Modern European Culture Returning To Its Asiatic Homestead. TABLE OF CONTENTS War News Page 2 | Bethmann-Hollweg's Last Speech..12 German Press on Uboat Break with Senator La Follette's Speech......14 the United States .... American, Nothing More and Nothing Less 2 Senator Stone on American Danger 16 Value of Modern Languages.......23 Culture, Language and Efficiency..26 3 America First and America Only.. 6 Scandinavians at Home and Abroad 27 BREAK WITH AMERICA. Cincinnati Freie Presse: "The war that the United States may lead against Germany has nothing in common with the objects for which England and her allies are fighting." New York Staats-Zeitung: "The President need have no concern as to the loyalty of Americans of German ancestry." New York German Herald: "We are absolutely certain that during the war no change in the form of government the Germans have is possible." Cincinnati Volksblatt: "We agree with the President that war exists between the United States and Germany, and that all citizens must comply with the duties arising out of the state of war. All other statements in the President's speech we disapprove and reject." Berlin Vossische Zeitung: "Efforts to dissociate the German Government from the people are perfidious." Berlin Local Anzeiger: "History will condemn this deed of a stubborn fanatic in worse degree than the Italian or the Rumanian breach." A Plea to the Press. "We think that now all newspapers should write in aiding our country to cope with the situation ahead; and this,aid is badly rendered when a newspaper wastes its valuable space in seeking to keep open old wounds, or in trying to sow prejudice, dissension and distrust at home, here, against our German American citizens and neighbors. The newspaper which pursues this policy is doing our country and the fair name of American justice an irreparable injury."-The American Weekly. "Half the civilized world is now a slaughter-house for human beings." Kitchin, of North Carolina. The $7,000,000,000 War Revenue Bill passed the House, April 16, and will pass the Senate. General Foch, the hero of the Marne, has been detached from active services at the age of 66 years. A Flood of Telegrams Reached Congress Protesting Against Conscription. 1,201,500 Merchantmen Tonnage Was Sunk by the German uboats in February and March. Bulgaria and Turkey Break Diplomatic Relations with the United States is the report from Zurich, April 17. Canadian Losses on Vimy Ridge Heavy, 12,000 in One Week. For their numbers the Canadians seem to suffer the most. They hesitate not to go to the front. The Socialist Party of America Voted for Immediate Peace at their Conference in St. Louis, April 13, and that the money for prosecuting the war be raised by taxation of the rich. About One Seventh of the Territory the Germans occupied in France has been recovered after the long and strong English-French offensive drive. Thus it seems the war will be a long one. Destroy Militarism by Militarism? End war by making war? The Kingdom of England has the same relation to the British Empire that the Kingdom of Prussia has to the German Empire. The navyism of the two nations is also about alike. The only difference is England has the larger navy and Germany the larger army. Both navy and army however must be united in an estimate of militarism. Hence British militarism is as strong as the German. Germany Will Not Declare War Upon America is the good news that the German censor has permitted to come to America at three different times lately. Congress says, Germany is making war upon us, but Germany tries to make it plain that from her War Awakens Interest in Modern standpoint she is not making war Language Study. Misunderstandings upon us and will not. It surely takes are often the causes of war. Nations at least two to make a fight. Ger- misunderstand one another because many is for peace and reconciliation. they do not understand one another, How can you fight without any en- and they cannot unless they learn and emy? History offers no like pre- respect one anothers language. cedent. When one party is too friendly to fight, peace must result. May as little American blood be spilt in this war as possible, is the prayer of every patriotic American! Modern language study promotes world peace, and that is what humanity needs. Loyalty to United States is the KeyNote of the American German Press. American, Nothing More and Nothing Less These words are chosen to define the origin, stand and spirit of the "Northern Review". The magazine was started before the war began, and the second number, March-April, 1914, bore the present name. It is devoted to the culture and arts of peace of the North, giving special attention to teaching and speaking modern languages, including English, since language is the basis, medium and goal of education and culture. Last month the 100,000,000 people of the United States were politically a neutral nation and at peace with the whole wrold, today they are practically at war with the 123,000,000 people of Germany and Austria-Hungary in Central Europe, 3000 miles away. The "Stars and Stripes" are now unfurled on the battle line in France, the first time they ever inspired an army in Europe. How will this interpret the Monroe doctrine to the nations of the old world in the future? Will it encourage the 400,000,000 people in Europe to send armies to fight on one side or the other of our future wars? War is terrible, but war with Germany is to our citizens of German descent the saddest war conceivable; doubly sad because of their double love for the land of their fathers and for the land of their children. It is hard for American-English, Scotch, French, Italians and Russians to go from here into such a bloody war so far away to fight on the side of their fatherlands; but it is more