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Transcriber's note:

      Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

      Underlined text is enclosed by pound signs (#underlined#).

      The Preface, the Foreword and the Publishers' Explanatory
      Note for Letter To A German were in italics in the original.

      Fractions are denoted using hyphen and forward slash. For
      example, 4-1/2 indicates four and a half.

      An additional transcriber's note is at the end of the book.





RIGHT ABOVE RACE

by

OTTO H. KAHN


"We will not permit the blood in our veins to drown the
conscience in our breast. We will heed the call of honour
beyond the call of race."







Hodder and Stoughton
London   New York   Toronto
MCMXVIII




PREFACE


This is one of the best books that has appeared about the war. It
shows conclusively why the United States must put this war through to
a finish, and why every good American and every believer in liberty
and civilization must be heart and soul against Germany. The fact that
Mr. Kahn himself is of German origin emphasizes the contention which
every good American should make, namely, that the Americans who are in
whole or in part of German blood should eagerly take the front places
in this war for Americanism against the attempt of the Prussianized
Germany of the Hohenzollerns to establish a world tyranny.

Not only is the book an admirable plea for Americanism and for putting
the war through, but it is also a no less admirable plea for treating
our internal affairs on the basis of common sense and high idealism. I
should like to see the book circulated throughout the United States as
a tract on Sound Americanism. The last two chapters, on "Frenzied
Liberty" and "The Myth of a 'Rich Man's War,'" should be called to the
especial attention of the persons who, not daring to be openly
treasonable, try to serve Germany by advancing the cause of Bolshevism
in this country, and by downright and shameless perversion of the
truth as to the part played by the men of means in this war. The
chapter on "Frenzied Liberty" is an acute and fearless exposition of
the damage done to liberty by the men here who are trying to play the
part of the Russian Bolshevists, by upsetting order and civilization
in this country. One of the most remarkable, and also one of the most
sinister, of Germany's extraordinary successes has been the way she
has used the forces of disorder in other countries to paralyze the
cause of liberty. She herself is the embodiment of order imposed by an
iron militaristic autocracy from above on the people beneath. She is
the embodiment of that species of order which is the antithesis of
liberty. She personifies it now exactly as the Russian Czars did in
the middle of the last century, only with infinitely greater
efficiency. But her feeling even for order is conditioned by her
unyielding determination that the Germans shall lord over and shall
exploit the rest of the world.

In itself this feeling of intense nationalism is a fine thing, and we
would admire it if it had not been perverted into an assault on all
the rest of mankind, and especially on liberty-loving civilized
mankind. There is in Germany an immense sense of solidarity, which
makes the German Socialist, the German middle-class capitalist, and
the German junker work side by side with enthusiasm for the
subjugation and exploitation of all the Allied countries. The
Socialists have cynically announced that their job is to encourage
pacifism in other countries, and thereby to lessen the resistance of
these countries to German militarism. The Socialists have worked for
the conquest of other countries in the interest of German capitalism,
because they feel they will get some share in the profit, and because
they have been schooled, in common with the rest of their country, to
a brutal cynicism concerning the wrongs and sufferings of other
countries, so long as Germans profit by them. In consequence the
German Government, aided by the German Socialists, has encouraged in
every way the forces of disorder in every hostile country--the
Socialists in France, the "independent" Labour men in England, the
Bolshevists in Russia, the Sinn Feiners in Ireland, the Reds in
Finland, and the most fanatical murderers of Christians in Turkey. It
is for this reason that Germany tries to use the I.W.W. in the United
States, and plays on the foolish American politicians who have
believed that the Russian Bolshevists would be able to infect Germany
with their revolt, or who have believed that they by fine words could
arouse the spirit of German revolt and separate the German people from
the German Government--a thing which can only be done by the breakdown
of Germany's military strength.

Germany has no fears as to her own ability to suppress disorder. The
minute she conquers a Russian province she puts down disorder with an
iron hand. But in the Ukraine, in Great Russia and in Finland she
encourages the party of the Reds, she encourages the Bolshevists; and
the poor, ignorant, gullible peasants follow the lead of the men,
however criminal--sometimes rather more lunatic than criminal--who
would throw them under Germany's feet. The American Bolshevists would
tear America to pieces, exactly as Russia has