Right Above Race Part 1

Right Above Race.

by Otto Hermann Kahn.

PREFACE

This is one of the best books that has appeared about the war. It shows conclusively why the United States must put this war through to a finish, and why every good American and every believer in liberty and civilization must be heart and soul against Germany. The fact that Mr. Kahn himself is of German origin emphasizes the contention which every good American should make, namely, that the Americans who are in whole or in part of German blood should eagerly take the front places in this war for Americanism against the attempt of the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns to establish a world tyranny.

Not only is the book an admirable plea for Americanism and for putting the war through, but it is also a no less admirable plea for treating our internal affairs on the basis of common sense and high idealism. I should like to see the book circulated throughout the United States as a tract on Sound Americanism. The last two chapters, on "Frenzied Liberty" and "The Myth of a 'Rich Man's War,'" should be called to the especial attention of the persons who, not daring to be openly treasonable, try to serve Germany by advancing the cause of Bolshevism in this country, and by downright and shameless perversion of the truth as to the part played by the men of means in this war. The chapter on "Frenzied Liberty" is an acute and fearless exposition of the damage done to liberty by the men here who are trying to play the part of the Russian Bolshevists, by upsetting order and civilization in this country. One of the most remarkable, and also one of the most sinister, of Germany's extraordinary successes has been the way she has used the forces of disorder in other countries to paralyze the cause of liberty. She herself is the embodiment of order imposed by an iron militaristic autocracy from above on the people beneath. She is the embodiment of that species of order which is the ant.i.thesis of liberty. She personifies it now exactly as the Russian Czars did in the middle of the last century, only with infinitely greater efficiency. But her feeling even for order is conditioned by her unyielding determination that the Germans shall lord over and shall exploit the rest of the world.

In itself this feeling of intense nationalism is a fine thing, and we would admire it if it had not been perverted into an a.s.sault on all the rest of mankind, and especially on liberty-loving civilized mankind. There is in Germany an immense sense of solidarity, which makes the German Socialist, the German middle-cla.s.s capitalist, and the German junker work side by side with enthusiasm for the subjugation and exploitation of all the Allied countries. The Socialists have cynically announced that their job is to encourage pacifism in other countries, and thereby to lessen the resistance of these countries to German militarism. The Socialists have worked for the conquest of other countries in the interest of German capitalism, because they feel they will get some share in the profit, and because they have been schooled, in common with the rest of their country, to a brutal cynicism concerning the wrongs and sufferings of other countries, so long as Germans profit by them. In consequence the German Government, aided by the German Socialists, has encouraged in every way the forces of disorder in every hostile country--the Socialists in France, the "independent" Labour men in England, the Bolshevists in Russia, the Sinn Feiners in Ireland, the Reds in Finland, and the most fanatical murderers of Christians in Turkey. It is for this reason that Germany tries to use the I.W.W. in the United States, and plays on the foolish American politicians who have believed that the Russian Bolshevists would be able to infect Germany with their revolt, or who have believed that they by fine words could arouse the spirit of German revolt and separate the German people from the German Government--a thing which can only be done by the breakdown of Germany's military strength.

Germany has no fears as to her own ability to suppress disorder. The minute she conquers a Russian province she puts down disorder with an iron hand. But in the Ukraine, in Great Russia and in Finland she encourages the party of the Reds, she encourages the Bolshevists; and the poor, ignorant, gullible peasants follow the lead of the men, however criminal--sometimes rather more lunatic than criminal--who would throw them under Germany's feet. The American Bolshevists would tear America to pieces, exactly as Russia has been torn.

Mr. Kahn's words of warning against them have a special value, because he is as far as the poles from those foolish Bourbons in our political and industrial life who, by their persistence in a course of mere stupid inertia and inaction, would invite the very revolutionary movements they dread. Mr. Kahn has his face set toward the light. He realizes the change that must come in industry and in farm life in all countries. He is anxious to join in every effort, no matter how radical--provided only it is a sane effort, offering reasonable chance of success--for securing better conditions for the wage worker and the farmer in this country. He realizes that failure to strive in a serious and efficient manner for this end is to play into the hands of the Bolshevists; and he also realizes that the Bolshevists are, in the last resort, the very worst enemies of every effort to make social and industrial conditions better for the wage worker and soil toiler, because Bolshevism would invite the most violent reaction. As for the "Myth of a Rich Man's War," Mr. Kahn shows conclusively that in no other country has the wealthy cla.s.s been forced to bear as great a part of the burden in this war as here in the United States.

