Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 223, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1917 — DENOUNCES KAISERISM [ARTICLE]

DENOUNCES KAISERISM

GERMAN BITTERLY ARRAIGNS HOHENZOLLERNS AND JUNKERS. The Rev. Christian Sihler, of Cleveland, a native of Ft. Wayne, is the guest of .relatives in that city, and much interest attaches to his visit because of his prominence in the Missouri synod of the German Lutheran church. He was at first intensely pro-German. His father was born in Germany and after coming to this country early in the last century, was one of the founders of the Missouri synod. The family has long been prominent in German-American circles. Mr. Sihler annuonces that he has changed his views about the war. His conclusions are given with anJncisiveness of language that leaves no doubt that his state of mind has changed. “Germany,” he declared in an interview, “is morally bankrupt. Its people do not know, are not allowed to know the real situation, and their war leaders, steeped in blood and crimes so terrible that neutrals and even enemies on this side can not bring themselves to realize their awfulness, have staked their all in the determination to win this war or destroy the world in doing it. It can end in but one way. Human freedom and the rights of peoples to live their own lives will never die. Autocracy must perish, yet when the divine right of kings is thrown into the doctrinal scrapheap and the Hohenzollerns and junkers are forced to make way for the subjects they so miserably represent, I hope to be

able to rally a few friends to the aid of a stricken people. Against the scorn and dirision of the entire world they will need a helping hand to live down the disgrace.” To this purpose Dr. Sihler has come to Ft. Waynetoarouse the “Germans in Allen county to do their dfity toward their kinsmen in the natice land of themselves or their fathers, after the war has demolished the German throne and uplifted the people. Dr. Sihler was born in a family where English was never spoken. He spent many years in Germany and knows German history and literature by close study. But when the reports began to come in about Germany’s ruthless warfare and he was able to grasp what was meant by frightfulness, he began to investigate. He found that the warridden Germany of today is not the Germany he knew in his boyhood when his own father was its exemplar. The Germany of today he says he found it a Germany gone mad with the lust of conquest. “It is my solemn conviction,” he said, “and not only mine, but of thousands of others who deplore the crimes committed by the German autocracy, that the leaders are a well organized robber band. They have dreamed of a world war of conquest and spread that doctrine long before there was a war. The peril has been hanging over the incredulous world for years. The education “of the masses has been along the lines that the action of the nation was supreme as centered in the kaiser, and that no act was a crime which served to further the interests of the war party. The people still rely on their leaders, but the time will come when they will not. Starvation Will bring about a conversion of thought and belief. The wealthier people in Germany today have three ounces of animal fat per day. The common people have hut a half ounce. They will not always stand this, and their fury will hasten the end. We have a division of thought in this country, too, among the thousands of Ger-man-born residents. “There are two the beer Germans and the Bible Gen mans, or if you please, the saloon and the church element. All have lived under the tyranny and military depotism of the old country, they have enjoyed the benefits of this free and wonderful country of ours, yet many have lowered and degraded themselves by lukewarm interest in the public’s welfare, or “else openly, sb far as they dared, made a stand for Kaiserism and the things for which the bloody Germany of today stands for. It is beyond my comprehension, how they can hesitate for one moment in giving their undivided allegiance to a country which welcomed with open arms, many of them as fugitives, escaping from military sejvice and tyrannical treatment.

“The German papers are not aiding in the propaganda. They are playing for the kaiser. This great generous-hearted country, by its lenity, has overlooked the shortcomnigs of this element, in a way that should cause proprietors of newspapers printed in the German language to hang their heads in shame. Thfey stand today for ruthless German atrocities and few if any of them have, changed their attitude since the entrance of America into the war. ' ' . “The German, people across the water are to be pitied. For years they have been taught from children up that the kaiser is the great and deciding factor of this earth. They have been taught to believe that to sin against the government ~ which rules them is the same as a sin against the Holy Ghost. No matter what the rulers may decide upon it must not be questioned. Unconditional obedience is demanded under

the doctrine that the king can do no wrong. The moral degradation of Germany is the most awful part of the whole business. It is not necessary to accept English or French testimony, or even that of stricken Belbium. The Bernstorff incident, the shameful betrayal of the trust and confidence of the American government by the accredited representatives ofthe kaiser, the plottings, destruction of lives and property'under the guise of friendship even before the war began, should convince us that there can be no peace, no safety, for established principles of democracy and the Hohenzollern and all they stand for are put where they can no longer constitute a world menace.”