One of last night's speakers in the Auditorium gave renewed expression to the happy and proud sentiment with which Goethe once consoled his contemporaries at the death of Schiller, by applying the expression, "Because he was ours!" to another immortal, whose one hundredth birthday anniversary was festively but solemnly celebrated by the Germans of Chicago.

Truly, this celebration must have been the ardent desire of Chicago's German element, because the house was filled to capacity. An efficient management had seen to it that the celebration was worthy of the man who had realized the century-old dream of the German people for a great, strong,and united fatherland. Music, songs, and poetry, good words by competent speakers and a festival play, glorifying the Forger of the Reich, were the tribute of love and adoration which Chicago's Germans paid to their Bismarck.

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And by proclaiming him one of their own, the festive audience wished that he were present in the flesh, to see how gloriously his Reich is holding out in these fateful days, how united the Deutschtum [German element] is all over the world. If only the German people over there, fighting so heroically, could see the German spirit was alive and active here in Chicago!

President Lange's Opening Address

"We are gathered here to celebrate Otto von Bismarck's one hundredth birthday anniversary.

"At first there was such a controversy as to whether or not this celebration should be staged during these grave times that now and then it seemed as if this great day would not be celebrated at all by Chicago's Germans.

"But the argument was only on the surface, because deep down in their hearts 3people felt the desire and the conviction that this really was the time to celebrate the one hundredth birthday anniversary of the greatest of all Germans, in a dignified manner, worthy of the great man and worthy of Chicago's great German element.

"And this is a great and wonderful celebration. I welcome you all, our guests of honor, our singers, and each and every one.

"And in the name of the committee I thank you for your presence here, and for your active participation. I thank the singers for their co-operation, and I thank all those who have spent time and effort to make this festival a success. Once we had decided upon it, you would not believe how happily we went to work. It was the kind of happiness which all good men experience when they co-operate on a job they love to do, just as you love to be here tonight, because he was ours, he was one of us, one of our good German people. He lived, he thought, he felt just like us and with us; he belonged--and still belongs to us--he was ours! We like a thing most that is essentially 4our own. Our friends, our language, our fatherland, and the great men and the great history of our people.

"And he was one of the greatest"!

"It was the dream and the innermost desire of the German people for a great, powerful, and united Germany that had been in their souls for centuries past, that was reflected in the German song, and was kept alive through the generations.

"And that this dream has come true is the work of Otto von Bismarck, He has forged the Reich together. He has given us [internal] political unity. Many a hard battle had to be waged before the new order could become efficient and crystallized, because it was all so new, so sudden, to become and remain a united people.

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"Look across the ocean now and behold a people united in their armed strength, waging a war, the kind of which has never been fought before in world history; see them defending themselves against a world of enemies, against a world which knew that it could not stand up to a united Germany in honorable, peaceful competition, but resorted to war, savagery and murder to weaken and destroy the hateful enemy.

"But he, whose one hundredth birthday anniversary we are celebrating, has created a strong and united fatherland for us. United! Would that in this country, too, the Deutschtum might be united--that it, too, would have the strength to accomplish great things, for the sake of our own honor, for the highest good of this country and for the glory of the old fatherland. With courage in our hearts we can face the future confidently. We Germans fear nothing in this world but God. A united Germany is invincible! Dear fatherland! May your righteous cause lead you to victory!"

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As first speaker of the evening Mr. Lange introduced Dr. Rudolph Kommer, whose topic was "Bismarck the Statesman". He spoke as follows:

Dr. Kommer's Speech

"The one hundredth birthday anniversary of Bismarck, the one and only, as his people call him, is not only a day of celebration for the Germans, but for all mankind as well, because this anniversary marks not only the birth of Germany's unifying genius, but Otto von Bismarck was also one of the greatest representatives of the human race,a towering pinnacle in the evolution of our species, a veritable superman. Only two statesmen of like calibre have appeared on our planet during the last two centuries, and even these two match each other in greatness only, but not in attitude and ideology: Napoleon and Bismarck. In their effects on nations we can liken one to a gambler and destroyer of values, and the other to a builder and creative genius, like two forces of nature, one destructive, the other fructifying. Napoleon did his great deeds in the nineteenth century, but his work was 7vitiated during his prime of life, destroyed by his own intemperate ambitions, while Bismarck's imposing structure is proving its invincible strength during these very days, almost half a century after it was finished. Napoleon remains nothing but a legendary firebrand blazing into the sky, a romantic tale, just a chapter in a book of heroic stories.

