So far as I can tell, Doctor Bang has not overlooked a single bet. He
makes out a complete case; and, what is more, in so doing he relies
not upon his own conclusions, but upon the avowed utterances of
distinguished German savants, clergymen and versifiers.
These, then, are the spoken thoughts of civilian leaders of our enemy.
If the leaders believe these things their followers must also believe
them; must believe, with the Reverend Lehmann and the Reverend Vorwerk,
that God is a German God, and should properly be so addressed by a
worshipper upon his knees, since one prayer begins "O German God!"; must
believe, with Von Bernhardi--who spoke of "the miserable life of all
small states"--that "to allow to the weak the same right of existence as
to the strong, vigorous nation means presumptuous encroachment upon the
natural laws of development"; and with Treitschke, that "the small
nations have no right to existence and ought to be swallowed up"; and
with Lasson, that "It is moral, inasmuch as it is reasonable, that the
small states, in spite of treaties, should become the prey of the
strongest"; and must believe that to Prussia was appointed the task of
curing the whole world, America included, of what--according to the
Prussian ideal--ails it.
It is the nation which believes these things, and which has striven in
this war to practice what its teachers preached, that we now are called
upon to fight. If we remember this as we go along it will help us to
understand some of the things the enemy will seek to do unto us; and
should help him to understand some of the things we mean to do unto him.
Indeed, there is hope of his being able some day to understand that we
entered this war not against a people or a nation so much as we entered
it against an idea, a disease, a form of paranoia, a form of rabies, a
form of mania which has turned men into blasphemous and murderous mad
dogs, running amuck and slavering in the highways of the world.
What would any intelligent American do if a mad dog entered the street
where he lived, even though that dog, before it went mad, had been a
kind and docile creature? And what is he going to do in the existing
situation?
The same answer does for both questions. Because there is only one
answer.