THE SPRINGFIELD DAILY REPUBLICAN

Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

16 October 1915

(page 17)

NOTES OF BOOKS AND AUTHORS

Rhapsody on the Kaiser

The Open Court, a monthly magazine published in Chicago, and “devoted to the science of religion, the religion of science and the extension of the religious parliament idea,” has during the past year been lending its aid to the pro-German propaganda in this country. Its editor, Paul Carus, is a German, and the paper was founded by a German. This attitude of the Open Court is naturally resented in England, where the paper has a goodly number of readers, and in the October number an Englishman, C. Marsh Beadnell, subjects Mr. Carus’s pro-Germanism to a searching analysis. The Open Court is at least to be commended for publishing the article. As to one of the earlier outpourings of the Open Court, the Literary Guide and Rationalist Review (London) well says”—

Of Aleister Crowley’s apotheosis of the German emperor one cannot say whether it is satire gone astray or the ravings of a demented “genius.” To liken the kaiser to Christ, to hail him as “Savior of the world” and “sun of righteousness,” is about the limit of human folly. The editor cannot be congratulated on his discretion in permitting such revolting drivel to insult the intelligence of his readers.