were compelled to defend their independence from the 
 Romans, who under Caesar, Drusus, Tiberius, Varus and other 
 
— 37 — 
 
 commanders invaded Germany and subjugated all the land 
 south of the Danube and west of the Rhine. Only with great 
 efforts were the Germans able to hold their own against these 
 powerful and cunning enemies. 
 
 Later, in 375 A. D., came the horrible assaults by the 
 Huns. The pressure of their enormous bands of riders was 
 so immense that several nations, among them the Alans, Goths, 
 Vandals, Longobards and Burgundi were compelled to leave 
 their grounds and to seek new homes elsewhere. In history 
 this period is known as the "time of migration of the nations.** 
 The Huns overflooded all Southern Russia, Hungary, Austria, 
 Southern Germany and a part of Gallia, until they were defeat* 
 ed in 45 1 on the Catalaunian fields. 
 
 The terrible sufferings, caused by these barbarians, were 
 not yet forgotten, when during the 9th and 1 0th centuries 
 great invasions of Slavs, Hungarians and Northmen took place. 
 The Northmen in their Dragon boats made their way up the 
 rivers, ravaging many cities, which lay far inland, as for 
 instance Cologne, Coblenz and Treves. The terror, spread 
 by these daring pirates, was so great, that in all churches people 
 prayed: "God, save us from the Northmen!** 
 
 Although the Slavs and Hungarians met several dreadful 
 defeats on German soil, they nevertheless attacked the country 
 again and again, until they were fiercely fought in the battle on 
 the Lech, near Augsburg, in 955. 
 
 In the 1 0th and 1 3th centuries occured also several 
 invasions of the Mongols, and in 1529 and 1683 Austria was 
 attacked by the Turks, who even assaulted Vienna. 
 
 The most dreadful catastrophe in history was, however, 
 the Thirty Years War. (1618 — 1648). During this time 
 Germany served as the great battle ground for Spanish, 
 Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian and French troops, who 
 reduced the population from seventeen to four millions and 
 made the country an almost uninhabitable desert. In Bohemia 
 the population was diminished from 3 millions to 780,000. In 
 Saxony, during the two years 1631 and 1632, 943,000 per- 
 sons were killed or swept away by sickness. In Wurttemberg 
 over 500,000 lost their lives. The Palatinate, having a popu- 
 lation of 500,000, suffered a loss of 457,000; and in some 
 parts of Thuringia ninety per cent, of all people perished. 
 Hundreds of cities, towns, villages and castles were laid in 
 ashes. In these times, Alsace and Lorraine were appropriated 
 by France. 
 
 All terrors of these calamitous times were lived over 
 again, when, at the end of the 1 7th and at the beginning of the 
 
— . 38 — 
 
 I 8th centuries, the armies of Louis XIV., without declaration 
 of war, raided the countries along the Rhine, especially the 
 Palatinate. The devastation was frightful. Heidelberg, Mann- 
 heim, Speier, Worms and many other places were burned by 
 the French soldiers, who left the ruins of hundreds of beautiful 
 castles on the Rhine, Moselle, and Neckar, among them that 
 of Heidelberg, as lasting monuments of their visits. 
 
 From 1 756 to I 763 raged the Seven Years War, in which 
 France, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Saxony and Austria intended 
 to divide the Kingdom of Frederick the Great. 
 
 Only 42 years later came the onslaught of that mon- 
 strous adventurer Napoleon I., by whom Germany was 
 humiliated as never before. The whole country was subjected 
 to systematic plundering. The imperial mantle was torn into 
 shreds and stamped into the dust. The German kingdoms 
 and states were given by Napoleon as presents to his relatives 
 and brothers, who made the German cities ring with their gay 
 life. 
 
 During the further course of the 1 9th century Germany 
 was compelled to fight three more attacks on its integrity. In 
 1 849 and 1 864 it prevented the annexation of Schleswig-Hol- 
 stein by Denmark. 
 
 In 1867 she resisted the demands of Napoleon III., who 
 held himself entitled to Belgium, Luxemburg, the Palatinate 
 and a part of Hesse, as "a compensation for Sadowa." 
 
 In 1870 the German troops were forced to restrain the 
 French armies from the proposed "p^^o^nenade a Berlin" and 
 the desire of Napoleon, to make the Rhine the boundary be- 
 tween France and Germany. 
 
 After that it was the attitude of the "Revanche Party" 
 in France, and many other circumstances that caused unrest 
 and suspicion. 
 
 Now, would any nation ignore the lessons, taught by her 
 dangerous location and such a terrible past? The enormous 
 losses she had suffered, compelled Germany to take steps 
 by which a repetition of such dreadful calamities might be 
 prevented. In order to protect her borders from further 
 hostile invasions, and to enforce peace at any price, Germany 
 made her army not only one of the most powerful, but at the 
 same time the most efficient in the world. This army was 
 intended to impress upon all opponents the warning, that 
 further assaults on the empire could not be committed without 
 grave danger. 
 
 The blockade of the German coasts by the Fresch fleet in 
 1870, the unreasonable holding up of German mail-steamers 
 
— 39 — 
 
 during England's war with the Boers, and finally, the establish- 
 ment of colonies in different parts of the world, awakened 
 Germany to the necessity of having an effective navy for the 
 defense of her coasts and the protection of her merchant 
 marine and the colonies. 
 
 Plans for the formation of a navy had been in existence 
 since 1873. But it remained for Emperor William II., to carry 
 out the program. It was he who expounded to the nation that, 
 to secure peace and some place in the sunshine, it must work 
 to get a fleet. His urgent requests awakened in the hearts of the 
 German people a resounding echo. The Flottenverein sprang 
 into existence and spread all over the Empire. East and west, 
 north and south, the cities and the country, rich and poor, 
 combined their endeavors and contributed so freely that the 
 German navy, amounting at the beginning of the Emperor's 
 reign to only a few insufficient vessels, became the second 
 among the great navies of the world. So, making army and 
 navy the strong foundations, upon which the structure of the 
 new Empire could safely rest, the German nation developed 
 the country in a thousand directions at the same time. By 
 grasping all opportunities, by spurring the abilities of every 
 individual, the nation succeeded in building up a state that in 
 many respects served as an object lesson to other nations. 
 
 The New Policy Transformed Germany from a Poor to a 
 
 Rich Nation. 
 
 Before the reign of William I. Germany was a poor 
 country struggling under most adverse conditions. The many 
 wounds inflicted by the Thirty Years' War and the assaults 
 of the French were slow to heal. The meager soil, especially 
 of northern Germany, allowed to its occupants only a frugal 
 existence. The industries were undeveloped and their 
 situation unfavorable, as almost all raw materials had to be 
 imported from other countries at great cost. The commerce 
 with foreign lands was handicapped everywhere. Germany 
 was without any natural harbor, and the few ports were often 
 frozen for many weeks. Those upon the Baltic were cut off 
 from the ocean by Denmark, which, until the middle of the 
 last century, levied "sound dues" upon all vessels entering and 
 leaving the Baltic Sea. And, last but not least. Great Britain 
 tried to scarce the Germans from the ocean by refusing to 
 acknowledge a German flag, and by giving the warning, in 
 1 849, that she would treat it as the flag of a pirate. 
 
 But commercial expansion was a necessity to prevent 
 
— 40 — 
 
 national stagnation. The country became unable to sustain the 
 ever-growing population. And so, after the new Empire had 
 been established, the Government took steps to extend in- 
 dustries and trade far enough to enable the people to live. The 
 magnitude of this task becomes clear when we state that in 
 1871, the year of the founding of the Empire, Germany 
 measured only 208,830 square miles, or 56,950 less than 
 Texas. Upon this limited space it had to sustain a population 
 of forty-one millions. Since that time the population increased 
 to 66 millions in 1914, and was growing almost at the rate of 
 a million a year. 
 
 But Germany was always fortunate as to possess a large 
 number of broad minded patriotic men of all classes, willing 
 to devote themselves to the interests of the nation. First, there 
 were many excellent scientists, who carefully studied the 
 opportunities of the nation and taught the people to make use 
 of them. Then, there was a large corps of brilliant statesmen 
 and well-educated officials, forming perhaps the most scientific 
 and expert governmental organization in existence. Not sub- 
 jected to the dictations of political parties and bosses, entirely 
 free from graft and corruption, these men worked solely for 
 the benefit of the nation. Directing their minds and energies 
 to a solution of the many difficulties, they overcame them so 
 successfully that Germany, poor before, became one of the 
 wealthiest countries on the globe, and perhaps the richest in 
 Europe, not excepting France and Great Britain. 
 
 Authorities in national economics, as Professor Delbriick, 
 Sydow, and Steinmann Bucher, estimated that the national 
 wealth of Great Britain amounted in 1910 to 300.000,000,000 
 marks, while that of Germany was about 350,000,000,000 
 marks. This result, almost beyond belief, was reached within 
 the short space of an average lifetime. Let us see how the 
 Germans did it. 
 
 How the Germans Have Increased Their Forests. 
 
 First of all, by making wise use of the natural resources 
 of the country, such as forests, water, soil, and minerals. These 
 means, compared with those of other countries, especially of 
 the United States, are not abundant, but limited. This fact 
 compelled the nation to apply the same methods of business 
 economy to the use of these resources that are applied by a 
 wise merchant to his operations in trade. The importance of 
 the forests to the welfare of the entire country being realized, 
 the greatest attention was paid throughout the Empire to forest 
 culture. Originating from tribes that from remote times dwelt 
 
— 41 — 
 
 in forests, the Germans were always a tree-loving people. Fully 
 understanding the significance of the situation, they assisted 
 the Government in its efforts to save a proper amount of 
 forests. And this explains the fact that Germany has a far 
 greater proportion of woodlands than any other State in 
 western and southern Europe. Its forests cover approximately 
 35,000,000 acres, of which 31,9 per cent, belong to the State, 
 while 68. 1 are private property. 
 
 From a leaflet distributed in 1909 by the United States 
 Department of Agriculture I quote the following: 
 
 "Forest experts of all nationalities agree that Germany 
 is in an enviable position as regards her lumber supply. No 
 nation in the world makes more thorough utilization of its 
 forest resources. German forestry is remarkable in three ways: 
 it has always led in scientific thoroughness, and now it is work- 
 ing out results with an exactness almost equal to that of the 
 laboratory; it has applied this scientific knowledge with the 
 greatest technical success; and it has solved the problem of 
 securing, through a long series of years, an increasing forest 
 output and increasing profits at the same time. Starting with 
 forests that were in as bad a shape as many of our own cut-over 
 areas, Germany raised the average yield of wood per acre 
 from twenty cubic feet in 1830 to seventy =five cubic feet in 
 1908. During the same period it trebled the proportion of 
 saw timber secured from the average cut, which means, in other 
 words, that through the practice of forestry the timberlands 
 of Germany are of three times better quality to-day than when 
 no system was used. In a little over half a century it increased 
 the money returns from a average of forest sevenfold, and 
 to-day the forests are in better condition than ever before." 
 
 The kingdom of Prussia alone gets out of her cultivated 
 forests over 100,000,000 marks net a year. 
 
 No Deserted Farms in Germany. 
 
 The policy of conservation that made German forestry 
 such a success is applied also to agriculture. As we have 
 stated before, Germany is not at all a land flowing with milk 
 and honey. In enormous parts of northern Germany the soil 
 is decidedly poor. With that of the United States it cannot 
 compare at all. But proper care did wonders. While the 
 methods of farming used by many Americans have resulted in 
 the utter decline of good land in a comparatively short time, the 
 farm-lands of Germany, even though they have been under 
 cultivation for centuries, brin^ forth rich crops year in and 
 year out 
 
— 42 — 
 
 Mr. James Hill, one of the most noted experts on land 
 affairs, at the famous Governor's Conference in 1908, made 
 the remarkable statement that the soil of America, once the 
 envy of every other country, gave during the ten years begin- 
 ning with 1 896 an average yield of ] 3.5 bushels of wheat per 
 acre, while Germany produced 27.6. For the same decade the 
 yield of oats was in America less than 30 bushels, in Germany 
 46. For barley the figures were 25 against 33, and for rye 
 15.4 against 24. 
 
 In 1912 Germany produced per acre 29 bushels of rye, 
 34 bushels of wheat, and 220 bushels of potatoes. 
 
 Deserted farms, which, as a result of soil exhaustion, can 
 be found all over the eastern half of the United States, are 
 absolutely unknown in Germany. 
 
 A number of years ago Germany also began to cultivate 
 its hitherto unproductive waste lands, such as marshes, heaths, 
 etc., of which it has about 12,000 square miles. It has been 
 so successful that in time it will by this peaceful conquest not 
 only double its present area of wheat-land, but also provide 
 ample living for many hundred thousand families. The Liine- 
 burg Heath, an immense tract of moreland in northeastern 
 Hanover, has already to a great extent become a thing of the 
 past. Its former monotony has given place to pleasant vistas 
 of flourishing little farms, that nestle upon the banks of clear 
 brooks among beautiful trees. 
 
 In mining, the Germans take great care to reduce the 
 waste to a minimum. In America it has been customary to 
 remove only the best parts of the total deposits of coal and 
 minerals, while inferior qualities and such portions as can be 
 less easily mined are never touched. Very frequently the lowest 
 richest beds are taken out first, in consequence of which the 
 overlaying strata cave in, which makes subsequent mining 
 forever impossible. By these methods from forty to seventy 
 per cent of the total deposits are left unmined. 
 
 German Mines Saved by an American Invention. 
 
 Nothing of this kind happens in Germany. Everything 
 is removed. And, to prevent cave ins, every worked-out mine 
 is filled up with sludge, tailings, and sand, mixed with water 
 and pumped through pipes into the exhausted places, where 
 they harden into a compact mass and support the overlaying 
 strata. By the appliance of this "flushing method" — an 
 American invention — the miner is able to remove all pillars 
 of coal or ore, which formerly he was obliged to leave stand- 
 ing as a support for the upper strata. He may also attack 
 
— 43 — 
 
 lower beds without fear of being killed. Germany, wishing 
 to make use of its mines as extensively as possible, and to pre- 
 serve the prosperity of mining for the future, applies this flush- 
 ing method everywhere, while the Americans, in their eager- 
 ness to get rich quickly, make only a limited use of their own 
 invention. Germany produced in 1885 only 67 million tons 
 of coal, in 1912 235 million tons. 
 
 In using the most valuable of all natural resources, water, 
 Germany is, of course, not behind any other progressive 
 country. It has already numbers of Talsperren for the storage 
 of drinking water as well as water for the use of power. 
 Especially the great industrial region of western Germany, 
 in the valley of Rhur and Wupper. Many others in all parts of 
 the Empire are under construction, and will produce millions 
 of horse-power for industrial purposes. 
 
 The utmost care has been given to the proper use and 
 development of waterways. Hundreds of millions of marks 
 have been spent in regulating navigable rivers and in connect- 
 ing them by canals, which might induce traffic. Hundreds of 
 millions have been expended also in acquiring the railways of 
 Germany, almost all of which now are owned or controlled 
 by the Government. Devoted to the interests of the entire 
 country, these waterways and railroads cooperate in harmony. 
 Conditions such as prevailed in the United States, where, to 
 satisfy their own selfish interests, the railroad companies 
 purposely kill (by discriminating tariffs , adverse placement 
 of tracks and structures, by acquiring water-fronts, terminals, 
 competing vessels, and in many other ways) all water traffic, 
 are absolutely unknown in Germany. Her rivers are crowded 
 with craft of all kinds, that profitably transport such freight as 
 it would be unprofitable to carry by railroads. To what 
 extent river transportation has become a figure in the life and 
 economies of the Empire may best be seen on the Rhine. In 
 1907 that river carried more than 21,000,000 tons of freight; 
 14,000,000 of it, mostly raw materials, passed upstream into 
 the heart of Germany, while 7,000,000 tons of finished 
 products were sent down to foreign countries. As all means 
 of transportation and communication, the post, telegraph, and 
 telephone, are owned by the Government, there are, of course, 
 no discriminations in tariff, no tariff wars, nor excessive 
 charges, such as are extorted from the people of the United 
 States. 
 
 In shipbuilding as well as in shipping Germany made 
 wonderful progress. Hamburg became the third-greatest 
 harbor in the world. And while in former years German 
 
— 44 — 
 
 men-of-war and all big merchant liners had been built in 
 England, now all these vessels are constructed at the great 
 ship yards in Stettin, Kiel, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven and other 
 places. The magnificent liners of the North German Lloyd 
 and the Hamburg America Line, especially the "Kaiser Wil- 
 helm der Grosse," the "Crownprincess Cecilia," the "Im- 
 perator" and the "Vaterland" have been a surprise for all 
 England and America. 
 
 Some Facts about Germany's Commerce. 
 
 The Germans developed their industries and commerce 
 with the same energy and scientific thoroughness that they 
 applied to the development of their national resources. While 
 in former times the majority of the population was engaged in 
 agriculture, to-day the industrial and commercial classes have 
 a preponderance of almost three to one. The enormous in* 
 crease of commerce is best illustrated by the following figures: 
 In 1872 the value of imports amounted to 3,468,480,000 
 marks; of the exports to 2.494,620,000 marks. In 1912 the 
 figures for the imports were 13,703,000,000 and for the ex- 
 ports 9,280,000,000, making a total of 22,983,000,000 
 against 5,963, 1 00,000 in 1 872. 
 
 Some of Germany's industries became world-famous. The 
 cutting implements from Solingen, the tools from Remscheid, 
 the heavy cannons and armor-plates from Krupp in Essen, the 
 beautiful velvets from Krefeld, the embroideries from Elber- 
 feld and Barmen, the gloves, laces, and hosiery from Saxony, 
 and many other German products were found everywhere; and 
 by their splendid quality and reasonable prices they held their 
 own. 
 
 The chemical industry of Germany, not much older than 
 thirty years, became the wonder and the fear of the modern 
 commercial world. Keeping nine thousand factories with over 
 two hundred thousand laborers busy, it has revolutionized and 
 overthrown whole branches of foreign industries. It practically 
 drove indigo, cochineal, and the dye-woods from the market, 
 just as the sugar-beet products of Germany were a heavy blow 
 to the sugar plantations of the West Indies. 
 
 How the world depends on German dye stuff, has been 
 demonstrated by the fact, that since the outbreak of the present 
 war, whole industries of the United States and other countries 
 came to a standstill. 
 
 If you visit the principal sites of the chemical industry, 
 Hoechst, Mainkur, Elberfeld, and Diisseldorf, you will be 
 surprised at the enormous mass of different products and 
 
— 45 — 
 
 wonderful colors that are extracted here from tar, coal-oil, 
 and other unassuming matter. But if you wish to see the 
 Germans at their best, you must study the famous coal-and-iron 
 region at the Rhur and Wupper, the two most important 
 tributaries of the lower Rhine. The Krupps, Thyssens, and 
 others are kings here, with enormous armies of workingmen 
 at their command. Everywhere you hear the thundering rever- 
 beration of powerful hammers, the rattling and stamping of 
 tremendous machines. Everywhere you see regiments of 
 miners emerging from the bowels of the earth or ready to delve 
 into them. In the daytime the sky is dark with smoke, in the 
 night-time it is aglow with the lights of thousands of furnaces, 
 foundries, and smelting-works — a German edition of Pitts- 
 burg, but of still larger scale and with the same impulsive 
 hustle and deafening noise. 
 
 When some time ago, I traveled through this region, I 
 had the impression of being in the busiest part of America. 
 Throughout the length and breadth of the land I met with new 
 surprises. Vast stretches of former farm- and wood-land, 
 over which twenty years ago I had wandered, I now found 
 occupied by big cities, the names of which were utterly new to 
 me; and towns familiar to me I found expanded to astonishing 
 proportions. My native town, which, in the days of my youth, 
 numbered but 15,000 inhabitants, had, during the three de- 
 cades of my absence, increased its size and population five 
 times. Others, unimportant before, had swelled to cities of 
 150,000 to 200,000 population. 
 
 In the industrial districts of Westphalia, Saxonia, and 
 Upper Silesia I noticed a similar wonderful increase of people, 
 factories, textile mills, iron and color works, mines, tanneries, 
 and hundreds of other establishments, and also the un- 
 mistakable proof, that the German nation has become wealthy 
 and lives in much more comfortable cimcumstances than ever 
 before. 
 
 This enormous development of German industries, and 
 the increase in wealth explain the astonishing shrinking of 
 German immigration into the United States, which in 1 882 
 amounted to 250,630 individuals, and has since that time 
 steadily gone down to only 18,545 in 1912. The surplus 
 population, formerly compelled to emigrate found plenty of 
 work at home or in the colonies the Empire had established 
 in many parts of the world. Not willing to lose such enormous 
 masses of strong and capable individuals, and stimulated by 
 the desire to, provide for them new outlets under the German 
 flag, the Government began a colonial policy in 1 884, with the 
 
— 46 — 
 
 acquisition of Angra Pequena. Since then it acquired — not 
 by conquest, but peacefully — Kamerun, Togoland, great 
 parts of East and Southwest Africa, the northeastern third of 
 New Guinea, the Bismarck Islands, Samoa, the Caroline, Salo- 
 mon, Marshall, and Ladrone Islands, having, in all, 2,65 7,204 
 square kilometers and a population of twelve millions. 
 
 These acquisitions, as well as the rapid growth of the 
 German industries, of course called for an adequate merchant 
 marine. Conditions for the establishment of such a fleet were 
 not at all favorable. In the matter of shipbuilding Germany 
 was again handicapped by nature, for her supplies of tough 
 wood and iron, the materials for construction, were very 
 limited. Nor did the country possess any great natural harbors. 
 But by placing the import of shipbuilding material upon the 
 free list, and by spending many millions for dredging, the 
 difficulties were overcome. With the construction of the Kaiser 
 Wilhelm Canal a communication between the Baltic and the 
 North Sea was established. By granting subventions the 
 Government encouraged new steamboat lines to all the 
 colonies. As these vessels called at many important harbors 
 in Africa, Asia, and Australia, new fields of trade were tapped. 
 
 In 1872 the capacity of the German merchant marine 
 amounted to only 982,000 tons. It had increased to 4,935,- 
 909 tons in 1913. 
 
 Briliiant intellectual achievements of the German nation. 
 
 This period of marvelous material success was also a period 
 of wonderful intellectual achievements, of great artists, authors, 
 composers, poets, philosophers, inventors and men of science. 
 tl was the time, when Franz von Lenbach became perhaps 
 the greatest portrait painter who ever lived. It was the time 
 of Adolf Menzel, Wilhelm Camphausen, Anton von Werner 
 and other brilliant artists, who produced most impressive 
 paintings of the glorious historical events of which they had 
 been witnesses. It was the time of Ludwig Knaus, to whom 
 the German nation is indebted for beautiful pictures of its 
 intimate life. Furthermore, there were Arnold Boecklin, the 
 philosopher with brush and palette, the classic among artists 
 Anselm Feuerbach, the Kaulbach's, Fritz von Uhde, Hans 
 Thoma, Leibl, Franz von Stuck, Franz Defregger, Hermann 
 Vogel, Karl Marr, Max Liebermann, Oswald and Andreas 
 Achenbach, Hans Barthels, Zuegel, and the famous sculptors 
 Reinhold Begas, Johannes Schilling, Max Klinger, Rudolf 
 Simering and others. 
 
 Among the many German composers of that period Franz 
 
— 47 — 
 
 Liszt, Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Max Bruch, Johann 
 and Richard Strauss and Humperdinck became world re- 
 nowned. In the philosophy of history Theodor Mommsen, 
 Ludwig von Ranke, Karl Lamprecht and H. von Treitschke 
 have been acknowledged as pathfinders; while Paul Heyse, 
 Gustav Freytag, Wilhelm Raabe, Friedrich Spielhagen, Fritz 
 Reuter, Victor Scheffel, Gustav Frenssen, Ernst von Wilden- 
 bruch, Detlev von Liliencron, Hermann Sudermann, Ludwig 
 Fulda, Gerhard Hauptmann and thousands of others enriched 
 the overwhelming intellectual wealth of the German nation. 
 
