OTTO HERMANN KAHN
Otto H. Kahn was born at Mannheim, Germany, February 21, 1867. His father had emigrated to the United States in 1848, where he became a naturalized citizen, returning to Germany ten years later. The son was educated in Germany and served one year in the German army. He then learned banking, and for five years was with the London branch of the Deutsche Bank. In 1893 he came to the United States, where he became connected with the banking house of Speyer & Co., and later with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.During the Great War Mr. Kahn delivered several patriotic speeches which were collected under the title, “Right Above Race.”The following excerpt is part of an address given at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, April 24, 1919.
Otto H. Kahn was born at Mannheim, Germany, February 21, 1867. His father had emigrated to the United States in 1848, where he became a naturalized citizen, returning to Germany ten years later. The son was educated in Germany and served one year in the German army. He then learned banking, and for five years was with the London branch of the Deutsche Bank. In 1893 he came to the United States, where he became connected with the banking house of Speyer & Co., and later with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
During the Great War Mr. Kahn delivered several patriotic speeches which were collected under the title, “Right Above Race.”
The following excerpt is part of an address given at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, April 24, 1919.
We have often heard it said recently—it has become rather the fashion to say it—that the rulership of the world will henceforth belong to labor. I yield to no one in my respect and sympathy for labor, or in my cordial and sincere support of its just claims. The structure of our institutions cannot stand unless the masses of workmen, farmers, indeed all large strata of society, feel that under and by these institutions they are being given a square deal within the limits, not of Utopia, but of what is sane, right and practicable.
But the rulership of the world will and ought to belong to no one class. It will and ought to belong neither to labor nor to capital, nor to any other class. It will, of right and in fact, belong to those of all classes who acquire title to it by talent, hard work, self-discipline, character and service.
He is no genuine friend or sound counselor of the people nor a true patriot who recklessly, calculatingly or ignorantly raises or encourages expectations which cannot or which ought not to be fulfilled.
We must deal with all these things with common sense, mutual trust, with respect for all, and with the aim of guiding our conduct by the standard of liberty, justice and human sympathy. But we must rightly understand liberty. We must resolutely oppose those who in their impatient grasping for unattainable perfection would make of liberty a raging and destructive torrent instead of a majestic and fertilizing stream.
Liberty is not fool-proof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the reality of things, of the practicable and attainable, and a realization of the fact that there are laws of nature and of economies which are immutable and beyond our power to change.
Nothing in history is more pathetic than the record of the instances when one or the other of the peoples of the worldrejoicingly followed a new lead which it was promised and fondly believed would bring it to freedom and happiness, and then suddenly found itself, instead, on the old and only too well-trodden lane which goes through suffering and turmoil to disillusionment and reaction.
I suppose most of us when we were twenty knew of a short cut to the millennium, and were impatient, resentful and rather contemptuous of those whose fossilized prejudices or selfishness, as we regarded them, prevented that short cut from becoming the high road of humanity.
Now that we are older, though we know that our eyes will not behold the millennium, we should still like the nearest possible approach to it; but we have learned that no short cut leads there, and that anybody who claims to have found one is either an impostor or self-deceived.
Among those wandering signposts to Utopia we find and recognize certain recurrent types:—
There are those who, in the fervor of their world-improving mission, discover and proclaim certain cure-alls for the ills of humanity, which they fondly and honestly believe to be new and unfailing remedies, but which, as a matter of fact, are hoary with age, having been tried on this old globe of ours at one time or another, in one of its parts or another, long ago,—tried and found wanting and discarded after sad disillusionment.
There are the spokesmen of sophomorism rampant, strutting about in the cloak of superior knowledge, mischievously and noisily, to the disturbance of quiet and orderly mental processes and sane progress.
There are the sentimental, unseasoned, intolerant and cocksure “advanced thinkers,” claiming leave to set the world by the ears, and with their strident and ceaseless voices to drown the views of those who are too busy to indulge in much talking.
There are the self-seeking demagogues and various related types, and finally there are the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck, who in fanatical obsession would place a visionary and narrow class interest and a sloppy internationalismabove patriotism, and with whom class hatred and envy have become a ruling passion. They are perniciously, ceaselessly and vociferously active, though constituting but a small minority of the people, and though every election and other test has proved, fortunately, that they are not representative of labor, either organized or unorganized.
Among these agitators and disturbers who dare clamorously to assail the majestic and beneficent structure of American traditions, doctrines and institutions there are some, far too many, indeed—I say it with deep regret, being myself of foreign birth—who are of foreign parentage or descent. With many hundreds of thousands they or their parents came to our free shores from lands of oppression and persecution. The great republic generously gave them asylum and opened wide to them the portals of her freedom and her opportunities.
