Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1917-07-04
IS this A RIGHTEOUS
49,. war?
WHY GERMANY BROUGHT ON THE
WAR.

ent world-war We must now seeI
her reason for doing so. When we
have found it, we shall also have dis.
covered the fundamental reason why
the United States finally found il
necessary to participate in the great
conflict.
In saying tnat Germany planned
the war we are doing her no injustice
We are only repeating what her own
statesmen and authors have said for
years In his book, Germany and
the Next War;" published a few years
before the beginning Of the conflict
Gen. Bernhard sought to prove by
every argument at his command that
great war in the near future was
not only inevitable, but desirable from
the German standpoint, as Germany
could not achieve her proper political
development by any other means.
But we can 60 back far beyond
Bernhard. In 1898, shortly after the
battle of Manila, the German Rear
Admiral Won Goetzen, whose ship was
then in the harbor, said to Admiral
Dewey: ''In aDout fifteen years
my country will begin great
war. 4 Some months at
ter we have done our business in Eu-
rope we shall take New York and
probably Washington, and we shall
keep them Tor time. We do not in
tend to take any territory from you.
but only to put your country in it's
proper place with reference to Ger
many. We shall extract one or two
billions of dollars from New York
and other towns" Won Goetzen was
a personal friend Of the Kaiser, and
was no doubt we'll versed in the for
eign policy of German imperialism
Such utterances as these were re-
garded as mere gasconade by the
statesmen and diplomats of other ma
tons, and provoked nothing beyond
an incredulous smile. Since August,
1914, the world has had occasion to
appreciate their sinister import
Even while the German government
was still seeking to convince the neu-
trail nations of the world that this
war was not of Germanys choice,
but had been forced upon her by the
and aggressive attitude
of her enemies, one of the most widely
known German editors, Macmillan
Harden, of the 'Zukunft,' who is re-
nowned for nothing so much as for
speaking his mind, was bold enough
to say: "This war has not been forced
on us by surprise; We have desired
it, and it was our bounden duty thus
to desire it. Germany wages war
because of her immutable conviction
that greater world expansion and freer
outlets are due to her by right of her
own works" ~
We would ask the reader to bear
in mind that We are not now dis
cussing the question as to whether
Germany was justified in planning
this war, but simply seeking to estab-
lish the point that Germany did plan
it. We believe that the above refer
ences and quotations make this SUI
ficiently clear This war came as a
terrible surprise to almost the entire
world, but not to the imperial govern
ment of Germany. German imperial
ism had been looking forward to some
such war as this through long years
If careful planning and preparation,
with distinct and definite object in
view; and we must now discover what
hat object is.
For many years the imperial gov
eminent of Germany has had a plan,
md has conducted all its operations |
With constant reference to the require
nents of that plan. Now the very idea
If governmental plan of any con-
siderable magnitude, and involving a
20 ordinated activity extending
through many years, is utterly foreign
o the mind of the average Ameri-
IAN. Such a plan would tie practi-.
al impossibility in our government,
whose foreign as we'll as domestic
,olices are necessarily determined by
he shifting and evanesCent course OF
public sentiment. Hence democratic
government is always more or less OF
N opportunist. 1t does today what
circumstances require, and leaves to-
norrow's duties to the exigencies Of
omorrow.
German imperialism does not govern
n that slipshod way. For such meth
ID it has only supreme contempt. 1t
ooks far into the future, it fixes it's
yes upon some goal in the distance.
md with scientific thoroughness it
,repares for every intervening step
o that goal. To say that German
has all along been operat-
ng according to a plan is only to
redit it with being it's natural self.
But to establish the existence OF
,erman plan we need not depend al
ogether upon philosophical deduc-
ion. The Kaiser himself will help
"a here. Tn a speech in 1900, he said: