Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1917-08-06
PCASTE-RIDDEN
GERMANY MADE
WAR FETISH
Ardent Pacifist Has Found
Peace Impossible With
Such a Menace.
Structure Of Empire Made
all the Slaves to the
.Kultur" Kaiser.

New York, Aug. 6.-Louis F. Post,
founder and former editor Of The
Public, and nov assistant secretary Of
labor in the Wilson administration,
has been a ife-long pacifist. Today
he is heart and soul for the war He
tells why in In article in which says
in part:
Though the King Of Prussia by
divine right by birth is German
Kaiser only by constitutional deriva-
ton, this makes no difference. The
German constitution is Of a texture
and the despotic Prussian spirit of a
character to invest the Kaiser with
the Kings inherited divinity. There
is, to be sure, a constitutional parlia-
ment for Germany; but it is ruled by
an imperial chancellor responsible to
the Kaiser, whose appointments he
holds, whose purposes he serves, and
who can dismiss him at will. Except
for a fragile right Of veto, 1t has no
more legislative power than a village
debating society.
Controls Morals, Too.
''In Prussian municipal govern
ments, too, the Kaiser controls the
governing officials. Nor is this auto
cratic state political alone. It is al
so supreme in Its influence upon edu-
cation and morals.
"Children's minds are moulded by
its educational processes in accord
ance with the governments concep-
ton of what is best for the state
not for the child, unless by lucky
coincidence, but for the state Like
its political adjustments, the Prussian-
lied educational machinery is pyra-
mided up to the Kaiser. From ele-
mentary schools its wheels revolve
with automatic regularity and me-
chanical precision through higher
schools and universities to a place in
the exquisitely geared machinery Of
the state at which all is moved and
mastered by the Kaiser's touch Of a
governmental button. The Kaiser
himself is under the influence of a.
dominant caste-agrarian and mill
tary-of which, in virtue of his birth,
he is the most worshipful grandmas7
ter.
Caste ~gradations are Characters
tic Of this mystical German state
To the P~russianistic institutions of
is to countries more advanced in civ
ilization-the spirit of the place, the
thought to conjure with, the sign to
conquer by.
"They do not belong with those
mere survivals OF caste which distort
the democracy of other countries, but
are a system Of caste government
which is cultivated as a social and DO
litical necessity and as Of the nee
essary factors Of 'kultur.' The Ger
man child is educated for the caste in
which he is born. Prejudices Of high
er toward lower grades Of caste, and
su~bserviency from the lower to the
higher, are sedulously fostered for
state reasons. +
Clergy and Teachers. Moulded.
University professors are Hanged
for caste grooves. sClergymen and
school teachers are CONCEALED in caste
moulds. Workingmen are graded off
and graded through by caste varia-
tons. Women are straight-jacketed
in castles of sex, ~appendant in series to
the caste levels of their respective
men folk. And complexities Of mill
tary caste, interviewed with a land
nobility caste, rule the others-subject
of course to the Kaiser, who is at the
apex of these caste gradations.
"Out of it all has come a stupen-
dous social n political machine.
individual impulses have been ossi-
fed and moral perceptions inverted.
Even the scientific and the religious
groups have been shaped in caste
moulds. But this machine is eff
Gent No blame to such as worship
efficiency for the sake of efficiency, if
they bow the head and bend the knee
at the affairs Of h German system.
lhere are those, however, who value
eHciency not for it's own sake but for
the sake of h worthiness of it's OBJ
jects and the usefulness of it's accom-
pllshments. To such as these the
prospect of a worldwide imposition
of a Prussianistic state by military
conquest is not inviting. It would be
abhorrent to every democratic instinct
and at variance with every democratic
thought.
Yet precisely that purpose has been
the manifest object Of German efici-
ency. In SO far as it has served 11se-
ful ends in social life, those ends have
been served as incidents to the pur-
pose of world conquest. Except in so
far as thee efficiency has been for the
mere sake of being efficient, or for
the sake of subordinating the German
people-body, mind and soul-to the
N OF a caste-bonnd state it's
design has been to make
military conquest of the rest of man
kind.
War Necessary Element.
1.-THE Prussianized German eovar,-
men coveted a place in the sun,
where its shade would hang over all
n earth; and efficiency for military
conquest was its method. Conquest
was not the purpose of the masses of
n German people. But 1t was the
purpose of their ruling caste and its
royal chief; and the German people
obsessed with Prussian 'kultur., were
an impotent factor in giving political
form to their instructive love of
democracy and peace. So the cover
ment of Germany has, for
OF world conquest, been able to de-
vote years of time and volumes of
human energy to making marvellous
" efflcient a gigantic war machine
by i~nculcating an automatic sense of
duty to h state through the RANT
hcations of mechanical 'kulturl' and
stirring up a spirit Of miIitarv con
quest as q necessity of normal Ger
man life and national existence, it has
sustained in Germany and in times of
peace, h a abnormal public opinion
which in countries like ours Is sus-
tanned only in times of war. II has
taught h German people to think Of
war as a necessary element in he life
OF nations and an Indispensable fac
tor Of tknlfur- 1t has impressed mn
on them the duty of making agpres-
sire war not good for the good 5of Ger
many but for the good Of the human
race And, teaching the vital irnDorf-
ance of Selling 1the most fayorabIe
moment for beginning wars of con-
quest, 1t a G-ernan.mfd