The great bulk of these newcomers have become loyal and enthusiastic Americans. Most of them have proved themselves useful and valuable elements in our many-rooted population. Some of them have accomplished eminent achievements in science, industry and the arts. Certain of the qualities and talents which they contribute to the common stock are of great worth and promise.
When the great test of the war came, the overwhelming majority of them rang wholly and finely true. The casualty lists are eloquent testimony to the patriotic devotion of “the children of the crucible,” doubly eloquent because many of them fought against their own kith and kin.
But some there are who have been blinded by the glare of liberty as a man is blinded who, after long confinement in darkness, comes suddenly into the strong sunlight. Blinded, they dare to aspire to force their guidance upon Americans who for generations have walked in the light of liberty.
They have become drunk with the strong wine of freedom, these men who until they landed on America’s coasts had tasted little but the bitter water of tyranny. Drunk, they presume to impose their reeling gait upon Americans to whomfreedom has been a pure and refreshing fountain for a century and a half.
Brooding in the gloom of age-long oppression, they have evolved a fantastic and distorted image of free government. In fatuous effrontery they seek to graft the growth of their stunted vision upon the splendid and ancient tree of American institutions.
Admitted in generous trust to the hospitality of America, they grossly violate not only the dictates of common gratitude, but of those elementary rules of respect and consideration which immemorial custom imposes upon the newcomer or guest. They seek, indeed, to uproot the foundations of the very house which gave them shelter.
We will not have it so, we who are Americans by birth or by adoption. We reject these impudent pretentions. By all means, let us move forward and upward, but let us proceed by the chart of reason, experience and tested American principles and doctrines, and let us not entrust our ship to demagogues, visionaries or shallow sentimentalists who most assuredly would steer it on the rocks.
When you once leave the level road of Americanism to set foot upon the incline of Socialism, it is no longer in your power to determine where you will stop. It is an axiom only too well attested by the experience of the past, that the principal elements of the established order of civilization (of which the institution of private property is one) are closely interrelated. If you tolerate grave infringement upon any of these elements, all history shows that you will have laid open to assault the foundations of personal liberty, of orderly processes of government, of justice and tolerance, as well as the institution of marriage, the sanctity of the home, and the principles and practices of religion.
The strident voices of the fomenters of unrest do not cause me any serious apprehension, but we must not sit silently by, we must not look on inactively. Where there are grievances to redress, where there are wrongs existing, we must all aid in trying to right them to the best of our conscience and ability.
To the extent that social and economic institutions, however deep and ancient their roots, may be found to stand in the way of the highest achievable level of social justice and the widest attainable extension of opportunity, welfare and contentment, they will have to submit to change. And the less obstructive and stubborn, the more broad-minded, co-operative, sympathetic and disinterested those who pre-eminently prospered under the old conditions will prove themselves in meeting the spirit of the new day and the reforms which it may justly call for, the better it will be both for them and for the community at large.
But to the false teaching and the various pernicious “isms” with which un-Americans, fifty per cent. Americans or anti-Americans are flooding the country, we must give battle through an organized, persistent, patient, nationwide campaign of education, of information, of sane and sound doctrine. The masses of the American people want what is right and fair, but they “want to be shown.” They will not simply take our word for it that because a thing is so and has always been so, therefore it should remain so. They do not mean to stand still. They want progress. They have no use for the standpatter and reactionary.
Even before the war a great stirring and ferment was going on in the land. The people were groping, seeking for a new and better condition of things. The war has intensified that movement. It has torn great fissures in the ancient structure of our civilization. To restore it will require the co-operation of all patriotic men of sane and temperate views, whatever may be their occupation or calling or political affiliations.
It cannot be restored just as it was before. The building must be rendered more habitable and attractive to those whose claim for adequate houseroom cannot be left unheeded, either justly or safely. Some changes, essential changes, must be made. I have no fear of the outcome and of the readjustment which must come. I have no fear of the forces of freedom unless they be ignored, repressed or falsely or selfishly led.
Changes the American people will make as their needs becomeapparent, improvements they welcome, the greatest attainable well-being for all those under our national roof-tree is their aim. They will strive to realize what formerly were considered unattainable ideals. But they will do all that in the American way of sane and orderly progress—and in no other.
Whatever betide in European countries, this nation will not be torn from its ancient moorings. Against foes within, no less than against enemies without, the American people will ever know how to preserve and protect the splendid structure of light and order, which is the treasured inheritance of all those who rightfully bear the name Americans, whatever their race and origin.