The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1917-07-21
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES AND THE WAR

he,oro tbe Merchants Association of New York, Otto H. Kahn
has made an eloquent plea for the support OF those principles
that make for the liberty and weH-being OF mankind. MI
Kahn has for years been recognized as a leader IN the ma
tons metropolis, not only in financial circles, Dut III cNlc pet
terment, in the encouragement of music and art, Ill orSallzea
charity and in every movement for personal and national bet
terment.
Born in Germany, Kahn entered the banking business IN
London and became a British subject. Coming to America,
still a young man, he quickly adjusted himself to his new en-
vironment and became naturalized here. AS eXecutlVe head
of the great banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Go. he STANDS Ill
the front rank of the countryts captains of finance, but has es-
caped the stigma of money baron or money lender applied
to many Wall street bankers. His influence among Germans
in this country is greater than that of any other individual
man and his exhortation to Germans will go far in convincing
them of the justice of Americas cause III the great war.
In his address. Mr.. Kahn said:
We have met today in pursuance of a high purpose, a
purpose which at this fateful moment is one and the same
wherever. throughout the world, the language of free men is
spoken and understood.
"t is the purpose of a common determination to fight and
to bear and to dare everything and never to cease nor rest I'M
til the accursed thing which has brought upon the world the
unutterabIe calamity, the devils visitation OF TINS appalling
W is DESTROYED beyond all possibility of resurrection.
THAT accursed thing is not a nation, but an evil spirit a
spirit which has made the government possessed by it and eX-
ecuting its abhorrent and bloody bidding an abomlnatloh Ill
the sight Of God and men.
What we are now contending for by the side of om
splendidly brave and sorely tried allies, after infinite fore
bearance, after delay which many of us found 1t hard to bear:
are the things which are amongst the highest and most cher
ished that the civilized world has attained through the toll,
sacrifices and suffering of its best in the course of many cen
turtles.
"They are the things without which darkness would fall
upon hope, and life would become i%ntOlerable.
They are the things of humanity, liberty, justice ao
mercy. for which the best men amongst all the nations-in-
Guiding the German ~nation-have fought and bed these many
generations past, which were the ideals of Luther, Goethe
Schiller, Kant and "a host of others who had made the name OF
Germany great and beloved until fanadcal Prnssianism, run
amuck, came to make its deeds IA by-WOrd and IA Kissing.
This appalling conflict which has been drenching the
world with blood is not IA mere fight of one OF more peoples
against one or more other peoples.
1T goes far deeper.
1T sharply divides the soul and conscience of the world.
1T transcends vastly the bounds of racial allegiance.
1t is officially fundamental.
In determining ones attitude toward it, the time has
gone by-if it ever Was-Where race and blood and inherited
affiliations were permitted to count.
"A century and IA half ago Americans of English birth rost
to free this country from the oppression of the rulers of Eng
land. Today Americans of German birth are called upon tic
rise. together with their fellow citizens of all races, to free not
only this country but the whole world from the oppression of
the rulers of Germany, an oppression far less capable of be
ing endured and of far graver portent.
Speaking as one born of German parents, do not hesitate
to state it as my deep conviction that the greatest service
which men of Grman birth or antecedents can render to the
country of their origin is to proclaim, and to stand up for
those great and fine ideals and national qualities and tradi-
tons which they inherited from their ancestors, and to set
their faces like flint against the monstrous doctrines and acts
of a rulership which has robbed them of the Germany which
they loved and in which they took just pride, the German!
which had the good will, respect and admiration of the entire
world.
Il 90 not hesitate to state it as my solemn conviction that
the more Enthusiastically and whole heartedly Americans of
German origin throw themselves into the struggle which this
country has entered IN order to rescue Germany, no less then
America and the rest of the world from those sinister forces
that are. in President Wilson's language, the enemy of all
mankind, the better they protect and serve the repute of the
old German name and the true advantage of the German pee
pie.
"Gentlemen, measure my words. They are borne out all
too emphatically by the hideous elOquence of deeds which
have appalled, the conscience of the civilized world. They are
borne out by numberless expressions, written and spoken, of
German professors employed by the state to teach its youth.
"The burden of that teaching is that might makes right
and that the German nation has been chosen to exercise moral