A GERMAN'S VIEWS ON PRUSSIANISM.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 100, 21 January 1918, Page 6

A GERMAN'S VIEWS ON PRUSSIANISM.

__ aLOATHLY SPIRIT OP POWER . WORSHIP. There is a tendency to regard th'i term "Prussiaiiism" and all that rS stands for as being applicable to the whole of the peoples who comprise the German Empire. But that there are many Germans who do not subscribe to the beliefs of the militarist and annexationist class—the class who claim that the German peoplo have been appointed to play a creative part m the history of the world"—is well-known. Speaking of the dangers to tho future of tho German people arising from the policy pursued by the present ruling class in. Germany, Mr. Otto Kann, a German by birth and education-, though for the past twenty-five years a banker in New YorE, recently stated m h, speech: "I speak as one who has seen tho spirit of the Prussian governing class at work from close by, having an its disposal, and using to the full, practically every agency for moulding tho publio mind. I have watched it proceed with relentless persistency and profound cunning to instil into the nation the demoniacal obsession of powerworship and world-dominion, to modify and pervert the mentality—indeed, the very fibre and moral sub-stauce-of the German people, a people which, until misled, corrupted, and systematically poisoned by the Prussian ruling caste, was, and deserved to be an honoured, valued, and .welcome member of the family of nations. . I have hated and loathed that spirit 'ever since it came within my ken many years ago; hated it all the mors as I saw it ruthlessly pulling down ft thing which was dear to me-the old -Germany to which I was Jinked by ties of blood, by fond memories, and cherished sentiments. The difference in the degree of guilt as between the German people and their Prussian or Prussianised rulers and leaders for tho monstrous crime of this war and the atrocious barbarism of its conduct is the difference between tho man who, acting under the influence of a. poisonous drug, runs amuck in mad frenzy,and the unspeakablo malefactor who administered that drug, well knowing and fully intending the ghastly consequences " which were hound to follow, Tho world fervently longs for peace. But there can be no peace answering to the true meaning of the word-no poace permittinp: the nations of the /earth, great and small, to walk unarmed and unafraid-unt>l the teaching and the leadership of the apostle, of an outlaw creed shn I have become discredited and hateful in: tho Sight of tho German people; until that peoplo shall have awakened to a consciousness of the unfathomable guilt of ttioso whom they have followed into calamity and shame; until it mood of penitence and of a. decent rosneet for the opinions of mankind shall have supplanted tho sway of what President W\]?on has so trcncnantlv termed 'tru'culence and treachery.'"