aim, and to stand up for those great ideals and national
qualities and traditions which they inherited from their ancestors,
and to set their faces like flint against the monstrous doctrines and
acts of a rulership that has robbed them of the Germany they loved and
in which they took just pride, the Germany which had the good-will,
respect and admiration of the entire world.

I do not hesitate to state it as my solemn conviction that the more
unmistakably and whole-heartedly Americans of German origin throw
themselves into the struggle which this country has entered in order
to rescue Germany, no less than America and the rest of the world,
from those sinister forces that are, in President Wilson's language,
the enemy of all mankind, the better they protect and serve the repute
of the old German name and the true advantage of the German people.

Gentlemen, I measure my words. They are borne out all too emphatically
by the hideous eloquence of deeds which have appalled the conscience
of the civilized world. They are borne out by numberless expressions,
written and spoken, of German professors employed by the State to
teach its youth.

The burden of that teaching is that might makes right, and that the
German nation has been chosen to exercise morally, mentally and
actually, the over-lordship of the world and must and will accomplish
that task and that destiny whatever the cost in bloodshed, misery and
ruin.

The spirit of that teaching, in its intolerance, its mixture of
sanctimoniousness and covetousness, and its self-righteous assumption
of a world-improving mission, is closely akin to the spirit from which
were bred the religious wars of the past through the long and dark
years when Protestants and Catholics killed one another and devastated
Europe.

I speak in sorrow, for I am speaking of the country of my origin and
I have not forgotten what I owe to it.

I speak in bitter disappointment, for I am thinking of the Germany of
former days, the Germany which has contributed its full share to the
store of the world's imperishable assets and which, in not a few
fields of endeavour and achievement, held the leading place among the
nations of the earth.

And I speak in the firm faith that, after its people shall have shaken
off and made atonement for the dreadful spell which an evil fate has
cast upon them, that former Germany will arise again and, in due
course of time, will again deserve and attain the good-will