Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-12-11
The Italians are also war artists.
The Kaiser and His Subjects.

We shall never win the war on the assump-
ton that the German people not zealously be-
hind their Government Elements of discomfort
there doubtless are, and the gaunt, relentless
months limp by with a sign of the long
promised victory, establishment may dawn upon
the darkened empire. But at present the rank and
file of the Kaiser's subjects are intellectually
back of him, believing in his divine right" and
in all the falsties they have been taught under his
despotism. In their eyes he is not the red-handed
outlaw which the world beholds, but a knight in
shining armor. To their way of thinking Prus-
sianism is not the hideoua evil which civilization
condemns, but admirable system of government
and of culture which they as supermen should i'm
pose upon other peoples.
Nor is it greatly to be wondered that the Ger
mans are of this mind when the nostrums on
which they have been dosed for the last forty
years and the lies with which they have been
stuffed from the beginning of the war are consid-
cred. Their philosophers have taught them that
is a thing to be desired and that Might is the
only Right. Their tyrants have persuaded them
that peaceful democracy is the way of fools and
that it is their manifest destiny as race exalted
above the rest of mankind, to conquer and rule
Their very priests have taught them from the pull
pit to hate the English, the Americans and the
French and to have no scruples in methods of
venting their hate. The sinking OF the Lusitania
of brilliant valor executed against an enemy man
of war-a deed over which to ring church bells
and sing hymns of praise. The atrocities heaped
upon Belgium were represented military necessi-
ties to protect tender-hearted German dragons
against cruel women and children and aged men.
Thus were the blacklist crimes of Prussianism pic
tured as righteous measures of self-defense.
That the people of Germany could be so de-
ceived and misled simply evidences the darkening
under which they live. Their very souls are in
bondage to KaiSerism, and not until those letters
are broken and that hideous idol is smashed will
they have eyes that hearts that understand
There will never be a free Germany, a peaceable
Germany morally responsible Germany long
as the spell and power of Prussian militarism re-
main. That monstrous evil must be crushed be-
fore the German people will abandon it for place
in the family of liberty-Ioving, law-keeping ma
tions. They must be shown that their Kaiser is
not the divinely-appointed world-soveregn they
consider him, but the puffed-up, foolhardy tyrant
he really is They must be shown that their war
lords are not the invincible conquerors they be-
lieve them, but a pack of murderous outlaws to be
hunted down and rounded up by the forces OF
civilization. They must be shown that of
aggression and brigandage neither glorious nor
profitable as they expected this to prove, but
terribly costly and foredoomed to tragical failure
They must be shown, in short that for kings and
Governments less than for common men rob-
berry is robbery and murder is murder, and that
crime must pay its debt to law.
For the present therefore, America and her
allies do well to apply themselves wholly to the
aI-important end of defeating the German military
power and to realize that back of this power stands
a united people. If by happy chance there should
come an upheaval within Germany, all the better
for that nation and for the world. But the only
safe assumption is that the war must be by
dint of iron blows the enemys front, and that
to be won at all it must be won overwhelmingly.
hot air.