The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1918-08-07
A Rude Awakening

At the end of four years OF wal
the Newly orker Staats-Zeitung, IN
an article which does credit to the
Judgment, to the hearts, and to the
Americanism of its owners and edl-
tors, casts up the account between
Germany and the Powers with when
that empire is at war, and lncluen-
tally between the autocralic Govern
ment of Germany and the people up
on whom il has imposed dreadful
burdens and sacrifices. Germany mas
all of Belgium, diminishing part OF
Northern France; rich booty, many
prisoners: she has "enslaved the now
helpless Russian people, with Aus
tria-Hungary she has ''welinigh de-
stroyed Serbia and Montenegro and
crippled Rumania;" she has aided
Bulgaria and Turkey to increase
their territory; she has encouraged
the Turkish military leaders to
massacre 100000 Armenians and
other Christian inhabitants of con-
tiguous territory" she has sunk mil
lions of tons of shipping and destroy
ed property worth billions, show
ing no regard for the lives OF non
combatants and not even for those
of women and children
Upon the other side OF the ledger,
the Staats-Zeitung makes these en-
tries: Germany has sacrificed the
lives and the health and the we'll
being of millions of her sons; she
has lost her African colonies and put
upon her people = burden of debt
under which they will groan for dec
AIDES to come; she has destroyed her
foreign commerce and brought her
people to want and hunger; . the
acts of her army commanders and
statesmen have brought the German
name into disrepute in America"
1t is a dreadful reckoning, not
without its compensations, in the
great change it has wrought in the
feeling and attitude toward Germany
of Americans of German birth or
blood. Says the Staats-Zeitung:
For a long time German-Ameri-
cans were unable to see the peril,
and rude was their awakening.
Their sense OF duty showed them the
right course to pursue. They point
with pride to their sons and grand
sons fighting for them under the
Star-Spangled Banner And they
will fight on until every danger is
removed and the world relieved of a
burden which lies upon it like an in
cubus, for it is only through the
overthrow of the present German
Government that the repetition of a
similar world catastrophe can be
prevented
II has been, indeed, rude awak-
ening. Americans of the parent
stock while striving with patience
and continually to convince their
cOuntrymen of German lineage that
Germany provoked the war, intend
ed to bring on the war. that her guilt
was past all condoning, have never
theless understood how hard was the
position of those in other lands who
still look upon Germany as their
Fatherland. Their sympathies, even
il wrongly directed, were natural. All
that is past. There could be no
sterner condemnation of the Imper-
ial malefactors than that which the
Staats-Zeitung, a German language
newspaper and read by German
Americans, denounces against them.
With some pardonable satisfaction,
The Times may remind Americans of
German origin that it brought the
path of righteousness, of interest,
and of duty plainly into their view
very soon after the beginning of the
war. In an article to which German
American societies and German-lan-
guage newspapers printed in this
country gave a good deal of atten-
ton at the time, an article of which
they took a most unfavorable view
and unanimously rejected the coun-
sci it gave them, The Times on De
cember Is, 1914, pointed out that
Germany was doomed to sure defeat,
a defeat that would leave her bled