The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-15
DEFENDS EMPEROR
 FROM HIS CRITICS
Livingston Man Says Ger man Ruler Has Always
 Been Man of Peace
To the Editor of The Age-Herald:

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 In your issue of last Sunday appeared an article by Harry J. Burney, captioned ''What Is It All About referring to the horrible and inexcusable war now being waged in Europe) which, to use a mild term, I consider very inappropriate and i'll timed. Whether or not it was written for the purpose to arouse public opinion against Germany and the Germans q do not charge the writer that it was), 1t cer- tainly has tendency to do so, at least with the initiated, and thereby work a great injustice to the many Germans liv- ing in this country.
 Mfr. Burney starts out with bringing a terrible indictment against Emperor Will helm. Here is what he says, or rather part of what he says, as the arraign- ment is too long for repetition in full: ~Emperor Wilhelm of Germany built him . machine to maim and mangle his fell 1owmen. For 25 years he labored at his task. Night and day he planned and schemed to bring it to perfection. In it are the best of his head and hand and heart. He has wrought wonderfully well and he is firmly confident that it is the best--that it is the most dire, the most deadly, therefore the worst machine of its kind that the world has ever seen," etc., etc, leaving to the imagination of the reader to guess what kind of ma chine he is talking about. If he means that he build dreadnoughts and battle 1 ships my answer is that he followed the Jexample of Great Britain, with the differ ence that for every one he built Great Britain built two or more. With the many shortcomings that have been charged to the Emperor from time to time, some of which we are frank enough to admit he is guilty of. and where is the man who is free from them a lust for war is certainly not one of them, de- spite the misnomer of war lord applied to him since he first succeeded his father to the throne. His preachments, as is well known, have always been for peace, peace, peace and against war, and nat urally so; as by drawing the sword he ran the risk of losing much and gaining little. If Germany had been half as eager for fray as MT. Burney would have the world believe, let him explain if he can, why it is that it did not de- 7 clare war against France when a serious misunderstanding arose between the two countries over Morocco TWO years ago, at a time when it was as well prepared as it is now. '.The test of the pudding is the chewing of the bag" The fact that he has maintained peace these many years should be sufficient answer to his traducers.
 Let me digress for moment for fear of overlooking it. My eye just now caught a quotation in a weekly newspaper where an English statesman is made to say 'England has 3o0Oo.ooo people, mostly fools" 1 fully agree with him, only he did not go far enough. He would have hit sAhe nail on the head had he applied his ~remarks to all the great powers of Flu rope
 Ane more thing and I am done: MT Won Haimhausen, charge d daffaires of the German embassy at Washington, says among other things, that regarding Bel gium, Great Britain tried to get Germany to agree not to cross Belgium territory when at the same time Germany was aware that French forces had already en. tered Belgium, and were operating there in defiance of all neutrality, also that Belgium coast points were ready to re- ceive the British land and sea forces This disposes of the groundless charge by Mr Burney that Germany had vio- lated the neutrality of Belgium.
 When in years to come the true history .siof this war shall have been written fl Twin probably be found that all the great \ powers of Europe are about equally blafnable for bringing on this unhoy con fict. only the Emperor of Austria. lit tie more so just because some Serviar crank slew one of Austria's anointe( sons. Yours truly,
 B. TANNENBAUM
 Livingston, August 13, 1914.