But, perhaps the greatest service to the Allied cause which Mr. Kahn
rendered--which he was the first, as well as the most prominent,
American of German blood to render--was his oratory through the United
States. There are about twelve million Americans of German descent in
the United States, and many more millions spring from races more or
less affiliated with them. Most of these went to America over
twenty-five years ago; they did not know modern Germany; they did not
believe the accounts of German atrocities as reported in the Press;
they were unable to realize the hideous change which had come over
Germany since they or their parents had left it; they did not
understand the origin, the cause, and the meaning of the war. And many
Americans, especially in the West, held the like views.
Mr. Kahn, notwithstanding threats and malignities, went out to speak
to them--individually, through newspaper articles, or at great mass
meetings. He brought to bear the authority of his personality,
fortified by the confidence and prestige which attach to it; and he
made it plain that he spoke, not from hearsay, but from personal
experience, observation, and knowledge. He succeeded in showing up
modern Germany as it is, and in proving its horrible guilt for the
war. He pleaded in flaming words to Americans of German birth that not
only did their oath of allegiance compel them to be whole-heartedly
and undividedly American, without regard to their origin, but that
what could still be preserved of honour to the German name was largely
in their keeping, and that even for the sake of the German blood in
their veins they must prove to the world that those Germans who are
not under the Prussian yoke, hate and loathe the ruling caste who have
poisoned the German blood, who have made Germany a hideous, monstrous,
barbarous thing, and who have robbed them of the old Germany which
they loved and in which they took pride.
If, as is fortunately the case, America is now in the war by our side,
unanimous, enthusiastic, undivided; if the people, East and West,
realize the abominable doctrines and actions of modern Germany and the
necessity at whatever cost in blood and treasure of defeating that
abomination utterly, then no man is more entitled to a high place of
honour among those who have brought about this happy achievement than
Otto Kahn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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