The Arizona copper camp. [volume] (Ray, Ariz.) 1910-1920, 1918-03-30
THE GERMANS AS A CHOSEN
PEOPLE,

THE GERMANS AS A CHOSEN
PEOPLE.
The foundation cause of this war is
Germany's firm belief that she alone
has the right to direct the progress of
the world and to exploit it's resources.
For the last thirty years the military
autocracy of Germany has seen to it
that this belief was taught in the
schools, and today that autocracy is
reaping the benefits of blind obedi-
ence to it's will. German political
writing of recent years is full of the
idea that the German people is Goods
chosen people, destined to impose it's
'Kultur' upon all other peoples.
"The German soul is the worlds
soul, God and Germany belong to one
another."1 Germany is the center of
Gods plans for the world"2 eve
hope that a great mission will be al
lotted to US Germans =. and this
German mission is: to look after the
world."3 Germany is chosen, for her
own good and that of other nations,
to undertake their guidance Provi-
dence has placed the appointed peo-
pie, at the appointed moment, ready
for the appointed task."4
FThe German people is always
right, because it is the German peo-
pie, and numbers 100000 souls."5
"Kultur is best promoted when the
strongest individual Kultur, that of a
given nation, enlarges it's field of
activity at the expense of other ma
tional Kulturs."6 "The attempt of Ma
poleon to graft the Kulture of West
ern Europe upon the empire of the
Muscovite ended in failure Today
history has made us Germans the in.
heritors of the Napoleonic idea."7
"The further we carry our Ku1tur into
the East, the more and the more prof
wares. Economic profit is of course
not the main motive of our Kultur-
activity, but it is no unwelcome by
product "Our belief is that the sal
walton of the whole Kultur of Europe
depends upon the victory which Ger
man 'Militarism' is about to achieve."9
These quotations are but few of
hundreds of like expression, and the
last one cited is from a manifesto
signed by thirty-five hundred German
professors and lecturers. Reduced to
simple terms, the German belief at
the beginning of this war was: "God
directs Germany. Civilization ad-
vances only by combats between Kul-
turs in which the stronger and God
directed one has the right to prevail
and must prevail. The immediate and
present object is to make our Kultur
prevail in the East Gin 'Muscovy), !
and in accomplishing this we shall
also gain economic advantages This
is the first step in our world dom
nation"
Wehre does America stand in this
theory of chosen people,? Amer
lea denies that theory; she denies
that God has chosen any one people
as His own; she asserts rather that |
there are many civilizations, each |
with it's own merits and defects, and |
that to each must be left the working
out Of it's own problems.
We Americans are unable to under
stand, or sympathize with, a people |
who conceive of themselves as a chos-
en- people, chosen of Coda people |
to whom all things and actions, how
ever inhuman or brutal, are regarded |
as permissible, even holy, because of
a faith in their superior mission and |
civilization. To us such a belief is
direct evidence, not of leading, but
of a tagging civilization.
This German ideal, when expressed
merely in theory, even though taught
in Germany for the last thirty years,
stirred but Indifferent interest in other
European nations. In this war Ger
many has revealed in the application
Of her theory lust for world power
at the expense of other peoples, a
lack Of good faith, brutality that
have stamped her theory as involving
a return to barbarism.
By the application Of German the
Dry we were forced, unwillingly, to go
10 war. But today we know that there
was 10 escape from war between
two contradictory ideals. Germanys
economic objects are many and large
(they will be pointed ouD, but the
basic cause Of this war was the Ger
man ideal of dominant nation. That
deal, by Germany's own challenge, is
On trial in arms. Against it we must
prevail, or we shall perish.
Pastor w. Lehman: On the German