"Bismarck has done equally immortal deeds, but his immortality is not the kind that exists within the book pages of world history, but it is the immortality of an eternally living and indestructible idea. Germany expected to commemorate this day under vastly different circumstances, but she could not have honored her national hero in a prouder, more German and more dignified way, than by displaying this unequalled pulsating unity of purpose and rhythm with which one hundred million German hearts are beating today, and the world marvels at this spirit. Thus, the German people celebrate Bismarck's one hundredth birthday anniversary!

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"Every German knows Bismarck, the statesman, who forged the German empire together within seven years, fighting three wars [1864, 1866, 1870]. No episode of that time remains as vivid to us as those fateful hours after the battle of Koeniggraetz, when Prime Minister Bismarck implored his King to spare a defeated Austria, and when the former, facing stubborn resistance, suffered a nervous breakdown and asked for his resignation (sic), only to gain his way in the end by the interference of Crown Prince Frederic. In those days all Prussian officers hated Bismarck, because they had already visualized their triumphal entry into Vienna, and King William himself consented only after bitter reproaches to a peace so lenient for Austria. He only concluded this peace, so he said, because his prime minister had deserted him before the enemy. Bismarck assumed all the blame, and five years later Austrian neutrality during the Franco-Prussian War [1870-71] proved the Prussian Junker [titled and landed nobleman] to be a shrewd and calculating statesman. Twelve years after the peace treaty of Nikolsburg [with Austria] a German-Austrian alliance could be negotiated and I don't have to tell you what this alliance means to the two peoples today. In 9vain did England use all her diplomatic chicanery during the past eight years to wrench Austria loose from the triple alliance, in vain were England's threats and promises, which are only too well known in Europe's diplomatic history. In vain was any attempt to wreak vengeance upon the House of Hohenzollern. The German-Austrian Alliance has long ceased to be just a diplomatic document, but has become a living and growing organism, and on the throne of the Hapsburgs sits an eighty-five-year-old man, who was vanquished at Koeniggraetz, it is true, but who has learned by that peace treaty that this German fraternal war [Austria and Prussia in 1866] was not the result of real enmity, but had to be fought because of necessity. That war was not a criminal undertaking, but a war to clarify matters, a true judgment of God to which the vanquished has willingly submitted. Austria realized then that for centuries she had been disloyal to her historic mission as Ostmark [Eastern Province] of the Germanic realm. That she should not aspire to Austrian hegemony within the German orbit, but work for Germanic predominance in the east [of Europe]. The moderation of 10Bismarck's, singular in world history, after an equally singular victorious campaign, has not only obviated an impending total isolation of the German Reich, but has brought self-awareness for Austria, in consequence of which the two countries have enjoyed a half century of prosperous peace, and are now victoriously united in their armed effort.

Bismarck and the World War

"Since the outbreak of the war Bismarck has played a dual role in the imagination of Germany's enemies. Some gained particular satisfaction during the first two months of the war by contrasting the giant Bismarck with the Germans of today. Others again, still more venomous and hysterical, have denounced that man of blood and iron as the chief criminal who was mainly to blame for this World War. Both views have their points. No German would think of comparing any German hero of today with Bismarck. A people which could produce a Bismarck every second or third generation, would indeed be a chosen people. Bismarck did not expect his successors to 11be equal to him in spirit, this spirit which, for milleniums to come, will never be matched. Bismarck, the unsurpassed, has built a structure which will endure by the genius of the one who organized it. But the descendants, fighting today under Hindenburg, can in all modesty look up to their great ancestor without blushing.

