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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19036-8.txt b/19036-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1636908 --- /dev/null +++ b/19036-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13420 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Germany and the Germans, by Price Collier + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Germany and the Germans + From an American Point of View (1913) + +Author: Price Collier + +Release Date: August 12, 2006 [EBook #19036] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE GERMANS *** + + + + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao + + + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS + +FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + +BY PRICE COLLIER + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK 1913 + + + +Copyright, 1913, by Charles Scribner's Sons + +Published May, 1913 + + + +To MY WIFE KATHARINE whose deserving far outstrips my giving + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + +INTRODUCTION + +I. THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY + +II. FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK + +III. THE INDISCREET + +IV. GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS + +V. BERLIN + +VI. "A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS" + +VII. THE DISTAFF SIDE + +VIII. "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND" + +IX. GERMAN PROBLEMS + +X. "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE" + +XI. CONCLUSION + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The first printed suggestion that America should be called America +came from a German. Martin Waldseemüller, of Freiburg, in his +Cosmographiae Introductio, published in 1507, wrote: "I do not see why +any one may justly forbid it to be named after Americus, its +discoverer, a man of sagacious mind, Amerige, that is the land of +Americus or America, since both Europe and Asia derived their names +from women." + +The first complete ship-load of Germans left Gravesend July the 24th, +1683, and arrived in Philadelphia October the 6th, 1683. They settled +in Germantown, or, as it was then called, on account of the poverty of +the settlers, Armentown. + +Up to within the last few years the majority of our settlers have been +Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. The English, Dutch, +Swedes, Germans, Scotch-Irish, who settled in America, were all, less +than two thousand years ago, one Germanic race from the country +surrounding the North Sea. + +Since 1820 more than 5,200,000 Germans have settled in America. This +immigration of Germans has practically ceased, and it is a serious +loss to America, for it has been replaced by a much less desirable +type of settler. In 1882 western Europe sent us 563,174 settlers, or +87 per cent., while southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey +sent 83,637, or 13 per cent. In 1905 western Europe sent 215,863, or +21.7 per cent., and southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey, +808,856, or 78.9 per cent. of our new population. In 1910 there were +8,282,618 white persons of German origin in the United States; +2,501,181 were born in Germany; 3,911,847 were born in the United +States, both of whose parents were born in Germany; 1,869,590 were +born in the United States, one parent born in the United States and +one in Germany. + +Not only have we been enriched by this mass of sober and industrious +people in the past, but Peter Mühlenberg, Christopher Ludwig, Steuben, +John Kalb, George Herkimer, and later Francis Lieber, Carl Schurz, +Sigel, Osterhaus, Abraham Jacobi, Herman Ridder, Oswald Ottendorfer, +Adolphus Busch, Isidor, Nathan, and Oscar Straus, Jacob Schiff, Otto +Kahn, Frederick Weyerheuser, Charles P. Steinmetz, Claus Spreckels, +Hugo Münsterberg, and a catalogue of others, have been leaders in +finance, in industry, in war, in politics, in educational and +philanthropic enterprises, and in patriotism. + +The framework of our republican institutions, as I have tried to +outline in this volume, came from the "Woods of Germany." Professor H. +A. L. Fisher, of Oxford, writes: "European republicanism, which ever +since the French Revolution has been in the main a phenomenon of the +Latin races, was a creature of Teutonic civilization in the age of the +sea-beggars and the Roundheads. The half-Latin city of Geneva was the +source of that stream of democratic opinion in church and state, +which, flowing to England under Queen Elizabeth, was repelled by +persecution to Holland, and thence directed to the continent of North +America." + +In these later days Goethe, in a letter to Eckermann, prophesied the +building of the Panama Canal by the Americans, and also the prodigious +growth of the United States toward the West. + +In a private collection in New York, is an autograph letter of George +Washington to Frederick the Great, asking that Frederick should use +his influence to protect that French friend of America, Lafayette. + +In Schiller's house in Weimar there still hangs an engraving of the +battle of Bunker Hill, by Müller, a German, and a friend of the poet. + +Bismarck's intimate friend as a student at Göttingen, and the man of +whom he spoke with warm affection all his life, was the American +historian Motley. + +The German soldiers in our Civil War were numbered by the thousands. +We have many ties with Germany, quite enough, indeed, to make a bare +enumeration of them a sufficient introduction to this volume. + +On more than one occasion of late I have been introduced in places, +and to persons where a slight picture of what I was to meet when the +doors were thrown open was of great help to me. I was told beforehand +something of the history, traditions, the forms and ceremonies, and +even something of the weaknesses and peculiarities of the society, the +persons, and the personages. I am not so wise a guide as some of my +sponsors have been, but it is something of the kind that I have wished +and planned to do for my countrymen. I have tried to make this book, +not a guidebook, certainly not a history; rather, in the words of +Bacon, "grains of salt, which will rather give an appetite than offend +with satiety," a sketch, in short, of what is on the other side of the +great doors when the announcer speaks your name and you enter Germany. + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS + +FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + +I THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY + + +Eighty-one years before the discovery of America, seventy-two years +before Luther was born, and forty-one years before the discovery of +printing, in the year 1411, the Emperor Sigismund, the betrayer of +Huss, transferred the Mark of Brandenburg to his faithful vassal and +cousin, Frederick, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg. Nuremberg was at one +time one of the great trading towns between Germany, Venice, and the +East, and the home later of Hans Sachs. Frederick was the lineal +descendant of Conrad of Hohenzollern, the first Burgrave of Nuremberg, +who lived in the days of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1189); and this +Conrad is the twenty-fifth lineal ancestor of Emperor William II of +Germany. It is interesting to remember in this connection that when we +count back our progenitors to the twenty-first generation they number +something over two millions. When we trace an ancestry so far, +therefore, we must know something of the multitude from which the +individual is descended, if we are to gather anything of value +concerning his racial characteristics. The solace of all genealogical +investigation is the infallible discovery, that the greatest among us +began in a small way. + +If you paddle up the Elbe and the Havel from Hamburg to Potsdam, you +will find yourself in the territory conquered from the heathen Wends +in the days of Henry I, the Fowler (918-935), which was the cradle of +what is now the German Empire. + +The Emperor Sigismund, who was often embarrassed financially by reason +of his wars and journeyings had borrowed some four hundred thousand +gold florins from Frederick, and it was in settlement of this debt +that he mortgaged the territory of Brandenburg, and on the 8th of +April, 1417, the ceremony of enfeoffment was performed at Constance, +by which the House of Hohenzollern became possessed of this territory, +and was thereafter included among the great electorates having a vote +in the election of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. + +It was Henricus Auceps, or Henry the Fowler, (so called because the +envoys sent to offer him the crown, found him on his estates in the +Hartz Mountains among his falcons), who fought off the Danes in the +northwest, and the Slavonians, or Wends, in the northeast, and the +Hungarians in the southeast, and established frontier posts or marks +for permanent protection against their ravages. These marks, or +marches, which were boundary lines, were governed by markgrafs or +marquises, and finally gave the name of marks to the territory itself. +The word is historically familiar from its still later use in noting +the old boundaries between England and Scotland, and England and +Wales, which are still called marks. + +Henry the Fowler was also called Henry "the City Builder." After the +death of the last of the Charlemagne line of rulers, the Franks +elected Conrad, Duke of Franconia, to succeed to the throne, and he on +his death-bed advised his people to choose Henry of Saxony to succeed, +for the times were stormy and the country needed a strong ruler. The +Hungarians in the southeast, and the Wends, the old Slavonic +population of Poland, were pillaging and harrying more and more +successfully, and the more successfully the more impudently. Henry +began the building of strong-walled, deep-moated cities along his +frontier, and made one, drawn by lot, out of every ten families of the +countryside, go to live in these fortified towns. Their rulers were +burgraves, or city counts. Titles now so largely ornamental were then +descriptive of duties and responsibilities. + +In the light of their future greatness, it is well to take note of +these two frontier counties, or marches. The first, called the +Northern March, or March of Brandenburg, was the religious centre of +the Slays, and was situated in the midst of forests and marshes just +beyond the Elbe. This March of Brandenburg was won from the Slays in +the first instance by the Saxons and Franks of the Saxon plain. When +the burgrave, Frederick of Hohenzollern, came to take possession of +his new territory he was received with the jesting remark: "Were it to +rain burgraves for a whole year, we should not allow them to grow in +the march." But Frederick's soldiers and money, and his Nuremberg +jewels, as his cannon were called, ended by gaining complete control, +a control in more powerful hands to-day than ever before. + +The second, called the Eastern or Austrian March, was situated in the +basin of the Danube. These two great states were formed in lands that +had ceased to be German and had become Slav or Finnish territory. The +fighting appetite of the German tribes, and the spirit of chivalry +later, which had drawn men in other days in France to the East, in +Spain against the Moors, in Normandy against England, were offered an +opportunity and an outlet in Germany, by forays and fighting against +the Finns and Slays. + +Out of the conquest and settlement of these territories grew, what we +know to-day, as the German Empire and the Austrian Empire. Out of +their margraves, who were at first sentinel officers guarding the +outer boundaries of the empire, and mere nominees of the Emperor, have +developed the Emperor of Germany and the Emperor of Austria, the one +ruling over the most powerful nation, the other the head of the most +exclusive court, in Europe. + +When a man becomes a power in the world, these days, our first impulse +is to ask about his ancestry. Who were his father and his mother; what +and who were his grandfathers and grandmothers, and who were their +forebears. Where did they come from, what was the climate; did they +live by the sea, or in the mountains, or in the plains. We are at once +hot on the trail of his success. Be he an American, we wish to know +whether his people came from Holland, from France, from England, or +from Belgium; where did they settle, in New England, in New York, or +in the South. We no longer accept ability as a miracle, but +investigate it as an evolution. If the man be great enough, cities vie +with each other to claim him as their child; he acquires an Homeric +versatility in cradles. + +Whatever one may think of William II of Germany, he is just now the +predominating figure in Europe, if not in the world. This must be our +excuse for a word or two concerning the race from which came his +twenty-fifth lineal ancestor. + +It is exactly five hundred years since his present empire was founded +in the sandy plains about the Elbe, and a thousand years before that +brings us to the dim dawn of any historical knowledge whatever about +the Germans. When the Cimbrians and Teutonians came into contact with +the Romans, in 113 B. C., is the beginning of all things for these +people. In that year the inhabitants of the north of Italy awoke one +morning to find a swarm of blue-eyed, light-haired, long-limbed +strangers coming down from the Alps upon them. The younger and more +light-hearted warriors came tobogganing down the snow-covered +mountain-sides on their shields. They had been crowded out of what is +now Switzerland, and called themselves, though they were much alike in +appearance, the Cimbri and the Teutones. They defeated the Roman +armies sent against them, and, turning to the south and west, went on +their way along the north shores of the Mediterranean into what is now +France. They had no history of their own. Tacitus writes that they +could neither read nor write: "Literarum secreta viri pariter ac +feminae ignorant." Very little is to be found concerning them in the +Roman writers. The books of Pliny which treated of this time are lost. +It was toward the middle of the century before Christ that Caesar +advanced to the frontier of what may be called Germany. He met and +conquered there these men of the blood who were to conquer Rome, and +to carry on the name under the title of the Holy Roman Empire. Caesar +met the ancestors of those who were to be Caesars, and with an eye on +Roman politics, wrote the "Commentaries," which were really +autobiographical messages, with the Germans as a text and an excuse. + +Tacitus, born just about one hundred years after the death of Caesar, +and who had access to the lost works of Pliny, was a moralist +historian and a warm friend of the Germans. Over their shoulders he +rapped the manners and morals of his own countrymen. "Vice is not +treated by the Germans" (German, the etymologists say, is composed of +Ger, meaning spear or lance, and Man, meaning chief or lord; Deutsch, +or Teutsch, comes from the Gothic word Thiudu, meaning nation, and a +Deutscher, or Teutscher, meant one belonging to the nation), he tells +his countrymen, "as a subject of raillery, nor is the profligacy of +corrupting and being corrupted called the fashion of the age." With +Rooseveltian enthusiasm he writes that the Germans consider it a crime +"to set limits to population, by rearing up only a certain number of +children and destroying the rest." + +The republicanism of Europe and America had its roots in this Teutonic +civilization. "No man dictates to the assembly; he may persuade but +cannot command. When anything is advanced not agreeable to the people, +they reject it with a general murmur. If the proposition pleases, they +brandish their javelins. This is their highest and most honorable mark +of applause; they assent in a military manner, and praise by the sound +of their arms," continues our author. + +The great historian of the Roman historians, and of Rome, Gibbon, +lends his authority to this praise of Tacitus in the sentence: "The +most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of +Germany; and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still +distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners." + +Rome, which was not only a city, a nation, an empire, but a religion; +Rome, which replied to a suggestion that the people of Latium should +be admitted to citizenship, "Thou hast heard, O Jupiter, the impious +words that have come from this man's mouth. Canst thou tolerate, O +Jupiter, that a foreigner should come to sit in the sacred temple as a +senator, as a consul?" Rome welcomed later the barbarians from the +woods of Germany not only as citizens and consuls, but as emperors; +and their descendants rule the world. + +It was no Capuan training that finally distilled itself in a +Charlemagne, an Otho, a Luther, a Frederick the Great, and a Bismarck; +in an Alfred, a William the Conqueror, a Cromwell, a Clive, a Rhodes, +or a Gordon; in a Washington, a Lincoln, a Grant, a Jackson, and a +Lee. + +Beyond the certified beyond, we see dimly through the mists of +history, hosts of men marching, ever marching from the east, spreading +some toward Norway and Sweden, some skirting the Baltic Sea to the +south; driving their cattle before them, and learning the arts of +peace and war, and self-government, from the harsh school-masters of +pressing needs and tyrannical circumstances, the only teachers that +confer degrees of permanent value. They become fishermen and small +landholders in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. "Jeudi," or Jupiter's day, +becomes their god Thor's day, or Thursday; "Mardi," or Mars's day, is +their Tiu's day, or Tuesday; "Mercredi," or Mercury's day, is Odin's +or Woden's day, or Wednesday. + +These men trained to solitude in small bands, owing to the +geographical exigencies of their northern country, become the founders +of the particularist or individualistic nations, Great Britain and the +United States among others. Those who had gone south, driven by +pressure from behind, follow the Danube to the north and west, find +the Rhine, and push on into what is now southwestern Europe. + +It is worth noting that the Rhine and the Danube have their sources +near together, and form a line of water from the North Sea to the +Black Sea, a significant line in Europe from the beginning down to +this day. This line of water divides not only lands but nations, +manners, customs, and even speech, and what we call the North, and +what we call the South, may be said to be, with negligible exceptions, +what is north and what is south of those two rivers. It is and always +has been the Mason and Dixon's line of Europe. + +All of these peoples mould their institutions, from the habits and +customs forced upon them by their surroundings. The members of the +tribe of the Suevi, now Swabians, were not allowed to hold fixed +landed possessions, but were forced to exchange with each other from +time to time, so that no one should become wedded to the soil and grow +rich thereby. Readers of history will remember, that Lycurgus +attempted similar legislation among the Spartans, hoping thus to keep +them simple and hardy, and fit for war. + +How many hundreds of years, these various tribes were working out +their rude political and domestic laws, no man knows. The imaginative +historian pushes his way through the mists, and sees that the tribes +who lived in the Scandinavian peninsula were forced by their cramped +territory to become fishermen and sailors, and cultivators of small +areas of land, accustomed therefore to rule themselves in small +groups, and hence independent and markedly individualist. Such +historians divide even these rude tribes sharply between the +patriarchal and the particularist. The particularist commune developed +from the estate which was self-sufficient, isolated, and independent. +When they were associated together it was for special and limited +purposes, so that independence might be infringed upon to the least +possible extent. The patriarchal commune, on the other hand, proceeded +from the communal family which provided everything for everybody. It +was a general and compulsory partnership, monopolizing every kind of +business that might arise. The particularist group then, and their +moral and political descendants now, strive to organize public +authority, and public life in such a way, that they are distinctly +subordinate to private and individual independence. In the one the +Emperor is the father of the family--the Russian Emperor is still +called "Little Father"--the independence of each member of the family +is swallowed up in the complete authority of the head of the national +family; in the other the president, or constitutional king, is the +executive servant of independent citizens, to whom he owes as much +allegiance as they owe to him. + +In Saxony, to-day, more than ninety per cent. of the agricultural +population are independent peasant proprietors, and the most admirable +and successful agriculturists in the world. It is said indeed that the +Curia Regis, which is the Latinized form of the Witenagemote, or +assembly of wise men, of the Norman and Angevin kings, is the +foundation of the common law of England, and the common law of England +is the law of more than half of the civilized world. + +Whatever the varieties and distinctions of government anywhere in the +world, these two differences are the fundamental and basic +differences, upon which all forms of government have been built up and +developed. + +In the one, everything so far as possible is begun and carried on by +individual initiative; in the other the state gradually takes control +of all enterprise. The philosophy of the one is based upon the saying: +love one another; the political philosophy of the other is based upon +the assumption that men are not brethren, but beasts and mechanical +toys, who can only be governed by legislation and the police. The +ideal of the one is the good Samaritan, the ideal of the other is the +tax-collector. The one depends upon the wine and oil of sympathy and +human brotherhood; the other claims that the right to an iron bed in a +hospital, and the services of a state-paid and indifferent physician, +are "refreshing fruit," as though sympathy and consideration, which +are what our weaker brethren most need, could be distilled from taxes! + +It is claimed for these Teutonic tribes, that those of them which +drifted down from the Scandinavian peninsula, are the blood and moral +ancestors of the particularist nations now in the ascendant in the +world. The love of independent self-government, born of the +geographical necessities of the situation, stamped itself upon these +people so indelibly, that Englishmen and Americans bear the seal to +this day. This change from the patriarchal to the particularist family +took place in this German race, and took place not in those who came +from the Baltic plain, but in those who came from the Saxon plain. + +The tribes from the Baltic plain, the Goths, for example, merely +overran the Roman civilization, spread over it; drowned it in superior +numbers, and with superior valor; but it was the Germans from the +Scandinavian peninsula who conquered Rome, and conquered her not by +force alone, but by offering to the world a superior social and +political organization. It was to this branch of the German race that +Varus lost his legions, at the place where the Ems has its source, at +the foot of the Teutoburger Wald. Charlemagne was of these, and his +name Karl, or Kerl, or peasant, and the fact that his title is the +only one in the world compounded of greatness and the people in equal +measure, is the pith of what the Germans brought to leaven the whole +political world. He made the common man so great, that the world has +consented to his unique and superlative baptismal title of Karl the +Great, or Carolus Magnus, or Charlemagne. + +The pivotal fact to be remembered is that these German tribes saved +Europe by their love of liberty, and by their virility, from the +decadence of an orientalized Rome. Rome, and all Rome meant, was not +destroyed by these ancestors of ours; on the contrary, they saved what +was best worth saving from the decline and fall of Rome, and made out +of it with their own vigorous laws a new world, the modern western +world. Great Britain, Germany, and the United States are not descended +from Egypt, Greece, or Rome, but from "those barbarians who issued +from the woods of Germany." + +Every school-boy should be taught that Rome died of a disease +contracted from contact with the Oriental, the Syrian, the Jew, the +Greek, the riffraff of the eastern and southern shores of the +Mediterranean; who, by the way, make up the bulk of the immigration +into America at this time. Rome was an incurable invalid long before +the Germans took control of the western world and saved it. + +When the Roman Emperor Augustus died, in 14 A. D., to be succeeded by +Tiberius, the Roman Empire was bounded on the north and east by the +Rhine, the Danube, the Black Sea and its southern territory, and +Syria; by all the known country from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean +in northern Africa on the south; and by the Atlantic Ocean as far +north as the river Elbe on the west. Five hundred years later, about +500 A. D., the Barbarians, as they were called, had thrust aside the +Roman Empire. The Saxons controlled the southern and eastern coasts of +England; the Franks were rulers in the whole country from the Loire to +the Elbe; south of them the Visigoths ruled Spain; Italy and all the +country to the north and east of the Adriatic, as far as the Danube, +were in the hands of the Ostrogoths. The Roman Empire had been pushed +to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, with its capital at +Constantinople. + +In another three hundred years, or in 800 A. D., the king of one of +these German tribes revived the title of Roman Emperor, was crowned by +the Pope, Leo III, and governed Europe as Charlemagne. His banner with +the double-headed eagle, representing the two empires of Germany and +Rome, is the standard of Germany to-day. Charles Martel, who led the +West against the East, defeating the Arabs in the country between what +is now Tours and Poitiers, was Charlemagne's grandfather. What is now +western Europe, became the home and the consolidated kingdom of the +German tribes who had drifted down from the west of the Baltic, and +into the Saxon plain. They had become masters in this territory: after +victories over the Mongolian tribes, and the Huns under Attila, who +had conquered and plundered as far as Strasburg, Worms, and Treves, +and were finally defeated near what is now Chalons; after driving off +the Arabs under Charles the Hammer (732); after imposing their rule +upon the Roman Empire, the remains of which cowered in Constantinople, +where the Ottoman Turk took even that from it in 1453, which date may +well be taken as marking the beginning of modern history, and became +themselves thereafter one of the first powers in Christian Europe; a +power which is now, in 1912, the quarrel ground of the Western powers. + +These are Brobdingnagian strides through history, to reach the days of +Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Froissart, and the first +translation of the Bible into a vulgar tongue by Wickliffe, to the +days when Lorenzo de Medici breathed Greece into Europe, and the +feeling for beauty changed from invalidism to convalescence; to the +days when cannon were first used, printing invented, America +discovered, and the man Luther, who gave the Germans their present +language by his translation of the Bible, and who delivered us from +papal tyranny, born; and Agincourt, and Joan of Arc, are picturesque +and poignant features of the historical landscape. + +These rude German tribes had been welded by hardship and warfare, into +compact and self-governing bodies. These loosely bound masses of men, +women, and children, straggling down to find room and food, are now, +in 1400 A. D., France, England, Austria, Germany, Scotland, and Spain. +The same spirit and vigor that roamed the coasts all the way from +Sweden and Norway to the mouth of the Thames, and to the Rhine, the +Seine, and to the Straits of Gibraltar, are abroad again, landing on +the shores of America, circumnavigating Africa, and bringing home +tales of Indians in the west, and Indians in the east. This virile +stock that had been hammered and hewn was now to be polished; and in +Italy, France, England, and Germany grew up a passion for translating +the rough mythology, and the fierce fancy of the north, into painting, +building, poetry, and music. + +France, Germany, England, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Italy, too, grew +out of these German tribes, who poured down from the territory roughly +included between the Rhine, the North Sea, the Oder, and the Danube. + +As we know these countries to-day, the definite thing about them is +their difference. You cross the channel in fifty minutes from Dover to +Calais, you cross the Rhine in five minutes, and the peoples seem +thousands of miles apart. "How did it happen," asks Voltaire, "that, +setting out from the same point of departure, the governments of +England and of France arrived at nearly the same time, at results as +dissimilar as the constitution of Venice is unlike that of Morocco?" + +One might ask as well how it happened, that the speech of one German +invasion mixing itself with Latin became French, of another Spanish, +of another Portuguese, of another Italian, of another English. These +are interesting inquiries, and in regard to the former it is not +difficult to see, that men grew to be governed differently, according +as the geographical exigencies of their homes were different, and as +they occupied themselves differently. + +The observant traveller in the United States, may see for himself what +differences even a few years of differing climate, and circumstances, +and custom will produce. The inhabitants of Charleston, South +Carolina, are evidently and visibly different from those in Davenport, +Iowa. Two towns of similar size and wealth, Salisbury, Maryland, and +Hingham, Massachusetts, are almost as different, except in speech, and +even in speech the accent is perceptibly different even to the +careless listener, as though Salisbury were in the south of France, +and Hingham in the north of Germany. These changes and differences are +only inexplicable, to those who will not see the ethnographical +miracles taking place under their noses. Look at the mongrel crowd on +Fifth Avenue at midday, and remember what was there only fifty years +ago, and the differentiation which has taken place in Europe due to +climate, intermarriage, laws, and customs seems easy to trace and to +explain. + +The fishermen and tillers of the soil in the Scandinavian peninsula, +afterward the settlers in the Saxon plain and in England, recognized +him who ruled over their settled place of abode as king; while roaming +bands of fighting men would naturally attach themselves to the head of +the tribe, as the leader in war, and recognize him as king. As late as +the death of Charlemagne, when his powerful grip relaxed, the tribes +of Germans, for they were little more even then, fell apart again. +Another family like that of Pepin arose under Robert the Strong, and +under Hugue Capet (987) acquired the title of Kings of France. The +monarchy grew out of the weakening of feudalism, and feudalism had +been the gradual setting, in law and custom, of a way of living +together, of these detached tribes and clans, and their chiefs. + +A powerful warrior was rewarded with a horse, a spear; later, when +territory was conquered and the tribe settled down, land was given as +a reward. Land, however, does not die like a horse, or wear out and +get broken like a spear, and the problem arises after the death of the +owner, as to who is his rightful heir. Does it revert to the giver, +the chief of the tribe, or does it go to the children of the owner? +Some men are strong enough to keep their land, to add to it, to +control those living upon it, and such a one becomes a feudal ruler in +a small way himself. He becomes a duke, a dux or leader, a count, a +margrave, a baron, and a few such powerful men stand by one another +against the king. A Charlemagne, a William the Conqueror, a Louis XIV +is strong enough to rule them and keep them in order for a time. Out +of these conditions grow limited monarchies or absolute monarchies and +national nobilities. + +More than any other one factor, the Crusades broke up feudalism. The +great noble, impelled by a sense of religious duty, or by a love of +adventure, arms himself and his followers, and starts on years of +journeyings to the Holy Land. Ready money is needed above all else. +Lands are mortgaged, and the money-lender and the merchant buy lands, +houses, and eventually power, and buy them cheap. The returning nobles +find their affairs in disarray, their fields cultivated by new owners, +towns and cities grow up that are as strong or stronger than the +castle. Before the Crusades no roturier, or mere tiller of the soil, +could hold a fief, but the demand for money was so great that fiefs +were bought and sold, and Philippe Auguste (1180) solved the problem +by a law, declaring that when the king invested a man with a +sufficient holding of land or fief, he became ipso facto a noble. This +is the same common-sense policy which led Sir Robert Peel to declare, +that any man with an income of $50,000 a year had a right to a +peerage. There can be no aristocracy except of the powerful, which +lasts. The difference to-day is seen in the puppet nobility of +Austria, Italy, Spain, and Germany as compared with the nobility of +England, which is not a nobility of birth or of tradition, but of the +powerful: brewers and bankers, and statesmen and lawyers, and leaders +of public opinion, covering their humble past with ermine, and +crowning their achievements with coronets. + +The Crusades brought about as great a shifting of the balance of +power, as did later the rise of the rich merchants, industrials, and +nabobs in England. As the power of the nobles decreased, the central +power or the power of the kings increased; increased indeed, and +lasted, down to the greatest crusade of all, when democracy organized +itself, and marched to the redemption of the rights of man as man, +without regard to his previous condition of servitude. + +During the thousand years between the time when we first hear of the +German tribes, in 113 B. C., and the year 1411, which marks the +beginnings of what is now the Prussian monarchy, customs were becoming +habits, and habits were becoming laws, and the political and social +origins of the life of our day were being beaten into shape, by the +exigencies of living together of these tribes in the woods of Germany. + +There it was that the essence of democracy was distilled. Democracy, +Demos, the crowd, the people, the nation, were already, in the woods +of Germany, the court of last resort. They growled dissent, and they +gave assent with the brandishing of their weapons, javelins, or +ballots. They were called together but seldom, and between the +meetings of the assembly, the executive work, the judicial work, the +punishing of offenders, was left to a chosen few; left to those who by +their control over themselves, their control over their families, +their control over their neighbors, seemed best qualified to exercise +the delegated control of all. + +The chief aim of their organized government, such as it was, seems to +have been to leave themselves free to go about their private business, +with as little interference from the demands of public business as +possible. The chief concern of each one was to secure his right to +mind his own business, under certain safeguards provided by all. If +those delegated to govern became autocratic, or evil-doers, or used +their power for self-advancement or self-enrichment, they were +speedily brought to book. The philosophy of government, then, was to +make men free to go about their private business. That the time might +come when politics would be the absorbing business of all, dictating +the hours and wages of men under the earth, and reaching up to the +institution of a recall for the angel Gabriel, and a referendum for +the Day of Judgment, was undreamed of. The chiefs of the clans, the +chiefs of the tribes, the kings of the Germans, and finally the +emperors were all elective. The divine right of kings is a purely +modern development. The descendants of these German tribes in England, +elected their king in the days of William the Conqueror even, and as +late as 1689 the Commons of England voted that King James had +abdicated, and that the throne was vacant! + +The so-called mayors of the palace, who became kings, were in their +day representatives of the landholders, delegates of the people, who +advised the king and aided in commanding the armies. These hereditary +mayors of the palace drifted into ever greater and greater control, +until they became hereditary kings. The title was only hereditary, +however, because it was convenient that one man of experience in an +office should be succeeded by another educated to, and familiar with, +the same experiences and duties, and this system of heredity continues +down to this day in business, and in many professions and so long as +there is freedom to oust the incompetent, it is a good system. There +can never be any real progress until the sons take over the +accumulated wisdom and experience of the fathers; if this is not done, +then each one must begin for himself all over again. The hereditary +principle is sound enough, so long as there is freedom of decapitation +in cases of tyranny or folly. + +There has continued all through the history of those of the blood of +the German tribes, whether in Germany, England, America, Norway, +Sweden, or Denmark, the sound doctrine that ability may at any time +take the place of the rights of birth. Power, or command, or +leadership by heredity is looked upon as a convenience, not as an +unimpeachable right. + +Charlemagne (742-814), a descendant of a mayor of the palace who had +become king by virtue of ability, swept all Europe under his sway by +reason of his transcendent powers as a warrior and administrator. He +did for the first time for Europe what Akbar did in his day for India. +In forty-five years he headed fifty-three campaigns against all sorts +of enemies. He fought the Saxons, the Danes, the Slays, the Arabs, the +Greeks, and the Bretons. What is now France, Germany, Belgium, +Holland, Switzerland, Spain, and most of Italy were under his +kingship. He was a student, an architect, a bridge-builder, though he +could neither read nor write, and even began a canal which was to +connect the Danube and the Rhine, and thus the German Ocean, with the +Black Sea. He is one of many monuments to the futility of technical +education and mere book-learning. + +The Pope, roughly handled, because negligently protected, by the Roman +emperors, turns to Charlemagne, and on Christmas Day (800) places a +crown upon his head, and proclaims him "Caesar Augustus" and +"Christianissimus Rex." The empire of Rome is to be born again with +this virile German warrior at its head. Just a thousand years later, +another insists that he has succeeded to the title by right of +conquest, and gives his baby son the title of "King of Rome," and just +a thousand years after the death of Charlemagne, in 814, Napoleon +retires to Elba. There is a witchery about Rome even to-day, and an +emperor still sits imprisoned there, claiming for himself the right to +rule the spiritual and intellectual world: "sedet, eternumque sedebit +Infelix Theseus." + +Louis, called "the Pious," because the latter part of his life was +spent in mourning his outrageous betrayal, mutilation, and murder of +his own nephew, whose rivalry he feared, succeeded his father, +Charlemagne. He was succeeded again by his three sons, Lothair, Pepin, +and Louis by his first wife, and Charles, who was his favorite son, by +his second wife. He had already divided the great heritage left him by +Charlemagne between his three sons Lothair, Pepin, and Louis; but now +he wished to make another division into four parts, to make room for, +and to give a kingdom to, his son Charles by his second wife. The +three elder sons revolt against their father, and his last years are +spent in vain attempts to reconcile his quarrelsome children. At his +death war breaks out. Pepin dies, leaving, however, a son Pepin to +inherit his kingdom of Aquitaine. Louis and Charles attempt to take +his kingdom from him, his uncle Lothair defends him, and at the great +battle of Fontenay (841) Louis and Charles defeat Lothair. Lothair +gains the adherence of the Saxons, and Charles and Louis at the head +of their armies confirm their alliance, and at Strasburg the two +armies take the oath of allegiance: the followers of Louis took the +oath in German, the followers of Charles in French, and this oath, the +words of which are still preserved, is the earliest specimen of the +French language in existence. + +In 843 another treaty signed at Verdun, between the two brothers +Lothair and Louis and their half-brother Charles, separated for the +first time the Netherlands, the Rhine country, Burgundy, and Italy, +which became the portion of Lothair; all Germany east of this +territory, which went to Louis; and all the territory to the west of +it, which went to Charles. Germany and France, therefore, by the +Treaty of Verdun in 843, became distinct kingdoms, and modern +geography in Europe is born. + +From the death of Henry the Fowler, in 936, down to the nomination of +Frederick I of Bavaria, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg, to be Margrave of +Brandenburg, in 1411, the history of the particular Germany we are +studying is swallowed up in the history of these German tribes of +central Europe and of the Holy Roman Empire. It is in these years of +the seven Crusades, from 1095 to the last in 1248; of Frederick +Barbarossa; of the centuries-long quarrel between the Welfs, or +Guelphs, and the Waiblingers, or Ghibellines, which were for years in +Italy, and are still in Germany, political parties; of the Hanseatic +League of the cities to protect commerce from the piracies of a +disordered and unruled country; of the Dane and the Norman descents +upon the coasts of France, Germany, and England, and of their burning, +killing, and carrying into captivity; of the Saracens scouring the +Mediterranean coasts and sacking Rome itself; of the Wends and Czechs, +Hungarian bands who dashed in upon the eastern frontiers of the now +helpless and amorphous empire of Charlemagne, all the way from the +Baltic to the Danube; of the quarrel between Henry IV and that Jupiter +Ecclesiasticus, Hildebrand, or Gregory VII, who has left us his +biography in the single phrase, "To go to Canossa"; of Genghis Khan +and his Mongol hordes; of the long fight between popes and emperors +over the right of investiture; of Rudolph of Hapsburg; of the throwing +off of their allegiance to the Empire of the Kings of Burgundy, +Poland, Hungary, and Denmark; of the settlement of the question of the +legal right to elect the emperor by Charles IV, who fixed the power in +the persons of seven rulers: the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine +of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margraf of Brandenburg, and the +three Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne; of the independence +of the great cities of northern Italy; of Otto the Great, whose first +wife was a granddaughter of Alfred the Great, and who was the real +founder of the Holy Roman Empire, in the sense that a German prince +rules over both Germany and Italy with the approval of the Pope, and +in the sense that he, a duke of Saxony, appropriates the western +empire (962), goes to Rome, delivers the Pope, subdues Italy, and +fixes the imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany; of the +beginning of that hope of a world-church and a world-state, of a +universal church and a universal kingdom, which took form in what is +known as the Holy Roman Empire; of that greatest of all forgeries, the +Donation of Constantine by the monk Isidor, discovered and revealed by +Cardinal Nicolaus, of Cura, in which it is pretended that Constantine +handed over Rome to the Pope and his successors forever, with all the +power and privileges of the Caesars, and of the effects of this, the +most successful lie ever told in the world, during the seven hundred +years it was believed: it is in these years of turbulence and change +that one must trace the threads of history, from the first appearance +of the Germans, down to the time when what is now Prussia became a +frontier post of the empire under the rule of a Hohenzollern. + +It is, perhaps, of all periods in history, the most interesting to +Americans, for then and there our civilization was born. Writing of +the conquest of the British Isles by the Germans, J. R. Green says: +"What strikes us at once in the new England is this, that it was the +one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Rome. In other +lands, in Spain or Gaul or Italy, though they were equally conquered +by German peoples, religion, social life, administrative order, still +remained Roman." The roots of our civilization, are to be dug for in +those days when the German peoples met the imperialism and the +Christianity of Rome, and absorbed and renewed them. The Roman Empire, +tottering on a foundation of, it is said, as many as fifty million +slaves--even a poor man would have ten slaves, a rich man ten or +twenty thousand--and overrun with the mongrel races from Syria, +Greece, and Africa, and hiding away the remnants of its power in the +Orient, became in a few centuries an easy prey to our ancestors "of +the stern blue eyes, the ruddy hair, the large and robust bodies." + +"Caerula quis stupuit lumina? flavam +Caesariem, et madido torquentem cornua cirro? +Nempe quod haec illis natura est omnibus una," + +writes Juvenal of their resemblance to one another. + +By the year 1411 long strides had been made toward other forms of +social, political, religious, and commercial life, due to the German +grip upon Europe. Dante, whose grandmother was a Goth, was not only a +poet but a fighter for freedom, taking a leading part in the struggle +of the Bianchi against the Neri and Pope Boniface, was born in 1265 +and died in 1321; Francis of Assisi, born in 1182, not only +represented a democratic influence in the church, but led the earliest +revolt against the despotism of money; the movement to found cities +and to league cities together for the furtherance of trade and +industry, and thus to give rights to whole classes of people hitherto +browbeaten by church or state or both, began in Italy; and the +alliance of the cities of the Rhine, and the Hansa League, date from +the beginning of the thirteenth century; the discovery of how to make +paper dates from this time, and printing followed; the revolt of the +Albigenses against priestly dominance which drenched the south of +France in blood began in the twelfth century; slavery disappeared +except in Spain; Wycliffe, born in 1324, translated the Gospels, threw +off his allegiance to the papacy, and suffered the cheap vengeance of +having his body exhumed and its ashes scattered in the river Swift; +Aquinas and Duns Scotus delivered philosophy from the tyranny of +theology; Roger Bacon (1214) practically introduced the study of +natural science; Magna Charta was signed in 1215; Marco Polo, whose +statue I have seen among those of the gods, in a certain Chinese +temple, began his travels in the thirteenth century; the university of +Bologna was founded before 1200 for the untrammelled study of medicine +and philosophy; Abelard, who died in 1142, represented, to put it +pithily, the spirit of free inquiry in matters theological, and +lectured to thousands in Paris. What do these men and movements mean? +I am wofully wrong in my ethnographical calculations if these things +do not mean, that the people of whom Tacitus wrote, "No man dictates +to the assembly; he may persuade but cannot command," were shaping and +moulding the life of Europe, with their passionate love of individual +liberty, with their sturdy insistence upon the right of men to think +and work without arbitrary interference. Out of this furnace came +constitutional government in England, and republican government in +America. We owe the origins of our political life to the influence of +these German tribes, with their love of individual freedom and their +stern hatred of meddlesome rulers, or a meddlesome state or +legislature. + +Germany had no literature at this time. When Froissart was writing +French history, and Joinville his delightful chronicles; when Chaucer +and Wycliffe were gayly and gravely making play with the monks and +priests, the only names known in Germany were those of the mystics, +Eckhart and Tauler. When the time came, however, Germany was defiantly +individualist in Luther, and Protestantism was thoroughly German. It +was not from tales of the great, not from knighthood, chivalry, or +their roving singer champions, that German literature came; but from +the fables and satires of the people, from Hans Sachs and from the +Luther translation of the Bible. This is roughly the setting of +civilization, in which the first Hohenzollerns found themselves when +they took over the Mark of Brandenburg, in the early years of the +fifteenth century. + +Here is a list of them, of no great interest in themselves, but +showing the direct descent down to the present time; for from the +Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the French Revolution the German states +were without either men or measures, except Frederick the Great, that +call for other than dreary comment: + +Frederick I of Nuremberg, 1417 +Frederick II, 1440 +Albert III, 1470 +Johann III, 1476 +Joachim I, 1499 +Joachim II, 1535 +Johann George, 1571 +Joachim Frederick, 1598 +Johann Sigismund of Poland (first Duke of Prussia), 1608 +George William, 1619 +Frederick William (the Great Elector), 1640 +Frederick III, Frederick I of Prussia (crowned first King of Prussia + in 1701), 1657-1713 +Frederick William I (son of Frederick I of Prussia), 1688-1740 +Frederick II (the Great) (son of Frederick William I), 1712-1786 +Frederick William II (son of Augustus William, brother of + Frederick the Great), 1744-1787 +Frederick William III (son of Frederick William II), 1770-1840 +Frederick William IV (son of Frederick William III, 1795-1861), reigned, + 1840-1861 +William I (son of Frederick William III, brother of Frederick William IV, + 1797-1888), reigned, 1861-1888 +Frederick III (son of William I, 1831-1888), reigned from March 9 + to June 15, 1888. +William II (son of Frederick III and Princess Victoria of England), + born Jan. 27, 1859, succeeded Frederick III in 1888. + +These incidents, names, and dates are mere whisps of history. It is +only necessary to indicate that to articulate this skeleton of +history, clothe it with flesh, and give it its appropriate arms and +costumes would entail the putting of all mediaeval European history +upon a screen, to deliver oneself without apology from any such task. +It may be for this reason that there is no history of Germany in the +English tongue, that ranks above the elementary and the mediocre. +There is a masterly and scholarly history of the Holy Roman Empire by +an Englishman, which no student of Germany may neglect, but he who +would trace the beginnings of Germany from 113 B. C. down to the time +of the Great Elector, 1640, must be his own guide through the +trackless deserts, of the formation into separate nations, of modern +Europe. It is even with misgivings that the student picks his way from +the time of the Great Elector to Bismarck, and to modern Germany. + +The Peace of Westphalia, 1648, marks the end of the Thirty Years' War, +and finds Germany with a population reduced from sixteen millions to +four millions. Famine which drove men and women to cannibalism, bands +of them being caught cooking human bodies in a caldron for food; +slaughter that drove men to make laws authorizing every man to have +two wives, and punishing men and women who became monks and nuns; +lawlessness that bred roving bands of murderers, who killed, robbed, +and even ate their victims, demanded a ruler of no little vigor to +lead his people back to civic, moral, and material health. The Great +Elector wrested east Prussia from Poland, he defeated and drove off +the Swedes, whom Louis XIV had drawn into an alliance against him, he +travelled from end to end of his country, seeking out the problems of +distress and remedying them by inducing immigration from Holland, +Switzerland, and the north, by building roads, bridges, schools, and +churches, and by encouraging planting, trade, and commerce. He built +the Frederick William Canal connecting the Oder and the Spree, and +introduced the potato to his countrymen. Germany now produces in +normal years fifteen hundred million bushels of potatoes. The splendid +equestrian statue of the Great Elector on the long bridge at Berlin, +is a worthy monument to the first great Hohenzollern. + +When Charles II of Spain died, Louis XIV, the Emperor Leopold I of the +Holy Roman Empire, and the Elector of Bavaria, all three claimed the +right to name his successor. In the war that followed and which lasted +a dozen years, the Emperor, Holland, England, Portugal, the Elector of +Hanover, and the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg, the son of the +Great Elector, were allied against France. Frederick, the Elector of +Brandenburg, was permitted by the Emperor, in return for his services +at this time, to assume the title of King, and he crowned himself and +his wife Sophia Elizabeth, at Königsberg, King and Queen of Prussia, +taking the title of Frederick I of Prussia, January 18th, 1701. + +This novus homo among sovereigns was now a fellow king with the rulers +of England, France, Denmark, and Sweden, and the only crowned head in +the empire, except the Emperor himself, and the Elector of Saxony, who +had been chosen King of Poland in 1697. By persistent sycophancy he +had pushed his way into the inner circle of the crowned. Those who +have picked social locks these latter days by similar sycophancies, by +losses at bridge in the proper quarter, by suffering sly familiarities +to their women folk, and by wearing their personal and family dignity +in sole leather, may know something of the humiliating experiences of +this new monarch. He was a feeble fellow, but his son and successor, +Frederick William I, "a shrewd but brutal boor," so Lord Rosebery +calls him, and there could not be a better judge, amazed Europe by his +taste for collecting tall soldiers, by his parsimony, his kennel +manners in the treatment of his family and his subjects, and leaves a +name in history as the first, greatest, and the unique collector of +human beings on a Barnumesque scale. All known collectors of birds, +beetles, butterflies, and beasts accord him an easy supremacy, for his +aggregation of colossal grenadiers. + +It is temptingly easy to be epigrammatic, perhaps witty, at the +expense of Frederick William I of Prussia. The man, however, who freed +the serfs; who readjusted the taxes; who insisted upon industry and +honesty among his officials; who proclaimed liberty of conscience and +of thought; who first put on, to wear for the rest of his life, the +uniform of his army, and thus made every officer proud to wear the +uniform himself; and who left his son an army of eighty thousand men, +thoroughly equipped and trained, and an overflowing treasury, may not +be dismissed merely with anecdotes of his eccentric brutality. + +Only the ignorant and the envious, nibble at the successes of other +men, with vermin teeth and venomous tongue. Those people who can never +praise anything whole-heartedly come by their cautious censure from an +uneasy doubt of their own deserving. The contempt of Frederick William +I for learning and learned men, left him leisure for matters of far +more importance to his kingdom at the time. His habitual roughness to +his son was due, perhaps, to the fact that there was a curious strain +of effeminate culture in the man who deified Voltaire. Poor Voltaire, +who called Shakespeare "le sauvage ivre," or to quote him exactly: "On +croirait que cet ouvrage (Hamlet) est le fruit de l'imagination d'un +sauvage ivre," who said that Dante would never be read, and that the +comedies of Aristophanes were unworthy of presentation in a country +tavern! One is tempted to believe that the father was a man of +robuster judgment in such matters than the son, whose own rather +mediocre literary equipment, made him the easy prey of that acidulous +vestal of literature, Voltaire. However that may be, he left a useful +and unexpected legacy to his son, provided, indeed, the sinews for the +making of a powerful Prussian kingdom. + +March the 31st, 1740, this eccentric miser died, to be succeeded by +his son, Frederick II, "the Great," then twenty-eight years old. Here +was a surprise indeed. Of these German kings and princes in their +small dominions it has been written: "And these magnates all aped +Louis XIV as their model. They built huge palaces, as like Versailles +as their means would permit, and generally beyond those limits, with +fountains and avenues and dismally wide paths. Even in our own day a +German monarch has left, fortunately unfinished, an accurate +Versailles on a damp island in a Bavarian lake. In those grandiose +structures they cherished a blighting etiquette, and led lives as dull +as those of the aged and torpid carp in their own stew-ponds. Then, at +the proper season, they