 In the realm of science the names of Robert Koch, the 
 pioneer of the germ theory, Professor Behring, the discoverer 
 of the diphteria serum, Professor Ehrlich, of salvarsan fame, 
 of Professor Roentgen, the discoverer of the X-rays, of Ernst 
 Haeckel, the great naturalist, of Virchow, Pettenkofer, Helm- 
 holtz, Eucken, Liebig, Bunsen, Nernst, Woehler, Ostwald, 
 Mendeleef, Fraunhofer, Kirchhoff, and Hertz became stars, 
 that will shine through centuries. Among the great inventors 
 Werner Siemens, of the dynamo fame, and the **Edison of 
 Europe" rises like a tower. There are also Gauss, Daimler, 
 Diesel, Welsbach, Zeiss, Goertz, Anschiitz, and hundreds and 
 hundreds others. Last but not least, Count Zeppelin and 
 Schuette-Lanz, who attained • the highest development in mr- 
 ships. 
 
 Germany's Care for the Working Classes. 
 
 During all these times of enormous activity the nation 
 never forget other important problems it was obliged to solve. 
 Above all, the social conditions of the working classes called 
 for reforms. 
 
 Wages before 1870 had been low, and many of the evils 
 that developed in other industrial countries had spread over 
 to Germany. Discontent and socialism were increasing, in 
 spite of all repressive measures taken by the Government after 
 the attempt by the socialist Hoedel, in 1878, to kill Emperor 
 William I. 
 
 Seeing that repression would never settle the question, and 
 believing that the working classes have a right to be considered 
 by the State, Prince Bismarck resolved to cut the ground from 
 beneath the feet of the socialistic propagandists by bettering 
 the conditions of the working classes. And so, with the 
 Emperor's message to the Reichstag on November 7, 1881, 
 opened the era of "State social politics," which brought about 
 an enormous change in the situation of the working classes. 
 Besides many reforms in regard to the length of working time 
 
— 48 — 
 
 and women's and children's labor, this "State socialism** 
 provided for three important institutions: first, a compulsory 
 insurance against sickness; second, a compulsory insurance 
 against accidents; third, a compulsory insurance against 
 invalidity and old age. 
 
 To the funds of the first class, the Krankenkassen, of which 
 at present about 25,000 are in existence, all laborers earning 
 less than two thousand marks a year must pay two thirds and 
 the employer one third of the weekly premiums. In case of 
 sickness, the insured person receives half the amount for 
 twenty-six weeks. Doctors, hospitals, and medicines are free. 
 In 1913 fourteen million and fivehundred and nineteen- 
 thousand laborers were in this way protected. Many poor 
 mothers are supported for several weeks before and after con- 
 finement. To prevent sickness, especially tuberculosis, the 
 institution supports numbers of sanatoriums and recreation 
 homes, where thousands of people, who would perish other- 
 wise, regain health. 
 
 Billions of Marks are Paid in Public Insurance. 
 
 The insurance fees against accidents must be paid entirely 
 by the employer. In case of an accident, it is not the em- 
 ployer in whose factory it happened who is held responsible, 
 but the whole group of employers of the same branch. Every 
 group is compelled to establish an insurance company. About 
 twenty-five million laborers are thus protected. An injured 
 laborer receives, during the time of his disability, two thirds 
 of his wages, also free medical treatment. In case of his 
 death, the family receives at once fifteen per cent of his annual 
 wages and an annual support of sixty per cent. As the em- 
 ployers naturally wish to keep the amount of expenditures as 
 low as possible, this kind of compulsory insurance has greatly 
 stimulated the invention and institution of measures by which 
 accidents may be prevented. 
 
 The premiums for the insurance against invalidity and old 
 age are paid half by the employees and half by the employer. 
 Support is given to invalids without regard to age, and to 
 persons above seventy years; also to the widows and orphans 
 of insured persons. To every lawful pension the Government 
 contributes fifty marks. At present about sixteen million 
 persons are protected by this insurance. Up to the end of 
 1907 in all, 5,984,000,000 marks had been dstributed among 
 needy people by these three branches of insurance. In the 
 one year 1913 the amount distributed was 775 million marks. 
 These enormous amounts would be increased by several 
 
— 49 — 
 
 hundred million marks, if we consider the similar institutions 
 that protect the miners of Germany. The splendid results of 
 such compulsory insurance have induced the Government to 
 prepare also a special insurance for widows and orphans. It 
 might be mentioned that the management of these insurance 
 companies lies entirely in the hands of the working classes 
 and the employers. 
 
 The German nation applies an enormous part of its present 
 wealth to the sanitary improvement and the beautifying of its 
 cities and buildings. These measures are not confined to the 
 quarters of the rich, but extend also to those of the working 
 classes. Besides preserving and restoring as far as possible 
 all interesting features and monuments of the past, able 
 architects adorn the cities with magnificent municipal build- 
 ings, museums, libraries, schoolhouses, theaters, churches, and 
 domes. Expert landscape-gardeners provide beautiful parks 
 and squares for recreation-grounds and fit surroundings for the 
 statues of the great men the nation has produced. The 
 triumph Germany has achieved in improving its cities must 
 be clear to every one who has had the opportunity of compar- 
 ing the great modern German cities with those of other 
 countries. 
 
 That in regard to public education Germany leads among 
 the nations, that in literature, music, and arts it marches in 
 the very first rank, is a fact too well known to necessitate the 
 giving of details. 
 
 And so the modern German Empire presented itself, as 
 Mr. Robert J. Thompson, United States consul at Hanover, 
 said in a contribution to the New York Herald, "as a modern 
 organization of the most efficient character, calculated to fit 
 the times, and operating, from His Majesty the Kaiser down 
 through the Reichstag to the humblest manufacturer, with a 
 singleness of purpose to capture her full share of the markets 
 of the world. It is no dream, but one of the greatest realities 
 of modern history." 
 
 Such was the happy situation of Germany at the beginning 
 of the eventful year 1914. 
 
 And the Germans themselves? Absorbed in the solution 
 of the many peaceful problems before them, they had neither 
 time nor wish to think of war. Nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 out of a thousand would have regarded a war as a dreadful 
 calamity, by which everything might be risked and the end 
 of which nobody could foresee. Most assuredly, any measure 
 guaranteeing eternal peace would have found nowhere strong- 
 er advocates than among the German people. 
 
The unholiest Conspiracy in History. 
 
 He who is more intimately acquainted with the history of 
 the German nation, knows that John Bull never has looked 
 with great favor upon his kinsfolks. Especially not since these 
 intelligent and industrious German cousins grew prosperous 
 and even ventured to become his strong competitors on the 
 high seas as well as in the world's trade. As soon as Germany 
 began to gather her remaining strength after the terrible wars 
 of the 1 7th, 1 8th and 1 9th centuries and build up again her 
 ruined country, John Bull looked at the proceeding with much 
 suspicion and did his best to interfere whenever possible. 
 
 When in 1 849 the first vessels of the North German Con- 
 federation appeared on the North Sea, showing the flag of 
 that Union, Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, 
 tried to drive these vessels from the ocean with the threat, 
 that British men-of-war would treat them, flying ai^ unknown 
 flag, like pirates. 
 
 But when, in spite of this threat, this flag became respected, 
 and Germany, under the leadership of Bismarck, Emperor 
 William I, and William II, took such a surprising ascendancy 
 in commerce as well as in political affairs, when it even dared 
 to build a navy and to acquire colonies, England's envy grew 
 into furious hatred. Into a hatred that had henceforth only 
 one aim: to drive Germany from the seas, from the world's 
 markets and, if possible to annihilate it for all times to come. 
 
 What does John Bull care for racial and tribal kinship? 
 What of it, if the rulers of the two countries are of the same 
 blood? What matters it to him if a nation is crushed, that 
 has been a leader in arts and sciences for centuries and which 
 the educated and philosophers of all nations regard with 
 respect and veneration! Such silly questions of conscience have 
 to be silenced when the English money-bag is in danger and 
 where there is a competitor who is also striving for **a place 
 in the sun." 
 
 Not daring, however, to fight Germany singlehanded in 
 open warfare, the English Government for many years 
 pursued the policy of obstructing and defeating Germany in 
 all her plans and projects and excluding her at all costs from 
 the arena. Wherever Germany attempted to found a colony, 
 wherever she tried to acquire a coaling station for her mer- 
 
— 51 — 
 
 chant marine, wherever she wished to participate in some 
 international enterprise she met with the British challenge: 
 •'Not therel" 
 
 Her commercial interests in Morocco were thwarted; her 
 projects ii\ Anatolia, China and other places hindered or 
 spoiled. 
 
 All this was done to a nation, that had never injured 
 England, that never had fought a war against her and whose 
 sole crime was, that, by its industry and intelligence it had 
 become an efficient competitor. 
 
 English hatred reached its climax, when the beautiful Ger- 
 man-built steamers of the Hamburg American Line and the 
 North German Lloyd made their maiden trips across the At- 
 lantic and by their swiftness won the "blue ribbon of the sea." 
 It was then, that English papers made the cold-blooded de- 
 claration: "Germany must be destroyed." 
 
 In these words you have, in a nutshell, the cause and object 
 of England's present war. — 
 
 This hate and the all absorbing desire to strangle this 
 competitor found in King Edward VII. its most relentless 
 exponent. 
 
 This king, a brother to the Empress Frederick and the uncle 
 of Emperor William II., was notoriously a person of low moral 
 standard. He was not only a passionate gambler, but also 
 liked to spend much of his time with charming coquettes. 
 His relations to the "Lillie of Jersey" and other fair English 
 and French actresses became more than once a public scandal. 
 It is also well known, that he nourished great aversion toward 
 his nephew, the German Emperor, whose character is, in every 
 respect, in strongest contrast with that of the king. 
 
 When King Edward became possessed with the idea, of 
 destroying Germany, he intended not at all to sacrifice British 
 troops, but rather true to English tradition, to employ the 
 armies of other countries to commit that dangerous piece of 
 work. 
 
 In order to isolate Germany, he visited, a political drummer, 
 the courts of Europe, poured oil on the still glowing embers 
 of the French thirst for revenge, and with a thousand promises 
 he baited the greed of the Slavic and Latin nations. 
 
 The song of the deceitful king was music to the ears of the 
 eager listeners. It made France forget Fashoda, Trafalgar, 
 Aboukir, and the loss of her American empires and her many 
 beautiful islands. It beguiled Russia, Servia and Portugal; it 
 deluded Belgium, to throw away her most costly treasure, her 
 
— 52 — 
 
 neutrality and enter with England into a military convention, 
 which, later on, brought about her downfall. 
 
 Like all conspirators, the chief actors of this complot went 
 to work very carefully. Everything was done in the dark. 
 Of their plots, schemes and intrigues only inklings came to 
 the ears of the world. 
 
 But that the conspiracy is of long standing, has been proven 
 by several facts. It is well to remember that on October 7th, 
 1905, the Paris paper "Matin" revealed to the world the 
 news of a proposed dual alliance between France and 
 England for the purpose of combining their forces and wiping 
 out the German navy and German commerce. It was agreed, 
 that France should attack Germany by land, while England 
 would throw 1 00,000 men into Schleswig-Holstein and destroy 
 the Kaiser- Wilhelm-Canal. 
 
 This conspiracy was negotiated on the French side by the 
 Foreign Minister Delcasse, without the knowledge and sanction 
 of Minister President Ruvier. When that gentleman received 
 the news of the proposed alliance, he, foreseeing the terrible 
 consequences of such a treaty, urged at once the retirement 
 of Delcasse, saying that he deserved to be put to the wall 
 and shot as criminal. 
 
 But, later on, when the French Cabinet changed, Delcasse 
 came to the top again, and was sent as ambassador to St. 
 Petersburg, where he worked indefatigably for the fulfilment 
 of the dream of his life: the destruction of Germany. 
 
 It was he who secured for Russia in March 1914 from the 
 French Government a loan of $400,000,000, to enable it, to 
 build strategic railways designed to facilitate the concentration 
 of troops to her western frontiers. According to the Paris 
 "Journal des Debats" this money was lent by France on the 
 express condition that Russia "should render fuller service to 
 the alliance and should take a firmer attitude toward Ger- 
 many.** 
 
 "Le Matin** of Sunday, June 14th, 1914, one and a half 
 month before the outbreak of the present war, published also 
 an article under the headline "La Russie est prete, la France 
 doit Tetre aussi.'* ("Russia is ready, France must be also.**) 
 In this article the Russian Foreign Minister Sasonow informed 
 "La Grande Nation** that Russia had come up to the mutual 
 agreement by creating enormous armies, ready to strike, and 
 that France ought to be ready also. 
 
 What kind of agreement King Edward and his executor 
 Sir Edward Grey made with Russia, Servia, Montenegro 
 Portugal, Japan, and perhaps other countries, is not known. 
 
— 53 _ 
 
 And probably the world will never get full insight into all 
 these complots and intrigues in less than a century, when 
 archives will give up their present secrets. 
 
 We have, however, full knowledge of the secret understand- 
 ing England had with Belgium. The documents, found in 
 the archives of the Belgian Government by the Germans, 
 after they had taken possession of Brussels, have been publish- 
 ed in facsimile in Germany as well as in the United States. 
 They are reproduced in No. 2 1 of the "Fatherland" and also 
 separately under the heading: "The Case of Belgium," edited 
 by the former Colonial Secretary Dr. B. Dernburg. Page 3 of 
 this paper gives the following 
 
 Summary of the Secret Documents. 
 
 I. The first document is a report of the Chief of the 
 Belgian General Staff, Major-General Ducarme, to the 
 Minister of War, reporting a series of conversations which he 
 had had with the Military Attache of the British Legation, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Barnardiston, in Brussels. It discloses 
 that as early as January, 1 906, the Belgian Government was in 
 consultation with the British Government over steps to be 
 taken by Belgium, Great Britain and France against Germany. 
 A plan had been fully established for the landing of two 
 British army corps in French ports to be transferred to the 
 point in Belgium necessary for operations against the Germans. 
 Throughout the conversation the British and Belgian forces 
 were spoken of as ''allied armies" ; the British Military Attache 
 insisted on discussing the question of the chief command, and 
 he urged the establishment, in the meantime, of a Belgian 
 spy system in Germany. 
 
 II. When in the year 1912 Lieutnant-Colonel Barnardiston 
 had been succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges as British 
 Military Attache in Brussels, and the Chief of the Belgian 
 General Staff, Major-General Ducarme, had been succeeded 
 by General Jungbluth as Chief of the Belgian General Staff 
 the conversations proceeded between the two latter officials. 
 That is to say, these were not casual conversations between 
 individuals, but a series of official conversations between 
 representatives of their respective governments, in pursuance 
 of a well-considered policy on the part of both governments. 
 
 III. The above documents are given additional sig- 
 nificance by a report made in 1911 by Baron Greindl, Belgian 
 Minister in Berlin to the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
 from which it appears that this representative of the Belgian 
 Government in Berlin was familiar with the plans set forth and 
 
— 54 — 
 
 protested against them, asking why like preparations had not 
 been made with Germany to repel invasion by the French and 
 English. 
 
 Taken together, these documents show that the British 
 Government had the intention, in case of a Franco-German 
 war, of sending troops into Belgium immediately — that is, of 
 doing the very thing which, done by Germany, was used by 
 England as a pretext for declaring war on Germany. 
 
 They show also that the Belgian Government took, in 
 agreement with the English General Staff, military precautions 
 against a hypothetical German invasion of Belgium. On the 
 other hand, the Belgian Government never made the slightest 
 attempt to take, in agreement with the German Government, 
 military precautions against an Anglo-French invasion of 
 Belgium, though fully informed that it was the purpose of the 
 British Government to land and dispatch, across French terri- 
 tory into Belgium 160,000 troops, without asking Belgium's 
 permission, on the first outbreak of the European war. This 
 clearly demonstrates that the Belgian Government was determ- 
 ined from the outset to join Germany's enemies. 
 
 More evidences of English-Belgian duplicity. 
 
 Other convincing evidence of English-Belgian duplicity, 
 discovered by the Germans in Belgium, are secret military 
 handbooks, concerning Belgium's roads and rivers, which 
 were issued by the English General Staff. 
 
 Four different volumes of this handbook have been found, 
 of which Volume 1 was printed in 1912, Volume 2 in 1913, 
 and Volume 3 in two parts and Volume 4 in 1914. These 
 volumes are stamped "Confidential. This book is the pro- 
 perty of the British Government, intended for the personal 
 
 information of , who is reponsible for the safekeeping 
 
 of the book. The contents are to be made known only to 
 authorized persons." 
 
 The handbooks contain descriptions of terrain the most 
 minute imaginable from the point of view of military obser- 
 vations. The introductory remarks read: 
 
 "The reports portray the condition of the roads only as 
 they were at the time of the observations. It will always be 
 advisable to examine them again before using, to make sure 
 that they are not closed by reason of repairs, the laying of 
 pipes, &c.** 
 
 Thus, for example, there is discussed in Volume 1, Page 
 1 30, the great road through Nieuport, Dixmude, Ypres, Menin, 
 Turcoing and Tournai, as regards structure and topography, 
 
— 55 — 
 
 tactical points, points of observation, and water conditions. 
 In this discussion the villages along the road are enumerated 
 and described. We find their respective distances from one 
 another given, as well as detailed remarks pertinent to ele- 
 vations and bridges throughout the network of roads, the 
 cross-roads, telephone and telegraph stations, railway stations, 
 including the length of platforms and ladders, minor railroads, 
 location of petroleum tanks, and the like. 
 
 It is constantly stated whether the population speaks French 
 in whole or in part. As examples, tactical remarks concerning 
 Dixmude are given verbatim. In passing it should be remarked 
 that church towers are given as good points of observation. 
 In the same detailed manner the entire Scheldt course, to- 
 gether with all its tributary streams, landings, and transfer 
 facilities, widths and depths, bridges, boat supplies, &c., are 
 further described. 
 
 Thus the handbooks furnish an excellent guide-book for 
 the leader. General Staff officer, or sub-leader of any grade. 
 Included therein are: ( 1 ) A survey of facilities for quartering 
 troops, arranged according to villages and communities, to- 
 gether with figures of facilities for housing troops, the means 
 of troop transportation at hand, and all other details necessary 
 for the commander at the place; (2) a collection of the im- 
 portant sign posts for the benefit of aviators in the part of 
 Belgium south of the line from Charleroi to Namur and Liege, 
 as well as for the environs of Brussels. This book of infor- 
 mation, so extraordinarily careful and detailed in its com- 
 pilation, is completed with a map of landing places, and bears 
 the superscription "secret." It is dated in the year 1914. 
 
 These geographical military handbooks it must be borne in 
 mind, were not compiled only a short time before the war or 
 during the war. That, even aside from the printing itself, 
 would have been impossible. The material for them, rather, 
 as attested by the remarks above the single divisions, was 
 gathered after 1905 by individual observations. 
 
 The keys, therefore, prove a detailed preparation for a 
 campaign in neutral Belgium, carried on for the last five 
 years. The documents are nothing more nor less than Secret 
 Service orders for an English army fighting there. The English 
 General Staff, moreover, had so well equipped itself for such 
 a case, and in such a short time, and had anticipated it so 
 surely, that it executed the laborious work of collecting these 
 military handbooks. Such a work could not have been achieved 
 without the most extensive and voluntary assistance of the Bel- 
 gium Government and military authorities. In no other way 
 
— 56 — 
 
 could such exhaustive strategic and tactical information as 
 that above described, with respect to the minutest and most 
 detailed features, or such explicit data concerning rolling 
 stocks, sluices, and bridges, have been obtained. The lists 
 showing the capacity of houses in Belgium for quartering 
 troops, which could have been no more complete if compiled 
 for the country itself, can have emanated only from the Belgian 
 Government. Here, there can be no doubt, Belgian official 
 material was used. It was prepared for English purposes, or 
 in many passages simply translated into English. 
 
 In such detail as this had England and Belgium, even in 
 time of peace, prepared and agreed upon military co-op- 
 eration. Belgium, in other words, was politically and in a 
 military sense simply a vassal of England. The indignation 
 which England to-day assumes before the eyes of the world for 
 show purposes concerning Germany's alleged breach of neu- 
 trality is proved by these documents to be entirely unfounded 
 and unjustified. If any one has a right to be indignant it is 
 Germany. 
 
 In view of all these evidences the official "North Germah 
 Gazette" says: "Here it is plainly stated that the British 
 Government had the intention, in case of a Franco-German 
 war, to send troops to Belgium immediately, that is to say, to 
 violate Belgian neutrality and do the very thing which England 
 at the time when Germany, justified by reasons of self-pro- 
 tection, anticipated her, used as a pretext for declaring war 
 on Germany. Moreover, the British Government, with a cyni- 
 cism that is unparalleled in history, has taken advantage of 
 Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality for the purpose of 
 raising sentiment against us all over the world and of posing 
 as the protector of the small and feeble powers. 
 
 As regards the Belsrian Government, it was its duty not only 
 to reject emphatically the English insinuations, but also to 
 point out to the other signatories of the London Protocol of 
 1839 and especially to the German Government that England 
 had repeatedly tempted Belgium to disregard the duties in- 
 cumbent upon her as a neutral power. The Belgian Govern- 
 ment, however, did not do so. That Government considered 
 itself justified and bound to take, in agreement with the English 
 General Staff, military precautions against the supposed plan 
 of a German invasion of Belgium. On the other hand, the 
 Belgian Government has never made the slightest attempt to 
 take, in agreement with the German Government or the mili- 
 tary authorities of Germany, defensive measures against the 
 possibility of an Anglo-French invasion of Belgium. .Yet th^ 
 
— 5? — 
 
 documentary evidence which has been found, proves that 
 Belgium was fully informed that such an invasion was in the 
 intentions of the two Entente Powers. .This shows that the 
 Belgian Government was determined from the outset to join 
 Germany's enemies and make common cause with them. 
 
 The above exposition convincingly proves the fact that the 
 same England which is now posing as the protector of Belgian 
 neutrality forced Belgium to a onesided partisanship in favor 
 of the Powers of the Entente, and that she at one time even 
 thought of a violation of the neutrality of Holland. It is, 
 furthermore, clear that the Belgian Government, by lending an 
 ear to English whisperings, is guilty of a severe violation of 
 the duties incumbent upon it as a neutral power. The right 
 fulfillment of these duties would have compelled the Belgian 
 Government to foresee in her plans for defense the violation 
 of Belgian neutrality by France and to conclude with Germany 
 agreements analogous to those concluded with France and, for 
 this eventuality, England. The discovered official papers con- 
 stitute a documentary proof of the fact, well known to com- 
 petent German authorities long before the outbreak of the war, 
 that Belgium connived with the Powers of the Entente. They 
 serve as a justification of the information obtained by the Ger- 
 man military authorities about France's intentions. They may 
 open the eyes of the Belgian people in regard to the question 
 to whom it is they owe the catastrophe which has swept over 
 the unfortunate country. 
 
Honi soit qui mal y pense. 
 
 Who began the present war? Who is responsible for all 
 the distress and destruction, which now sweeps over the 
 world? — 
 
 Was it Servia, whose criminal politicians plotted that foul 
 murder of the Crown Prince of Austria and his wife? — ^Was it 
 Russia, that would prevent Austria from punishing the cul- 
 prits? — Was it France, which could not forget that Alsace and 
 Lorraine was retaken by the Germans in a fair way? — Was it 
 Germany, which by sending her armies through Belgium, com- 
 mitted, as her enemies say, an unpardonable breach of neutra- 
 Hty? 
 
