Right Above Race
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Right Above Race, by Otto Hermann 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.
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.