would break away into the forest and kill +game. Moreover, still in imitation of their model, they held, as a +necessary feature in the dreary drama of their existence, ponderous +dalliances with unattractive mistresses, in whom they fondly tried to +discern the charms of a Montespan or a La Vallière. This monotonous +programme, sometimes varied by a violent contest whether they should +occupy a seat with or without a back, or with or without arms, +represented the even tenor of their lives." + +This good stock was evidently lying fallow, and humanity is neither +dignified nor pleasant in the part of fertilizer. Frederick the Great, +it should be remembered, was a Prussian and for Prussia only. He cared +no more about a united Germany than we care for a united America to +include Canada, Mexico, and the Argentine. He cared no more for +Bavarians and Saxons than for Swedes and Frenchmen, and, as we know, +he was utterly contemptuous of German literature or the German +language. He redeemed the shallowness and the torpidity of those other +mediocre rulers by resisting, and resisting successfully, for what +must have been to him seven very long years, the whole force of +Austria and some of the lesser German powers, with the armies of +Russia and France back of them. + +He had a turbulent home life; his father on one occasion even +attempted to hang him with his own hands with the cords of the window +curtains, and when he fled from home he captured him and proposed to +put him to death as a deserter, and only the intervention of the Kings +of Poland and Sweden and the Emperor of Germany prevented it. His +accomplice, however, was summarily and mercilessly put to death before +his eyes. There is no illustration in all history, of such a +successful outcome of the rod theory in education, as this of +Frederick the Great. The father put into practice what Wesley +preached: "Break their wills betimes, whatever it costs; break the +will if you would not damn the child. Let a child from a year old be +taught to fear the rod and to cry softly." + +The meanness and cruelty, the parsimony and the eccentricities, of the +father left the son an army of eighty thousand troops, troops as +superior to other troops in Europe as are the Japanese infantry to-day, +to the Manchu guards that pick the weeds in the court-yards of +the palace at Mukden; and he left him, too, a kingdom with no debts +and an overflowing treasury. It is seldom that such insane vanities +leave such a fair estate and an heir with such unique abilities for +its skilful exploitation. Of Frederick's wars against Austria, against +France, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and Poland; of his victories at +Prague, Leuthen, Rossbach, and Zorndorf; of his addition of Siberia +and Polish Prussia to his kingdom; of his comical literary love affair +with Voltaire; of his brutal comments upon the reigning ladies of +Russia and France, which brought upon him their bitter hatred; of his +restoration and improvement of his country; of his strict personal +economy and loyalty to his own people, scores of volumes have been +written. The hero-worshipper, Carlyle, and the Jove of reviewers, +Macaulay, have described him, and many minor scribes besides. + +It is said of his victory of Rossbach, in 1757, that then and there +began the recreation of Germany, the revival of her political and +intellectual life, and union under Prussia and Prussian kings. +Frederick the Great deserves this particular encomium; for as Luther +freed Germany, and all Christendom indeed, from the tyranny of +tradition, as Lessing freed us from the tyranny of the letter, from +the second-hand and half-baked Hellenism of a Racine and a Corneille, +so Frederick the Great freed his countrymen at last from the puerile +slavery to French fashions and traditions, which had made them self- +conscious at home and ridiculous abroad. He first made a Prussian +proud to be a Prussian. + +This last quarter of the eighteenth century in Germany saw the death +of Lessing in 1781, the publication of Kant's "Kritik der Reinen +Vernunft" in the same year, and the death of the great Frederick in +1786. These names mark the physical and intellectual coming of age of +Germany. Lessing died misunderstood and feared by the card-board +literary leaders of his day, men who still wrote and thought with the +geometrical instruments handed them from France; Kant attempted to +push philosophical inquiry beyond the bounds of human experience, and +Frederick left Prussia at last not ashamed to be Prussia. Napoleon was +eighteen years old when Frederick died, and he, next to Bismarck, did +more to bring about German unity than any other single force. +Unsuccessful Charlemagne though he was, he without knowing it blazed +the political path which led to the crowning of a German emperor in +the palace at Versailles, less than a hundred years after the death of +Frederick the Great. In 1797 at Montebello, Napoleon said: "If the +Germanic System did not exist, it would be necessary to create it +expressly for the convenience of France." + + + +II FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK + + +Frederick the Great died in 1786, leaving Prussia the most +formidable military power on the Continent. In financial, law, and +educational matters he had made his influence felt for good. He +distributed work-horses and seed to his impoverished nobles; he +encouraged silk, cotton, and porcelain industries; he built the Finow, +the Planesche, and Bromberger Canals; he placed a tariff on meat, +except pork, the habitual food of the poor, and spirits and tobacco +and coffee were added to the salt monopoly; he codified the laws, +which we shall mention later; he aided the common schools, and in his +day were built the opera-house, library, and university in Berlin, and +the new palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam. + +Almost exactly one hundred years after the death of Frederick the +Great, there ended practically, at the death of the Emperor William I, +in 1888, the political career of the man, who with his personally +manufactured cement of blood and iron, bound Germany together into a +nation. The middle of the seventeenth, the middle of the eighteenth, +and the middle of the nineteenth centuries, with the Great Elector, +Frederick the Great, and Bismarck as the central figures, mark the +features of the historical landscape of Germany as with mile-stones. + +How difficult was the task to bring at last an emperor of all Germany +to his crowning at Versailles, January 18, 1871, and how mighty the +artificer who accomplished the work, may be learned from a glance at +the political, geographical, and patriotic incoherence of the land +that is now the German Empire. + +Germany had no definite national policy from the death of Frederick +the Great till the reign of Bismarck began in 1862. Hazy discussions +of a confederation of princes, of a Prussian empire, of lines of +demarcation, of acquisitions of German territory, were the phantoms of +a policy, and even these were due to the pressure of Prussia. + +The general political torpidity is surprisingly displayed, when one +remembers that Goethe (1749-1832), who lived through the French +Revolution, who was thirty-seven years old when Frederick the Great +died, and who lived through the whole flaming life of Napoleon, was +scarcely more stirred by the political features of the time than +though he had lived in Seringapatam. He was a superlatively great man, +but he was as parochial in his politics as he was amateurish in his +science, as he was a mixture of the coxcomb and the boor, in his love +affairs. Lessing, who died in 1781, Klopstock, who died in 1803, +Schiller, who died in 1805, Kant, who died in 1804, Hegel, who died in +1831, Fichte, who died in 1814, Wolf, who died in 1824, "Jean Paul" +Friedrich Richter, who died in 1825, Voss, who died in 1826, +Schelling, who died in 1854, the two Schlegels, August Wilhelm and +Frederick, who died in 1845 and in 1829, Jacob Grimm, who died in +1863, Herder, Wieland, Kotzebue, what a list of names! What a +blossoming of literary activity! But no one of them, these the leaders +of thought in Germany, at the time when the world was approaching the +birthday of democracy through pain and blood, no one of these was +especially interested in politics. + +There was theoretical writing about freedom. Heine mocked at his +countrymen and at the world in general, and deified Napoleon, from his +French mattress, on which he died, in 1856, only fifty-seven years +old. Fichte ended a course of lectures on Duty, with the words: "This +course of lectures is suspended till the end of the campaign. We shall +resume if our country become free, or we shall have died to regain our +liberty." But Fichte neither resumed nor died! Herder criticised his +countrymen for their slavish following of French forms and models in +their literature, as in their art and social life. And well he might +thus criticise, when one remembers how cramped was the literary vision +even of such men as Voltaire and Heine. We have already mentioned some +of Voltaire's literary judgments in the preceding chapter, and Heine +ventured to compare Racine to Euripides! No wonder that Germany needed +schooling in taste, if such were the opinions of her advisers. Such +literary canons as these could only be accepted by minds long inured +to provincial, literary, and social slavery. + +Just as every little princeling of those days in Germany took Louis +XIV for his model, so every literary fledgling looked upon Voltaire as +a god, and modelled his style upon the stiff and pompous verses of the +French literary men of that time. + +Not even to-day has Germany escaped from this bondage. In Baden three +words out of ten that you hear are French, and the German wherever he +lives in Germany still invites you to Mittagessen at eight P. M. +because he has no word in his own language for diner, and must still +say anständiger or gebildeter Mensch for gentleman. To make the German +even a German in speech and ideals and in independence has been a +colossal task. One wonders, as one pokes about in odd corners of +Germany even now, whether Herder's caustic contempt, and Bismarck's +cavalry boots, have made every German proud to be a German, as now he +surely ought to be. The tribal feeling still exists there. + +Fichte's lectures on Nationality were suppressed and Fichte himself +looked upon askance. The Schlegels spent a lifetime in giving Germany +a translation of Shakespeare. Hegel wrote the last words of his +philosophy to the sound of the guns at the battle of Jena. Goethe +writes a paragraph about his meeting with Napoleon. Metternich, born +three years before the American Revolution, and who died a year before +the battle of Bull Run, declared: "The cause of all the trouble is the +attempt of a small faction to introduce the sovereignty of the people +under the guise of a representative system." + +If this was the attitude of the intellectual nobility of the time, +what are we to suppose that Messrs. Muller and Schultze and Fischer +and Kruger, the small shop-keepers and others of their ilk, and their +friends thought? Even forty years later Friedrich Hebbel, in 1844, +paid a visit to the Industrial Exposition in Paris. He writes in his +diary: "Alle diese Dinge sind mir nicht allein gleichgültig; sic sind +mir widerwärtig." Germany had not awakened even then to any wide +popular interest in the world that was doing things. As Voltaire +phrased it, France ruled the land, England the sea, and Germany the +clouds, even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. This is +the more worth noting, as giving a peg upon which to hang Germany's +astounding progress since that time. Even as late as Bismarck's day he +complained of the German: "It is as a Prussian, a Hanoverian, a +Würtemberger, a Bavarian, or a Hessian, rather than as a German, that +he is disposed to give unequivocal proof of patriotism." The present +ambitious German Emperor said, in 1899, at Hamburg: "The sluggishness +shown by the German people in interesting themselves in the great +questions moving the world, and in arriving at a political +understanding of those questions, has caused me deep anxiety." What +kind of material had the nation-makers to work with! What a long, +disappointing task it must have been to light these people into a +blaze of patriotism! In those days America, though the population of +the American colonies was only eleven hundred and sixty thousand in +1750, talked, wrote, and fought politics. The outstanding +personalities of the time were patriots, soldiers, politicians, not a +dreamer among them. + +England was so nonchalantly free already, that the betting-book at +White's Club records that, "Lord Glengall bets Lord Yarmouth one +hundred guineas to five that Buonaparte returns to Paris before Beau +Brummel returns to London!" Burke and Pitt, and Fox and North, and +Canning might look after politics; Hargreaves and Crompton would take +care to keep English industries to the fore, and Watt, and the great +canal-builder Brindley, would solve the problem of distributing coal; +their lordships cracked their plovers' eggs, unable to pronounce even +the name of a single German town or philosopher, and showed their +impartial interest, much as now they do, in contemporary history, by +backing their opinions with guineas, with the odds on Caesar against +the "Beau." + +Weimar was a sunny little corner where poetry and philosophy and +literature were hatched, well out of reach of the political storms of +the time. The Grand Duke of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach with his tiny +court, his Falstaffian army, his mint and his customs-houses, with his +well-conducted theatre and his suite of littérateurs, was one of three +hundred rulers in the Germany of that time. + +The Holy Roman Empire, consisting, in Napoleon's time, of Austria, +Prussia, and a mass of minor states, these last grouped together under +the name of the Confederation of the Rhine, and wholly under French +influence, lasted one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight years, or +from Caesar's victory of Pharsalia down to August the 1st, 1806, when +Napoleon announced to the Diet that he no longer recognized it. + +This institution had no political power, was merely a theoretical +political ring for the theoretical political conflicts of German +agitators and dreamers, and was composed of the representatives of +this tangle of powerless, but vain and self-conscious little states. +This Holy Roman Empire, with an Austrian at its head, and aided by +France, strove to prevent the development of a strong German state +under the leadership of Prussia. After Napoleon's day it became a +struggle between Prussia and Austria. Austria had only eight out of +thirty-six million German population, while Prussia was practically +entirely German, and Prussia used her army, politics, and commerce to +gain control in Germany. Even to-day Austria-Hungary contains the most +varied conglomeration of races of any nation in the world. Austria has +26,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 9,000,000 are Germans, 1,000,000 +Italians and Rumanians, 6,000,000 Bohemians and Slovacs, 8,000,000 +Poles and Ruthenians, 2,000,000 Slovenes and Croatians. Of the +19,000,000 of Hungary there are 9,000,000 Magyars, 2,000,000 Germans, +2,500,000 Slovacs and Ruthenians, 3,000,000 Rumanians, and nearly +3,000,000 Southern Slays. + +Weimar was one of the three hundred capitals of this limp empire, with +tariffs, stamps, coins, uniforms, customs, gossip, interests, and a +sovereign of its own. When Bismarck undertook the unifying of the +customs tariffs of Germany, there were even then fifteen hundred +different tariffs in existence! + +Weimar had its salon, its notables: Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Frau +von Stein, Dr. Zimmermann as a valued correspondent; its Grand Duke +Karl August and his consort; Herder, who jealous of the renown of +Goethe, and piqued at the insufficient consideration he received, soon +departed, to return only when the Grand Duchess took him under her +wing and thus satisfied his morbid pride; its love affair, for did not +the beautiful Frau von Werthern leave her husband, carry out a mock +funeral, and, heralded as dead, elope to Africa with Herr von +Einsiedel? But Weimar was as far away from what we now agree to look +upon as the great events of the day, as were Lords Glengall and +Yarmouth at White's, in Saint James's. + +It requires imagination to put Goethe and Schiller and Wieland in the +bow window at White's, and to place Lords Glengall and Yarmouth in +Frau von Stein's drawing-room in Weimar; but the discerning eye which +can see this picture, knows at a glance why England misunderstands +Germany and Germany misunderstands England. For White's is White's and +Weimar is Weimar, and one is British and one is German as much now as +then! In the one the winner of the Derby is of more importance than +any philosopher; in the other, philosophers, poets, professors, and +playwrights are almost as well known, as the pedigrees of the +yearlings to be sold at Newmarket, are known at White's. They still +have plover's eggs early in the season at White's, and they still +recognize the subtle distinction there between "port wine" and "port"; +while in Weimar nobody, unless it be the duke, even boils his +sauerkraut in white wine! + +One could easily write a chapter on Weimar and its self-satisfied +social and literary activities. There were three hundred or more +capitals of like complexion and isolation: some larger, some smaller, +none perhaps with such a splendid literary setting, but all +indifferent with the indifference of distant relatives who seldom see +one another, when the French Revolution exploded its bomb at the gates +of the world's habits of thought. + +No intelligent man ever objected to the French Revolution because it +stood for human rights, but because it led straight to human wrongs. +The dream was angelic, but the nightmare in which it ended was +devilish. The French Revolution was the most colossal disappointment +that humanity has ever had to bear. + +More than the demagogue gives us credit for, are the great majority of +us eager to help our neighbors. The trouble is that the demagogue +thinks this, the most difficult of all things, an easy task. God and +Nature are harsh when they are training men, and we, alas, are soft, +hence most of our failures. Correction must be given with a rod, not +with a sop. There lies all the trouble. + +The political and philanthropic wise men were setting out for the +manger and the babe, their eyes on the star, laden with gifts, when +they were met by a whiff of grape-shot from the guns commanded by a +young Corsican genius. The French Revolution found us all sympathetic, +but making men of equal height by lopping off their heads; making them +free by giving no one a chance to be free; making them fraternal by +insisting that all should be addressed by the same title of, +"citizen," was soon seen to be the method of a political nursery. + +It was no fault of the French Revolution that it was no revolution at +all, in any political sense. Men maddened by oppression hit, kick, +bite, and burn. They are satisfied to shake the burden of the moment +off their backs, even though the burden they take on be of much the +same character. "It is perfectly possible, to revive even in our own +day the fiscal tyranny which once left even European populations in +doubt whether it was worth while preserving life by thrift and toil. +You have only to tempt a portion of the population into temporary +idleness, by promising them a share in a fictitious hoard lying in an +imaginary strong-box which is supposed to contain all human wealth. +You have only to take the heart out of those who would willingly labor +and save, by taxing them ad misericordiam for the most laudable +philanthropic objects. For it makes not the smallest difference to the +motives of the thrifty and industrious part of mankind whether their +fiscal oppressor be an Eastern despot, or a feudal baron, or a +democratic legislature, and whether they are taxed for the benefit of +a corporation called Society or for the advantage of an individual +styled King or Lord," writes Sir Henry Maine. In short it matters not +in the least what you baptize oppression, so long as it is oppression, +or whether you call your tyrant "Jim" or "My Lord," so long as he is a +tyrant. Many people are slowly awakening to the fact in England and in +America, that plain citizen "Jim" can be a most merciless tyrant in +spite of his unpretentious name and title. No royal tyrant ever dared +to attempt to gain his ends by dynamiting innocent people, as did the +trades-unionists at Los Angeles, or to starve a whole population as +did the trades-unionists in London. We have not escaped tyranny by +changing its name. The idea of the Contrat Social and of all its +dilutions since, has been that individuals go to make up society, and +that society under the name of the state must take charge of those +individuals. The French Revolution was a failure because it fell back +upon that tiresome and futile philosophy of government which had been +that of Louis XIV. Louis XIV took care of the individual units of the +state by exploiting them. He was a sound enough Socialist in theory. +France gained nothing of much value along the lines of political +philosophy. + +Whether it is Louis XIV who says "l'état c'est moi" or the citizens +banded together in a state, who claim that the functions of the state +are to meddle with the business of every man, matters little. It is +the same socialistic philosophy at bottom, and it has produced to-day +a France of thirty-eight millions of people pledged to sterility, one +million of whom are state officials superintending the affairs of the +others at a cost, in salaries alone, of upward of five hundred million +dollars a year. + +In no political or philosophical sense was the French Revolution a +revolution at all. It was a change of administration and leaders, but +not a change of political theory. The French Revolution put the state +in impartial supremacy over all classes by destroying exemptions +claimed by the nobility and the clergy, and thus extended the power of +the state. The English Revolution without bloodshed reduced the power +of the state, not for the advantage of any class, but for individual +liberty and local self-government. We Americans are the political +heirs of the latter, not of the former, revolution. + +Germany was stirred slightly to hope for freedom, but stirred mightily +to protest against anarchy later. These were the two influences from +the French Revolution that affected Germany, and they were so +contradictory that Germany herself was for nearly a hundred years in a +mixed mood. One influence enlivened the theoretical democrat, and the +other sent the armies of all Europe post-haste to save what was left +of orderly government in France. + +But Prussia was not what she had been under Frederick the Great. +Frederick was more Louis XIV than Louis XIV himself. The economic and +political errors of the French Revolution found their best practical +exponent in Frederick the Great. In the introduction to his code of +laws we have already mentioned are the words: "The head of the state, +to whom is intrusted the duty of securing public welfare, which is the +whole aim of society, is authorized to direct and control all the +actions of individuals toward this end." Further on the same code +reads: "It is incumbent upon the state to see to the feeding, +employment, and payment of all those who cannot support themselves, +and who have no claim to the help of the lord of the manor, or to the +help of the commune: it is necessary to provide such persons with work +which is suitable to their strength and their capacity." + +When Frederick died he left Prussia in the grip of this enervating +pontifical socialism, which always everywhere ends by palsying the +individual, and through the individual the state, with the blight of +demagogical and theoretical legislation. The fine army grew pallid and +without spirit, the citizens lost their individual pride, the nation +as a whole lost its vigor, and when Napoleon marched into Berlin, he +remarked that the country hardly seemed worth conquering. + +The century from the death of Frederick the Great, in 1786, to the +death of William the First, in 1888, includes, in a convenient period +to remember: the downfall of Frederick's patriotic edifice; the apathy +and impotency that followed upon the breaking up of the bureaucracy he +had welded into efficiency; the shuffling of the German states by +Napoleon as though they were the pack of cards in a great political +game; a revival of patriotism in Prussia after floggings and insults +that were past bearing; the jealousies and enmities of the various +states, the betrayal of one by the other, and finally the struggle +between Austria and Prussia to decide upon a leader for all Germany; +and at last the war against France, 1870-71, which was to make it +clear to the world that Germany had been Prussianized into an empire. + +Frederick William II, the nephew of Frederick the Great, who succeeded +him, was King of Prussia from 1786 to 1797. Frederick William III, his +son, and the husband of the beautiful and patriotic Queen Louisa, was +King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. Frederick William IV, a loquacious, +indiscreet, loose-lipped sovereign, of moist intellect and mythical +delusions, was King of Prussia from 1840 to 1857, when his mental +condition made his retirement necessary, and he was succeeded by his +brother, Frederick William Ludwig, first as regent, then as king in +1861, known to us as that admirable King and Emperor, William I, who +died in 1888. + +Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of these sovereigns, to +those of us who look upon Germany to-day as autocratically governed in +fact and by tradition, is their willing surrender to the people, on +every occasion when the demand has been, even as little insistent as +the German demand has been. In the case of Frederick William IV, his +claim, at least in words, upon his divine rights as a sovereign was +the mark of a wavering confidence in himself. He was not satisfied +with a rational sanction for his authority, but was forever assuring +his subjects that God had pronounced for him; much as men of low +intelligence attempt to add vigor to their statements by an oath. "I +hold my crown," he said, "by the favor of God, and I am responsible to +Him for every hour of my government." Much under the influence of the +two scholars Niebuhr and Ranke, he hated the ideas of the French +Revolution, and dreamed of an ideal Christian state like that of the +Middle Ages. He was caricatured by the journals of the day, and +laughed at by the wits, including Heine, and pictured as a king with +"Order" on one hand, "Counter-order" on the other, and "Disorder" on +his forehead. + +Though Frederick William II marched into France in 1792, to support +the French monarchy, neither his army nor his people were prepared or +fit for this enterprise, and he soon retired. In 1793, Prussia joined +Russia in a second partition of Poland, but in 1795, angry with what +was considered the double dealing of Austria and Russia, Prussia +concluded a peace with France, the treaty of Basle was signed in 1795, +and for ten years Prussia practically took no part in the Napoleonic +wars. + +Napoleon took over the lands on the left bank of the Rhine, took away +the freedom of forty-eight towns, leaving only Hamburg, Bremen, +Frankfort, Augsburg, and Nuremberg, and in 1803 he took Hanover. +Later, in 1805, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden aided Napoleon to fight +the alliance against him of Austria, England, Russia, and Sweden. In +that same year the Electors of Würtemberg and Bavaria were made kings +by Napoleon. In 1806 Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and Hessen seceded +from the German Empire, formed themselves into the Confederation of +the Rhine, and acknowledged Napoleon as their protector. In 1806 +Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, resigned, and there was +neither an empire nor an emperor of Germany, nor was there a Germany +of united interests. + +In 1806 Frederick William III, driven by the grossest insults to his +country and to his wife, finally declared war against France; there +followed the battle of Jena, in which the Germans were routed, and in +that same year Napoleon marched into Berlin unopposed. In 1807 the +Russian Emperor was persuaded to make peace, and Prussia without her +ally was helpless. The Peace of Tilsit, in July, 1807, deprived +Prussia of the whole of the territory between the Elbe and the Rhine, +and this with Brunswick, Hessen-Cassel, and part of Hanover was dubbed +the Kingdom of Westphalia, and Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome was +made king. The Polish territory of Prussia was given to the Elector of +Saxony, who was also rewarded for having deserted Prussia after the +battle of Jena by being made a king. Prussia was further required to +reduce her army to forty-two thousand men. + +It is neither a pretty nor an inspiriting story, this of the mangling +of Germany by Napoleon; of the German princes bribed by kingly crowns +from the hands of an ancestorless Corsican; but it all goes to show +how far from any sense of common aims and duties, how far from the +united Vaterland of to-day, was the Germany of a hundred years ago. It +adds, too, immeasurably to the laurels of the man who produced the +present German Empire out of his own pocket, and stood as chief +sponsor at its christening at Versailles in 1871. + +This Prussia that sent twenty thousand troops to aid Napoleon against +Russia, and which during the retreat from Moscow went over bodily to +the enemy; this Prussia whose vacillating king simpered with delight +at a kind word from Napoleon, and shivered with dismay at a harsh one; +this army with its officers as haughty as they were incapable, and its +men only prevented from wholesale desertion by severe punishment, an +army rotten at the core, with a coat of varnish over its worm-eaten +fabric; this Prussia humiliated and disgraced after the battle of +Jena, in 1806, in seven years' time came into its own again. Vom +Stein, Scharnhorst, the son of a Hanoverian peasant, and Hardenberg +put new life into the state. At Waterloo the pummelled squares of red-coats +were relieved by these Prussians, and Blücher, or "Old Marschall +Vorwärts" as he was called, redeemed his countrymen's years of +effeminate lassitude and vacillation. + +"Such was Vorwärts, such a fighter, +Such a lunging, plunging smiter, +Always stanch and always straight, +Strong as death for love or hate, +Always first in foulest weather, +Neck or nothing, hell for leather, +Through or over, sink or swim, +Such was Vorwärtshere's to him!" + +Napoleon goes to Saint Helena and dies in 1821. What he did for +Germany was to prove to her how impossible was a cluster of jealous, +malicious provincial little state governments in the heart of Europe, +protecting themselves from falling apart by the ancient legislative +scaffolding of the Holy Roman Empire. He squeezed three hundred states +into thirty-eight, and the very year of Waterloo, on April the 1st, a +German Napoleon was born who was to further squeeze these states into +what is known to-day as the German Empire. + +The Congress of Vienna was a meeting of the European powers to +redistribute the possessions, that Napoleon had scattered as bribes +and rewards among his friends, relatives, and enemies, so far as +possible, among their rightful owners. + +From the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, Napoleon looked on +while the allies quarrelled at this Congress of Vienna. Prussia +claimed the right to annex Saxony; Russia demanded Poland, and against +them were leagued England, Austria, and France, France represented by +the Mephistophelian Talleyrand, who strove merely to stir the discord +into another war. In the midst of their deliberations word came that +the wolf was in the fold again. Napoleon was riding to Paris, through +hysterical crowds of French men and women, eager for another throw +against the world, if their Little Corporal were there to shake the +dice for them. He had another throw and lost. The French Revolution in +1789, followed by the insurrection of all Europe against that strange +gypsy child of the Revolution, Napoleon, from 1807-1815, ended at last +at Waterloo. This lover, who won whole nations as other men win a maid +or two; this ruler, who had popes for handmaidens and gave kingdoms as +tips, who dictated to kings preferably from the palaces of their own +capitals; this fortunate demon of a man, who had escaped even Mlle. +Montausier, was safely disposed of at Saint Helena, and the ordinary +ways of mortals had their place in the world again. + +The Congress of Vienna reassembled, and the readjustment of the map of +Europe began over again. Prussia is given back what had been taken +away from her. A German confederation was formed in 1815 to resist +encroachments, but with no definite political idea, and its diet, to +which Prussia, Austria, and the other smaller states sent +representatives, became the laughing-stock of Europe. Jealous +bickerings and insistence upon silly formalities paralyzed +legislation. Lawyers and others who presented their claims before this +assembly from 1806-1816 were paid in 1843! The liquidation of the +debts of the Thirty Years' War was made after two hundred years, in +1850! The laws for the military forces were finally agreed upon in +1821, and put in force in 1840! + +There were three principal forms of government among these states: +first, Absolutist, where the ruler and his officials governed without +reference to the people, as in Prussia and Austria; second, those who +organized assemblies (Landslände), where no promises were made to the +people, but where the nobles and notables were called together for +consultation; and third, a sort of constitutional monarchy with a +written constitution and elected representatives, but with the ruler +none the less supreme. One of the first rulers to grant such a +constitution to his people was the Grand Duke who presided over the +little court at Weimar. + +The mass of the people were wholly indifferent. The intellectuals were +divided among themselves. The schools and universities after 1818 form +associations and societies, the Burschenschaft, for example, and in a +hazy professorial fashion talk and shout of freedom. They were of +those passionate lovers of liberty, more intent on the dower than on +the bride; willing to talk and sing and to tell the world of their own +deserts, but with little iron in their blood. + +When a real man wants to be free he fights, he does not talk; he takes +what he wants and asks for it afterward; he spends himself first and +affords it afterward. These dreamy gentlemen could never make the +connection between their assertions and their actions. They were as +inconsistent, as a man who sees nothing unreasonable in circulating +ascetic opinions and a perambulator at the same time. They were dreary +and technical advocates of liberty. + +At a great festival at the Wartburg, in 1817, the students got out of +hand, burned the works of those conservatives, Haller and Kotzebue, +and the Code Napoleon. This youthful folly was purposely exaggerated +throughout Germany, and was used by the party of autocracy to frighten +the people, and also as a reason for passing even severer laws against +the ebullitions of liberty. At a conference at Carlsbad in 1819 the +representatives of the states there assembled passed severe laws +against the student societies, the press, the universities, and the +liberal professors. + +From 1815-1830 the opinions of the more enlightened changed. The fear +of Napoleon was gradually forgotten, and the hatred of the absolutism +of Prussia and Austria grew. + +In 1830 constitutions were demanded and were guardedly granted in +Brunswick, Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse-Cassel. In 1832 things had gone +so far that at a great student festival the black, red, and gold flag +of the Burschenschaft was hoisted, toasts were drunk to the +sovereignty of the people, to the United States of Germany, and to +Europe Republican! This was followed by further prosecutions. Prussia +condemned thirty-nine students to death, but confined them in a +fortress. The prison-cell of the famous Fritz Reuter may be seen in +Berlin to-day. In Hesse, the chief of the liberal party, Jordan, was +condemned to six years in prison; in Bavaria a journalist was +imprisoned for four years, and other like punishments followed +elsewhere. It was in 1857, when Queen Victoria came to the throne, +that Hanover was cut off from the succession, as Hanover could not +descend to a woman. The Duke of Cumberland became the ruler of +Hanover, and England ceased to hold any territory in Europe. + +From 1839-1847 there was comparative quiet in the political world. The +rulers of the various states succeeded in keeping the liberal +professorial rhetoric too damp to be valuable as an explosive. + +Interwoven with this party in Germany, demanding for the people +something more of representation in the government, was a movement for +the binding together of the various states in a closer union. In 1842 +when the first stone was laid for the completion of the Cologne +Cathedral, at a banquet of the German princes presided over by the +King of Prussia, the King of Würtemberg proposed a toast to "Our +common country!" That toast probably marks the first tangible proof of +the existence of any important feeling upon the subject of German +unity. + +At a congress of Germanists at Frankfort, in 1846, professors and +students, jurists and historians, talked and discussed the questions +of a German parliament and of national unity more perhaps than matters +of scholarship. + +In 1847 Professor Gervinus founded at Heidelberg the Deutsche Zeitung, +which was to be liberal, national, and for all Germany. + +I should be sorry to give the impression that I have not given proper +value to the work of the German professor and student in bringing +about a more liberal constitution for the states of Germany. Liebig of +Munich, Ranke of Berlin, Sybel of Bonn, Ewald of Göttingen, Mommsen in +Berlin, Döllinger in Munich, and such men as Schiemann in Berlin to-day, +were and are, not only scholars, but they have been and are +political teachers; some of them violently reactionary, if you please, +but all of them stirring men to think. + +No such feeling existed then, or exists now, in Germany, as animated +Oxford some fifty years ago when the greatest Sanscrit scholar then +living was rejected by a vote of that body, one voter declaring: "I +have always voted against damned intellect, and I trust I always may!" +A state of mind that has not altogether disappeared in England even +now. Indeed I am not sure, that the most notable feature of political +life in England to-day, is not a growing revolt against legislation by +tired lawyers, and an increasing demand for common-sense governing +again, even if the governing be done by those with small respect for +"damned intellect." + +The third French revolution of 1848 set fire to all this, not only in +Germany but in Austria, Hungary, Roumania, and elsewhere. We must go +rapidly through this period of seething and of political teething. The +parliament at Frankfort with nothing but moral authority discussed and +declaimed, and finally elected Archduke John of Austria as +"administrator" of the empire. There followed discussions as to +whether Austria should even become a member of the new confederation. +Two parties, the "Little Germanists" and the "Pan Germanists," those +in favor of including, and those opposed to the inclusion of Austria, +fought one another, with Prussia leading the one and Austria, with the +prestige of having been head of the former Holy Roman Empire, the +other. + +In 1849 Austria withdrew altogether and the King of Prussia was +elected Emperor of Germany, but refused the honor on the ground that +he could not accept the title from the people, but only from his +equals. There followed riots and uprisings of the people in Prussia, +Saxony, Baden, and elsewhere throughout Germany. The Prussian guards +were sent to Dresden to quell the rioting there and took the city +after two days' fighting. The parliament itself was dispersed and +moved to Stuttgart, but there again they were dispersed, and the end +was a flight of the liberals to Switzerland, France, and the United +States. We in America profited by the coming of such valuable citizens +as Carl Schurz and many others. There were driven from Germany, they +and their descendants, many among our most valuable citizens. The +descendant of one of the worthiest of them, Admiral Osterhaus, is one +of the most respected officers in our navy, and will one day command +it, and we could not be in safer hands. In 1849 the German Federal +fleet was sold at auction as useless; Austria was again in the +ascendant and German subjects in Schleswig were handed over to the +Danes. + +In 1850 both the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria called +congresses, but Prussia finally gave up hers, and the ancient +confederation as of before 1848 met as a diet at Frankfort and from +1851-1858 Bismarck was the Prussian delegate and Austria presided over +the deliberations. + +A factor that made for unity among the German states was the +Zollverein. From 1818-1853 under the leadership of Prussia the various +states were persuaded to join in equalizing their tariffs. Between +1834-5 Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Nassau, +Thuringia, and Frankfort agreed upon a common standard for customs +duties, and a few years later they were joined by Brunswick, Hanover, +and the Mecklenburgs. German industry and commerce had their +beginnings in these agreements. The hundreds of different customs +duties became so exasperating that even jealous little governments +agreed to conform to simpler laws, and probably this commercial +necessity did more to bring about the unity of Germany than the King, +or politics, or the army. + +With the struggles of the various states to obtain constitutions we +cannot deal, nor would it add to the understanding of the present +political condition of the German Empire. + +Prussia, after riots in Berlin, after promises and delays from the +vacillating King, who one day orders his own troops out of the capital +and his brother, later William I, to England to appease the anger of +the mob, and parades the streets with the colors of the citizens in +revolt wrapped about him; and the next day, surly, obstinate, but ever +orating, holds back from his pledges, finally accepts a constitution +which is probably as little democratic as any in the world. + +Of the sixty-five million inhabitants of the German Empire, Prussia +has over forty millions. The Landtag of Prussia is composed of two +chambers, the first called the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, and the +second the Abgeordnetenhaus, or Chamber of Deputies. This upper house +is made up of the princes of the royal family who are of age; the +descendants of the formerly sovereign families of Hohenzollern- +Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; chiefs of the princely houses +recognized by the Congress of Vienna; heads of the territorial +nobility formed by the King; representatives of the universities; +burgomasters of towns with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, and +an unlimited number of persons nominated by the King for life or for a +limited period. This upper chamber is a mere drawing-room of the +sovereign's courtiers, though there may be, and as a matter of fact +there are at the present time, representatives even of labor in this +chamber, but in a minority so complete that their actual influence +upon legislation, except in a feeble advisory capacity, amounts to +nothing. In this Herrenhaus, or upper chamber, of Prussia there are at +this writing among the 327 members 3 bankers, 8 representatives of the +industrial and merchant class, and 1 mechanic; 12 in all, or not even +four per cent., to represent the industrial, financial, commercial, +and working classes. Even in the lower chamber, or Abgeordnetenhaus, +there are only 10 merchants, 19 manufacturers, 7 labor +representatives, and 1 bank director, or 37 members who represent the +commercial, manufacturing, and industrial interests in a total +membership of 443. + +In the other states of Germany much the same conditions exist. In +Bavaria, in the upper house, or Kammer der Reichsräte, there is no +representative, and in the lower house of 163 members only 29 +representatives of the industrial world. + +In Saxony, the most socialistic state in Germany, the upper chamber +with 49 members has 5 industrials; the lower chamber with 82 members +has 40 representatives of commercial, industrial, and financial +affairs. + +In Würtemberg, in the upper chamber with 51 members there are 3 +industrials; and in the second chamber with 63 members there are 17 +industrials. + +In Baden, of the 37 members of the upper house there are 6 +industrials; of the 73 members of the lower house there are 23 +representatives of commerce and industry. + +This condition of political inequality is the result of the +maintenance of the old political divisions, despite the fact that in +the last thirty years the whole complexion of the country has changed +radically, due to the rapid increase of the city populations +representing the industrial and commercial progress of a nation that +is now the rival of both the United States and Great Britain. In more +than one instance a town with over 300,000 inhabitants will be +represented in the legislature in the same proportion as a country +population of 30,000. Stettin, for example, with a population of +245,000, which is a seventh of the total population of Pomerania, has +only 6 of the 89 provincial representatives. Further, the three-class +system of voting in Prussia and in the German cities, is a unique +arrangement for giving men the suffrage without either power or +privilege. According to this system every male inhabitant of Prussia +aged twenty-five is entitled to vote in the election of members of the +lower house. The voters, however, are divided into three classes. This +division is made by taking the total amount of the state taxes paid in +each electoral district and dividing it into three equal amounts. The +first third is paid by the highest tax-payers; the second third by the +next highest tax-payers, and the last third by the rest. The first +class consists of a comparatively few wealthy people; it may even +happen that a single individual pays a third of the taxes in a given +district. These three classes then elect the members of an electoral +college, who then elect the member of the house. In Prussia it may be +said roughly that 260,000 wealthy tax-payers elect one-third; 870,000 +tax-payers elect one-third, and the other 6,500,000 voters elect one-third +of the members of the electoral college, with the consequence +that the 6,500,000 are not represented at all in the lower house of +Prussia. In order to make this three-class system of voting quite +clear, let us take the case of a city where the same principle may be +seen at work on a smaller scale. In 1910, in the city of Berlin, there +were: + +931 voters of the first class paying 27,914,593 +marks of the total tax. + +32,131 voters of the second class paying +27,908,776 marks of the total tax. + +357,345 voters of the third class paying +16,165,501 marks of the total tax. + +Roughly the voters in the first class each paid $7,500; those in the +second class $218; those in the third class $11. The 931 voters +elected one-third, 32,131 voters elected one-third, and 357,345 +elected one-third of the town councillors. In this same year in Berlin +there were: + +521 persons with incomes between $25,000 and $62,500. + +139 persons with incomes between $62,500 and $125,000. + +22 persons with incomes between $125,000 and $187,500. + +19 persons with incomes between $187,000 and $250,000. + +19 persons with incomes of $250,000 or more. +Or 720 persons in Berlin in 1912 with incomes +of over $25,000 a year, and they are +practically the governors of the city. + +As a result of these divisions according to taxes paid, of the 144 +town councillors elected, only 38 were Social-Democrats, though Berlin +is overwhelmingly Social-Democratic, and consequently the affairs of +this city of more than 2,000,000 inhabitants are in the hands of +33,062 persons who elect two-thirds of the town councillors. + +In the city of Düsseldorf there were, excluding the suburbs, 62,443 +voters at the election for town councillors in 1910. The first class +was composed of 797 voters paying from 1,940 to 264,252 marks of +taxes; 6,645 voters paying from 222 to 1,939 marks; and 55,001 voters +paying 221 marks or less. These 7,442 voters of the first and second +classes were in complete control of the city government by a clear +majority of two-thirds. + +It is this three-class system of voting that makes Prussia, and the +Prussian cities as well, impregnable against any assault from the +democratically inclined. In addition to this system, the old electoral +divisions of forty years ago remain unchanged, and consequently the +agricultural east of Prussia, including east and west Prussia, +Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia, with their large +landholders, return more members to the Prussian lower house than the +much greater population of western industrial Prussia, which includes +Sachsen, Hanover, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hohenzollern, +Hessen-Nassau, and the Rhine. Further, the executive government of +Prussia is conducted by a ministry of state, the members of which are +appointed by the King, and hold office at his pleasure, without +control from the Landtag. + +How little the people succeeded in extorting from King Frederick +William IV in the way of a constitution may be gathered from this +glimpse of the present political conditions of Prussia. + +The local government of Prussia is practically as centralized in a few +hands as the executive government of the state itself. The largest +areas are the provinces, whose chiefs or presidents also are appointed +by the sovereign, and who represent the central government. There are +twelve such provinces in Prussia, ranging in size from the Rhineland +and Brandenburg, with 7,120,519 and 4,093,007 inhabitants +respectively, to Schleswig-Holstein, with 1,619,673. + +Each province is divided into two or more government districts, of +which there are thirty-five in all. At the head of each of these +districts is the district president, also appointed by the crown. + +In addition there is the Kreis, or Circle, of which there are some +490, with populations varying from 20,000 to 801,000. These circles +are, for all practical purposes, governed by the Landrath, who is +appointed for life by the crown, and who is so fully recognized as the +agent of the central government and not as the servant of the locality +in which he rules, that on one occasion several Landräthe were +summarily dismissed for voting against the government and in +conformity to the wishes of the inhabitants of the circle in which +they lived! Though the Landrath is nominated by the circle assembly +for appointment by the crown, he can be dismissed by his superiors of +the central hierarchy. As his promotion, and his career in fact, is +dependent upon these superiors, he naturally sides with the central +government in all cases of dispute or friction. + +Further, and this is important, all officials in Germany are legally +privileged persons. All disputes between individuals and public +authorities in Germany are decided by tribunals quite distinct from +the ordinary courts. These courts are specially constituted, and they +aim at protecting the officials from any personal responsibility for +acts done by them in their official capacity. + +In America, and I presume in Great Britain also, any disputes between +public authorities and private individuals are settled in the ordinary +courts of justice, under the rules of the ordinary law of the land. +This super-common-law position of the Prussian official is a fatal +incentive to the aggravating exaggeration of his importance, and to +the indifference of his behavior to the private citizen. There may be +officials who are uninfluenced by this sheltered position, indeed I +know personally many who are, but there is equally no doubt that many +succumb to arrogance and lethargy as a consequence. + +How thoroughly Prussia is covered by a network of officialdom, is +further discovered when it is known, that the entire area of Prussia +is some twenty thousand square miles less than that of the State of +California. The whole Prussian doctrine of local self-government, too, +is entirely different from ours. Their idea is that self-government is +the performance by locally elected bodies of the will of the state, +not necessarily of the locality which elects them. Local authorities, +whether elected or not, are supposed to be primarily the agents of the +state, and only secondarily the agents of the particular locality they +serve. In Prussia, all provincial and circle assemblies and communal +councils, may be dissolved by royal decree, hence even these elected +assemblies may only serve their constituencies at the will and +pleasure of the central authority. + +It would avail little to go into minute details in describing the +government of Prussia; this slight sketch of the electoral system, and +of the centralization of the government, suffices to show two things +that it is particularly my purpose to make clear. One is the +preponderating influence of Prussia in the empire, due to the +maintenance of power in a single person; and the other is to show how +ridiculously futile it is to refer to Prussia as an example of the +success of social legislation. The state ownership of railroads, old-age +pensions, accident and sickness insurance, and the like are one +thing in Prussia which is a close corporation, and quite another in +any community or country under democratic government. What takes place +in Prussia would certainly not take place in America or in England. To +draw inferences from a state governed as is Prussia, for application +to such democratic communities as America or England, is as valuable +as to argue from the habits of birds, that such and such a treatment +would succeed with fish. + +It was with this autocratic Prussia at his back, that the greatest man +Germany has produced, succeeded in bringing about German unity and the +foundation of the German Empire. As the representative of Prussia in +the Diet, as her ambassador to Russia, and to France, he gained the +insight into the European situation which led him to hold as his +political creed, that only by blood and iron, and not by declamations +and resolutions, could Germany be united. + +"During the time I was in office," he writes, "I advised three wars, +the Danish, the Bohemian, and the French; but every time I have first +made clear to myself whether the war, if successful, would bring a +prize of victory worth the sacrifices which every war requires, and +which now are so much greater than in the last century.
I have +never looked at international quarrels which can only be settled by a +national war from the point of view of the Göttingen student code;