 In our opinion none of them is directly responsible for the 
 present catastrophe. The guilt for the greatest crime in his- 
 tory rests rather upon the leaders of that nation, which, by its 
 boundless selfishness, insatiable greed and wretched shop- 
 keepers-spirit became the curse for almost all other nations of 
 this globe. The awful charge rests first of all with the late 
 king Edward VII, and his evil adviser and executor. Sir Edward 
 Grey, the true originators of that unholy conspiracy, described 
 in our former chapter. 
 
 In her mad desire to annihilate Germany, England however 
 did not forget her traditional policy to have her fighting done 
 by other nations. 
 
 Sparing her own soldiers as much as possible, she is ready 
 to fight Germany to the very last Belgian, Russian, French- 
 man. She also sacrifices the sons of her own colonies, upon 
 whom she called to assist "dear motherland." And, indeed, 
 Canada, Australia and New Zealand were simple-minded 
 enough to send their young men, to die in this most ignoble of 
 all wars in history. 
 
 But in her "fight for civilization** England did even more. 
 She transported armies of Indian Ghoorkas and Sikhs to 
 Europe, telling them, that they would partake in grand ma- 
 noeuvres and brilliant pageants, with lots of fun and pleasure 
 and great chances to make money. Not until the German 
 shrapnels crashed among these poor devils did they realize 
 that they had been deceived and brought to Europe to fight 
 unknown enemies for unknown reasons. 
 
 France, of course, was also requested, to line up once more 
 
— 59 — 
 
 her Turcos and Zouaves, and her Blacks from Senegambia. 
 Russia was invited to arouse the fury of her Cossacks, Kal- 
 mucks and Tartars. 
 
 What England may do, when through the efficiency of the 
 German soldiers the number of these defenders of civilization 
 have been diminished, nobody can foresee. To bring her 
 glorious fight to a glorious end, England may perhaps call also 
 her Eskimos from Labrador, her Ashantis and Zulus from 
 Africa, and from the islands of the Pacific all the few Maoris, 
 Fijians and Papuas that have survived so far England's bene- 
 volent care. 
 
 To the historically unnatural alliances with France and 
 Russia, England added the most contemptible treason against 
 the whole white race, by forming a league with Japan, the 
 Chieftain of Mongolism. And she made guilty herself of the 
 most abominable crime against her own race by uniting with 
 these Mongols in the slaughter of the few brave defenders of 
 Kiautschau. 
 
 That not all English citizens agree with this policy of her 
 depraved government, may be judged from an article by 
 Allister Crowley, a well known British poet. His article 
 "Honesty is the best Policy," unpublished yet in England, 
 circulates there secretly in manuscript. A copy of it reached, 
 however, the United States and has appeared in No. 23 and 
 24 of the "Fatherland." In this article Crowley says: *'The 
 world has been ransacked of every tribe and race. Algerians, 
 not only of Arab, but of negroid and even negro stock, have 
 been hurled into the line; India has gushed out a venomous 
 river of black troops — the desperate Ghoorka, whose kukri is 
 thrust upward through the bowels; the Pathan, whose very 
 women scavenge the battlefield to rob, murder, and foully 
 mutilate the dead; the fierce Sikh, the lithe Panjabi, the Ben- 
 gale even, whose maximum of military achievement is the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta I And, with all that, we use the 
 Japanese! Can we complain if the German papers say that the 
 Kaiser is fighting for culture, for civilization, when the flower 
 of the allied troops are black, brown and yellow "heathens,** 
 the very folks, whom we have stopped from hook-swinging, 
 suttee, child-murder, human sacrifice gind cannibal feast? 
 From Senegambia, Morocco, the Soudan, Afghanistan, every 
 wild band of robber clans, come fighting men to slay the com- 
 patriots of Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Beethoven, 
 Wagner, Mozart, Duerer, Helmholtz, Haeckel, and a million 
 others perhaps obscurer, no less noble, men of the Fatherland 
 of music, of philosophy, of science and medicine, the land 
 
— 66 -^ 
 
 where education is a realty and not a farce, the land of Luthet 
 and Melanchton, the land whose life blood washed out the 
 Ecclesiastical tyranny of the Dark Ages!" — 
 
 Thus writes a British poet, who, as appears from the names 
 of the great Germans he has quoted, is acquainted with the 
 achievements of the German nation. 
 
 But what shall we say of the Poet Laureata of England, who 
 likens the present war to a conflict between Christ and the 
 devil? And what shall we say of Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, 
 Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling, who humiliated them- 
 selves by penning articles and poems, of which we are sure 
 they will be ashamed later on. 
 
 As Kipling made himself an ally of the Sikh, Ghoorkas and 
 Cossacks, he deserves at least some punishment and for this 
 reason, we publish here the first five verses of his poem on the 
 "German Huns", with which he intended to stir the holy 
 wrath of all English speaking nations, but, instead, earned the 
 indignation of all sane thinking people. 
 
 For all we have and are — 
 
 For all our children's fate — 
 
 Stand up and meet the war: 
 The Hun is at the gate. 
 
 Our world has passed away 
 In wantonness o'erthrown; 
 
 There's nothing left to-day 
 But steel and fire and stone. 
 
 Though all we knew depart 
 
 The old commandments stand; 
 
 In courage keep your heart. 
 In strength lift your hand. 
 
 Once more we heard the word 
 That sickened earth of old: 
 
 No law except the sword 
 
 Unsheathed and uncontrolled. 
 
 Once more it knits mankind 
 Once more the nations go 
 
 To meet and break and bind 
 A crazed and riven foe. 
 
 We will, however, not close this chapter, without giving 
 space to a question. Professor Thomas C. Hall asked in the 
 
— 61 — 
 
 N. Y. Sun, of January 1 7th. *'Can any sensible American listen 
 with patience while the London press teaches us that an army 
 made up of the flower of Germany's educated manhood, in 
 which professors of world-wide fame serve as privates and 
 non-commissioned officers, and in which there is no illiterarcy 
 and no intemperance, is a" horde of barbarians," in compa- 
 rison to the army of Turkos, Sikhs, London down-and-outs, 
 Ghoorkhas, Cossacks, Tartars from the Amur River, Japanese, 
 Tunisian Arabs and negroes from the Sahara? And that civi- 
 lization depends on the victory of Russia's illiterate and 
 drunken peasantry under the command of the corrupt, arro- 
 gant and brutal autocracy, whose leading spirit is the Grand 
 Duke Nicholas-Nicholaievitch ? ' * 
 
The tentacles and ink -sac of the 
 
 Giant Octopus and how 
 
 it uses them. 
 
 As pointed out in the first chapter of this book, our Giant 
 Octopus has, like real cuttlefish, tentacles and an ink-sac, the 
 first represented by the countless wires and cables, that run out 
 from London in all directions and girdle the globe. They are 
 the most sensitive parts of the octopus, informing it, while it 
 lays in wait for prey, of everything that is going on in the 
 world. 
 
 Cunning as the English are, they were among all nations 
 the first to recognize that he who controls the news controls 
 the world. Bearing this in mind, England has for centuries 
 maintained a system of agencies, extending not only over all 
 Europe, but also over other continents. It is the duty of these 
 agencies to inform the English Government not only about 
 everything of interest, but by means of clever intrigues, to 
 keep alive quarrels among the different nations, from which 
 England might profit. 
 
 Since the invention of telegraphy, this work of agencies 
 has ben improved and extended in every direction. To secure 
 important news as early as possible, England has made pro- 
 vision not only for unbroken connection with her colonies by 
 direct cables, but has, in fact, all continents webbed with a 
 perfect net of telegraphs and cables. In this respect England 
 has been so successful, that by far the greater portion of the 
 many millions of cable messages annually transmitted must first 
 pass through Englands hands. 
 
 What this means to England becomes evident, when we 
 investigate our modern news service. 
 
 News is, as we all know, often of great value, especially to 
 statesmen, bankers, speculators, and naerchants. Frequently 
 it is of decisive influence upon great enterprises and upon the 
 future of corporations and even nations. For this reason news 
 is traded like any other article of exchangeable value. But to 
 gather news from all the different parts of the world is so 
 
— 63 — 
 
 difficult and expensive, that no newspaper could afford to 
 collect it single-handed. To simplify and to reduce the cost 
 of this process, news agencies have been esablished in many 
 countries. These agencies collect the news in certain districts 
 and forward it by telegraph or cable to London and Paris, the 
 principle news markets. London has several news agencies, 
 among them the famous "Reuter Telegraph Company," which, 
 established in 1 849, has correspondents in almost all parts 
 of the world. Such agencies forward incoming news not only 
 to the British Government, but also to financiers and to all 
 papers which pay an annual subscription for the service. Of 
 course all newspapers desiring to publish the latest news as 
 soon as possible must of necessity avail themselves of this 
 service. Since only a few of the American dailies maintain 
 offices and correspondents in Europe, European news must be 
 secured by them from the great London agencies. 
 
 The Coloring of the News. 
 
 Now, nobody should assume that these news agencies always 
 use straight forward methods in transmitting the various in- 
 coming dispatches to their subscribers. On the contrary. 
 Every incoming telegram is first submitted to the chief manager 
 who decides as to whether, or as to the form in which it may 
 be forwarded to the various newspapers. If the contents of 
 the message are hostile to English interests, the dispatch is 
 either suppressed entirely or often so altered that, when 
 appearing in print, it is really a falsification of the original. 
 Whenever England has differences with other powers, all news 
 forwarded by the London agencies invariably champions the 
 British side of the controversy. Every telegram is colored 
 to suit England's interest, and this explains why, in the case 
 of the Anglo-Venezuelan boundary-dispute, the European 
 press was unable to arrive at an impartial point of view as our 
 American press is handicapped to-day in obtaining correct 
 information with regard to the true causes and events of the 
 great European war. 
 
 Whenever England has a chance to profit directly or in- 
 directly from foreign quarrels, the London agencies make it 
 their business to disseminate everywhere — though particularly 
 in those countries whose inhabitants have a limited education 
 and are inclined to believe everything they see in print — 
 alleged reports, interviews and events, which may strain rela- 
 tions and destroy an amicable settlement. The ingenuity with 
 which fabrications of this kind are prepared usually insure 
 success. British unscrupulousness in the choice of these means 
 
— 64 — 
 
 has become proverbial, and "Perfidious Albion" is a character- 
 istic synonym for England, which originating in France, was 
 readily accepted by the rest of the world. 
 
 But never before have English news agencies developed 
 such intense activity as we are witnessing since the beginning 
 of the present crisis. The most transparent falsehoods and 
 libels have been invented to incite the whole world against 
 Germany and Austria. England, fully aware that this time she 
 runs greater risks than ever before, that her existence is at 
 stake, makes gigantic efforts to crush Germany, her most 
 powerful rival in commerce, for all times. 
 
 In order to attain this end, and relying on the fact that most 
 nations in time forget their own history and their own 
 experiences with British treachery, England has for a number 
 of years strived to enlist for herself the aid of all other coun- 
 tries and to rob, at the same time Germany of the sympathies 
 of all friends she might have had. 
 
 The Poisoning of the News. 
 
 To accomplish this the English statesmen and their obedient 
 servants, the managers of the news bureaus, the editors and 
 editorial writers of numerous newspapers have made it their 
 mission, to prejudice public opinion of all the world against 
 everything German by polluting the news concerning Germany 
 and her affairs. These methods have been for years often so 
 base as to make it necessary for the Germans at home as well 
 as for those living in other countries, to protest energetically 
 against such vilification. 
 
 To illustrate the manner in which this poisoning is done, I 
 give the following facts: When, in 1909, McClure's Magazine 
 published a number of articles treating of the strained relations 
 between England and Germany (including my essay, "Modern 
 Germany — An Object Lesson"), I thought it my duty to in- 
 form Mr. S. S. McClure, at that time editor of that magazine, 
 that several assertions made by H. R. Chamberlain, the London 
 correspondent of the New York Sun, in his article entitled "The 
 Ominous Hush in Europe," and published in McClures, were 
 malicious falsehoods invented for the purpose of making Ger- 
 many appear to be waiting for a favorable moment "to make 
 a sudden invasion of England, a dash to London, and the levy- 
 ing of a war indemnity twice as heavy as that which France 
 paid in 1 870." 
 
 I denied not only the truth of this assertion, but also of the 
 statement that on all German Men of -War a * 'silent toast" 
 was drunk after each meal with only the words "To the Dayl" 
 
— 65 — 
 
 This fairy story which had previously made the round of 
 the British magazines and papers, was repeated by Mr. Cham- 
 berlain, who, in an effort to make it appear more likely, added 
 the following words: "An English chaplain told me that this 
 toast was drunk even in his presence when he happened to be 
 a visitor on a German cruiser a few weeks ago. The Senior 
 Officer at the ward-room table raised his glass with the words: 
 'To the Day!', and all present stood and drank silently and 
 solemnly. When my friend asked his host what it meant he 
 received the frank reply 'OI We always drink on German war- 
 ships to the day when war shall be declared between England 
 and Germany.' " 
 
 At the time when Chamberlain's article appeared, he 
 happened to be in New York, Mr. McClure therefore asked 
 me if I would repeat my criticism in Mr. Chamberlain's 
 presence, and I answered in the affirmative. Mr. McClure now 
 arranged for a meeting and I succeeded in drawing from Mr. 
 Chamberlain the confession that he did not personally hear 
 the story of the "silent toast" from the "English chaplain," 
 but from a friend of that gentleman, and that he (Chamber- 
 lain) repeated it in good faith. 
 
 As I was anxious that Mr. McClure should remain friendly 
 to Germany, and, further, to convince him of the merit of my 
 criticism, I arranged an interview between him and Grand 
 Admiral von Koester who happened just then to be in New 
 York as the Kaiser's representative at the Hudson-Fulton 
 Celebration. 
 
 In the course of this interview the Grand Admiral em- 
 phatically assured Mr. McClure that a "silent toast," such as 
 described by Mr. Chamberlain had never been proposed on 
 any German warship, and that, therefore, the personality of 
 the "English chaplain," Mr. Chamberlain's chief witness, must 
 have been a phantom. 
 
 In giving the details of this special case I was actuated by the 
 possibility of exposing one of the numerous fabrications which 
 in endless variety, are doled out to the public by English jour- 
 nalists and by such papers as are open to British influence or 
 become, as in this case, unknowingly the victims of such false- 
 hoods. 
 
 Since the outbreak of the present war, this poisoning of the 
 world's press has reached an unbelievable extent. Especially 
 in neutral countries, and above all, in the United States. As 
 the latter concerns us particularly, let us see, how England 
 goes about it. 
 
 To counterbalance and fight foreign influence and to further 
 
— 66 — 
 
 her own interests, England not only supports newspapers in 
 New York and other cities of the United States, but also a con- 
 siderable number of journalists. All who are familiar with 
 our American press know that on the staff of many newspapers 
 and magaines there are editors and editorial writers of English, 
 Scotch or Canadian birth and education. Very few of these 
 are citizens of the United States. Even larger in proportion 
 is the number of native English correspondents in England and 
 on the European continent, who provide our American papers 
 with European news. Now, if we bear in mind that our large 
 American papers owe by far the greatest part of their foreign 
 items to the London agencies, and that this news is retailed by 
 them to the country papers, we see that the whole American 
 public reads only such foreign news as has been prepared for 
 them by Englishmen, Scotch or Canadians. This circumstance 
 explains the exceedingly bitter anti-German attitude of almost 
 all American papers printed in English, an attitude, which 
 many thousands of Americans, who know Germany, her con- 
 ditions and inhabitants from their own journeys, were utterly 
 unable to comprehend. 
 
 The situation grew worse when the British, on August 
 5 th, cut the only German cable that connected Germany with 
 the United States directly. As, at the same time the wireless 
 station in Sayville was put under the censorship of the United 
 States, which proved "neutral pro-British," Germany was 
 robbed of all means of defending herself. So her good name 
 was slurred with the evil-smelling fluid, the Giant Octopus in 
 incredible quantities ejected from its ink-sac. 
 
 The poison came in form of cablegrams and wireless 
 messages, in letters, in contributions to newspapers and 
 magazines, and there was system in these scurrilous attacks. 
 
 The Octopus did not waste its black liquid, but directed it 
 toward such points, where it would do the greatest harm and 
 hurt most. 
 
 The chief aim of these calumnies was to fix the responsibility 
 for the present war with Germany in general, and with the 
 Kaiser in particular, who was decried as the "War-Lord," the 
 personification of imperialistic war lust and of autocratic mega- 
 lomania by the grace of God. 
 
 Similar slanders were squirted against the German people, 
 and the German army, and, most vehemently, against German 
 "Militarism," the damnable root of all evil. This calumny, 
 originated in London, found its echo in all countries, where 
 British money had prepared for such contemptible warfare. 
 
The German Emperor, Lord of War 
 or Prince of Peace? 
 
 When the war broke out and surprised humanity asked itself 
 the question: "Who started it?" the British Government, to 
 cloak its guilt in this greatest of all crimes in history, at 
 once singled out the most conspicuous personality in Europe, 
 the German Emperor, notwithstanding the fact that he had 
 despatched telegram after telegram to the Tsar, as well as to 
 the King of England, urging them to avoid a calamity, which 
 would involve the world. 
 
 Those, who study these documents and the telegram Prince 
 Henry of Prussia sent to the King of England on July 30th, 
 1914, must be convinced, that the Emperor, as Prince Henry 
 had stated, was "trying his utmost to work for the maintenance 
 of peace." 
 
 But all efforts were in vain, as the English, French, Belgian 
 and Russian conspirators had made up their mind, to have 
 war. 
 
 As, however, a scape-goat was needed, the Emperor was 
 singled out for this role, because he was the common enemy, 
 and the very person, upon whom the dreadful responsibility 
 might be placed for causing the war. 
 
 Had he, since his ascent to the throne, not been spoken of 
 as "the War Lord," of whose impulse everything might be 
 expected ? 
 
 The orders, once given, put the whole machinery of the 
 English Press in motion. Cunning writers, in pay of the 
 Government and in the service of the London News Agencies 
 went to work, to assail the Emperor. He was promptly pro- 
 nounced mad, and charged with the Napoleonic ambition of 
 bringing all Europe, nay, the whole world, to his feet. 
 
 The Emperor assailed. 
 
 To illustrate the manner, in which the Emperor wets treated 
 by these venal scribblers, we give here some of the many epi- 
 thets, that were flung at this highest representative of the 
 German nation: "The Maniac Emperor;" "The Monumental 
 Murderer;" "That Menace of Mankind;" "Over Lord of 
 
— 68 — 
 
 Europe;** * 'Colossal Blunderer;'* "The Meddler of Potsdam;" 
 "The General Nuisance;" "Nosey Willie;" "The Wild Man of 
 Europe;" "The Imperial Lunatic;" "The Mad Mullah of 
 Europe;" "The Modem Nero;** "The Mad Boar of Prussia;'* 
 "The Arch Criminal of His Race;" "The Modern Attila;" etc. 
 And to show, how the British Press ignored everything the 
 Emperor had done for his country and Europe, we select a 
 few editorials of magazines and papers that pretend to voice 
 the serious minded people of the United Kingdom. 
 
 The "English Review" of October had the following article 
 of its editor on"The Kaiser's Failures." 
 
 "More twaddle has been written about the Kaiser than of 
 any sovereign since Napoleon. No man living ever had greater 
 opportunities, finer material to etch upon, greater freedom and 
 greater responsibilities. With the smallest amount of political 
 and wordly astuteness he could have placated France, made 
 friends with England until his navy was really able to sail out 
 into the open and meet us and very likely have created the 
 larger Germany. That he failed is due simply to his inherent 
 littleness and to his overpowering vanity. In realty he is the 
 creature of his age — the age of advertisement, false values, 
 press sensation, talk and shallowness. Everything he touched 
 he vulgarized. He has turned Berlin into a sink of debauch- 
 ery and plastered the city over with crude and vulgar statuary. 
 The only thing he gave to German manhood is the imperial 
 moustache and "Kaiser Champagne." He has prostituted the 
 sects of German learning into school rooms of imperial 
 blather, unfocussed the whole lens of public sanity and useful- 
 ness, stifled and held down all that was great and good in the 
 German conscience. Under his shadow not a noble German 
 thought has been borne, not a great man has appeared. Like 
 a mastodonic Actor-Manager, he has poured out this banal 
 messages upon the stage of an astonished Europe and at a 
 newspaper "par" wherever he looked. That the Germans 
 took him seriously will assuredly be one of the mysteries of 
 civilization; that he took himself serious is Germany's undoing. 
 As he swept away in his vainglorious reign all the old German 
 virtues, so he has gone on stumbling from one blunder to an- 
 other, the Cockatoo War Lord of Europe. And now the neme- 
 sis that overtakes finally all evil-doers awaits him. Not till 
 he is struck down will the error and falsity that he has set up 
 be removed and the great German people return to their 
 senses.** 
 
 The London "Times" published an article, penned by Fre- 
 derick Harrison, from which we quote the following sentences: 
 
— 69 — 
 
 "Be it understood that when the allies have finally crushed 
 this monstrous brood, the Kaiser — if indeed he choose to sur- 
 vive — shall be submitted to the degradation inflicted on poor 
 
 Dreyfus. In presence of all allied troops, let his blood-stained 
 sword be broken on his craven back and the uniform and 
 orders of which he is so childishly proud be stamped in the 
 mire. And if he lives through it, St. Helena or the Devil's 
 Island, might be his prison and his grave." 
 
 Strange to say, the most savage attacks on the unfortunate 
 Emperor were made however by some ministers of the Gospel. 
 
 The "British Weekly" of October 8, had, for instance, an 
 article by Rev. Principal Alexander Whyte, D. D., LL. D., on 
 "A Case of Kaiserism in Israel with some of its lessons to our- 
 selves" based on 1 Chron. XXII, in which occur erpressions 
 like these: 
 
 "The present German Emperor is David over again, in his 
 high seat and in his impious and insolent and murderous mad- 
 ness for war. Satan possessed man who now sits on the throne 
 of Germany. German Kaiser* s satanic contempt of Belgium, 
 and his satanic scorn of France and his satanic envy and hatred 
 of England. Our devil-tempted Kaiser." 
 
 Such gross insults, by which the perpetrators really degraded 
 themselves, awakened echoes in all other English speaking 
 countries, especially in the United States of America, where 
 another advocate of Christian Love, Rev. Dr. Charles 
 H. Parkhurst of New York, furnished the New York "Times" 
 with the following fierce tirade: 
 
 "When a mad dog runs amuck, the policeman shoots him on 
 the spot — not by way of revenge, but as a humanitarian contri- 
 bution to the security of the public. Now, has a more rabid 
 creature than Emperor William ever run amuck through the 
 peaceful and prosperous domain of Europe? The policeman 
 makes no argument with the dog and enters into no com- 
 promise with him, but deals with him in exclusive regard to the 
 requirements of society, and simply blots him out as a public 
 menace." 
 
 The Emperor hailed as a Prince of Peace. 
 
 In strange contrast to such vicious outbursts of men, of 
 whom probably no one ever saw the Emperor or studied his 
 life work stand the sentences of men, who either came per- 
 sonally or officially in contact with him. 
 
 When in 1913 the German nation celebrated the 25 th 
 anniversary of the ascendance of the Emperor to the throne, 
 the same N. Y. Times, that held it for opportune to open her 
 
— 70 — 
 
 columns to the vulgarities of Rev. Parkhurst, devoted in its 
 Sunday edition of June 8, 1 9 1 3 to the Emperor a whole page, 
 in which he is^'Hailed as Chief Peacemaker." 
 
 And a sub-title says: "Men of Mark in and out of His Do- 
 minions Write Exclusively for the New York Times. Their 
 High Opinion of His Work in Behalf of Peace and Progress." 
 
