The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-13
VICTORY OF GERMANY WOULD MEAN CRUC|FIXION OF MANS HIGHEST DREAMS SAYS F. ). OPPENHEIMER

Contributed by Francis J. Oppen-
 heimer to the National Security
 Leagues campaign of Patriotism
 Through Education)
 The victory of Germany would mean the crucifiXion of the highest dreams of man, for with the broad ening of her political border would come narrowing automatically all human hope, and the ultimate ex- tinction of every ideal treasured in and created by the spirit of man. Such an eclipse would be the great tragedy! Matter, as matter, would be enthron- ed, canonized, defied and the lie given to that band of holy men, the Proph- cts, who said they saw God face to face" and the benefit of the doubt withdrawn from those other holy men, the Gods of the Intellect, Plato down to Kant, who throughout the ages, spite of everything, have kept an al- tar-light before the Unknown. And the sweet dream of Jesus would be- come lost!
 Freedom of thought-more precious than freedom of action-would for ever fade from the fair earth. Loyalty would be in us, but no faith; religion, but our spirit dead. Worse than all this, we would become like the ma chine-made Germans themselves, eff ficient but with no perception. Wit less manikins all, goose-stepping against a leaden sky. And our mas ters would be as cowardly aggressive to us as to the other subject races, until in our enforced docility we, too, ! would cry out for our brothers blood
 The domination of Roman law mar rowed all Roman consciousness, so
 that these conquerors had to ape 1 Greek culture and initiate or steal the Greek designs. So has German mili- tary law crippled all German con- | sciousness, manufacturing, at the same time, a race of mental perverts
 with minds so overtrained that the | tail of the Fatherland wags at the | professional logic of it's Wilhelm strasse bureaucrats. German reason 1 ing is not European or American l reasoning, making for confusion all l ron1. Read outside of Germany, in ony nation where the mental nerves
 are responsive to the treatment of normal logic, the diplomatic notes of | Zimmerman and Jagow were unin- l telligibIe. On the other side of the
 Rhine, addressed to a national con
 sciousness made in Germany" they | are taken for natural products and | strange as it may seem to the rest 1 of the thinking world, even invinci-
 ble in their logical processes.
 | This peversion of the German spirit | out of which once spoke Kant and
 Ffchte and SchelIing, idealists all, is
 the "bIoa on the scutcheon" of sabre l changing Kaiser. The international congratulations of these spiritual giants have been substituted by death-deal- 1 ng-Krupp-formulaes The tree ot 1 knowledge of the Kantian circle of i German dreamers blew it's blossoms I into the air. The race has since learned l through many strange teachers, tC 1 yearn downward. And now, in place ] of spiritual systems" the German
 scholars affinity for matter has starred | the black night of European material ism, he is now quite satisfied to leaC
 the world in the production of aniline | dyes. However, you cannot these days
 go very far interpreting any German mind without insensibly making ar i analysis of old mother nature.@ -
 plodding along this line, you will be
 certain, eventually, to stumble upor
 some chemical dicovery. You see
 in Germany, Mind and Matter have
 become one and the same thing!
 No, we cannot stop until we have | forced this blue-eyed race back to it: 1 own boundary. And if it ever replace: the poison of it's bland baby-stare by
 the light of it's once great soul. wt
 may take it back into the family oi | those nations who are somewhat con- | cerned with the claims of the True the Beautiful and the Good, as sht