"That Bismarck is guilty of this war cannot be refuted in the face of Puritanical sophistry. If Bismarck had not effected the unification of the Reich, this war in particular would never have broken out; but Europe would have had to suffer some other war instead, because as long as England pursues her policy of balance of power on the continent, Europe will never find permanent peace. The equilibrium in Europe is disturbed time and again by the variable rate of progress among the nations. Sometimes France becomes too powerful, sometimes Russia and sometimes Germany. Now, as long as England's absolute security has to be maintained by restoring Europe's balance of power thru armed conflict every other decade, no united Europe can ever come into being. It will remain an indelible disgrace for a great 12nation like England to regard an intriguing circumspection the better part of courage and make this policy the basis of national life. This is not the voice of a hostile Germany, but the unbiased judgment of history. Our German people of "Barbarians" never had to fight England during all the centuries when Germany was politically and economically impotent. She was treated condescendingly, like a poor cousin from the back woods, who plays the flute and meditates about God and the world. Only when Germany became a more industrious, more energetic, and more successful competitor on the world market, only when she started to build a navy of her own, only then did those dreamy-eyed thinkers and poets became arrogant Barbarians. The same was true in the case of Spain, France, Holland and Russia and the same will happen to any newcomer among the nations, unless this bloody policy of encirclements, balances and alliances will be abandoned. Bismarck never in his life indulged in illusions. He knew his Europe only too well and he spent many an anxious hour reflecting on the encirclement with which Frederick the Great was plagued before the Seven 13Years' War. He took precautions, and the past eight months of the war have demonstrated again that it is the spirit of a people that makes for victory and not their number. And Germany's victorious spirit is the spirit of Bismarck.

The Fairy Tale of Militarism

"In England and America you can hear repeatedly the story about German militarism. One does not seem to be aware over here that, besides general conscription, education is also compulsory, that there is also a general franchise and above all, thanks to Bismarck, a general social welfare legislation. Bismarck, in the course of three wars, first unified Germany and then developed her by a gigantic effort that took him twenty years. The years between 1862 and 1871 Bismarck spent uniting Germany; the years between 1871 and 1890 are of priceless value to all humanity. After he had passed away and the German Reich grew and grew and became stronger and 14ever more prosperous, enemies began to sprout all around like poisonous mushrooms and they began to whisper that the house that Bismarck had built had grown shaky and creaky, that the living organism had become a corpse. There were even many Germans who asked themselves anxiously, whether the German spirit had not suffered through material prosperity, whether it could withstand the inevitable conflict unflinchingly. The doubting question one could hear in Germany was: Jena or Sedan? Would the German army in this present war meet a Jena or a Sedan? Ladies and gentlemen! The answer was Tannenberg. [Translator's note: Napoleon defeated the Prussians decisively at Jena in 1806. The Prussians beat the French at Sedan in 1870. The Russians were routed and decisively beaten at Tannenberg in 1914].

"On March 11, 1867, Otto von Bismarck uttered the following historical words in the Reichstag: 'Just let us put Germany in the saddle! She will know how to ride, to be sure.' And this has become glorious reality in the half century that has passed since. Since August of last year, Germany has 15been riding from one victory to another. Germany is riding high!"

Congressman Henry Vollmers' speech, which followed and was delivered in English, was received with great applause, even though the topic, entitled "Bismarck from an American point of view" was rather superficially treated. Mr. Vollmer spoke as follows:

Vollmer's Speech

"It cannot be my purpose to give you today a biography of Bismarck. That would be entirely unnecessary, because all of you are perfectly familiar with the life and the tremendous achievements of this illustrious personage. The whole world knows all the details. Neither do we have to offer an apology for celebrating his one hundredth birthday anniversary. Being American citizens, in whose veins German blood is flowing we have always 16had not only the right, but a good reason, to be proud of our German heritage, and never before so much as now.