 The first of these enthusiastic contributors is former Pre- 
 sident of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who during 
 his term, exchanged many letters with the Kaiser, and, later on, 
 was for some time his guest. He writes: 
 
 "The one man outside this country from whom I obtained 
 help in bringing about the Peace of Portsmouth was his Majesty 
 William II. From no other nation did I receive any assistance, 
 but the Emperor personally, and through his Ambassador in 
 St. Petersburg, was of real aid in helping induce Russia to face 
 the accomplished fact and come to an agreement with Japan — 
 an agreement the justice of which to both sides was conclusively 
 shown by the fact that neither side was satisfied with it. 
 
 This was a real help to the cause of international peace, a 
 contribution that far outweighed any amout of mere talk about 
 it in the abstract, for in this as in all other matters an ounce 
 of performance is worth a ton of promise." 
 
 Another of the contributors was former President of the 
 United States, Wm. H. Taft. 
 
 "The proof of the pudding is in the eating. When the 
 German Emperor went upon the throne and developed his 
 independence of Bismarck, and his intention to exercise his 
 own will in the discharge of his high functions, there were 
 many prophecies, that this meant a disturbance of the peace of 
 Europe. Instead of that, the truth of history requires the ver- 
 dict, that, considering the critically important part which has 
 been his among the nations, he has been, for the last quarter 
 of a century, the greatest single individual force in the prac- 
 tical maintenance of peace in the world." 
 
 From the Duke of Argyll, Brother-in-law of King Edward 
 VII., came the following lines: 
 
 "The German Emperor's life has been worthy of his father 
 and of his mother, and no higher praise can be rendered in 
 grateful acknowledgment of a great career — great with the 
 abounding blessings of peace through steadfast striving for 
 strength, and duty done for his people and his justice to his 
 neighbors. 
 
 His mother's nation was enthusiastic, loyal to his ideals, and 
 ever able to make honesty of purpose unite with poetic and 
 artistic temperament. Her clear mind and wide discernment 
 
— 71 — 
 
 enabled her to place all matters in their true perspective. Her 
 son inherited her gifts, with his father's truth and gallant stead- 
 fastness. 
 
 This generation of Germans have good reasons to be proud 
 and to love their patriotic Emperor." 
 
 Sir Gilbert Parker, Member of the British Parliament 
 expressed his admiration thus: 
 
 "The highest praise that I can offer concerning the Emperor 
 William II. is that he would have made as good a King of 
 England as our history has provided, and as good a President 
 of the United States as any since George Washington. 
 
 It was said of the Emperor William that he was medieval 
 in his war spirit, but he has proved himself to be a modern 
 keeper of the peace. He was declared to be reckless, and the 
 worst that can be said of him after twenty-five years is that 
 he is impulsive. The world has never been hard upon men of 
 impulse who are at the same time reckless and selfish, and 
 the Emperor William is neither of these. 
 
 When he became Emperor Germany — and Prussia partic- 
 ularly — ^was rigid, narrow, and pedantic in all too many re- 
 spects. Under his enlightened, tolerant, and broad-minded 
 guidance she has become resilient, absorptive and almost im- 
 pulsive adaptable. 
 
 The world owes the Emperor William a debt of gratitude. 
 He might have found cause to reap advantage from European 
 embroilment of his own making, but he has proved himself 
 among the most civilized internationally patriotic of rulers." 
 
 And Lord Blyth added to this: 
 
 "The quarter of a century during which the Emperor has 
 held the reigns of power with the whole-hearted will of the 
 great German people has happily been peaceful for them, and, 
 as far as Europe is concerned, peaceful for us. The simple fact 
 of peace having been maintained during his reign of twenty- 
 five years speaks for itself." 
 
 In concluding I quote Professor Dr. John W. Burgess, who 
 as Roosevelt Professor in Berlin had frequently been with the 
 Emperor. In the beautiful article "The German Emperor," 
 written in October 1914 for the N. Y. Times, he says: "In 
 spite of this terrible war, the responsibility for which is by so 
 many erroneously laid at his door, I firmly believe him to be a 
 man of peace. I am absolutely sure that he has entered upon 
 this war only under the firm conviction that Great Britain, 
 France, and Russia have conspired to destroy Germany as a 
 world power, and that he is simply defending, as he said in his 
 memorable speech to the Reichstag, the place which God had 
 
— 72 — 
 
 given the Germans to dwell on. I firmly believe that there 
 is no soul in this wide world upon whom the burden and grief 
 of this great catastrophe so heavily rests as upon the German 
 Emperor. 
 
 I have heard him declare with the greatest earnestness and 
 solemnity that he considered war a dire calamity; that Ger- 
 many would never during his reign wage an offensive war, and 
 that he hoped God would spare him from the necessity of ever 
 having to conduct a defensive war. For years he has been 
 conscious that British diplomacy was seeking to isolate and 
 crush Germany by an alliance of Latin, Slav, and Mongol under 
 British direction, and he sought in every way to avert it. He 
 visited England himself frequently. He sent his Ministers of 
 State over to cultivate the acquaintance and friendship of the 
 British Ministers, but rarely would the British King go himself 
 to Germany or send his Ministers to return these visits. More 
 than once have I heard him say that he was most earnestly 
 desirous of close friendship between Germany, Great Britain, 
 and the United States, and had done, was doing, and would 
 continue to do, all in, his power to promote it, but that while 
 the Americans were cordially meeting Germany half way, the 
 British were cold, suspicious, and repellent." 
 
 The Emperor himself has never failed to assert his earnest 
 resolution to maintain peace. 
 
 In 1905, opening the Kiel Canal, he declared "the eyes of 
 the whole world are lifted questioningly towards us. They sue 
 for peace; only in peace can the world be developed, in peace 
 only can it prosper. We desire to maintain peace, and will 
 do so.** 
 
 And ten years later, on March 22, 1 905, he said in Bremen: 
 "When I was called to my office, I solemnly took the oath, that, 
 so far as I was concerned, after the glorious days of my grand- 
 father, bayonets and canons should rest, but ought to be kept 
 sharp and efficient, so that no foreign envy and greed should 
 disturb us in the work of finishing our Garden and our beauti- 
 ful Home. Believing in the lessons of history, I resolved never 
 to aspire for an empty worlds empire. For what became of 
 all these so called worlds empires? Alexander the Great, 
 Napoleon, and all the other famous heroes, that waded 
 through blood, left after them conquered nations, who at the 
 first favorable moment revolted and made the empire decay. 
 The world empire, of which I dream, shall consist for all in a 
 German Empire, which might enjoy from all sides the absolute 
 confidence as an honest and peaceful neighbor, and that, if his- 
 tory should speak of a German World's Empire or that of the 
 
— 73 — 
 
 Hohenzollern, this empire should not be said to have been 
 founded upon conquest through the sword, but upon the 
 mutual confidence of the nations, striving for the same goal.** 
 
 And if you now ask, what the German nation, which of all 
 the nations is most concerned in the person of the Emperor, 
 thinks of him, I wish to state here the following: Having been 
 in constant contact with the German people, having lectured 
 during the last thirty years in almost every city of Germany, 
 I am able to say, that the much slandered Emperor and his 
 nation are in perfect harmony, and that he occupies in the 
 hearts of his people a much higher place than any English king 
 ever held among his countrymen. This devotion is shown by 
 the fact, that the peace loving German nation at his call like 
 one man in a wonderful enthusiasm marched into this dread- 
 ful war, and that millions of young men volunteered for service 
 who were legally exempt from it. They are not only willing to 
 defend their fatherland against hostile invasions, but to stand 
 also for their emperor in whom they have full confidence. 
 
 "Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht" ("World's History 
 is the World's Judgment.") We firmly believe, that though 
 the Emperor is compelled to conduct the most murderous war 
 in history, he will be remembered not as a grim "War Lord,'* 
 but as an Emperor of Peace. 
 
German atrocities — "made in 
 England." 
 
 Andrew D. White, the President emeritus of Cornell Uni- 
 versity and for a number of years American ambassador to 
 Germany, made in a Fourth of July oration in 1 889 the follow- 
 ing remarks about Germany: "We may well recognize in Ger- 
 many another mother country, one with which our own land 
 should remain in warmest alliance. For, from the universities 
 and institutions for advanced learning in Germany, far more 
 than from those of any other land, have come and are coming 
 the influences which have shaped and are shaping advanced 
 education in the United States." 
 
 Knowing Andrew D. White personally and from his works, I 
 am convinced that the views expressed in the above lines were 
 his true opinion, based on a thorough knowledge of facts, inas- 
 much as he, like Ticknor, Everett, Bancroft, Longfellow and 
 many other famous Americans had studied at German univer- 
 sities and lived there for many years. Since that time hundreds 
 of thousands of Anxericans have followed their example and 
 returned to the United States with similar beliefs and like ex- 
 pressions of thanks toward the land, that had given them 
 hospitality as well as intellectual wealth. 
 
 Now these same scholars and all the many millions of other 
 Americans who loved to travel in Germany, have been fed 
 with newspapers, which try to make them believe, that begin- 
 ning with August 1 , 1914 the German nation turned suddenly 
 to Huns, who treated unoffending American tourists and their 
 wives as spies in barbarous manner, stripped them publicly, 
 searched them and exposed them to unbearable indignities. 
 
 During the months of August and September there was not 
 one British and pro-British American paper, whose columns 
 did not overflow with accounts of Gernxan atrocities. 
 
 None of them proved true. They all turned out to be in- 
 ventions of obscure scribblers in the pay of British news agen- 
 cies, or of hysterical Germanophobes, desirous of taking part in 
 the defamation of the German nation. Indeed, when the many 
 American tourists, who, like the Germans themselves had been 
 surprised by the outbreak of the war, returned to the United 
 
— 75 — 
 
 States, they contradicted these stories vehemently and made 
 known instead their expression of gratitude for the fine treat- 
 ment they had received at the hands of the German nation in 
 the initial days of the war drama. 
 
 One of the most significant testimonials of this kind is an 
 open letter, written on September 2]8t on board the steamer 
 Nieuw Amsterdam, and addressed to the President of the 
 United States. It reads as follows: 
 
 Sir: — We, the undersigned citizens of the United States 
 of America, returning from Germany and believing from 
 cables, letters and newspapers received by us, that there is 
 in America a widespread opinion that Americans have been 
 accorded ill-treatment in Germany, beg leave to present to 
 the President of the United States the following statement: 
 
 **We have no desire to discuss the causes leading to the 
 present European war, its aspect as this time or its possible 
 result. We wish only to state that, from the beginning of the 
 war, we who have been in Germany during July, August and 
 a part of September, have been accorded every courtesy and 
 every care. 
 
 **The experiences of the generosity shown by individual 
 Germans are legion, and will be related wherever the recip- 
 ients and their friends go; but to the German Government 
 itself great credit and thanks are due. Even before the 
 arrival of the Relief Committee from America the German 
 authorities had taken prompt steps to secure the comfort 
 of their Am,erican guests. At a time when all the railway 
 facilities were required by the army, special trains were 
 run to carry Americans to Holland. American automobilists 
 were accorded the same privileges as the Germans and 
 suffered far less than did the natives from the national over- 
 zealousness of the local guards. During the days when inter- 
 national finances were unsettled, certain bankers and muni- 
 cipal governments made it possible for many Americans to 
 draw on letters of credit. 
 
 "When England's declaration of war tended to render 
 people suspicious of those who spoke English, the news- 
 papers systematically urged everyone to be kind to Ameri- 
 cans; and the police of the various cities were most scrupulous 
 to give their full rights to all who could establish their Ame- 
 rican citizenship. In truth the attitude of all Germany, 
 throughout this whole situation, has been one of serious con- 
 sideration for the safety and comfort of all the strangers 
 y^ithin her gates. 
 
— 76 — 
 
 "We desire that this statement may be taken as it is in- 
 tended, a simple token of appreciation for a people who, 
 with all their difficulties, have kept sane and have accorded 
 to Americans protection and hospitality. 
 
 "We, the undersigned, make this statement relying on, the 
 fairness and justice of the American people." 
 The above letter to President Wilson was signed by 787 
 citizens of the United States from 36 States. 
 
 Similar letters of thanks and appreciation have appeared by 
 thousands of American and even English tourists, among them 
 Mrs. Benj. Harrison, widow of the late President of the United 
 States, Lady Acton, Madame Adelina Patti, Mrs. Frank Os- 
 born, Regent of the Daughters of American Revolution, and 
 others. 
 
 The last named lady took the opportunity to express her 
 admiration and gratefulness toward the German nation in a 
 wonderful speech, delivered in a meeting of "The American 
 women of German descent," held in New York. 
 
 In regard to Madame Patti, who was in Carlsbad at that 
 time, it was reported, she had a particularly unpleasant time. 
 Fortunately she happened to see the story and promptly issued 
 a denial, even going further and stating she received every 
 courtesy at the hands of the German officials. 
 
 To illustrate the manner, in which English fiction writers 
 made the German nation their victims, we relate a story Vance 
 Thompson gave the readers of his paper as a product from his 
 fertile brain. It appeared under the glaring head-line: 
 The Kissing of the Sword. 
 In his story the author tells, that the ladies of the upper four 
 hundred of Munich were assembled at a five-o'clock tea in 
 one of the fashionable hotels of that city. Suddenly there 
 appeared the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria amidst these 
 fairies, with his sabre newly sharpened and his loins girt for 
 war. His wife ran up to him, kissed the sword and shouted: 
 "Bring it back to me, covered with blood — that I may kiss it 
 again." All other ladies present followed the example of the 
 Crown Princess and kissed the sword. 
 
 That this act never happened and that the whole story was 
 nothing but a fake, is demonstrated by the fact, that the wife 
 of Crown Prince Rupprecht had departed this life in October 
 1912. 
 
 The most infamous lies, invented by hirelings and fiction 
 writers of the British Government and News Agencies, have 
 been and are still directed against the German army, of whose 
 
— 77 — 
 
 high moral standard and noble traditions the German nation 
 is justly proud. Thousands of American tourists have seen 
 them marching to war and many are their enthusiastic 
 descriptions of the wonderful discipline and splendid behavior, 
 by which these soldiers were distinguished. 
 
 British papers, however, have described these same soldiers 
 as bloodthirsty Huns wiping their muddy boots on costly Go- 
 belin tapestry, and committing the most abominable atrocities. 
 
 In huge type there appeared head-lines like these: 
 
 GERMANS BURN VILLAGES; WOMAN AND CHILDREN 
 
 ARE SHOT. 
 
 In the body of the article it was asserted that German 
 soldiers had saturated mattresses with oil, lighted them and 
 thrown them into cellars, where women and children had 
 sought refuge. Then they shot those that fled. 
 
 The brutal slander of German soldiers was made on the 
 authority of the Special War Correspondent of the London 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 
 On September 3rd, American papers reprinted the following 
 dispatch from Harold Ashton, special correspondent of the 
 London Daily News. 
 
 MANY LOST WHEN WHITE FLAG IS 
 IGNORED TO BURN FOREST 
 
 St. Quentin is raging with battle. Heavy firing 
 began there on Saturday, continued yesterday, and 
 was recommenced at dawn this (Monday) morning, 
 in a dense wood between St. Quentin and La Fere. 
 A number of people had taken refuge — peaceful 
 peasantry for the most part — when the wood was 
 raided by German cavalry. Though the white flag 
 was hoisted, not the slightest notice was taken. The 
 wood was in the way of the advance and the way 
 must be cleared. The undergrowth was dry as 
 tinder. The way to clear the screen was obvious 
 enough. The order was given to fire it. 
 
 This was done, and in a few moments the wood 
 was one huge, raging fury of flames, roaring madly. 
 
 I asked a priest on Red Cross Work who had 
 struggled through from this desperate neighborhood 
 what happened to the people there. 
 
 "The good God alone knows," said he. "Ah I the 
 horror of it!" and tears rolled in torrents down his 
 honest face. 
 
— 78 — 
 
 To make the Germans appear as real Huns, stories like the 
 following were sent broadcast over Europe and to all other 
 continents : 
 
 FRENCH CHARGE EIGHTY-THREE CAPTIVES 
 WITH ROBBING THE DEAD. 
 
 PARIS, Aug. 2 1 . — Eighty-three German priso- 
 ners, accused of robbing the dead on the field of 
 battle, arrived to-day at Clermont Ferrand, capital 
 of the Department of Puy-de-Dome, where the police 
 had great difficulty in restraining the population 
 from attacking them. 
 
 When arrested near Miihlhausen, many jewels, 
 several wedding rings and large amounts of money 
 were found on the Germans. It is alleged that these 
 valuables were stolen from the bodies of officers 
 and soldiers. It is charged also that the men wore 
 Red Cross insignia while they did this. 
 
 The German prisoners will appear before a court- 
 martial to be held by the Thirteenth Army Corps. 
 They were transported to Clermont Ferrand, hand- 
 cuffed in fours, on several trucks, bearing the im- 
 perial eagle. 
 
 Were we to believe the English papers, German soldiers, 
 while marching through Belgium, made a specialty of cutting 
 off the hands of boys, girls and Red Cross nurses. 
 
 On September 25 th, many American papers printed the 
 report that Captain W. J. Roberts of the American liner "New 
 York," just arrived from England, had made a statement to 
 the effect that his daughter, at his home in Liverpool, sheltered 
 a pretty Belgian girl, six years of age, who had been mutilated 
 by German soldiers. **I cannot understand," the Captain is 
 quoted to have said, "how any man could commit such a bar- 
 barous act upon an innocent child." 
 
 About this "German atrocity" the New York Times receiv- 
 ed, on Sptember 26, the following special cable from her 
 correspondent: "Mrs. Roberts, wife of Captain W. J. Roberts, 
 totally denies the story that a little Belgian girl whose hands 
 had been cut off by German soldiers, is being cared for at her 
 home." 
 
 This repudiation, however, did not hinder the New York 
 Times, to give on October 7, space to the following dispatch, 
 which apparently originated from the same sources. 
 
— 79 — 
 
 BOSTON. Oct. 6. — Dr. H. P. Hodgkinson, surgeon of the 
 Cimarder Laconia, which arrived here to-day, declared that 
 he saw two small Belgian, children in Liverpool whose hands 
 had been cut off above the wrists by German soldiers. The 
 children, he said, were at the home of his sister in Liverpool, 
 where they and their mother were being looked after. 
 
 The children were brought to Liverpool last week, he said. 
 Their mother said that German soldiers, on their way to Ant- 
 werp, stopped the children as they were peissing through a 
 field. An officer, drawing his sword with the remark that he 
 "would fix them so that in the future they would not be able 
 to shoot German soldiers, "cutt off their hands above the wrists. 
 
 Their mother found them in time to have them taken before 
 a surgeon who helped them reach England. There they were 
 taken with their mother to the home of Dr. Hodgkinson's 
 sister. 
 
 The most shocking * 'German Atrocity'' invented by an English 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 Another story of alleged atrocities by German soldiers was 
 heralded from London on September 1 6th. The dispatch 
 gave an account of the horrible death of Miss Grace Hume, 
 of Dumfries, a young English woman in the service of the Red 
 Cross. It was told, that while this young girl was on duty 
 in a field hospital at Vilvorde, near Brussels, the hospital was 
 attacked by German soldiers, who burned the hospital to the 
 ground. Out of 1517 wounded men and 23 nurses only 149 
 men and 1 9 nurses escaped, all others were killed or burned. 
 Besides other brutalities, committed by the soldiers, it was 
 asserted that they abused Miss Hume, finally slashing off her 
 breasts. Before her death, the unfortunate girl still had the 
 strength to write a brief farewell message to her sister in Dum- 
 fries. 
 
 This letter was published in facsimile in the Dumfries 
 Standard. The story therefore appeared to be particularly 
 well authenticated and was reprinted by a great number of 
 British papers, and sent broadcast over the world, to show what 
 the German Huns were able to do. But when some British 
 newspapers investigated in order to work up a sensation, it was 
 brought out, that Miss Grace Hume had never left England, 
 but was safe and sound in Huddersfield. It turned out, that 
 the letter, said to have been written by her before her death, 
 together with some other letters pretended to have been written 
 by Belgian priests and nuns, to corroborate the former, were 
 forgeries, penned by her sister Kate, a schoolteacher, who by 
 
— 80 — 
 
 reading the countless atrocity stories, had been incited to 
 hysterical hatred. 
 
 This unfortunate victim of a corrupt press was brought to 
 court and sentenced for forgery to imprisonment for three 
 months. The judgment, however, was not put into effect, but 
 the defendant released on promise of good behavior. Yet the 
 papers, that had bestowed so much pains to spread the story 
 the world over, did nothing, to retract the awful charge, 
 heaped upon the German soldiers. 
 
 Other atrocity yearns were run down by Mr. Geo. F. Porter 
 of Chicago, a member of the American Red Cross. While in 
 London, he heard many stories of alleged cruelties committed 
 by German soldiers. After investigating these stories, he 
 reported to the headquarters of the Red Cross in Washington, 
 D. C. His letter arrived there on September 26, and read as 
 follows: 
 
 "Atrocities are enormously exaggerated. Tuesday night 
 I was told by an American woman of forty Belgian Red Cross 
 nurses in a London private hospital each with the thumb and 
 first two fingers of each hand cut off. Of course, I wanted to 
 get at the bottom of this for you. With considerable difficulty 
 I obtained the name of the supposed private hospital in Ham- 
 mersmith, went there, and found it a private house belonging 
 to a woman, who was much interested in relief work, and had 
 given her house for nursing, preparing garments, &c. She 
 would not see me, but I finally got an admission from a re- 
 sponsible person whom I knew that the whole story was hear- 
 say and with no foundation. 
 
 "They did tell me, however, of a Belgian nurse at St. 
 Thomas's Hospital here with the tendons of her wrist cut. I 
 went there immediately, saw the Secretary of the hospital, and 
 found there was a nurse there, but that instead of the tendons 
 of her wrists being cut she had burned her wrists badly by the 
 explosion of a spirit lamp on which she was making tea. Here 
 was a typical example of the way stories are fabricated out of 
 nothing. Responsible English people are disturbed over the 
 effect these reported atrocities may have in America." 
 
 Of course, there was also no historical building nor magni- 
 ficent cathedral, nor precious works of art sacred to the "Ger- 
 men barbarians," whose victories were not the result of high 
 strategy, but of overwhelming numerical strength. That the 
 Germans were accused of stealing followed as a matter of 
 course. As is well known, even the Crown Prince Frederick 
 Wilhelm, the son of the Emperor, has been branded a thief. 
 
— 61 — 
 
 who pocketed jewels, vases, gold-cups and other valuables 
 in French Chateaux. 
 
 Of course, the Generals of the German army also did not 
 escape slander. They have been pictured to the English 
 readers as drunken incompetent monsters, several of whom— 
 like General Emmich, the conqueror of Liege, and General 
 von Kluck, commander of the eastern wing of the German 
 army in France — have been reported again and again as com- 
 mitting suicide, when their incapability was found out by the 
 Emperor. 
 
 To the great distress of the British, all these generals are 
 still in command. And to increase the discomfort of the 
 British fiction writers, there appeared several articles by Ame- 
 rican correspondents, in which these men solemnly declared 
 that, having spent several weeks with the German army in 
 Belgium and passing through many towns and villages, they 
 were unable to detect a single instance of atrocity. 
 
 Five Knights of Truth. 
 
 The most remarkable of these testimonials in favor of the 
 German army was a "round robin letter," written by Roger 
 Lewis, war correspondent of the Associated Press; Erwin S. 
 Cobb of the Saturday Evening Post and Philadelphia Ledger; 
 Harry Hansen of the Chicago Daily News; James O'Donnell 
 Bennett and John T. McCutcheon of the Chicago Tribune. 
 This letter, that appeared in the above named American 
 papers September 1 7th, is too important not to be quoted 
 partly: 
 
 "AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, Germany, Sept. 2. — The solemn 
 truth. I never sat down to write with greater conviction than I 
 purpose writing now. I never sat down to write with a more 
 sincere belief that I could say something that ought to be 
 known. To-day I had my share in the composition of a round 
 robin on the so-called "German atrocities." 
 
