When Rapacity moves into the next house, it is time to lock your cellar
door. Yoke up insatiable Appetite with colossal Egotism, and the
inevitable runaway is only a question of time.
While enjoying the benefits of an industrial prosperity and a
world-wide commerce that had won the admiration of the world, the
Germans complained about being denied their "place in the sun"; and
they reached out after world supremacy. England and the United States
were like twin thorns in the side of the Kaiser and the German people
at large. The pan-Germanists busily plotted against both those nations.
Concerning England, a distinguished German-born citizen of New York,
Mr. Otto H. Kahn, wrote to a relative in Germany (June 28, 1915) as
follows:
"England has not abused her power at sea, ... any more than previous
to the present war you have abused your power on land. Not only has
she not stood in the way of your development, but =on the contrary she
has given you fair and free access to her markets, with unparalleled
liberality=."
In fact, it was so "unparalleled" that by August, 1914, German
commercial houses had crowded out of Singapore every British house save
two! Wherever the British flag went, prior to the war, along with it
went the German trader.
But, like the horseleech, Germany's cry was for "More"; and to get it
"=British sea power must be crushed!="
Unmitigated rapacity, in men or in nations, ever has been and always
will be a colossal blunder.