one. I feel in duty bound to do so, since many well-disposed Americans
share that error.

The gravest and perhaps most widely spread misconception about us
Germans is that we are the serfs of our Princes. (Fuerstenknechte,)
servile and dependent in political thought. That false notion has
probably been dispelled during the initial weeks of the present war.

With absolute certainty the German Nation, with one voice and
correctly, diagnosed the political situation without respect to party or
creed and unanimously and of its own free will acted.

But this misconception is so deep rooted that more extended discussion
is needed. I pass on to other matters.

The essential point is that public opinion have free scope of
development. Every American will admit that. Now, public opinion finds
its expression in the principles that govern the use of the suffrage.
The German voting system is the freest in the world, much freer than the
French, English, or American system, because not only does it operate in
accordance with the principle that every one shall have a direct and
secret vote, but the powers of the State are exercised faithfully and
conscientiously to carry out that principle in practice. The
constitutional life of the German Nation is of a thoroughly democratic
character.

Those who know that were not surprised that our Social Democrats marched
to war with such enthusiasm. Already among their ranks many have fallen
as heroes, never to be forgotten by any German when his thoughts turn to
the noble blood which has saturated foreign soil--thank God, foreign