ss for my German birth by
demonstrative zeal in action or speech.

I was and am proud of the great inheritance which came to me as a
birthright and of the illustrious contributions which the German
people have made to the imperishable assets of the world. Until the
outbreak of the war in 1914, I maintained close and active personal
and business relations in Germany. I was well acquainted with a number
of the leading personages of the country. I served in the German army
thirty years ago. I took an active interest in furthering German art
in America.

I do not apologize for, nor am I ashamed of, my German birth. But I am
ashamed--bitterly and grievously ashamed--of the Germany which stands
convicted before the high tribunal of the world's public opinion of
having planned and willed war; of the revolting deeds committed in
Belgium and northern France, of the infamy of the _Lusitania_ murders,
of innumerable violations of The Hague convention and the law of
nations, of abominable and perfidious plotting in friendly countries
and shameless abuse of their hospitality, of crime heaped upon crime
in hideous defiance of the laws of God and men.

I cherish the memories of my youth, but these very memories make me
cry out in pain and wrath against those who have befouled the
spiritual soil of the old Germany, in which they were rooted.

I revere the high ideals and fine traditions of that old Germany and
the time-honoured conceptions of right conduct which my parents and
the teachers of my early youth bade me treasure throughout life, but
all the more burning is my resentment, all the more deeply grounded my
hostility, against the Prussian caste who trampled those ideals,
traditions and conceptions in the dust.

Long before the war, I had come to look upon Prussianism as amongst
the deadliest poison growths that ever sprang from the soil of the
spirit of man.

When the war broke out in Europe, when Belgium was invaded, I searched
my conscience and my judgment in sorrow and anguish, the powerful
voice of blood arguing against the still, small voice of right.

And it became clear to me to the point of solemn and unshakable
conviction that Prussianism, in mad infatuation, had committed the
crowning sin of outraging and defying the conscience of the world and
of challenging right to mortal combat against might, and that the
cause which the Allies were defending was our cause, because it was
the cause of peace, humanity, just