The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon

The Presbyterian minister and orator Newell Dwight Hillis pens the historic novel «The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon». Written in the period just before the end of the First World War, it examines the actions of the German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm II, in the time leading up to the war. Hillis argues that the Kaiser's actions towards America and Europe demonstrate his intention for war all along. Such actions included the highly provocative work of his envoy Ambassador von Holleben to organize secret German-American societies in every great city like New York and Brooklyn, Chicago and Milwaukee, Cincinnati and St. Louis, and to present to these societies a German flag sent from the hands of the Kaiser himself. This he sees as an intention to ensure that Americans of German origin paid allegiance to the Fatherland.