"Our loyalty to America and her institutions has passed the acid test in every crisis during the history of our country. And no one can be more faithfully devoted to this country and its government than Americans of German birth and German descent. To quote the well-known saying of Carl Schurz: "A man can love his aged mother with all his heart, without being unfaithful to his wife because of it." We ask our fellow citizens of different descent to be fair to us during these grave times. A slanderous and venomous battle is being waged against us. Whatever we may say or do, it will be shamefully misconstrued. When I, shortly before the beginning of the last session of Congress, probed into this thing, I found that a spiritual and physical campaign against Germany and Austria, and in favor of England and her Allies, had started in the United States. I saw that the people, whom we love so dearly, and who, as we so proudly declare, 17have brought civilization to its highest level--our brothers on the other side of the ocean--have been branded before our fellow citizens as Huns and Vandals, as cruel and savage barbarians. The abominable crime of destroying the good name of a people was perpetrated in this country in spite of the fact that the noble sentiments, embodied in the President's neutrality declaration, had been hailed enthusiastically everywhere.

Arms Shipments

"On the other hand, I found that privately owned arsenals took part in the hostilities (to use the expression of John Bassett Moore in his interpretation of international law) and manufactured increasing amounts of lethal instruments, exclusively for the benefit of one party, the party of agressors, which has a sevenfold numerical superiority, and whose perfidious and treacherous policy has brought on this war through long years of international intrigue.

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"In the meantime, our mail was looted, our flag shamefully disregarded.

American citizens,native born as well as naturalized, were taken from American ships and thrown into British and French prisons. Our harbors were blockaded, and our ships stopped on the high seas and taken into allied ports, where they were detained for months; our hopes of obtaining new markets and a merchant marine were purposely frustrated and today any kind of trade with neutral nations, sanctioned by every principle of international law, has been banned by orders of the British 'council'.

"As to the exports of arms and munitions, all authorities on international law are completely agreed that we have the right to prohibit them without becoming guilty of a breach of neutrality. In spite of that, this shameless trade, bearing the curse of Cain continues unabated, while our legitimate trade has been stopped by British piracy.

Hard Test of Patience

"This petty American policy contradicts our innermost convictions as well as 19our most sacred sentiments, and unless things change our patience will be sorely tried, even though our unswerving loyalty to this country will not be influenced by it. Neither is it our intention, as we have been accused of, to establish a new political party because of European controversial issues.

"But we are not a people lacking in necessary fortitude, and therefore declare as openly and frankly, as Bismarck used to talk to the Reichstag and to European diplomats, that we will not tolerate any longer the present humiliating and absolutely untenable attitude, where arms and war contraband of all sorts are being shipped in unlimited quantities to the Allies, while our legitimate trade of noncontraband goods, products of Chicago's factories and Iowa farms is prohibited by the British high-sea robbers!

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"We claim the right to defend the honorable name of the fatherland whenever it is unjustly attacked. We want to make it known what German civilization means to us and to the world. During my service in Congress, no highly important problems, like forest preservation, agricultural credits, old age pensions, scientific tariff, modern city administration, traffic systems, public education, etc., have ever been debated without somebody mentioning that Germany had the best and most perfect system of all. We should like to see our country profit by the thoroughly workedout ideas of the German fatherland, just as we have brought over here German music, German science and literature, as well as German willingness to work during peace time and to fight for the Stars and Stripes, the most beautiful flag in the world, whenever war comes.

Bismarck's Gigantic Achievement

"One way to render this patriotic service to America is to honor the great men and women of our people whenever we have an occasion to do so.

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Outshining all others stands Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor. To honor him and his work we have come together here. An English historian has called him the most monumental incarnation of the German character since Martin Luther. And it is an historically established fact that Bismarck contributed more than any other man to the unification of the German Reich. I do not belong to the Carlyle school of hero-worshippers. Great men will come forward when they are needed. Neither am I a follower of the individualistic interpretation of history, but rather believe in a natural evolution. In my opinion it is impossible, therefore, to think of Bismarck and the great German Reich without turning one's thoughts to the German people at the same time. If Bismarck had not had such a people standing by him, even a superman of his calibre could never have created such a gigantic structure.

