it will present an enormous German Empire. Whoever does not believe this lacks confidence in the strength of the German spirit." This is not characteristic, to be sure; even the Alldeutsche Blätter of September 20, 1902, finds it "rather optimistic." But it is not the raving of a madman. It is a passage from the letter of a New York German, Robert Thiem, who was indulging in dreams of Prussian beatitude. But without this settled delusion of the rights of Deutschtum it would have been impossible and it could not now be paralleled by any other nation. It is not, however, one isolated pronouncement. Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden wrote in 1903 that “at the present moment the centre of German intellectual activity is in Germany; in the remote future it will be in America. Let them (the Germans in America) show that they mean to maintain Deutschtum, and then immigration may be directed to America with impunity."

Nor was the German Government unmindful of these alluring possibilities. We have only recently awakened to the fact that it was supporting Deutschtum in America through German

American leagues, through subsidized propaganda, and through overzealous emissaries. Should "those idiotic Yankees"-the phrase is that of Captain von Papen, their military attaché-not take kindly to the peaceful penetration of Kultur, there was always another possibility. That might be serious. Doctor Otto Hötch, professor of history in the War Academy in Berlin, foresaw this, and wrote in August, 1902, that "the most dangerous foe of Germany in this generation will prove to be the United States." But Freiherr von Edelsheim, a lieutenant detailed to work with the General Staff in 1901, could assure them in a study (purely academic, we were told, by Von Bernstorff, though viséed by the General Staff) that “Germany is the only great Power which is in a position to conquer the United States."

Let us admit that all of this is extreme and utterly improbable. But let us recognize that it has its source in a conception of the mission and function of Germany, which leaves no room for the further development or even continuance of American life and ideals as we know them. That is what we mean when we say

this is a war between autocracy and democ

racy.

That

That phrase has been accepted by us all, but misunderstood since we did not realize the importance of Das Deutschtum. It is fraught with greater meaning than most of us dreamed. We have been accustomed to interpret it somewhat as follows: A great conflict has somehow arisen between the autocracies and the free peoples of the world. We had to fight to prevent a foreign Power from murdering our women and children or barring to us the free paths of the sea. it is now a show of strength to prove whether a free people rising in its might can maintain such rights against a centralized military autocracy. Serious as this is, the situation that was gradually but irresistibly forcing itself upon us is far more serious and big with consequences. It is not merely a gigantic war in which one shall finally be acclaimed the victor; in which the points at issue shall be settled and the retarded world again move on as before, and in which democracy, if beaten, shall suffer merely the disgrace of having been shown the weaker and the less effective.

We are, to be sure, fighting autocracy, but we are not concerned primarily with the internal organization of states. That the Suabian farmer, the Bavarian school-teacher, or the Saxon mill-hand is willing to accept the rule of Wilhelm II may seem to us regrettable; that the Saxon laborer should have only a parcel of a vote and the Prussian laborer an even smaller piece, and that even entire votes, indeed millions of them, should represent no power worthy of freemen, might call for our pity, especially had they shown any determination to have more and to enjoy the reality and not the poor counterfeit of political freedom; that they should worship the "good old German God" invoked by the Kaiser might interest us as a psychological phenomenon in the history of religions. Yet we were willing that they should continue to accept the rule of Wilhelm, that they should make of freemen's privileges a parody and farce; that they worship Thor under a new name, or even the Grand Llama or their Emperor's great toe. This was none of our business; this was their affair. when their masters tell us that God has changed

But

his mind and has decided that henceforth the Prussians and not the peacemakers shall inherit the earth, and when we become convinced that they mean this quite literally, and assume that by virtue of their might they are privileged to appropriate what lands they wish, even our lands, it has become our most serious business. For the Prussian autocracy which we are fighting is not the inner organization of their state, it is their outward purpose. It would be truer to say that we are not fighting autocracy, we are fighting international absolutism. This is what Prussia represents to-day. It wished to establish itself as the one great, dominant Power. Other states shall have no right to pretend to an equality with her. Small states she may annex, especially if they have any traces of Teutonic ancestry and blood. Others must accept her hegemony and recognize her supremacy. Prussia will rule as she wishes in a world that she is fighting to make her own. In the words of Frymann, "it will be for us alone to judge what we shall need." The wars of 1864 and 1866 and 1870, deliberately provoked, every one of them, were undertaken to make Prussia and the Prussian military system