Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1918 — BLAMES KAISER FOR BRUTALITY [ARTICLE]

BLAMES KAISER FOR BRUTALITY

German-American Sends Letter Citing Frightful Deeds. Des Moines, lowa, February 6.--Impressing on his fellow Gerri Tan that “the Germany of today is not the Germany of thirty years ago,” Louis Block, a Davenport attorney, caused a sensation by hia letter to the Genu?b-American conference held .in this ci recently. “In the Germany of today,” wrote Mr. Block, “no one but the soldier has any opportunity at all, and even he has little chance unless he belongs to the official class. Germany has - become a nati on which sim ply worships war, which exalts soldier-

ing high above every other calling in life and has thus become a constant source of awful danger to the other nations of the world —a danger loaded with disaster, one that may suddenly destroy all human happiness and blast the race of man wlt|i untold suffering. “It is as a result of Germany's militaristic system alone that her men have been turned from kindly, gracious human beings into snarling, ravenous beasts who have toppled over the beautiful and shapely built structures of civilization until now they lie in hopeless, smokeless, maddening ruins at their feet. The Germany of today has become a fiend at the fireside of the family of nations, and in such a sulphurous atmosphere the flower of human freedom has become scorched and shriveled and liberty has been utterly lost in a land ruled by the soldier, “In this soldier-cursed Germany the will of the commander-in-chief is now the sole and only law and blind obedience" to that will has become the great virtue. The will of Wilhelm, the war lord, is now supreme in all the walks of life, it took him and his royal ancestors forty years of constant education in schools, churches and colleges controlled by him and presided over by teachers, preachers and professors appointed and paid for by him, to steal away their individual souls, but he seems at last to have done it.’’ Mr. Block cited some of the deeds off frightfulness established as acts of German soldiers in the war, and charged that it was the kaiser who had “turned his people into beasts.” He added: “I want our German-Americans to the truth —to know that these things were not British lies, but that they were actually done. I want them to know that the public thinkers of Germany, the writers of her books, the editors of her papers, the preachers in her pulpits, the teachers in their schools and colleges, the members of her legislative bodies, all of them writing, speaking, and working under the lash of the kaiser and his military gang, have filled the souls of $ great majority of the German people with an unholy lust for world conquest and world power. “It is because we do not want this curse to blight America that we must continue to fight kaiserism with a vim and a will, with eyes that never sleep and feet that never tire, fight out faithfully to the bitter end this great war for human liberty and happiness. “The trouble with our German people is that they can’t be brought to believe these awful things. They don’t want to believe them; they fight against believing them. A number of our German-American people have stopped their subscriptions to the English language newspapers simply because they couldn’t endure the horror and pain that the awful truth inflicted on them. But there is no use in shutting our eyes to the facts. Sooner or later we shall be forced to know and accept the truth, and the sooner we know it and get our live? ad-

justed in harmony with it the better Ifor us all. “There ought to be no question as to the absolute loyalty of every German-American to the Stars and Stripes. We came from a land where we had no chance at all, and because we had no chance, to this fair land of promise that insures to every hard working, saving, earnest man real success in life. Most of us have realized well upon this assurance. Many of us 'have become wealthy under the opportunity which America gave us. Tt is true we earned what we have, earned it byconstant hard work through days filled with long hours of unremitting toil, and by means of saving our pennies add denying ourselves many of the so-called 'pleasures of life. Yet in spite of all our hard work and self-denial we never could have succeeded unless great, good, kind and loving America had given us a chance to do so.”