CHAPTER VII

The Danger in Misconceptions of German

Character

As in Russia, so it is in England, France, Italy and the United States. German propaganda is a colorless, odorless, tasteless poison, so subtle that its work is done before even the danger is recognized (New York "Tribune.")

Already the civilized world has lost six millions of men, and many billions of treasure, partly through its awful ignorance and misconceptions of Hun character and ambitions.

Inasmuch as Germany now is the bitterest and most dangerous enemy that ever hated the United States, it becomes highly important that every American, regardless of sex, color or condition of servitude, should have an exact and luminous measure of that land and its people. The man who is ignorant of the mind and manners of his enemy thereby is at a great disadvantage; and in the end his enemy will make him pay heavily for his ignorance.

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For forty years and more the Huns of Germany went masquerading under cloaks and dominos of "kultur" that deceived the whole world. They diligently exploited camouflages of "German art," science," "music" and "literature," successfully distracted attention from the gross and the material side of German character, and everywhere set up idols made in Germany with feet of clay.

But war, the great test of nations and peoples, has stripped off several masks. It has revealed the supposedly little Belgians as giants in national honor and in courage. It has revealed the supposedly frivolous Frenchman as a human bull-dog in courage and tenacity. The Briton we always have known, just as we know him to-day,- a human Rock of Gibraltar for the defense of Humanity. The American has been found hard to awaken and slow to strike, but we believe he will be both swift and strong at the finish.

The Germany that we knew and admired so much, and that many loved, up to 1914, is dead and gone! And the new Hun of Germany, what of him?

With his mask and his cloak now contemptuously thrown aside, his misshapen and ugly form now nakedly stands forth, a horrible surprise to the civilized world. His former friends and admirers, and many of his relatives, also, now regard this new gorilla with horror and aversion. His mentality and his moral principles are even more warped and twisted than his physique, a combination of big body, small head, and reptilian heart. Of moral principles, of bed-rock honor and gentlemanly ethics he has none. He even enjoys jabbing and pin-pricking the weak and the helpless, morning, noon and night; just as a cruel brute of a boy loves to torture kittens. If you doubt this, read about the German occupation of Belgium and northern France. On the coldest day it will make your blood boil.

A gentleman respects the man who fights him fairly, as gentlemen fight; and even when badly beaten he can shake hands with his antagonist, and call it "square." But all the world hates the dirty fighter,

and the mean-spirited cur who resorts to yellow-dog's tricks in order to win.

The leading Germans who have written and spoken since the war began have again and again voiced their sentiments that in winning this "defensive" (?) war, any and all methods that Germany may find it "best" to adopt are necessarily right! This is the pet doctrine of General Bernhardi, the evil genius of Germany, of Stirner, Reimer, Deissmann, Nietzsche, Hartmann, Traub, and the sweet-scented Pastor B. Baumgarten. To the Huns of to-day, their Might is their Right!

We have seen the detailed records of enough lowdown and disgusting brutalities to brand the male Huns of Germany as creatures unfit to associate with decent people. Who but low-lived curs could have taken Edith Cavell from her hospital, even from her cots once occupied by wounded German soldiers, and without giving her or the American Minister the slightest chance for her defense in that ghastly mockery of a "trial," have shot her, secretly? And all this because, they said, she aided half a dozen Belgian and French prisoners to escape to Holland.

Who but the cheapest and most craven navy men on all the seas could have condemned and murdered brave and competent Captain Fryatt because he once saved his ship from a German submarine by trying to ram it? Great sportsmen, are those Germans! Real Americans will not be proud to know them and do business with them after the war. "Mr. President, I present His Excellency, the German Ambassador!"

Before the war we endured the colossal egotism of

the Germans, their greed of spirit, and their propensities to bully and oppress the weak, but the world will not condone their atrocities, their treachery, and the currish spirit that this war has revealed. The men of the Hun army and the navy are now, and ever will be, unfit to associate with gentlemen, and henceforth no American who values his reputation ever can afford to associate with them, war or no war. To Germany the "most favored nation" principle never again will apply; and we want no nonsense in Washington about it! We repeat that Americans of German descent are in a totally different class. America is for them; Germany is not. They are of us and for us, and we are for them. They recognize the frightfulness of Germany, just as we do. They see the broken German idols lying in the mud, just as we see them; and while they mourn over them, they make no attempts to pick them up.

To a clean-minded, fair-minded American, Briton or Frenchman, the systematic manner in which German egotism, greed, deception and cruelty has been taught and fostered during the past thirty or forty years is almost beyond comprehension. We thought in 1914 that we knew the German people; but events quickly proved that we never had acquired the faintest notion of their true character! By 1915 it finally was revealed to the world that the basic doctrine of Pan-Germany is: "Whatever a German does for Germany is Necessarily Right"; that "The German is a Superman, and therefore Infallible "; and that "God is in partnership with the Kaiser."

For three and one-half years the German government has been lying steadily to the German people, and

that policy continues to-day. The yokels are being told that "Germany was attacked"; that "other nations wish to destroy Germany "; that "Germany is fighting a defensive war," and that “England has long desired to crush Germany." As the natural and logical result of this lying, behold this

Partial List of the Crimes of Germany

1. Germany deliberately and intentionally started the war, to crush Europe, and spread herself in seized and vassalized territory. (See Bernhardi.)

2. Repeatedly Germany has violated every clause of the Hague Convention of 1904 to restrict warfare to its legitimate channels, and lessen the horrors of war!

3. In contravention of a solemn treaty, and without the slightest provocation, Germany invaded Belgium for the purpose of hitting France below the belt.

4. German soldiers and sailors and airmen have murdered countless thousands of civilians, old men, old women and children.

5. Germany permitted her tool and ally, Turkey (on which may all the curses of God alight), to slaughter 1,500,000 helpless Christian Armenians, without ever lifting a finger to stop it, or even to protest against it.

6. German soldiers violated in Belgium and France at least 100,000 women and children, and murdered thousands of outraged women.

7. Germany slaughtered many hundreds of helpless women, children and men in London, in a most brutal and senseless manner, and with great moral and military disadvantages to herself!

8. German submarine commanders have murdered