interest but in the national interest, it
should also see that no frantic extremist, under the plea of forcing
the rich man to do his full part, renders it impossible for him to
do anything at all. So to act would bring lasting damage to the
community, and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, would create
a condition which would bring the war to a standstill.

This is a capital study of the problems which are of vital interest
at this moment to all Americans who love their country, and who wish
while serving their country also to serve all the free nations of
civilized mankind.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

_Sagamore Hill_,
_June_ 15, 1918.

FOREWORD

This book should be in every man's home; every woman should read it.
It is a pity that it is not in every German's home. But before your
ordinary man can grasp its full significance, it is as well that he
should know something of the man who wrote it, and still more why he
wrote it.

Mr. Otto H. Kahn, one of the leading financiers of America, and widely
renowned for his manifold charities, his strenuous public life, and
his generous patronage of the Arts, is of German blood and was born in
Germany. But, from his great-grandparents, who were French Alsatians,
he inherited a great love of France. His father, after taking part in
the German Revolution of 1848, fled to America, became naturalized as
an American citizen, and finally returned to Germany after ten years
of banishment. From this father, Kahn inherited the love of liberty.

He left Germany when he was twenty-one years old, after having served
his year in the army; and, deciding to find his future elsewhere, gave
up his German nationality thirty years ago. Returning, however, almost
every year, to visit the country of his birth, and having important
relations with governmental, business, social, and other circles, he
had exceptional opportunities for becoming acquainted with and
studying the development of German mentality and morality under the
influence of Prussianism. That development filled him with horror and
dismay. Long before the war he realized the terrible menace to the
entire world which was subtly concealed in the poison growth of
Prussianism. As he himself here puts it in one of his speeches: "From
each successive visit to Germany for twenty-five years I came away
more appalled by the sinister transmutation Prussianism had wrought
amongst