+but I have always considered simply their reaction on the claim of +the German people, in equality with the other great states and powers +of Europe, to lead an autonomous political life, so far as is possible +on the basis of our peculiar national capacity." In 1863 he writes to +von der Goltz, then German ambassador in Paris: "The question is +whether we are a great power or a state in the German federation, and +whether we are conformably to the former quality to be governed by a +monarch, or, as in the latter case would be at any rate admissible, by +professors, district judges, and the gossips of the small towns. The +pursuit of the phantom of popularity in Germany which we have been +carrying on for the last forty years has cost us our position in +Germany and in Europe; and we shall not win this back again by +allowing ourselves to be carried away by the stream in the persuasion +that we are directing its course, but only by standing firmly on our +legs and being, first of all, a great power and a German federal state +afterward." + +After Napoleon and the interminable elocutionary squabbles of the +German states, first, for constitutional rights, and, second, for some +basis of unity among themselves, which were the two main streams of +political activity, there were three main steps in the formation of +the now existing empire: first, in 1866, the North German +Confederation under the presidency of Prussia and excluding Austria; +second, the conclusion of treaties, 1866-1867, between the North +German Confederation and the south German states; third, the formal +union of the north and south German states as an empire in 1871. + +Although the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist legally in 1806, it is +to be remembered that as a fiction weighing still upon the imagination +of German politicians, it did not wholly disappear until the war +between Prussia and Austria, for then Prussia fought not only Austria +but Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Nassau, Baden, and the two +Hesse states, and at Sadowa in Bohemia the war was settled by the +defeat of the Austrians before they could be joined by these allies, +who were disposed of in detail. Frankfort was so harshly treated that +the mayor hanged himself, and the Prussianizing of Hanover has never +been entirely forgiven, and the claimants to the throne in exile are +still the centre of a political party antagonistic to Prussia. The +taking over of north Schleswig, of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau +by Prussia after the Austrian war was according to the rough +arbitrament of conquest. "Our right," replied Bismarck to the just +criticism of this spoliation, "is the right of the German nation to +exist, to breathe, to be united; it is the right and the duty of +Prussia to give the German nation the foundation necessary for its +existence." In taking Alsace-Lorraine from France, Bismarck insisted +that this was a necessary barrier against France and that Germany's +possession of Metz and Strassburg were necessities of the situation +also. + +The history of German unity is the biography of Bismarck. Otto Eduard +Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schönhausen, in that Mark of +Brandenburg which was the cradle of the Prussian monarchy, on the +first of April, 1815. His grandfather fought at Rossbach under the +great Frederick. He was confirmed in Berlin in 1831 by the famous +pastor and theologian, Schleiermacher, and maintained all his life +that without his belief in God he would have found no reason for his +patriotism or for any serious work in life. + +He matriculated as a student of law and science at Göttingen in May, +1832, and later at Berlin in 1834. He was a tall, large-limbed, blue-eyed +young giant, the boldest rider, the best swordsman, and the +heartiest drinker of his day. He is still looked upon in Germany as +the typical hero of corps student life, and his pipe, or his Schläger, +or his cap, or his Kneipe jacket is preserved as the relic of a saint. +His was not the tepid virtue born of lack of vitality. One has but to +remember Augustine and Origen and Ignatius Loyola, to recall the fact +that the preachers of salvation, the best of them, have generally had +themselves to tame before they mastered the world. + +This youth Bismarck must have had some vigorous battles with Bismarck +before he married Johanna Friederika Charlotte Dorothea Eleanore von +Puttkamer, July 28, 1847, much against the wishes of her parents, and +settled down to his life-work. As was said of John Pym, "he thought it +part of a man's religion to see that his country was well governed," +and his country became his passion. Like most men of intense feeling, +he loved few people and loyally hated many. More men feared and envied +him than liked him. His wife, his sister, his king, a student friend, +Keyserling, and the American, Motley, shared with his country his +affection. Germany might well take it to heart that it was Motley the +American who was of all men dearest to her giant creator. The same +type of American would serve her better to-day than any other, did she +only know it! In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber. In 1852 +a whiff of the old dare-devil got loose, and he fought a duel with +Freiherr von Vincke. + +In 1852 he is sent on his first responsible mission to Vienna, and +found there the traditions of the Metternich diplomacy still ruling. +What Napoleon had said of Metternich he no doubt remembered: "Il ment +trop. Il faut mentir quelquefois, mais mentir tout le temps c'est +trop!" for he adopted quite the opposite policy in his own diplomatic +dealings. + +In 1855 he became a member of the upper house of Prussia, and in 1859 +is sent as minister to St. Petersburg. In May, 1862, he is sent as +minister to Paris, and learns to know, and not greatly to admire, the +third Napoleon and his court. + +On the 23d of September, 1862, he is appointed Staats-minister, and a +week later thunders out his famous blood-and-iron speech. On October +the 8th, 1862, he is definitely named Minister President and Minister +for Foreign Affairs. + +William I had succeeded his brother as king. He was a soldier and a +believer in the army, and wished to spend more on it, and to lengthen +the time of service with the colors to three years. The legislature +opposed these measures. A minister was needed who could bully the +legislature, and Bismarck was chosen for the task. He spent the +necessary money despite the legislative opposition, pleading that a +legislature that refused to vote necessary supplies had ipso facto +laid down its proper functions, and the king must take over the +responsibilities of government that they declined to exercise. The +cavalry boots were beginning to trample their way to Paris, and to the +crowning of an emperor. + +In February, 1864, Prussia and Austria together declare war upon +Denmark over the Schleswig-Holstein succession. They agree to govern +the spoils between them, but fall out over the question of their +respective jurisdiction, and the Prussian army being ready, and the +Moltke plan of campaign worked out, war is declared, and in seven +weeks the Treaty of Prague is signed, in 1866, by which Austria gives +up all her rights in Schleswig-Holstein, and abandons her claim to +take part in the reorganization of Germany. The North German +Confederation is formed to include all lands north of the Main; +Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, the Hesse states, Nassau, and Frankfurt-am- +Main become part of Prussia; and the south German states agree to remain +neutral, but allies of Prussia in war. + +On the 11th of March, 1867, a month after the formation of the +Confederation of the North German States, Bismarck proclaims with +pride in the new Reichstag: "Setzen win Deutschland, so zu sagen, in +den Sattel! Reiten wird es schon können!" + +October 13th, 1868, Leopold von Sigmaringen, a German prince of the +House of Hohenzollern, is named for the first time as a candidate for +the Spanish throne. Nobody in Germany, or anywhere else, was much more +interested in this candidature, than we are now interested in the +woman's suffrage or the prohibition candidate at home. But France had +looked on with jealous eyes at the vigorous growth and martial +successes of Prussia. It was thought well to attack her and humiliate +her before she became stronger. All France was convinced, too, that +the southern German states would revert to their old love in case of +actual war, and side with the nephew of their former friend, the great +Napoleon. The French ambassador is instructed to force the pace. Not +only must the Prussian King disavow all intention to support the +candidacy of the German prince, but he must be asked to humiliate +himself by binding himself never in the future to push such claims. + +William I is at Ems, and Benedetti, the French ambassador, reluctantly +presses the insulting demand of his country upon the royal gentleman +as he is walking. The King declines to see Benedetti again, and +telegraphs to Bismarck the gist of the interview. Lord Acton writes: +"He [Bismarck] drew his long pencil and altered the text, showing only +that Benedetti had presented an offensive demand, and that the King +had refused to see him. That there might be no mistake he made this +official by sending it to all the embassies and legations. Moltke +exclaimed, 'You have converted surrender into defiance.'" The altered +telegram was also sent to the Norddeutscher Allgemeine Zeitung and to +officials. It is not perhaps generally known that General Lebrun went +to Vienna in June, 1870, to discuss an alliance with Austria for an +attack on the North German Confederation in the following spring. +Bismarck knew this. This was on the 13th of July, 1870; on the 16th +the order was given to mobilize the army, on the 31st followed the +proclamation of the King to his people: "Zur Errettung des +Vaterlandes." On August the 2d, King William took command of the +German armies, and on September 1st, Napoleon handed over his sword, +and on January the 18th, 1871, King William of Prussia was proclaimed +German Emperor in the Hall of the Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles. + +"It sounds so lovely what our fathers did, +And what we do is, as it was to them, +Toilsome and incomplete." + +It is easy to forget in such a rapid survey of events that Bismarck +could have had any serious opposition to face as he tramped through +those eight years, from 1862 to 1870, with a kingdom on his back. It +is easy to forget that King William himself wished to abdicate in +those dark hours, when his people refused him their confidence, and +called a halt upon his endeavors to strengthen the absolutely +essential instrument for Prussia's development, the army; it is easy +to forget that even the silent and seemingly imperturbable Moltke +hesitated and wavered a little at the audacity of his comrade; it is +easy to forget the conspiracy of opposition of the three women of the +court, the Crown Princess, Frau von Blumenthal, and Frau von Gottberg, +all of English birth, and all using needles against this man +accustomed to the Schläger and the sword; it is easy to forget that +even Queen Victoria's influence was used against him to prevent the +reaping of the justifiable fruits of victory in 1871; it is easy to +forget what a bold throw it was to go to war with Austria, and to +array Prussia against the very German states she must later bind to +herself; it is easy to forget the dour patience of this irascible +giant with the petulant and often petty legislature with which he had +to deal. + +I cannot understand how any German can criticise Bismarck, but there +are official prigs who do; little decorated bureaucrats who live their +lives out poring over papers, with an eye out for a "von" before their +bourgeois names, and as void of audacity as a sheep; men who creep up +the stairway to promotion and recognition, clinging with cautious grip +to the banisters. One sees them, their coats covered with the ceramic +insignia of their placid servitude, decorations tossed to them by the +careless hand of a master who is satisfied if they but sign his +decrees, with the i's properly dotted, and the t's unexceptionably +crossed. They are the crumply officials who melted into +defencelessness and moral decrepitude after Frederick the Great, and +again at the glance of Napoleon, and who owe the little stiffness they +have to the fact that Bismarck lived. It is one of the things a +full-blooded man is least able to bear in Germany, to hear the querulous +questioning of the great deeds of this man, whose boot-legs were stiffer +than the backbones of those who decry him. + +What a splendid fellow he was! + +"Give me the spirit that, on this life's rough sea, +Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind, +Even till his sail-yards tremble and his masts do crack, +And his rapt ship run on her side so low +That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air. +There is no danger to a man that knows +What life and death is--there's not any law +Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful +That he should stoop to any other law." + +He was no worshipper of that flimsy culture which is, and has been for +a hundred years, an obsession of the German. He knew, none knew better +indeed, that the choicest knowledge is only mitigated ignorance. He +surprised Disraeli with his mastery of English, and Napoleon with his +fluency in French, both of which he had learned from his Huguenot +professors. The popular man, the popular book, the popular music, +picture, or play, were none of them a golden calf to him. He mastered +what he needed for his work, and pretended to no enthusiasm for +intellectualism as such. He knew that there is no real culture without +character, and that the mere aptitude for knowing and doing without +character is merely the simian cleverness that often dazzles but never +does anything of importance. "Culture!" writes Henry Morley, "the aim +of culture is to bring forth in their due season the fruits of the +earth." Any learning, any accomplishments, that do not serve a man to +bring forth the fruits of the earth in their due season are merely +mental gimcracks, flimsy toys, to admire perhaps, to play with, and to +be thrown aside as useless when duty makes its sovereign demands. + +Much as Germany has done for the development of the intellectual life +of the world, she has suffered not a little from the superficial +belief still widely held that instruction, that learning, are culture. +Their Great Elector, their Frederick the Great, and their Bismarck, +should have taught them the contrary by now. + +The newly crowned German Emperor left Versailles on March 7th for +Berlin, and on March 21st the first Diet of the new empire was opened, +and began the task of adapting the constitution to the altered +circumstances of the new empire. + +The German Empire now consists of four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, +Saxony, and Würtemberg; of six grand duchies: Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, +Saxe-Weimar, Oldenburg, Meeklenburg-Strelitz, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin; +of five duchies: Saxe-Meinigen, Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, +Brunswick, and Anhalt; of seven principalities: Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, +Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Waldeck, Reuss (older line), +Reuss (younger line), Lippe, and Schaumburg-Lippe; of three free +towns: Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck; and of one imperial province: +Alsace Lorraine. + +The new empire is in a sense a continuation of the North German +Confederation. There are 25 states, the largest, Prussia, with a +population of over 40,000,000; the smallest, Schaumburg-Lippe, with a +population of a little more than 46,000 and an area of 131 square +miles. + +The central or federal authority controls the army, navy, foreign +relations, railways, main roads, canals, post and telegraph, coinage, +weights and measures, copyrights, patents, and legislation over nearly +the whole field of civil and criminal law, regulation of press and +associations, imperial finance and customs tariffs, which are now the +same throughout Germany. + +Bavaria still manages her own railways, and Saxony and Würtemberg have +certain privileges and exemptions. Administration is still almost +entirely in the hands of the separate states. + +The law is imperial, but the judges are appointed by the states, and +are under its authority. The supreme court of appeal (Reichsgericht) +sits at Leipsic. + +The head of the executive government is the Emperor, no longer +elective but hereditary, and attached to the office of the King of +Prussia. Outside of Prussia he has little power in civil matters and +no veto on legislation. He is commander-in-chief of the army and of +the navy; foreign affairs are in his hands, and in the federal +council, or Bundesrath, he exercises a mighty influence due to +Prussia's preponderating influence and voting power. There is no +cabinet, just as there is no cabinet in Great Britain, that modern +institution being merely a legislative fiction down to this day. The +chancellor of the empire, who is also prime minister of Prussia, with +several secretaries of state, is chief minister for all imperial +affairs. The chancellor presides in the Bundesrath, and has the right +to speak in the Reichstag, and frequently does speak there. Indeed, +all his more important pronouncements are made there. The chancellor +is responsible to the Emperor alone, by whom he is nominated, and not +to the representatives of the people. + +The federal council, or Bundesrath, or upper chamber of the empire, +consists of delegates appointed by and representing the rulers of the +various states. There are 58 members. Prussia has 17, Bavaria 6, +Saxony 4, Würtemberg 4, Baden 3, Hessen 3, Mecklenburg-Schwerin 2, +Brunswick 2, and each of the other states 1. + +This body meets in Berlin, sits in secret, and the delegates have no +discretion, but vote as directed by their state governments. Here it +is that Prussia, and through Prussia the Emperor, dominates. This +Bundesrath is the most powerful upper chamber in the world. With +respect to all laws concerning the army and navy, and taxation for +imperial purposes, the vote of Prussia shall decide disputes, if such +vote be cast in favor of maintaining existing arrangements. In other +words, Prussia is armed in the Bundesrath with a conservative veto! In +declaring war and making treaties, the consent of the Bundesrath is +required. The following articles also give the Bundesrath a very +complete control of the Reichstag. Article 7 reads: "The Bundesrath +shall take action upon (1) the measures to be proposed to the +Reichstag and the resolutions passed by the same; (2) the general +administrative provisions and arrangements necessary for the execution +of the imperial laws, so far as no other provision is made by law; (3) +the defects which may be discovered in the execution of the imperial +laws or of the provisions and arrangements heretofore mentioned." + +The Reichstag, or lower house, is elected by universal suffrage in +electoral districts which were originally equal, but as we have noted +are far from equal now. This house has three hundred and ninety-seven +members, of whom two hundred and thirty-five are from Prussia. It sits +for five years, but may be dissolved by the Bundesrath with the +consent of the Emperor. All members of the Bundesrath, as well as the +chancellor, may speak in the Reichstag. Nor the chancellor, nor any +other executive officer, is responsible to the Reichstag, nor can be +removed by its vote, and the ministers of the Emperor are seldom or +never chosen from this body. This Reichstag is really only nominally a +portion of the governing body. It has the right to refuse to pass a +bill presented by the government, but if it does so it may be +summarily dismissed, as has happened several times, and another +election usually provides a more amenable body. + +Of the various political parties in the Reichstag we have written +elsewhere. It is, perhaps, fair to say that such powerful parties as +the Socialists and the Centrum must be reckoned with by the +chancellor. He cannot actually trample upon them, nor can he disregard +wholly their wishes in framing and in carrying through legislation. It +would be going much too far in characterizing the weakness of the +Reichstag to leave that impression upon the reader. None the less it +remains true that it is the executive who rules and has the whip-hand, +and who in a grave crisis can override the representatives of the +people assembled in the Reichstag, and on more than one occasion this +has been done. + +It seems highly unnecessary to announce after this description of the +imperial constitution that there is no such thing in Germany as +democratic or representative government. But this fact cannot be +proclaimed too often since in other countries it is continually +assumed that this is the case. All sorts of deductions are made, all +sorts of illustrations used, all sorts of legislative and social +lessons taught from the example of Germany, without the smallest +knowledge apparently on the part of those who make them, that Germany +to-day is no more democratic than was Turkey twenty years ago. + +What can be done and what is done in Germany has no possible bearing +upon what can be done in America or in England. All analogies are +false, all illustrations futile, all examples valueless, for the one +reason that the empire of Germany is governed by one man, who declaims +his independence of the people and admits his responsibility to God +alone. This may be either a good or a bad thing. Certainly in many +matters of economical and comfortable government for the people +witness more particularly the development and wise control of their +municipalitiesthey are a century ahead of us, but this is not the +question under discussion. The point is, that a compact nation under +strict centralized control, served by a trained horde of officials +with no wish for a change, and backed by a standing army of over seven +hundred thousand men, who are not only a defence against the +foreigner, but a powerful police against internal revolution, cannot +serve as a model in either its successes or failures for a democratic +country like ours. Where in Germany legislative schemes succeed easily +when this huge bureaucratic machine is behind them, they would fail +ignominiously in a country lacking this machinery, and lacking these +pitiably tame people accustomed to submission. + +In France, for example, that thrifty and individualistic folk made a +complete failure of the attempt to foist contributory old-age pensions +upon them, and I doubt whether such sumptuary legislation can succeed +with us. That, however, is neither here nor there. The gist of the +matter is, that because such things succeed in Germany, gives not the +slightest reason for supposing that they will succeed with us. If this +outline of their history and this sketch of their government have done +nothing else, it must have made this clear. It may also help to show +how vapid is the talk about what the German people will or will not +do; whether they will or will not have war, for example. We shall have +war when the German Kaiser touches a button and gives an order, and +the German people will have no more to say in the matter than you and I. + + + +III THE INDISCREET + + +The casual observer of life in England would find himself forced to +write of sport, even as in India he would write of caste, as in +America he would note the undue emphasis laid upon politics. In +Germany, wherever he turns, whether it be to look at the army, to +inquire about the navy, to study the constitution, or to disentangle +the web of present-day political strife; to read the figures of +commercial and industrial progress, or the results of social +legislation; to look on at the Germans at play during their yachting +week at Kiel, or their rowing contests at Frankfort, he finds himself +face to face with the Emperor. + +The student visits Berlin, or Potsdam, or Wilhelmshöhe; or with a long +stride finds himself on the docks at Hamburg or Bremen, or beside the +Kiel Canal, or in Kiel harbor facing a fleet of war-ships; or he lifts +his eyes into the air to see a dirigible balloon returning from a +voyage of two hundred and fifty miles toward London over the North +Sea, and the Emperor is there. Is it the palace hidden in its +shrubbery in the country; is it the clean, broad streets and +decorations of the capital; is it a discussion of domestic politics, +or a question of foreign politics, the Emperor's hand is there. His +opinion, his influence, what he has said or has not said, are +inextricably interwoven with the woof and web of German life. + +We may like him or dislike him, approve or disapprove, rejoice in +autocracy or abominate it, admire the far-reaching discipline, or +regret the iron mould in which much of German life is encased, but for +the moment all this is beside the mark. Here is a man who in a quarter +of a century has so grown into the life of a nation, the most powerful +on the continent, and one of the three most powerful in the world, +that when you touch it anywhere you touch him, and when you think of +it from any angle of thought, or describe it from any point of view, +you find yourself including him. + +Personally, I should have been glad to leave this chapter unwritten. I +have no taste for the discussion and analysis of living persons, even +when they are of such historic and social importance, and of such +magnitude, that I am thus given the proverbial license of the cat. But +to write about Germany without writing about the Emperor is as +impossible as to jump away from one's own shadow. When the sun is +behind any phase or department of German life, the shadow cast is that +of Germany's Emperor. + +This is not said because it is pleasing to whomsoever it may be, for +in Germany, and in much of the world outside Germany, this situation +is looked upon as unfavorable, and even deplorable; and certainly no +American can look upon it with equanimity, for it is of the essence of +his Americanism to distrust it. It is, however, so much a fact that to +neglect a discussion of this personality would be to leave even so +slight a sketch of Germany as this, hopelessly lop-sided. He so +pervades German life that to write of the Germany of the last twenty-five +years without attempting to describe William the Second, German +Emperor, would be to leave every question, institution, and problem of +the country without its master-key. + +In other chapters dealing more particularly with the political +development of Germany, and with the salient characteristics, mental +and moral, of the people, we shall see how it has come about, that one +man can thus impregnate a whole nation of sixty-five millions with his +own aims and ambitions, to such an extent, that they may be said, so +to speak, to live their political, social, martial, religious, and +even their industrial, life in him. It is a phenomenon of personality +that exists nowhere else in the world to-day, and on so large a scale +and among so enlightened a people, perhaps never before in history. + +Nothing has made scientific accuracy in dealing with the most +interesting and most important factors in the world, so utterly +inaccurate and misleading, as those infallibly accurate and impersonal +agents, electricity and the sun. If one were to judge a man by his +photographs, and the gossip of the press, one would be sure to know +nothing more valuable about him than that his mustache is brushed up, +and that his brows are permanently lowering. Personality is so evasive +that one may count upon it that when a machine says "There it is!" +then there it is not! You will have everything that is patent and +nothing that is pertinent. + +We are forever talking and writing about the smallness of the world, +of how much better we know one another, and of how much more we should +love one another, now that we flash photographs and messages to and +fro, at a speed of leagues a second. Nothing could be more futile and +foolish. These things have emphasized our differences, they have done +nothing to realize our likeness to one another. We are as far from one +another as in the days, late in the tenth century, when they +complained in England that men learned fierceness from the Saxon of +Germany, effeminacy from the Fleming, and drunkenness from the Dane. + +As probably the outstanding figure and best-known, superficially +known, man in the world, the German Emperor has escaped the notice of +very few people who notice anything. His likeness is everywhere, and +gossip about him is on every tongue. He is as familiar to the American +as Roosevelt, to the Englishman as Lloyd-George, to the Frenchman as +Dreyfus, to the Russian as his Czar, and to the Chinese and Japanese +as their most prominent political figure. And yet I should say that he +is comparatively little known, either externally or internally, as he +is. + +It is perhaps the fate of those of most influence to be misunderstood. +Of this, I fancy, the Emperor does not complain. Indeed, those feeble +folk who complain of being misunderstood, ought to console themselves +with the thought that practically all our imperishable monuments, are +erected to the glory of those whom we condemned and criticised; +starved and stoned; burned and crucified, when we had them with us. + +William II, German Emperor and King of Prussia, was born January 27, +1859, and became German Emperor June 15, 1888. He is, therefore, in +the prime of life, and looks it. His complexion and eyes are as clear +as those of an athlete, and his eyes, and his movements, and his talk +are vibrating with energy. He stands, I should guess, about five feet +eight or nine, has the figure and activity of an athletic youth of +thirty, and in his hours of friendliness is as careless in speech, as +unaffected in manner, as lacking in any suspicion of self- +consciousness, or of any desire to impress you with his importance, as +the simplest gentleman in the land. + +Alas, how often this courageous and gentlemanly attitude has been +taken advantage of! I have headed this chapter The Indiscreet, and I +propose to examine these so-called indiscretions in some detail, but +for the moment I must ask: Is there any excuse for, or any social +punishment too severe for, the man who, introduced into a gentleman's +house in the guise of a gentleman, often by his own ambassador, leaves +it, to blab every detail of the conversation of his host, with the +gesticulations and exclamation points added by himself? To add a +little to his own importance, he will steal out with the +conversational forks and spoons in his pockets, and rush to a +newspaper office to tell the world that he has kept his soiled napkin +as a souvenir. The only indiscretion in such a case is when the host, +or his advisers, or gentlemen anywhere, heed the lunatic laughter of +such a social jackal. + +To count one's words, to tie up one's phrases in caution, to dip each +sentence in a diplomatic antiseptic, in the company of those to whom +one has conceded hospitality, what a feeble policy! Better be brayed +to the world every day as indiscreet than that! + +It is a fine quality in a man to be in love with his job. Even though +you have little sympathy with Savonarola's fierceness or Wesley's +hardness, they were burning up all the time with their allegiance to +their ideals of salvation. They served their Lord as lovers. Many men, +even kings and princes and other potentates, give the impression that +they would enjoy a holiday from their task. They seem to be harnessed +to their duties rather than possessed by them; they appear like +disillusioned husbands rather than as radiant lovers. + +The German Emperor is not of that class. He loves his job. In his +first proclamation to his people he declared that he had taken over +the government "in the presence of the King of kings, promising God to +be a just and merciful prince, cultivating piety and the fear of God." +He has proclaimed himself to be, as did Frederick the Great and his +grandfather before him, the servant of his people. Certainly no one in +the German Empire works harder, and what is far more difficult and far +more self-denying, no one keeps himself fitter for his duties than he. +He eats no red meat, drinks almost no alcohol, smokes very little, +takes a very light meal at night, goes to bed early and gets up early. +He rides, walks, shoots, plays tennis, and is as much in the open air +as his duties permit. + +It is not easy for the American to put side by side the attitudes of a +man, who is the autocratic master and at the same time declares +himself to be the first servant of his people. Perhaps if it is +phrased differently it will not seem so contradictory. What this +Emperor means, and what all princes who have believed in their right +to rule meant, was not that they were the servants of their people, +but the servants of their own obligations to their people, and of the +duties that followed therefrom. If in addition to this the claim is +made by the sovereign, that his right to rule is of divine origin, +then his service to his obligations becomes of the highest and most +sacred importance. + +We should not allow our democratic prejudices to stifle our +understanding in such matters. We are trying to get clearly in +perspective a ruler, who claims to rule in obedience to no mandates +from the people, but in obedience to God. We could not be ruled by +such a one in America; and in England such a ruler would be deemed +unconstitutional. It is elementary, but necessary to repeat, that we +are writing of Germany and the Germans, and of their history, +traditions, and political methods. We are making no defence of either +the German Emperor or the German people; neither are we occupying an +American pulpit to preach to them the superiority of other methods +than their own. My sole task is to make clear the German situation, +and not by any means to set up my own or my countrymen's standards for +their adoption. I am not searching for that paltry and ephemeral +profit that comes from finding opportunities to laugh or to sneer. I +am seeking for the German successes, and they are many, and for the +reasons for them, and for the lessons that we may learn from them. Any +other aim in writing of another people is ignoble. + +This attitude of the ruler will be as incomprehensible to the +democratic citizen as alchemy, but, in order to draw anything like +true inferences or useful deductions, in order to understand the +situation and to get a true likeness of the ruler, one must take this +utterly unfamiliar and to us incomprehensible claim into +consideration, and acknowledge its existence whether we admit the +claim as justifiable or not. The relation of such a ruler to his +people is like that of a Catholic bishop to his flock. The contract is +not one made with hands, but is an inalienable right on the one hand, +and an undisseverable tie upon the other. Bismarck wrote on this +subject: "Für mich sind die Worte, 'von Gottes Gnaden,' welche +christliche Herrscher ihrem Namen beifügen, kein leerer Schall, +sondern ich sehe darin das Bekenntniss, des Fürsten das Scepter was +ihnen Gott verliehen hat, nur nach Gottes Willen auf Erden führen +wollen." + +On several occasions the German Emperor has made it unmistakably clear +that this is his view of the origin and sanctity of his +responsibilities. "If we have been able to accomplish what has been +accomplished, it is due above all things to the fact that our house +possesses a tradition by virtue of which we consider that we have been +appointed by God to preserve and direct, for their own welfare, the +people over whom he has given us power." These words are from a speech +made in 1897 at Bremen. In 1910, at Königsberg, he declares: "It was +in this spot that my grandfather in his own right placed the royal +crown of Prussia upon his head, insisting once again that it was +bestowed upon him by the grace of God alone, and not by parliaments +and meetings and decisions of the people. He thus regarded himself as +the chosen instrument of heaven, and as such carried out his duties as +a ruler and lord. I consider myself such an instrument of heaven, and +shall go my way without regard to the views and opinions of the day." + +Prince Henry of Prussia, the popular, and deservedly popular, sailor +brother of the Emperor, has signified his entire allegiance to this +doctrine by saying that he was actuated by one single motive: "a +desire to proclaim to the nations the gospel of your Majesty's sacred +person, and to preach that gospel alike to those who will listen and +to those who will not." + +This language has a strange and far-away sound to us. It is as though +one should come into the market-place with the bannered pomp of +Milton's prose upon his lips. The vicious would think it a trick, the +idle would look upon it as a heavy form of joking, the intelligent +would see in it a superstition, or a dream of knighthood that has +faded into unrecognizable dimness. Some men, on the other hand, might +wish that all rulers and governors whatsoever were equally touched +with the sanctity of their obligations. + +It is somewhat strange in this connection to remember, that we all +wish to have our wives and daughters believers; that we all wish to +bind to us those whom we love with more sacred bonds than those which +we ourselves can supply. We are none of us loath to have those who +keep our treasures, believe in some code higher than that of "honesty +is the best policy." As Archbishop Whately said: "Honesty is the best +policy, but he who is honest for that reason is not an honest man." + +Far be it from me to appear as an advocate of the divine right of +kings; but I am no fit person for this particular task if I have only +a sniff, or a guffaw, as an explanation of another's beliefs. History +sparkles with the lives of men and women, who proclaimed themselves +messengers and servants of God, obedient to him first, and utterly and +courageously negligent of that feline commodity, public opinion. Every +man, even to-day, + +"Who each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star, +Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are," +has a grain of this salt of divine independence in him. To-day, even +as in the days of Pericles: "It is ever from the greatest hazards that +the greatest honors are gained," and the greatest hazard of all is to +shut your visor and couch your lance and have at your task with a +whispered: God and my Right! It is well to remember that under no +government, whether democratic or aristocratic, has the individual +ever been given any rights. He has always everywhere been pointed to +his duties; his rights he must conquer for himself. + +The liberal in theology, as the liberal in politics, has perhaps +leaned too far toward softness. The democratization of religion has +gone on with the rest, and in our rebound from Calvin, and John Knox, +and Jonathan Edwards, we have left all discipline and authority out of +account. We have preached so persistently of the fatherhood of God, of +his nearness to us, of his profound pity for us, that we have lost +sight of his justice and his power. This nearness has become a sort of +innocuous neighborliness, and God is looked upon not as a ruler, but +as a vaporish good fellow whose chief business it is to forgive. We +have substituted a feverish-handed charity for a sinewy faith, and are +excusing our divorce from divinely imposed duties, by a cheerful but +illicit intercourse with chance acquaintances, all of whom are dubbed +social service. + +This Cashmere-shawl theology is as idle an interpretation of man's +relation to the universe, and far more debilitating, than any that has +gone before. When we come to measure rulers who make divine claims for +their duties, from any such coign of flabbiness as this, no wonder we +stand dumb. I am willing to concede that perhaps even an emperor has +been baptized with the blood of the martyrs, and feels himself to be +in all sincerity the instrument of God; if we are to understand this +one, we must admit so much. + +In certain departments of life, we not only grant, but we demand, that +our wives and mothers should look upon their special duties and +peculiar functions as divinely imparted, and as beyond argument, and +as above coercion. This assumption, therefore, of inalienable rights +is not so strange to us; on the contrary, it is an every-day affair in +most of our lives. This particular manifestation of it is all that is +new or surprising. We Americans and English look upon it as dangerous, +but the Germans, more mystical and far more lethargic about liberty +than are we, are not greatly disturbed by it. The secular press, +largely in Jewish hands, and the new socialist members of the +Reichstag, jealous of their prerogatives but unable to assert them, +criticise and even scream their abhorrence and unbelief; but I am much +mistaken, if the mass of the Germans are at heart much disturbed by +their Emperor's assertions of his divine right to rule. A conservative +member of the Reichstag speaks of, "a parliament which will maintain +the monarch in his strong position as the wearer of the German +imperial crown, not the semblance of a monarch but one that is +dependent upon something higher than party and parliament--one +dependent upon the King of all kings." + +To a thoroughbred American, with two and more centuries of the +traditions of independence behind him, this question of the divine +right of kings is a commonplace. He is a king himself, he holds his +own rights to be divine, and his influence and his power to be limited +only by his character and his abilities, like that of any other +sovereign. He may rule over few or many, he may control the destiny of +only one or of many subjects, he may be well known or little known, +but that he is a sovereign individual by the grace of God, it never +occurs to him to doubt. It is perhaps for this reason that the real +American is placid and unself-conscious before this claim. It is those +who admit and suffer from the exactions and tyrannies of such a claim +that he pities, not the man who makes it, whom he distrusts. I carry +my sovereignty under my hat, says the American; if any man or men can +knock off the hat and take away the sovereignty, there is a fair field +and no favor; for those who whimper and complain of tyranny he has +long since ceased to have a high regard. + +That William the Second is the chief figure of interest in the world +to-day is due, not alone to this assumption of a divine relation to +the state, or to his own vigorous and electric personality, but to the +freedom to develop and to express that personality. Men in politics +have dwindled in importance and in power, as the voters have increased +in numbers and in influence. Genius must be true to itself to bloom +luxuriantly. It is impossible to be seeking the suffrage of a +constituency and at the same time to be wholly one's self. The German +Emperor is unhampered, as is no other ruler, by considerations of +popular favor; and at the same time he directs and influences not +Russian peasants, nor Turkish slaves, but an instructed, enlightened, +and ambitious people. This environment is unique in the world to-day, +and the Germans as a whole seem to consider their ruler a valuable +asset, despite occasional vagaries that bring down their own and +foreign criticism upon him. + +Here we have a versatile and vigorous personality with no shadow of a +stain upon his character, and with no question upon the part of his +bitterest enemy of the honesty of his intentions, or of his devotion +to his country's interests. So far as he has been assailed abroad, it +is on the score that he has made his country so powerful in the last +twenty-five years that Germany is a menace to other powers; so far as +he has been criticised at home it is on the score of his +indiscretions. + +It is of prime importance, therefore, both to glance at the progress +of Germany and to examine these so-called indiscretions. Throughout +these chapters will be found facts and figures dealing with the fairy-like +change which has taken place in Germany since my own student +days. I can remember when a chimney was a rare sight. Now there are +almost as many manufacturing towns as then there were chimneys. +Leipzig was a big country town, Pforzheim, Chemnitz, Oschatz, +Elberfeld, Riessa, Kiel, Essen, Rheinhausen, and their armies of +laborers, and their millions of output, were mere shadows of what they +are now. + +In 1873, when Bismarck began his attempts at railway legislation, +Germany was divided into sixty-three "railway provinces," and there +were fifteen hundred different tariffs, and it is to be remembered +that it was only as late as 1882 that the state system of railways at +last triumphed in Prussia. In only ten years the railway trackage has +increased from 49,041 to 52,216 miles; the number of locomotives from +18,291 to 26,612; freight-cars from 398,000 to 558,000; the passengers +carried from 804,000,000 to 1,457,000,000; and the tons of freight +carried from 341,000,000 tons to 519,000,000 tons. In Prussia alone +there are 1,000,000 more horses, 1,000,000 more beef cattle, and +10,000,000 more pigs. The total production of beet sugar in the world +approximates 7,000,000 tons; of this amount Germany produces 2,500,000 +tons. Great Britain consumes more sugar per head of the population +than any other country, and of her consumption of 1,460,000 tons of +beet sugar all of it is produced from beets grown on the continent. +Between 1885 and 1912 the population increased from 46,000,000 to +66,000,000. The expenditure on the navy has increased in the last ten +years from $47,500,000 to $110,000,000, and the number of men from +31,157 to 60,805, with another increase in both money and men, voted +at the moment of this writing in the summer of 1912. + +The debt of Germany, exclusive of paper money, in 1887 was 486,201,000 +marks; in 1903 it stood at 2,733,500,000. In 1911 the funded debt of +the empire was 4,524,000,000 marks, and the funded debt of the states +14,880,000,000; and the floating debt amounts to 991,000,000, of which +Prussia alone bears 610,000,000 and the empire 300,000,000. Between +the years 1871 and 1897 a debt of $500,000,000 was incurred, bearing +an average interest charge of 3 3/4 per cent. In the year 1908 the +combined expenditures of the states and of the empire reached the +enormous total of $1,775,000,000. The debt of the city of Berlin alone +in 1910 had reached $110,750,000 and has increased in the last two +years. + +For purposes of comparison one may note that our own later national +budgets run roughly to $1,000,000,000. The British budget for 1911 was +$906,420,000. After the French war, speculation on a large scale +ensued. The payment of the $1,000,000,000 indemnity had a bad effect. +As has often happened in America, money, or the mere means of +exchange, was taken for wealth. The earth will be as cold as the moon +before men learn that the only real wealth is health. Many schemes and +companies were floated and after 1873 there was a prolonged financial +crisis in Germany. It is said that bankruptcy and the liquidation of +bubble companies entailed a loss of a round $90,000,000. It was in +1876-7, when Germany was thus suffering, that the policy of protection +was mooted and finally put into operation by Bismarck in 1879. Ten +years later the laws for accident, old age, and sickness insurance +were passed, at the instigation and under the direct influence of the +present Emperor. + +The tonnage of steam vessels under 4,000 tons in Great Britain (net +tons) was, some five years ago, 8,165,527; in Germany (gross tons), +977,410; but the tonnage of steam vessels of 4,000 tons and over was +in Great Britain 1,446,486, in Germany 1,119,537! It should be added +that no small part of Great Britain's big ships belong to the American +Shipping Trust, sailing under the British flag. Albert Ballin became a +director of the Hamburg-American line in 1886, and was made general +director in 1900. During his directorship the capital of the line has +been increased from 15,000,000 to 125,000,000 of marks, and the number +of steamers from 26 to 170. + +Germany's combined export and import trade in 1880 was $1,429,025,000; +in 1890, $1,875,050,000; and in 1905 it was $3,324,018,000; in 1910, +$4,019,072,250. The German production of coal and coal products in +1910 was the highest in its history, amounting to 265,148,232 metric +tons. It would be easy enough to chronicle the commercial and +industrial strides of Germany during the last quarter of a century by +the compilation of a catalogue of figures. It is not my intention to +persuade the reader to believe in any such fantastic theory as that +the present Kaiser is entirely responsible for this progress. I am no +Pygmalion that I can make an Emperor by breathing prayers before pages +of statistics. + +It is only fair, however, in any sketch of the Emperor to give this +skeleton outline of what has taken place in the empire over which he +rules, and which, in certain quarters, it is said, he menaces by his +predilection for war. These few figures spell peace, they do not spell +war, and the ruler who has some 700,000 armed men at his back, and a +navy the second in strength in the world guarding his shores, and a +mercantile marine carrying his trade which is hard on the heels of +Great Britain as a rival, but who has none the less kept his country +at peace with the world for twenty-five years, may be credited at +least with good intentions. + +It may be said in answer to this same argument that this building and +training and enriching of a nation are a threat in themselves. True, a +strong man is more dangerous than a weak one; but it is equally true +that a strong man is a greater safeguard than a weak one where the +question of peace is at stake. It is also true that a rich and +powerful man must needs take more precautions against attack and +robbery than a tramp. A tramp seldom carries even a bunch of keys, and +pays no premium on fire, accident, or burglary insurance. + +William the Second knows his history as well as any of his people, and +incomparably better than his English, French, or American critics. He +knows that only twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great, +the Prussian power went down before Napoleon like a house of cards, +and that the country's humiliation was stamped in bold outlines when +Napoleon was received in Berlin with the ringing of bells, the firing +of cannons, and he himself greeted as a savior and a benefactor. That +was only a hundred years ago. Is it an indiscretion, then, when the +present ruler, speaking at Brandenburg the 5th of March, 1890, says: +"I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a responsibility +conferred upon me by God, and that it is, as is written in the Bible, +my duty to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called +upon to give an account; those who try to interfere with my task, I +shall crush"? + +On his accession to the throne his first two proclamations were to the +army and the navy, his third to the people. On the 14th of July, 1888, +he reviewed the fleet at Kiel, and for the first time an Emperor of +Germany and King of Prussia appeared there in the uniform of an +admiral. In April, 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth year +of her reign, and Prince Henry represented Germany, appearing as +admiral of the fleet in an old battle-ship, the King William. On the +24th of April the Emperor telegraphed to his brother: "I regret +exceedingly that I cannot put at your disposition for this celebration +a better ship, especially when all other countries are appearing with +their finest ships of war. It is a sad consequence of the manoeuvring +of those unpatriotic persons who have obstructed the construction of +even the most necessary war-ships. But I shall know no rest till I +have placed our navy on a par for strength with our army." From that +day to this he has gone steadily forward demanding of his people a +strong army and a powerful fleet. He now has both. He has pulled +Germany out of danger and beyond the reach, for the moment at least, +of any repetition of the catastrophe and humiliation of a hundred +years ago. This is a solid fact, and for this situation the Emperor is +largely, one might almost say wholly, responsible. + +One hears and one reads criticisms of the Emperor's habit of speaking +and writing of "my navy." It is said that the other states of Germany +have borne taxation to build the fleet, and that it is no more the +Emperor's than that of the King of Bavaria, or of Würtemberg, or of +Saxony. This is the petty, pin-pricking babble of boarding-school +girls, or of those official supernumeraries who have turned sour in +their retirement. Even the honest democrat is made indignant. If the +German navy is not the work of William the Second, then its parentage +is far to seek; and if the German navy is not proud to be called "my +navy," it is wofully lacking in gratitude to its creator. + +No man who looks back over his own career, say of twenty-five years, +but is both chastened and amused. He is chastened by the unforeseen +dangers that he has escaped; he is amused by the certificates of +failure, and the prophecies of disaster, that always everywhere +accompany the man who takes part in the game in preference to sitting +in the reserved seats, or peeking through a hole in the fence. I have +not been honored with any such intimate association with the German +Emperor as would enable me to say whether he has a highly developed +sense of humor or not. I can only say for myself, that if I had lived +through his Majesty's last twenty-five years, I should need no other +fillip to digestion than my chuckles over the prophecies of my +enemies. + +It has been said of him that he is volatile; that he flies from one +task to another, finishing nothing; that his artistic tastes are the +extravagant dreams of a Nero; that he loves publicity as a worn and +obese soprano loves the centre of the stage; that his indiscretions +would bring about the discharge of the most inconspicuous petty +official. Others speak and write of him as a hero of mythology, as a +mystic and a dreamer, looking for guidance to the traditions of +mediaeval knighthood; while others, again, dub him a modernist, insist +that he is a commercial traveller, hawking the wares of his country +wherever he goes, and with an eye ever to the interests of Bremen and +Hamburg and Essen and Pforzheim. Again, you hear that he is a Prussian +junker, or that he is a cavalry officer, with all the prejudices and +limitations of such a one; while, on the other hand, he is chided for +enlisting the financial help of rich Jews and industrials. He is +versatile, but versatility is a virtue so long as it does not extend +to one's principles. Every man who has profoundly influenced the life +of the world, from Moses to Lincoln, has been versatile. Carlyle goes +so far as to say: "I confess, I have no notion of a truly great man +that could not be all sorts of men." He speaks French well enough to +address the Académie; he speaks English as well as a cultivated +American, and no one speaks it more distinctly, more crisply, more +trippingly upon the tongue, these days; he preaches a capital sermon; +he is an accomplished binder of books; he is a successful and +enthusiastic farmer, and he is frankly audacious in his loves and +hatreds, his ambitions and his beliefs. He has, in short, no vermin +blood in him at any rate. If you do not like him, you know why; and if +you do, you know why as easily. He even knows what he believes about +woman's suffrage and about God, a rare conciseness of thinking in +these troublous times. + +There stands before you a man apparently as sound in mind and in body +as any man who treads German soil; a man of great vivacity of mind and +manner, and of wholesome delight in living; who bears huge +responsibilities with good humor, and that most unwholesome of all +things, undisputed power, with humility. At a banquet in Brandenburg +the 5th of March, 1890, speaking of his many voyages, he said: "He +who, alone at sea, standing on the bridge, with nothing over him but +God's heaven, has communed with himself will not mistake the value of +such voyages. I could wish for many of my countrymen that they might +live through similar hours of self-contemplation, where a man takes +stock of what he has tried to do, and of what he has accomplished. +Then it is that a man is cured of vanity, and we have all of us need +of that." + +It is obvious that a man cannot be modest, as the above quotation +would indicate, and at the same time preening with vanity; a Sir +Philip Sidney and a Jew peddler; a careless, dashing cavalry officer +or proud Prussian squire, and at the same time a wary and astute +insurance agent for the empire; a preacher of duty and honor, and +belief in God, and at the same time a political comedian deceiving his +rivals abroad, and hoodwinking his subjects at home. + +Not a few men, even of slight powers of observation and of meagre +experience, have noted the strange fact that a blank and direct +statement of the truth is very apt to be put down as a lie; and that a +man who frankly expresses his beliefs and ambitions, and openly goes +about his business and his pleasures with no thought of concealment, +is often regarded as Machiavellian and deceitful, because a timid and +cautious world finds it hard to believe that he is really as audacious +as he appears. + +Even those with the most limited list, of the great names of history +at their disposal, cannot fail to remember that simplicity and +directness have in the persons of their highest exemplars been +misunderstood; hunted down like wild beasts, burned, crucified, and +then, when they were well out of the way, crowned and held up to +humanity as the saviors of the race. We will have none of them when +authority, faith, truth, courage, show us our distorted images in the +mirror of their lives. Crucify him, crucify him! has always been the +cry when such a one asserts his moral kingship, or his sonship to God, +or his audacious intention to live his own life; and in less tragic +fashion, but none the less along the same lines, the world tends to +pick at, and to fray the moral garments of, its leaders still to-day. +When such a one succeeds through sheer simplicity, then that last +feeble epitaph of mediocrity is applied to him: "He is lucky," because +so few people realize that "luck," is merely not to be dependent upon +luck. + +It is apparent from the quotations I have given, and many more of the +same tenor are at our disposal, that the personality we are studying +has a very definite image of his place in the world, of the duties he +is called upon to perform, of his rights according to his own +conception of his authority and responsibilities, and of his +intentions. + +It is equally apparent that he looks upon history in quite another way +than that usually accepted by the modern scientific historian. Taine +and Green may explain everything, even kings and emperors, by the +forces of climate, environment, and the slow-heaving influence of the +people. This school of historians will tell you how Charlemagne, and +Luther, and Cromwell, and Napoleon are to be accounted for by purely +material explanations. + +The German Emperor apparently believes that the history of the world +and the development of mankind are due to a series of mighty factors, +mysteriously endowed from on high and bearing the names of men, and +not infrequently the names of emperors and kings. He is continually +recalling his ancestors, the Great Elector, Frederick the Great, and +William I, his grandfather. These men made Prussia and Prussia made +the German Empire, he declares. To the Brandenburg Parliament he says: +"It is the great merit of my ancestors that they have always stood +aloof from and