 That round robin has been, the signers of it hope, started 
 on its way to you by Marconi wireless, via the African coast 
 and so over the seas of the Far East into America. There is 
 no other way by which we can be sure our communication will 
 reach you. 
 
 Germany's direct cable communication with the United 
 States is cut. We also cabled our round robin to you out of 
 Holland, via London, but whether the English censors will let 
 that communication pass we gravely doubt. If such a thing as 
 the vaunted "English sense of fair play" still survives in panic 
 
— 82 — 
 
 stricken London, the censor will allow our despatch to go 
 through. 
 
 The Marconi via Africa is likewise uncertain, but for differ- 
 ent reasons. In trusting ourselves to the Marconi we are con- 
 tending with the baffling ebb and flow of mysterious currents 
 in the ether; in trusting ourselves to the English military censor- 
 ship we are at the mercy of radical hatreds that seem at times 
 to mount to dementia. 
 
 But the mails out of Holland to America we believe we can 
 trust and we have some solemri truth to tell in detail now. 
 
 The round robin was a bare statement in which we expressed 
 our earnest belief — a belief based on days of personal obser- 
 vations in the theatre of war — that the reports of barbarities 
 alleged to have been perpetrated by German troops on an 
 inoffensive Belgian countryside are shocking falsehoods. 
 
 We believe this as firmly as we believe that we are now safe 
 in the ancient city of Aix-la-Chapelle after more than a week 
 of wandering over that very countryside sometimes in the rear 
 of and sometimes alongside German columns. 
 
 We have travelled on foot, on bicycles, by horse and cart 
 and by train more than 1 00 miles. We have passed through 
 twenty towns and villages. We have moved from Brussels on 
 the north, to Beaumont on the south, and to Aix-la-Chapelle 
 on the east. 
 
 We have been within 1 00 feet of the Belgian-French border 
 on the south and we have crossed the Belgian-German border 
 on the east. We have shared the food and wine and the straw 
 beds of German soldiery. We have sung songs with them in the 
 post of the rear guard at night and we have talked with scores 
 of Belgian peasants, men and women, across whose fields and 
 through whose villages the German host has passed. Of Ger- 
 man soldiers we must have seen at least 500,000 with our own 
 eyes. 
 
 And amid all we have heard and all that we have seen in 
 ten tumultuous wearying days, we have neither heard of a 
 single "atrocity" that our investigations verified, nor seen a 
 single atrocity perpetrated. 
 
 The rigors and the shocking waste of war we have seen. 
 We have seen burning villages and women weeping over their 
 desolated homes. We have seen miles of highway strewn 
 with the caps, coats, bloody shoes, bloody bandages, smashed 
 rifles, empty knapsacks, band instruments, field glasses and 
 wine bottles of the retreating French. 
 
 We have seen new made English graves in the lonely fields 
 over which the evening mist hung like a pale shroud. 
 
— 83 — 
 
 We have beheld the wreck and the grime and the squalor 
 of war 8 passing, but we have been spared the sight of outraged 
 women and tortured children. 
 
 Why is this? 
 
 We firmly believe that it is because no such atrocities have 
 been committed by the German soldiery . 
 
 And yet, safe in Aix-la-Chapelle, safe though still under the 
 surveillance of German military authorities — ^who, like all 
 Europe, are "spy mad" — safe and well and bathed and shaven 
 at last, we open bundles of London newspapers in the quiet 
 offices of the American Consul Thompson, and we read column 
 after column of the most harrowing and dreadful accounts of 
 most infamous barbarities inflicted upon the Belgian peasantry 
 by German troops. 
 
 We are aghast as we read. We turn to the Consul and say: 
 "What does this mean? How is it that we have seen nothing of 
 this? He looks gravely back at us and says: "I have been 
 reading those things for days before you came.** 
 
 The American Consul has lived seven years in Germany 
 and he has carried on special studies concerning the volume, 
 the nature and the effect of German immigration into America 
 from the beginning of that immigration in Colonial times to the 
 present day. The defining of the contributions of German 
 blood and German culture to the life of the republic is a field 
 of investigation in which he has made himself an authority. 
 Few Americans know the German people half as well as he 
 does. He likes them and trusts them. 
 
 His observation, of the present war has not extended into 
 the field, but he is no less baffled by the frantic reports from 
 London than we are, whose scouting has taken us to scenes 
 of actual operations. 
 
 He is, and from the nature of his position must be, officially 
 non-committal. To us he only nods his head and says: **I 
 can't understand it.** 
 
 The most terrible outrage any of us has seen was seen by 
 Cobb. With his own appreciative eyes he saw a laughing 
 German soldier who was crossing a street in Louvain lean for- 
 ward and imprint a kiss on the cheek of a Belgian girl who was 
 bantering him. The girl promptly slapped his face. The soldier 
 laughed the louder. The girl began to laugh too. The incident 
 was closed. Cobb said it was as quaint and merry a scene in 
 homely life as ever he saw. That was week before last. 
 
 Always on our march the facts relative to the German 
 "atrocities** evaded us. Always it was in "the next village*' 
 that a woman had been outraged, a child butchered, or an 
 
— 84 — 
 
 innocent old man tortured. Arriving at that "next village,** 
 we could get no confirmation from the inhabitants. 
 
 "No," they would say "it did not happen here; but we heard 
 that it was in the next village, messieurs." 
 
 But the next village would develop naught authentically — 
 only wild stories, rumors, hearsay. At Solre-sur-Sambre, all 
 around which there had been fighting on Sunday and Monday, 
 the 23rd and the 24th of August, the burgomaster said to us 
 in the late afternoon of Wednesday, the 26th: "As reports 
 come in from surrounding towns I am unable to verify these 
 rumors of cruelties perpetrated against unarmed civilians and 
 I give no credence to them." 
 
 1 think there is not a man in our party who did not come to 
 the Continent from London in a pro-English state of mind, if 
 not in an anti-German state of mind. For days before our 
 departure we, too, had been fed on London newspapers. 
 
 We have read the famous "mad dog" editorials day by day 
 and the tales of atrocities alleged to have been committed 
 around Liege. We believed that so far as Germany was con- 
 cerned this was emphatically the Empereor's war and not the 
 empire's war. An American magazine writer named Arno 
 Dosch, who is of German extraction, also shared our views. 
 
 Slowly, not impetuously nor sentimentally, we found these 
 views moderating. For four days we observed the temperance, 
 good nature, tact and strict discipline of the hundreds of thou- 
 sands of German soldiers who were passing through Brussels. 
 Many detachments of them were halted there for hours. Hun- 
 dreds of soldiers moved freely about the streets. In four days 
 we did not hear a cross word exchanged between inhabitants 
 and soldiers nor did we see one boisterous or insulting act. 
 
 The fact is that within four hours after the first detachment 
 of German troops had come swinging down the steep boule- 
 vard Du Jardin Botanique the Brussellians were not precisely 
 fraternizing with the Germans but quietly and comfortably 
 chatting with them in the streets. 
 
 On many doorways as we passed along we saw chalked in 
 German script the words "Good people," or "Very good 
 people" — words written there by advance guards who had 
 gone ahead of the main body to select quarters for officers, 
 men and horses. 
 
 "Good people" meant that the advance guard had been 
 received with civility. "Very good people" meant that they 
 had met with helpfulness in making their arrangements. On 
 one house which stared blankly out of a village street from 
 broken windows there was written in German script these 
 
— 85 — 
 
 words: "This house has been unjustly attacked; go easy now." 
 
 I am not defending the Germans. I owe them nothing, 
 except what any man owes another who treats him with de- 
 cency. I expect nothing from the Germans. 
 
 The truth is that all of us correspondents have a right to 
 feel a little resentful toward the German authorities, both 
 military and civil. They have balked our work at every turn. 
 They have delayed and inconvenienced us and they have had 
 us under guard during three days and under surveillance during 
 four days. Always they have been polite about it, but that has 
 not mitigated the distracting delays we have had to endure in 
 forwarding our news to our papers. 
 
 Truth, however, remains truth, and in the matter of these 
 alleged atrocities we feel there have been shocking falsehoods. 
 I give my most solemn word as to the truth of what I have 
 written. 
 
 We have seen no atrocities. 
 
 We can get proof of none. 
 
 We do know, on the contrary, that German officers have 
 fraternized with English officers they have taken prisoners and 
 have parted with these words, "A dinner at the Carlton, old' 
 fellow, when we meet at London in happier times." 
 
 Once more I say there has been the inevitable and shocking 
 waste and misery of war in this Belgian campaign, but to find 
 the fiendishness of it, as that fiendishness is charged against 
 the German troops, a man will have to travel further and ob- 
 serve more sharply than five intelligent, zealous American 
 correspondents have travelled and observed." — 
 
 The effect of this and similar testimonials in favor of the 
 German army was, that the atrocity stories, which had worked 
 for a long time, disappeared from American papers, especially, 
 when it came know^n, that an American Press Association had 
 cabled its representative in London: 
 ''Stop sending atrocity stories. Nobody here believes them." 
 
 And, on January 2 7th the State Department at Washington, 
 D. C., received from the American ambassador in London a 
 lengthy report, from which it appears, that the British Govern- 
 ment by inquiring of many thousands of Belgian fugitives had 
 made great efforts, to verify stories of German atrocities, but 
 had failed completely, as none of these Belgians had seen such 
 committed or could furnish proof of any. 
 
German Militarism or British Navalism, 
 which is the World's Menace ? 
 
 Numerous British and many American papers under pro- 
 British management pretend to distinguish two entirely dif- 
 ferent Germanys: "a Germany with the mailed fist," which 
 they despise, and "a Germany of high culture," which they 
 admire. 
 
 The "New York Evening Post** characterized these two 
 Germany's in the following eloquent editorial: 
 
 "Never have we upheld the Germany of the mailed fist, or 
 the autocracy of militarism; against its claims, its excesses, its 
 encroachments upon civil rights, its assertion that it constitutes 
 a sacrosanct cast superior to any other, we have protested in 
 season and out of season. We have long seen in this swash- 
 buckling, overbearing attitude of the railitarists, and particu- 
 larly in the activities of such body as the German Navy League 
 — we are cursed with one of our own — a grave menace to the 
 peace of Europe; and it has now brought the very worst to 
 pass that the human imagination can conceive. 
 
 It is another Germany which we have been proud to recog- 
 nize and acclaim — this Germany of high aspirations and noble 
 ideals, the Germany of intellectual freedom, the Germany to 
 whose spiritual leadership every nation the world over is deep- 
 ly in debt. Its flag has meant to us the flag of scientific 
 knowledge planted farthest north in more fields of mental and 
 governmental activity than is perhaps any other. It is the 
 country of Fichte, Kant and Hegel, of Schiller and Goethe, of 
 Koerner and his fellow champions of German liberty in the 
 wars for freedom just a century ago ; of Carl Schurz and Siegel 
 and Kinkel and their revolutionary comrades of 1 848, of Schu- 
 bert, Schumann and Wagner, of Lessing, of Mommsen, of 
 Helmholtz and Siemens. Against this Germany, the war into 
 which it has been so reckless plunged, is nothing short of a 
 crime. Whether victory or national disaster come out of it 
 all, the intellectual and spiritual growth of the nation is 
 checked for no one knows how long. 
 
 For ourselves we can only say that to us the one conso- 
 lation in it all is that, if humanity is not to retrogade unspeak- 
 
— 87 — 
 
 ably, absolutism must pay for this denial of Christianity. In 
 place of the kingdoms there must arise the republics of Europe; 
 out of the ashes must come a new Germany, in which pure 
 democracy shall rule, in which no one man and no group of 
 professional man-killers shall have the power to turn the whole 
 world into mourning." 
 
 All this sounds very beautiful. It indicates that the whole 
 British and pro-British world would be immensily pleased, if 
 the Germans might be only good enough to stick to their true 
 mission and confine themselves on writing books on poetry, 
 philosophy and kindred subjects. For a recreation they might 
 perhaps start sometimes a little revolution like that of 1 848, 
 in order that the German princes might be kept on the moving 
 and the people enjoy some change. 
 
 But unfortunately a nation of more than 65,000,000 indi- 
 viduals, crowded on a territory much smaller than Texas, and 
 increasing at the rate of a million every year, can hardly live 
 nowadays by writing poems and squandering its time with 
 pounding out philosophical theories. Especially not, when 
 nature provided the children of the Fatherland with just as 
 efficient stomachs as the youngsters of England and America 
 have. Like all other human beings, the Germans claim also 
 the right to strive for life, liberty and the pursuits of happi- 
 ness, in other words "for some place in the sunshine.'* 
 
 To keep themselves from starvation, the Germans must, 
 like other nations, be industrious, inventive and engage in 
 trade and commerce. And, as the struggle for existence will 
 never end, they are also compelled to protect themselves and 
 their commerce from enemies. That they do this in such an 
 efficient way, is, however, in the eyes of their hypocritical 
 opponents^ an unpardonable sin. In order to brand it as such 
 and to deceive the world about the real causes for the present 
 war, Sir Edward Grey made "militarism" the great watchword 
 and battlecry of the Allies. 
 
 He sounded it first in an open letter to his constituents in 
 Berwick, in which he said: 
 
 "It is the German Militarism, which we must crush! All 
 Western Europe would fall under this curse, if in this present 
 war Germany would be successful. If, on the other hand, 
 the independence and integrity of all smaller European States 
 are secured by our arms, and the German people itself freed 
 from that militarism — for it is not the German people, but 
 Prussian militarism, which has driven Germany and Europe 
 into war — if that militarism can be overcome, then indeed 
 
— 88 — 
 
 there will be a brighter, freer day for Europe which will com- 
 pensate us for the awful sacrifices which war entails." 
 
 This watchword was indorsed by the whole British nation. 
 King George repeated it on September 18th in Parliament; it 
 was forwarded by the Lord High Chancellor Viscount Hal- 
 dane, who said that the German, nation had been prostituted 
 to military uses, and that this war must end that spirit of mili- 
 tarism. 
 
 While these gentlemen, in accordance with the dignity of 
 their office kept, in condeming German militarism, with some 
 reserve, the editors of the London papers began to foam and 
 spout like that furious geyser in our National Yellowstone 
 Park, known as "Devils Half Acre." Hear, what the Pall 
 Mall Gazette said in her edition of September 19th: 
 
 "We are fighting to destroy the power of the War Lord for- 
 ever and to insure that no other War Lord shall arise in his 
 place and inherit his megalomaniac visions. The military 
 power of Germany must be not only defeated, but pulverized. 
 There must be nothing left of it to form even a nucleus of an- 
 other pirate empire." 
 
 The same day the "Globe" spoke thus: "If we are to get rid 
 of the peculiar German system which has hung like a nightmare 
 over Europe, we must finish the empire on which that system 
 is based. To hint that we would be content with anything less 
 is to betray the cause for which we now are making such a 
 supreme sacrifice. In order to save not only this country, but 
 all Europe, it is necessary that Germany should be both 
 crushed and humiliated." 
 
 All other London papers were pitched in the same key. 
 And when the wires and cables flashed these vicious words 
 all over the world, they incited whole armies of editorial 
 writers, professors and ministers of the gospel to like flaming 
 condemnations of the German Militarism, "that terrible im- 
 moral institution," which they know only from hearsay, and 
 of whose nature and significance they had not the slightest 
 idea. 
 
 Now, to demonstrate the perfidiousness of Sir Edward 
 Grey, let us see, what German "militarism" really is. 
 
 That army and navy in Germany are regarded purely as 
 defensive institutions has been explained by the German 
 authorities often enough. On March 29, 1 909, Chancellor 
 von Buelow declared emphatically, in the Reichstag, that Ger- 
 many had no aggressive tendencies nor the intention to com- 
 pete as a naval power with Great Britain. But as, up to that 
 time, there had been presented no basis, practicable and just 
 
— 89 — 
 
 to all nations, for negotiations on the limitation of armament, 
 the Empire knew no better way than to follow the advice of 
 George Washington, who said in his political testament: **If 
 you will secure peace, prepare for war." 
 
 Emperor William himself made on September 11,1 909, at a 
 gala dinner in Karlsruhe, a significant speech, in which he said : 
 *'So long as there are human beings, so long will exist enemies 
 and hostile tendencies, against which we must protect our- 
 selves. There will be always wars and threatening situations. 
 We must be prepared for everything. My army stands ready 
 to defend the honor of our country and to secure its peace. It 
 bears its armor for nobody's joy and for nobody's harm." 
 
 What constitutes "Militarism" is explained in an article, 
 published in the "U. S. Army and Navy Journal" of October 
 1 3th 1914. As it is written by an expert, I give this valuable 
 article, for the better enlightment of Sir Edward Grey, Profes- 
 sor Eliot, President emeritus of Harvard University, and all 
 their confreres in full. 
 
 "The persistence with which there is flung across the oceans 
 the assertion that the Allies will not agree to peace till "Ger- 
 man militarism is wiped out" has so systematic an aspect that 
 it would seem that some people are determined to make mi- 
 litarism the scapegoat of this war. Hence it is the part of 
 present and future wisdom to analyze the term "German mili- 
 tarism" to ascertain exactly what is meant by it, for our efforts 
 for the last forty years to awaken the American people to the 
 need of an adequate army and navy has been met with the 
 parrot-like cry of "militarism." By "German militarism" there 
 must be meant something entirely different from every other 
 kind of militarism, for the accredited intention of the Allies 
 has nothing to do with French or British or Russian militarism, 
 and if they found their own door yard encumbered they cer- 
 tainly would not go abroad with brooms. 
 
 What Militarism Means. 
 
 By German militarism, then, we take it, is meant a plant of 
 a peculiar baleful influence upon civilization, a plant that 
 grows only on German soil, and unless exterminated threatens 
 to blight the whole world. It is gratifying in a measure to 
 have the term militarism against which the present wrath is 
 directed qualified with the word German, for too long before 
 has it been applied to any attempt to give a country proper 
 military defenses. It has been applied to the preparations 
 which little Switzerland has taken for the development of an 
 
— 90 — 
 
 army, and even the modern statesmen of China who have 
 sought to arouse that country from her torpor by giving to 
 her people that stimulus and sense of solidarity that come 
 from the possession of a military establishment have had the 
 word militarism thrown at them. But the present war has 
 resulted in a differentiation. There is militarism and militar- 
 ism. The special brand which needs the immediate appli- 
 cation of an extinguisher is the German brand. The inference 
 is not unwarranted, therefore, that those who hope to purify 
 the world by getting rid of German militarism see in it ele- 
 ments which the military establishments of other big continen- 
 tal nations do not possess. We have kept a fairly close watch 
 of the development of the military systems of Europe in the last 
 fifty years, and we confess to an utter inability to find any- 
 thing in "German militarism" which differs radically from the 
 military establishments of other countries. The two funda- 
 mentals of present-day "German militarism" are universal 
 military service for all citizens of the German Empire and com- 
 plete readiness. But compulsory military service is not con- 
 fined to Germany. It obtains in France, Austria, Italy and 
 Russia. In fact, of the large European Powers Great Britain 
 alone has no compulsory service law. 
 
 France More "Military" Than Germany. 
 
 It is not, then, in compulsory service that "German mili- 
 tarism" differs from the other "militarisms" of Europe. It may 
 be said that Germany's military establishment exacts more of 
 the country in the way of annual drafts from the ranks of its 
 young men than any other of the nations of the Continent, 
 but study of the military strength of Germany and France dis- 
 closes the fact that with a population nearly twenty-five mil- 
 lions less the actual war strength of the two countries is prac- 
 tically the same. We base this statement as to practical equal- 
 ity of numbers on the admissions made in the work published 
 a few months ago from the pen of Lieut. Col. W. von Bremen, 
 of the German army, which was recently extensively reviewed 
 in our columns. The title of this work is "The German Army 
 After its Reorganization." On page 6 of this volume the 
 German officer-author says: "After the autumn of 1914 we 
 shall be able to dispose, in time of peace, of 735,000 men with- 
 out counting officers. France after the autumn of 1913 has 
 been able to dispose of 749,000 men. As to the war effec- 
 tives one can make only estimates, but in doing so one arrives 
 at the conclusion that France, after making the proper deduc- 
 
— 91 — 
 
 tions for fortress garrisons, will be able to put into the field an 
 army of 2,750,000 men. It is possible that we can put as many 
 into the field, but not more at the present moment." 
 
 If with a far smaller population France is able to put into the 
 field a trained army as great as that of Germany, it must be 
 plain that French "militarism** is drawing more heavily on 
 the men of that country than the German system is drawing 
 on the men of Germany. Comparatively, then, if the main- 
 tenance of large forces is a drain upon a country, as is claimed, 
 France suffers more from her militarism than does Germany. 
 The point is thus firmly established that "German militarism** 
 does not demand extraordinary sacrifices from the people of 
 the Empire, that the sacrifices are greater in France. Two 
 things have now been cleared up : ( 1 ) That Germany is not 
 peculiar in having compulsory service; (2) that her military 
 system does not draw upon her resources as heavily in propor- 
 tion to population as other systems draw upon her neighbors. 
 
 Germany Should Be Praised, Not Blamed. 
 
 There is left, then, only the last supposition, namely, that 
 "German militarism*' is condemnable because of its extreme 
 readiness. As Gen. McCoskry Butt wrote from Europe the 
 other day, Germany was ready, the other countries were not. 
 But this is a feature of her military system for which Germany 
 should be praised, not blamed, for what is an army worth if 
 it is not ready when the call comes? The more nearly ready 
 it is, the more nearly it appproaches those standards of value 
 and efficiency for which all great commanders have striven 
 through all the ages. Instead, therefore, of "German militarism** 
 being something that should be "wiped out,** it is something 
 that should be imitated closely by other nations, not excepting 
 our own United States. By being as ready as it proved itself 
 to be at the outbreak of the present hostilities Germany has 
 got more out of its army for the expense involved in main- 
 taining it than perhaps any other nation, and in this respect is 
 a shining example to her neighbors. 
 
 Further proof that it cannot be the compulsory military 
 service obtaining in Germany that merits this general "wiping 
 out'* of which we hear so much just now is furnished by the 
 attitude of Field Marshal Lord Roberts and other distinguished 
 British Soldiers toward compulsory service. Lord Roberts was 
 so gravely impressed by the military unpreparedness of Great 
 Britain that a few years ago he organized a league the purpose 
 of which was to carry on a propaganda in favor of compulsory 
 
— 91 — 
 
 service. The agitation he began has resulted in dividing the mi- 
 litary sentiment of the British Empire into large camps, one 
 favoring the present voluntary system and the other advocat- 
 ing the idea of Lord Roberts, which are practically the ideas 
 obtaining in Germany. Here right in England itself one finds 
 that the German system has the support of no less an authority 
 than Lord Roberts. Perhaps Lord Roberts is not now to be 
 counted among those who want to see ''German militarism 
 wiped out." Rather, we are inclined to believe, would he see 
 it transplanted in its leading phases to his own country and 
 there replace what he has so often denounced as inadequate, 
 the present voluntary system of recruiting the British army. 
 
 England's Militarism. 
 
 We have referred only to "German militarism" on land, 
 for we do not believe that its enemies would desire to bring 
 in the question whether "militarism" also includes large sea 
 forces, for if they did they would find the British navy, which 
 has been overwhelmingly predominant on the seas for gene- 
 rations, condemned by the force of their own logic. If there 
 is such a thing as militarism on land, it is only fair to conclude 
 that there is a militarism of the sea as well. Yet we believe 
 that there would be a loud protest if an attempt were made 
 to indict Great Britain on the ground that her "naval militar- 
 ism" were something that should be utterly "wiped out." As a 
 matter of fact, however, the army of Germany is not so large 
 in proportion to the armies of her neighbors as the navy of 
 England is compared to the navies of other nations. It may be 
 urged that an overwhelming navy is essential to Great Britain 
 on account of her colonial possessions. Nobody will gainsay 
 that, nor should any one doubt that Germany may find in the 
 existence of two great enemies to the east and west of her an 
 equally good excuse for the excellent army which she has had 
 for more than half a century. 
 