sad for American-Germans, Austrians and Hungarians to go there to fight against their own blood relations. Germans will do this, for they are taught to be loyal to the government wherever they live. The AmericanGermans in all wars have been loyal to the United States, in 1776, 1812, 1861, 1898, and they will be in 1917. They are really proud of their American record, and this war has made them and doubtless us all better Americans. We see more in the "Declaration of Independence" and love that historic political document, the "Constitution of the United States," more today than we did before the war. These American political documents and the words of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and other founders of our nation, we need not quote here again, as we printed their words on Americanism, and entanglements with foreign alliances in the February number of the "Northern Review" of last year, to which the reader is referred. In their words is where we find pure "Americanism, nothing more and nothing less;" there is the broadest and best expression of political liberty, in which the new world now' excels the old world. Liberty is a big word, and has a long history, and is not confined to one or a few spheres of life; but touches all. Each nation has made a contribution to liberty. The Germans have developed personal liberty and intellectual liberty, the English commercial liberty, the French social liberty and the Americans political liberty. The American's idea of liberty is at once centered in the year 1776, when politically we became free from Great Britain and all ties that in any way bind us to oversea nations. Since that year Americanism has been no respector of persons, all nationalities were put on an equality, and our strength and unity consist in giving no insult to any race, creed, language or nationality. This brought and held here white educated European immigrants, who came of their own volition by the hundreds of thousands. No one individual or nationality has more rights or privileges politically than another. All are alike before the law. Civilization rests upon four corner stones: the family, the school, the church and the state. No one of these can be neglected without doing harm to the whole. In America, however, all four institutions are free, and the free state defends the freedom of the other three. Here we may found homes in architecture and inner life after the models of the old homes we left. Our schools are free schools, each district self-governing according to the American principle of "no taxation without representation." Se our churches are free; we may build the style of edifice and worship in the language, we like. But, if we want a political government like the one in England, Germany or Russia, we will soon be told, this is America, and it is our government of the people, by the people and for the people, that is the fuller development of the political liberty of Europe that this new world has given to humanity. We may differ on the other three institutions, but we must be a unit politically, and I believe we really and truly are, though many neglect to emphasize the political unity, because of their zeal for other ideas. True patriotism is more in reading and living our Constitution than in making a great noise and show. Former Congressman Vollmer of Davenport, Ia., last week in a speech in Chicago strongly put the same thought thus: "We are not here to advertise our patriotism. Love of country is a sentiment too sacred for public exploitation. I despise the professional patriots, the hot air patriots, the mere flagwavers, these rows of salad battlers in the Broadway restaurants and other places, who make an insufferable nuisance out of their cheap, imitation patriotism and frequently by their persecution of innocent people justify Beaconfield's saying that 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' "Americans of German birth and descent have had a rather hard time of it since the great world war began. They have been misunderstood and misrepresented so much that it naturally angers them to be asked to come forward now and publicly proclaim their loyalty to the government of the United States, because in the request there may be the implication that their loyalty requires reaffirmation under existing circumstances. "But it is not so. German-Americans always have been loyal to our government and always will be. Their entire history is a safe guaranty of this. Of course, you may not discover this in our school books. You may find there a great deal about the Hessians of revolutionary days, but you will not find there the historical fact that Washington made up his personal bodyguard out of German-Americans, because he felt he could trust them. "But during the civil war, that titanic conflict, the anniversary of whose closing we are observing today, more than 500,000 of them enlisted in the armies of the union. Of these, some 216,000 were born in Germany and more than 300,000 were born in this country, of German parents." Lucius B. Swift in an article in the April "Educational Review" of New York, on "The failure to teach the foundations of our liberties in the schools," says: "No youth should leave school without knowing how our Anglo-Saxon forefathers carried representative government from the forests of Germany into England; how it flourished in the hundred moot, the shire-moot, and the folk moot; how all government was laid prostrate for the moment by William the Conqueror; how starting again with the Great Council of the Norman Kings, the people of England, slowly, and in spite of the opposition of their kings, built up a more and more representative government, which developed into the English Parliament and the American Congress of today." We fought the American Revolution