above all parties, and that they have always succeeded +in making political parties combine for the welfare of the whole +people." + +Due to a quality in the German character that need not be discussed +here, it is true that they have been led, and driven, and welded by +powerful individuals. No Magna Charta, no Cromwell, no Declaration of +Independence is to be found in German history. No vigorous demand from +the people themselves marks their progress. You can read all there is +of German history in the biographies of the Great Elector, of +Frederick William the First, of Frederick the Great, of York, of von +Stein, Hardenberg, Sharnhorst, and Blücher, of Bismarck, William I, +and the present Emperor. + +What the Kaiser believes of history is true of German history. If he +asserts himself as he does in Germany, it is because two hundred and +fifty years of German history put him wholly and entirely in the +right. It is to be presumed that what every student of German history +may see for himself, has not escaped the flexible intelligence of the +present Emperor, and that is, that only the autocratic kings of +Prussia succeeded, and that only an autocratic statesman succeeded, in +bringing the whole country into line, by the acknowledgment of the +King of Prussia, and his heirs forever, as German emperors. + +The first so-called indiscretion of the present Emperor was +magnificent. He dismissed Bismarck two years after he came to the +throne. If you have ever been the owner of a yacht and your sailing-master +has grown to be a tyrant, and you have taken your courage in +your hand and bundled him over the side, you have had in a microcosmic +way the sensations of such an experience. + +It is said that Bismarck, then seventy-five years old, and since 1862 +accustomed to undisputed power, demurred to the wish of the Emperor +that the other ministers should have access to him directly, and not +as heretofore only through the chancellor. It is said too that the +matter-of-fact and somewhat cynical Bismarck, had but scanty respect +for the mystical view of his grandfather as a saint, that the Emperor +everywhere proclaimed. In 1896, the 20th of February, in speaking of +his grandfather, he refers to him as: "The Emperor William, that +personality which has become for us in some sort that of a saint." + +Bismarck, too, objected to the Emperor's policy as regards the +treatment of, and the legislation for, the workingmen. On February the +5th, 1890, he writes to Bismarck: "It is the duty of the state to +regulate the duration and conditions of work in such manner that the +health and the morality of the workingman may be preserved, and that +his needs may be satisfied and his desire for equality before the law +assured." + +"Now this is the tale of the Council the German +Kaiser decreed, + +"And the young king said:'I have found it, +the road to the rest ye seek: + +The strong shall wait for the weary, and the +hale shall halt for the weak; + +With the even tramp of an army where no man +breaks from the line, + +Ye shall march to peace and plenty, in the +bond of brotherhoodsign!'" + +Whatever the reasons, the criticisms, or the causes, the man whom we +have been describing was as certain to dismiss Bismarck from office, +as a bird is certain to fly and not to swim. The ruler who at a +banquet May the 4th, 1891, proclaimed: "There is only one master of +the nation: and that is I, and I will not abide any other"; and later, +on the 16th of November, in an address to recruits said: "I need +Christian soldiers, soldiers who say their Pater Noster. The soldier +should not have a will of his own, but you should all have but one +will and that is my will; there is but one law for you and that is +mine." Again, in addressing the recruits for the navy on the 5th of +March, 1895, he said to them: "Just as I, as Emperor and ruler, +consecrate my life and my strength to the service of the nation, so +you are pledged to give your lives to me." Such a man could not share +his rule with Bismarck. + +Bismarck left Berlin amid groans and tears. A prop had been rudely +pushed from beneath the empire. The young Emperor would stumble and +sway, and fall without this strong guide beside him. Men said this was +the first sign of an imperious will and temper. + +There is an Arab proverb which runs: "When God wishes to destroy an +ant he gives it wings." The Kaiser was to be given power for his own +destruction. But what has happened? Absolutely nothing of these evil +prophecies. In 1884 Bismarck was saying to Gerhard Rohlfs, the African +explorer: "The main thing is, we neither can nor really want to +colonize. We shall never have a fleet like France. Our artisans and +lawyers and time-expired soldiers are no good as colonists." If the +ideas of William the Second were to prevail, it was time that Bismarck +went over the side as pilot of the ship of state. The Kaiser in +appropriate terms regretted the loss of this tried public servant and +said: "However, the course remains the same full steam ahead!" + +Three days after the Jameson raid, on the 3d of January, 1896, the +Kaiser telegraphed to President Krüger: "I beg to express to you my +sincere congratulations that, without help from foreign powers, you +have succeeded with your own people and by your own strength in +driving out the armed bands which attempted to disturb the peace of +your country, and in reestablishing order and in defending the +independence of your people from attacks from outside." + +On the 28th of October, 1908, The Daily Telegraph of London published +a long interview with the Emperor, the gist of which was that the +British press and people continued to distrust him, while all the time +he was and had been the friend of Great Britain. The Emperor cited +instances of his friendship, declared the English were as mad as March +hares not to believe in him; insisted that by reason of Germany's +increasing foreign commerce, and on account of the growing menace to +peace in the Pacific Ocean, Germany was determined to have an adequate +fleet, which perhaps one day even England might be glad to have +alongside of her own. + +In addition to these two incidents, the Emperor had written a letter +to Lord Tweedmouth, who was already then a sick man, and probably not +wholly responsible, in which it was said he had offered advice as to +the increase of the British navy. + +I have described these furious indiscretions, as they were called at +the time, together, though they were years apart; for these +utterances, and the constant repetition of his sense of responsibility +to God, and not to the people he governs, are the heart of this whole +contention that the German Emperor is indiscreet, is indiscreet even +to the point of damaging his own prestige, and injuring his country's +interests abroad. + +Of all these so-called indiscretions there is the question to ask: +Should these things have been said? Should these things have been +written? There are several things to be said in answer to these +questions. I shall treat each one in turn, but all these statements +told the truth and cleared the air. The Krüger telegram was not +written by the Emperor, and when the worst construction is put upon +it, it expressed what? It was merely the condemnation of freebooting +methods, a condemnation, be it said, that it received from many right- +minded and sincerely patriotic Englishmen, a condemnation too that was +re-echoed from America. Only the honorable and winning personality of +one of the most patriotic and charming men in England, Sir Starr +Jameson, saved the raid from looking like piracy. A brave man spoke +his mind about it, and he happened to be in a position so conspicuous +that the rumble of his words was heard afar. + +So far as The Daily Telegraph interview is concerned, the secret +history of the incident has never been fully divulged. One may say, +however, without fear of contradiction that the importance of the +matter was unduly magnified, by those, both at home and abroad, who +had something to gain by exaggeration. It is admitted on all sides by +those best informed that at any rate the Emperor was neither +responsible for the publication, a point to be kept in mind, nor for +the choice of expressions used in the interview. + +The letter to Lord Tweedmouth was a friendly communication dealing +with the conditions of the British and German fleets in the past and +present, and without a word in it that might not have been published +in The Times. It was quite innocent of the sinister significance +placed upon it by those who had not seen it; and the British Ministry +declined to publish it for entirely different reasons, reasons in no +way connected with the German Emperor. + +As we read The Daily Telegraph interview to-day, it is a plain +document. Every word of it is true. The moment one looks at it from +the point of view, that the Emperor of Germany is sincerely desirous +of an amiable understanding with England, and that he is, for the +peace and quiet of the world, working toward that end, there is no +adverse criticism to be passed upon it. The English are thoroughly and +completely mistaken about the attitude of the German Emperor toward +them. He is far and away the best and most powerful friend they have +in Europe, and I, for one, would be willing to forgive him were he +irritated at their misunderstanding of him. Personally, I have not the +shadow of a doubt that had France or Russia treated the German Emperor +with the cool distrust shown him by the British, the German army and +fleet would have moved ere this. + +To those who know the Britisher he is forgiven for those luxuries of +insular stupidity which punctuate his history. I know what a fine +fellow he is, and I pass them by. Mr. Churchill speaks of the German +fleet as a "luxury"; but this is only one of those cold-storage +impromptus that a reputation for cleverness must keep on hand, and +when Lord Haldane in a clumsy attempt to praise the German Emperor +speaks of him as "half English" I laugh, as one laughs at the story of +fat Gibbon kneeling to propose to a lady and requiring a servant to +get him on his legs again. British courting often needs a lackey to +keep it on its legs. + +Could anything be more burningly irritable to the Germans than those +two unnecessary statements? For the moment I am dealing with the +attitude of the Emperor alone. Of the tirades of Chamberlain and +Woltmann, Schmoller, Treitschke, Delbrück, Zorn, and other +under-exercised professors, one may speak elsewhere. They are as +unpardonable as the yokel rhetoric of our British friends. Of the +Emperor's insistence upon his friendliness, of his outspoken betrayal +of his real feelings, of his audacious policy of telling the blunt +truth, I am, alas, no fair judge, for I am too entirely the advocate +of keeping as few cats in the bag as possible. If these things had not +been said and written, it is true that there would have been no +tumult; having been said and written, I fail to see the slightest +indication in the political life of either Germany or England to-day +that they did harm. Certainly, from his own point of view of what his +position entails, they can hardly, as the radicals in Germany claim, +be considered as unconstitutional or beyond his prerogative. + +When the German Emperor says: "I," he refers to the authority and +responsibility and dignity of the German imperial crown. He is not +magnifying his personal importance; he is emphasizing the dignity and +importance of every German citizen. Let us try to understand the +situation before we pass judgment! Both German radicalism and German +socialism are peculiar to Germany, and everywhere misunderstood +abroad. They both demand things of the government for the easement of +their position, they both demand certain privileges, but they do not +seek or want either authority or responsibility. Look at the figures +of their proportionate increase and compare this with their actual +influence in the Reichstag to-day. From 1881 to 1911, here is the +percentage of votes cast by the five representative political parties: + + 1881 1893 1911 + +The National Liberals........... 14.6 12.9 14.0 + +The Freisinnige and south German +Volkspartei..................... 23.2 14.2 13.1 + +The Conservatives, including the +Deutsche and Freikonservative... 23.7 20.4 12.4 + +The Centrum (Catholic party).... 23.2 19.0 16.3 + +The social Democrats............ 6.1 23.2 34.8 + +If it were thought for a moment in Germany that the Socialists could +come into real power, their vote and the number of their +representatives in the Reichstag would dwindle away in one single +election. + +The average German is no leader of men, no lover of an emergency, no +social or political colonist, and he would shrink from the initiative +and daring and endurance demanded by a real political revolution and a +real change of authority, as a hen from water. The very quality in his +ruler that we take for granted he must dislike is the quality that at +the bottom of his heart he adores, and he reposes upon it as the very +foundation of his sense of security, and as the very bulwark behind +which he makes grimaces and shakes his fist at his enemies. Such men +as the present chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, a very calm spectator +of his country's doings, and the Emperor himself, both know this. + +As he looks at history and at life, it follows that he must be +interested in everything that concerns his people, and not +infrequently take a hand in settling questions, or in pushing +enterprises, that seem too widely apart to be dealt with by one man, +and too far afield for his constitutional obligations to profit by his +interference. Certainly German progress shows that the Germans can +have no ground to quote: "Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi," +of their Emperor. + +In the discussion of this question, I may remind my American readers, +although the German constitution is dealt with elsewhere, that there +is one difference between Germany and America politically, that must +never be left out of our calculations. Such constitution and such +rights as the German citizens have, were granted them by their rulers. +The people of Prussia, or of Bavaria, or of Würtemberg, have not given +certain powers to, and placed certain limitations upon, their rulers; +on the contrary, their rulers have given the people certain of their +own prerogatives and political privileges, and granted to the people +as a favor, a certain share in government and certain powers, that +only so long as seventy years ago belonged to the sovereign alone. It +is not what the people have won and then shared with the ruler, but it +is what the ruler has inherited or won and shared with the people, +that makes the groundwork of the constitutions of the various states, +and of the empire of Germany. Nothing has been taken away from the +people of Prussia or from any other state in Germany that they once +had; but certain rights and privileges have been granted by the rulers +that were once wholly theirs. Bear this in mind, that it is William II +and his ancestors who made Prussia Prussia, and voluntarily gave +Prussians certain political rights, and not the citizens of Prussia +who stormed the battlements of equal rights and made a treaty with +their sovereign. + +The King of Prussia is the largest landholder and the richest citizen +of Prussia. We have seen what he expects of his navy and of his army. +Speaking on the 6th of September, 1894, he says: "Gentlemen, +opposition on the part of the Prussian nobility to their King is a +monstrosity." + +But arid details are not history, and in this connection let us have +done with them. I have documented this chapter with dates and +quotations because the situation politically, is so far away from the +experience or knowledge of the American, that he must be given certain +facts to assist his imagination in making a true picture. I have done +this, too, that the Kaiser may have his real background when we +undertake to place him understandingly in the modern world. Here we +have patriarchal rule still strong and still undoubting, coupled with +the most successful social legislation, the most successful state +control of railways, mines, and other enterprises; and a progress +commercial and industrial during the last quarter of a century, second +to none. + +This ruler believes it to be essentially a part of his business to be +a Lorenzo de Medici to his people in art; their high priest in +religion; their envoy extraordinary to foreign peoples; their watchful +father and friend in legislation dealing with their daily lives; their +war-lord, and their best example in all that concerns domestic +happiness and patriotic citizenship. He fulfils the words of the old +German chronicle which reads: "Merito a nobis nostrisque posteris +pater patriae appelatur quia erat egregius defensor et fortissimus +propugnator nihili pendens vitam suam contra omnia adversa propter +justitiam opponere." + +If history is not altogether valueless in its description of symptoms, +the Germans are of a softer mould than some of us, more malleable, +rather tempted to imitate than led by self-confidence to trust to +their own ideals, and less hard in confronting the demands of other +peoples, that they should accept absorption by them. + +Spurned and disdained by Louis XIV, they fawned upon him, built +palaces like his, dressed like his courtiers, wrote and spoke his +language, copied his literary models, and even bored themselves with +mistresses because this was the fashion at Versailles. He stole from +them, only to be thrown the kisses of flattery in return. He sneered +at them, only to be begged for his favors in return. He took their +cities in time of peace, and they acknowledged the theft by a smirking +adulation that he allowed one of their number to be crowned a king. + +As for Napoleon, he performed a prolonged autopsy upon the Germans. +They were dismembered or joined together as suited his plans. At his +beck they fought against one another, or against Russia, or against +England. He tossed them crowns, that they still wear proudly, as a +master tosses biscuits to obedient spaniels. He put his poor relatives +to rule over them, here and there, and they were grateful. He marched +into their present capital, took away their monuments, and the sword +of Frederick the Great, and they hailed him with tears and rejoicing +as their benefactor, while their wittiest poet and sweetest singer, +lauded him to the skies. + +It is unpleasant to recall, but quite unfair to forget, these +happenings of the last two hundred years in the history of the German +people. What would any man say, after this, was their greatest need, +if not self-confidence; if not twenty-five years of peace to enable +them to recover from their beatings and humiliation; if not a powerful +army and navy to give them the sense of security, by which alone +prosperity and pride in their accomplishments and in themselves can be +fostered; if not a ruler who holds ever before their eyes their ideals +and the unfaltering energy required of them to attain them! + +What nation would not be self-conscious after such dire experiences? +What nation would not be tenderly sensitive as to its treatment by +neighboring powers? What nation would not be even unduly keen to +resent any appearance of an attempt to jostle it from its hard-won +place in the sun? Their self-consciousness and sensitiveness and +vanity are patent, but they are pardonable. As the leader of the +Conservative party in the Reichstag, Doctor von Heydebrandt, speaking +at Breslau in October, 1911, anent the Morocco controversy, said, +after, alluding to the "bellicose impudence" of Lloyd-George: "The +[British] ministry thrusts its fist under our nose, and declares, I +alone command the world. It is bitterly hard for us who have 1870 +behind us." They feel that they should no longer be treated to such +bumptiousness. + +I trust that I am no swashbuckler, but I have the greatest sympathy +with the present Emperor in his capacity as war-lord, and in his +insistent stiffening of Germany's martial backbone. + +When shall we all recover from a certain international sickliness that +keeps us all feverish? The continual talk and writing about +international friendships, being of the same family, or the same race, +the cousin propagandism in short, is irritating, not helpful. I do not +go to Germany to discover how American is Germany, nor to England to +discover how American is England; but to Germany to discover how +German is Germany, to England to see how English is England. I much +prefer Americans to either Germans or Englishmen, and they prefer +Germans or Englishmen, as the case may be, to Americans. What spurious +and milksoppy puppets we should be if it were not so. So long as there +are praters going about insisting that Germany, with a flaxen pig-tail +down her back, and England, in pumps instead of boots, and a poodle +instead of a bulldog, shall sit forever in the moonlight hand in hand; +or that America shall become a dandy, shave the chin-whisker, wear a +Latin Quarter butterfly tie of red, white, and blue, and thrum a banjo +to a little brown lady with oblique eyes and a fan, all day long; just +so long will the bulldog snarl, the flaxen-haired maiden look sulky, +the chin-whisker become stiffer and more provocative, and the +fluttering fan seem to threaten blows. + +We have been surfeited with peace talk till we are all irritable. One +hundredth part of an ounce of the same quality of peace powders that +we are using internationally would, if prescribed to a happy family in +this or any other land, lead to dissensions, disobedience, domestic +disaster, and divorce. Mr. Carnegie will have lived long enough to see +more wars and international disturbances, and more discontent born of +superficial reading, than any man in history who was at the same time +so closely connected with their origin. Perhaps it were better after +all if our millionaires were educated! + +The peace party need war just as the atheists need God, otherwise they +have nothing to deny, nothing to attack. Peace is a negative thing +that no one really wants, certainly not the kind of peace of which +there is so much talking to-day, which is a kind of castrated +patriotism. Peace is not that. Peace can never be born of such +impotency. When German statesmen declare roundly that they will not +discuss the question of disarmament, they are merely saying that they +will not be traitors to their country. If the Emperor rattles the +sabre occasionally, it is because the time has not come yet, when this +German people can be allowed to forget what they have suffered from +foreign conquerors, and what they must do to protect themselves from +such a repetition of history. + +When the final judgment is passed upon the Emperor, we must recall his +deep religious feeling that he is inevitably an instrument of God; his +ingrained and ineradicable method of reading history as though it were +a series of the ipse dixits of kings; his complacent neglect of how +the work of the world is done by patient labor; of how works of art +are only born of travail and tears: his obsession by that curious +psychology of kings that leads them to believe that they are somehow +different, and under other laws, as though they lived in another +dimension of space. In addition, he is a man of unusually rapid mental +machinery, of overpowering self-confidence, of great versatility, of +many advantages of training and experience, and, above all, he is +unhampered. He is answerable directly to no one, to no parliament, to +no minister, to no people. He is father, guardian, guide, school- +master, and priest, but in no sense a servant responsible to any +master save one of his own choosing. + +The only wonder is that he is not insupportable. Those who have come +under the spell of his personality declare him to be the most +delightful of companions; what Germany has grown to be under his reign +of twenty-five years all the world knows, much of the world envies, +some of the world fears; what his own people think of him can best be +expressed by the statement that his supremacy was never more assured +than to-day. + +I agree that no one man can be credited with the astonishing expansion +of Germany in all directions in the last thirty years; but so +interwoven are the advice and influence, the ambitions and plans, of +the German Emperor with the progress of the German people, that this +one personality shares his country's successes as no single individual +in any other country can be said to do. + +Whether he likes Americans or not one can hardly know. No doubt he has +made many of them think so; and, alas, we suffer from a national +hallucination that we are liked abroad, when as a matter of fact we +are no more liked than others; and in cultured centres we are in +addition, laughed at by the careless and sneered at by the sour. + +That the Kaiser is liked by Americans, both by those who have met him +and by those who have not, is, I think, indisputable. He is of the +stuff that would have made a first-rate American. He would have been a +sovereign there as he is a sovereign here. He would have enjoyed the +risks, and turmoil, and competition; he would have enjoyed the fine, +free field of endeavor, and he would have jousted with the best of us +in our tournament of life, which has trained as many knights sans peur +et sans reproche as any country in the world. + +I believe in a man who takes what he thinks belongs to him, and holds +it against the world; in the man who so loves life that he keeps a +hearty appetite for it and takes long draughts of it; who is ever +ready to come back smiling for another round with the world, no matter +how hard he has been punished. I believe that God believes in the man +who believes in Him, and therefore in himself. Why should I debar a +man from my sympathy because he is a king or an emperor? I admire your +courage, Sir; I love your indiscretions; I applaud your faith in your +God, and your confidence in yourself, and your splendid service to +your country. Without you Germany would have remained a second-rate +power. Had you been what your critics pretend that they would like you +to be, Germany would have been still ruling the clouds. + +Here's long life to your power, Sir, and to your possessions, and to +you! And as an Anglo-Saxon, I thank God, that all your countrymen are +not like you! + + + +IV GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS + + +In the days when Bismarck was welding the German states into a federal +organization and finally into an empire, he used the press to spray +his opinions, wishes, and suspicions over those he wished to instruct +or to influence. He used it, too, to threaten or to mislead his +enemies at home and abroad. The Hamburger Nachrichten was the +newspaper for which he wrote at one time, and which remained his +confidential organ, though as his power grew he used other journals +and journalists as well. + +As Germany has few traditions of freedom, having rarely won liberty as +a united people, but having been beaten into national unity by her +political giants, or her robuster sovereigns, so the press before and +during Bismarck's long reign, from 1862 to 1890, was kept well in hand +by those who ruled. It is only lately that caricature, criticism, and +opposition have had freer play. That a journalist like Maximilian +Harden (a friend and confidant of Bismarck, by the way) should be +permitted to write without rebuke and without punishment that the +present Kaiser "has all the gifts except one, that of politics," marks +a new license in journalistic debate. That this same person was able, +single-handed, to bring about the exposure and downfall of a cabal of +decadent courtiers whose influence with the Emperor was deplored, +proves again how completely the German press has escaped from certain +leading-strings. A sharp criticism of the Emperor in die Post, even as +lately as 1911, excited great interest, and was looked upon as a very +daring performance. + +There are some four thousand daily and more than three thousand weekly +and monthly publications in Germany to-day; but neither the press as a +whole, nor the journalists, with a few exceptions, exert the influence +in either society or politics of the press in America and in England. +As compared with Germany, one is at once impressed with the greater +number of journals and their more effective distribution at home. In +America there are 2,472 daily papers; 16,269 weeklies; and 2,769 +monthlies. Tri-weekly and quarterly publications added bring the total +to 22,806. One group of 200 daily papers claim a circulation of +10,000,000, while five magazines have a total circulation of +5,000,000. It is calculated that there is a daily, a weekly, and a +monthly magazine circulated for every single family in America. Not an +unmixed blessing, by any means, when one remembers that thousands, +untrained to think and uninterested, are thus dusted with the widely +blown comments of undigested news. Editorial comment of any serious +value is, of course, impossible, and the readers are given a strange +variety of unwholesome intellectual food to gulp down, with mental +dyspepsia sure to follow, a disease which is already the curse of the +times in America, where superficiality and insincerity are leading the +social and political dance. + +To carry the comparison further, there are 22,806 newspapers published +in America; 9,500 in England; 8,049 in Germany; and 6,681 in France: +or 1 for every 4,100 of the population in America; 1 for every 4,700 +in Great Britain; 1 for every 7,800 in Germany, and 1 for every 5,900 +in France. + +That a prime minister should have been a contributor to the press, as +was Lord Salisbury; that a correspondent or editorial writer of a +newspaper should find his way into cabinet circles, into diplomacy, or +into high office in the colonies; that the editor and owner of a great +newspaper should become an ambassador to England, as in the case of +Mr. Reid, is impossible in Germany. The character of the men who take +up the profession of journalism suffers from the lack of distinction +and influence of their task. Raymond, Greeley, Dana, Laffan, Godkin, +in America, and Delane, Hutton, Lawson, and their successors, Garvin, +Strachey, Robinson, in England, are impossible products of the German +journalistic soil at present. + +There have been great changes, and the place of the newspaper and the +power of the journalist is increasing rapidly, but the stale +atmosphere of censordom hangs about the press even to-day. Freedom is +too new to have bred many powerful pens or personalities, and the +inconclusive results of political arguments, written for a people who +are comparatively apathetic, lessen the enthusiasm of the political +journalist. There are not three editors in Germany who receive as much +as six thousand dollars a year, and the majority are paid from twelve +hundred to three thousand a year. This does not make for independence. +I am no believer in great wealth as an incentive to activity, but +certainly solvency makes for emancipation from the more debasing forms +of tyranny. + +Several of the more popular newspapers are owned and controlled by the +Jews, and to the American, with no inborn or traditional prejudice +against the Jews as a race, it is somewhat difficult to understand the +outspoken and unconcealed suspicion and dislike of them in Germany. +There is no need to mince matters in stating that this suspicion and +dislike exist. A comedy called "The Five Frankfurters" has been given +in all the principal cities during the last year and has had a long +run in Berlin. It is a scathing caricature of certain Jewish +peculiarities of temperament and ambition. + +There is even an anti-semitic party, small though it be, in the +Reichstag, while the party of the Centre, of the Conservatives and the +Agrarians, is frankly anti-semitic as well. No Jew can become an +officer in the army, no Jew is admitted to one of the German corps in +the universities, no Jew can hold office of importance in the state, +and I presume that no unbaptized Jew is received at court. I am bound +to record my personal preference for the English and American +treatment of the Jew. In England they have made a Jew their prime +minister, and in America we offer him equal opportunities with other +men, and applaud him whole-heartedly when he succeeds, and thump him +soundly with our criticism when he misbehaves. The German fears him; +we do not. We have made Jews ambassadors, they have served in our army +and navy, and not a few of them rank among our sanest and most +generous philanthropists. + +To a certain extent society of the higher and official class shuts its +doors against him. One of the well-known restaurants in Berlin, until +the death of its founder, not long ago, refused admission to Jews. + +I venture to say that no intelligent American stops to think whether +the Speyer brothers, or Kahn, or Schiff, or the members of the house +of Rothschild, are Jews or not, in estimating their political, social, +and philanthropic worth. Even as long ago as the close of the +fourteenth century the great strife between the princes of Germany and +the free cities ceased, in order that both might unite to plunder the +Jews. + +Luther preached: "Burn their synagogues and schools; what will not +burn bury with earth that neither stone nor rubbish remain." "In like +manner break into and burn their houses." "Forbid their rabbis to +teach on pain of life and limb." "Take away all their prayer-books and +Talmuds, in which are nothing but godlessness, lies, cursing, and +swearing." In the chronicles of the time occurs frequently "Judaei +occisi, combusti." + +The German comes by his dislike of the Jew through centuries of +traditional conflict, plunder, and hatred, and the very moulder of the +present German speech, Luther, was a furious offender. The Jews have +been materialists through all ages, claim the Germans: "The Jews +require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ +crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks +foolishness." It is to be in our day the battle of battles, they +claim, whether we are to be socially, morally, and politically +orientalized by this advance guard of the Orient, the Jews, or whether +we are to preserve our occidental ideals and traditions. Many more men +see the conflict, they maintain, than care to take part in it. The +money-markets of the world are ramparts that few men care to storm, +but, if the independent and the intelligent do not withstand this +semitization of our institutions, the ignorant and the degraded will +one day take the matter into their own hands, as they have done +before, and as they do to this day in some parts of Russia. + +There are 600,000 Jews in Germany, 400,000 of them in Prussia and +100,000 of these in Berlin. In New York City alone there are more than +900,000. They are always strangers in our midst. They are of another +race. They have other standards and other allegiances. Perhaps we are +all of us, the most enlightened of us, provincial at bottom, we like +to know who and what our neighbors are, and whence they came; and we +dislike those who are outside our racial and social experiences, and +our moral and religious habits, and the Jew is always, everywhere, a +foreigner. At any rate, so the German maintains. + +Strange as it may sound in these days, the Germans are not at heart +business men. There are more eyes with dreams in them in Germany than +in all the world besides. They work hard, they increase their +factories, their commerce, but their hearts are not in it. The Jew has +amassed an enormous part of the wealth of Germany, considering his +small proportion of the total population. The German, because he is +not at heart a trader, is an easy prey for him. + +These things trouble us in America very little, and we smile cynically +at the not altogether untruthful portraits of "Potash and +Pearlmutter," and their vermin-like business methods. There is an +undercurrent of feeling in America, that the virile blood is still +there which will stop at nothing to throw off oppression, whether from +the Jew or from any one else. If we are pinched too hard financially, +if confiscation by the government or by individuals goes too far, no +laws even will restrain the violence which will break out for liberty. +So we are at peace with ourselves and with others, trusting in that +quiet might which will take governing into its own hands, at all +hazards, if the state of affairs demands it. + +With the Germans it is different. No people of modern times has been +so harried and harrowed as these Germans. The Thirty Years' war left +them in such fear and poverty that even cannibalism existed, and this +was years after Massachusetts and Maryland were settled. But nothing +has tarnished their idealism. Whether as followers of Charlemagne, or +as hordes of dreamers seeking to save Christ's tomb and cradle in the +Crusades, or as intoxicated barbarians insisting that their emperor +must be crowned at Rome, or as the real torch-bearers of the +Reformation, or even now as dreamers, philosophers, musicians, and +only industrial and commercial by force of circumstances, they are, +least of all the peoples, materialists. + +They have given the world lyric poetry, music, mythology, philosophy, +and these are still their souls' darlings. They entered the modern +world just as science began to marry with commerce and industry, and +so their unworn, fresh, and youthful intellectual vigor found +expression in industry. Renan writes that he owes his pleasure in +intellectual things to a long ancestry of non-thinkers, and he claims +to have inherited their stored-up mental forces. Germany is not unlike +that. Her recent industrial and intellectual activity may be the +release from bondage, of the centuries of stored-up intellectual +energy from the ''Woods of Germany.'' + +It is true that they are easily governed and amenable, but this is due +not wholly to the fact that they have been so long under the yoke of +rulers, or because they are of cow-like disposition, but because their +ideals are spiritual, not material. The American seeks wealth, the +Englishman power, the Frenchman notoriety, the German is satisfied +with peaceful enjoyment of music, poetry, art, and friendly and very +simple intercourse with his fellows. + +Certainly I am not the man to say he is wrong, when I see how +spiritual things in my own country are cut out of the social body as +though they were annoying and dangerous appendices. + +The German of this type looks down upon the spiritual and intellectual +development of other countries as far inferior to his own. Such an one +in talking to an Englishman feels that he is conversing with a +high-spirited, thoroughbred horse; to a Frenchman, as though he were a +cynical monkey; to an American, as though he were a bright youth of +sixteen. + +The German considers his dealings with the intangible things of life +to be a higher form, indeed the highest form, of intellectual +employment. He is therefore racially, historically, and by temperament +jealous or contemptuous, according to his station in life, of the +cosmopolitan exchanger of the world, the Jew. He denies to him either +patriotism or originality, and looks upon him as merely a distributer, +whether in art, literature, or commerce, as an exchanger who amasses +wealth by taking toll of other men's labor, industry, and intellect. +It has not escaped the German of this temper, that the whirling gossip +and innuendoes that have lately annoyed the present party in power in +England, have had to do with three names: Isaacs, Samuels, and +Montagu, all Jews and members of the government. + +German politics, German social life, and the German press cannot be +understood without this explanation. The German sees a danger to his +hardly won national life in the cosmopolitanism of the Jew; he sees a +danger to his duty-doing, simple-living, and hard-working governing +aristocracy in the tempting luxury of the recently rich Jew; and +besides these objective reasons, he is instinctively antagonistic, as +though he were born of the clouds of heaven and the Jew of the clods +of earth. This does not mean that the German is a believer, in the +orthodox sense of the word, for that he is not. He loves the things of +the mind not because he thinks of them as of divine creation, and as +showing an allegiance to a divine Creator, but because they are the +playthings of his own manufacture that amuse him most. His superiority +to other nations is that he claims to enjoy maturer toys. Not even +France is so entirely unencumbered by orthodox restraints in matters +of belief. + +So far, therefore, as the German press is Jew-controlled, it is +suspected as being not German politically, domestically, or +spiritually; as not being representative, in short. It should be added +that, though this is the attitude of the great majority in Germany, +there is a small class who recognize the pioneer work that the Jew has +done. Few men are more respected there, and few have more influence +than such men as Ballin and Rathenau and others. For the very reason +that the German is an idealist the Jew has been of incomparable value +to him in the development of his industrial, commercial, and financial +affairs. Not only as a scientific financier has he helped, not only +has he provided ammunition when German industrial undertakings were +weak and stumbling, but along the lines of scientific research, as +chemists, physicists, artists--perhaps no one stands higher than the +Jew Liebermann as a painter--the Jew has done yeoman service to the +country in return for the high wages that he has taken. There are +Germans who recognize this, and there are in the Jewish world not a +few men to whom the doors of enlightened society are always open. + +Whatever one may feel of instinctive dislike, the open-minded +observers of the historical progress of Germany, all recognize that +Germany would not be in the foremost place she now occupies in the +competitive markets of the world, if she had not had the patriotic, +intelligent, and skilful backing of her better-class Jewish citizens. + +Printing was born in Germany, and the town of Augsburg had a newspaper +as early as 1505, while Berlin had a newspaper in 1617 and Hamburg in +1628. Every foreigner who knows Germany at all, knows the names of the +Kölnische Zeitung, the Lokal Anzeiger and Der Tag, Hamburger +Nachrichten, Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, and the +Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, this last the official organ of the +foreign office. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, better known by its +briefer title of Kreuz Zeitung, is a stanch conservative organ, and +for years has published the scholarly comments once a week of +Professor Shiemann, who is a political historian of distinction, and a +trusted friend of the Emperor. The Deutsche Tageszeitung is the organ +of the Agrarian League. The Reichsbote is a conservative journal and +the organ of the orthodox party in the state church. Vorwärts is the +organ of the socialists and, whatever one may think of its politics, +one of the best-edited, as it is one of the best-written, newspapers +in Germany. The Zukunft, a weekly publication, is the personal organ +of Harden, is Harden, in fact. The Zukunft in normal years sells some +22,000 copies at 20 marks, giving an income of 440,000 marks; this +with the advertisements gives an income of say 500,000 marks. The +expenses are about 350,000 marks, leaving a net income to this daring +and accomplished journalist of 150,000 marks a year. In Germany such +an income is great wealth. The Zukunft and its success is a commentary +of value upon the appreciation of, as well as the rarity of, +independent journalism in Germany. + +The Vossische Zeitung, or "Aunty Voss" as it is nicknamed, is a solid, +bourgeois sheet and moderately radical in tone. It is proper, wipes +its feet before entering the house, and may be safely left in the +servants' hall or in the school-room. Die Post represents the +conservative party politically, is welcome in rich industrial circles, +and is rather liberal in religious matters, though hostile to the +government in matters of foreign politics, and of less influence at +home than the frequent quotations from it in the British press would +lead one to suppose. The two official organs of the Catholics are the +Germania and the Volks Zeitung, of Cologne, whose editor is the +well-known Julius Bachern. The Lokal Anzeiger and the Tageblatt of +Berlin attempt, with no small degree of success, American methods, and +give out several editions a day with particular reference to the latest +news. + +Leipsic, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Strasburg, Dresden, Königsberg, +Breslau, with its Schlessische Zeitung, and the Rhine provinces and +the steel and iron industries represented by the Rheinisch- +Westfälischer Zeitung, and other cities and towns have local +newspapers. A good example of such little-known provincial newspapers +is the Augsburger Abendzeitung, with its first-rate reports of the +parliamentary proceedings in Bavaria and its well-edited columns. The +circulation of these journals is, from our point of view, small. The +Berliner Tageblatt in a recent issue declares its paid circulation to +have been 73,000 in 1901; 106,000 in 1905; 190,000 in 1910; and +208,000 in 1911. + +The custom in Germany of eating in restaurants, of taking coffee in +the cafés, of writing one's letters and reading the newspapers there, +no doubt has much to do with the small subscription lists of German +journals of all kinds, whether daily, weekly, or monthly. The German +economizes even in these small matters. A German family, or small café +or restaurant, may, for a small sum, have half a dozen or more weekly +and monthly journals left, and changed each week; thus they are +circulated in a dozen places at the expense of only one copy. Where a +family of similar standing in America takes in regularly two morning +papers and an evening paper, several weekly and monthly, and perhaps +one or two foreign journals, the German family may take one morning +paper. The custom of having half a dozen newspapers served with the +morning meal, as is done in the larger houses in America and in +England, is practically unknown. Economy is one reason, indifference +is another, provincial and circumscribed interests are others. + +The German has not our keen appetite for what we call news, which is +often merely surmises in bigger type. Only the very small number who +have travelled and made interests and friends for themselves out of +their own country, have any feeling of curiosity even, about the +political and social tides and currents elsewhere. + +An astounding number of Germans know Sophocles, Aeschylus, and +Shakespeare better than we do, but they know nothing, and care +nothing, for the sizzling, crackling stream of purposeless incident, +and sterile comment, that pours in upon the readers of American +newspapers, and which has had its part in making us the largest +consumers of nerve-quieting drugs in the world. All too many of the +pens that supply our press are without education, without experience, +without responsibility or restraint. What Mommsen writes of Cicero +applies to them: "Cicero was a journalist in the worst sense of the +term, over-rich in words as he himself confesses, and beyond all +imagination poor in thought." + +No one of these journals pretends to such power or such influence as +certain great dailies in America and in England. They have not the +means at their command to buy much cable or telegraphic news, and +lacking a press tariff for telegrams, they are the more hampered. The +German temperament, and the civil-service and political close-corporation +methods, make it difficult for the journalist to go far, +either socially or politically. The German has been trained in a +severe school to seek knowledge, not to look for news, and he does not +make the same demands, therefore, upon his newspaper. + +German relations with the outside world are of an industrial and +commercial kind, and until very lately the German has not been a +traveller, and is not now an explorer, and their colonies are +unimportant; consequently there is no very keen interest on the part +of the bulk of the people in foreign affairs. Even Sir Edward Grey's +answering speech on the Morocco question did not appear in full in +Berlin until the following day, though Germany had roused itself to an +unusual pitch of excitement and expectancy. + +As the Germans are not yet political animals, so their newspapers +reflect an artificial political enthusiasm. Society, too, is as little +organized as politics. There are no great figures in their social +world. A Beau Brummel, a d'Orsay, a Lady Palmerston, a Lady +Londonderry, a Duke of Devonshire, a Gladstone, a Disraeli, a +Rosebery, would be impossible in Germany, especially if they were in +opposition to the party in power. When a chancellor or other minister +is dismissed by the Kaiser, he simply disappears. He does not add to +the weight of the opposition, but ceases to exist politically. This +has two bad results: it does not strengthen the criticism of the +administration, and it makes the office-holder very loath to leave +office, and to surrender his power. An ex-cabinet officer in America +or in England remains a valuable critic, but an ex-chancellor in +Germany becomes a social recluse, a political Trappist. Even the +leading political figures are after all merely shadowy servants of the +Emperor. They represent neither themselves nor the people, and such +subserviency kills independence and leaves us with mediocrities +gesticulating in the dark, and making phrases in a vacuum. + +There are, it is true, charming hostesses in Berlin, and ladies who +gather in their drawing-rooms all that is most interesting in the +intellectual and political life of the day; but they are almost +without exception obedient to the traditional officialdom, leaning +upon a favor that is at times erratic, and without the daring of +independence which is the salt of all real personality. + +There are, too, country-houses. One castle in Bavaria, how well I +remember it, and the accomplished charm of its owner, who had made its +grandeur cosey, a feat, indeed! But all this is detached from the real +life of the nation, which is forever taking its cue from the court, +leaving any independent or imposing social and political life benumbed +and without vitality. There is no free and stalwart opposition, no +centres of power; and much as one tires of the incessant and feverish +strife political and social at home, one returns to it taking a long +breath of the free air after this hot-house atmosphere, where the +thermometer is regulated by the wishes of an autocrat. + +The press necessarily reflects these conditions. The Social Democrats, +divided into many small parties, and the Agrarians and Ultramontanes, +divided as well, give the press no single point of leverage. These +political parties wrangle among themselves over the dish of votes, but +what is put into the dish comes from a master over whom they have no +control. If they upset the dish they are turned out as they were in +1878, 1887, 1893, and 1907, and when they return they are better +behaved. + +The parties themselves are not real, since thousands of voters lean to +the left merely to express their discontent; but they would desert the +Social Democrats at once did they think there was a chance of real +governing power for them. A small industrial was warned of the awful +things that would happen did the Socialists come into power. "Ah," he +replied, "but the government would not permit that!" What has the +press to chronicle with insistence and with dignity of such flabby +political and social conditions? + +The press may be, and often is, annoying, as mosquitoes are annoying, +but its campaigns are dangerous to nobody. As I write, it is hard to +believe that within a few days the members of a new Reichstag are to +be elected. There are political meetings, it is true, there are +articles and editorials in the newspapers, there is some languid +discussion at dinner-tables and in society, but there is a sense of +unreality about it all, as though men were thinking: Nothing of grave +importance can happen in any case! We shall have something to say +farther on of political Germany; here it suffices to say that the +press of Germany betrays in its political writing that it is dealing +with shadows, not with realities. "They have been at a great feast of +language, and stolen the scraps," that's all. + +The snarling Panther that was sent to Agadir, teeth and claws showing, +came back looking like an adventurous tomcat that wished only to hide +itself meekly in its accustomed haunts; and its unobtrusive bearing +seemed to say, the less said about the matter the better. What a storm +of obloquy would have burst upon such inept diplomacy in America, or +in England, or even in France. Not so here. Everybody was sore and +sorry, but the newspapers and the journalists could raise no protest +that counted. It is all explained by the fact that the people do not +govern, have nothing to do with the whip or the reins, nor have they +any constitutional way of changing coachmen, or of getting possession +of whip and reins; and hooting at the driver, and jeering at the +tangled whip-lash and awkwardly held reins, is poor-spirited business. +Only one political writer, Harden, does it with any effect, and his +pen is said to have upset the Caprivi government. + +As one reads the newspapers day by day, and the weekly and monthly +journals, it becomes apparent that the German imagines he has done +something when he has had an idea; just as the Frenchman imagines he +has done something when he has made an epigram. We are less given +either to thinking or phrasing, and far less gifted in these +directions than either Germans or Frenchmen, and perhaps that is the +reason we have actually done so much more politically. We do things +for lack of something better to do, while our neighbors find real +pleasure in their dreams, and take great pride in their epigrams. + +As all great writing, from that of Xenophon and Caesar till now, is +born of action or the love of it, or as a spiritual incitement to +action, so a people with little opportunity for political action, and +no centres of social life with a real sway or sovereignty, cannot +create or offer substance for the making of a powerful and independent +press. + +There is no New York, no Paris, no London, no Vienna even, in Germany. +Berlin is the capital, but it is not a capital by political or social +evolution, but by force of circumstances. Germany has many centres +which are not only not interested in Berlin, but even antagonistic. +Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Leipsic, Frankfort, Dresden, Breslau, and +besides these, twenty-six separate states with their capitals, their +rulers, courts, and parliaments, go to make up Germany, and perhaps +you are least of all in Germany when you are in Berlin. It is true +that we have many States, many capitals, and many governors in +America, but they have all grown from one, and not, as in Germany, +been beaten into one, and held together more from a sense of danger +from the outside than from any interest, sympathy, and liking for one +another. + +With us each State, too, has a powerful representation both in the +Senate and in the House of Representatives, which keeps the interest +alive, while in Germany Prussia is overwhelmingly preponderant. In the +upper house, or Bundesrat, Prussia has 17 representatives; next comes +Bavaria with 6; and the other states with 4 or less, out of a total of +58 members. In the Reichstag, out of a total of 397 representatives, +Prussia has 236. + +Political society is not all centred in Berlin, as it is in London, +Paris, or Washington, nor is social life there representative of all +Germany. Berlin's stamp of approval is not necessary to play, or +opera, or book, or picture, or statue, or personality. Indeed, Berlin +often takes a lead in such matters from other cities in Germany where +the artistic life and history are more fully developed, as, for +instance, in other days, Weimar, and now Munich, Dresden, and, in +literary matters, Leipsic. A recent example of this, though of small +consequence in itself, is the case of the opera, the "Rosen Kavalier," +which was given repeatedly in Dresden and Leipsic, whither many Berlin +people went to hear it, before the authorities in Berlin could be +persuaded to produce it. + +The nobility, the society heavy artillery, come to Berlin only for +three or four weeks, from the middle of January to the middle of +February, to pay their respects to their sovereign at the various +court functions given during that time. They live in the country and +only visit in Berlin. It is complained, that the double taxation +incident to the up-keep of an establishment both in town and in the +country, makes it impossible for them to be much in Berlin. They stay +in hotels and in apartments, and are mere passing visitors in their +own capital. They have, therefore, practically no influence upon +social life, and Berlin is merely the centre of the industrial, +military, official, and political society of Prussia. It is the +clearing-house of Germany, but by no means the literary, artistic, +social, or even the political capital of Germany, as London is the +English, or Paris the French, or as Washington is fast growing to be +the American, capital. + +There is no training-ground for an accomplished or man-of-the-world +journalist, and the views and opinions of a journalist who is more or +less of a social pariah, and he still is that with less than half a +dozen exceptions, and of a man who begs for crumbs from the press +officials at