Not
only has he written two books, _Because I am a German_, and _The Coming
Democracy_, which if circulated in Germany would prick thousands of
dazed despairing brains into immediate rebellion, but he is the head of
those German Radical Democrats which have united in an organization
called "Friends of German Democracy."
Their avowed object, through the medium of a bi-weekly journal, _Die
Freie Zeitung_, and other propaganda, is to plant sound democratic ideas
and ideals in the minds of German prisoners in the Entente countries,
and to recruit the saner exiles everywhere. These publications reach men
and women of German blood whose grandfathers fled from military tyranny
after their abortive revolution in 1848, and, with their descendants,
have enjoyed freedom and independence in the United States ever since.
The best of them are expected to exert pressure upon their friends and
relatives in Germany. There are already branches of this epochal
organization in the larger American cities.
Herr Koettgen (who has written a book called _The Hausfrau and
Democracy_, by the way) walked into the office of the _Chronicle_ some
time in November and presented a letter to the editor, Mr. Fletcher. In
the course of the heated conversation that ensued, Herr Koettgen
exclaimed with bitter scorn: "Oh, so you think yourself as fiercely
anti-German as a man may be? Well, let me tell you that you are not
capable of one-tenth the passionate hatred I feel for a dynasty and a
caste that has made me so ashamed of being a German that I could eat the
dust.
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