 Thus an analysis of the thing called "German militarism" 
 discloses nothing that has in it any aspect or character of a 
 monster that is going about among the nations seeking whom 
 it may devour. On the contrary, it is found to contain ele- 
 ments of national strength that other nations would do well to 
 copy and that even England has been urged to adopt. We 
 believe that the explanation which we have here given of 
 "German militarism" is essential to the formation by Ameri- 
 cans of proper views as to the need of an adequate army. If 
 
— 93 — 
 
 we permit ourselves to be carried away by silly and unreason- 
 able attacks upon a "militarism" which exists only in the ima- 
 gination of a few dreamers, we are liable to miss one of the 
 most important lessons that this war has for the United States, 
 namely, the value of instant military preparedness." 
 
 German Efficiency Hated by the British. 
 
 In addition to the above splendid definition we quote Pro- 
 fessor Thomas C. Hall of New York, who, in a contribution 
 to the N. Y. Sun of January 1 7th 1915 said: "What men in 
 London dislike is not militarism, but German efficiency. Lord 
 Roberts was, and Lord Kitchener is, far more of a militarist 
 than Bernhardi ever aspired to be. Will England give up her 
 navy, and Russia and France their armies if Germany aban- 
 dons her "militarism?" Russia was bullying France into a 
 three years military system and France was insisting that Russia 
 raise her army to eight millions and rebuild her navy as a con- 
 dition of the "peaceful alliance." And England has had her 
 "two Power standard" for her navy. These are nice angels 
 of peace to talk piously of German militarism!" 
 
 A contrast of the manner in which England and Germany 
 obtained their colonies. 
 
 To convince our readers of the hypocricy of the British 
 "angel of peace," we recommend them to read over again 
 the first and second chapters of our book, which state, that in 
 all history no country has carried on so many wars for con- 
 quest and plunder, and has in obtaining her colonies commit- 
 ted so many cruel wrongs and inhuman acts as England. 
 
 On the other hand, by glancing again at chapter three, we 
 find that Germany, during the two thousand years of its exist- 
 ence, has been constantly compelled, to defend herself. Wars 
 for conquest are very few, and as far as the colonies are con- 
 cerned, which Germany has acquired since 1 884, it can be 
 stated, that they came into her possession by peaceful agree- 
 ments. In the Camerons, in Southwest- and East Africa, on 
 New Guinea and Marshall Islands German Trading Companies 
 had, by treaties with the native population, secured certain 
 rights and authorities which they involuntarily transfered to the 
 German Government later on. The two Islands Upolu and 
 Savai of the Samoa group were obtained through an agree- 
 ment with England and the United States. The Marian- and 
 
— 94 — ^ 
 
 Caroline Islands were bought from Spain ; while Kiautchou was 
 leased from China for a term of 99 years. 
 
 That England is out for plunder again in the present war, 
 is shown by the eagerness with which she set out to secure 
 German Togoland, the Camerons, German New Guinea and 
 Samoa. 
 
 England the originator of the world's naval armaments. 
 
 It was England, that by constantly increasing her gigantic 
 navy, by building dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts, 
 compelled all countries of both hemispheres to similar efforts, 
 if they would not renounce all importance on the seas and all 
 possibility of rejecting British insolence. 
 
 That infringements on the rights of other nations would in- 
 crease thousandfold, if England should become victorious in 
 the present struggle, must be assumed as a matter of fact. And 
 the warning, our American statesmen should take from this 
 book and the present experiences of Germany, is, that, if Ger- 
 many is defeated, our United States will be England's next 
 victim. 
 
 You Senators and members of the House of Representatives, 
 are you unable to read the lessons of history? Can you be 
 blind toward the fact, that it is England's goal to keep that 
 absolute mastery of the seas, for which she has fought for cen- 
 turies? Study the map and convince yourselves, that England 
 has secured possession of all points which control the seas and, 
 at the same time, make mercantile trade of other nations de- 
 pendent on English permission. 
 
 In his able paper "What England aims at" Dr. Dernburg, the 
 former Colonial Secretary of Germany, explains this situation 
 as follows: 
 
 **To-day, to commence at the north, the Baltic is bottled up 
 by the English command of the sounds. No Swedish, no 
 Finnish, no Russian, no Danish, and no German ship can to- 
 day go out without being stopped and searched. The same is 
 the case with the North Sea. It is locked in the north by the 
 British command of the Orkneys and Shetlands; locked in the 
 west by the British command of the Channel. No ship, either 
 German, or Belgian, or Dutch, or French, can to-day come out 
 of the North Sea without British permission. The Mediter- 
 ranean is controlled by the possession of Gibraltar, and of 
 Malta, and of Suez, and of Cyprus. No ship, neither Turkish, 
 nor Greek, nor Austrian, nor Italian, nor French, can get to 
 the high seas without British inspection and permission. 
 
— 95 — 
 
 British stations on the coast of Africa are equally numerous ; 
 the Gold Coast and Lagos and the Islands of Ascension and 
 St. Helena and the Cape on the west side; Durban and Zanzi- 
 bar and Port Sudan on the east side. The Red Sea is abso- 
 lutely closed by the British possession of the Island of Perim 
 and the rock fortress of Aden. In the Persian Gulf there is 
 Bushir and Koweit, two English strongholds. On the way to 
 China there is Ceylon and Singapore. On the coast of China 
 you have Hongkong and Shanghai, which is practically British, 
 and Wei-Hei-Wei. In the South Sea there is British New 
 Guinea and New Zealand and Fiji and the Tonga Islands. So 
 that practically in all these seas Great Britain can permit or 
 forbid oversea trade. 
 
 Any nation engaged in mercantile shipping must take these 
 things into account, but for the United States there is a very 
 special reason. The Panama Canal is a main asset of Ame- 
 rican oversea trade, and the activities of the pro-mercantile 
 navy people have mostly South America in view. Now, while 
 it is quite true that on the north there is the long land Cana- 
 dian frontier, that is in no way a danger to the United States, 
 there are also in the north a number of British coaling sta- 
 tions. They can and do control the entrance to American 
 harbors. There you have St. John and Halifax within easy 
 reach of New England. British cruisers are now constantly 
 patrolling the mouths of your harbors of New York or of Del- 
 aware. And then commences that marvelous chain of British 
 fortified coaling stations that block up absolutely the Gulf of 
 Mexico and the Panama Canal. It commences with the Ber- 
 mudas, just about opposite Charleston; the Bahamas, com- 
 manding the straits between Key West and Havana; Jamaica, 
 the entrance of the Carribbean Sea. And then you have Bar- 
 badoes, Trinidad, &c., that ships from the United States must 
 pass on their way to South America. And it is not much 
 better on the west side, where from the port of Vancouver the 
 whole American west coast is skirted." 
 
 Fortunately the United States has still some papers, that do 
 not lose sight of the meaning of this situation. There is for 
 instance the "Washington Post," which on December 19th 
 had an editorial under the heading: ''British Militarism on the 
 Sea — the Real Menace." 
 
 This article said: "Militarism on land is a hateful thing, to be 
 fought and destroyed if it takes all the nations of Europe to do 
 it. But militarism on the sea is an admirable thing, so long as 
 
— 96 — 
 
 it is British militarism. That is the British view which the world 
 is asked to accept. 
 
 But how can the United States be expected to rest at ease, 
 without increasing its navy, in the face of Great Britain's de- 
 termination to build such a gigantic navy? How can there be 
 any assurance of peace in the world while one nation plans to 
 dominate all the others in every sea? 
 
 Great Britain appeals for the sympathy of the world, and 
 especially for the sympathy of the United States, on the ground 
 that she is "fighting America's battle against militarism." Ger- 
 many is held up an ogre to frighten Americans. Germany's 
 great military machine is denounced as a menace to the world, 
 which must be destroyed before Europe or America can be 
 secure. 
 
 But what about British militarism? What about the mobile 
 military machine which England can move against our ports 
 and against the Panama Canal? Germany's army is not a 
 menace to the United States, because it cannot come to these 
 shores. But Britain's navy can come, and it can bring an 
 army with it." 
 
 There is no distinction to be made between German mili- 
 tarism and British militarism. The United States does not relish 
 being threatened by either kind of militarism. It will not con- 
 sent to the overlordship of Great Britain. The unctuous sug- 
 gestion that all nations should yield the seas to Great Britain — 
 that she will look after them — that her yoke is easy and her 
 intentions honorable — is not at all reassuring to Americans. 
 They do not want a yoke, even a British yoke." 
 
Does America need a third war for 
 independence ? 
 
 To obtain freedom from British oppression the thirteen 
 English colonies of America were compelled to wage against 
 selfish England two great wars, the one lasting from 1 775 to 
 1783, the other from 1812 to 1814. They are k/iown to 
 American history as *The First and Second War for Inde- 
 pendence." Both of them were successful insofar as the Ame- 
 rican people threw off the British yoke. This liberation, how- 
 ever, was only political. In all other respects the United 
 States has remained an English colony, and — in the 1 38 years 
 which elapsed since the establishment of the Union — Ameri- 
 cans have failed to cast off also the chains of intellectual de- 
 pendence upon England. 
 
 This fact has been exposed by Alexander Harvey in an 
 article written for the "Fatherland" of August 24th, 1914, and 
 disclosing the secret of American attitude toward Germany. 
 Mr. Harvey remarks: "Germans should never forget that the 
 United States has still to achieve its independence of Great 
 Britain. There is a popular impression, to be sure, that George 
 Washington and men about him threw off the British yoke as a 
 result of the surrender at Yorktown. But it is only technically 
 true that the British yoke was thrown off. We learn from the 
 pages of history that Frederick the Great was the first Europ- 
 ean sovereign to recognize the independence of the American 
 Republic. He was premature. The truth is that this British 
 yoke rests upon the American people more heavily than it 
 did when they threw the tea into Boston Harbor. To be sure, 
 they elect a chief magistrate whose father or whose grand- 
 father came from England. There is an official capital at 
 Washington. Nevertheless, the United States is ruled from 
 London. This sounds like paradox until we look below the 
 superficial aspect of the United States Government. Not until 
 then shall we discern the forces determining the life of the 
 American people. Those forces are British for the simple 
 reason that Americ€ms have their thinking done for them in 
 London on many a theme besides world politics long before 
 any idea haa entered their own provincial hc2wl».**— - 
 
— 98 — 
 
 To prove this statement, Mr. Harvey calls attention to the 
 fact that the ideals, precedents and traditions of the United 
 States are all English; that her laws are made by Congress, 
 but must be strained by the Federal Courts through the sieve 
 of British tradition; that American religion and American 
 customs are of English origin; and that all American people 
 look askance at liberties not coming from England. 
 
 In conclusion, Mr. Harvey says: "Americans, in short, live 
 in an atmosphere created for them by the British. The citizen 
 of the United States swims like a fish in the waters of his own 
 Anglicanism. Some fish must see only as distortions what- 
 ever is not in immediate relation to their environment. The 
 lens of the piscatorial eye adjusts itself only to the water in the 
 aquarium. What is beyond the glass front seems monstrous, 
 horrible. Hence, the panic into which certain species of fish 
 are precipitated by the aspect of a spectator. And the Ameri- 
 can fish looks at the German emperor through the medium of 
 British policy, catching the most distorted imagination on the 
 other side of the London glass." 
 
 The absolute truth of these assertions must be admitted by 
 all conversant with American life, politics, and history. How- 
 ever, the profound disgrace of the situation has never been 
 so msinifest as during the present European war. 
 
 President Wilson's Message on Neutrality. 
 
 Soon after this war broke out, on August 18th, President 
 Wilson sent to the people of the United States the following 
 message, the most important parts of which are given here in 
 heavier types: 
 
 "My Fellow-Countrymen: I suppose that every thoughtful 
 man in America has asked himself during these last troubled 
 weeks what influence the European war may exert upon the 
 United States, and I take the liberty of addressing a few words 
 to you in order to point out that it is entirely within our own 
 choice what its effects upon us will be and urge very earnestly 
 upon you the sort of speech and conduct which will best safe- 
 guard the nation against distress and disaster. 
 
 The effect of the war upon the United States will depend 
 upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who 
 really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of 
 neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness to all 
 concerned. The spirit of the nation in this critical matter will 
 be determined largely by what individuals and society and 
 those ^ather^ in public meetings do and say, upon what 
 
— 99 — 
 
 newspapers and magazines contain, upon what ministers utter 
 in their pulpits, and men proclaim as their opinions on the 
 street. 
 
 The people of the United States are drawn from many 
 nations and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural 
 and inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sym- 
 pathy and desire among them with regard to the issue and 
 circumstances of the conflict. Some will wish one nation, others 
 another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. 
 
 It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. 
 Those responsible for exciting it will assume a heavy respon- 
 sibility — responsibility for no less a thing than that the people 
 of the United States, whose love of their country and whose 
 loyalty to its government should unite them as Americans, all 
 bound in honor and affection to think first of her and her in- 
 terests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against 
 each other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion 
 if not in action. 
 
 Such divisions among us would be fatal to our peace of mind 
 and might seriously stand in the way of the proper performance 
 of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people 
 holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and 
 speak the counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a 
 partisan, but as a friend. 
 
 I venture, therefore, my fellow-countrymen, to speak a 
 solemn word of warning to you against the deepest, most 
 subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring 
 out of partisanship, out of passionately taking sides. The 
 United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name, during 
 these days that are to try men's souls. We must be impartial 
 in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our senti- 
 ments as well as upon every transaction that might be con- 
 strued as a preference of one party to the struggle before an- 
 other. 
 
 My thought is of America. 1 am speaking, 1 feel sure, the 
 earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful American that 
 this great country of ours, which is, of course, the first in our 
 thoughts and in our hearts, should show herself in this time 
 of peculiar trial a nation fit beyond others to exhibit the fine 
 poise of undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the 
 efficiency of dispassionate action; a nation that neither sits in 
 judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own councils, 
 and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and 
 disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world. 
 - Shall we not resolve to put upon ourselves the restraints 
 
— 100 — 
 
 which will bring to our people the happiness and the great 
 and lasting influence for peace we covet for them?*' 
 
 In order to impress the spirit of this message as strong as 
 possible on the nation, the President furthermore asked that 
 the fourth day of October should be spent in prayer and sup- 
 plication for a speedy termination of the bloodshed and woe. 
 
 If we now inquire about the effect of these recommend- 
 ations all true Americans must admit, that the result is dis- 
 heartening. The message was nothing but another "scrap of 
 paper** which remained unheeded and was forgotten soon 
 after it had been printed and read. Neither the government 
 nor the American Press, nor the ministers of the gospel, nor the 
 professors of our universities, nor the public kept the solemn 
 recommendations in mind, but all acted according to their own 
 interests and sympathies. 
 
 Our un-American American Press. 
 
 The first who forgot the grave responsibility they owe to 
 society as well as to the nation, were many of those papers, 
 that constitute our American Press. As through this medium 
 the strongest and deepest influence can be exerted on the 
 public, the exhortations of the President*s message were un- 
 doubtedly in the first line meant for our newspapers. But did 
 the editors of these papers keep in mind, that the people of the 
 United States is drawn from many nations, and that therefore 
 impartiality, fairness and friendliness to all concerned should 
 be strictly observed? On the contrary. As soon as the first 
 gun was fired in the great European war, numerous of those 
 papers, printed in English, displayed an exceedingly hostile 
 attitude toward everything German and began to work up a 
 strong anti-German sentiment. Instead of holding their 
 judgment in suspense until the full truth was known, they 
 branded the German nation and the German Emperor as the 
 great malefactors, guilty of the appalling conflagration now 
 raging, and upon whom the curse of all nations should fall. 
 
 In grave violation of the neutrality urged by the President, 
 they published Rudyard Kipling*s poem of the German 
 **Huns.** Without discretion and critical comment they pulished 
 also the meanest and most absurd stories of alleged Gernian 
 atrocities which the news agencies, hired scribblers and fiction 
 writers of the All-lies sent by cable or mail. 
 
 Every German reverse, real or imaginary, was published in 
 glaring headlines, in a manner so indelicate, that, as an Ame- 
 rican stated "it would be open to criticism even if we ourselves 
 
^ iOi -^ '■ ' 
 
 Were engaged in a war with Germsiny.*' On the contrary, re- 
 ports about German successes were belittled and placed in 
 corners of the papers, where they would hardly be 
 noticed. The editorials were of course wholly in keeping with 
 this anti-German and pro-Allied attitude. 
 
 To these verbal assaults on everything German, many 
 papers added drawings and cartoons of still more insulting 
 character. Under the heading * 'Running Amuck'* the German 
 Emperor was portrayed as the crazy War Lord, who "shoots 
 up the town.** Another cartoon showed him as he, with 
 blood-dripping sword, daughters the Goddess of Civilization. 
 One paper treated its readers with a picture of the Kaiser, as 
 he with the other rulers of Europe wades up to his breast into 
 a pool of blood, shouting to the Italian, who hesitates at the 
 shore: *'Come on in, the Blood is fine!** 
 
 The most horrid cartoon showed the Emperor in Hell. In 
 conception and execution this drawing was so repulsive, that 
 even the pro-British * 'Evening Sun** protested against it as an 
 outrage. 
 
 How the German Press of America felt about it, may be 
 seen from an editorial in the "New York Staatszeitung** of Oc- 
 tober 21st, in which it says: *'To publish such a cartoon is the 
 worst crime ever committed under the name of liberty of the 
 press. What an abbyss of brutal disposition! The Prince of 
 Hell could not go at work more satanic. After this performance 
 it is difficult to see, what more could be done to poison the 
 mind of the public, and what more will be done to set the 
 different parts of our population against another.** 
 
 When Mr. Jeremiah 0*Leary, President of the American 
 Truth Society, on January 1 2th gave his famous lecture on 
 "American Neutrality** in Carnegie Hall, producing a series of 
 lantern slides, showing the glaring headlines and cartoons of 
 our leading papers, these pictures, whose untruthfulness and 
 absurdity had become apparent with time, caused storms of 
 laughter among the large audience. But in the hearts of many 
 they caused deep depression, as they were proofs of the un- 
 deniable fact, to what evil work these papers had committed 
 themselves. 
 
 The un-American character of these papers becomes more 
 apparent also from the fact, that, when the absolute untruth 
 of the alleged German atrocities was admitted even by the 
 British Government, the editors found no word of excuse for 
 having fed their readers with hundreds and hundreds of lies. 
 Also, they did nothing to clear the honor of the German 
 nation and the German army from the calumnies they had 
 
--- _ 102 — 
 
 thrown upon them, and they were not fair enough to publish 
 the report sent on January 28th 1915 by the U. S. Ambassador 
 in London to the State Department, that the British Govern- 
 ment had been unable to verify one single case of German 
 atrocity, although it had examined thousands of Belgian fug- 
 itives. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to state, however, that not all English 
 papers did behave in such undignified manner. There were 
 many editors, who believed in a "Square Deal and Fair Play 
 for All" and refused to print the rotten stuff that like an evil- 
 smelling stream came into their offices. So did for instance the 
 "Pittsburg Leader,*' which, on September 1 6th made clear its 
 position in the following manner: 
 
 THE LEADER'S POSITION. 
 
 "Many stories of alleged atrocities committed by the Ger- 
 mans in the European war are being circulated in America. 
 
 "The Leader does not believe these stories to be true and 
 will not publish them. 
 
 "The manner of life of the many Germans in this commu- 
 nity gives the lie to any charge that the German people are 
 barbarous. America has no better citizens than those of Ger- 
 man birth. 
 
 "No race of people surpasses the Germans in humanity, 
 kindness of heart and consideration for those about them. It 
 is impossible that the charges sent out against them could be 
 true. 
 
 "The Leader believes that the stories of atrocities are base- 
 less, and are issued merely to influence American opinion 
 against the Germans. 
 
 "Before the Leader prints any such stories they will have 
 to be better authenticated than at present. 
 
 September 1 6th, 1914. Pittsburg Leader." 
 
 The evil effect of our pro-British papers on our nation. 
 
 The serious danger lurking for the American population in 
 the anti-German attitude of many American papers is well 
 illustrated by the sad example, set by Rev. Dr. Charles H. 
 Parkhurst of New York. Like Kate Hume, the English teacher 
 of Dumfries, who by the atrocity-stories of the British press 
 became incited to hysterical hatred, this minister of the gospel 
 also fell victim of a corrupt journalism and furnished it with 
 fierce tirades, in which he not only suggested to shoot the Ger- 
 man Emperor like a mad dog, but also made the following re- 
 commendation toward Germany: 
 
— 103 — 
 
 "It may not be necessary to strangle her, but her claws should 
 be clipped and her teeth filed, and enough of her fortifications 
 dismantled to render her harmless, and as heavy a war indem- 
 nity imposed as will not drive her to absolute penury. This 
 policy should be adopted in no spirit of revenge, but in persu- 
 ance of a policy essential to universal security, comfort, and 
 well-being. Anything less than this will necessitate the even- 
 tual repetition of the present tragedy.** 
 
 These ferocious utterances of a minister, whose office it 
 should be to impress upon humanity the spirit of friendliness 
 and brotherly love, were, sorry to say, not the only ones, that 
 disturbed and upset the mind and peace of our American 
 population. There were thousands and thousands of other 
 clergymen, professors, teachers, legislators and other promi- 
 nent persons, who, believing in the malicious stories of Ger- 
 man atrocities and in the dreadful danger of German militar- 
 ism, saw in their irritated minds the endless hordes of German 
 Huns already marching into this country and the ghost of Mili- 
 tarism hanging over all our hills and valleys. 
 
 Stirred by trembling fright and holy wrath they too joined 
 in the anti-German crusade and filled the hearts of their fellow- 
 citizens, who do not know Germany from personal experience, 
 with contempt and hatred for all things German. 
 
 Now, what sane and reasonable man could assume, that the 
 many million American citizens of German birth and German 
 descent, who are full of love for this country but venerate also 
 the old fatherland, would without the slightest opposition sub- 
 mit to the grave situation, created by a corrupt press and un- 
 reasonable men? When they keenly resent anti-German in- 
 sults and attacks, which sounder judgment must find unjust- 
 ifiable, when they arrange mass-meetings to inform their misin- 
 formed fellow-citizens about the true condition of their father- 
 land and the true cause, that led to this unholy war, these 
 "hyphenated" perform not only a duty to themselves and to 
 the land of their fathers, but at the same time, a far greater 
 one toward our own country, which they try to save from 
 tremendous dangers, into which the combination of British 
 Tories, a pro-British press, a wavering Government of pro- 
 British neutrality, irrational ministers and professors, and a 
 duped and incited population this country might throw. Who 
 can foresee what will happen, when the British Tories, who 
 are active in this country in far greater numbers than any 
 American may imagine, would, in alliance with our un-Anie- 
 rican press, succeed to seduce our government to join the Allies 
 and take active part in. this war? There are many sober- 
 
^ i04 — 
 
 minded Americans of other than German descent, who fear 
 that such a step would unchain all the furies of afc second civil 
 war. Is our relation to selfish Albion worth while^^io expose 
 our country, our homes and families to such a catastrophe? 
 
 One word more about the position of the American citizens 
 of German descent toward Germany, with which they are 
 connected by countless bonds and which they venerate and 
 love just as reverently as Anglo-Americans adore their 
 motherland. Proud of the beauty and culture of Germany, 
 proud of its history and high position among the great countries 
 of this world, they feel every injustice, done to it, as an insult 
 to themselves. In view of this fact it is only but natural, 
 that they protest against the calumniation of the land of their 
 birth and their fathers, against the slandering of the Emperor, 
 whom they respect as the highest and noblest representative 
 of the German nation; and against the detraction of the brave 
 German army, in whose ranks they know their own fathers, 
 brothers and friends are fighting in defense of their families 
 and the destiny of the nation. 
 