the foreign or other government offices, are neither +written with the grip of the independent and dignified chronicler, nor +received with confidence and respect by the reader. + +It may be a reaction from this negligence with which they are treated +that produces a quality, both in the writing and in the illustrations +of the German newspapers, which is unknown in America. Many of the +illustrated papers indulge in pictorial flings which may be compared +only to the scribbling and coarse drawings, in out-of-the-way places, +of dirty-minded boys. With the exception of the well-known Fliegende +Blätter, Kladderadatsch, and one or two less representative, there is +nothing to compare with the artistic excellence and restrained good +taste of Life or Punch, for example. + +There is one illustrated paper published in Munich, Simplicissimus, +which deserves more than negligent and passing comment. It has two +artists of whom I know nothing except what I have learned from their +work, Th. Th. Heine and Gulbransson. These men are Aristophanic in +their ability as draughtsmen and as censors, in striking at the +weaknesses, political, military, and official, of their countrymen. +Their work is something quite new in Germany, and worthy of comparison +with the best in any country. It is not elegant, it is Rabelaisian; +and though I have nothing to retract in regard to coarseness, and no +wish to commend the attitude taken toward German political and social +life, in fairness one is bound to call attention to the pictorial work +in this particular paper as of a very high order, and to recognize its +power. If Heine could have turned his wit into the drawings of +Hogarth, we should have had something not unlike Simplicissimus, and +any German annoyed at the criticisms of his national life from the pen +of a foreigner, may well turn to his own Simplicissimus, and be humbly +grateful that no foreign pen-point can possibly pierce more deeply, +than this domestic pencil, at work in his own country. + +The danger for the critic and the wit, which few avoid, is that with +incomparable advantages over his opponent he will not play fair. In +spite of the awful reputation of our so-called "yellow press," which +is often boisterously impudent, and sometimes inclined to indulge in +comments and revelations of the private affairs of individuals which +can only be dubbed coarse and cowardly, there is seldom a descent to +the indescribably indecent caricatures which one finds every week in +the illustrated papers in Germany. As we have noted elsewhere, just as +the citizens of Berlin, as one sees them in the streets and in public +places, give one the impression that they are not house-trained, so +many of the pens and pencils which serve the German press, leave one +with the feeling that their possessors would not know how to behave in +a cultivated and well-regulated household. + +Every gentleman in Germany must have been ashamed of the writing in +the German press after the sinking of the Titanic. There was a blaze +of brutal pharisaism that put a bar-sinister across any claim to +gentlemanliness on the part of the majority. When every brave man in +the world was lamenting the death of Scott, the English Arctic +explorer, one German paper intimated that he had committed suicide to +avoid the bankruptcy forced upon him by England's lack of generosity +toward his expedition. It is almost unbelievable that such a cur +should have escaped unthrashed, even among the German journalists. +These two examples of lack of fine feeling mark them for what they +are. Among gentlemen no comment is necessary. The mark of breeding is +more often discovered in what one does not say, does not write, does +not do, than in positive action. There was much, at that time, when +fifteen hundred people had been buried in icy water, and scores of +American and English gentlemen had gone down to death, just in answer +to: "Ladies first, gentlemen!" that should have been left unsaid and +unwritten. The quality of the German journalist, with half a dozen +exceptions, was betrayed to the full in those few days, and many a +German cheek mantled with shame. + +However, a man may eat with his knife and still be an authority on +bridge-building; he may tuck his napkin under his chin preparatory to, +and as an armor against, the well-known vagaries of liquids, before he +takes his soup or his soft-boiled eggs, and still be an authority on +soap-making; he may wear a knitted waistcoat with a frock-coat to +luncheon, and be deeply versed in Russian history. He may have no +inkling of the traditions of fair play, or of the reticences of +courtesy, no shred of knightliness, and yet be a scholar in his way. +Indeed, in none of the other cultured countries does one find so many +men of trained minds, but with such untrained manners and morals. In +their hack of sensation-mongering, in their indifference to social +gossip, in their trustworthy and learned comments upon things +scientific, musical, theatrical, literary, and historical, they are as +men to school-boys compared to the American press. They have the utter +contempt for mere smartness that only comes with severe educational +training. They have the scholar's impatience with trivialities. They +skate, not to cut their names on the ice, but to get somewhere, and +the whole industrial and scientific world knows how quickly they have +arrived. + +Our newspapers make a business of training their readers in that worst +of all habits, mental dissipation. The German press is not thus +guilty. Despite all I have written, I am quite sure that if I were +banished from the active world and could see only half a dozen +journals on my lonely island, one of them would be a German newspaper. +It may be that I have a perverted literary taste, for I can get more +humor, more keen enjoyment, out of a census report or an etymological +dictionary than from a novel. My favorite literary dissipation is to +read the works of that distinguished statistician at Washington, Mr. +O. P. Austin, the poet-laureate of industrial America, or the toilsome +and exciting verbal journeys of the Rev. Mr. Skeat. The classic +humorists do not compare with them, in my humble opinion, as sources +of fantastic surprises. This, perhaps, accounts for my sincere +admiration for that quality of scholarship, learning, and accuracy in +the German press. Nor does the possession of these qualities in the +least controvert the impression given by the German press of political +powerlessness, of social ignorance and incompetence, and of boorish +ignorance of the laws of common decency in international comment and +controversy. A great scholar may be a booby in a drawing-room, and a +lamentable failure as an adviser in matters political and social. "As +a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from +his place." Germany has put some astonishing failures to her credit +through her belief that learning can take the place of common-sense, +and scholarship do the tasks of that intelligent and experienced +observation to which the abused word, worldliness, is given. Perhaps +it is as well that the German press declines to keep a social diary; +well, too, that it has no candidates for the office of society +Haruspex, whose ghoulish business it is to find omens and prophecies +in the entrails of his victims. In that respect, at any rate, both +society and the press in Germany are as is the salon to the scullery, +compared with ours. As for that little knot of illustrated weekly +papers in England, with their nauseating letter-press for snobs +inside, and their advertisements of patent complexion remedies and +corsets outside, there is nothing like them in Germany or anywhere +else, so far as I know. You may advertise your shooting-party, your +dance, or your dinner-party, and thus keep yourself before the world +as though you were a whiskey, a soap, or a superfluous-hair-destroyer, +if you please, and, alas, many there are who do so. At least Germany +knows nothing of this weekly auction of privacy, this nauseating +snobbery which is a fungus-growth seen at its strongest in British +soil. + +I am bound, both by tradition and experience as an American, to +discover the reason for such conditions in the lack of fluidity in +social and political life in Germany. The industrials, the military, +the nobility, the civil servants, and to some extent the Jews, are all +in separate social compartments; and the political parties as well +keep much to themselves and without the personal give and take outside +of their purely official life which obtains in America and in England. + +It is an impossible suggestion, I know, but if the upper and lower +houses of the empire, or of Prussia, could meet in a match at base-ball, +or golf, or cricket; if the army could play the civil service; +if the newspaper correspondents could play the under-secretaries; if +they could all be induced occasionally, to throw off their mental and +moral uniforms, and to meet merely as men, a current of fresh air +would blow through Germany, that she would never after permit to be +shut out. + +Personal dignity is refreshed, not lost, by a romp. Who has not seen +distinguished Americans and distinguished Englishmen, in their own or +in their friends' houses, or at one or another of our innumerable +games, behaving like boys out of school, crawling about beneath +improvised skins and growling and roaring in charades; indulging in +flying chaff of one another; in the skirts of their wives and sisters +playing cricket, or base-ball, or tennis with the one hand only; +caricaturing good-humoredly some of their own official business, or +arranging a match of some kind where their own servants join in to +make up a side; or, and well I remember it, half a dozen youths of +about fifty playing cricket with one stump and a broom-handle for an +hour one hot afternoon, amid tumbles and shouts of laughter, and a +shower of impromptu nicknames, and one or two of them bore names known +all over the English-speaking world. Nobody loses any dignity, any +importance; but there is an unconquerable stiffness in Germany that +makes me laugh almost as I make this suggestion. We have only a +certain reserve of serious work in us. To attempt to be serious all +the time is never to be at rest. This worried busyness, which is a +characteristic of the more mediocre of my own countrymen also, is +really a symptom of deficient vitality. Things are in the saddle and +you are the mule and not the man, if you are such an one. The +stiffness and self-consciousness of the Germans is really a sign of +their lack of confidence in themselves. Youth is always more serious +than middle age, for the same reason. A man who is at home in the +world laughs and is gay; he who is shy and doubtful scowls. It is the +God-fearing who are not afraid, it is the man-fearing who are awkward +and uncomfortable. + +The first thing to be afraid of is oneself, but after oneself is +conquered why be afraid to let him loose! + +It would be quite untrue to give the impression that there is no fun, +no harking, no chaff, in Germany, although I am bound to say that +there is little of this last. I can bear witness to a healthy love of +fun, and to an exuberant exploitation of youthful vitality in many +directions among the students and younger officers, for example. +Better companions for a romp exist nowhere. Having been blessed with +an undue surplus of vitality, which for many years kept me fully +occupied in directing its expenditure, alas, not always with success, +I can only add that I found as many youthful companions in a similar +predicament in Germany, as anywhere else. + +But with the Englishman and the American, both temperament and +environment permit youthfulness to last longer. The German must soon +get into the mill and grind and be ground, and he is by temperament +more easily caught and put into the uniform of a constantly correct +behavior. As for us, we are all boys still at thirty, many of us at +fifty, and some of us die ere the school-boy exuberance has all been +squeezed or dried out of us. Not so in Germany. One sees more men in +Germany who give the impression that they could not by any possibility +ever have been boys than with us. They begin to look cramped at +thirty, and they are stiff at fifty, as though they had been fed on a +diet of circumspection, caution, and obedience. They are drilled early +and they soon become amenable, and then even indulgent, toward the +drill-master. + +This German people have not developed into a nation, they have been +squeezed into the mould of a nation. The nation is not for the people, +the people are for the nation. "By the word Constitution," writes Lord +Bolingbroke, "we mean, whenever we speak with propriety and exactness, +the assemblage of laws, institutions, and customs derived from certain +fixed principles of reason, directed to certain fixed objects of +public good, that compose the general system by which the community +hath agreed to be governed." The Germans have no such constitution, +for the community was scarcely consulted, much less hath it agreed to +the general system by which it is governed. + +Of course, in every nation its affairs are, and must be, conducted by +officials. That is as true of America as of Germany. The fundamental +difference is that with us these official persons are executive +officers only, the real captain is the people; while in Germany these +official persons are the real governors of the people, subject to the +commands of one who repeatedly and publicly asserts that his +commission is from God and not from the people. This puts whole +classes of the community permanently into uniform, and the wearers of +these uniforms are almost afraid to laugh, and would consider it +sacrilege to romp. + +Caution is a very puny form of morality. "He that observeth the wind +shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." It is +as true politically as of other spheres of life that "he or she who +lets the world or his own portion of it choose his plan of life for +him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of +imitation." Thus writes John Stuart Mill, and what else can be said of +the political activities of the Germans? What journalist or what +patriot indeed can take seriously a majority that has no power? What +people can call itself free to whom its rulers are not responsible? +The Social Democrats, at the moment of writing, have won one hundred +and ten seats in the Reichstag, but the army and navy estimates are +beyond their reach, the taxes are fixtures, a constitution is a dream, +and if they are cantankerous or truculent the Reichstag will be +dismissed by a wave of the hand. Say what one will, they are a +mammillary people politically, and the strongest party in the +Reichstag is merely an energetic political mangonel. Their leaders +moult opinions, they do not mould them, and could not translate them +into action if they did. + +Not since 1874 has there been a Reichstag so strongly radical, but +nothing will come of it. The Reichskanzler, Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, +did not hesitate to take an early opportunity, after the +opening of the new Reichstag, to state boldly that the issue was +Authority versus Democratization, and that he had no fear of the +result. It is customary for the newly elected Praesidium, the +president and two vice-presidents of the Reichstag, to be received in +audience by the Emperor. On this occasion the Socialists forbade their +representative to go, and the Emperor, therefore, refused to receive +any of them. As usual, they played into his hands. Hans bleibt immer +Hans, and on this occasion his vulgar hack of good manners only +brought contumely upon the whole Reichstag, and left the Emperor as +the outstanding dignified figure in the controversy. Such behavior is +not calculated to invite confidence, and not likely to induce this +enemy-surrounded nation to put its destinies in such hands, not at any +rate for some time to come. "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a +mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart +from him." + +Intellectually Germany is a republic, and we Americans perhaps beyond +all other peoples have profited by her literature, her philosophy, her +music, her scientific and economic teaching. We have kneaded these +things into our political as well as into our intellectual life. +"Intellectual emancipation, if it does not give us at the same time +control over ourselves, is poisonous." And who writes thus? Goethe! +But the intellectual freedom of Germany has done next to nothing to +bring about political or, in the realm of journalism, personal +self-control. + +It is a strange state of affairs. Intelligent men and women in Germany +do not realize it. Not once, but many times, I have been told: "You +foreigners are forever commenting upon our bureaucracy, our +officialdom, but it is not as all-powerful as you think. We have +plenty of freedom!" These people are often themselves officials, +nearly always related to, or of the society, of the ruling class. The +rulers and the ruling class have naturally no sense of oppression, no +feeling that they are unduly subject to others, since the others are +themselves. I am quite willing to believe of my own and of other +people's personal opinions that they are not dogmas merely because +they are baptized in intolerance. I must leave it to the reader to +judge from the facts, whether or no the Germans have a political +autonomy, which permits the exercise and development of political +power. A glance at the political parties themselves will make this +perhaps the more clear. + +The official organization of the conservative party, may be said to +date back to the founding of the Neue Preussische Zeitung in 1848, and +the organization of the party in many parts of Germany. Earlier still, +Burke was the hero of the pioneers of this party, whose first +newspaper had for editor, no less a person than Heinrich von Kleist, +and whose first endeavors were to support God and the King, and to +throw off the yoke of foreign domination. + +In 1876 was formed the Deutsch-Konservativ party supporting Bismarck. +"Königthum von Gottes Gnaden" is still their watchword, with +opposition to Social Democracy, support of imperialism, agrarian and +industrial protection, and Christian teaching in the schools, as the +planks of their platform. They also combat Jewish influence +everywhere, particularly in the schools. Allied to this party is the +Bund der Landwirte and the Deutscher Bauernbund. In the election of +1912 they elected forty-five representatives to the Reichstag, a +serious falling off from the sixty-three seats held previous to that +election. The Free Conservative portion of the Conservative party, is +composed of the less autocratic members of the landed nobility, but +there is little difference in their point of view. + +The Centrum, or Catholic party, is in theory not a religious party; in +practice it is, though it does not bar out Protestant members who hold +similar views to their own. Its political activity began in 1870, and +the first call for the formation of the party came from Reichensperger +in the Kölnischer Volkszeitung. The famous leader of the party, and a +politician who even held his own against Bismarck, was the Hanoverian +Justizminister, Doctor Ludwig Windthorst. The stormy time of the party +was from 1873 to 1878, when Bismarck attempted to oppose the growing +power of the Catholic Church, and more particularly of the Jesuits. +The so-called May laws of that year forbade Roman Catholic +intervention in civil affairs; obliged all ministers of religion to +pass the higher-schools examinations and to study theology three years +at a university; made all seminaries subject to state inspection; and +gave fuller protection to those of other creeds. In 1878 Bismarck +needed the support of the Centrum party to carry through the new +tariff, and the May laws, except that regarding civil marriage, were +repealed. The party stands for religious teaching in the primary +schools, Christian marriage, federal character of empire, protection, +and independence of the state. More than any other party it has kept +its representation in the Reichstag at about the same number. In 1903 +they cast 1,875,300 votes and had 100 members. In 1907 they had 103 +members, and in the last election of 1912 they won 93 seats. Even this +Catholic party is now divided. Count Oppersdorff leads the +"Only-Catholic" party, against the more liberal section which has its +head-quarters at Cologne, where the late Cardinal Fisher was the leader. +At the session of the Reichstag in 1913, when the question of the +readmission of the Jesuits was raised, the Centrum party even sided with +the Socialists in the matter of the expropriation law for Posen, in +order to annoy the chancellor for his opposition to themselves. Such +political miscegenation as this does not show a high level of faith or +of policy. + +It may be of interest to the reader to know that in 1903 the +population of Germany was 58,629,000, and the number qualified to vote +12,531,000; in 1907 the population was 61,983,000, and the number +qualified to vote, 13,353,000; in 1912 the population was 65,407,000, +and the qualified voters numbered over 14,000,000, of whom 12,124,503 +voted. In 1903 there were 9,496,000 votes cast; in 1907, 11,304,000. +The German Reichstag has 397 members, or 1 representative to every +156,000 inhabitants; the United States House of Representatives has +433 members, or 1 for every 212,000 inhabitants; England, 670 members, +or 1 for every 62,000; France, 584, or 1 for every 67,000; Italy, 508, +or 1 for every 64,000; Austria, 516, or 1 for every 51,000. + +Despite the fact that the Conservative and the Catholic parties have +much in common, and are the parties of the Right and Centre: these +names are given the political parties in the Reichstag according to +their grouping on the right, centre, and left of the house, looking +from the tribune or speaker's platform, from which all set speeches +are delivered, they are often at odds among themselves, and Bismarck +and Bülow brought about tactical differences among them for their own +purposes. Their programme may be summed up as "As you were," which is +not inspiring either as an incentive or as a command. + +The Liberal parties are the National liberale; Fortschrittspartei, or +Progressives; and the Freisinnige Volkspartei, or Liberal Democratic +party. + +The National Liberal party was strongest during the days when +Prussia's efforts were directed mainly toward a federation and a +strengthening of the bonds which hold the states together; "unter dem +Donner der Kanonen von Königgratz ist der nationalliberale Gedanke +geboren." Loyalty to emperor and empire, country above party, a fleet +competent to protect the country and its overseas interests, are +watchwords of the party. The party is protectionist, and in matters of +school and church administration in accord with the Free +Conservatives. + +The Liberal Democratic party demands electoral reform, no duties on +foodstuffs, and imperial insurance laws for the workingmen. + +The Fortschrittspartei finds its intellectual beginnings, in the +condensing of the hazy clouds of revolution in 1848, in the persons of +Wilhelm von Humboldt and Freiherr von Stein. Politically, the party +came into being in 1861, and Waldeck, von Hoverbeck, and Virchow are +familiar names to students of German political history; later Eugen +Richter was the leader of the party in the Reichstag. This party is +still for free-trade, in opposition to military and bureaucratic +government, favorable to parliamentary government. Of the grouping and +regrouping of these parties; of their divisions for and against +Bismarck's policies; of their splits on the questions of free-trade +and protection; of their leanings now to the right, now to the left; +of their differences over details of taxation for purposes of defence; +of their attitudes toward a powerful fleet, and toward the Jesuits, it +would require a volume, and a large one, to describe. Though it is +dangerous to characterize them, they may be said without inaccuracy to +represent the democratic movement in Germany both in thought and +political action, and to hold a wavering place between the +Conservatives and the Social Democrats. + +The Social Democratic party, the party of the wage-earners only +assumed recognizable outlines after the appeal of Ferdinand Lassalle +for a workingman's congress at Leipsic in 1863. In 1877 they mustered +493,000 voters. Bismarck and the monarchy looked askance at their +growing power. It was attempted to pass a law, punishing with fine and +imprisonment: "wer in einer den öffentlichen Frieden gefährdenden +Weise verschiedene Klassen der Bevölkerung gegeneinander öffentlich +aufreizt oder wer in gleicher Weise die Institute der Ehe, der Familie +und des Eigentums öffentlich durch Rede oder Schrift angreift." This +was a direct attack upon the Socialists, but the Reichstag refused to +pass the law. In May, 1878, and shortly after in June, two attempts +were made upon the life of the Kaiser. Bismarck then easily and +quickly forced through the new law against the Socialists. + +Under this law newspapers were suppressed, organizations dissolved, +meetings forbidden, and certain leaders banished. For twelve years the +party was kept under the watchful restraint of the police, and their +propaganda made difficult and in many places impossible. After the +repeal of this law, and for the last twenty years, the party has +increased with surprising rapidity. In 1893 the Social Democrats cast +1,787,000 votes; in 1898, 2,107,000; in 1903, more than 3,000,000; and +in the last election, 1912, 4,238,919; and they have just returned 110 +delegates to the Reichstag out of a total of 397 members. + +It is noteworthy that in America there is one Socialist member of the +House of Representatives; while in Germany, which combines autocratic +methods of government, with something more nearly approaching state +ownership and control, than any other country in the world, the most +numerous party in the present Reichstag is that of the Social +Democrats. + +Freedom is the only medicine for discontent. There is no rope for the +hanging of a demagogue like free speech; no such disastrous gift for +the socialist as freedom of action. Imagine what would have happened +in America if we had attempted to suppress Bryan! The result of giving +him free play and a fair hearing, the result of allowing the people to +judge for themselves, has been a prolonged spectacle of political +hari-kiri which has had a wholesome though negative educational +influence. The most accomplished oratorical Pierrot of our day, who +changes his political philosophy as easily as he changes his costume, +has seen one hundred and sixty cities and towns in America turn to +government by commission, and has kept the heraldic donkey always just +out of reach of the political carrots, until the Republican party +itself fairly pushed the donkey into the carrot-field, but even then +with another leader. No autocrat could have done so much. + +As early as 1887 Auer, Bebel, and Liebknecht outlined the programme of +the party, and this programme, again revised at Erfurt in 1891, stands +as the expression of their demands. They claim that: "Die +Arbeiterklasse kann ihre ökonomischen Kämpfe nicht führen und ihre +ökonomische Organisation nicht entwickeln ohne politisehe Rechte." +Roughly they demand: the right to form unions and to hold public +meetings; separation of church and state; education free and secular, +and the feeding of school-children; state expenditure to be met +exclusively by taxes on incomes, property, and inheritance; people to +decide on peace and war; direct system of voting, one adult one vote; +citizen army for defence; referendum; international court of +arbitration. Their leader in the Reichstag to-day is Bebel, and from +what I have heard of the debates in that assembly I should judge that +they have not only a majority over any other party in numbers, but +also in speaking ability. The members of the Socialist party always +leave the house in a body, at the end of each session, just before the +cheers are called for, for the Emperor. They have become more and more +daring of late in their outspoken criticism of both the Emperor and +his ministers. In consequence, they are replied to with ever-increasing +dislike and bitterness by their opponents. At a recent +banquet of old university students in Berlin, Freiherr von Zedlitz, +presiding, quoted Barth and Richter: "The victory of Social Democracy +means the destruction of German civilization, and a Social Democratic +state would be nothing more than a gigantic house of correction." + +In addition to the four important political divisions in the +Reichstag, the Conservative, Liberal, Clerical, and Socialist, there +are many subdivisions of these. Since 1871 there have been some forty +different parties represented, eleven conservative, fourteen liberal, +two clerical, nine national-particularist, and five socialist. To-day, +besides four small groups and certain representatives acknowledging no +party, there are some eleven different factions. + + 1871 1881 1893 1907 1912 + +Right, or Conservative. 895,000 1,210,000 1,806,000 2,141,000 1,149,916 +Liberal................ 1,884,000 1,948,000 2,102,000 3,078,000 3,227,846 +Clerical............... 973,000 1,618,000 1,920,000 2,779,000 2,012,990 +Social Democrats....... 124,000 312,000 1,787,000 3,259,000 4,238,919 + +So far as one may so divide them, the voters have aligned themselves +as follows: In the last elections, in 1912, the Conservatives and +their allies elected 75 members; the Clericals, 93; the Poles, 18; and +the Guelphs, 5; and these come roughly under the heading of the party +of the Right. Under the heading Left, the National Liberals and +Progressive party elected 88, and the Social Democrats 110 members to +the Reichstag. The parties stand therefore roughly divided at the +moment of writing as 191 Conservative, and 200 Radical, with 6 members +unaccounted for. The Poles with 18 seats, the Alsatians with 5, the +Guelphs and Lorrainers and Danes with 8 seats, and the no-party with 2 +seats, are also represented, but are here placed with the party of the +Right. To divide the parties into two camps gives the result that, +roughly, four and a half millions voted that they were satisfied, and +seven and a half millions that they were not. + +No doubt any chancellor, including Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, would +be glad to divide the Reichstag as definitely and easily as I have +done. Theoretically these divisions may be useful to the reader, but +practically to the leader they are useless. Bebel, the leader of the +Social Democrats, declares himself ready to shoulder a musket to +defend the country; Heydebrandt, the leader of the Conservatives, and +possibly the most effective speaker in the Reichstag, has spoken +warmly in favor of social reform laws; the Clericals are for peace, +almost at any price; the Agrarians or Junkers for a tariff on +foodstuffs and cattle, and one might continue analyzing the parties +until one would be left bewildered at their refining of the political +issues at stake. Back to God and the Emperor; and forward to a +constitutional monarchy with the chancellor responsible to the +Reichstag, and perhaps later a republic, represent the two extremes. +Between the two everything and anything. It is hard to put together a +team out of these diverse elements that a chancellor can drive with +safety, and with the confidence that he will finally arrive with his +load at his destination. In addition to these parties there are the +frankly disaffected representatives of conquered Poland, of conquered +Holstein, of conquered Alsace-Lorraine, and of conquered Hanover, this +last known as the Guelph party; all of them anti-Prussian. + +It is not to be wondered at that the comments, deductions, and +prophecies of foreigners are wildly astray when dealing with German +politics. In America, religious differences and racial differences +play a small rôle at Washington; but the 220 Protestants, the 141 +Catholics, the 3 Jews, the 5 free-thinkers, and so on, in the last +Reichstag are in a way parties as well. In that same assembly 2 +members were over 80, 78 over 60, 271 between 40 and 60, 42 under 40, +and 3 under 30 years of age. One hundred and six members were landed +proprietors; 220 were of the liberal professions, including 37 +authors, 35 judges or magistrates, 21 clericals, 7 doctors, and 1 +artist; 13 merchants; 21 manufacturers; and 20 shopkeepers and +laborers. Seventy-two members were of the nobility, a decided falling +off from 1878, when they numbered 162. Two hundred and fifty members +were educated at a university, and practically all may be said to have +had an education equal if not superior to that given in our smaller +colleges. + +In the American Congress, in the House of Representatives, we have 212 +lawyers, though there are only 135,000 lawyers in our population of +90,000,000. We have in that same assembly 50 business men, +representing the 15,000,000 of our people engaged in trade and +industry. Perhaps the German Reichstag is as fairly representative as +our own House of Representatives, though both assemblies show the +babyhood of civilization which still votes for flashing eyes, thumping +fists, hollering patriotism, and smooth phrases. The surprising +feature of elective assemblies is that here and there Messrs. Self-Control, +Ability, Dignity, and Independence find seats at all. The +members are paid, since 1906, a salary of 3,000 marks, with a +deduction of 20 marks for each day's absence. They have free passes +over German railways during the session. The Reichstag is elected +every five years. + +The appearance of the Reichstag to the stranger is notable for the +presence of military, naval, and clerical uniforms. It is, as one +looks down upon them, an assembly where at least one-fourth are bald +or thin-haired, and together they give the impression of being big in +the waist, careless in costume, slovenly in carriage, and lacking +proper feeding, grooming, and exercise. It is clearly an assemblage, +not of men of action, but of men of theories. Not only their +appearance betrays this, but their debates as well, and what one knows +of their individual training and preferences goes to substantiate this +judgment of them. There are no soldiers, sailors, explorers, governors +of alien people; no men, in short, who have solved practical problems +dealing with men, but only theorists. Such men as Götzen, Solf, and +others, who have had actual experience of dealing with men, are rare +exceptions. Probably the best men in Germany wish, and wish heartily, +that there were more such men; indeed, I betray no secret when I +declare that the most intelligent and patriotic criticism in Germany +coincides with my own. + +The electoral divisions of Germany, as we have noted elsewhere, have +not been changed for forty years, with a consequent disproportionate +representation from the rural, as over against the enormously +increased population, of the urban and industrial districts. The +Conservatives, for example, in 1907 gained 1 seat for every 18,232 +votes; the Clericals or Centrum, 1 seat for every 20,626 votes; the +National Liberals, 1 for every 30,635 votes; and the Social Democrats, +1 for every 75,781 votes. It may be seen from this, how overwhelming +must be the majority of votes cast by the Social Democrats, in order +to gain a majority representation in the Reichstag itself. In 1912 +they cast more than one-third of the votes, and are represented by 110 +members out of the total of 397. + +For the student of German politics it is important to remember, that +the Social Democrats are not all representatives of socialism or of +democracy. Their demands at this present time are far from the radical +theory that all sources of production should be in the hands of the +people. Only a small number of very red radicals demand that. Their +successes have been, and they are real successes, along the lines of +greater protection and more political liberty for the workingman. The +number of their votes is swelled by thousands of voters who express +their general discontent in that way. The state in Germany owns +railroads, telegraph and telephone lines; operates mines and certain +industries, and both controls and directly helps certain large +manufactories which are either of benefit to the state, or which, if +they were entirely independent, might prove a danger to the state. The +state enforces insurance against sickness, accident, and old age, and +the three million office-holders are dependent upon the state for +their livelihood and their pensions. + +It is a striking thing in Germany to see human nature cropping out, +even under these ideal conditions; for it is difficult to see how the +state could be more grandmotherly in her officious care of her own. +But this is not enough. Physical safety is not enough, the demand is +for political freedom, and for a government answerable to the people +and the people's representatives. Rich men, powerful men, +representative men by the thousands, men whom one meets of all sorts +and conditions, and who are neither radical nor socialistic, vote the +Social Democrat ticket. The Social Democrats are by no means all +democrats nor all socialists. As a body of voters they are united only +in the expression of their discontent with a government of officials, +practically chosen and kept in power over their heads, and with whose +tenure of office they have nothing to do. + +The fact that the members of the Reichstag are not in the saddle, but +are used unwillingly and often contemptuously as a necessary and often +stubborn and unruly pack-animal by the Kaiser-appointed ministers; the +fact that they are pricked forward, or induced to move by a tempting +feed held just beyond the nose, has something to do, no doubt, with +the lack of unanimity which exists. The diverse elements debate with +one another, and waste their energy in rebukes and recriminations +which lead nowhere and result in nothing. I have listened to many +debates in the Reichstag where the one aim of the speeches seemed to +be merely to unburden the soul of the speaker. He had no plan, no +proposal, no solution, merely a confession to make. After forty-odd +years the Germans, in many ways the most cultivated nation in the +world, are still without real representative government. + +Why should the press or society take this assembly very seriously, +when, as the most important measure of which they are capable, they +can vote to have themselves dismissed by declining to pass supply +bills; and when, as has happened four times in their history, they +return chastened, tamed, and amenable to the wishes of their master? + +No wonder the political writing in the press seems to us vaporish and +without definite aims. It is perhaps due to this weakness that the +writing in the German journals upon other subjects is very good +indeed. The best energies of the writers are devoted to what may be +called educational and literary expositions. In the field of foreign +politics the German press is less well-informed, less instructive, and +consequently irritating. The poverty of material resources makes such +writing as that of Sir Valentine Chirrol, and in former days that of +Mr. G. W. Smalley, beyond the reach of the German journalist, and +their press is painfully narrow, frequently unfair, and often +purposely insulting to foreign countries. They are not only anti- +English, but anti-French, anti-American, and at times bitter. If the +American people read the German newspapers there would be little love +lost between us. + + + +V BERLIN + + +He is a fortunate traveller who enters Berlin from the west, and +toward the end of his journey rolls along over the twelve or fifteen +miles of new streets, glides under the Brandenburger Tor, and finds +himself in Unter den Linden. The Kaiserdamm, Bismarck Strasse, +Berliner Strasse, Charlottenburgerchaussee, Unter den Linden, give the +most splendid street entrance into a city in the world. The pavement +is without a hole, without a crack, and as clear of rubbish of any +kind as a well-kept kitchen floor. The cleanliness is so noticeable +that one looks searchingly for even a scrap of paper, for some trace +of negligence, to modify this superiority over the streets of our +American cities. But there is no consolation; the superiority is so +incontestable that no comparison is possible. For the whole twelve or +fifteen miles the streets are lined with trees, or shrubs, or flowers, +with well-kept grass, and with separate roads on each side for +horsemen or foot-passengers. In the spring and summer the streets are +a veritable garden. + +Broadway is 80 feet wide; Fifth Avenue is 100 feet wide; the Champs +Elysées is 233 feet wide; and Unter den Linden is 196 feet wide, and +has 70 feet of roadway. + +For every square yard of wood pavement in Berlin there are 24 square +yards of asphalt and 37 square yards of stone. The total length of +streets cleaned in Berlin, which has an area of 25 square miles, +according to a report of some few years ago, was 316 miles; there are +700 streets and some 70 open places, and the area cleaned daily was +8,160,000 square yards. The cost of the care of the Berlin streets has +risen with the growth of the city from 1,670,847 marks, [1] in 1880, +to 6,068,557 marks, in 1910. The total cost of the street-cleaning in +New York, in 1907, was $9,758,922, and in Manhattan, The Bronx, and +Brooklyn 5,129 men were employed; while the working force in Berlin, +in 1911, was 2,150. It should be said also that in New York an +enormous amount of scavenging is paid for privately besides. In New +York the street-sweepers are paid $2.19 a day; in Berlin the foremen +receive 4.75 marks the first three years, and thereafter 5 marks; the +men 3.75 marks the first three years, then 4 marks, and after nine +years' service 4.50 marks. The boy assistants receive 2 marks, after two +years 2.25 marks, and after four years service 3 marks. The whole force +is paid every fourteen days. The street-cleaning department is divided +into thirty-three districts, these districts into four groups, each with +an inspector, and all under a head-inspector. Attached to each district +are depots with yards for storage of vehicles, apparatus, brooms, +shovels, uniforms, with machine shops, where on more than one occasion I +have seen enthusiastic workmen trying experiments with new machinery to +facilitate their work. + +[1] The mark is equal to a little less than twenty-five cents. + +Over this whole force presides, a politician? Far from it; a +technically educated man of wide experience, and, of the official of +my visit I may add, of great courtesy and singular enthusiasm both for +his task and for the men under him. What his politics are concerns +nobody, what the politics of the party in power are concerns him not +at all. That an individual, or a group of individuals, powerful +financially or politically, should influence him in his choice or in +his placing of the men under him is unthinkable. That a political boss +in this or in that district, should dictate who should and who should +not, be employed in the street-cleaning department, even down to the +meanest remover of dung with a dust-pan, as was done for years in New +York and every other city in America, would be looked upon here as a +farce of Topsy-Turvydom, with Alice in Wonderland in the title-rôle. + +The streets are cleaned for the benefit of the people, and not for the +benefit of the pockets of a political aristocracy. The public service +is a guardian, not a predatory organization. In our country when a man +can do nothing else he becomes a public servant; in Germany he can +only become a public servant after severe examinations and ample +proofs of fitness. The superiority of one service over the other is +moral, not merely mechanical. + +The street-cleaning department is recruited from soldiers who have +served their time, not over thirty-five years of age, and who must +pass a doctor's examination, and be passed also by the police. The +rules as to their conduct, their uniforms, their rights, and their +duties, down to such minute carefulness as that they may not smoke on +duty "except when engaged in peculiarly dirty and offensive labor," +are here, as in all official matters in Germany, outlined in +labyrinthine detail. Sickness, death, accident, are all provided for +with a pension, and there are also certain gifts of money for long +service. The police and the street-cleaning department co-operate to +enforce the law, where private companies or the city-owned street-railways +are negligent in making repairs, or in replacing pavement +that has been disturbed or destroyed. There is no escape. If the work +is not done promptly and satisfactorily, it is done by the city, +charged against the delinquent, and collected! + +One need go into no further details as to why and wherefore Berlin, +Hamburg, even Cologne in these days, Leipsic, Düsseldorf, Dresden, +Munich, keep their streets in such fashion, that they are as corridors +to the outside of Irish hovels, as compared to the city streets of +America; for the definite and all-including answer and explanation are +contained in the two words: no politics. + +Berlin is governed by a town council, under a chief burgomaster and a +burgomaster, and the civic magistracy, and the police, these last, +however, under state control. The chief burgomaster and the +burgomaster are chosen from trained and experienced candidates, and +are always men of wide experience and severe technical training, who +have won a reputation in other towns as successful municipal +administrators. + +In May, 1912, Wermuth, the son of the blind King of Hanover's +right-hand man, and he himself the recently resigned imperial secretary of +the treasury, was elected Oberburgomaster of Berlin. Such is the +standing of the men named to govern the German cities. It is as though +Elihu Root should be elected mayor of New York, with Colonel John +Biddle as police commissioner, and Colonel Goethals as commissioner of +street-cleaning. May the day come when we can avail ourselves of the +services of such men to govern our cities! + +The magistracy numbers 34, of whom 18 receive salaries. The town +council consists of 144 members, half of whom must be householders. +They are elected for six years, and one-third of them retire every two +years, but are eligible for re-election. They are elected by the +three-class system of voting, which is described in another chapter. +This three-class system of voting results in certain inequalities. In +Prussia, for example, fifteen per cent. of the voters have two-thirds +of the electoral power, and relatively the same may be said of Berlin. + +Unlike the municipal elections in American cities, the voters have +only a simple ballot to put in the ballot-box. National and state +politics play no part, and the voter is not confused by issues that +have nothing to do with his city government. The government of their +cities is arranged for on the basis that officials will be honest, and +work for the city and not for themselves. Our city organizations often +give the air of living under laws framed to prevent thievery, bribery, +blackmailing, and surreptitious murder. We make our municipal laws as +though we were in the stone age. + +These German cities are also, unlike American cities, autonomous. They +have no state-made charters to interpret and to obey; they are not +restricted as to debt or expenditure; and they are not in the grip of +corporations that have bought or leased water, gas, electricity, or +street-railway franchises, and these, represented by the wealthiest +and most intelligent citizens, become, through the financial +undertakings and interests of these very same citizens, often the +worst enemies of their own city. The German cities are spared also the +confusion, which is injected into our politics by a fortunately small +class of reformers, with the prudish peculiarities of morbid vestals; +men who cannot work with other men, and who bring the virile virtues, +the sound charities, and wholesome morality into contempt. + +We all know him, the smug snob of virtue. You may find him a professor +at the university; you may find him leading prayer-meetings and +preaching pure politics; you may find him the bloodless +philanthropist; you may find him a rank atheist, with his patents for +the bringing in of his own kingdom of heaven. These are the men above +all others who make the Tammanyizing of our politics possible. Honest +men cannot abide the hot-house atmosphere of their self-conscious +virtue. Nothing is more discouraging to robust virtue than the +criticisms of teachers of ethics, who live in coddled comfort, upon +private means, and other people's ideas. + +Germany is just now suffering from the spasms of moral colic, due to +overeating. All luxury is in one form or another overeating. Berlin +itself has grown too rapidly into the vicious ways of a metropolis, +where spenders and wasters congregate. In 1911 the betting-machines at +the Berlin race-tracks took in $7,546,000, of which the state took for +its license, 16 2/3 per cent. There were 128 days of racing, while in +England they have 540 days' racing in the year! + +In 1911, 1,300,000 strangers visited Berlin, of whom 1,046,162 were +Germans, 97,683 Russians, 39,555 Austrians, 30,550 Americans, and +16,600 English. Berlin killed 2,000,000 beasts for food, including +10,500 horses; she takes care of 3,000 nightly in her night-shelters, +puts away $17,500,000 in savings-banks, and has deposits therein of +$90,500,000. On the other hand, she has built a palace of vice costing +$1,625,000, in which on many nights between 11 P. M. and 2 A. M. they +sell $8,000 worth of champagne. No one knows his Berlin, who has not +partaken of a "Kalte Ente," or a "Landwehrtopp," a "Schlummerpunsch," +or "Eine Weisse mit einer Strippe." There is still a boyish notion +about dissipation, and they have their own great classic to quote +from, who in "Faust" pours forth this rather raw advice for gayety: + +"Greift nur hinein ins volle Menschenleben! +Ein jeder lebt's, nicht vielen ist's bekannt, +Und wo Ihr's packt, da ist es interessant!" + +Berlin is still in the throes of that sophomorical philosophy of life +which believes that it is, from the point of view of sophistication, +of age, when it is free to be befuddled with wine and befooled by +women. But the German mind has no sympathy with hypocrisy. They may be +brutal in their rather material views of morals, but they are frank. +There may be mental prigs among them, but there are no moral prigs. In +both England and America we suffer from a certain morbid ethical +daintiness. There is a ripeness of moral fastidiousness that is often +difficult to distinguish from rottenness. It is part of the feminism +of America, born of our prosperity, for not one of these fastidious +moralists is not a rich man, and Germany escapes this difficulty. + +The government of a German city is so simple in its machinery that +every voter can easily understand it. No doubt Seth Low and George L. +Rives could explain to an intelligent man the charter under which New +York City is governed, but they are very, very rare exceptions. + +Our city government is bad, not because democracy is a failure, not +because Americans are inherently dishonest, but because we are a +superficially educated people, untrained to think, and, therefore, +still worshipping the Jeffersonian fetich of divided responsibility +between the three branches of the government. The judicial, the +legislative, and the executive are, with minute care, forced to check +and to impede one another, and we even carry this antiquated +superstition, born of a suspicious and timid republicanism, into the +government of our cities. With the exception of those cities in +America which are governed by commissions, our cities are slaves as +compared with the German cities. They are slaves of the predatory +politicians, and they, on the other hand, are the bribed taskmasters +of the rich corporations. The German asks in bewilderment why our men +of wealth, of leisure, and of intelligence are not devoting themselves +to the service of the state and the city. Alas, the answer is the +pitiable one that the electoral machinery is so complicated that the +voters can be and are, continually humbugged; and worse, many of the +wealthy and intelligent, through their stake in valuable city +franchises, are incompetent to deal fairly with the municipal affairs +of their own city. Both in England and in America, the man in the +street is quite sound in his judgment, when he declines to trust those +who dabble in securities with which their own department has dealings. +The British Caesar's wife official, caught with a handkerchief on her +person, woven on the looms of a company whose directors are dealing +with the British government, can hardly claim exemption from +suspicion, because she bought the handkerchief in America. We all know +that when London sniffles the value of handkerchiefs goes up in New +York. Caesar's wife finds it difficult to persuade honorable men that +she merely had a financial cold, but not the smallest interest in a +corner in handkerchiefs. + +In the great majority of German cities public-utility services, gas, +water, electricity, street-railways, slaughter-houses, and even +canals, docks, and pawn-shops are owned and controlled by the cities +themselves. There is no loop-hole for private plunder, and there is, +on the contrary, every incentive to all citizens, and to the rich in +particular, to enforce the strictest economy and the most expert +efficiency. + +What theatres, opera-houses, orchestras, museums, what well-paved and +clean streets, what parks Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and San +Francisco might have, had these cities only a part of the money, of +which in the last twenty-five years they have been robbed! It is true +that the older cities of Germany have traditions behind them that we +lack. Art treasures, old buildings, and an intelligent population +demanding the best in music and the drama we cannot hope to supply, +but good house-keeping is another matter. Berlin, for example, is a +new city as compared with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit, +and its growth has been very rapid. + +It cannot be said for us alone that we have grown so fast that we have +had no time to keep pace with the needs of our population. Berlin, all +Germany indeed, has been growing at a prodigious rate. The population +of Berlin in 1800 was 100,000; in 1832 only 250,000; hardly half a +million in 1870; while the population now is over 2,000,000, and over +3,000,000 if one includes the suburbs, which are for all practical +purposes part and parcel of Berlin. Charlottenburg, for example, with +a population of 19,517 in 1871, now has a population of 305,976, and +the vicinage of Berlin has grown in every direction in like +proportions. + +There were no towns in Germany till the eighth century, except those +of the Romans on the Rhine and the Danube. In 1850 there were only 5 +towns in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and in 1870 only +8; in 1890, 26; in 1900, 33; in 1905, 41; in 1910, 47; and nearly the +whole increase of population is now massed in the middle-sized and +large cities. The same may be said of the drift of population in +America. "A thrifty but rather unprogressive provincial town of 60,000 +inhabitants," writes Mr. J. H. Harper, of New York, in 1810. + +Between 1860 and 1900 the proportion of urban to rural population in +the United States more than doubled. In the last ten years the +percentage of people living in cities, or other incorporated places of +more than 2,500 inhabitants, increased from 40.5 to 46.3 per cent. of +the total; while twenty years ago only 36.1 per cent. of the +population lived in such incorporated places. + +As late as the thirteenth century the Christian chivalry of the time +was spending itself in the task of converting the heathen of what is +now Prussia; and it was well on into the nineteenth century before +serfdom was entirely abolished in this region. It is the newness and +rawness of the population, in the streets of the great German and +Prussian capital which surprise and puzzle the American, almost more +than the cleanliness and orderliness of the streets themselves. It is +as though a powerful monarch had built a fine palace and then, for +lack of company, had invited the people from the fields and farm-yards +to be his companions therein. + +"Jamais un lourdaud, quoi qu'il fasse +Ne saurait passer pour galaud." + +One should read Hazlitt's "Essay on the Cockney" to find phrases for +these Berliners. It is a gazing, gaping crowd that straggles along +over the broad sidewalks. Half a dozen to a dozen will stop and stare +at people entering or leaving vehicles, at a shop, or hotel door. I +have seen a knot of men stop and stare at the ladies entering a motor-car, +and on one occasion one of them wiped off the glass with his hand +that he might see the better. It is not impertinence, it is merely +bucolic naïveté. The city in the evening is like a country fair, with +its awkward gallantries, its brute curiosity, its unabashed +expressions of affection by hands and lips, its ogling, coughing, and +other peasant forms of flirtation. It should be remembered that this +people as a race show somewhat less of reticence in matters amatory +than we are accustomed to. In the foyer of the theatre you may see a +young officer walking round and round, his arm under that of his +fiancée or bride, and her hand fondly clasped in his. It is a +commentary, not a criticism, on international manners that the German +royal princess, a particularly sweet and simple maiden, just