The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-12

the hundred and some few years of
 their national existence, have had a few fairly severe jolts. Now We are in the midst of the German affair;
 and an amazing number of our people refuse to realize what it means to us or to appreciate the menace to our national existence.
 NOT OUR AFFAIR
 America, they know, wants no terri tory, on conquests; therefore. they ask, why should Germany, if it win, want them? Why should America send troops to Europe to fight Europe ; battles? Germany is in no danger from us, so why should we be in danger from Germany? We shall not do any thing to Germany, even after we were victorious over her, so why should Germany, if she is victorious. do any thing to us? Let Europe settle hef own battles they so; we. of another continent, are not concerned. If we let Germany alone, Germany wEI let us alone.
 It is quite likely that some Ameri- cans who now have such ideas will have changed those ideas by the time this article appears; but it is certain that others will still be deluding themselves by persisting in the old American habit of estimating others even an enemy-on the American basis.
 And with some enemies-even some savages-the estimate would not be far amiss, because they are not wholly lost to honor and decency and hu- n1anity. But the Prussian is not of them; in war he has neither honor nor decency nor humanity as sucn qualities are understood by civilized nations, In war-particularly the present Var--the Prussians have put aside even the temporary veneer that they had assumed to conceal from the rest of the world-a decent and human world, it is-the true nature of the Prussian brutes and because they had thought to win the world war, and to establish right on the basis of might. they have dared to stand forth in the buff. The bully oi Europe. having prepared himself with as he thought, an invincible thorough ness, proceeded to carry out his long, nursed intentions, and, by brute forcs and atrocity, impose his imperial will on an amazed and helpless world and dragoon it to his kultur--a Prussiad kultur. God save us!
 ~ DOMINATED ABSOLUTELY
 I say Prussian because, as everyone knows the central powers, as they are today, are dominated absolutely by and humbly subservient to Prussia.
 And in that process of conquest and enslavement the Prussians have, for more than three years, inflicted on the overran such eruelties, such unspeakable atrocities, as history has never re- corded. All the famous, or infamous, conquerors of the past are insignificant in comparison with the savage Prussian brute-the brute who has the cold eff frcntery to bid his soldiers march lon ward with God" along his bloody way.
 Contemplate for moment a nation which insists that God is with it in it's fiendish work, and then reflect how far back into the dimness of the past one must go to find a nation which had the effrontery to claim that it was simply Gods chosen instrument to work His will Contemplate the Gentle One of Bethlehem-whomt the Prussian professes to revere as God-wading in the blood of mankindi Contemplate Christ in a Prus- sian helmet, with a Prussian sword and Prussian manners. Contemplate William Hohenzollern. Von Hindenburg, Won Iudendorff, Won Macxinsen as disciples of Him of Gethsemane and Calvaryi
 One must go back to the darkest pe- riod of the Dark Ages to find similar effrontery-to Alaric and the rest who claimed, as William of Prussia claims in all his published felicitations to his armies, that they were doing the will of the Almighty, that they were marching "onwarc with God.''
 It must be peculiar mentality that in this day and generation, could have the arrogance to advance such a claim-and queer very queer. people that has bo a ii n1 fo such rot--and actually believe it.
 We Americans freely admit that we can not follow the mental processes that would evolve such claim or would use such methods ir war: and yet there are those of us who persist in judging what the Prussians will do to us if they win this war by what we will do to them if we win it. Which necessarily must mean that as soon as the Prussian has won he will experience a change of heart, aban- don his savage methods, and be converted to our terms of peace-that victorious he will forego the Prussian fruits of vic tory; will cease to march onward with his God: will put his God aside and be converted to the God of civilization, the God of the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount, the follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, Him of the manager, of Gethsenane. or Calvary.
 7 And these Americans have so much @ on which to base their trust, so much to justify their belief that America has nothing to fear from Germany, because Germany has nothing to fear from her
 FREDERICK THE GREAT
 Go back to the Prussian national hero. Frederick the Great, "Old Fritz as they fondly call him-as contemptib1e bully and sneak and l -1- n T Would he have turned back from an savowed purpose to make America pay the cost of this war if he were victorious? Did he ever turn aside from any purpose if he could effect it by force, by chicanery, by lies, by bluff, by dishonor, by any crime? His tory-at least Prussian history-gives him the title of Great" but in the civilized sense there is nothing great about him except meanness of charac- ter and Of action H was, when con- pared with his contemporaries, sue cessful warrior, but he. like the pres ent Hohenzollern, had for that time a marvellous army which was prepared to strike and struck. Magnanimity or any other of the attributes of great ness he had not at all, even the tradi- tiona1 kingly honor which is assumed to be the heritage of a throne, was ut terly wanting to him; and his chief claim to live in history is based on the fact that he robbed a woman; that without cause he made war on help less Queen, Maria Theresa, and de- spoiled her of a province, and cyni- cally boasted to all the world that he had caught her helpless and so stole what he desired. Moreover, he gloried in the infamy.
 Bismarck, who ruled while his stu