 And still another word to our un-American press. When 
 the American citizens of German descent to their great regret 
 perceive, that the editors of these papers do not command the 
 same amount of intelligence as the editors of the "Pittsburg 
 Leader** did in judging the German nation and its character, 
 is it not their duty to call the attention of these editors to the 
 fact that their statements are wrong and that they are blindly 
 led by the London New Agencies? The German- Americans 
 have never regarded this as a pleasant task, but have under- 
 taken it because they are convinced that, in doing it, they are 
 performing a duty to the country of their adpotion. 
 
 British Efforts to Embroil the United States in the Present War. 
 
 As it is England's tradition, to have her fighting done by 
 other nations, she made and is still making strong efforts, to 
 entice Uncle Sam to take, as an ally of the Allies, active part 
 in this dreadful war. To reach this aim, the British Govern- 
 ment employs the most brilliant authors of the United King- 
 doms, to impress upon Uncle Sam in solemn words, that he is 
 morally bound to fight Germany for the sake of his British 
 Motherland as well as for humanity and civilization. It is 
 quite interesting to see, how these British authors go to work 
 about it. 
 
 Listen to Hall Caine and his call ''Britain to America," 
 published in the "Nash*8 Pall Mall Gazette.** 
 
— 105 — 
 
 "It is a lie and a stupid lie promulgated by Germany, that 
 we are in this war for the sake of Servia. 
 
 It is a lie that England is in this war for the sake of France, 
 being compelled by secret obligations to support her against 
 Germany without regard to the justice of the quarrel. 
 
 It is a lie that England has gone into this war out of hatred 
 and envy of Germany's prosperity. 
 
 It is a lie and a brazen lie that Great Britain has entered 
 into this conflict because she is afraid of Germany's strength 
 and desires to smash it before it overwhelms her. 
 
 It is a lie and a preposterous and idiotic lie that England is in 
 this war because she hates and would like to destroy German 
 culture and throw in her lot with the ignorance and barbarity 
 of a nation farther East. We are fighting for the sanctity of 
 our pledged word — this and this alone. 
 
 This is a holy war, and that is the only kind of war that 
 ought to be waged. It is a war of Might against Right; of the 
 pagan deity of brute force against the Christian Gods of 
 Truth and Freedom; of authocracy against democracy; of the 
 overlords against the poor; of the military classes who eat but 
 never produce against the toiling classes who till the earth or 
 plough the sea. Germany is the aggressor in the name of 
 force; the Allies are the defenders in the name of civilization. 
 Where is America in this tremendous conflict ? 
 
 It may be forgiven to a friend of America, who loves it and 
 its people, and has long been under a deep debt to both, to 
 ask it if its neutrality is possible or right while humanity is 
 being outraged, while civilization is being trodden upon and 
 while religion is being defied?" 
 
 Another anonymous author penned for the "London Times** 
 of September 1 0th the following lines under the heading **The 
 Judgment of America." Like all other articles of this sort this 
 too was cabled to America, where it appeared in all pro-Bri- 
 tish papers. Its most important parts read as follows: 
 
 "We always counted on the support of American opinion 
 in the war that has been forced upon us. We counted upon it 
 so securely that we at first neglected means which perhaps, in 
 prudence, we should have taken to secure it. But we have got 
 it. We counted aright and daily, as the war develops the me- 
 thods of Prusso-German militarism, it rallies in growing 
 strength and volume to our side. We are grateful. We prize 
 above the approval of all other neutral nations that of our 
 own kinsman who share our ideals and who speak our 
 tongue. 
 
— 106 — 
 
 **It was upon that basis of common ideals and of common 
 feelings that we built our trust. We have not built in vain. 
 We knew that men bred under laws and institutions which they 
 have inherited from their fathers and from ours, or which they 
 have evolved and modified according to the principles that 
 joint inheritance consecrates and sanctions, could not differ 
 from us in their judgment of the main issues now at stake. 
 They are plain questions of right and of wrong, of good faith 
 and of perfidy, of the defence of the weak and innocent 
 against the tyrannous aggressor, of liberty, democracy and 
 elementary public right against the narrow and arrogant creed 
 of an exclusive and feudal militarism. We felt assured that 
 for a people nurtured in the traditions of British thought and 
 British law there could be but one answer to questions of the 
 kind. They had but to know the facts and we were certain 
 of their verdict. 
 
 "American opinion has gone straight to the deeper issues 
 of the war. It sees with Dr. Eliot that German militarism and 
 all which it implies are the root causes of the conflict. It sees 
 that this militaristic code is the direct negation of all civili- 
 zation, all progress and all morality as the world has hitherto 
 understood them. And it sees that only by their extermination 
 can the ideals and the principles which the democracy of the 
 United States, like the democracy of England, love and rever- 
 ence with their whole strength be preserved to them and to 
 mankind. 
 
 "By awakening the American people to that truth and to 
 their own immense moral interests in the result, the war has 
 aroused them for the first time in their history to the conscious- 
 ness that they cannot and ought not to feel indifferent to the 
 outcome of a great European contest. That, in the long run, 
 may be not the least important consequence of this tremendous 
 struggle." 
 
 The "New York Sun" gave to this article the heading: 
 "Britaun sure of Support of America." 
 
 The "Sun" also published several articles by Harold Begbie, 
 a British author, who — as the Sun proclaimed "was sent to sur- 
 vey the field of American thought, to tell the English people 
 what they can learn from America and how best they can earn 
 its friendship." That he, moreover, was commissioned to work 
 up the sentiment of the American people can be guessed from 
 almost every line of his clever articles. In one of them, which 
 appeared in the "Sun" of October 26th, says: 
 
 "At the outbreak of war American sympathy went out 
 n,aturally and freely to the allies, chiefly because of France, a 
 
— 107 — 
 
 nation for which America has an instinctive and historic 
 affection. For a moment this sympathy was staggered by the 
 isolation of Germany, and America's love of fair play led to a 
 transient reaction in favor of the assaulted German. 
 
 But with the rape of Belgium there was an instant and most 
 powerful swing in the other direction, and when Great Britain 
 declared war America, with the exception of the German ele- 
 ment, was immediately swept by an enthusiasm for the cause 
 of the allies which has never wavered, but which has become 
 much more rational and challenging as the war has advanced. 
 
 There is one other characteristic of American sympathy 
 which meets me everywhere I go, and that is horror, loathing, 
 detestation of war. One might think that so far away from 
 shattered towns, blackened battlefields, mephitic trenches and 
 hospitals crammed with scarred and mutilated humanity, Ame- 
 rica would view the conflict in Europe with a less vivid disgust 
 than a man would expect to find in France, Belgium and Eng- 
 land. 
 
 On the contrary, America is sick with horror. Wherever 
 I go men express with a vigor unknown in Europe loathing and 
 disgust for this incessant and agonizing destruction of human 
 life. They tell me frankly that war interferes with their com- 
 merce and spreads confusion over the whole face of American 
 social life; but it is only when they speak of the suffering and 
 death of war that their emotion colors and intensifies their 
 indignation. And it is because Germany is seen by America 
 to be the provoker of war that Americans are so decidedly 
 and earnestly on the side of the allies. 
 
 Some Americans I have met are for peace as soon as it 
 can be obtained; but most of them are convinced that there can 
 be no prospect of an enduring peace uptil the spirit of Prussian 
 militarism is crushed out of human affairs. 
 
 How long can the neutrality enjoined upon America by 
 President Wilson endure the strain of events? This is the 
 great question. I am one of those who cannot understand 
 American neutrality. I came to America wondering how a 
 country founded in freedom and inspired in all its splendid 
 attainments by faith in democracy could endure to hold its 
 peace while the Belgian people, old men and little children, 
 sank in blood beneath the iron wheels of a nation which for 
 forty-five years has openly and boastfully intoxicated itself 
 with the thick beer of truculent aggression. 
 
 Neutrality, so far as armed interference is concerned, one 
 can understand. England certainly does not expect or ask 
 America to jeopardize a single human life. But to be silent 
 
— 108 — 
 
 while Belgium, bleeds to death, that astonished me when I was 
 in Europe, and it astonishes me a thousand times more now that 
 I have made acquaintance with the depth and fervor of Amer- 
 ican sympathy. 
 
 President Wilson, I understood, has hard work to maintain 
 the official attitude of neutrality; and I am persuaded that with 
 serious reverses for the allies it will be impossible for him to 
 resist the tide of American feeling. In the meantime, while 
 the public men of America respect the ruling of their Presi- 
 dent, the newspapers make no secret of their deliberate sym- 
 pathy with the allies; and American citizens, particularly the 
 women , are making a thousand sacrifices in order to send 
 generous succor to Belgium. 
 
 England may rest assured that with the exalting loyalty of 
 India and with the abiding love of her free dominions she 
 possesses in America a strong and a mighty friend who is ready 
 with the hour to prove his devotion. Terribly as she suffers, 
 awful as are the sacrifices demanded of her and long as the 
 path of her agony and bitter anguish may be, England has 
 at least the consolation, that her act of self-sacrifice, her loyalty 
 to a small nation and her steadfast ratification of their pledged 
 work, even in the very face of death, have earned for her a new 
 and more enduring place in the affections of a great demo- 
 cracy. 
 
 If the world is to have peace it will be through the triune 
 ideals, the associated dispositions and the allied democracies 
 of America, France and England." — 
 
 These are only three samples of the many English efforts 
 to lure America into this unholy war. How numerous and in- 
 sisting these efforts are, we learn from an editorial of the 
 **N. Y. Times*' of February 3rd, 1915, in which this paper 
 says: 
 
 "Assurance of American sympathy with the English cause 
 does not meet the hopes of all the English people. From 
 Canada, from Australia, and from England itself we have re- 
 ceived erpressions indicating disappointment at our attitude 
 of neutrality. Something more helpful than sympathy, some- 
 thing more partial than neutrality, protests against the doings 
 of Germany, and in some quarters policies not distinguishable 
 from actual interference in aid of the Allies, seem to have been 
 expected." — "There is a feeling that we ought to interfere, 
 and with force, because England is really fighting our own 
 battle, the battle for deliverance from the spirit of military 
 cot^quest and world domination which, we are reminded, un- 
 
— 109 — 
 
 less it now be crushed, will ultimately endanger our own peace 
 and perhaps our national existence.** — 
 
 In view of all these British efforts, to involve our United 
 States in the terrific war of the nations, in view of the anti- 
 German attitude of a great part of our Press, nothing remains 
 German attitude of a great portion of our Press, nothing re- 
 mains but the serious question, how our own government has 
 lived up to President Wilson* s message. 
 
 Is our Government neatral? 
 
 This question is a matter of such seriousness, that it is well 
 to bring the following most important sentences of the Pre- 
 8ident*s message once more before our mind: 
 
 ''Every man who really loves America, Mali act and speak 
 in the true neutrality which is the spirit of impartiality and fair- 
 ness and friendliness to all concerned . . . 
 
 And : The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in 
 name during these days that try men's souls. We must be im- 
 partial in thoughts as well as in action, must put a curb upon 
 our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might 
 be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before 
 another." 
 
 There are many million citizens of different descent, who 
 claim to be true Americans and loyal to this country, but be- 
 lieve that the Government has utterly failed to adhere to 
 the above recommendations. They complain about several 
 faults they find in the acts of this government. First, there 
 came, when the only cable connecting the United States with 
 Germany, was cut, that unfortunate affair of the Say- 
 ville wireless station. That our government subjected this 
 station, the only one that carried news from Germany, to a 
 vexatious censorship, while at the same time the uncensored 
 British cable became a conduit through which a torrent of mis- 
 information inundated our country, has been regarded by 
 many as a grave mistake and an un-neutral act. 
 
 It was no less person than Hon. Philander Knox, former 
 U. S. Senator und Secretary of State, who made in a political 
 address at a meeting of lawyers the following caustic criticism 
 of the policies of the present administration: 
 
 "Our positive action has at times approached dangerously 
 near to open partisanship. At the outbreak of the war we took, 
 as to certain German wireless stations, an attitude uncalled for 
 under the rules and principles of international law. We prac- 
 tically sealed up the German wireless station, and coincident- 
 
no 
 
 ally the cables connecting Germany and the United States were 
 crippled. Thus was Germany isolated, while the Allies had com- 
 plete and perfect lines of communication between America and 
 Europe. It is true that the Administration blustered about con- 
 trolling cables of the Allies, and imposing upon them the same 
 restrictions which it had imposed upon German communication, 
 yet every telegraph messenger boy of any intelligence knows 
 of the great cables running from Nova Scotia to Europe, the 
 American terminals of which can be reached from the United 
 States by telegraph, telephone, and mails, over which the Exe- 
 cutive has neither power nor control. I am unwilling to believe 
 that this was intended as a partisan act in favor of the Allies 
 as against Germany; and yet, unfortunately for us, there is 
 much in the situation that gives ground for such a charge upon 
 the part of the German Government and the German people." 
 
 A question of far greater seriousness turned up, when it 
 became known that many American firms were engaged in 
 manufacturing and shipping enormous amounts of war supplies 
 of every possible kind, as rifles, revolvers, guns, ammunition, 
 torpedoes, submarine boats, flying machines, horses, etc., etc., 
 to the Allies, without being hindered by the same government, 
 which had placed an embargo upon all munitions of war dur- 
 ing the Mexican crisis as long as it was intended to maintain a 
 neutral position. As under present conditions such shipments 
 can reach the Allies only, it has been pointed out that the tacit 
 permission of the Government to the shipping of these war 
 supplies is in violation of the President's message, which re- 
 commends ''that all citizens of the United States should be im- 
 partial in thought as well as in action, and should curb every 
 transaction that might be construed as a preference of one 
 party to the struggle before another." 
 
 As these citizens can not find the shipping of the war sup- 
 plies to one party in harmony with the urgent recommendations 
 of the President, they held themselves entitled to protest against 
 the un-neutral acts of these manufacturers and shippers, en- 
 gaged in this line of business. To inform the people of the 
 United States of the nature of the complaints, which have been 
 adopted in many mass-meetings, we here copy the resolutions, 
 as passed in a meeting held on December 1 1 th, 1914, in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 * 'Whereas, Ten nations of the old world are now waging the 
 greatest war of mankind and are not only exhausting their own 
 resources, but also drawing immense supplies and munitions 
 of war from the United States of America; 
 
— Ill — 
 
 And Whereas, The armament and supplies that are being 
 furnished by he United States tend to increase the military 
 conflagration of Europe, multiply the loss of life, already 
 appalling, and cause the destruction of property that is bringing 
 nations to desolation, and assist in the prolongation and con- 
 tinuation of this most dreadful of all wars; 
 
 And Whereas, We, as a people, from our hearts lift our 
 voices in prayer for peace while, as a nation, we are aiding in 
 war and augmenting the struggle by emptying our private ar- 
 senals and war supplies onto the battlefields of Europe; 
 
 And Whereas, Our government has proclaimed strict neu- 
 trality and thereby given assurance to American citizens of all 
 races and to the belligerent powers themselves, that we shall 
 give aid and support to none, and by our acts, as a nation, 
 break no bonds of friendship with the countries with whom we 
 are at peace, and create no discord among our citizens here by 
 discriminating against their fatherland ; yet when we offer mili- 
 tary supplies and equipments to any nations that choose to 
 buy, it is with the full knowledge that for one hundred years 
 England, by her supremacy on the sea, is the master of all con- 
 traband goods transported by water, and that she and her 
 friends alone can benefit by our unholy commerce, and we are 
 pursuing that course which diverges so far from strict neutrality 
 that we injure our ancient friends, Germany and Austria, by 
 every means in our power, excepting the employment of armed 
 force alone. 
 
 And Whereas, This country has recognized the right of our 
 government to withhold war supplies from contending armies 
 when she had laid an embargo upon munitions of war when the 
 feeble armies of Mexico were arrayed against each other; 
 nevertheless, she now offers her limitless supplies to the 
 mightiest armies that were ever assembled in battle array; 
 
 And Whereas, The United States is disloyal to itself when 
 it promotes a foreign war by furnishing the sinews of war while 
 the nation is prostrate commercially and waiting for the dawn 
 of peace to return to her former prosperity and achievements; 
 
 Therefore, be it resolved. That we American citizens resid- 
 ing in Philadelphia, in mass meeting assembled, hereby declare 
 that it is the imperative duty of the Congress of the United 
 States to pass the necessary law forthwith that will enable the 
 President of the United States to lay an embargo upon all con- 
 traband of war, saving and excepting foodstuffs alone, and 
 thereby withdraw from the contending powers all aid and 
 assistance of this Republic. 
 
^ 112 — 
 
 And be it further Resolved, That we are in strict sympathy 
 with the Christian endeavor of this nation to appeal to the God 
 of Nations that peace may come and reject as hypocracy and 
 national sacrilege the commercial spirit of the country that is 
 answering our supplications for peace by sending the instru- 
 ments of destruction and death to the serried armies arrayed 
 in struggle through the Empires of Europe. 
 
 And be it further Resolved, That we, citizens of the United 
 States, who have contributed our full share to American peace, 
 American Christianity and American civilization, call upon 
 all Americans to join with us in enforcing that strict American 
 neutrality that will give aid and comfort to none of the contend- 
 ing powers and that will withhold American resources from 
 promoting destruction and slaughter among the friendly nations 
 of Europe." — 
 
 Bitter feeling speaks also from the following letter, the Pre- 
 sident of the National German-American Alliance, Dr. C. J. 
 Hexamer, addressed to the President of the United States: 
 
 ,,Mr. President: — 
 
 I am native American of German descent and wish to ask 
 a few pointed questions. 
 
 Since America is made up of races and nationalities coming 
 from all the countries engaged in the present war, the feelings 
 of none of these various races should be injured by the stand 
 taken by the present Administration and, because of the above- 
 mentioned reason, the proclaimed neutrality should be observ- 
 ed most strictly in deed and action. 
 
 In this regard, why is it that the United States found it just 
 and fair to place an embargo upon all munitions of war during 
 the Mexican crisis as long as it was intended to maintain a 
 neutral position ; and now, after having proclaimed the strictest 
 neutrality in the present European situation, are munitions of 
 war of every possible kind permitted to leave our shores? 
 
 This failure to keep strict neutrality (neutrality does not 
 mean help to both sides, but help to neither side) is so much 
 more emphasized by the fact that only one of the parties en- 
 gaged in the present struggle can obtain these munitions of 
 war. 
 
 Our failure in keeping strict neutrality becomes thereby an 
 unfriendly if not inimical act against one particular nation. 
 
 There will be some, Mr. President, who will assert that this 
 is business, and that the United States in this crisis needs 
 all the business it can get to make up for other trade losses in 
 this war. To them I would say that every dollar thus gained 
 
— 113 — 
 
 will carry with it the tears of a ruined fatherless family, and 
 the blood of some brave man, regardless of his nationality. 
 
 Every gun, bullet and article of war leaving this country 
 means more misery for the wives, mothers and children of 
 Europe. 
 
 Does such a policy coincide with one which proclaims a day 
 of prayer, asking God in His might to stop this slaughter, while 
 with the same hands we pocket dollars covered with the blood 
 of those who fell by our help ? 
 
 You cannot imagine, Mr. President, with what chagrin and 
 bitterness it fills the Americans of German descent to see the 
 resources of this great country, which they have helped to build 
 up, and in whose battles they have given their life-blood, 
 placed at the disposal of enemies who, with their overwhelm- 
 ing forces, have proclaimed it their avowed purpose to crush 
 our ancestral home. 
 
 If it was in order to prevent trade losses that the United 
 States did not put an embargo on munitions of war at this time, 
 why is it then that our Government allowed the violation of 
 neutral shipping to the detriment of our legitimate trade — 
 contrary to the Declaration of London and contrary to Eng- 
 land's statement at the beginning of the war, that se would 
 uphold said declaration? 
 
 Without the slightest protest from our side, in which we 
 would have been fully justified, England crippled neutral ship- 
 ping until — to insure their own imports — different countries 
 were forced to put an embargo on the exportation of numerous 
 articles imported from America, thus destroying our only 
 present means of trade with Germany and Austria. 
 
 Our failure to protect neutral shipping has been the greatest 
 violation of our own trade interests — and does it not mean fur- 
 ther the taking of a partisan position in this conflict? 
 
 What can the United States gain by allowing the Declaration 
 of London to be ignored? What are the reasons for having 
 done so? Cannot the United States force their rights to be 
 respected by economic pressure, since the belligerents are de- 
 pendent on America for supplies? 
 
 As each and every case shall now be adjudged, not by a 
 fixed code, such as the Declaration of London, but by the 
 somewhat indefinite international law. Albion will do exactly 
 what she has done in the Civil War, namely, she will continu- 
 ously violate the right of neutral shipping and hold off all legal 
 decisions until the end of the present conflict. 
 
— 114 — 
 
 Meanwhile, England will have her own way, we will lose 
 much of our legitimate trade, and the harm done, not only to 
 us but also to other nations concerned, will be beyond repair. 
 
 Witness America's Merchant Marine. 
 
 Since the attitude of our Government enables England to 
 cut off against our own interests, even the most necessary 
 supplies from the civil population of certain countries, do you 
 not think, Mr. President, that hereby the many assertions that 
 the neutrality of the United States is only a matter of form and 
 does not exist are justified? 
 
 Most respectfully yours, 
 The Presiden,t of the National German-American Alliance, 
 
 De. C. J. Hexamer." 
 
 There are also numerous legislators, who protest against the 
 un-neutral shipping of war supplies. Among these gentle- 
 men is Hon. Henry VoUmer, member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, who on the opening-day of the present session of 
 Congress introduced the resolution known as H. J. 377, to pro- 
 hibit the export of arms and ammunitions of war. In a speech, 
 delivered on January 28th before a mass-meeting at the Aca- 
 demy of Music in Philadelphia, this gentleman said: 
 
 *'I introduced that resolution as an American citizen and an 
 American representative, knowing my duty as such to prefer 
 the interests of no country to those of the United States, and 
 not to permit inherited racial antipathies if any, to swerve me 
 from the faithful performance of that duty. I introduced that 
 resolution because as an American I did not want my country, 
 in the eyes of all contemporaries and of all posterity, to stand 
 there as the arch-hypocrite of the world, that goes into the 
 Lord's holy sanctuary in response to a presidential proclama- 
 tion and prays for peace, while her pockets are filled with blood 
 money as wicked as the thirty pieces for which Judas sold his 
 master. 
 
 Into what sort of spiritual communion on that Sunday of 
 October 4th did you get, oh my American brother, with "the 
 Lord, Holy God, who knoweth all things," when you gave him 
 lip-service in the cause of peace and humanity and then on 
 Monday resumed your interrupted occupation of shipping the 
 instruments of murder to one side only of an unequal contest, 
 in which we pretend that all the contestants are our friends. 
 Thus we help part of our dear friends to kill or maim others of 
 our dear friends! Thus we are helping seven who have jumped 
 on three, while a couple of other thugs are waiting around the 
 corner ready to jump in too when the right moment comes; 
 
— 115 — 
 
 but they don't care just yet, because the minority is putting up 
 a too stiff a fight, a fight against which Marathon and Thermo- 
 pylae and Salamis and Plataea were tame exhibitions. How 
 many German and Austrian widows and orphans and cripples 
 will be made with our arms and our munitions? I do not know, 
 but I fear the account will be kept somewhere by the Nemesis 
 that comes to nations as to individuals, who have crimes of 
 blood on their souls I Let us not deceive ourselves. We are 
 particeps criminis to the greatest crime against humanity and 
 civilization in all the annals of time, for so I regard the present 
 world-wide war. 
 