engaged +to marry the heir of the house of Cumberland, is photographed walking +in the streets of Berlin, her hand clasped in that of her betrothed, +and both he, and her brother who accompanies them, smoking! Gentlemen +do not smoke when walking or driving with ladies, with us, though I am +not claiming that it is a moral disaster to do so. It is a difference +in the gradations of respect worth noting, but nothing more. I have +even seen kissing, as a couple walked up the stairs from one part of +the theatre to another. In the spring and summer the paths of the +Tiergarten of a morning are strewn with hair-pins, a curious, but none +the less accurate, indication of the rather fumbling affection of the +night before. + +To live in a fashionable hotel, in a land whose people you wish to +study, is as valueless an experience as to go to a zoölogical garden +to learn to track a mountain sheep or to ride down a wild boar. You +must go about among the people themselves, to their restaurants, to +their houses, if they are good enough to ask you, and to the resorts +of all kinds that they frequent. + +The manners are better than in my student days, but there is still a +deal of improvised eating and drinking. There is much tucking of +napkins under chins that the person may be shielded from misdirected +food-offerings. There is not a little use of the knife where the fork +or spoon is called for; but this last I always look upon as a remnant +of courage, of the virility remaining in the race from a not distant +time when the knife served to clear the forest, to build the hut, to +kill the deer, and to defend the family from the wolf; and the +traditions of such a weapon still give it predominance over the more +epicene fork, as a link with a stirring past. Mere daintiness in +feeding is characteristic of the lapdog and other over-protected +animals. Unthinking courage in the matter of victuals is rather a +relief from the strained and anxious hygienic watchfulness of the +overcivilized and the overrich. The body should be, and is, regarded +by wholesome-minded people, not as an idol, but as an instrument. The +German no doubt sees something ignominious in counting as one chews a +chop, in the careful measuring of one's liquids, in the restricting of +oneself to the diet of the squirrel and the cow. He would perhaps +prefer to lose a year or two of life rather than to nut and spinach +himself to longevity. The wholesome body ought of course to be +unerring and automatic in its choice of the quantity and quality of +its fuel. + +A well-dressed man in Berlin is almost as conspicuous as a dancing +bear. This comparison may lead the stranger to infer, in spite of what +has been said of the orderliness of Berlin, that dancing bears are +permitted in the streets. It is only fair to Berlin's admirable police +president, von Jagow, to say that they are not. + +If one leaves the officers, who are a fine, upstanding, well-groomed +lot, out of the account, the inhabitants of Berlin are almost +grotesque in their dowdiness. This is the more remarkable for the +reason that the citizens of Berlin, wherever you see them, not only in +the West-end, but in the tenement districts, in the public markets, +going to or coming from the suburban trains, in the trains and +underground railway, in the cheaper restaurants and pleasure resorts, +taking their Sunday outing, or in the fourth-class carriages of the +railway trains, or their children in the schools, show a high level of +comfort in their clothing. There is poverty and wretchedness in +Berlin, of which later, but in no great city even in America, does the +mass of the people give such an air of being comfortably clothed and +fed. + +We have been deluged of late years with figures in regard to the cost +of living in this country and in that, and never are statistics such +"damned lies" as in this connection. There is better and cheaper food +in Berlin, and in the other cities of Germany, than anywhere else in +our white man's world. Having for the moment no free-trade, or +protectionist, or tariff-reform axe to grind, and having tested the +pudding not by my prejudices but my palate, and having eaten a +fifteen-pfennig luncheon in the street, and climbed step by step the +gastronomical stairway in Germany all the way up to a supper at the +court, where eight hundred odd people were served with a care and +celerity, and with hot viands and irreproachable potables, that made +one think of the "Arabian Nights," I offer my experience and my +opinion with some confidence. You can get enough to stave off hunger +for a few pfennigs, you can get a meal for something under twenty-five +cents, and the whole twenty-five cents will include a glass of the +best beer in the world outside of Munich. If you care to spend fifty +cents there are countless restaurants where you can have a square meal +and a glass of beer for that price; and for a dollar I will give you +as good a luncheon with wine as any man with undamaged taste and +unspoiled digestion ought to have. + +There is one restaurant in Berlin which feeds as many as five thousand +people on a Sunday, where you can dine or sup, and listen to good +music, and enjoy your beer and tobacco for an hour afterward, and all +for something under fifty cents if you are careful in your ordering. +During my walks in the country around Berlin, I have often had an +omelette followed by meat and vegetables, and cheese, and compote, and +Rhine wine, with all the bread I wanted, and paid a bill for two +persons of a little over a dollar. The Brödchen, or rolls, seem to be +everywhere of uniform size and quality, and the butter always good. + +Paris is fast losing its place as the home of good all-round eating as +compared with Berlin. Of course, New York for geographical reasons, +and also because the modern Maecenas lives there, is nowadays the +place where Lucullus would invite his emperor to dine if he came back +to earth; but I am not discussing the nectar and ambrosia classes, but +the beer, bread, and pork classes, and certainly Berlin has no rival +as a provider for them. + +After all our study of statistics, of figures, of contrasts, I am not +sure that we arrive at any very valuable conclusions. American +working-classes work ever shorter hours, gain higher wages, but they +are indubitably less happy, less rich in experience, less serene than +the Germans. This measuring things by dollars, by hours, by pounds and +yard-sticks, measures everything accurately enough except the one +thing we wish to measure, which is a man's soul. We are producing the +material things of life faster, more cheaply, more shoddily, but it is +open to question whether we are producing happier men and women, and +that is what we are striving to do as the end of it all. Nothing is of +any value in the world that cannot be translated into the terms of +man-making, or its value measured by what it does to produce a man, a +woman, and children living happily together. Wealth does not do this; +indeed, wealth beyond a certain limit is almost certain to destroy the +foundation of all peace, a contented family. + +A shady beer-garden, capital music, and happy fathers and mothers and +children, what arithmetic, or algebra, or census tells you anything of +that? The infallible recipe for making a child unhappy, is to give it +everything it cries for of material things, and never to thwart its +will. We throw wages and shorter hours of work at people, but that is +only turning them out of prison into a desert. No statistics can deal +competently with the comparative well-being of nations, and nothing is +more ludicrous than the results arrived at where Germany is discussed +by the British or American politician. Whatever figures say, and +whatever else they may lack, they are better clothed, better fed and +cared for, and have far more opportunities for rational enjoyment, and +a thousand-fold more for aesthetic enjoyment, than either the English +or the Americans. That they lack freedom, in our sense, is true, but +freedom is for the few. The worldwide complaint of the hardship of +constant work is rather silly, for most of us would die of monotony if +we were not forced to work to keep alive, and to make a living. + +The city, with its broad, clean streets, its beautiful race-course, +shaded walks, its forests and lakes, toward Potsdam, or at Tegel, or +Werder, when the blossoms are out, with its well-kept gardens, its +profusion of flowers and shrubs and trees, is physically the most +wholesome great city in the world; but Hans bleibt immer Hans! Goethe, +after a visit to Berlin, wrote: "There are no more ungodly communities +than in Berlin." [1] + +[1] "Est giebt keine gottlosere Völker als in Berlin." + +No one knows his Berlin better than that prince of German literary +Bohemians, Paul Lindau, and he makes a character in one of his novels +say of it: "untidy and orderly, so boisterous and so regulated, so +boorish and so kindly, so indescribableso Berlinishjust that!" [1] + +[1] "Staubig und ordentlich, so Taut und geregelt, so grob und +gemütlich, so unbeschreiblich, so berlinerisch, gerade so!" + +In another place the same author writes: "Berlin as the Capital of the +German Empire! There are many respects in which it nevertheless hasn't +yet succeeded in taking on the character of a cosmopolitan city." [2] +Not even literature finds material for a city novel. There is no +Balzac, no Thackeray. Germany is still dominated by the village and +the town. Goethe, Auerbach, Spielhagen, Heyse, Gottfried Keller, +Freytag, my unread favorite "Fritz" Reuter, deal not with the life of +cities. There is as yet no drama, no novel, no art, no politics born +of the city. There is no domineering Paris or London or New York as +yet. + +[2] "Berlin als Haupstadt des deutchen Reiches: in mancher Beziehung +hatte es sich dem weltstädtischen Charakter doch noch nicht aneignen +können." + +After some years of acquaintance with Germany as school-boy, as +student at the universities, and lately as a most hospitably received +guest by all sorts and conditions of men, I do not remember meeting a +fop. A German Beau Brummel is as impossible as a French Luther, an +American Goethe, or an English Wagner. We have had attempts at foppery +in America, but no real fops. A genuine fop, whether in art, in +literature, or in costumes, must have brains, ours have been merely +effigies, foppery taking the dull commercial form of a great variety +of raiment. It is a strange contradiction in German life that while +they are as a people governed minutely and in detail, forbidden +personal freedom along certain lines to which we should find it hard +to submit, they are freer morally, freer in their literature, their +art, their music, their social life, and in their unself-conscious +expression of them than other people. There is a curious combination +of legal and governmental slavery, and of spiritual and intellectual +freedom; of innumerable restrictions, and great liberty of personal +enjoyment, and that enjoyment of the most naïf kind. They seem to have +done less to destroy life's palate with the condiments of +civilization, and therefore, still find plain things savorous. + +I am not sure that the ecumenical sophistication, known as +world-etiquette, marks a very high degree of knowledge or usefulness +anywhere. To know which hat goes with which boots, and what collar and +tie with what coat and waistcoat, and what costume is appropriate at +10 A. M., and what at 10 P. M., and to know the names of the head-waiters +of the principal restaurants, are minor matters. These are the +conveniences of the gentleman, but the characteristic burdens of the +ass. Such a mental equipment is not the stuff of which soldiers, +sailors, statesmen, explorers, or governors are made. + +We must not overrate the value of this feminine worldliness in judging +the Germans. This effeminate categorical imperative of etiquette has +not influenced them greatly as yet. But on the other hand, one must +claim for the amenities of life that they have their value, that they +are, after all, the external decorations of an inward discipline. It +is not necessarily a fine disdain of material things, but rather a +keen sense of moral and physical efficiency, which pays due heed to +wherewithal ye shall be clothed, at any rate outside of Palestine. +Those who dream and discuss may wear anything or nothing. It mattered +not what Socrates wore. But men of action must wear the easy armor +that fits them best for their particular task. Men who toil either at +their pleasure or at their work must change their raiment, if only for +the sake of rest and health. Now that government is in the hands of +the vociferators rather than the meditaters, even politicians must +look to their costumes, merely out of regard to cleanliness. Evening +clothes with a knitted tie dribbling down the shirt front; a frock-coat +as a frame for a colored waistcoat, such as at shooting, or +riding, or golf, we permit ourselves to break forth in, as a weak +surrender to the tailor, or to the ingenuity of our womenfolk who are +not "unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled"; the extraordinary +indulgence in personal fancies in the choice of colored ties, as +though the male citizens of Berlin had been to an auction of the +bastards of a rainbow; the little melon-shaped hats with a band of +thick velvet around them; the awkward slouching gait, as of men +physically untrained; the enormous proportion of men over forty, who +follow behind their stomachs and turn their toes out at an angle of +more than forty-five degrees, whose necks lie in folds over their +collars, and whose whole appearance denotes an uncared-for person and +a negligence of domestic hygiene: these things are significant. No man +who walks with his toes pointing southwest by south, and southeast by +south, when he is going south, will ever get into France on his own +feet, carrying a knapsack and a rifle. Cranach's painting of Duke +Henry the Pious, in the Dresden Gallery, gives an accurate picture of +the way many Germans still stand and walk; while every athlete knows +that runners and walkers put their feet down straight, or with a +tendency to turn them in rather than out. The Indians of northwest +India, and the Indians of our own West are good examples of this. + +It is evident that the orderliness of Berlin is enforced orderliness +and not voluntary orderliness. Both pedestrians and drivers of all +sorts of vehicles, take all that is theirs and as much more as +possible. There is none of the give and take, and innate love of fair +play and instinctive wish to give the other fellow a chance, so +noticeable in London streets, whether on the sidewalks or in the +roadway. There is a general chip-on-the-shoulder attitude in Prussia, +which may be said, I think not unfairly, to be evident in all ranks, +from their recent foreign diplomacy, down to the pedestrians and +drivers. + +Many people whom I have met, not only foreigners but Germans from +other parts of Germany, are loud in their denunciations of the +Berliners. "Frech" and "roh" are words often used about them. There is +a surly malice of speech and manner among the working classes, that +seems to indicate a wish to atone for political impotence, by braggart +impudence to those whom they regard as superior. When we played horse +as children, we champed the wooden bit, shied, and balked and kicked, +and the worse we behaved the more spirited horses we thought +ourselves. There is a certain social and political radicalism verging +upon anarchy, which plays at life in much the same way, with no better +reason, and with little better result. Shying, balking, and kicking, +and champing the political bit, are only spirited to the childish. + +Their awkward and annoying attentions to women alone on the streets; +their staring and gaping; their rudeness in pushing and shoving; the +general underbred look, the slouching gait, the country-store clothes, +hats, and boots; the fearful and wonderful combinations of raiment; +the sweetbread complexions, as of men under-exercised and not +sufficiently aired and scrubbed; their stiff courtesy to one another +when they recognize acquaintances with hat-sweeping bows; their fierce +gobbling in the restaurants; their lack of small services and +attentions to their own women when they go about in public with them; +their selfish disregard of others in public places, their giving and +taking of hats, coats, sticks, and umbrellas at the garde-robes of the +theatres, for example; their habit of straggling about in the middle +of the streets, like the chickens and geese on a country road: all +these things I have noted too, but I must admit the surprising +personal conclusion that I have grown to like the people. A good pair +of shoulders and an engaging smile go far to mitigate these nuisances. +It makes for good sense in this matter of criticism always to bear in +mind that delicious piece of humor of the psalmist: "Let the righteous +rather smite me friendly; and reprove me. But let not their precious +balms break my head." The "precious balms" of the lofty and righteous +critic are not of much value when they merely break heads. + +I have been all over Berlin, and in all sorts of places, by day and by +night. I have found myself seated beside all sorts of people in +restaurants and public places, and I have yet to chronicle any +rudeness to me or mine. I like their innocent curiosity, their +unsophisticated ways, their bumpkin love-making in public; and many a +time I have found entertainment from odd companions who seated +themselves near me, when I have strayed into the cheaper restaurants, +to hear and to see something of the Berliner in his native wilds. +Their malice and rudeness and apparent impertinences are due to lack +of experience, to the fact that their manners are still untilled, I +believe, rather than to intentional insult. They are not house-broken +to their new capital, that is all, and that will come in time. Their +malicious jealousy peeps out in all sorts of ways. In the lower house +of the Prussian Diet, recently, a member protested vigorously against +the employment of an American singer in the Opera House! Chauvinism +carried to this extreme becomes comic, and is noted here only to +indicate to what depths of farm-yard provinciality some of the +citizens of this great city can descend. + +They are dreamers and sentimentalists too. There are more kissing, +more fondling, more exuberance of affection, more displays of +friendliness in Germany in a week than in England and America in six +months. I confess without shame that I like to see it, and when it +comes my way, as beyond my deserts it has, I like to feel it. How +lasting is this friendliness I have no means of knowing till the years +to come tell me, but that it is a pleasant atmosphere to live in there +can be no doubt. + +The driving is of the very worst. A man behind a horse, or horses, who +knows even the elements of handling the reins and the whip and the +brake, would be a curiosity indeed. I have not seen a dozen coachmen, +private or public, to whom my youngest child could not have given +invaluable suggestions as to the bitting, harnessing, and handling of +his cattle. On the other hand, I one day saw a street sign twisted out +of its place. I was fascinated by this unexampled mark of negligence. +I determined to watch that sign; alas, within forty-eight hours it was +put right again. + +Let it not be understood that there are no fine horses to be seen in +Berlin. You will go far to find a better lot of horse-flesh, or +better-looking men on the horses, than you will see when the Kaiser +rides by to the castle after his morning exercise; and he sits his +horse and manages him with the easy skill of the real horseman, and +looks every inch a king besides. It is told of Daniel Webster, walking +in London, that a navvy turned to his companion and remarked: "That +bloke must be a king!" You would say the same of the Kaiser if you saw +him on horseback. + +At horse shows and in the Tiergarten, and in riding-places in other +cities, I have looked at hundreds of horses, and, if I mistake not, +Germany is both buying and breeding the very best in the way of +mounts, though their civilian riders are often of the scissors +variety. There are comparatively few harness horses, and in Berlin +scarcely a dozen well-turned-out private carriages, outside the +imperial equipages, which are always superbly horsed and beautifully +turned out; so my eyes tell me at least, and I have watched the +streets carefully for months. The minor details of a properly turned-out +carriage (bits, chains, liveries, saddle-cloths, and so on) are +still unknown here. I have had the privilege of driving and riding +some of the horses in the imperial stables; and I have seen all of +them at one time or another being exercised in harness and under the +saddle. I have never driven a better-mannered four, or ridden more +perfectly broken saddle-horses. There are three hundred and twenty-six +horses in his Majesty's stables, and for a private stable of its size +it has no equal in the world. I may add, too, that there is probably +no better "whip" in the world to-day, whether with two horses, four +horses, or six horses, than the gentleman who trains the harness +horses in the imperial stables. This German coachman would be a +revelation at a horse show in either New York or London. If the +citizens of Berlin were as well-mannered as the horses in the imperial +stables, this would be the most elegant capital in the world. It is to +be regretted that his Majesty's very accomplished master of the horse +cannot also hold the position of censor morum to the citizens of +Berlin. Individual prowess in the details of cosmopolitan etiquette +has not reached a high level, but in all matters of mere house-keeping +there are no better municipal housewives than these German cities and +towns. + +As a further example, the statues of Berlin are carefully cleaned in +the spring, but what statues! With the exception of the Lessing, the +Goethe, and the Great Elector statues, the statue of Frederick the +Great, and the reclining statues of the late emperor and empress, by +Begas, and one or two others, one sees at once that these citizens are +no more capable of ornamenting their city than of dressing themselves. + +Poor Bismarck! Grotesque figures (men, women, animals) surround the +base of his statue in Berlin, in Leipsic; and in Hamburg, clad in a +corrugated golf costume, with a colossal two-handed sword in front of +him, he is a melancholy figure, gazing out over a tumble-down beer-garden. +At Wannsee, near Berlin, there is, I must admit, a really fine +bust of Bismarck. On a solid square pedestal of granite, covered with +ivy and surrounded by the whispering, or sighing, or creaking and +cracking trees that he loved, and facing the setting sun, and alone in +a secluded corner, just the place he would have chosen, there are the +head and shoulders of the real Bismarck. Here for once he has escaped +the fussy attentions of the artistry that he detested. Lehnbach, who +painted Bismarck so many scores of times, never gave him the color +that his face kept all through life, and with the exception of this +bust, of the scores of Bismarck memorials one sees all commiserate the +lack of artist ability; they do not commemorate Bismarck. If this is +what they do to the greatest man in their history, what is to be +expected elsewhere? What has poor Joachim Friedrich done that he +should pose forever in the Sieges Allee as an intoxicated hitching-post? +What, indeed, have his companions done that they should stand in +two rows there, studies in contortion, with a gilded Russian dancer +with wings at one end of their line, and a woodeny Roland at the +other? But there they are, simpering a paltry patriotism, insipid as +history and ridiculous as art. What has become of Lessing, and +Winckelmann, and Goethe, and their teachings? Is this the price that a +nation must pay for its industrial progress? + +The German, with all his boasting about the "centre of culture," has +not discovered that the beauty of antiquity is the expression of those +virtues which were useful at the time of Theseus, as Stendhal rightly +tells us. Individual force, which was everything of old, amounts to +almost nothing in our modern civilization. The monk who invented +gunpowder modified sculpture; strength is only necessary now among +subalterns. No one thinks of asking whether Frederick the Great and +Napoleon were good swordsmen. The strength we admire, is the strength +of Napoleon advancing alone upon the First Battalion of the royal +troops near Lake Loffrey in March, 1815; that is strength of soul. The +moral qualities with which we are concerned are no longer the same as +in the days of the Greeks. Before this cockney sculpture was planned, +there should have been a closer study of the history and philosophy of +art in Berlin. + +It is true that we in America are living in a glass house to some +extent in these matters, but where in all Germany is there any modern +sculpture to compare with our Nathan Hale, our Minute Man, and that +most spirited bit of modern plastic art in all the world, the Shaw +Monument in Boston? You cannot stand in front of it without keeping +time, and here lips of bronze sing the song of patriotism till your +heart thumps, and you are ready to throw up your hat as the splendid +young figure and his negro soldiers march by--and they do march by! +It is almost a consolation for what Boston has done to that gallant +soldier and humble servant of God, that modest gentleman, Phillips +Brooks. In a statue to him they have travestied the virtues he +expounded, slain the ideal of the Christ he preached, theatricalized +the least theatrical of men, and placed this piece of mortifying +misunderstanding in bronze under the very eaves of the house that grew +out of his simple eloquence. There is in Leipsic a similar misdemeanor +in a statue of Beethoven. He sits, naked to the waist, in a bronze +chair, with a sort of bath-towel drapery of colored marble about his +legs, and an eagle in front of him. He has a chauffeurish expression +of anxious futility, as though he were about to run over the eagle. + +Men are without great dreams in these days, and art is elaborate and +fussy and self-conscious. The technical part of the work is +predominant. One sees the artist holding up a mirror to himself as he +works. Pygmalion congratulates the statue upon the fact that he carved +it, instead of being lost in the love of creating. It is as though a +lover should sing of himself instead of singing of his lady. The +subtle poison of self-advertisement has crept in, and peers like a +satyr from the picture and from the statue. Even the most prominent +name in German music at this writing is that of a man who is notorious +as an expert salesman of symphonic sensationalism. + +Though the streets are so well kept, the buildings in these miles of +new streets are flimsy-looking, and evidently the work of the +speculative builder. The more pretentious buildings ape a kind of +Nuremberg Renaissance style, and are as effective as a castle made of +cardboard. This does not imply that there are not simple and solid +buildings in Berlin and, in the case of the new library and a score of +other buildings, worthy architecture; but the general impression is +one of haste multiplied by plaster. + +The whole city blossoms with statuary, like a cosmopolitan 'Arriet who +cannot get enough flowers and feathers on her Sunday hat. A certain +comic anthropomorphism is to be seen, even on the balustrades of the +castle, where the good Emperor William is posed as Jupiter, the +Empress Augusta as Juno, Emperor Frederick as Mars, and his wife as +Minerva! On the façades of houses, on the bridges, on the roofs of +apartment houses, on the hotels even, and scattered throughout the +public gardens, are scores of statues, and they are for the most part +what hastily ordered, swiftly completed art, born of the dollar +instead of the pain and travail of love and imagination, must always +be. + +A certain literary snob taken to task by Doctor Parr for pronouncing +the one-time capital of Egypt "Alexandria," with the accent on the +long i, quoted the authority of Doctor Bentley. "Doctor Bentley and +I," replied Doctor Parr, "may call it 'Alexandria,' but I should +advise you to call it 'Alexandria.'" It was all very well for the +Medici, to ornament their cities and their homes with the fruit of the +great artistic springtime of the world, but I should strongly advise +the Berliners to pronounce it "Alexandria" for some years to come. No +matter how fervid the lover, nor how possessed he may be by his +mistress, he cannot turn out every day, even, + +"A halting sonnet of his own poor brain, +Fashion'd to Beatrice." + +All this pretentious over-ornamentation is cosmeticism, the powder and +paint of the vulgarian striving to conceal by a futile advertisement +her lack of refinement. Paris was teaching the world when there was no +capital in Germany; London has been a commercial centre for a thousand +years, and Oxford was a hundred years old before even the University +of Prague, the first in Germany, was founded by Charles IV in 1348. +You may like or dislike these cities, but, at any rate, they have a +bouquet; Berlin has none. + +When Germany deals with the inanimate and amenable factors of life, +she brings the machinery of modern civilization well-nigh to the point +of perfection. As a municipal and national housewife she has no equal, +none. But art has nothing to do with brooms and dust-pans, and human +nature is woven of surprises and emergencies, and what then? An +interesting example in the streets of Berlin is the difference between +the perfection of the street-cleaning, which deals with the inanimate +and with accurately calculable factors, and the governing of the +street traffic. Horses and men and motor-driven vehicles are not as +dependable as blocks of pavement. When the traffic in the Berlin +streets grows to the proportions of London, Paris, and New York, one +wonders what will happen. Nowhere are there such broad, well-kept +streets in which the traffic is so awkwardly handled. + +The police are all, and must be, indeed, noncommissioned officers of +the army, of nine years service, and not over thirty-five years of +age. They are armed with swords and pistols by night, and in the +rougher parts of the town with the same weapons by day as well. After +ten years service they are entitled to a pension of twenty-sixtieths +of their pay, with an increase of one-sixtieth for each further year +of service. They are not under the city, but under state control, and +the chief of police is a man of distinction, nearly always a nobleman, +and nominated by, and in every case approved by, the Emperor. In +Berlin he is appointed by the King of Prussia. He is a man of such +standing that he may be promoted to cabinet rank. The men are well-turned +out, of heavy build, very courteous to strangers, so far as my +experience can speak for them, and quiet and self-controlled. Under +the police president are one colonel of police, receiving from 6,000 +to 8,500 marks, according to his length of service; 3 majors, +receiving from 5,400 to 6,600 marks; 20 captains, receiving from 4,200 +to 5,400 marks; 156 lieutenants, receiving from 3,000 to 4,500 marks; +450 sergeants, receiving from 1,650 to 2,300 marks; and 5,382 +patrolmen, receiving from 1,400 to 2,100 marks. There are also some +300 mounted police, receiving from 1,400 to 2,600 marks. The colonel, +majors, and captains receive 1,300 marks additional, and the +lieutenants 800 marks additional, for house rent. The mounted police +are well-horsed, but it is no slight to them to say, however, that +their horses are not so well trained and well mannered, nor the men +such skilful horsemen, as those of our mounted squad in New York, who, +man for man and horse for horse, are probably unequalled anywhere else +in the world. + +The demand for these non-commissioned officers of nine years of army +discipline, who cannot be called upon to serve in the army again, has +grown with the growth of the great city, with its need of porters, +watchmen, and the like, and so valuable are their services deemed that +the present police force of Berlin is short of its proper number by +some seven hundred men. + +The examination of those about to become policemen extends over four +weeks, and includes every detail of the multiplicity of duties, which +ranges from the protection of the public from crime, down to tracking +down truants from school, and the regulation of the books of the +maid-servant class. The policeman who aspires to the rank of sergeant +undergoes a still more rigorous examination, extending over twenty +weeks of preparation, during which time he studies--note this list, +ye "young barbarians all at play," German, rhetoric, writing, +arithmetic, common fractions, geography, history, especially the +history of the House of Hohenzollern from the time of the margraves to +the present time (!), political divisions of the earth, especially of +Prussia and Germany, the essential features of the constitution of the +Prussian Kingdom and German Empire, the organization and working of +the various state authorities in Prussia and Germany, elementary +methods of disinfection, common veterinary remedies, the police law as +applicable to innumerable matters from the treatment of the drunk, +blind, and lame, to evidences of murder, and the press law. The man +who passes such an examination would be more than qualified to take a +degree, at one of our minor colleges, if he knew English and the +classics were not required, and could well afford to sniff +disdainfully at the pelting shower of honorary degrees of Doctor of +Divinity, which descend from the commencement platforms of our more +girlish intellectual factories of orthodoxy. + +The cost of the police in Berlin in 1880 was 2,494,722 marks; in 1890, +3,007,879 marks; in 1900, 6,065,975 marks; and in 1910, 8,708,165 +marks. + +I fancy that after an accident has taken place the literary, legal, +and hygienic details are cared for by the Berlin police as nowhere +else. In their management of the traffic they are distinctly lacking +in decision and watchfulness. On the western side of the Brandenburger +Tor there is seldom an hour, without a tangle of traffic which is +entirely unnecessary if the police knew their business. On the +Tiergarten Strasse, a rather narrow and much used thoroughfare in the +fashionable part of the town, trucks, cabs, and other vehicles are not +kept close to the curbs, often they drive along in pairs, slowing up +all the traffic, and at the east end of the street is a corner which +could easily be remedied by the building of a "refuge," and an +authoritative policeman to guard the three approaches. Not once, but +scores of times, at the very important corner of Unter den Linden and +Wilhelm Strasse I have seen the policeman talking to friends on the +curb, quite oblivious to a scramble of cabs, wagons, and motors at +cross purposes in the street. Potsdamer Platz presents a difficult +problem at all times of the day, especially when the crowds are coming +from or going toward home, but a few ropes and iron standards, and +four alert Irish policemen, would make it far plainer sailing than now +it is. It is to be remembered, too, that the traffic is a mere dribble +as compared to a torrent, when one remembers Paris, New York, and +London. In 1909 the street accidents in Paris numbered 65,870, and +there was one summons for every 77 motor taxicabs, but Paris is now +without a rival as the dirtiest, worst-paved capital in Europe, and +the home of social anarchy; a place where adventurous spirits will go +soon rather than to Africa, or to the Rocky Mountains, for excitement +in affrays with revolvers, vitriol, and chloroform. + +In London, in 1909, there were 13,388 accidents. In Berlin there was a +total of 4,895 accidents in 1900; 4,797 in 1905; and 4,233 in 1910. +One hundred persons were killed in 1900; 115 in 1905; and 136 in 1910. +In this connection it is to be said, that Berlin has fewer and much +less adventurous inhabitants, very much less complicated traffic, much +broader and better streets, and far fewer problems than the older +cities. If the citizens of Berlin were anything like as capable of +taking care of themselves in the streets, as they should be, there +would be hardly any accidents at all. The new police regulation of the +traffic has been only some four or five years in existence in its more +rigid form, and perhaps neither people nor police are accustomed to +it. Even then, out of the total of 4,233 accidents in 1910, 1,876 of +them were caused by the street-railway cars. This shows of itself how +light the traffic must be, for worse driving and more awkward +pedestrians one would go far to find. + +The cost of Berlin housekeeping increases by leaps and bounds. The +total city expenses were: 45,221,988 marks in 1880; 89,364,270 in +1890; 121,405,356 in 1900; and 355,424,614 in 1910. The debt of Berlin +has risen from 126,161,605 marks in 1880, and 272,912,350 in 1900, to +475,799,231 in 1910, with a very considerable addition voted for 1912. +In the ten years alone between 1897 and 1907 the debt of German cities +including only those with a population of more than 10,000, increased +by $1,050,000,000. Municipal expenditure in Paris has risen in the +last ten years from $59,200,000 to $76,000,000. The budget expenditure +of France has reached $1,040,000,000. In 1898 it was only +$600,000,000. + +It cannot be expected that the best-kept, cleanest, and most orderly +cities in the world, and there need be no hesitation in saying this of +the German cities, should not spend much money, and the states in +which they are situated much money as well. The various states of the +empire spent, according to a report of four years ago, $1,352,500,000; +and the empire itself $738,250,000, or a total of $2,090,750,000. From +the various state or empire controlled enterprises, such as railways, +forests, mines, post and telegraph, imperial printing-office, and so +on, the states and empire received a net income of $216,525,000, and +the balance was, of course, raised by direct and indirect taxation. + +One may put appropriately enough under this heading, the invaluable +and unpaid services of a host of honorary officials, who render expert +service both in the state and city governments. There are over ten +thousand honorary officials in the city of Berlin alone, more than +three thousand of whom serve under the school authorities. They are +chosen from citizens of standing, education, wealth, and ability, and +assist in all the departments with advice and expert knowledge, and +sit upon the various committees. The German citizen has not only his +pocket taxed, but his patriotism also, and a capital philosophy of +government this implies. + +A friend, a large landholder in Saxony, gives, between his services as +a reserve officer in the army and his magisterial and other duties, +something over nine weeks of his time to the state every year, and he +is by no means an exception, he tells me. A certain amount of this is +required of him by the state, with a heavy fine for nonperformance of +these duties. The same is true of the many members of the various +standing committees in the cities. Each citizen is compelled to +contribute a certain proportion of his mental and moral prowess to the +service of his state and city, but he receives a return for it in his +beautifully kept city, in the educational advantages, in the theatres, +concerts, opera, and in the peaceful orderliness, the value of which +only the foreigner can fully appreciate. + +Almost all the court theatres, for example, throughout Germany are +under a director who works in harmony with the reigning prince. The +King of Prussia gives for his theatres in Berlin, Wiesbaden, Hanover, +and Cassel, more than $625,000 a year from his private purse; the Duke +of Anhalt, $75,000 a year to the Dessauer theatre. The players have a +sure position under responsible and intelligent government, and feel +themselves to be not mere puppets, but educational factors with a +certain pride and dignity in their work. + +There are more Shakespeare plays given in Germany in a week than in +all the English-speaking countries together in a year. This is by no +means an exaggeration. The theatre is looked upon as a school. Fathers +and mothers arrange that their older children as well as themselves +shall attend the theatre all through the winter, and subscribe for +seats as we would subscribe to a lending library. During the last year +in Germany, the plays of Schiller were given 1,584 times, of +Shakespeare 1,042 times, the music-dramas of Wagner 1,815 times, the +plays of Goethe 700 times, and of Hauptmann 600 times. There is no +spectacular gorgeousness, as when an Irving, a Booth, or a Beerbohm +Tree sugarcoats Shakespeare to induce us barbarians to go, in the +belief that we are after all not wasting our time, since the +performance tastes a little of the more gorgeous music halls. The +scenery and costumes are sufficient, and the performance always worth +intelligent attention, for the reason that both the director and his +players have given time and scholarship to its interpretation. The +acting is often indifferent as compared to the French stage, but it is +at least always in earnest and intelligent. The theatre prices in +Berlin are high, even as compared with New York prices, but in other +cities and towns of Germany cheaper than in England, France, or +America. + +Pericles passed a law in Athens by which each citizen was granted two +oboli, one to pay for his seat at the theatre, the other to provide +himself with refreshment. In Athens the play began at 6 or 7 A. M., +and during the morning three tragedies and a satirical drama were +played, followed in the afternoon by a comedy. The theatre of +Dionysius seated 30,000 people, who brought their cushions, food, and +drink, and occasionally used them to express their dislike of the +performance or the performers. At one of the larger industrial towns +in Germany, during a Sunday of my visit, there were three +performances; one at 11 A. M., of a patriotic melodrama, "Glaube und +Heimat"; another, at 3.30 P. M., of "Der Freischütz"; and another, at +7.30 P. M., of Sudermann's play, "Die Ehre." The prices of seats for +the morning performance ranged from eight cents to forty-five cents; a +little more in the afternoon; and from seventeen cents to $1.15 in the +evening. At the performance I attended the house was crowded and +attentive. I was not enough of an Athenian to attend all three. Even +at the Music Hall in Berlin, where, as in other cities, the thinly +covered salacious is ladled out to the animal man, there was a capital +stage caricature of Oedipus, which atoned for the customary ewig +Legliche, which now rules in these resorts. If for some untoward +reason women ceased to have legs, what would the British and American +theatrical trust managers do! + +The German takes his theatre and his music, as from the beginnings of +these it was intended we all should do. They are not a distraction +merely, but an education, an education of the senses, and through the +senses of the whole man. There are music-lovers and serious playgoers +in America; but for the most part our theatres cater to, and are +filled by, a public seeking a soothing and condimented mental +atmosphere, in which to finish digestion. Theatrical salmagundi is +served everywhere, and seems to be the dish best suited to the +American aesthetic palate as thus far educated. We cannot complain, +since other wares would be quickly provided did we but ask for them. + +America has suffered because she was overtaken by a great material +prosperity before she had a sufficient spiritual and intellectual +development, and up to now the material side of life has had the upper +hand. We buy the best pictures, the rare books and manuscripts, armor +and silver and porcelain, and it must be said that there is a fine +idealism here, because they are bought almost without exception by +uncultured, often almost unlettered, rich men, who know nothing and +care very little for these things, but who are providing rare +educational opportunities for another generation. In 1910 objects of +art to the value of $22,000,000 were imported, in 1911 $36,000,000 +worth, and in 1912 sixty per cent. more than in 1911. In the same way +we hire the best musicians and singers, but our surroundings and the +powerful circumambient ambitions, have not tempted us as yet to live +contentedly and understandingly in any such atmosphere as the Germans +do. It is a striking contrast, perhaps of all the contrasts the most +interesting to the student, this of America growing from industrialism +toward idealism, of Germany growing out of idealism into +industrialism. + +Germany floats in music; in America a few, a very few, float on it. In +Germany everybody sings, almost everybody plays some instrument, and +from the youngest to the oldest everybody understands music; at least +that is the impression you carry away with you from the land of Bach, +Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Brahms, and Beethoven, and Wagner, and I +might fill the page with the others. + +You are at least on the ramparts of Paradise, in the Thomas Kirche in +Leipsic at the weekly Saturday concert of the scholars of the Thomas +Schule. The worldliness is melted out of you, as you sit in the cool, +quiet church with the sunlight slanting in upon you, and the +atmosphere alive with sweet sounds. And this is only one of hundreds +of such experiences all over Germany. At the Kreuz Kirche in Dresden, +at the great Dom church in Berlin at Easter time, for the asking you +may have the oil and wine of music's Good Samaritan poured upon the +wounds of those sore-pressed travellers, your hopes and ideals, your +dreams and ambitions, that have fallen among thieves, on the long, +long way from Jericho to Jerusalem. + +It is, I must admit, a drab and dreary crowd to look at, these Germans +at the theatre, at the opera, in the concert halls. They do not dress, +or if they are women undress, for their music as do we; their music +dresses for them. They come, most of them, in the clothes that they +have worn all day, each quidlibet induitus. They have many of them a +meal of meat, bread, and beer during the long pause between two of the +acts, always provided for this purpose. Some of them bring little bags +with their own provisions, and only buy a glass of beer. They are +solemnly attentive, an educated and experienced audience there for a +purpose, and not to be trifled with, the most competently critical +audience in the world. I wonder as I look at them whether the fact +that they have no backs to their heads, emphasized nowadays by the +fact that many men wear their hair clipped close to the head, and no +chins (the lack of chins in Germany is almost a national peculiarity) +has any physiological or psychological relation to their prowess in, +and love of, and critical appreciation of, the more nebulous arts: +music, poetry, philosophy, and the serious drama. + +They are as adamant in their observance of the rules in such matters. +More than once I arrived at the opera a few minutes late, once four +minutes late, the doors are closed and guarded, and I listen to the +overture from the outside. At a concert led by the famous von Bülow +half a dozen women come in after the music has begun, rustling, +sibilant, and excited. The music stops, the great conductor turns to +glare at them, and, referring to the geese which are said to have +saved Rome by their hissing, thunders: "Hier ist kein Capitol zu +retten!" + +There are some forty thousand professional musicians in Germany. The +town council of Berlin is now discussing gravely the sum to be +allotted to the support of the Symphony Orchestra, and Charlottenburg +is building an opera house of its own, and Spandau a theatre; and +there has just been formed in Berlin a "Society of the German +Artistes' Theatre," with a capital of $200,000, which is a project +along the general lines of the Comédie Française. The discussions and +arguments relating to these municipal expenditures, as I read them in +the newspapers, are all based upon the assumption that the people have +a right to good and cheap music, just as they have a right to good and +cheap beer and bread. + +At Düsseldorf one of the theatres, managed by a woman, and supported +by the best people in the town, is not only a playhouse, but a school +for actors, and a proving-ground for the drama. It is a treat indeed +to attend the performances there. We have tried similar things in +America, but with sad results. Fifty millionaires, no one of whom had +ever read the text of a serious play in his life, build a temple for +the drama, but there are no plays, no actors, no audience, nothing is +accomplished. There is no critical body of real lovers of the drama, +and there are no cheap seats, and there is still that fatuous notion +that exclusiveness, except in the trifling matter of physical +propinquity, can be bought with dollars. + +The only impenetrably exclusive thing in the world is intellect, he is +the only aristocrat left in these democratic days, and we are not +devoting much attention as yet to his breeding. We do not realize that +the only valuable democrat must be an aristocrat. "Culture seeks to do +away with classes and sects; to make the best that has been thought +and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an +atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it +uses them itself, freely; nourished and not bound by them. This is the +social idea; and the men of culture are the true apostles of +equality." + +In Germany there are more men of culture per thousand of the +population than in any other land, but they rule the country not by +"sweetness and light," but by force. This seems at first a +contradiction. It is not. Religion, life, and love are all savage +things. Because we have known men who preach but do not believe; men +who breathe and walk who have not lived; men who protest but who have +not loved, we are prone to think of religion, life, and love as soft. +We have conquered and chastened so much of nature: the air, the water, +the bowels of the earth that we fool ourselves with thinking that +culture also is tame, that religion, life, and love are tame too. +Savage things they are! You may know them by that! If you find them +nice, vivacious, amusing, amenable, be sure that they are forgeries. + +This is the profound fallacy underlying the present-day economic peace +propagandism, whose heaviest underwriter, Mr. Carnegie, is, by the +way, an agnostic. While there is faith there will be fighting. Do away +with either and society would crumble. What the Puritans did for us, +the Prussians have done for Germany. They have fought, are fighting, +and will fight for their faith. Though they have many unpleasant +characteristics, this is their most admirable quality. They believe in +an aristocracy of culture with a right to rule. Goethe said of Luther +that he threw back the intellectual progress of mankind by centuries, +by calling in the passions of the multitude to decide on subjects that +ought to have been left to the learned. This is a good example of +imitation culture. This is very much the view that Mr. Balfour holds +in regard to Cromwell. But Luther and Bismarck made Germany. The one +taught Germany to bark, the other taught Germany to bite. The great +deliverers of the world came, not to bring peace, but a sword. + +When you leave the drab crowd in the streets, and enter the houses of +the real rulers of Germany, the contrast between the aristocrat and +the plebeian is nowhere so outstanding. I have seen no finer-looking +specimens of mankind in face and figure and manner than the best of +these men. If you stroll though the halls of the Krieges Academie, +where the pick of the young officers of the German army, are preparing +themselves for the examinations which admit a very small proportion of +them, to appointments on the general staff, you will be delighted with +the faces and figures, and the air of alertness and intelligence +there. And you will find as fine a type of gentlemen, in face, +manners, and figure, at their head as exists anywhere. + +There are complaints that this Prussian aristocracy is socially +exclusive, is given office both in the army and in civil life too +readily; but what an aristocracy it is! These are the men whose +families gave, often their all, to make Prussia, and then to make +Germany. Service of king and country is in their blood. They get small +remuneration for their service. There is no luxury. They spurn the +temptations of money. Hundreds and hundreds of them have never been +inside the house of a rich parvenu, nor have their women. They work as +no other servants work, they live on little, they and their women and +children; and you may count yourself happily privileged if they permit +you the intimacy of their home life. + +Officers and gentlemen there are, living on two thousand five hundred +dollars a year, and most of them on much less, and their wives, as +well born as themselves, darning their socks and counting the pfennigs +with scrupulous care. These are the women whose ancestors flung +themselves against the Roman foe, beside their husbands and brothers; +these are the women who gave their jewels to save Prussia; these are +the women, with the glint of steel and the light of summer skies +braided in their eyes, who have taken their hard, self-denying part in +making Prussia, and the German Empire. No wonder they despise the mere +money-maker, no wonder they will have none of his softness for +themselves, and hate what Milton calls "lewdly pampered luxury," as a +danger to their children. They know well the moral weapons that won +for this starved, and tormented, and poverty-stricken land its present +place in the world as a great power. + +"And as the fervent smith of yore + Beat out the glowing blade, +Nor wielded in the front of war + The weapons that he made, +But in the tower at home still plied + His ringing trade; + +"So like a sword the son shall roam + On nobler missions sent; +And as the smith remained at home + In peaceful turret pent, +So sits the while at home the mother + Well content." + +I, convinced democrat that I am, know very well that there are, and +always have been, and always will be aristocrats, for there is no +national salvation without them anywhere in the world. The aristocrats +are the same everywhere, no matter what their distinctions of title, +or whether they have none. They are those who believe that they owe +their best to God and to men, and they serve. Likewise the plebeians +are the same all over the world; whatever their presumptions or +denials, they believe that they are here to get what they can out of +God and men, and they take far more than they give. + +Perhaps no feature of German life is so little known, so little +understood, as this simple-living, proud, and exclusive caste, who +have made, and still protect and guard, Prussia and Germany. They say: +"We made Prussia and Germany, and we intend to guard them, both from +enemies at home and from enemies abroad!" My admiration for these men +and women is so unbounded, that I would no more carry criticism with +me into their homes, than I would carry mud into a sanctuary. + +They have done much for Germany, but the best, perhaps, of all is that +they have made economy and simple living feasible and even +fashionable; they have made talent aristocratic; they have insisted +that social life shall be founded on service and breeding and ability. +They will have no dealings with Herr Muller, the rich shopkeeper, but +whatever name the distinguished artist, or public servant, or man of +science, or young giant in any field of intellectual prowess may bear, +he is welcomed. In general this welcome given by German society to +talent holds good. There is, however, a society composed of the great +landed proprietors, who live in the country, who come to Berlin +rarely, and whose horizon is limited severely to their own small +interests, their restricted circle, and by their provincial pride. +They recognize nobody but themselves, for the reason that they know +nobody and nothing else. There is an exclusiveness born of stupidity, +just as there is an exclusiveness born of a sense of duty to one's +position and traditions in the world. One must recognize that this +side of social life exists in Germany just as it exists in England, +and France, and Austria, but it is fast losing its importance and its +power. + +One hears it lamented that society is changing, that the rich Jew and +the rich gentile are received where twenty-five years ago the social +portals were shut against them, and that many go to their houses who +would not have gone not many years ago. My experience is too slender +to weigh these matters in years; my contention is only that, from an +American or English stand-point, their social life is notably simple, +and still largely founded on merit and service, rather than upon the +means to provide luxury. + +Though there are thousands of people received at court each year, this +does not mean that they are invited to the more intimate parties of +those in court control. They are tolerated, not welcomed. Such people +are invited to the court ball, but never thought of, even, as guests +at the small supper party of, say, a court official later in the +evening. Prussia and Germany are still ruled socially and politically +by a small group of, roughly, fifty thousand men, eight thousand of +them in the frock-coat of the civilian official, and the rest in +military uniforms. Added to this must be named a few great financiers, +shipping and mining and industrial magnates, and great land-owners, +and less than half a dozen journalists, and as many professors. + +According to the census there are in all only 720 persons in Berlin +with incomes of more than $25,000 a year, and 521 of these have +between $25,000 and $60,000 a year, leaving a very small number, indeed, +with incomes adequate, from an American point of view, for extravagant +social expenditure. Of these 200, probably not 50 are figures in the +social life of the capital. It may be seen at once, therefore, that +entertaining cannot be on a lavish or spectacular scale. + +The minister of foreign affairs and the imperial minister of the +interior receive salaries of 36,000 marks, with 14,000 marks +additional for expenses. The Prussian ministers have the same. Other +ministers receive 30,000 marks and 14,000 additional for expenses. The +chancellor of the empire receives 36,000 marks and 64,000 additional +for expenses. The highest receivable pension is three-fourths of the +salarynot counting the additional sum for expenses, or, as it is +named, Repräsentationsaufwand--after forty years of service. The +foreign ambassadors to the more expensive capitals, London, Paris, +Washington, Saint Petersburg, receive 150,000 marks a year. Where one +has seen something of the innumerable demands upon the income of a +foreign ambassador, one is the more amazed that a great democracy like +ours should so restrict the salaries of its representatives abroad +that only rich men dare undertake the duty. What could be more +undemocratic! + +Germany is a rich, very rich, country in the sense that it has the +most intelligent, hardest-working, most fiercely economical, and the +most rationally and most easily contented population of any of the +great powers. But Germany is not rich in surplus and liquid capital as +compared with England, France, or America. It is the more to her +credit that her capital is all hard at work. There is just so much +less for luxury. The people in the streets; the shop-windows; the +scale of charges at places of public resort and amusement; the very +small number of well-turned-out private vehicles; the comparatively +few people who live in houses and not in apartments; the simplicity of +the gowns of the women, and their inexpensive jewelry and other +ornaments; the fewer servants; the salaries and wages of all classes, +point decisively to plain living on the part of practically everybody. +Let me say very emphatically, however, that this economy means no lack +of generosity. I doubt if there are people anywhere so restricted as +to means, and so delightfully hospitable at the same time. Berlin is +not as yet under that cloud that covers the new, uncultivated, and +rich society in America, that tyranny of money which makes men and +women fearful of being without it. Such people shiver at the bare +thought of losing what money will buy, for the shameful reason that +then there would be nothing left to them; and they are driven, many of +them, both in London and in New York, to any humiliation, often to any +degradation, to avoid it. They grossly overrate the value of money, +and they exaggerate the terrors of being without it. + +Professor William James, who succeeded in analyzing what is at the +back of men's brains as well as anybody, writes: "We have grown +literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one who elects to be poor +in order to simplify and save his inner life. We have lost the power +of even imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have +meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, +the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do, and +not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment +irresponsibly--the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting +shape.