"It has to be admitted, however, that with all his efforts to unite Germany--his beloved Prussia taking the leadership, of course--he at first encountered resistance on the part of his King, the royal house, 22and even the German people. For many years he was the best-hated man in all Germany, but with iron determination, and employing all possible means which his diplomatic genius could think of, he battled on until all resistance was broken and he finally had achieved his noble objective, until on January 18, 1871, in the royal palace of Versailles, modern Germany was born, a product of Bismarck's brain and spirit, just as Athena was brought forth out of Jupiter's head, according to Greek mythology.

His Work to Last Forever

"If one were to search the books of history, count the most brilliant statesmen from the earliest times until today, one would not find a single one whose personal accomplishments could equal those of the man whose birthday we are celebrating today. Many others have done things that were but temporary, and they were called great men. But this man created for all times, because his work will outlast this infamous war, whose savage waves are surging against two walls of steel, the eastern and the western fronts.

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His spirit permeates all Germany today. When the fateful hour struck for the German people, the entire nation rose as a man to challenge those who threatened to crush them. American correspondents who had the chance to witness this, compared this spectacle with a great phenomenon of nature, and called it 'the dawn of the new Germany'.

"Old-timer from the Sachsenwald [Saxon forest, where Bismarck lies buried], if you could see the new Reich which you have created, your heart would leap with pride and joy. The common soldier in the trenches, the plain, ordinary woman who, while knitting for her son, husband or father at the front, received the news that he has fallen for the fatherland on the field of honor, the schoolchildren who till the fields, and all the others who, without grumbling, eat their war rations and bear all the privations that war brings in its wake with Spartan courage, the excellent general staff and those immortal commanders, like Hindenburg, who have won singular victories, yes, even that great and quiet, so frequently misunderstood man, the King among Kings, Emperor William II, they all show the fruits of your teaching:

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Thorough organization, completely worked-out plans, a dependable system and effective co-operation between rich and poor, the greatest triumph of national thinking, and sterling character.

"Bismarck advocated militarism, because it was absolutely necessary for the continued security and existence of the Reich; and the German people are for the army too, because it is an army of citizens in the truest sense of the word, and because they do not intend Germany to be the battleground of devastating wars any longer, as she has been for hundreds of years. For forty-four years, this excellent army has maintained the peace of Europe and not fought one single war of aggression or conquest, which cannot be said of many other great nations, including our own. Under the protection of this army, which Theodore Roosevelt, who knew it well from watching its maneuvers, has called the greatest outdoor university of the world, arts and commerce flourished, Germany industry conquered every market, German ships plied every ocean, and under the conditions created by German militarism, material progress was made which no one would have thought 25possible before.

German Culture

"And do not think for a moment that this civilization was crude and hardboiled. Its legislation is more farsighted and altruistic than our own; especially is this true with respect to social legislation for the working classes. Germany also enjoys recognized leadership in education. Science all over the globe is still studying under German teachers. Of 15,000 scientific volumes which were published last year, more than 10,000 were published in Germany, in spite of the war. Can this be called a crude and hard-boiled culture? It provided us with the profound sentiment of the German Lied [folk song] and gave us the wonderful music of classical composers. It gave us the kindergarten and the Christmas Tree. It gave us a clean and unspoiled family life and German social life, from which this country can learn how to be happy without going to excesses. German culture gave the world the most humanely organized, best educated and most 26thoroughly disciplined army the world has ever seen, an army which, because its esprit de corps is less likely to commit atrocities than any other army in the world.

"From the harbors of Hamburg I have beheld the wonderful statue of Bismarck, rising high above the trees and roof tops, colossal in its proportions, sublime in its conception, in its massive serenity and suggestive strength. It is one of the most impressive monuments I have ever seen. And so Bismarck stands high above all his contemporaries, be they friend or foe. Thus he will stand out above his successors, when the years have passed into eternity, a stalwart figure on the horizon.

"I cannot finish this modest tribute to Bismarck in a better way than quoting here the immortal words of Johannes Scherr, with which he concludes his 'Germania':

"'Tireless in her work, courageous in thought, just in her actions, firm in 27her morals, secure in her right, and strong in her defense, may the German nation chart her future course with confidence. Modest in fortune, valiant in adversity, our people win the fruits of their unity. May they preserve peace, liberty, and happiness. Hail [Heil] Germania!'"