WHO ARE THE HUNS?

A Foreword. V
and the destruction of false ideas insidiously inculcated into
our minds, be considered an advantage by us.
As an American at present in Germany and one proud
of the privilege of living in the midst of a great and noble people
in the exalted hour of its destiny, the position of my own country
has been a source of constant grief and much shame. These
feelings are shared, I know, by all true Americans who understand
the real motives behind this giant catastrophe to civilization
and who have had the privilege of knowing the real
Germany and the real German people. By them America
is seen as a land helpless in the clutches of vast and evil forces,
financial, journalistic and political, a people abandoned as a prey
to those very influences that fetter and destroy all real freedom.
They behold their native land, from the first an instrument
in the hands of these evil elements, turned into a weapon of
death against a friendly people struggling heroically for those
very possessions, those priceless liberties for which the men
of 1776 fought and died. They 'behold vainglorious, nay,
bloodthirsty demagogues such as Roosevelt openly inciting
with a fanaticism that amounts to delirium, the American
populace to a war that would surpass in infamy and cowardice
any that has ever been waged on this unhappy earth. They
behold with amazement the patience, the dignity and the calm
magnanimity of the German people in the face of these
monumental wrongs.
Alas, no land ever had a more golden, a more splendid
opportunity for rising in moral grandeur above the nations
involved in the dire and tragic toils of war. No nation has
ever flung away its glorious privilege more recklessly or for
more ignoble and sordid ends. The great masses of our people,
we know, are not to blame. But we must either confess that
these lie helpless in the grasp of a tiny minority of financiers and
politicians, and that our democracy is therefore a cruel and
monumental failure, or that they are indifferent to the fate
of half mankind. Have we not ventured to judge in the twilight
of our ignorance? — and shall we not be judged in the cold,
white light of History — implacable and just ?
As an American I am able to speak with greater frankness
to my countrymen than it is possible for Dr. Muller-Meiningen