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

to exhaustion, drained of her resour-
ces. and under sentence to penalties
of which the stubbornness of her
futile resistance will measure the
severity, and expressed the hope the
German people might be made to see
the light and take timely measures
to avert the caiamities that surely
awaited them. We here quote that
part of the article which gave our
German-American friends what we
then felt to be and now know to
have been salutary advice:
1t may we'll be doubted that they
will see the light. But have not the
men OF German blood in this country
duty TO perform to their beleagu-
cred brethren in the old home?
| Americans of German birth or of
! German descent should see and feel
the truth about the present position
of Germany, the probability for the
near. the certainty for the remoter,
| future. At home the Germans can
NOT know the whole truth; it is not
permitted them to know il. 1t Will
pe unfraternal ana most cruel Tor
German further to keep
the truth from them, or 10 fail in
! their plain duty to make known TO
| them how the imperial and m1iltar-
| istic ideal has fallen in the worlds
esteem. and TO bring them to under
stand that the enemies they now con-
front are but the first line of CIVIL
zation's defenses against the menace
of the sword that forever rattles in
its scabbard. The sword must go,
the scabbard, too, and the shining ar
NOR. If the Germans here have at
all the ear of the Germans there, can
they not tell them so? They have
come here to escape the everlasting
din of wars trappings; they have
come to find peace and quiet in
Hand of liberty and law, where gov
eminent rests on the consent of the
governed, where the people by their
chosen representatives, when there Is
a question of going into the trenches
to be slain, have something to say
about it. Have they ever tried to
get into the heads of their friends
in the Fatherland some idea of the
comforts and advantages of being
governed in that way? Instead OF
tvainly trying to change the well-ma-
tured convictions of the Americans,
why not labor for the conversion of
their brother Germans? II
the German-Americans prize the
privileges they have enjoyed under
our theory of the State, ought they
not to tell the German sat home
what it mean sfor the individual to
be free from quasi-vassalage
When representative Americans and
men of peace like DR.. Eliot and An
drew Carnegie insist that there can
be no permanent peace until an end
has been made of German militar-
ism. sober-minded Germans here as
well as in Germany ought not to
turn a deaf ear to such voices, for
they speak the opinion of the world
We were a prophet quite without
honor among the German-Americans
in that month of December nearly
four years ago. The predictions OF
The Times were f1outed, the victory
of Germany was counted as certain
event and the position it took that
the German people ought to win for
themselves peace with freedom by
overthrowing their selfish. cruel, and
predetermined masters. by destroy
ing their government and setting up
in its place a government of the peo-
pie. was received with such outcries
as the extreme of religious heresy
evokes from the devout.
We rejoice that our fellow-citizens
have at length seen the light, that
they now look upon the Fatherland
they once loved as a sinner wander
ing in darkness, that they now see
the truth as we pointed it out to
them, that they have demonstrated
their loyalty, their patriotism, their
lAmericanism. The arraignment of
Germany by our neighbor the Stats
Zeitung gives proof of that; even
more conclusive proof may be seen
in the roll of honor of the United
States Army, where multitude of
German names show that the German
Americancans have sent their sons to
the front to fight for freedom. 1t still
,remains to convince the German peo-
pie that these Americans who have
German blood in their veins, many
of them spekaing the German langu-
age, are fighting for the freedom OF
Germany as well as for that of the
world. When communications were
open four years ago, it would have
been easy for German-Americans to