with "no taxation without represention" as our leading war-cry, to maintain the right of not being taxed except by laws which we had a hand in making. The people in Germany and in the homeland of the Normans continued to develop liberty as they did in England and America, and some day they will meet and discover that all four Teutonic nations, Germans, Scandinavians, English and Americans, had been faithfully and conscientiously laboring to solve the same problem of human liberty, but in different ways. Teutonic disunion caused this war. The Germans, Austrians and English are fighting one another, while the Swiss, Dutch, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians are neutral. In Teutonic liberty, unity and co-operation is the liberty, peace and hope of humanity-all being equals among equals. When Teutons cease to fight among themselves, there may be permanent, enduring world peace. "American, Nothing More." We enter the war with the Central Powers only on the uboat issue, as Americans to procure American rights on the seas, not to be entangled in the quarrels of France, Italy and Russia with the Central Powers. It is not an American-Russian, but only an American affair. We plead not for French-Americanism, Italian-Americanism, RussianAmericanism or Anglo-Americanism, for that is political hyphenism, that the American press condemns and should condemn, whether it is here or transferred to Europe, while all other forms of hyphenism, as racial and cultural hyphenism, are permissible. As an American, a descendent of Harris who founded Harrisburg, Pa., I do not want to fight any other than American battles. It will be found to be difficult to be an "American, and nothing more." Those who spoke to keep us out of war, now vigorously protest against going beyond our American duty. We are not for the Allies, if we are with them. If we fight Germany we must control the American issue from the beginning to the end. We quarrel with Germany because we think she misused the new war weapon, the uboat, against us, and not in order to crush Germany or Prussian militarism. Neither is it easy to be "American, and nothing less." We want the whole "Declaration of Independence" and the whole "Constitution of the United States." No one is less an American by virtue of not being born in the British Isles nor by virtue of speaking more languages than the English, nor by virtue of the United States being at war with the fatherland of their grandparents. War is carried on by the state, and only political loyalty and unity are required. On other things we may differ as in the times of peace. There is no ground to do otherwise, for Americans want the seas free as do the Germans, and when our American ships can go to Germany as to England unmolested or escorted by equal convoys, we ought to withdraw from the conflict. From this war some good will come to the world, to both the European and American nations. We will be broader and better Americans. The revolutionary war made us free from England and all European domination. The Civil War united the north and south, east and west, into one solid union. The Spanish War introduced the United States to the world and internationalized us. This World War will give us free seas and make us a freer nation among the nations. There is a healthy development from 1776 to 1861, then to 1898, and now to 1917. Even in war let us be fair in all things, and not misrepresent Germany or its people. We are apt to do this, even if we cannot always see the difference between the titles, "Emperor of Germany" and "German Emperor." The Emperor is not in theory a ruler, but president of self-governing 25 states, 4 kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Wurtemberg); 18 grand duchies, duchies and principalities, and 3 republics, Bremen, Hamburg and Luebeck. Wilhelm, king of Prussia, bore the title of "President of the Confederation of the German States", upon whom was formally conferred January 18, 1871, in the Palace of Versailles the title "German Emperor" which honor was to be hereditary in the king of Prussia. Thus, Germany became a constitutional Empire, similar to the British Empire. The king of Prussia is the "German Emperor" without an election, somewhat as if the Governor of New York were, by virtue of being the head of the largest state the president of the United States, or as the King of England is the Emperor of India. Meyer's history, used in our schools, says: "The new German Empire constitutes a federal state belonging to the same class of political organizations as the United States, Switzerland, Canada and the newly formed Australian Commonwealth." The "German Emperor" is not crowned, he has no veto power, no salary, cannot be impeached. In reality he is the "President of the German United States of Europe." The English, Germans and Americans are alike in government. as in blood. Let us as a nation remember the words of President Wilson in his message, asking Congress to declare a state of war with Germany, that we are "the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us." To this end may we follow the ever timely warning of Washington, the father of his country, and beware of entangling alliances with foreign nations. If ever these words should be loyally heeded, it is now Be "American, nothing more and nothing less." J. N. Lenker. Germany will not Fight the United States is the report. It has not declared war against us and we hope it will not, unless it be only a defensive war. It will not come over here to fight us, even if we go over there. Europe has come here in aggressive warfare and was always defeated. We may be the first to carry war from America into Europe. Germany has too many sons and daughters here to war with us. Austria has only broken diplomatic relations with us. |