 In the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House, we have 
 had several hearings on my resolution. We have defended it 
 — and some of our most distinguished citizens have assisted us 
 — on moral, economic and sentimental grounds and on grounds 
 of the highest national policy. Against the resolution no argu- 
 ment has been made and I predict that none will be made. The 
 ammunition ring does not do business that way. And in the 
 pro-British press of this country, I have seen but two suggestions 
 that could be dignified with the name of arguments in oppo- 
 sition. 
 
 1 . That the adoption of the resolution would in itself be an 
 unneutral act against the allies. 
 
 2. That it might be a bad precedent for us to establish, if we 
 should ever get into war, being in a state of unpreparedness, 
 would ourselves desire to import arms and ammunition. 
 
 Now as to the first argument my answer is that not only 
 would it not be an unneutral act of which the allies could justly 
 complain, to adopt the resolution, but that we cannot be 
 genuinely neutral without it; that the maintaining of our neu- 
 trality in spirit as well as in the letter, as Washington puts it, 
 to be friendly and impartial to all — requires such legislation, 
 since the control of the seas, is at present absolutely with Great 
 Britain and our supplies can only reach one side. Ethical obli- 
 gations always depend on the concrete facts of the particular 
 case. This is not an abstract question. The actual existing 
 conditions determine our duty. As the old law writers put it, 
 when the reason of the rule fails, the rule fails. Trying to be 
 honestly neutral, we do not ask you to help Germany and 
 Austria ; but we do ask you to stop helping the other side. 
 
 The precedents of I 00 years, as such, without considering 
 the reason on which they are based — an implied equality of 
 opportunity for both sides to get these things from us — estab- 
 lished our right to export them, if we choose, but no obligation 
 to do so. We are under no obligation, express or implied, 
 
— 116 — 
 
 hy treaty, international law or law of neutrality to continue 
 this infamous trade. We are under no obligation to export 
 anything that belongs to us. 
 
 Suppose two men are fighting here on this platform and I 
 have on this table knives and pistols and other arms and only 
 one can get near me and I keep out handing out these weapons 
 to him, is that impartial neutrality? 
 
 Suppose another illustration which I received in a letter from 
 an old apple grower in Oregon. Suppose I have an orchard 
 and a neighbor on my right wants to steal my apples and a 
 neighbor on my left hands him a ladder so that he can get at 
 the apples and then gets down on his knees and prays to God 
 to stop all stealing of apples, is that honest neutrality? 
 
 Because England may be disappointed in her hope to have 
 this country and her inexhaustible resources as allies does not 
 establish her right to complain if we say that by reason of exist- 
 ing, unprecedented conditions, for our own moral and material 
 welfare, we do not choose longer to be her accomplice. 
 
 Now as to the second argument: If we fear that we are go- 
 ing to be involved in war and that we will be short of arms 
 and ammunition, then for goodness sake stop exporting them 
 and conserve these resources, .instead of depleting our private 
 arsenals for England's benefit and sending out our cannons and 
 guns and powder and shot and shell and armored automobiles 
 and steel arrows, etc., to be used against our traditional friends, 
 yea possibly some of them sometime to be used against our- 
 selves. 
 
 To adopt this resolution would not only shorten this war,— 
 which is of overwhelming economic interest — but the incor- 
 poration of the principle lying at the base of the resolution into 
 general international law, which I confidently expect sometime 
 to come, will be one of the most efficient deterrents of war, and 
 would mark the greatest practical progress ever made by the 
 peace propaganda. 
 
 Great Britain's claim that we must continue to export con- 
 traband to her, that we are in duty bound to do so, takes on 
 an almost comical aspect, when you observe that she has her- 
 self forbidden the neutral countries of Europe to make such 
 exports to Germany and Austria; that we have repeatedly 
 placed embargoes on arms and ammunition, beginning as early 
 as 1 794 and down to the resolution of 1898, as amended on 
 motion of Senator Root in 1912 and applied by Presidents 
 Taft and Wilson — the latter insisting on genuine neutrality as 
 against a mere paper neutrality and that for the benefit of a lot 
 of Mexican greasers, saying that Huerta had ports and Carran- 
 
— 117 — 
 
 za had none and that it was our duty to treat them alike, in 
 tact, and not merely to live up to the dead letter of statutes not 
 equally and impartially applicable under the concrete circum- 
 stances of the case. Are Mexic€ui Greasers nearer to the heart 
 of our Chief-Executive and the Secretary of State than Germans 
 and Austrians, who have from thirty to forty millions of blood 
 relations in this country? England insists that we must not cease 
 exporting contraband to her — a trade frowned upon by inter- 
 national law — but at the same time having the control of the 
 sea, she arrogates to herself the right to interfere with and stop 
 our trade in non-contraband, with neutral countries. She is 
 doing this to-day. She stops our ships, flouts our registry, in- 
 sults old Glory and blockades our ports. Within sight of New 
 York's stupendous skyscrapers, English men-of-war are lying 
 in wait to stop and search every outgoing vessel. They have 
 dragged American ships to their harbors and have detained 
 them for months. They have trampled on American pass-ports, 
 taken American citizens from Americsm ships and incarcerated 
 them in British prisons. They have violated our mails. They 
 have crippled our foreign trade and I charge that they are do- 
 ing all these things, not solely on account of the effect on their 
 belligerents, but with the purpose of thwarting our legitimate 
 hope to build up a merchant maurine and get new markets out 
 of the commercial situation produced by the war. They started 
 this war — i. e., they created the diplomatic situation which 
 made war not only possible but probable^ — so that they could 
 steal German trade and German colonies, as well as destroy 
 the German fleet. The Germans were too smart and too en- 
 terprising for them. They could not compete with them. 
 They were losing their own markets to them and the German 
 fleet was growing at such a rate that they could not sustain 
 the two-power standard. All these things were admitted to 
 me personally by people close to the ruling powers in England 
 years ago. 
 
 So, some ten years ago, Edward VII., began to travel about 
 Europe, weaving the mesh of encircling alliances, all aiming 
 to isolate Germany and leave her unsupported, confronting a 
 great numerical superiority, when the inevitable fatal day 
 should arrive to try out this issue of the ages. 
 
 If you want to know the real cause of this war, don't read 
 the blue, white, orange, etc. books compiled by the trained 
 liars of European diplomacy, but just recall in your memories 
 the explosion that took place when Elngland was flooded with 
 goods bearing the formula: — ''Made in Germany." No, this 
 wmr was not made in Germany, but ''Made in Germany^* 
 
— 118 — 
 
 caused this war! At that time a British statesman said: "The 
 moment the German fleet Hes at the bottom of the sea, every 
 Englishman will be richer personally in pounds sterling." With- 
 out English encouragement the Russian Grand Duke would not 
 have dared to attack the educated trained and disciplined fight- 
 ing forces of Germany (not one in a thousand of whom is illi- 
 terate) with their arrogant Russian hordes of whom not two in 
 a thousand are able to read and write. And yet Europe from 
 the North Cape to the Golden Horn is to be placed helpless at 
 their feet. 
 
 Failing miserable in their attempt to argue this question, our 
 pro-British press dares to question the loyalty of German- 
 Americans in general and of members of Congress of that blood 
 in particular, because we favor this legislation. The German- 
 Americans need no defense at my hands. In every war in which 
 this country has been involved, they have furnished more than 
 their numerical proportion of men for the armies of the Union. 
 And in the walks of peace, have they not been good citizens, 
 in the main, sober, industrious, thrifty, paying their debts, and 
 contributing their share to the astonishing development of our 
 common country? 
 
 As for my colleagues in Congress and myself, who have 
 been threatened by this reptile press with prosecutions for trea- 
 son, deportation, loss of citizenship and what not, all I have 
 to say to them is: "Do your dirtiest I We defy you!" We re- 
 member what you said to the revered Karl Schurz in 1870 
 when under similar circumstances he took a similar position 
 for genuine neutrality. On the floor of Congress he was threat- 
 ened with a dungeon! But he did not go there and we will 
 not. We know our duty as American citizens and American 
 officials and we will continue to perform it, no matter how 
 many fits you throw and though your spleen should choke 
 you. 
 
 If the position of this press is correct that we are under ob- 
 ligations to Great Britain to continue this trade in contraband, 
 while she has the right to interfere with and stop our trade in 
 non-contraband with neutrals — ,then what is the use of talk- 
 ing about our neutrality and of holding neutrality meetings? 
 That presupposes that we are a sovereign free and independ- 
 ent nation; but if the argument of our opponents is valid, then 
 we are not that, but a British dependency; then you are not 
 self-governing, but blooming colonials, territorials, don't ye 
 know; you should take down the American flag and hoist the 
 Union Jack! You should tear up that great monument of free- 
 dom promulgated in this city 138 years ag:o: the Declaration 
 
— 119 — 
 
 of Independence. You should tear down your historic old state 
 house where it was adopted, that shrine of human liberty that 
 brought tears to my eyes today with all its hallowed recollec- 
 tions! 
 
 In the name of America's martyr dead, from Lexington to 
 Yorktown and from Lake Erie to New Orleans; remembering 
 Britain's perfidious attitude toward us from 1861 to 1865, 
 and in every crisis of our history; in the name of Ireland's 700 
 years of tragic story with its pitiful procession from the prison 
 to the gallows of Irish orators, statesmen and poets, and its 
 countless thousands of Irishmen, women and children sacri- 
 ficed to the Moloch of British tyranny by the sword, by fire 
 and famine; in the name of India where hunger and pestilence 
 walk hand in hand with British civilization; in the name of 
 the little South African republics whom she murdered in cold 
 blood because she wanted their gold; in the name of China 
 upon whom she waged the infamous opium war; in the name 
 of Denmark, of Holland and even of France whose fleets she 
 destroyed, when her policy so decreed; in the name of every 
 people on earth that desires free and independent develop- 
 ment without being constantly under the blighting shadow of 
 English navalism, I appeal to you, my fellow citizens without 
 regard to race descent or other discrimination. Let us stand 
 on our rights and let us do the right. While just and generous 
 to the smallest, let us fearlessly insist that the greatest powers 
 shall respect our flag and the legitimate commerce carried un- 
 der its beautiful folds. And let the free winds of heaven no 
 longer be offended by that flag hoisted above a trade that has 
 upon it the curse of Cain. .Let us be neutral! Let us be hon- 
 estly neutral!" 
 
 The above speech, together with the "round robin letter" 
 of the five American journalists, and together with many other 
 fearless documents establish the encouraging fact that the he- 
 roic virtues exhibited by the brave defenders of American lib- 
 erty in 1775 to 1783, and in 1812 to 1814, are still alive a- 
 mong great masses of our people. 
 
 To these true Americans we now appeaL We call upon all 
 who proudly trace back their ancestry to the signers of the De- 
 claration of Independence. We call upon all who keep sacred 
 the memory of Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas 
 Jefferson, George Washington, Nicholas Herchheimer, Baron 
 von Steuben, and all other noble fighters for the cause of lib- 
 erty. We call upon the many thousands of scholars, who, in 
 quest of learning, went to Germany and found it to be a land 
 
— 120 — 
 
 of the highest civilization and culture. We call upon all who 
 sing our great national anthem of the Free and the Brave, writ- 
 ten during our "Second War for Independence." We call up- 
 on them to wage a third war for independence, and to combat 
 with spiritual weapons the Tories who, in our midst, make pro- 
 paganda for King Georg V. with the same loyalty and foul 
 means used by their ancestors in the interest of George III.: 
 with falsehood and slander, by which they poison our news- 
 papers, our school-books, our histories, our children, our pub- 
 lic life and our minds. 
 
 We appeal especially to the publishers and editors of our 
 newspapers and magazines: "Free our American journalism 
 from British rule and British news-agencies ! Establish your own 
 independent service and appoint as your correspondents true 
 Americans, politically and in spirit! 
 
 Take up your arms in this new and even greater war for 
 independence ! 
 
 What is now at stake is not only the vindication of the Ger- 
 man nation, akin to our own in blood and character, but peace 
 in America seems jeopardized. Rescue our country from Brit- 
 ish venom. See to it that all attempts to frustrate harmony 
 and happiness of American citizens, the descendants of ALL 
 European races, are promptly checked! 
 
 Not before we banish from our shores the colossal machin- 
 ery of British intrigues and untruths, our nation will become in- 
 dependent politically as well as intellectually. 
 
 And only then will we be free! 
 
— I2l — 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAce 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 The Giant Octopus 7 
 
 England, a Destroyer of Nations 11 
 
 England, the Originator of Spain's Downfall — Eng- 
 land, the Destroyer of Holland's Greatness — Eng- 
 land, the Arch-foe of France — England Destroys 
 Commerce and Fleet of Neutral Denmark — Eng- 
 land, the Scourge of Irland — England, the Vampire 
 of India — England as Poisoner of the Chinese 
 Nation — England, the Suppressor of the Free Boers. 
 England, the False Friend of the United States. 
 
 Germany's wonderful rise and success, the real cause for 
 
 England's present war 36 
 
 The unholiest conspiracy in history 50 
 
 Honi soit qui mal y pense 59 
 
 The tentacles and ink-sac of the Giant Octopus and how 
 
 it uses them 62 
 
 The German Emperor, Lord of War or Prince of Peace? 67 
 
 German atrocities — ''made in England" 74 
 
 German militarism or British Navalism, which is the 
 
 world's menace? 86 
 
 Does America need a third war for independence? .... 97 
 
 » 
 
OUR WASTEFUL NATION. 
 
 THE STORY OF AMERICAN PRODIGAUTY AND THE 
 ABUSE OF OUR NATIONAL RESOURCES. 
 
 By RUDOLF CRONAU. 
 
 With Illustrations. Boards. $ 1.00 net. 
 
 CONTENTS: 
 
 The Land of Inexhaustible Resources — The Destruction of 
 Our Forests — The Waste of Water — The Waste of Soil — 
 The Waste of Our Mineral Resources — The Extermination of 
 Our Game, Fur, and Great Marine Animals — Our Vanishing 
 Birds — Our Decreasing Fish Supplies — The Waste of Public 
 Lands and Privileges — The Waste of Public Money and 
 of Property — The Waste of Human Lives — Conclusion. 
 
 One of the weightiest problem before our nation is here 
 treated in an impressive manner. Based upon cold facts 
 the book shows conclusively that our nation suffers, by sheer 
 carelessness and wasteful methods, losses amounting to many 
 hundred millions of dollars annually. 
 
 "This volume schuold be read, pondered and re-read by every individual 
 in America who has reached the age of reasoning." 
 
 Union, New Haven. 
 
 "The book is a practical little sermon, much needed in this period." 
 
 San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 "There are but 134 pages in this book, but within that limited compass 
 there is set forth the most terrific impeachment that was ever laid to the 
 charge of a nation. This little volume should be scattered over the country 
 in tens of thousands." 
 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 "The book tells a story that is astounding. Some of the descriptions of 
 the past are told in figures so great as to be beyond our comprehenson." 
 
 World To-Day, Chicago. 
 
 "It is a book, that every person should be compelled to learn by heart." 
 
 Chicago Daily News. 
 
 From Author. 340 East 198th Street. New York, sent postpaid 
 on receipt of price. 
 
p. p 
 
 Die ergebenst unterzeichnete Verlagsbuchhandlung beehrt 
 sich, Ihnen hierdurch die erfreuliche Mitteilung zu machen, dass 
 die im Jahre 1909 erschienene Erstauflage des von Herrn Rudolf 
 Cronau in New York verfassten und seitens der Universitat Chi- 
 cago preisgekronten und mit 220 lUustrationen geschmiickten 
 Werkes 
 
 sowohl in den Vereinigten Staaten wie in Deutschland eine so 
 iiberaus giinstige Aufnahme gefunden hat, dass eine Neuauflage 
 notwendig geworden ist. Diese sollte bis zum Herbst des ver- 
 gangenen Jahres erscheinen, und zwar nicht nur in Text und Bil- 
 derschmuck wesentlich erweitert, sondern auch in so glanzender 
 Ausstattung, dass das Werk in jeder Hinsicht als das 
 
 Bt\fimit Eljr^ttburlf htB i^utarlftuma Amrrtkafi 
 
 b'ezeichnet werden kann. Der unselige Krieg verhinderte die 
 Ausgabe des Werks zu der festgesetzten Zeit, doch hofft die Ver- 
 lagshandlung, dies im Laufe dieses Jahres thun zu konnen. 
 
 Um die notige Hohe der Neuauflage einigermassen bestim^ 
 men zu konnen, gestattet sich die Verlagshandlung die ergebene 
 Anfrage, ob sie auf ein Exemplar dieser neuen Ausgabe reflek- 
 tieren. Falls Sie Ihre Bestellung schon jetzt pufgeben, werden 
 Sie das in einen kiinstlerisch vollendeten, reich mit Golddruck 
 versehenen Einband gebundene Werk, dessen Ladenpreis spater 
 4 Dollars betragen wird, sofort nach Erscheinen zu dent Vorzugs- 
 preis von 3 Dollars portofrei zugeschickt erhalten. Wollen Sie 
 das Buck irgendzifelchen in der alien Heimat zuriickgelassenen 
 Angehbrigcn und Freunden zum Geschenk machen, so Ubernimmt 
 die Verlagshandlung zu dem gleichen Betrag auch die portofreie 
 Zusendung an irgend eine Adresse in Deutschland, 
 
 Der Bequemlichkeit und Vereinfachung der Geschafte wegen 
 bitten wir, Bestellungen an den Verfasser des Buches, Herrn 
 Rudolf Cronau, 340 Bast 198. Strasse, New York, gelangen zu 
 lassen. 
 
 In vorziiglicher Hochaclitung 
 
 Die Verlagsbuchhandlung Dietrich Reimer 
 
 (Inhaber Konsul E. Vohsen) 
 
 Berlin, Wilhelmstrasse 29. 
 
Wie die erste Auflage des Werket 
 
 irrt Mlitiitxnhtttt htvABtlfm Egbgna in Amgrifea 
 
 von massgebenden Personen und Zeitungen der alten 
 und neuen Welt beurteilt wurde: 
 
 „Indem Cronau sein reich illustriertes, auf sorgfaltigen Studien 
 b'eruhendes, in Stil und Darstellung interessantes, in seinem Ma- 
 terial griindlich und wohlfundiertes Buch schrieb, machte er zwei 
 Volker zu seinen Schuldnern." 
 
 Professor Benj. Ide Wheeler, Prasident der Kali- 
 fornischen Universitat zu Berkeley, Inhaber 
 der Berliner Roosevelt-Pro fessur, im „Berli- 
 ner Tageblatt" vom 10. Nov. 1909. 
 
 „Cronaus Buch ist eine nationale Tat." 
 
 „Iveipziger Illustrierte Zeitung." 
 
 „Cronaus Buch gibt uns das Recht, uns gleichberechtigt neben 
 unsere Mitbiirger englischen Stammes zu stellen und fur unsere 
 Sprache die Anerkennung und Achtung zu verlangen, die ihr 
 kraft ihrer Stellung in der Weltliteratur gebilhrt." 
 
 „Mississippi Blatter", St. Louis, 17. Oktober 1909. 
 
 „Bin Born des Wissens und der Aufkldrung . . . Einem Ro- 
 mane gleich fliesst die Sprache dahin und der Leser wird schon 
 nach den ersten Zeilen von der packenden Weise ergriffen, in 
 der das Buch geschrieben ist. Piir die Propaganda des Deutsch- 
 Amerikanischen Nationalbundes, dessen Mitbegriinder Rudolf 
 Cronau ist, hat er ein Hilfsmittel geschaffen, das unschdtzbar ist." 
 „Freie Presse", Brooklyn, 17. Oktob er J9 09. 
 
 „Das neueste Werk des beruhmtesten und auf beiden Seiten 
 des Ozeans gleich bekannten deutsch-amerikanischen Schriftstel- 
 lers prasentiert sich in der vornehmsten und gediegensten Form. 
 Papier, Druck und Illustrationen sind dem vorziiglichen, fiir uns 
 Deutschamerikaner gar nicht hoch genug zu schdtzenden Inhalt 
 angepassi. Lange hat man vergeblich auf einen Geschichtsschrei- 
 ber gewartet, der die Geschichte der Deutschen in Amerika von 
 ihrem ersten An fang bis heute niederschrieb. Rudolf Cronau hat 
 mit seinem neuen griindlichen und vorziiglichen Werk eine Ar- 
 beit vollbrachtj die das hbchste Lob verdicnt." 
 
 „Iowa Reform", Davenport, 18. Oktober 1909. 
 
„Bin Prarhtwerk in jeder Hinsicht, das mehr als irgend etw 
 anderes geeignet ist und dazu dienen sollte, die Deutschen unser 
 Landes, wie audi ihre Nachkommen, mit gerechtem Stolz auf i 
 re Ahstammiing zu erfUllen. Darum sollte es in keinem dei" 
 schen Heim fehlen." 
 
 ^Express und Westbote", Columbus, Ohio, 26. Okt. 1909. 
 
 „Auch andere hervorragende Deutschamerikaner haben si< 
 der Aufgabe gewidmet, ein Lebensbild des deutschen Element 
 der Vereinigten Staaten zu entwerfen, aber in so umfassend 
 Darstcllung haben zvir noch kein Werk gehaht, wie es dieses Bui 
 von Rudolf Cronau den Deutschen hringt." 
 
 „Milwaukee Herold", Oktober 1909. 
 
 „Jede Seite dieses vortrefflichen und in seiner Art einzig^ 
 Werkes ist, wenn man sehr bescheiden sprechen will, hochst l 
 senswert/' 
 
 „Chicago Freie Presse und Daheim", 18. Oktober 1909. 
 
 „Aus innerster Neigung, mit wahrer Lust und Liebe geschri 
 ben, nichts Wesentliches unberiicksichtigt lassend, ist Crona 
 Buch als Geschichtswerk einzig und zugleich ein SchmuckstU 
 fiir jedes deutsche Heim." 
 
 „Davenport Demokrat", 12. Oktober 1909. 
 
 „Ein Prachtwerk, in dem mit staunenswertem Sammeleifer ; 
 les zusammengetragen und in anziehender Weise dargestellt i 
 was deutscher Fleiss, deutsche Opferwilligkeit, deutscher Kun: 
 sinn fiir Amerika getan haben. Jedes offentliche Lesezimmi 
 jede Bibliothek, jedes deutsche Heim sollte dies Buch zur Bi 
 sicht, Unterhaltung und Belehrung fiir Mitglieder und Besuch 
 anschaffen. Wer es liest, wird darin einen Schatz des Wisser 
 werten finden, auf das hinzuweisen den Deutschamerikaner n 
 Stolz erfiillen muss." 
 
 „Buffalo Demokrat", 23. Oktober 1909. 
 
 „Wir stehen iiberrascht vor den Erfolgen der Deutschen 
 Amerika, die uns in Cronaus Buch wie in einem hellen Spie^ 
 entgegenstrahlen." 
 
 „Literarischer Handweiser f. d. Katholiken deutsch 
 Zunge", Miinster in Westfalen, 25. Oktober 1909. 
 
 „Jeder Deutsche sollte sich so friih wie moglich Cronaus wu 
 derbar fesselnd geschriebenes Buch verschaf fen. Fiir die Jugei 
 ist es eine Quelle der Begeisterung, fiir den gereiften Mensch 
 ein hoher Genuss." 
 
 „Westliche Post", St. Louis, Dezember 1912. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 ATi 171934 
 
 FEB! '66E 
 
 REC'P LD 
 
 JAN 23*66-4 PM 
 
 m-2r 
 
 1939 
 
 MAR S4 19^3 .^n 
 
 ^ 
 
 W 
 
 FEB 7 1955 
 
 KCCSiVEP 
 
 QGT24'ft8^^PM 
 
 ..r.M0- 
 
 
 4Apr'57PW 
 
 rEC'D LO 
 
 2n^^ 
 
 LD 21-100to-7,'33 
 
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 6€7503 
 
 ~I>52^ 
 
 Ct 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY