Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1918 — AMERICAN PROPAGANDA IN GERMANY [ARTICLE]

AMERICAN PROPAGANDA IN GERMANY

Nearly four years have elasped since the bloody struggle began in Continental Europe, which apparently began over the assassination of two members of the Royal Family of Austria; but as the days passed by and the struggle became more fierce it developed that the military power of Germany was behind the war for the purpose of adding territory to her empire, at the expense of the weaker nations on her border that would enable her to conquer the world.

Prussian militarism has" predominated in Germany and the larger portion of her territory has been added by force, at the expense of the conquered. She wrested from Austria the beautiful province of Celicia without a cent of’ remuneration. She took from Denmark the provinces of Showleweg and Holstein. She took from France Alsiace Lorraine. She has conquered Roumania, Lithewana, Translvanna, Eucrenea, Finland and the larger portion of this territory has been added to her empire by a treaty of recent date.

Servia, Belgium and northern France are helpless. Russia, in her present disorganized condition, is at the mercy of that military, brutish army that the Imperial Government of Germany has organized to subdue Thesia and the remainder of the world if possible. The United States of America was obliged to enter the war to protect her citizens, her honor and her rights on the high sea. She has furnished a home for German subjects who have lived within her borders in peace and happiness and prosperity. Many of the German people in America left the father land for the reason that they objected to the military service thAt they were obliged to give to “ the German government if they -remained in Germany. j We take the position that the greater majority of the people of German extract who live in America are able to give to this nation a greater service by establishing to the best of their ability a German American propaganda in Germany, in order that the rank and file of the German people might see the light, might have a more perfect vision of American civilization, and we believe that kind of a propaganda should be organized in every county in the United States. Let every German who believes that Democracy should be established in Germany precipitate in explaining to friends in Germany that the Kaiser and von Hi'nderburg and the whole military autocratic system of Germany is driving them to the slaughter pen. Break the news to them that the United States of America did not enter this war for conquest or for indemnity, that it was not the will of the American people to make war, but to defend the right of a free people, to protect the weak, show to them that American civilization is that right is might, and that America, American manhood, American money and all that America stands for will fight until that point is won—“that might does not make right.”

Let every German American be an American. If he is, he will willingly give his people in Germany the facts concerning the war that is possible for him to give, and when he shows to them that nearly five million of their best soldiers have perished, that they were largely made up from German provinces outside of Prussia, and when the people of Germany have learned that Fritz ,and Julius and Paul, and many of their fellow soldiers, will never again return home; that those who have been waiting for them will never again see their faces; that they have long since perished, yet their names appear as alive. And when the provinces of Germany outside of Prussia realize that the cause for which they have given their blood, was a false representation, made by the military powers of Prussia that ruled the German Empire, it is then that the German provinces will awaken to the sense of their duty, but possibly too late to retain any power in the Empire, that Prussia and her military power will go marching on at the expense of i her weak sisters. It is our duty, and our whole duty, to impress this thought on the ' minds of the German people as much as itis our ability to do. • W. L. 'WOOD*.