As a matter of fact, the whole talk of "profiteering" as an element in bringing on or supporting the war is due either to folly or else to deliberate pacifist and pro-German propaganda. There was an immense amount of profiteering in this country during the two and a half years of our ign.o.ble neutrality between right and wrong. The pacifists and pro-Germans played the game of the profiteers, and worked hand in hand with them to keep this country at peace, and therefore to continue the opportunity for profiteering. Ninety per cent. of the profiteering stopped just as soon as we went to war. Most of the well-to-do men of this country, of the men who are free from the menace of immediate want and who have given their sons a good education, have been the very men whose sons have freely and eagerly gone to the war. There is an occasional wealthy man, the owner of a set of newspapers, or an automobile factory, or something of the kind, who improperly succeeds in getting his son excused from service, on the plea that he is needed in the business. But usually it will be found that this man is himself an upholder of pacifism, or of some of the movements of the very people who have announced that they are against the war. In this country the real upholders of the war are the men who themselves have shown, or whose sons have shown, that they were willing to pay with their bodies for the principles they advocated.

Mr. Kahn's rebuke to those noxious demagogues who try to aid Germany and hurt America by prattling about this being "a rich man's war" is rendered all the stronger because he insists on heavy progressive taxation of incomes and profits for war purposes. This taxation should go up to, but under no circ.u.mstances go in the slightest degree beyond, the line at which it interferes with or limits production or prevents the fullest development of our business resources during the war. We need to speed up production to the very top limit. While this war lasts we have a right to demand of every man, whether capitalist, or labourer, or farmer, that his prime effort and motive be to win the war, for this is the people's war, America's war--the war of all of us. The Government should see that every man does his full part.

Therefore it should see that the rich man does his full part.

Therefore, not merely in his interest but in the national interest, it should also see that no frantic extremist, under the plea of forcing the rich man to do his full part, renders it impossible for him to do anything at all. So to act would bring lasting damage to the community, and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, would create a condition which would bring the war to a standstill.

This is a capital study of the problems which are of vital interest at this moment to all Americans who love their country, and who wish while serving their country also to serve all the free nations of civilized mankind.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

_Sagamore Hill_, _June_ 15, 1918.

FOREWORD

This book should be in every man's home; every woman should read it.

It is a pity that it is not in every German's home. But before your ordinary man can grasp its full significance, it is as well that he should know something of the man who wrote it, and still more why he wrote it.

Mr. Otto H. Kahn, one of the leading financiers of America, and widely renowned for his manifold charities, his strenuous public life, and his generous patronage of the Arts, is of German blood and was born in Germany. But, from his great-grandparents, who were French Alsatians, he inherited a great love of France. His father, after taking part in the German Revolution of 1848, fled to America, became naturalized as an American citizen, and finally returned to Germany after ten years of banishment. From this father, Kahn inherited the love of liberty.

He left Germany when he was twenty-one years old, after having served his year in the army; and, deciding to find his future elsewhere, gave up his German nationality thirty years ago. Returning, however, almost every year, to visit the country of his birth, and having important relations with governmental, business, social, and other circles, he had exceptional opportunities for becoming acquainted with and studying the development of German mentality and morality under the influence of Prussianism. That development filled him with horror and dismay. Long before the war he realized the terrible menace to the entire world which was subtly concealed in the poison growth of Prussianism. As he himself here puts it in one of his speeches: "From each successive visit to Germany for twenty-five years I came away more appalled by the sinister trans.m.u.tation Prussianism had wrought amongst the people and by the portentous menace I recognized in it for the entire world. It had given to Germany unparalleled prosperity, beneficent and advanced social legislation, and not a few other things of value, but it had taken in payment the soul of the race. IT HAD MADE A DEVIL'S BARGAIN."

When the war broke out, in 1914, Otto Kahn did not hesitate for a second on which side to take his stand. For him, neutrality in the fight between light and darkness, between right and atrocious wrong, was unthinkable. And as he felt and thought, being a man of honour, of courage, and of decision, so he acted, totally regardless of the consequences to himself. He had "searched his conscience in sorrow and in anguish"; and where it led him there he followed unhesitatingly.

Although his most important business relations were in Germany, although he knew that he would be attacked in Germany and by all pro-Germans as a renegade, and would have to face a very difficult position even in America as long as America was neutral, he at once became a firm, open, and active adherent of the cause of the Allies, and threw his entire influence, personal and financial, on their side.

No work for the Allies remained without his support. The calculated expectations of the German Government on German-American aid, particularly their reliance on access to the money market of America, were disappointed and defeated; the chief part of the credit for that vital result was due to Otto Kahn.

But, perhaps the greatest service to the Allied cause which Mr. Kahn rendered--which he was the first, as well as the most prominent, American of German blood to render--was his oratory through the United States. There are about twelve million Americans of German descent in the United States, and many more millions spring from races more or less affiliated with them. Most of these went to America over twenty-five years ago; they did not know modern Germany; they did not believe the accounts of German atrocities as reported in the Press; they were unable to realize the hideous change which had come over Germany since they or their parents had left it; they did not understand the origin, the cause, and the meaning of the war. And many Americans, especially in the West, held the like views.

