"A RICH MAN'S WAR"***


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FRENZIED LIBERTY

The Myth of “A Rich Man’S War”

by

OTTO H. KAHN







Extracts from Address Given at the University of Wisconsin,
Jan. 14, 1918

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                                Part One
                            Frenzied Liberty

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                            FRENZIED LIBERTY


We are engaged in a war, an “irrepressible conflict,” a most just and
righteous war for a cause as high and noble as ever inspired a people to
put forth its utmost of sacrifice and valor. To attain the end for which
this peace-loving nation unsheathed its sword, to lay low and make
powerless the accursed spirit which brought all this unspeakable misery,
sorrow and ruin upon the world, is our one and supreme and unshakeable
purpose.

That is the purpose of the people of Wisconsin as it is the purpose of
the people of New York and of every other State in the Union. I give no
credence to and have no patience with those who would measure as with a
thermometer the loyalty temperature of our communities. Some dreamers
there may be, here as everywhere, so immersed in their dreams that the
trumpet call of the day has not yet awakened them.

Some politicians there may be, here and elsewhere, so obsessed by the
issues which heretofore were good election assets and so unable to shake
off the inveterate habits and the formulas and calculations of a
lifetime, that they are unable to recognize and to share in the sudden
flaming manifestations springing from the deep of the people’s soul—and
after a while, looking around for their usual followers, find themselves
in chilly loneliness.

Some there are, a small minority always and getting smaller every day,
among Americans of German birth or descent who lack the vision to see
their duty or the strength to follow it, and who stand irresolute,
hesitant and dazed.

The vast and overwhelming majority have acted like true men and loyal
Americans. They are entitled to claim your sympathetic understanding for
the heartache which is theirs and they are entitled to claim your trust.
It will not be misplaced. I am taking very little account of that
insignificant number of men of German origin who, misguided or corrupt,
dare by insidious and underground processes to attempt to weaken or
oppose the resolute will of the Nation. There are too few of them to
count and their manoeuvres are too clumsy to be effective. But let them
be warned. There is sweeping through the country a mighty wave of stern
and grim determination, which bodes ill for anyone standing in its way.


                                   II

One element only there is in our population which does deliberately
challenge our national unity. I mean the militant Bolsheviki in our
midst, the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck, who would place
a visionary class interest above patriotism and who in ignorant
fanaticism would substitute for the tyranny of autocracy the still more
intolerable tyranny of mob-rule, as for the time being they have done in
Russia.

If it were not for the disablement of Russia, the battle against
autocracy would have been won by now. As so often before, liberty has
been wounded in the house of its friends. Liberty in the wild and
freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past,
proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin brother of
tyranny.

Out-czaring the czar, its votaries are filling the prisons with their
political opponents, are practising ruthless spoliation and savage
oppression, and are maintaining their self-constituted rule by the force
of bayonets. Riot, robbery, famine, fratricidal strife are stalking
through the land.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied.

Liberty is not fool-proof. For its beneficent working it demands
self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the practical and
attainable and of the fact that there are laws of nature which are
beyond our power to change.

Liberty can, does and must limit the rights of the strong, it must
increasingly guard and promote the well-being of those endowed with
lesser gifts for the struggle for existence and success, it must strive
in every way consistent with sane recognition of the realities to make
life more worth living to those whose existence is cast in the