Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1918 — GERMAN CALLS ON HIS COUNTRYMEN TO OUST KAISER [ARTICLE]

GERMAN CALLS ON HIS COUNTRYMEN TO OUST KAISER

Bitter Arraignment of Hohenzollemtsm Written to Be Read by Germans. EMPEROR ALONE TO BLAME WnaeleM and Extravagant Lust far War Plunges World Into Sea of Blood and Tears—Soldiers Urged to Join Entente and Wrest Land From Claws of Destroyer. j-.'

By SIEGFRIED BALDER.

Comrades In war! Three years have passed since the German emperor plunged the world and his people into this most groundless, senseless and impious of all wars, into a sea of blood and tears. Trained from childhood to be a soldier, brought up amid the perverted views of the junker and officer caste, dreaming of the laurels of the conqueror as the highest ideal, counseled by generals, befriended by war contractors, and even with a financial interest in their profiteering, he has since 1905 systematically paved the way for the war. He desired this war, he permitted the systematic cult of war in Germany by the Pan-Germanists, and he has encouraged it. He supported and fomented the almost dally quarrels of the other powers through the Pan-German press by his inflammatory speeches. Last of all he affixed his signature to the various declarations of war; he is fully and entirely responsible for them.

For nine years the diplomacy of our neighbors, consistently anxious for peace, succeeded in averting this disaster from the world. This was the policy which was falsely presented to your Ignorance as the “Isolation policy,” in reality, a peace policy in which Germany was always.most heartily invited to participate. Germany was not isolated, but the German government, and in its wake the Austrian government, deliberately and maliciously withdrew from the circle of civilized nations, as criminals from human social circles.

But not only the diplomatic circles of foreign states, but also German men of insight and lofty Ideals have placed themselves firmly in opposition to the emperor's senseless and extravagant lust for war, in spite of his wrath, and have sacrificed their positions rather than their convictions. This was true in the case of the president of the Reichsbank, Doctor Koch, and even of the emperor’s brother. Prince Henry of Prussia. On the 31st of July, 1914, he urged the emperor to desist from the war. and when he failed in his attempthe flung at the emperor’s feet his commission as grand admiral• and commander in chief of the German navy, FACTS NOT GIVEN TO GERMAN PEOPLE. Up to the last moment (England even held out until noon of the 4th of August, 1914, when the German army had already swept like a torrent over the boundaries of the neighboring countries on side) the rulers, ministers and diplomats of England, Russia, France and Serbia did all that lay within human power, even to the utmost self-abnegation, in order to preserve peace for the world. 1 This fact is clearly manifest; the documents concerning it set it forth in black and white td the gaze of the world. They are acknowledged as authentic by the German government, but they are naturally withheld from the German people. No one wished to attack us, either then or at any later time. All that Austria could ask of Serbia with even the slightest semblance of justice was freely granted. Thus from the very beginning of the war the sympathy of the-entire world belonged properly to our neighbors who had been so wantonly attacked. But it did not stop at sympathy; the scoundrels who govern you and control you. by, the colossal atrocity of their methods of warfare, by such brutality as in itself to be a menace to the whole neutral world, by disregard of all established treaties, managed step by step to enrage all civilized humanity to war against us.

If ® bloodthirsty maniac should be let loose on the streets those whom he attacked would defend themselves. All peace-loving men would hasten to their rescue; only cowards would slink timidly away. This is today the attitude of the world toward Germany. There willJto no peace, and justly so, until the murderer is Imprisoned and shorn of his power to harm. THIS MURDERER IS GERMAN EMPEROR. Comrades in war, this murderer is the German emperor and his government ; that is to say, the men whom he himself has chosen for his infamous plan, without consulting the people, and without regard for their wishes; and these are accomplices he has se-

lected after men of honor have refused their services. In the spring of 1914 s by an overwhelming vote of lack of confidence, the reichstag showed its distrust of the only man whose signature the emperor needed for mobilization and. declaration of war, Beth-mann-Holweg, his Imperial chancellor. In no modern civilized state would it be possible for a minister to remain in office after being openly branded by the representatives of the people as unfit, but In Germany any criminal may become and remain imperial chancellor -at- the will of the emperor alone. Punishment has already found him out. Another lackey has been promoted to lackey-ln-chief, without consultation with the German people and their representatives. This murderer Is the German emperor with his accomplices; but not the German people, the poor people defrauded and exploited by their government; not the poor soldiers, who are driven to slaughter by these knaves under the iron shackles of military lav', like the miserable galley slaves of old. Comrades, how long is it your wish to put up with this? When will you rouse yourselves? When will you take arms on the side on which every man of honor must now fight; on the side of humanity and civilization against this gang of slayers? When will you free our poor, down-trodden, famished people from its tyrants, and again establish justice, liberty, morality, reason and civilization in Germany? JOIN FIGHT ON SIDE OF JUSTICE. Why not come over to fight on the side of justice, of truth, of freedom, all of you; the side on which all civilized nations as well as the noblest and most far-seeing of your own people have taken their stand? I know the reasons which hold you back:

1. Your ignorance; the false doctrines with which you were inoculated in your school days in all matters of history, civil life and politics; the pretentious lies of the German press, whipped into line by a military dictator; your implicit confidence in your “God-given” leaders. 2. Fear of your masters, especially of the officers. But, these hangmen of the kaiser are cowardly and hide themselves in time of danger behind cover. Shoot them down like mad dogs if they get in your way. Rather that they die than the hundreds of thousands of honest, industrious fathers of families whom they have already hunted into the jaws of death; a hunt which day by day goes on. 3. Fear of committing an unpardonable crime, and of being unable to return home even if you escape punishment. BUT THE LAWS BY WHICH THE MURDERERS MAINTAIN THEIR POWER AND MAKE YOU TRUCKLING slaves SHALL BE BLOTT ed OUT BEFORE THE WAR IS AT AN END, AND YOU WILL BE JOYFULLY WELCOMED HOME WITHOUT DISGRACE, AND MORE THAN THAT, WITH THE HIGHEST HONOR, AS TRUE HEROES AND LIBERATORS OF YOUR COUNTRY. 4. Fear' of injuring our fatherland If you go over to the French and English, and more than that if you fight on their side, which is a matter for your own choice. Comrades, I pledge you by all that we hold holy, I am a son of the Ger-, man people, I love them with every fiber of my being, more than ever a Hohenzollern loved them; and the honor and welfare of my fatherland stand atyove all else, and are the only

lodestars of my destiny. I know the war, the events leading up to it, its causes, and its progress—more than the kaiser’s government likes. I assure you that the welfare of the German people demands that you come over; aye, that you turn your cannon around, that you Join the entente- and march with them to the Rhine and over IL and wrest our l<nd from the claws of its destroyer, far naw and for all time. FREE MANKIND FROM AN INSANE CRIMINAL.

There are only two ways of ending this war: Either humanity, without you, vrithout the co-operation of the German people, will annihilate Prussian junkerdom, and will starve out the German people that thus they may free mankind, for now and forever, from a curse which rests upon them with the weight of Alpine snows; from any Insane criminal on a throne w|io, by' a stroke of the pen, may change millions of men into corpses and cripples, and ruin the industry apd welfare of a nation; either this or you yourselves will assist in the task of freeing mankind. PEACE WILL NOT COME ONE HOUR BEFORE THIS GOAL IS REACHED, BUT NOT ONE HOUR LATER. But if this goal should be reached without you and in spite of you you will be ground down into ruin, and what is more, the people of our German fatherland will be given over to the will of the conquerors. Then your intellectual and political leaders, the true leaders who are not the lackeys of the emperor, will have no right and no opportunity to interpose a word concerning the future order of the world and of Germany. But if you co-operate,. and that with all your might, to carry out this purpose, the honor of the German people, which is today scorned as merely an insensate tool in the hands, of murderers, will be restored; and more than that, you will have a voice in the establishment of the new order of the world and of Germany. And take ipy word for it we shall have peace, and we can have it on such terms that the German people will be happier in the future than they ever were before the war. But leave us in the lurch, and we must recognize with sullen rage and scorn fEat we are the fellow countrymen of hopelessly deluded slaves, upon whom will rest the blame for their own ruin and for the annihilation of Germany. EMPEROR WICKEDLY

DECEIVED YOU. Comrades in war, you have takep an oath of allegiance to your flag. But the emperor, too, took an oath at the beginning of his reign, an oath of allegiance to the German constitution. The confederation which forms the German empire was established according to this constitution, “TO PROTECT THE UNITED PROVINCES AND THE LEGAL RIGHTS THEREOF, AND TO PROMOTE THE WELFARE OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE.” To guard it is the foremost, Indeed the only, duty of the German emperor. If this purpose cannot be accomplished without war, then the emperor 'may declare war, but not until then. But the emperor wickedly, wantonly, by deceiving the German people, by misrepresenting facts and by forging official documents, by breaking sacred treaties which he as the defender of Justice should have observed, has overthrown Belgium, declared war on Russia, France and Serbia, and has thereby violated the laws of Justice and the constitution; has hurled the German empire down to ruin and has wrecked the welfare of the German people. The oath which you have taken means allegiance merely to an emperor who is the protector of the German people, the” guardian of their constitution, the true preserver of their welfare; it does not mean allegiance to burglars, murrascally ’ drummers for greedy cannon makers. But you took no oath against the German people whom it was this emperor’s duty to protect; whom you must now protect without him and against him, a miserable wretch who betrays his country in the hour of greatest danger, who either from stupidity or from cowardice works against the good of .his people. KNIFE AT GULLET OF SCOUNDRELS WHO RULE. Let every man who loves the German people and the German fatherland come over! The password which is so be given at the French posts is: REPUBLICI , He will meet not only French and English and Americans, but also German patriots, whose concern it is that our fatherland, the fatherland so shamefully and treacherously sold fey its rulers by divine right, should not be annihilated; and he will be welcomed With honor by the French if he gives this password, and will be well treated. Comrades in war, the knife Is at the gullet of the scoundrels who rule you, and they would rather starve and bleed the German people to death to the last man than make peace, or even make known the object of their war. For they know very well that the hour of reckoning has struck for them when they can no longer suppress the truth beneath their martial law, and trample freedom in the dust. Before we make peace, therefore, and in order to make peace, we must first reckon with them.

Thls artlcle was written by a German to be read by Germans. It was\ circulated In Germany through the efforts of German republicans In Switzerland who are working for the overthrow of Hohenzollernlsm and the establishment of a German republic. A copy has Just been received In this country and has been translated for the use of the press. COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION.