PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY
From an address before the Harrisburg, Pa., Chamber of Commerce September 26, 1917
PRUSSIANIZED GERMANY
I speak as one who has seen the spirit of the Prussian governing class at work from close by, having at its disposal and using to the full practically every agency for moulding the public mind.
I have watched it proceed with relentless persistency and profound cunning to instil into the nation the demoniacal obsession of power-worship and world-dominion, to modify and pervert the mentality—indeed the very fibre and moral substance—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 that spirit ever since it came within my ken many years ago; hated it all the more as I saw it ruthlessly pulling down a thing which was dear to me—the old Germany to which I was linked 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 Prussianized rulers and leaders for the monstrous crime of this war and the atrocious barbarism of its conduct is the difference between the man who, acting under the influence of a poisonous drug, runs amuck in mad frenzy and the unspeakable malefactor who administered that drug, well knowing and fully intending the ghastly consequences which were bound to follow.