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OCR
THE IFATHERILAND
Fair Play for Germany and Austria-Hungary
Edited by GEORGE SY1.vi;<;1'i-:R VIERECK and FREDERICK F. SCHRADER
Tx?oTvi:i1Bi:i?iii,'19‘i4.
VOL. I. No. 14.
PRICE, 5 CENTS
“ NO QUESTIONS ASKED ”
T HE policy of the Administration on the subject
of neutrality seems to have met with disaster.
The assistant counselor for the State Department has
repudiated the stand taken by the President against
loans and sales to the warring powers. War loans
will bemade freely to the belligerents. In fact, the
administration apparently encourages traliickers in
death-dealing machinery and the money lenders
whose gold will prolong the war indefinitely to
ignore the President's wishes. Mr. Wilson, we are
told, will not express an opinion on the subject, un-
less he is asked.
In other words, Mr. Wilson knows that it is crim-
inal for this country, in the light of the moral idea
that actuated his policies heretofore, to sell agencies
Of destruction and to furnish the financial fuel that
will feed the flame of war, but. for once, if we are
rightly informed, his moral courage deserts him.
He does not, dare to come out in the open against the
powers that profit by the prolongation of carnage in
Africa, Asia and Europe. The people of the United
States suffer from the results of the war, the whole
world suffers, but a few men must reap golden har-
Vests from the blood that drenches the soil of three
continents.
We did not cause the war. We did not want the
war. We would like to stop it, if we could. We cer-
tainly do not wish to prolong it. But a few among
Us place their own profit above the common good.
Nevertheless even these men do not want to be put
in the wrong. They fear public opinion. They know
that a strong appeal from the President would end
their trafiic. They know that the people of the
United States, once that word was spoken, would
rise insupport of the President. Hence they must
be reassured, and they are reassured. No matter how
much this country may suffer, no matter how much
blood may be spilt, they may do as they please, if
only they will not embarrass the President, if no
questions are asked. If they ask no questions of him;
he will ask no questions of them. ,
There is one profession that neither answers nor
asks questions for the sake of illegitimate profit. But
the President of the United States is not in that class.
Surely President Wilson’s attitude must have been
misrepresented. For the ethical standard of the atti-
tude attributed to the President is the ethical atti-
tude of a fence keeper, not of the author of the New
Freedom, the man who in Mexico sacrificed Ameri-
can blood and American property for the sake of a
high ideal. He is not the man to encourage, even
tacitly, carnage and famine, for the sake of unright-
eous, though legitimate, profit. We do not ask the
President to overreach his authority, though Presi-
dents have stretched the letter of the law for lesser
reasons. We merely ask him to state his own atti-
tude clearly. One word from President Wilson will
drive the money lenders from the temple of peace
together with the traliickers in ammunition.
GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK.
TO THE CIVILIZED WORLD!
AS representatives of German Science and Art. we hereby
Protest to the civilized world, against the lies and ca1um-
"ies with which our enemies are endeavoring to stain the h0H0I’
Hf Germany in her hard struggle for existence-in :1 struggle
which has been forced upon her.
The iron mouth of events has proved the untrnth of the fic-
titious German defeats. consequently misrepresentation and cal-
umny are all the more eagerly at work. As heralds of truth
we raise our voices against these.
It is not true that Germany is guilty of having caused this war.
Neither the people, the government, nor the “Kaiser" wanted
war. Germany did her utmost to prevent it; for this assertimi
the world has documental proof. Often enough during the 26
years of his reign has Wilhelm ll shown himself to be the