The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 20, 1917, Page 9

o, e e e o R E L b e About Autocracy in Germany The Opinion of an American, Whose Father and Relatives Escaped From Prussia After the Unsuccessful Revolution of Eighteen Forty-eight THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE E. O. Meitzen, the author of the accompanying article about autocracy in Germany, is an American, born in the United States. the German supplement of the Nonpartisan Leader. He is editor of His father escaped from Germany, with several other of his relatives, after the unsuccessful German revolution of 1848. Mr. Meitzen therefore has opposition to auto- cracy, of whatever shape or form, bred in his bones. He has been connected with German-language and other publications in the United States nearly all his life, and he has devoted himself to the cause of the people, whether against hereditary governmental autocracies, or ‘money or Big Business autocracies. He is against autocracy in every form and degree, whether in Germany, in England or in the United States, whether economic or po- litical. Writing from the point of view of an anti-Kaiser German, fully in sympathy with the German people and the aspirations of German radicals, Mr. Meitzen here discusses the autocracy of Germany. His opinions should therefore be of much interest to readers of the Nonpartisan Leader—the readers of the German supplement of the Leader are already familiar with Mr. Meitzen’s views on this subject.—THE EDITOR. BY E. 0. MEITZEN HE writer is an American born citizen. His parents came to America from Berlin, shortly after the reaction of 1848, . which reinstated the Prussian autocratic and brutal military one-man power, which has ruled that land with more or less brutality since that fate- ful day of vengeance against those who attempted to establish a republic. - Many of the meost intelligent—which meant, of course, the most dangerous to autocracy—were jailed or shot down like beasts of the field; others, like Carl Schurz, Gottfried Kinkel and Franz Seigel, escaped to America, in search of a free country. Among them was my father and two of my uncles, who had also taken too prominent a part in the struggle. GERMAN AUTOCRACY HAS BEEN CAREFUL Many are the stories T heard about military depotism and autocratic rulership while a child, and much in- formation I got when older, out of the literature my father had brought along. All this makes me a hater of autocracy .in whatever form it presents itself. The autocracy of old Russia was brutal and blood-thirsty, and cordially hateful to most of her people, and for that reason came to grief earlier, after having a continuous series of small revolutions. The German autocracy was more careful. It got wisdom from the struggle of 1848 and managed to sail along without serious trouble with its citizens, even until now. The government, while as autocratic as ever, was careful of its power over its subjects, which it held by means of protecting them against the robbery of trusts and combines, by stimulating manufactures and inventions and thereby practically abolishing poverty —more than any nation on earth has done. The largest cities have no slum districts, as is found in every large city in our country. The government entered upon this plan in a gradual way; first, compul- sory free schools were inaugurated, and the children were taught the PROPER IDEAS by PROPER teach- ers. Rulers of the world know the secret of the power of proper training over the young and plastic mind. This plan and the steady friendliness of the rulers toward the people, forged a chain so strong that nothing but edu- cation in another direction can over- come. What has been the result of this “FIFTY-FIFTY” ALLEGIANCE —Drawn expressly for the Leader by W. C. Morris This cartoon by Morris shows a condition that the true friends of the Ur]ited States are trying to end. The big corporation is trying to sl.ww how patriotic it is with one hand; with the other it is hiding behind its back its store of wealth, coined from the blood of the battlefields of Europe, weslth from Uncle Sam, who needs it to pay war expenses. it is trying to hide this Maybe if Uncle Sam were to take all this money, this gentleman would be patriotic with both hands. E. O. MEITZEN system of benevolent autocracy? In spite of the fact that the people had some voice in public affairs, while largely crippled by a vicious election system in Prussia, the people were pushed into the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. The German union, or Germany pro- per, resulted from this war. The king of Prussia is now also emperor of Ger- many. The Reichstag has the right to make the laws and the Kaiser has not even the right to veto them. Thus these elected delegates have the power even to dethrone the Kaiser. Yet auto- cracy still rules. The Kaiser is not elected, and appoints his cabinet, with- out consulting the Reichstag, and thus controls the conditions that make wars: The Reichstag is simply pushed in to support the autocarcy. The military is under control of the minister of war, a Kaiser appointee. The schools as well as other matters are in the same condition. Every able- bodied citizen must serve one to three Yyears as soldier and all are subject to enforced service whenever the war minister says so. HOW WARS ARE MADE TOLD BY MEMOIRS Some years after the Franco-Prus- sian war, one of the members of the Reichstag, William Liebknecht, receiv- ed from the heirs of General Roon, Prussian commander in the War of 71, a batch of his memoirs, in which the secret of the origin of that war was ex- plained. The matter was given out by this member and published in the radi- cal press, which had been readmitted after 53 Socialist papers had been sup- pressed and ruined from 1872 to 1879, through the influence of Bismarck, the chancellor of blood and iron. The facts are as follows: Bismarck and the two generals, Moltke and Roon, changed the wording, PAGE NINE in 1870, of a telegram sent by King William of Prussia, to the French en- voy, Benedetti, concerning the succes- sion to the throne of Spain, which as they themselves had said, made a war dispatch out of a peace dispatch. The result was such that it forced a de- claration of war by France, thus lend- ing color to the strenuous claim that Germany was forced to war, while its own autocracy had itself forced it. In the light of this historic fact, Bis- marck was forced to retire from the chancellorship. - I have very serious doubts about German autocracy having been forced into this world slaughter holding the boards at present. While the censor- ship of the German radical press is severe, it only requires the omission of censored articles and iets the balance go through the mails, which gave us some information during the first few years of the present war. Our conclu- sion from this and other sources is that German autocracy intended to take France by surprise, which it did, and to force it to relinquish a strip of territory extending from Germany to the open sea, so it would not be at the mercy of England to reach the mar- kets of the world. This was desired, as the German factories were producing such a quan- tity of the best kind of goods that they were a menace to the world trade of England and German manufacturers felt in continuous danger. After the war is over “developments may also show us the truth as to who was to blame more clearly than now. I only hope that the German people will use the electoral power they now pos- sess, or that the soldiers will join in with them and abolish autocracy, root and branch, in their country, and thus make it possible to establish a lasting peace and true democracy the whole world over.