Mr. Kahn, notwithstanding threats and malignities, went out to speak to them--individually, through newspaper articles, or at great ma.s.s meetings. He brought to bear the authority of his personality, fortified by the confidence and prestige which attach to it; and he made it plain that he spoke, not from hearsay, but from personal experience, observation, and knowledge. He succeeded in showing up modern Germany as it is, and in proving its horrible guilt for the war. He pleaded in flaming words to Americans of German birth that not only did their oath of allegiance compel them to be whole-heartedly and undividedly American, without regard to their origin, but that what could still be preserved of honour to the German name was largely in their keeping, and that even for the sake of the German blood in their veins they must prove to the world that those Germans who are not under the Prussian yoke, hate and loathe the ruling caste who have poisoned the German blood, who have made Germany a hideous, monstrous, barbarous thing, and who have robbed them of the old Germany which they loved and in which they took pride.

If, as is fortunately the case, America is now in the war by our side, unanimous, enthusiastic, undivided; if the people, East and West, realize the abominable doctrines and actions of modern Germany and the necessity at whatever cost in blood and treasure of defeating that abomination utterly, then no man is more ent.i.tled to a high place of honour among those who have brought about this happy achievement than Otto Kahn.

In his youth, Kahn had done military service in Germany; and the German youth studies and understands strategy in a far larger and broader way than even professional soldiers study it amongst us.

Strategy acts in peace, as well as in war--strategy never ceases. For what is strategy? It is the leadership of a people so that its moral, its ideals, and its will shall make it develop its destiny in such vigour that it shall be safe from the a.s.sault of any enemy will that may a.s.sail it. All statesmanship worthy of the name is strategic--all other statesmanship is but a glittering bubble, floating in an empty void. If the moral and ideals of a people be not deep-rooted in vigour capable of defending those ideals, that people is doomed.

I am proud to know that Otto Kahn sees eye to eye with me. The utter degradation of the fine old Germany by Prussia was a bitter disillusion of my young manhood. What must it have been to Otto Kahn?

He loved the old Germany to which he was "linked by ties of blood, by fond memories and cherished sentiments." To cast her out of his soul--to range himself in the forefront of those fighting the abomination which had made her an outcast amongst the peoples of the world--to brave attack, misunderstanding, misinterpretation of his motives, loss of lifelong friends, not to speak of financial sacrifices--these touch well-nigh upon the tragic. I am proud to think that the strategic revelation of Germany, which I published last year, receives such overwhelming proof in every page of Otto Kahn's book--this laying bare of the meaning, processes, and purposes of modern Germany by a great German of that fine school of honour which once made Germany a n.o.ble people. And it is good to know that when at last America struck for civilization, the vast ma.s.s of the Americans of German blood remembered that they were Americans, and that their ancient State was wholly departed. No man did more to steady them to n.o.bility of action in the day of their trial than the man who wrote this book.

One of the first tributes I received from across the seas was a copy of one of his addresses from Otto Kahn; and I am proud that it should have fallen to my good fortune to pay back that tribute between the covers of this n.o.ble volume on its issue to our people. There has been no more valuable testimony written upon the war than this small book.

Otto Kahn tells us that the hideous thing "Prussianism" must be struck down--or peace will have left the earth. There is no other way to victory; no other way from bondage for the whole wide world.

HALDANE MACFALL.

AMERICANS OF GERMAN ORIGIN AND THE WAR

Extracts from an address before The Merchants a.s.sociation of New York at its Liberty Loan Meeting June 1, 1917

AMERICANS OF GERMAN ORIGIN AND THE WAR

We have met to-day in pursuance of a high purpose, a purpose which at this fateful moment is one and the same wherever, throughout the world, the language of free men is spoken and understood.

It is the purpose of a common determination to fight and to bear and to dare everything and never to cease nor rest until the accursed thing which has brought upon the world the unutterable calamity, the devil's visitation of this appalling war, is destroyed beyond all possibility of resurrection.

That accursed thing is not a nation, but an evil spirit, a spirit which has made the government possessed by it and executing its abhorrent and b.l.o.o.d.y bidding an abomination in the sight of G.o.d and men.

What we are now contending for by the side of the splendidly brave and sorely tried Allied Nations, after infinite forbearance, after delay which many of us found it hard to bear, are the things which are amongst the highest and most cherished that the civilized world has attained through the toil, sacrifices and suffering of its best in the course of many centuries.

They are the things without which darkness would fall upon hope, and life would become intolerable.

They are the things of humanity, liberty, justice and mercy, for which the best men amongst all the nations--including the German nation--have fought and bled these many generations past, which were the ideals of Luther, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and a host of others who had made the name of Germany great and beloved until Prussianism came to make its deeds a byword and a hissing.

This appalling conflict which has been drenching the world with blood is not a mere fight of one or more peoples against one or more other peoples.

It goes far deeper. It challenges the soul and conscience of the world. It transcends vastly the bounds of racial allegiance. It is ethically fundamental.

In determining one's att.i.tude towards it, the time has gone by--if it ever was--when race and blood and inherited affiliations were permitted to count.

A century and a half ago Americans of English birth rose to free this country from the oppression of the rulers of England. To-day Americans of German birth are called upon to rise, together with their fellow-citizens of all races, to free not only this country but the whole world from the oppression of the rulers of Germany, an oppression far less capable of being endured and of far graver portent.