It is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the +educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our +civilization suffers." They suffer from this malady less in Germany +than in America or in England. I should like to introduce such people +into dozens of households in Berlin; alas, they could not speak or +understand the moral or mental language there, where there is +everything that makes a home's heart beat proudly and peaceably, +except money. "La prospérité découvre les vices, et l'adversité les +vertus." + +These people need no tribute from me, and for their hospitality and +friendliness I can make no adequate return. I sigh to think that we in +America know so little of them. Germany would not be where she is +without them; and I offer them as an example to my countrymen, and to +my countrywomen especially, as showing what self-sacrifice and +simplicity, and loyal service can do for a nation in times of stress; +and what high ideals and sturdy independence and contempt for luxury +can do in the dangerous days of prosperity. Unadvertised, unheralded, +keeping without murmuring or envy to their own traditions, they are +here, as everywhere, the saviors of the world. + +In this great city of Berlin it may seem that I have over-emphasized +their part in the drama of the city's life. Not so! They are the +backbone of the municipal as of the national body corporate. It is no +easy industrial progress, no increasing wealth and population, no +military prowess, no isolated great leader that makes a nation or a +city. It is the men and women giving the high and unpurchasable gift +of service to the state; giving the fine example of self-sacrificing +and simple living; giving the prowess won by years of hard mental and +moral training; giving the gentle courtesy and kindly welcome of the +patrician to the stranger, who lift a nation or a city to a worthy +place in the world. Seek not for Germany's strength first in her +fleet, her army, her hordes of workers, nay, not even in her +philosophers, teachers, and musicians, though they glisten in the eyes +of all the world, for you will not find it there. It is in these quiet +and simple homes, that so few Americans and Englishmen ever enter, +that you will find the sweetness and the sternness, the indomitable +pride of service, and the self-sacrificing loyalty that won, and that +keep for Germany her place in the world. + + + +VI "A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS" + + +It can hardly be doubted that could Lord Palmerston have seen what I +have seen of the changes in Germany, he would at least have placed the +"damned," in another part of his famous sentence. These professors +have turned their prowess into channels which have given Germany, in +this scientific industrial age, a mighty grip upon something more than +theories. It may be dull reading to tell the tale of damned +professordom, but it is to Germany that we must all go to school in +these matters. + +The American chooses his university or college because it is in the +neighborhood; because his father or other relatives went there; +because his school friends are going there; on account of the prestige +of the place; sometimes, too, because one is considered more +democratic than another; sometimes, and perhaps more often than we +think, on account of the athletics; because it is large or small; or +on account of the cost. + +The German youth, owing to widely different customs and ideals, +chooses his university for other reasons. If he be of the well-to-do +classes, and his father before him was a corps student, he is likely +to go first to the university, where his father's corps will receive +him and discipline him in the ways of a corps student's life, and +rigorous ways they are, as we shall see. Young men of small means, and +who can afford to waste little time in the amusements of university +life, go at once where the more celebrated professors in their +particular line of work are lecturing. + +Few students in Germany reside +during their whole course of study at one university. The student year +is divided into two so-called semesters. The student remains, say, in +Heidelberg two years or perhaps less, and then moves on, let us say, +to Berlin, or Göttingen, or Leipsic, or Kiel, to hear lectures by +other professors, and to get and to see something of the best work in +law, theology, medicine, history, or belles-lettres, along the lines +of his chosen work. + +One can hardly say too much in praise of this +system. Many a medical, or law, or theological, or philosophical +student, or one who is going in for a scientific course in engineering +or mining, would profit enormously could he go from Harvard to Yale, +or to Johns Hopkins, or to Princeton, or to Columbia, and attend the +lectures of the best men at these and other universities. Many a man +would have gone eagerly to Harvard to hear James in philosophy, Peirce +in mathematics, Abbot in exegesis, or to read Greek with Palmer; or to +Yale to have heard Whitney in philology in my day; or now, to name but +a few, Van Dyke at Princeton, Sloane at Columbia, Wheeler at the +University of California, Paul Shorey at Chicago, and many others are +men whom not to know and to hear in one's student days is a loss. + +The German student is at a distinct advantage in this privilege of hearing +the best men at whatever university they may be. The number of +students, indeed, at particular German universities rises and falls in +a large measure according to the fame and ability of the professors +who may be lecturing there. One can readily imagine how such men as +Hegel, or Ranke, or Mommsen, who lectured at Berlin; or Liebig or +Döllinger, at Munich; or Ewald, at Göttingen; or Sybel, at Bonn; or +Leibnitz or Schlegel, in their day, or Kuno Fischer, in my day, at +Heidelberg, must have drawn students from all parts of Germany; just +as do Harnack, and Schmidt, and Lamprecht, and Adolph Wagner, +Schmoller, or Gierke, or Schiemann, or Wach, Haeckel, List, Deitsch, +Hering, or Verworm, in these days. Though the German professors are +somewhat hampered by the fact that they are servants of the state, and +their opinions therefore on theological, political, and economic +matters restricted to the state's views, they are free as no other +teachers in the world to exploit their intellectual prowess for the +benefit of their purses. Each student pays each professor whose +lectures he attends, and as a result there are certain professors in +Germany whose incomes are as high as $50,000 a year. + +Even in intellectual matters state control produces the inevitable state +laziness and indifference. One could tell many a tale of professors +who arrive late at their lecture-rooms, who read slowly, who give just +as little matter as they can, in order to make their prepared work go +as far as possible. Some of them, too, read the same lectures over and +over again, year after year, quite content that they have made a +reputation, gained a fixed tenure of their positions, and are sure of +a pension. + +There are twenty-one universities in Germany, with another +already provided for this year in Frankfort, and practically the +equivalent of a university in Hamburg. The total number of students is +66,358, an increase since 1895 of 37,791. Geographically speaking, one +has the choice between Kiel, Königsberg, and Berlin in the north, +Munich in the south, Strassburg on the boundaries of France, or +Breslau in Silesia. At the present writing Berlin has 9,686 students, +and some 5,000 more authorized to attend lectures, over half of them +grouped under the general heading "Philosophy"; next comes Munich with +7,000, nearly 5,000 of them grouped under the headings "Jurisprudence" +and "Philosophy"; then Leipsic with 5,000; then Bonn with 4,000; and +last in point of numbers Rostock with 800 students. There are now some +1,500 women students at the German universities, but a total of 4,500 +who attend lectures, and Doctor Marie Linden at the beginning of 1911 +was appointed one of the professors of the medical faculty at Bonn, +but the appointment was vetoed by the Prussian ministry. + +In addition to the universities is the modern development of the technical +high-schools, of which there are now eleven, one each in Berlin, Dresden, +Braunschweig, Darmstadt, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Munich, Stuttgart, +Danzig, Aix, and Breslau. These schools have faculties of +architecture, building construction, mechanical engineering, +chemistry, and general science, including mathematics and natural +science. They confer the degree of Doctor of Engineering, and admit +those students holding the certificate of the Gymnasium, +Realgymnasium, and Oberrealschule. They rank now with the +universities, and their 17,000 students may fairly be added to the +grand total number of German students, making 83,000 in all, and if to +this be added the 4,000 unmatriculated students, we have 87,000. + +While the population of Germany has increased 1.4 per cent. in the last +year, the number of students has increased 4.6 per cent. and of the +total number 4.4 per cent. are women. Since the founding of the empire +the population has increased from 40,000,000 to 65,000,000, but the +number of students has increased from 18,000 to 60,000. The teaching +staffs in the universities number 3,400, and in the technical +high-schools 753, or, roughly, there are, in the higher-education +department of Germany, nearly 90,000 persons engaged; as these figures +do not include officials and many unattached teachers and students +indirectly connected with the universities. There are in addition +agricultural high-schools, agricultural institutes, and technical +schools such as veterinary high-schools, schools of mining, forestry, +architecture and building, commercial schools, schools of art and +industry; a naval school at Kiel; a colonial institute at Hamburg, +with sixty professors and tutors, where men are trained for colonial +careers, and which serves also the purpose of distributing information +of all kinds regarding the colonies; there are 400 schools which +prepare for a business career, with 50,000 pupils, and the Socialists +in Berlin maintain an academy for the instruction of their paid +secretaries and organizers in the rudiments and controversial points +of socialism, military academies at Berlin and Munich, besides some 50 +schools of navigation, and 20 military and cadet institutions. There +are also courses of lectures, given under the auspices of the German +foreign office, to instruct candidates for the consular service in the +commercial and industrial affairs of Germany. + +At several of the +universities evening extension lectures are given, an innovation first +tried at Leipsic, where more than seven thousand persons paid small +fees to attend the lectures in a recent year. + +If one considers the +range of instruction from the Volkschulen and Fortbildungsschulen up +through the skeleton list I have mentioned to the universities, and +then on beyond that to the thousands still engaged as students in the +commerce and industry of Germany, as, for example, the technically +employed men in the Krupp Works at Essen, or the Color Works at +Elberfeld, to mention two of hundreds, it is seen that Germany is gone +over with a veritable fine-tooth comb of education. There is not only +nothing like it, there is nothing comparable to it in the world. If +training the minds of a population were the solution of the problems +of civilization, they are on the way to such solution in Germany. +Unfortunately there is no such easy way out of our troubles for +Germany or for any other nation. Some of us will live to see this +fetich of regimental instruction of everybody disappear as astrology +has disappeared. There is a Japanese proverb which runs, "The bottom +of lighthouses is very dark." + +As early as 1717 Frederick William I in +an edict commanded parents to send their children to school, daily in +summer, twice a week in winter. Frederick the Great at the close of +the Seven Years' War, 1764, insisted again upon compulsory school +attendance, and prescribed books, studies, and discipline. At the +beginning of the nineteenth century began a great change in the +primary schools due to the influence of Pestalozzi, and in the +secondary schools owing to the efforts of Herder, Frederic August +Wolf, William Humboldt, and Sünern. Humboldt was the Prussian minister +of education for sixteen months. In 1809 he sent a memorial to the +King, urging the establishment and endowment of a university in +Berlin. He used his authority and his great influence to further +higher and secondary education, and fixed the main lines of action +which were followed for a century. He hoped that a liberal education +of his countrymen would make for both an intellectual and moral +regeneration, and emancipate the people from their sluggish obedience +to conventionality. The schools then were part of the ecclesiastical +organization and have never ceased to be so wholly, and until recently +the title of the Prussian minister has been: "Minister of +Ecclesiastical Affairs, Instruction, and Medical Affairs." That part +of the minister's title, "Medical Affairs," has within the last few +months been eliminated. + +The French Revolution, and the dismemberment +of Prussia at Tilsit, put a stop to orderly progress. Stein and his +colleagues, however, started anew; students were sent to Switzerland +to study pedagogical methods; provincial school-boards were +established, and about 1850 all public-school teachers were declared +to be civil servants; and later, in 1872, during Bismarck's campaign +against the Jesuits, all private schools were made subject to state +inspection. In Prussia to-day no man or woman may give instruction +even as a governess or private tutor, without the certificate of the +state. + +This control of education and teaching by a central authority +is an unmixed blessing. In Prussia, at any rate, the officials are +hard-working, conscientious, and enthusiastic, and the system, whether +one gives one's full allegiance to it or not, is admirably worked out. +Above all, it completely does away with sham physicians, sham doctors +of divinity, sham engineers, and mining and chemical experts, sham +dentists and veterinary surgeons, who abound in our country, where +shoddy schools do a business of selling degrees and certificates of +proficiency in everything from exegesis to obstetrics. These fakir +academies are not only a disgrace but a danger in America, and here, +as in other matters, Germany has a right to smile grimly at certain of +our hobbledehoy methods of government. + +The elementary schools, or +Volkschulen, are free, and attendance is compulsory from six to +fourteen; in addition, the Fortbildungsschulen, or continuation +schools, can also be made compulsory up to eighteen years of age. +There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools with over +10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private elementary schools with 42,000 +pupils who pay fees. + +Under a regulation of the Department of Trade and +Industry, towns with more than twenty thousand inhabitants are +empowered to make their own rules compelling commercial employees +under eighteen to attend the continuation schools a certain number of +hours monthly, and fining employers who interfere with such +attendance. It has even been suggested that this law be extended to +include girls. + +In Berlin this has already been put into operation, and +this year some 30,000 girls will be compelled to attend continuation +schools, where they will be taught cooking, dress-making, laundry +work, house-keeping economy, and for those who wish it, office work. +It will require some training even to pronounce the name of this new +institution, which requires something more than the number of letters +in the alphabet to spell it, for it has this terrifying title: +Mädchenpflicht-fortbildungsschule. + +The work in these Pflichtfortbildungsschulen, or compulsory +continuation schools, is practical and thorough. The boys are from +fourteen to eighteen years of age, and are obliged to attend three +hours twice a week. Shopkeepers and others, employing lads coming +under the provisions of the law, are obliged by threat of heavy fines +to send them. The boys pay nothing. There are some 34,000 of such +pupils under one jurisdiction in Berlin, and the cost to the city is +$300,000 annually. The curriculum includes letter-writing, book- +keeping, exchange, bank-credits, checks and bills, the duty of the +business man to his home, to the city, and to his fellow business men, +his legal rights and duties, and, in great detail, all questions of +citizenship. Methods of the banks, stock exchange, and insurance +companies are explained. The business man's relations in detail to the +post-office, the railways, the customs, canals, shipping agencies are +dealt with. The investigation of credits and the general management +from cellar to attic of what we call a "store" are taught, and +lectures are given upon business ethics and family relations and +morals. + +In towns where factories are more common than shops there are +schools similar in kind, as at Dortmund, for example, where you may +begin with horse-shoeing in the cellar, and go up through the work of +carpenter, mason, plumber, sign-painter, poster-designer, to the +designing of stained-glass windows and the modelling of animals and +men. + +In the strictly agricultural districts of Prussia the number of +courses open to those who work upon the land has steadily increased. +In 1882 there were 559 courses of instruction and 9,228 pupils; in +1902, 1,421 such courses and 20,666 pupils; and in 1908, 3,781 courses +and 55,889 pupils. About five per cent. of the cost of such +instruction, which cost the state 566,599 marks in 1908, is paid by +the fees of the pupils themselves. + +To those interested in ways and +means it may serve a purpose to say that the total cost of these +elementary schools amounts to $130,715,250 a year, of which the +various state governments pay $37,500,000 and local authorities the +rest. In 1910 the city of Berlin spent $9,881,987 on its schools. The +average cost per pupil is $13.50. In some of the towns of different +classes of population that I have visited the number of pupils per 100 +inhabitants stands as follows: Berlin, 11.1; Essen, 16.5; Dortmund, +16; Düsseldorf, 13.2; Charlottenburg, 9; Duisburg, 16.7; Oberhausen, +17.7; Bielefeld, 14.7; Bonn, 11.1; Cologne, 13.1. + +There are 170,000 +teachers in these elementary schools, of whom 30,000 are women. They +begin with $250 a year, which is raised to $300 when they are given a +fixed position. By a graduated scale of increase a teacher at the age +of forty-eight (when he may retire) may receive a maximum of $725. A +woman teacher's salary would vary from $300 to $600 as the maximum. +These figures are for Prussia. In other states of the empire, in +Bavaria and Saxony, for example, the scale of salaries is somewhat +higher. + +The secondary schools are the well-known Gymnasien and +Progymnasien, the Realgymnasien, and the Realschulen. Roughly the +Gymnasien prepare for the universities, and the Realschulen for the +technical schools. Admission to the universities and to any form of +employment under the civil service demands a certificate from one or +another of these secondary schools. + +In 1890, two years after the +present Emperor came to the throne, he called together a conference of +teachers and in an able speech suggested that these secondary schools +devote more time and attention to technical training. As a result of +this, the certificates of the Realgymnasien and Realschulen are now +received as equivalent to those conferred by the Gymnasien, where +Latin and Greek are, as they were then, still paramount. + +Of these +secondary schools some are state schools; others are municipal or +trade-supported schools; some are private institutions; but all are +amenable to the rules, organization, and curricula approved by the +state. All secondary and elementary teachers must meet the +examinational requirements of the state, which fixes a minimum salary +and contributes thereto. In the universities and technical high- +schools all professors are appointed by the state, and largely paid by +the state as well. In the year 1910 the German Empire expended under +the general heading of elementary instruction $130,715,250. Prussia +alone spent $60,424,325; Bavaria, $8,955,825 (though nearly $750,000 +of this total went for building and repairs for both churches and +schools); Baden, $4,176,075; Saxony, $4,573,250; the free city of +Hamburg, $5,561,900. The total expenditures of the empire and of the +states of the empire combined in 1910 amounted to $2,225,225,000; of +this, as we have seen, more than $130,000,000 went for instruction and +allied uses; $198,748,775 was the cost of the army; and $82,362,650 +the cost of the navy, not counting the extraordinary expenditures for +these two arms of the service, which amounted to $5,624,775 for the +army, and $28,183,125 for the navy. The total expenditure of the +Fatherland for schools, army, and navy amounted, therefore, to one- +fifth of the total, or $416,108,225. + +I have grouped these expenditures +together for the reason, that I am still one of those who remain +distrustful and disdainful of the Carnegie holy water, and a firm +believer that the two best schools in Germany, or anywhere else where +they are as well conducted as there, are the army and the navy. Even +if they were not schools of war, they would be an inestimable loss to +the country were they no longer in existence as manhood-training +schools. This is the more clear when it is remembered that, according +to the army standard, both the German peasant and the urban dweller +are steadily deteriorating. In ten years the percentage of physically +efficient men in the rural districts decreased from 60.5 to 58.2 per +cent., and this decrease is even more marked in particular provinces. +Infant mortality, despite better hygienic conditions and more +education, has not decreased, and in some districts has increased; +while the birth-rate, especially in Prussia and Thuringia, has fallen +off as well. For the whole of Germany, the births to every thousand of +the inhabitants were, in 1876, 42.63; in 1891, 38.25; in 1905, 34; and +in 1909, 31.91. In Berlin the births per thousand in 1907 were 24.63 +and in 1911 only 20.84. + +The observer who cares nothing for statistics, +who rambles about in the district of Leipsic, Chemnitz, Riesa, +Oschatz, and in the mountainous district of southeast Saxony, may see +for himself a population lacking in size, vigor, and health, +noticeably so indeed. Education at one end turning out an unwholesome, +"white-collared, black-coated proletariat," as the Socialists call +them; and industry and commerce, which even tempt the farmer to sell +what he should keep to eat, at the other, are making serious inroads +upon the health and well-being of the population. + +The Chancellor, von +Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking in the Reichstag February 11, 1911, said: +"The fear that we may not be working along the right lines in the +education of our youth is a cause of great anxiety to many people in +Germany. We shall not solve this problem by shunning it!" + +Many social +economists hold that higher education is unfitting numbers of young +men from following the humbler pursuits, while at the same time it is +not making them as efficient as are their ambitions; and such men are +recognized as the most potent chemical in making the milk of human +kindness to turn sour. At a meeting of the Goethebund this year, +advocating school reform, it was evident that many intelligent men in +Germany were not satisfied with present methods of education, which +were characterized as wasting energy in mechanical methods of +teaching, and so robbing youth of its youth. It is beginning to be +understood in Germany, as it has been understood by wise men in all +ages, that "to spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them +too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their +rules is the humour of the scholar." This commentary of Bacon should +be on the walls of every school and university in Germany. An +education can do nothing more for a man than to make him less fearful +of what he does not know, and to save him from the vulgarity of being +pre-empted wholly by the present, because he knows something of the +past. You cannot educate a man to be a poet or a preacher or a +pianist; that we know. We are only just discovering that the much-lauded +technical education will not make him an engineer or a +shipbuilder or an architect. You may give him the tools and the +elementary rules, but the rest he must do himself. Nine-tenths of the +technically educated men to-day are working for men who were liberally +educated, or who educated themselves. Germany is producing a race of +first-rate clerks and skilled mechanics, who are working hard to +enrich the Jews. + +In America, it is true, we have gone ahead along +educational lines. In 1800, it is said, the average adult American had +82 days of school attendance; in 1900, 146 days. In the last quarter +of a century our secondary schools have increased in number from 1,400 +to 12,000; and during the last eighteen years the proportion of our +youth receiving high-school instruction has doubled, and attendance at +American colleges has increased 400 per cent. while the population +increased by 100 per cent. But education is by no means so strenuous +as in Germany. The hours are shorter, holidays longer, standards +lower, and the emphasis far less insistent. A boy who has not the +mental energy to pass the entrance examinations at Harvard, for +instance, and proceed to a degree there, ought to be drowned, or to +drown himself. I would not say as much of the requirements in Germany, +for they are far more severe. Prince von Hohenlohe in his memoirs +gives an account of a conversation between the Emperor, the Emperor's +tutor, and himself. The Emperor was regretting the severity of the +examinations in the secondary schools, and it was replied to him that +this was the only way to prevent a flood of candidates for the civil +service! + +There is another all-important factor in Germany bearing upon +this point. A boy must have passed into the upper section of the class +before the last, "Secunda," as it is called, or have passed an +equivalent examination, in order to serve one year instead of three in +the army. To be an Einjähriger is, therefore, in a way the mark of an +educated gentleman. The tales of suicide and despair of school-boys in +Germany are, alas, too many of them true; and it is to be remembered +that not to reach a certain standard here means that a man's way is +barred from the army and navy, civil service, diplomatic or consular +service, from social life, in short. The uneducated man of position in +Germany does not exist, cannot exist. This is, therefore, no phantom, +but a real terror. The man of twenty-five who has not won an education +and a degree faces a blank wall barring his entrance anywhere; and +even when, weaponed with the necessary academic passport, he is +permitted to enter, he meets with an appalling competition, which has +peopled Germany with educated inefficients who must work for next to +nothing, and who keep down the level of the earnings of the rest +because there is an army of candidates for every vacant position. On +the other hand, the industries of Germany have bounded ahead, because +the army of chemists and physicists of patience, training, and +ability, who work for small salaries provide them with new and better +weapons than their rivals. + +There are two sides to this question of +fine-tooth-comb education. Its advantages both America and England are +seeing every day in these stout rivals of ours; but its disadvantages +are not to be concealed, and are perhaps doing an undermining work +that will be more apparent in the future than now it is. The very fact +that an alien, an oriental race, the Jews, have taken so +disproportionate a share of the cream of German prosperity, and have +turned this technical prowess to purposes of their own, is, in and of +itself, a sure sign that there may be an educated proletariat working +slavishly for masters whom, with all their learning and all their +mental discipline, they cannot force to abdicate. + +Strange to say, the +federal constitution of 1871, which gave Germany its emperor, did not +include the schools, and each state has its own school system, but in +1875 an imperial school commission was formed which has done much to +make the system of all the states uniform. + +The three classes of +schools recognized as leading later to a university career are the +Gymnasium, in which Latin and Greek are still the fundamental +requirements; the Realgymnasium, in which Latin but no Greek is +required; the Oberrealschule, in which the classics are not taught at +all, but emphasis is laid upon modern languages and natural science. +In addition to these there are the so-called Reformschulen, of very +recent growth, which are an attempt to put less emphasis upon the +classics, but without excluding them entirely from the course, and to +pay more attention proportionately to modern languages, French in +particular. There are in addition some four hundred public and one +thousand or more private higher girls' schools, with an attendance of +a quarter of a million, all subject to state supervision. + +If one were to make a genealogical tree of the German schools which +educate the children from the age of six up to the age of entrance to +the university, it might be described as follows: First are the +Volkschulen, which every child must attend from six to fourteen. In +the smaller country schools the children of all ages may be in one +school-room and under one teacher; in another, divided into two +classes; in another, into three or four classes; up to the large city +schools, in which they are divided on account of their number into as +many as eight classes. Next would come the Mittelschulen, where the +pupils are carried on a year farther, and where the last year +corresponds to the first year of the so-called Lehrerbildungsanstalten, +or training schools for teachers. These again are divided into two, one +called Praeparanda, the other Seminar, the former carrying the pupil on +to his sixteenth year, the latter to the nineteenth year and turning him +out a full-fledged Volkschule teacher, and giving him the right to serve +only one year in the army. + +If boy or girl goes on from the fourteenth year, the höhere +Knabenschulen and the höhere Mädchenschulen take them on to the +eighteenth or nineteenth year. Many boys go on till they have passed +from the lower Secunda, next to the last class, which is divided into +upper and lower Secunda, into the upper Secunda, when their certificate +entitles them to serve one year only in the army, when they quit school. +Many boys, too, intending to become officers, leave school at sixteen or +seventeen and go to regular cramming institutions, where they do their +work more quickly and devote themselves to the special subjects +required. For boys intending to go on through the higher schools, there +are schools taking them on from the age of nine, with a curriculum +better adapted than that of the Volkschulen to that end. + +In all these higher schools there is less attention paid to mere +examinations, and more attention paid to the general grip the pupils +have on the work in hand; and of the teaching, as mentioned elsewhere, +too much cannot be said in its praise. + +For those boys who finish their public schooling at the age of +fourteen and then turn to earning their living, there are the +continuation schools, which are in many parts of the country +compulsory, and which are nicely adapted, according to their situation +in shopkeeping cities, in factory towns, or in the country, to give +the pupils the drilling and instruction necessary for their particular +employment. The average amount of expenditure for these continuation +schools is $6,250,000. In Prussia there are some 1,500 of these +schools, with an average attendance of 300,000 pupils. + +According to the last census the proportion of illiterates among the +recruits for the army was 0.02 per cent. The number of those who could +neither read nor write in Germany was, in 1836, 41.44 per cent.; in +1909, 0.01 per cent. If one were to name all the agricultural schools; +technical schools; schools of architecture and building; commercial +schools, for textile, wood, metal, and ceramic industries; art +schools; schools for naval architecture and engineering and +navigation; and the public music schools, it would be seen that it is +no exaggeration to speak of fine-tooth-comb education. + +I have visited +scores of all sorts of schools all over Germany, from a peasant common +school in Posen up to that last touch in education, the schools in +Charlottenburg, the Schulpforta Academy, and such a private boys' +school as Die Schülerheim-Kolonie des Arndt-Gymnasiums in the +Grünewald near Berlin, and the training schools for the military +cadets. Through the courtesy of the authorities I was permitted, when +I wished it, to sit in the class-rooms, and even to put questions to +the boys and girls in the classes. From the small boys and girls +making their first efforts at spelling to the young woman of seventeen +who translated a paragraph of the "Germania" of Tacitus, not into +German but into French, for me (a problem I offered as a good test of +whether I was merely assisting at a prepared exhibition of the prowess +of the class or whether the minds had been trained to independence), I +have looked over a wide field of teaching and learning in Germany. If +that young person was typical of the pupils of this upper girls' +school, there is no doubt of their ability to meet an intellectual +emergency of that kind. + +Of one feature of German education one can write without reservation, +and that is the teaching. Everywhere it is good, often superlatively +good, and half a dozen times I have listened to the teaching of a +class in history, in Latin, in German literature, in French +literature, where it was a treat to be a listener. I remember in +particular a class in physical geography, another reading Ovid, +another reading Shakespeare, and another reading Goethe's "Hermann and +Dorothea," where I enjoyed my half-hour, as though I had been +listening to a distinguished lecturer on his darling subject. + +We know how little these men and women teachers are paid, but there is +such a flood of intellectual output in Germany that the competition is +ferocious in these callings, and the schools can pick and choose only +from those who have borne the severest tests with the greatest +success. The teaching is so good that it explains in part the amount +of work these poor children are enabled to get through. School begins +at seven in summer, at eight in winter. The course for those intending +to go to the university is nine years; the recitation hours alone +range from twenty-five to thirty-two hours a week; to which must be +added two hours a week of singing and three hours a week of +gymnastics, and this for forty-two weeks in the year. The preparation +for class-work requires from two and a half to four hours more. It +foots up to something like fifty hours a week! + +At Eton, in England, +the boys grumble because they only have a half-holiday every other +day, and four months of the year vacation. It will be interesting to +see which educational method is to produce the men who are to win the +next Waterloo. No wonder that nearly seventy per cent. of those who +reach the standard required of those who need serve only one year +instead of three in the army are near-sighted, and that more than +forty-five per cent. are put on one side as physically unfit. The +increase in population in Germany is so great, however, and the +candidates for the army so numerous, that the authorities are far more +strict in those they accept than in France, for example. There is more +manhood material for the German army and navy every year than is +needed. + +In the first year of the nine-years' course in a Gymnasium the +25 hours a week are divided: religion, 3 hours; German, 4 hours; +Latin, 8 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; natural +science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year: religion, 2 +hours; German, 3 hours; Latin, 7 hours; Greek, 6 hours--Greek is +begun in the fourth year; French, 3 hours--French is begun in the +third year; history, 3 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; natural science, 2 +hours. + +In the first year in a Realgymnasium: religion, 3 hours; German, 4 +hours; Latin, 8 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; +natural science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year of the +course: religion, 2 hours; German, 3 hours; Latin, 4 hours; French +begun in third year--4 hours; English--begun in fourth year--3 +hours; mathematics, 5 hours; natural science, 5 hours; drawing, 2 +hours. + +In the first year in an Oberrealschule: religion, 3 hours; German, 5 +hours; French, 6 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 5 hours; +natural science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year: +religion, 2 hours; German, 4 hours; French, 4 hours; English--begun +in the fourth year--4 hours; history, 3 hours; geography, 1 hour; +mathematics, 5 hours; natural science, 6 hours; free-hand drawing +begun in the second year--2 hours. + +It may be seen from these schedules where the emphasis is laid in each +of these schools. So far as results are concerned, the pupils about to +leave for the universities seemed to me to know their Latin, Greek, +French, German, and English, and their local and European history +well. Their knowledge of Latin and of either French or English, +sometimes of both, is far superior to anything required of a student +entering any college or university in America. I have asked many +pupils to read passages at sight in Latin, French and English in +schools in various parts of Germany and there is no question of the +grip they have upon what they have been taught. I am, alas, not a +scholar, and can only judge of the requirements and of the training +and its results in subjects where I am at home; and I must take it for +granted that these boys and girls are as well trained in other +subjects where I am incapable of passing judgment. It is improbable, +however, that the same thoroughness does not characterize their work +throughout the whole curriculum. The examination at the end of the +secondary-school period, called Abiturienten-examen, is more thorough +and covers a wider range than any similar examination in America. It +is a test of intellectual maturity. It permits no gaps, covers a wide +ground, leaves no subject dropped on the way, and sends a man or woman +to the university, with an equipment entirely adequate for such +special work as the individual proposes to undertake. + +It seemed to me that in many class-rooms the ventilation was +distinctly bad, but here too I must admit an exaggerated love for +fresh air, born of my own love of out-door exercise. + +There are practically no schools in Germany like the public schools +for boys in England, and our own private schools for boys, like Saint +Paul's, Groton, Saint Mark's, and others, where the training of +character and physique are emphasized. Here again I admit my prejudice +in favor of such education. I should be made pulp, indeed, did I try +to run through the boys of a fifth or sixth form at home, but, from +the look of them, I would have undertaken it for a wager in Germany. + +It is not their fault, poor boys. Practically the whole emphasis is +laid upon drilling the mind. Moral and physical matters are left to +the home, and in the home there are no fathers and brothers interested +in games or sport, and in this busy, competitive strife, and with the +small means at the disposal of the majority, there is no time and no +opportunity. Boys and girls seldom leave home for distant boarding-schools. +They go from home to school and from school home every day, +and have none of the advantages to be gained from intercourse with men +outside their own circles. It shows itself in a deplorable lack of +orientation as compared with our lads of the same relative standing. +In dress and bearing, in at-homeness in the world, in ability to take +care of themselves under strange conditions or in an emergency, and in +domestic hygiene they are inferior, and yet they are so competent to +push the national military, industrial, and commercial ball along as +men, that one wonders whether Bagehot's gibe at certain well-to-do +classes of the Saxons, that "they spend half their time washing their +whole persons," may not have a grain of truth in it. + +Another feature +of the school life which is prominent, especially in Prussia, is the +incessant and insistent emphasis laid upon patriotism. In every +school, almost in every class-room, is a picture of the Emperor; in +many, pictures also of his father and grandfather. Even in a municipal +lodging-house, where I found some tiny waifs and strays being taught, +there were pictures of the sovereign, and brightly colored pictures of +the war of 1870-71, generally with German personalities on horseback, +and the French as prisoners with bandages and dishevelled clothing. +This war, which began with the first movement of the German army on +August 4, and on the 2d of September next Napoleon was a prisoner; +this war, in which the German army at the beginning of operations +consisted of 384,000 officers and men and which had grown during the +truce to 630,000 on March 1; lost in killed and those who died from +wounds 28,278, of whom 1,871 were officers; this war is flaunted at +the population of Germany continually, and from every possible angle. +We hear very little of our war of 1861-1865, that cost us +$8,000,000,000 with killed and wounded numbering some 700,000. We do +not find it necessary to feed our patriotism with a nursing-bottle. + +At a kindergarten two tots, a boy and a girl, stood at the top of some +steps while the rest marched by and saluted; they later descended and +went through the motions of reviewing the others. They were playing +they were Kaiser and Kaiserin! + +Two small boys in a school-yard discussing their relative prowess as +jumpers end the discussion when one says as a final word: "Oh, I can +jump as high as the Kaiser!" + +We have noted in another article how even police sergeants must be +familiar with the history of the House of Hohenzollern. + +I am an admirer of Germany and her Emperor, with a distinct love of +discipline and a bias in favor of military training, and with an +experience of actual warfare such as only a score or so of German +officers of my generation have had; but I am bound to say I found this +pounding in of patriotism on every side distinctly nauseating. Boys +and girls, and men and women, ought not to need to be pestered with +patriotism. We had a controversy in America some ten years before the +Franco-German War, where in one battle more men were killed and +wounded than in all the battles Prussia, and later Germany, has fought +since 1860. + +In the South, at any rate, we bear the scars and the +mourning of those days still, but nobody would be thanked for +pummelling us with patriotism. In the skirmish with Spain our military +authorities were pestered with candidates for the front. Germany +itself is not more a nation in arms than America would be at the +smallest threat of insult or aggression. But we take those things for +granted. If we have the honor to possess a medal or a decoration, the +gentlemen among us wear it only when asked to do so, or perhaps on the +Fourth of July. + +Germany is even now somewhat loosely cemented together. Their leaders +may feel that it is necessary to keep ever in the minds even of the +children, that Germany is a nation with an Emperor and a victory over +France, France in political rags and patches at the time, behind them. + +They even carry this teaching of patriotism beyond the boundaries of +Germany. The Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein zur Erhaltung des +Deutschtums im Auslande, is a society with headquarters in Berlin +devoting itself to the advancement of German education all over the +world. The society was started privately in 1886, and is now partly +supported by the state. It controls some sixteen hundred centres for +the teaching of German and German patriotism, and German learning. +There are such centres in China, South America, the United States, +Spain, and elsewhere. They number 90 in Europe, 25 in Asia, 20 in +Africa, 70 in Brazil, 40 in Argentina, and 100 in Australia and +Canada. The society is instrumental in having German taught in 5,000 +schools and academies in the United States to 600,000 pupils. The work +is not advertised, rather it is concealed so far as possible, but it +is looked upon as a valuable force for the advancement of German +interests throughout the world. + +In the schools, too, there is an enemy +of which we know nothing, and that is the active propagandism of +socialism, which is anti-military, anti-monarchical, and anti-status +quo. Leaflets and books and pamphlets are widely distributed among the +school children; many of the teachers are in sympathy with these +obstructionist methods; and the authorities may feel that they must do +what they can to combat this teaching. In Prussia, on every side, and +in the industrial towns of Saxony, one sees the evidence of this +impotent discontent expressing itself either openly or in surly malice +of speech and manner. The streets of Berlin, and of the industrial +towns, show this condition at every turn, and when the Reichstag +closes with cheers for the Emperor, the Socialist members leave in a +body before that loyal ceremony takes place. + +We in America are brought up to believe that the best cure for such +maladies is to open the wound, to give freedom of speech, to let every +boy and girl and man and woman find out for himself his citizen's path +to walk in. We have no policemen on our public platforms, no gags in +the mouths of our professors or preachers, no lurid pictures of +battles, no plastering of the walls of our schools and seminaries with +pictures of our rulers, and withal our German immigrants are perhaps +our best and most patriotic citizens. In America they think less and +do more, and for most men this is the better way. It makes life very +complicated to think too much about it. + +Self-consciousness is the prince of mental and social diseases, as +vanity is the princess, and even self-conscious patriotism seems a +little unwholesome, not quite manly, and often even grotesque. It is +easy to say: "Dic mihi si fueris tu leo, qualis eris?" and if one is a +person of no great importance, it is an embarrassing question to +answer. In this connection I can only say that I should assume that my +lionhood was taken for granted without so much roaring, bristling of +the mane, and switching of the tail. It irritates those who are +discontented, it positively infuriates the redder democrats, and it +bores the children, and, worst of all, proclaims to everybody that the +lion is not quite comfortable and at his ease. The German lion is a +fine, big fellow now, with fangs, and teeth, and claws as serviceable +as need be, and it only makes him appear undignified to be forever +looking at himself in the looking-glass. + +Whatever may be the right or wrong of these comparative methods of +training, Germans trained in the investigation of such matters agree +in telling me that the boys who come up to the universities, +especially in the large cities and towns, are somewhat lax in their +moral standards as regards matters upon which the puritan still lays +great stress. + +In Berlin particularly, where there are some thirty-five hundred +registered and nearly fifty thousand unregistered women devoting +themselves to the seemingly incompatible ends of rapidly accumulating +gold while frantically pursuing pleasure, there is an amount of +immorality unequalled in any capital in Europe. In the whole German +Empire the average of illegitimacy is ten per cent. but in Berlin the +average for the last few years is twenty per cent. Out of every five +children born in Berlin each year one is illegitimate! It is +questionable whether the increasing demands of the army and navy +require such laxity of moral methods in providing therefor. + +There is, +however, a state church in Germany with its head in Berlin, and no +doubt we may safely leave this matter in these better hands than ours. +I beg to say that in mentioning this subject I am quoting unprejudiced +scientific investigators, who, I may say, agree, without a dissenting +voice of importance, that Berlin has become the classical problem +along such lines. In the endeavor to compete with the gayeties +elsewhere, a laxity has been encouraged and permitted that has won for +Berlin in the last ten years, an unrivalled position as a purveyor of +after-dark pleasures. Berlin not only produces a disproportionate +number of such people as Diotrephes, in manners, but also a veritable +horde of those who are like unto the son of Bosor. + +After the sheltered home life and the severe discipline of the higher +schools, a German youth is permitted a freedom unknown to us at the +university. There is no record kept of how or where he spends his +time. He matriculates at one or another of the universities, and for +three, four, or, in the case of medical students, five years, he is +free to work or not to work, as he pleases. + +There are, however, three +factors that serve as bit and reins to keep him in order. The final +examination is severe, thorough, and cannot be passed successfully by +mere cramming; very few of the students have incomes which permit of a +great range of dissipation; and not to pass the examination is a +terrible defeat in life, which cuts a man off from further progress +and leaves him disgraced. + +These are forces that count, and which prevail to keep all but the +least serious within bounds. German life as a whole is so disciplined, +so fitted together, so impossible to break into except through the +recognized channels, that few men have the optimistic elasticity of +mind and spirits, the demonic confidence in themselves, that overrides +such considerations. + +We in America suffer from a superabundance of men +of aleatory dispositions, men who love to play cards with the devil, +who rejoice to wager their future, their reputation, their lives, +against the world. I admit a sneaking fondness for them. They are a +great asset, and a new country needs them, but if we have too many, +Germany has too few. They are forever crying out in Germany for +another Bismarck. Whenever in political matters, in foreign affairs, +even in their religious controversies, things go wrong, men lift their +hands and eyes to heaven and say, "How different if Bismarck were +here!" Bismarck and two of his predecessors as nation-builders were +not afraid to throw dice with the world, and what "the land of damned +professors" could not do, they did. + +When the young men from the +Gymnasium come into the freedom of university life, they toss their +heads a bit, kick up their heels, laugh long and loud at the +Philistine, but just as every German climax is incomplete without +tears, so they too are soon singing: "Ich weiss nicht was soll es +bedeuten dass ich so traurig bin!" the gloom of the Teutoburger Wald +settles down on them, and they buckle to and work with an enduring +patience such as few other men in the world display, and join the +great army here who, bitted and harnessed, are pulling the Vaterland +to the front. + +The British Empire between 1800 and 1910 grew from 1,500,000 square +miles to 11,450,000 square miles, and its trade from $400,000,000 to +$11,020,000,000; not to mention the United States of America, now +considered to be of noticeable importance, though we are universally +sneered at by the Germans, to an extent that no American dreams of who +has not lived among them, as a land of dollars, and, from the point of +view of book-learning, dullards. But it is this, none the less, that +Germany envies, and has set out to rival and if possible to surpass. +No wonder the training must be severe for the athletes who propose to +themselves such a task. + +For a semester or two, perhaps for three, the German student gives +himself up to the rollicking freedom of the corps student's life. That +life is so completely misunderstood by the foreigner that it deserves +a few words of explanation. + +I am not yet old enough to envy youth, nor sourly sophisticated enough +to deal sarcastically or even lightly with their worship and their +creeds, that once I shared, and with which lately I have been, under +the most hospitable circumstances, invited to renew my acquaintance at +the Commers and the Mensur. + +One may be no longer a constant worshipper at the shrine of blue eyes, +pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and the enshrouding mystery of skirts, which +make for curiosity and reverence in youth; one may have learned, +however, the far more valuable lesson that the best women are so much +nobler than the best men, that the best men may still kneel to the +best women; just as the worst women surpass the worst men in +consciencelessness, brutal selfishness, disloyalty, and degradation. +The female bandit in society, or frankly on the war-path outside, +takes her weapons from an armory of foulness and cruelty unknown to +men; just as the heroines and angels among women fortify themselves in +sanctuaries to which few, if any, men have the key. + +One returns, therefore, to the playground of one's youth with not less +but with more sympathy and understanding. Far from being "brutalizing +guilds," far from being mere unions for swilling and slashing, the +German corps, by their codes, and discipline, and standards of manners +and honor, are, from the chivalrous point of view, the leaven of +German student life. In these days many of them have club-houses of +their own, where they take their meals in some cases and where they +meet for their beer-drinking ceremonies. + +There is of course a wide range of expenditure by students at the +German universities, whether they are members of the corps or not. At +one of the smaller universities in a country town like Marburg, for +example, a poor student, with a little tutoring and the system of frei +Tisch--money left for the purpose of giving a free midday meal to +poor students--may scrape along with an expenditure of as little as +twenty dollars a month. A member of a good corps at this same +university is well content with, and can do himself well on, seventy +dollars a month. I have seen numbers of students' rooms, with bed, +writing-table, and simple furniture, perhaps with a balcony where for +many months in the year one may write and read, which rent for sixty +dollars a year. One may say roughly that at the universities outside +the large towns, and not including the fashionable universities, such +as Bonn or Heidelberg, the student gets on comfortably with fifty +dollars a month. They have their coffee and rolls in the morning, +their midday meal which they take together at a restaurant, and their +supper of cold meats, preserves, cheese, and beer where they will. For +seventy-five cents a day a student can feed himself. + +The hours are Aristotelian, for it was Aristotle in his "Economics," +and not a nursery rhymer, who wrote: "It is likewise well to rise +before daybreak, for this contributes to health, wealth, and wisdom." +"Early to bed and early to rise" is a classic. + +At Bonn, a member of one of the three more fashionable corps spends +far more than these sums, and his habits may be less Spartan. The +ridiculous expenditure of some of our mamma-bred undergraduates, who +go to college primarily to cultivate social relations, are unknown +anywhere in Germany, for a student would make himself unpopularly +conspicuous by extravagance. Two to three thousand dollars a year, +even at Bonn, as a member of the best corps, would be amply sufficient +and is considered an extravagant expenditure. + +When the Earl of Essex was sent to Cambridge in Queen Elizabeth's +time, he was provided with a deal table covered with baize, a truckle-bed, +half a dozen chairs, and a wash-hand basin. The cost of all this +was about $25. When students from all over Europe tramped to Paris to +hear Abelard lecture, they begged their way. They were given special +licenses as scholars to beg. Learning then, as it is still in Germany, +alone of all the nations, was considered to be a pious profession +deserving well of the world. We do not even know the names of our +scholars in America. How many Americans have heard of Gibbs, the +authority on the fundamental laws regulating the trend of +transformation in chemical and physical processes, or of Hill and his +theory of the moon, or of Hale who explains the mystery of sun spots +and measures the magnetic forces that play around the sun? How many +Frenchmen know Pierron's translation of Aeschylus, or Patin's studies +in Greek tragedies, or Charles Maguin, or Maurice Croiset, or Paul +Magou or Leconte de Lisle? while in England the mass of the people not +only do not know the names of their scholars, but distrust all mental +processes that are super-canine. + +The origin of the Landmannschaften, Burschenschaften, and the Corps +among the students dates back to the days when the students aligned +themselves with more rigidity than now, according to the various +German states from which they came. The names of the corps still bear +this suggestion, though nowadays the alignment is rather social than +geographical. The Burschenschaften societies of students had their +origin in political opposition to this separation of the students into +communities from the various states. The originators of the +Burschenschaften movement, for example, were eleven students at Jena. +Sobriety and chastity were conditions of entrance, and "Honor, +Liberty, Fatherland" were their watchwords. It was deemed a point of +honor that a member breaking his vows should confess and retire from +the society. + +The societies of the Burschenschaften are still considered to have a +political complexion and the corps proper have no dealings with them. + +In any given semester the number of students in one of these corps +varies from as few as ten, to as many as twenty-five, depending, much +as do our Greek-letter societies and college clubs, upon the number of +available men coming up to the university. Certain corps are composed +almost exclusively of noblemen, but none is distinctly a rich man's +club. + +An active member of a corps during his first two semesters may do a +certain amount of serious work, but as a rule it is looked upon as a +time "to loaf and invite one's soul," and little attempt is made to do +more. Not a few men whom I have known, have not even entered a class-room +during the two or three semesters of this blossoming period. + +I have spent many days and nights with these young gentlemen, at +Heidelberg, at Leipsic, at Marburg, at Bonn, and been made one of them +in their jollity and good-fellowship, and I have agreed, and still +agree, that "Wir sind die Könige der Welt, wir sind's durch unsere +Freude." + +They are by no means the swashbuckling, bullying, dissolute companions +painted by those who know nothing about them. They may drink more beer +than we deem necessary for health, or even for comfort; and they may +take their exercise with a form of sword practice that we do not +esteem, they may be proud of the scars of these imitation duels, but +these are all matters of tradition and taste. + +When one writes of eating and drinking, it is hardly fair to make +comparisons from a personal stand-point. An adult of average weight +requires each day 125 grams of proteid or building material, 500 grams +of carbohydrates, 50 grams of fat. This equals, in common parlance, +one pound of bread, one-half pound of meat, one-quarter pound of fat, +one pound of potatoes, one-half pint of milk, one-quarter pound of +eggs, assuming that one egg equals two ounces, and one-eighth pound of +cheese. Divided into three meals, this means: for breakfast, two +slices of bread and butter and two eggs; for dinner: one plateful +potato soup, large helping of meat with fat, four moderate-sized +potatoes, one slice bread and butter; for tea: one glass of milk and +two slices of bread and butter; for supper: two slices of bread and +butter and two ounces of cheese. + +Plain white bread supplies more caloric, or energy, for the price than +any other one food, and, with one or two exceptions, more proteid, or +building material, than any other one food. + +One to one and a half fluid ounces of alcohol is about the amount +which can be completely oxidized in the body in a day. This quantity +is contained in two fluid ounces of brandy or whiskey, five fluid +ounces of port or sherry, ten of claret or champagne or other light +wines, and twenty of bottled beer. All this means that a pint of +claret, or two glasses of champagne, or a bottle of beer, or a glass +of whiskey with some aerated water during the day will not hurt a man, +and adds perhaps to the "agreeableness of life," as Matthew Arnold +phrases it. At any rate, this table of contents is a much safer +standard of comparison, in judging the eating and drinking habits of +other people, than either your habits or mine. + +The German student probably drinks too much, and it is said by safe +authorities in Germany that his heart, liver, and kidneys suffer; but +he has been at it a long time, and in certain fields of intellectual +prowess he is still supreme, and as we only drink with him now +occasionally when he is our host, perhaps he had best be left to +settle these questions without our criticism. + +In general terms, I have always considered, as a test of myself and +others, that a healthy man is one who lies down at night without fear, +rises in the morning cheerfully, goes to a day's serious work of some +kind rejoicing in the prospect, meets his friends gayly, and loves his +loves better than himself. + +It is folly to maintain, that it does not require pluck and courage to +stand up to a swinging Schläger, and take your punishment without +flinching, and then to sit without a murmur while your wounds are sewn +up and bandaged. I cannot help my preference for foot-ball, or +baseball, or rowing, or a cross-country run with the hounds, or grouse +or pheasant shooting, or the shooting of bigger game, or the driving of +four horses, or the handling of a boat in a breeze of wind, but the +"world is so full of a number of things" that he has more audacity than +I who proposes to weigh them all in the scales of his personal +experience, and then to mark them with their relative values. + +First of all, it is to be remembered that these Schläger contests +between students are in no sense duels; a duel being the setting by +one man of his chance of life against another's chance, both with +deadly weapons in their hands. These contests with the Schläger at the +German universities, wrongly called duels, are so conducted that there +is no possibility of permanent or even very serious injury to the +combatants. The attendants who put them into their fighting harness, +the doctors who look after them during the contest and who care for +them afterward, are old hands at the game, and no mistakes are made. + +There is no feeling of animosity between the swordsmen as a rule. They +are merely candidates for promotion in their own corps who meet +candidates from other corps, and prove their skill and courage auf die +Mensur, or fighting-ground. + +When a youth joins a corps he chooses a counsellor and friend, a +Leibbursch, as he is called, from among the older men, whose special +care it is, to see to it that he behaves himself properly in his new +environment; he pledges himself to respect the traditions and +standards of the corps, and to keep himself worthy of respect among +his fellows, and among those whom he meets outside. A companionship +and guardianship not unlike this, used to exist in the Greek-letter +society to which I once belonged. He of course abides by the rules and +regulations of the order. It is a time of freedom in one sense, but it +is a freedom closely guarded, and there is rigid discipline here as in +practically all other departments of life in Germany. + +The young students, or Füchse, as they are called, are instructed in +the way they should go by the older students, or Burschen, whose +authority is absolute. This authority extends even to the people whom +they may know and consort with, either in the university or in the +town, and to all questions of personal behavior, debts, dissipation, +manners, and general bearing. In many of the corps there are high +standards and old traditions as regards these matters, and every +member must abide by them. Every corps student is a patriot, ready to +sing or fight for Kaiser and Vaterland, and socialism, even criticism +of his country or its rulers, are as out of place among them as in the +army or navy. They are particular as to the men whom they admit, and a +man's lineage and bearing and relations with older members of the +corps are carefully canvassed before he is admitted to membership. +Both the present Emperor and one of his sons have been members of a +corps. + +Let us spend a day with them. It is Saturday. We get up rather late, +having turned in late after the Commers of Friday, when the men who +are to fight the next day were drunk to, sung to, and wished good +fortune on the morrow, and sent home early. The trees are turning +green at Bonn, the shrubs are feeling the air with hesitating +blossoms, you walk out into the sunshine as gay as a lark, for the +champagne and the beer of the night before were good, and you sang +away the fumes of alcohol before you went to bed. There was much +laughter, and a speech or two of welcome for the guest, responded to +at 1 A. M. in German, French, English, and gestures with a beer-mug, +and punctuated with the appreciative comments of the company. + +It was a time to slough off twenty years or so and let Adam have his +chance, and the company was of gentlemen who sympathize with and +understand the "Alter Herr," and are only too delighted if he will let +the springs of youth bubble and sparkle for them, and glad to +encourage him to return to reminiscences of his prowess in love and +war, and ready to pledge him in bumper after bumper success in the +days to come. You might think it a carouse. Far from it. + +The ceremony is presided over by a stern young gentleman, who never +for a moment allows any member of the company to get out of hand, and +who, when a speech is to be made, makes it with grace and complete +ease of manner. Indeed, these young fellows surprise one with their +easy mastery of the art of speech-making. Even the spokesman for the +Füchse, or younger students, at the lower end of the table, rises and +pledges himself and his companions in a few graceful words, with +certain sly references to the possibility that the guest may not have +lost his appreciation of the charms of German womankind, which the +guest in question here and now, and frankly admits; but not a word of +coarseness, not a hint that totters on the brink of an indiscretion, +and what higher praise can one give to speech-making on such an +occasion! + +My particular host and introducer to his old corps is youngest of all, +and though seemingly as lavish in his potations as any one, sings his +way home with me, head as clear, legs as steady, eyes as bright, as +though it were 10 A. M. and not 2 A. M., and as though I had not +seemed to see his face during most of the evening through the bottom +of a beer-mug. + +That was the night before. The next morning we stroll over to the room +where the Schläger contests are to take place. It is packed with +students in their different-colored caps. Beer there is, of course, +but no smoking allowed till the bouts are over. + +I go down to see the men dressing for the fray. They strip to the +waist, put on a loose half-shirt half-jacket of cotton stuff, then a +heavily padded half-jerkin that covers them completely from chin to +knee. The throat is wrapped round and round with heavy silk bandages. +The right arm and hand are guarded with a glove and a heavily padded +leather sleeve; all these impervious to any sword blow. The eyes are +guarded with steel spectacle frames fitted with thick glass. Nothing +is exposed but the face and the top of the head. The exposed parts are +washed with antiseptics, as are also the swords, repeatedly during the +bout. The sword, hilt and blade together, measures one hundred and +five centimetres. There is a heavy, well-guarded hilt, and a pliable +blade with a square end, sharp as a razor on both edges for some six +inches from the end. + +The position in the sword-play is to face squarely one's opponent, the +sword hand well over the head with the blade held down over the left +shoulder. The distance between the combatants is measured by placing +the swords between them lengthwise, each one with his chest against +the hilt of his own weapon, and this marks the proper distance between +them. When they are brought in and face one another, the umpire, with +a bow, explains the situation. The two seconds with swords crouch each +beside his man, ready to throw up the swords and stop the fighting +between each bout. Two other men stand ready to hold the rather +heavily weighted sword arm of their comrade on the shoulder during the +pauses. Two others with cotton dipped in an antiseptic preparation +keep the points of the swords clean. Still another official keeps a +record in a book, of each cut or scratch, the length of time, the +number of bouts, and the result. The doctor decides when a wound is +bad enough to close the contest. + +At the word "Los!" the blades sing and whistle in the air, the work +being done almost wholly with the wrist, some four blows are +exchanged, there is a pause, then at it again, till the allotted +number of bouts are over, or one or the other has been cut to the +point where the doctor decides that there shall be no more. We follow +them downstairs again, where, after being carefully washed, the +combatants are seated in a chair one after the other, their friends +crowd around and count the stitches as the surgeon works, and comment +upon what particular twist of the wrist produced such and such a gash. + +I have seen scores of these contests, and during the last year as many +as a dozen or more. There is no record of any one ever having been +seriously injured; indeed, I doubt if there are not more men injured +by too much beer than too much sword-play. + +It is perhaps expected that the foot-ball player should sneer at bull- +fighting; the boxer at fencing; the rider to hounds at these Schläger +bouts; and that we game-players should say contemptuous things of the +contests of our neighbors. Personally, if one could eliminate the horse +from the contest, I go so far as to believe that even bull-fighting is +better than no game at all. As for these Schläger contests, they seem to +me no more brutal than our own foot-ball, which is only brutal to the +shivering crowd of the too tender who have never played it, and not so +dangerous as polo or pig-sticking, and a thousand times better than no +contest at all. + +I am not of those who believe that the human body and that human life +are the most precious and valuable things in the world. They are only +servants of the courageous hearts and pure souls that ought to be +their masters. Without training, without obedience, without the +instant willingness to sacrifice themselves for their masters, the +human body and human life are contemptible and unworthy. I claim that +it braces the mind to expose the body; that an education in the +prepared emergencies of games and sport, is the best training for the +unprepared emergencies with which life is strewn. + +The most cruel people I have ever known were gentle enough physically, +but they were hard and sour in their social relations, and often +enough called "good" by their fellows. The disappointments, losses, +sorrows, defeats, of each one of us, trouble, even though +imperceptibly, the waters of life that we all must drink of; and to +ignore or to rejoice at these misfortunes is only muddying what we +ourselves must drink. I believe the hardening of the body goes some +way toward softening the heart and cleansing the soul, and toward +fitting a man with that cheerful charity that supplies the oil of +intercourse in a creaking world of rival interests. + +To see a youth swinging a sword at his fellow's face with delighted +energy; to see a man riding off vigorously at polo; to see a man hard +at it with the gloves on; to see another flinging himself and his +horse over a wall or across a ditch; to see a man taking his nerves in +hand, to make a two-yard put for a half, when he is one down and two +to play; to see these things without seeing that--perhaps often +enough in a muddy sort of way--the soul is making a slave of the +body, that courage is mastering cowardice, that in an elementary way +the youth is learning how to give himself generously when some great +emergency calls upon him to give his life for an ideal, a tradition, a +duty, is to see nothing but brutality, I admit. Who does not know that +the Carthaginians at Cannae were one thing, the Carthaginians at Capua +another! I have therefore no acidulous effeminacy to pour upon these +German Schläger bouts. I prefer other forms of exercise, but I am a +hardened believer in the manhood bred of contests, and though their +ways are not my ways, I prefer a world of slashed faces to a world of +soft ones. + +Prosit, gentlemen! Better your world than the world of +Semitic haggling and exchange; of caution and smoothness; of the +disasters born of daintiness; of sliding over the ship's side in +women's clothes to live, when it was a moral duty to be drowned. +Better your world than any such worlds as those, for + +"If one should dream that such a world began +In some slow devil's heart that hated man, +Who should deny it?" + +Milton held that "a complete and generous education fits a man to +perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both +private and public, of peace and war." It is my opinion that the +Schläger has its part to play in this matter of education. A mind +trained to the keenness of a razor's edge, but without a sound body +controlled by a steel will, is of small account in the world. The +whole aim of education is, after all, to make a man independent, to +make the intelligence reach out in keen quest of its object, and at +its own and not at another's bidding. An education is intended to make +a man his own master, and so far as any man is not his own master, in +just so far is he uneducated. What he knows, or does not know, of +books does not alter the fact. + +Much of the pharisaism and priggishness +on the subject of education arises from the fact that the world is +divided into two camps as regards knowledge: those who believe that +the astronomer alone knows the stars, and those who believe that he +knows them best who sleeps in the open beneath them. In reality, +neither type of mind is complete without the other. + +To turn from any +theoretical discussion of the subject, it remains to be said that +Germany has trained her whole population into the best working team in +the world. Without the natural advantages of either England or America +she has become the rival of both. Her superior mental training has +enabled her to wrest wealth from by-products, and she saves and grows +rich on what America wastes. Whether Germany has succeeded in giving +the ply of character to her youth, as she folds them in her +educational factories, I sometimes doubt. That she has not made them +independent and ready to grapple with new situations, and strange +peoples, and swift emergencies, their own past and present history +shows. + +It is a very strenuous and economical existence, however, for +everybody, and it requires a politically tame population to be thus +driven. The dangerous geographical situation of Germany, ringed round +by enemies, has made submission to hard work, and to an iron +autocratic government necessary. To be a nation at all it was +necessary to obey and to submit, to sacrifice and to save. These +things they have been taught as have no other European people. Greater +wealth, increased power, a larger rôle in the world, are bringing new +problems. Education thus far has been in the direction of fitting each +one into his place in a great machine, and less attention has been +paid to the development of that elasticity of mind which makes for +independence; but men educate themselves into independence, and that +time is coming swiftly for Germany. + +"Also he hath set the world in their heart," and one wonders what this +population, hitherto so amenable, so economical, and so little +worldly, will do with this new world. The temptations of wealth, the +sirens of luxury, the opportunities for amusement and dissipation, are +all to the fore in the Germany of to-day as they were certainly not +twenty-five years ago. Ulysses, alas, does not bind himself to the +mast very tightly as he passes these enchanted isles of modern luxury. +"The land of damned professors" has learned its lessons from those +same professors so well, that it is now ready to take a postgraduate +course in world politics; and as I said in the beginning, some of our +friends are putting the word "damned" in other parts of this, and +other sentences, when they describe the rival prowess and progress of +the Germans. + + + +VII THE DISTAFF SIDE + + +Madame Necker writes of women: "Les femmes tiennent la place de ces +lagers duvets qu'on introduit dans les caisses de porcelaine; on n'y +fait point d'attention, mais si on les retire, tout se brise." + +When one sees women and dogs harnessed together dragging carts about +the streets; when one sees women doing the lighter work of sweeping up +leaves and collecting rubbish in the forests and on the larger +estates; doing the gardening work in Saxony and other places; when one +sees them by the hundreds working bare-legged in the beet-fields in +Silesia and elsewhere throughout Germany; when one reads "Viele Weiber +sind gut weil sie nicht wissen wie man es machen muss um böse zu +sein," and "Der Mann nach Freiheit strebt, das Weib nach Sitte," two +phrases from the German classics, Lessing and Goethe; when one recalls +the shameless carelessness of Goethe's treatment of all women; of how +his love-poems were sometimes sent by the same mail to the lady and to +the press; and the unrestrained worship of Goethe by the German women +of his day; when one sees time and time again all over Germany the +women shouldered into the street while the men keep to the sidewalk; +when one sees in the streets, railway carriages, and other public +conveyances, the insulting staring to which every woman is subjected +if she have a trace of good looks, one realizes that at any rate +Madame Necker was not writing of German women. Let me add that so far +as the great Goethe is concerned, it is by no Puritan yard-stick that +I am measuring him, but by the German's own high standard which +despises any mating of true sentiment with commercialism. "Beatus ille +qui procul negotiis," certainly applies to one's affairs of the heart. + +In the gallery at Dresden, where the loveliest mother's face in all +the world shines down upon you from Raphael's canvas like a +benediction, there is a small picture by Rubens, "The Judgment of +Paris." The three goddessesinduitur formosa est; exuitur ipsa forma +est have taken literally the compliment paid to a certain beautiful +customer by a renowned French dressmaker: "Un rien et madame est +habillée!" They are coquettishly revealing their claims to the +Eve-bitten fruit which Paris holds in his hand. Paris and his friend are +in the most nonchalant of attitudes. They could not be more +indifferent, or more superior in appearance, were they dandies judging +the class for costermonger's donkeys at a provincial horse-show. The +three most beautiful women in the world are squirming and posturing +for praise, and a decision, before two as sophisticated and self-satisfied +men as one will ever see on canvas or off it. + +The same subject is treated by a man of the same breed, but of a later +day, named Feuerbach, and his picture hangs, I think, in Breslau. Here +again the supersuperiority of the male is portrayed. + +In the Church of Saint Sebaldus at Nuremberg, there is a delightful +mural painting which makes one merry even to recall it. The subject is +the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are being lectured by an elderly man +in flowing robes with a long white beard. His beard alone would more +than supply Adam and Eve with the covering they lack. In an easy +attitude, with neither haste nor anxiety, he is pointing out to them +the error of their ways. He is as detached in manner as though he were +Professor Wundt, lecturing to us at Leipsic on the fourth dimension of +space. Adam is somewhat dejected and reclines upon the ground. Eve, +unabashed, with nothing on but the apple which she is munching, is +evidently in a reckless mood. She looks like a child of fifteen, with +her hair down her back; the defiance of her attitude is that of a +naughty little girl. The world-old problem is under discussion, but +with an air of good humor and cheerfulness on the part of the +lecturer, as though there were still time in the world, as though +hurry were an undiscovered human attribute, as though possibly the +world would still go on even if the problem were left unsolved, and +this first leafy parliament adjourned sine die. + +They were so much wiser than are we! They knew then that there would +be other sessions of congress, and that it was not necessary to decide +everything on that spring day of the year One. But here again in this +picture it is the male attitude toward the woman that is of chief +interest. Adam is plainly bored. What if the woman has broken into the +sanctuary of knowledge, she will only be the bigger fool, he seems to +say. As for the professor in the red robes, his easy, patronizing +manner is indicative enough of his mental top-loftiness toward the +woman question. You can almost hear him say as he strokes his beard: +"Küche, Kinder, Kirche!" + +From the fields of Silesia, where the beet industry is possible only +because there are hundreds of bare-legged girls and women to single +the beets, a process not possible by machinery, at a wage of from +twenty-five to thirty cents a day, to these German paintings with +their illustrations of the spiritual and moral attitude of the German +man toward the German woman, one sees everywhere and among practically +all classes an attitude of condescension toward women among the polite +and polished; an attitude of carelessness bordering on contempt among +the rude. Their attitude is like that of the Jews who cry in their +synagogues, "Thank God for not having made me a woman!" + +One can judge, not incorrectly, of the status of women in a country by +the manners and habits of the men, entirely dissociated from their +relations to women. When one sees men equipped with small mirrors and +small brushes and combs, which they use in all sorts of public places, +even in the streets, in the street-cars, in omnibuses, and in the +theatres; when one opens the door to a knock to find a gentleman, a +small mirror in one hand and a tiny brush in the other, preparing +himself for his entrance into your hotel sitting-room; you are bound +to think that these persons are in the childhood days of personal +hygiene, as it cannot be denied that they are, but also that their +women folk must be still in the Eryops age of social sophistication, +not to put a stop to such bucolic methods of grooming. Even though the +Eryops is a gigantic tadpole, a hundred times older than the oldest +remains of man, this is hardly an exaggeration. + +In no other country in +the cultured group of nations is the animal man so naïvely vain, so +deliciously self-conscious, so untrained in the ways of the polite +world, so serenely oblivious, not merely of the rights of women but of +the simple courtesy of the strong to the weak. It is the only country +I have visited where the hands of the men are better cared for than +the hands of the women; and this is not a pleasant commentary upon the +question of who does the rough work, and who has the vanity and who +the leisure for a meticulous toilet. One must not forget that regular +and systematic cleansing of the person is a very modern fashion. As +late as the early part of the nineteenth century, tooth-brushes were +not allowed in certain French convents, being looked upon as a luxury. +Cleanliness was not very common a century and a half ago in any +country. In 1770 the publication of Monsieur Perrel's "Pogonotomie, ou +1'Art d'apprendre à se raser soi-même," created a sensation among +fashionable people, and enthusiasts studied self-shaving. The author +of "Lois de la Galanterie" in 1640 writes: "Every day one should take +pains to wash one's hands, and one should also wash one's face almost +as often!" + +The copious streams of hot and cold water, turned into a porcelain tub +at any time of the day or night; the brushes, and soaps, and towels, +and toilet waters, and powders of our day were quite unknown to our +not far-off ancestors. The oft-repeated and minute ablutions of our +day are almost as modern as bicycles, and not as ancient as the +railways. The Germans are only a little behind the rest of us in this +soap and water cult, that is all. + +In the streets and public conveyances of the cities, in the beer-gardens +and restaurants in the country, in the summer and winter +resorts from the Baltic to the Black Forest, from the Rhine to +Bohemia, it is ever the same. They seat themselves at table first, and +have their napkins hanging below their Adam's apples before their +women are in their chairs; hundreds of times have I seen their women +arrive at table after they were seated, not a dozen times have I seen +their masters rise to receive them; their preference for the inside of +the sidewalk is practically universal; even officers in uniform, but +this is of rare occurrence, will take their places in a railway +carriage, all of them smoking, where two ladies are sitting, and wait +till requested before throwing their cigars away, and what cigars! and +then by smiles and innuendoes make the ladies so uncomfortable that +they are driven from the carriage. Even eleven hundred years ago the +German woman had rather a rough time of it. Charlemagne had nine +wives, but he seems to have been unduly uxorious or unwearying in his +infatuations. He made the wife travel with him, and all nine of them +died, worn out by travel and hardship. There is a constancy of +companionship which is deadly. + +The inconveniences and discomfort of going about alone, for ladies in +Germany, I have heard not from a dozen, but in a chorus from German +ladies themselves. I am reciting no grievances of my compatriots, for +I have seen next to nothing of Americans for a year or more, and I +have no personal complaints, for these soft adventurers scent danger +quickly, and give the masters of the world, whether male or female, a +wide berth. + +These gross manners are the result of two factors in German life that +it is well to keep in mind. They are a poor people, only just emerging +from poverty, slavery, and disaster; poor not only in possessions, but +poor in the experience of how to use them. They do not know how to use +their new freedom. They are as awkward in this new world of theirs, of +greater wealth and opportunity, as unyoked oxen that have strayed into +city streets. The abject deference of the women, who know nothing +better than these parochial masters, adds to their sense of their own +importance. It is largely the women themselves who make their men +insupportable. + +The other factor is the rigid caste system of their social habits. +There is no association between the officers, the nobility, the +officials, the cultured classes, and the middle and lower classes. The +public schools and universities are learning shops; they do not train +youths in character, manners, or in the ways of the world. They do not +play together, or work together, or amuse themselves together. The +creeds and codes, habits and manners of the better classes are, +therefore, not allowed to percolate and permeate those less +experienced. There is no word for gentleman in German. The words +gebildeter and anständiger are used, and it is significant to notice +that the stress is thus laid on mental development or upon obedience +to formal rules. A man may be a very great gentleman and a true +gentleman and not be a scholar. The late Duke of Devonshire cared more +for horses than for books and pictures, and Abraham Lincoln was one of +the greatest gentlemen of all time. + +In Homburg one day I saw a tall, fine-looking, elderly man step aside +and off the sidewalk to let two ladies pass. It was for Germany a +noticeable act. He turned out to be a famous general then in waiting +upon the Emperor. There are not a few such courtly gentlemen in +Germany, not a few whose knightliness compares with that of any +gentleman in the world. Alas for the great bulk of the Germans, they +never come into contact with them, their example is lost, their leaven +of high breeding and courtesy does not lighten the bourgeois loaf! In +America and in England we are all threading our way in and out among +all classes. We are much more democratic. Men of every class are in +contact with men of every other, we play together and work together, +and consequently the level of manners and habits is higher. This state +of things is less marked in south Germany than in Prussia, but is more +or less true everywhere. + +But how can this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where +every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an +exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebrae, and then +bends to kiss the lady's hand; and where every civilian of any +standing does the same? I am not writing of the nobility and of the +corps of officers in this connection. No doubt there are black sheep +among them, though I have not met them. Of the many scores of them +whom I have met, whom I have ridden with, dined with, romped with, +drunk with, travelled with, I have only to say that they are as +courteous, as unwilling to offend or to take advantage, as are brave +men in other countries I know. I am writing of the average man and +woman, of those who make up the bulk of every population, of those +upon whom it depends whether a national life is healthy or otherwise. + +The very stiffness of these mannerisms, the clacking of heels, the +ducking of heads, the kissing of hands, the countless grave +formalities among the men themselves, are all indicative of social +weakness. They are afraid to walk without the crutches of certain +formulae, of certain hard-and-fast rules, of certain laws that they +worship and fall down before. Slavery is still upon them. Escaped from +a bodily master they fly to the refuge of a moral and spiritual one. +These formalities are prescribed forms which they wear as they wear +uniforms; they are not the result of innate consideration. + +Uniform-wearing is a passion among the Germans, and may be included as +still another indication of the universal desire to take refuge behind +forms, and laws, and fixed customs, the universal desire to shrink +from depending upon their own judgment and initiative. They will not +even bow or kiss a lady's hand, without a prescription from a social +physician whom they trust. + +The German officials are always officials, always addressed and +addressing others punctiliously by their titles. They do not throw off +officialdom outside their duties and their offices as we do, but they +glory in it. We throw off our uniforms as soon as may be; we feel +hampered by them. This leads to a feeling on the part of the Germans +that we are too free and easy, and not respectful enough toward our +own dignity or toward theirs. We feel, on the other hand, that it is a +farce to go to the every-day markets of life, whether for daily food +or for daily social intercourse, with the bullion and certified checks +of our official dignity; we go rather with the small change that +jingles in all pockets alike, and is ready to be handed out for the +frequent and unimportant buying and selling of the day and hour. We +look upon this grallatory attitude toward life as artificial and +hampering, and prefer to walk among our neighbors as much as possible +upon our own feet. + +I am not pretending to fix standards of etiquette. I can quite +understand that when we grab the hand of the German's wife and shake +it like a pump-handle instead of bowing over it; that when we nod +cheerfully to him in the street with a wave of the hand or a lifting +of a cane or umbrella instead of taking off our hat; that when we fail +to address both him and his lady with the title belonging to them, no +matter how commonplace that title, we shock his prejudices and his +code of good manners. + +If there is a stranger, a lady, in the drawing-room before dinner the +German men line up in single file and ask to be presented to her. If +the lady is tall and handsome and the party a large one, it looks +almost like an ovation. If you go to dine at an officers' mess the men +think it their duty to come up and ask to be presented to you. They +wear their mourning bands on the forearm instead of the upperarm; they +wear their wedding-rings on the fourth finger of the right hand; many +of them wear rather more conspicuous jewelry than we consider to be in +good taste. + +The sofa, too, plays a rôle in German households and offices for which +I have sought in vain for an explanation. Not even German archaeology +supplies a historical ancestry for this sofa cult. It is the place of +honor. If you go to tea you are enthroned on the sofa. Even if you go +to an office, say of the police, or of the manager of the city +slaughter-house, or of the hospital superintendent, you are manoeuvred +about till they get you on the sofa, generally behind a table. I soon +discovered that this was the seat of honor. Sofas have their place in +life, I admit. There are sofas that we all remember with tears, with +tenderness, with reverence. They have been the boards upon which we +first appeared in the rôle of lover perhaps; or where we have fondled +and comforted a discouraged child; or where we have pumped new +ambitions and larger life into a weaker brother; or where we have +tossed in the agony of grief or disappointment; or where we have +waited drearily and alone the result of a consultation of moral or +physical life and death in the next room. Indeed, this all reminds me +that I could write an essay on sofas that would be poignant, touching, +autobiographical, luminous, as could most other men, but this would +not explain the position of the sofa in Germany in the least. "Travels +on a Sofa"--I must do it one day, and perhaps, with more serious study +of the subject, light may be thrown upon this question of the sofa in +Germany. + +Even at large and rather formal dinner-parties the host bows and +drinks to his guests, first one and then another. At the end of the +meal, in many households, it is the custom to bow and kiss your +hostess's hand and say "Mahlzeit," a shortened form of "May the meal +be blessed to you." You also shake hands with the other guests and say +"Mahlzeit." In some smarter houses this is looked upon as old- +fashioned and is not done. I look upon it as a charming custom, and +think it a pity that it should be done away with. + +Young unmarried girls and women courtesy to the elder women and kiss +their hands, also a custom I approve. On the other hand, where a +stalwart officer appears in a small drawing-room and seats himself at +the slender tea-table for a cup of afternoon tea, holding his sword by +his side or between his legs, that seems to me an unnecessary +precaution, even when Americans are present, for many of us nowadays +go about unarmed. + +Except on official or formal occasions it seems a matter of +questionable good taste to appear, say in a hotel restaurant, with +one's breast hung with medals or with orders on one's coat or in the +button-hole. Let 'em find out what a big boy am I without help from +self-imposed placards seems to me to be perhaps the more modest way. +The method in vogue in Japanese temples, where the worshippers jangle +a bell to call the attention of the gods to their prayers or +offerings, seems out of place where the god is merely the casual man +in the street, in a Berlin restaurant. + +At more than one dinner the soup is followed by a meat course, after +which comes the fish. This does not mean that the dinners are not +good. I fondly recall a dish of sauerkraut boiled in white wine and +served in a pineapple. I may not give names, but the dinners of Mr. +and Mrs. Fourth of December, of Mrs. Twenty-first of January, of Mr. +and Mrs. Thirtieth of January, and of Mr. and Mrs. February First, and +others rank very high in my gastronomic calendar. Do not imagine from +what I have written that Lucullus has left no disciples in Germany. I +could easily add a page to the list I have mentioned, and because we +look upon some of these customs of the German as absurd is no reason +for forgetting that he often, and from his stand-point rightly, looks +upon us as boors. I like the Germans and I pretend to have learned +very much from them. To sneer at superficial differences is to lose +all profit from intercourse with other peoples. Goethe is right, +"Uberall lernt man nur von dem, den man liebt!" The argument is only +all on our side when we are impervious to impressions and to other +standards of manners and morals than our own. + +"Am Ende hangen wir doch ab +Von Kreaturen die wir machten" + +are two lines at least from the second part of "Faust" that we can all +understand. + +It is sometimes thrown at us Americans that we love a title, and that +we are not averse to the ornamentation of our names with pseudo and +attenuated "Honorables" and "Colonels" and "Judge" and so on; and I am +bound to admit the impeachment, for I blush at some of my +be-colonelled and becaptained friends, and wonder at their rejoicing over +such effeminate honorifics, especially those colonelcies born of +clattering behind a civilian governor, on a badly ridden horse, a +title which may be compared with that most attenuated title of all, +that of a Texan, who when asked why he was called "colonel" replied, +that he had married the widow of a colonel! + +I prefer "Esqr." to "Mr." merely because it makes it easier to assort +the daily mail; "Mr.," "Mrs.," and "Miss" are so easily taken for one +another on an envelope, and particularly at Christmas time this more +distinctly legible title avoids, the deplorable misdirection of the +secrets of Santa Claus; aside from that I am happy to be addressed +merely by my name, like any other sovereign. + +We are, too, somewhat overexcited when foreign royalties appear among +us. "What wud ye do if ye were a king an' come to this counthry?" +asked Mr. Hennessy. + +"Well," said Mr. Dooley, "there's wan thing I wuddent do. I wuddent r-read +th' Declaration iv Independence. I'd be afraid I'd die laughin'." + +In Germany not only are titles showered upon the populace, but it is +distinctly and officially stated by what title the office-holder shall +be addressed. + +In a case I know, a certain lady failed to sign herself to one of the +small officials working upon her estate as, let us say, "I remain very +sincerely yours," or its German equivalent; whereupon the person +addressed wrote and demanded that communications addressed to him +should be signed in the regulation manner. A lawyer was consulted, and +it was found that a similar case had been taken to the courts and +decided in favor of the recipient of wounded vanity. + +In hearty and manly opposition to this attitude toward life is the +example of Admiral X. He had served long and gallantly, and just +before he retired a friend said to him: "I hear that they're going to +knight you." "By God, sir, not without a court-martial!" was the +prompt reply. Indeed, things have come to such a pass in England that +the offer of a knighthood to a gentleman of lineage, breeding, and +real distinction, has been for years looked upon as either a joke or +an insult. + +Not so among my German friends; they have a ravenous appetite for +these flimsy tickets of passing commendation. At many, many hospitable +boards in Berlin I have been present where no left breast was barren +of a medal, and where the only medal won by participation in actual +warfare, belonging to one of the guests, was safely packed away in his +house. And as for the titles, there is no room in a small volume like +this to enumerate them all; and the women folk all carry the titles of +the husband, from Frau Ober-Postassistent, Frau Regierungs Assessor, +up to the Chancellor's lady, who, by the way, wears a title in her +mere face and bearing. Not long ago I saw in a provincial sheet the +notice of the death of a woman of eighty, who was gravely dignified by +her bereaved relatives with the title, and as the relict of, a +veterinary. + +Upon a certain funicular at a mountain resort, where the cars pass one +another up and down every twenty minutes, the conductors salute one +another stiffly each time they pass. + +Of the army of people with titles of Ober-Regierungsrat, Geheimer +Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer +Ober-Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimerat, who also carries the +additional title of "Excellenz" with his title; Referendar, Assessor, +Justizrat, Geheimer Justizrat, Gerichts-Assessor, Amtsrichter, +Amtsgerichtrat, Oberamtsrichter, Landgerichtsdirector, +Amtsgerichtspräsident, Geheimer Finanzrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Ober +Finanzrat, Legationsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Legationsrat, Vice Konsul, +Konsul, General Konsul, Commercienrat, Wirklichercommercienrat, +Staatsanwalt, Staatsanwaltschaftsrat, Herr Erster Staatsanwalt, where +the "Herr" is a legal part of the title; of those who must be addressed +as "Excellenz," and in addition military and naval titles, and the horde +of handles to names of those in the railway, postal, telegraph, street- +cleaning, forestry, and other departments, one must merely throw up +one's hands in despair, and bow to the inevitable disgrace of being +quite unable to name this Noah's-ark procession of petty dignitaries. + +In the department of post and telegraph a new order has gone forth, +issued during the last few months, by which, after passing certain +examinations, the employees may take the title of Ober-Postschaffner +and Ober-Leitungsaufseher. After thirty years' service the postman is +dignified with the title of Ober-Briefträger. It is difficult to +understand the type of mind which is flattered by such infantile +honors. At any rate, it is a cheap system of rewards, and so long as +men will work for such trumpery ends the state profits by playing upon +their childish vanity. During the year 1912 more than 7,000 +decorations were distributed, and some 1,500 of these were of the +three classes of the Order of the Red Eagle. On the twenty-fifth +anniversary of the reign of the present Emperor, in 1913, still +another medal is to be struck, to be given to worthy officials and +officers. + +All the professions and all the trades, too, have their pharmacopoeia +of tags and titles, and you will go far afield to find a German woman +who is not Frau Something-or-other Schmidt, or Fischer, or Miller. +Every day one hears women greeting one another as Frau +Oberforstmeister, Frau Superintendent, Frau Medicinalrat, Frau +Oberbergrat, Frau Apothekar, Frau Stadt-Musikdirektor, Frau Doktor +Rechtsanwalt, Frau Geschäftsführer, and the like. All these titles, +too, appear in the hotel registers and in all announcements in the +newspapers. Even when a man dies, his title follows him to the grave, +and even beyond it, in the speech of those left behind. + +These uniforms and titles and small formalities do make, I admit, for +orderliness and rigidity, and perhaps for contentment; since every man +and woman feels that though they are below some one else on the ladder +they are above others; and every day and in every company their vanity +is lightly tickled by hearing their importance, small though it be, +proclaimed by the mention of their titles. + +It pleases the foreigners to laugh and sometimes to jeer at the +universal sign of "Verboten" (Forbidden) seen all over Germany. They +look upon it as the seal of an autocratic and bureaucratic government. +It is nothing of the kind. The army, the bureaucracy, the autocratic +Kaiser at the helm, and the landscape bestrewn with "Verboten" and +"Nicht gestattet" (Not allowed), these are necessities in the case of +these people. They do not know instinctively, or by training or +experience, where to expectorate and where not to; where to smoke and +where not to; what to put their feet on and what not to; where to walk +and where not to; when to stare and when not to; when to be dignified +and when to laugh; and, least of all, how to take a joke; how, when, +or how much to eat, drink, or bathe, or how to dress properly or +appropriately. The Emperor is almost the only man in Germany who knows +what chaff is and when to use it. + +The more you know them, the longer you live among them, the less you +laugh at "Verboten." The trouble is not that there are too many of +these warnings, but that there are not enough! When you see in flaring +letters in the street-cars, "In alighting the left hand on the left-hand +rail," when you read on the bill of fare in the dining-car brief +instructions underlined, as to how to pour out your wine so that you +will not spill it on the table-cloth; when you see the list of from +ten to fifteen rules for passengers in railway carriages; when you see +everywhere where crowds go and come, "Keep to the right"; when you see +hanging on the railings of the canals that flow through Berlin a life-buoy, +and hanging over it full instructions with diagrams for the +rescue of the drowning; when you see over a post-box, "Aufschrift und +Marke nicht vergessen" (Do not forget to stamp and address your +envelope); when you see in the church entrances a tray with water and +sal volatile, and the countless other directions and remedies and +preventives on every hand, you shrug your Saxon shoulders and smile +pityingly, if you do not stand and stare and then laugh outright, as I +was fool enough to do at first. But you soon recover from this +superficial view of matters Teutonic. In one cab I rode in I was +cautioned not to expectorate, not to put my feet on the cushions, not +to tap on the glass with stick or umbrella, not to open the windows, +but to ask the driver to do it, and not to open the door till the +auto-taxi stopped; one hardly has time to learn the rules before the +journey is over. + +In April, 1913, more laws are to come into effect for the street +traffic. People may not walk more than three abreast; they may not +swing their canes and umbrellas as they walk; they may not drag their +garments in the street; they may not sing, whistle, or talk loudly in +the street, nor congregate for conversation; there will follow, of +course, a regulation as to the length of women's dresses to be worn in +the street, and no doubt the police commissioner, an amiable bachelor, +will decree that the shorter the better. All these fussy regulations +are ridiculous to us, but in reality they are horrible and give one a +feeling of suffocation when living in Germany. In the days when +everybody rode a bicycle, each rider was obliged to pass an +examination in proficiency, paid a small tax, and was given a number +and a license. Women who persisted in wearing dangerous hat-pins have +been ejected from public vehicles. + +After April 1, 1913, no shop in Berlin can advertise or hold a bargain +sale without permission of the police. The changed prices must be +affixed to the goods four days before the sale for inspection by the +police, and only two such sales are permitted a year, and these must +take place either before February 15, or between June 15 and August +1st. All particulars of the sale must be handed to the police a week +in advance. In a carriage on the Bavarian railroad, a husband who +kissed and petted his tired wife was complained of by a fellow- +passenger. The husband was tried, judged guilty, and fined. There was +no question but that the woman was his wife; thus there is no loop-hole +left for the legally curious, and thousands of male Germans hug +and kiss one another on railway-station platforms who surely ought to +be fined and imprisoned or deported or hanged! All this may be a relic +of Roman law. Cato dismissed Marilius from the Senate because he +kissed his own wife by daylight in the presence of their own daughter. + +Shortly after leaving Germany, I returned from a few weeks' shooting +in Scotland. We bundled out of the train onto the station platform in +London. Dogs, gun-cases, cartridge-boxes, men and maid servants, +trunks, bags, baskets, bunches of grouse, and the passengers seemed in +a chaotic huddle of confusion. In Germany at least twenty policemen +would have been needed to disentangle us. I was so torpid from having +been long Teutonically cared for, that I looked on momentarily +paralyzed. There was no shouting, not a harsh word that I heard; and +as I was almost the last to get away, I can vouch for it that in ten +minutes each had his own and was off. I had forgotten that such things +could be done. I had been so long steeped in enforced orderliness, +that I had forgotten that real orderliness is only born of individual +self-control. I forgot that I was back among the free spirits who +govern a quarter of the habitable globe and whose descendants are +making America; and even if here and there one or more, and they are +often recently arrived immigrants, are intoxicated by freedom and +shoot or steal like drunken men; I realized that I am still an +Occidental barbarian, thank God, preferring liberty, even though it is +punctuated now and then with shots and screams and thefts, to official +guardianship, even though I am thus saved the shooting, the screaming, +and the thieving. + +In the nine years ending 1910, our Fourth of July +celebrations cost America in killed, 18,000; in wounded, 35,000; but +even that is better than the civic throttling of the German method. It +seems to be forgotten that the men who keep the world fresh with their +saline vigor, love risks as they love fresh air. They should be +curbed, but not strangled! + +You read their history, you watch closely +their manners, you prowl about among them, in their streets, their +shops, their houses, their theatres; you accompany the crowds on a +holiday in the trains, in the forests, in the summer resorts, at their +concerts or their picnics, in their beer-gardens and restaurants, and +you soon see that the orderliness is all forced upon them from +without, and not due to their own knowledge of how to take care of +themselves. + +In a recent volume by a distinguished German prison +official he writes that, after a careful study of the figures from +1882 to 1910, he has discovered that one person now living in every +twelve in Germany has been convicted of some offence. Doctor +Finkelnburg shows that the number of "criminals" in Germany is +3,869,000, of whom 3,060,000 are males, and 809,000 females. Every 43d +boy and every 213th girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen has +been punished by fine or imprisonment. This does not mean that the +Germans are criminal or disorderly, but, on the contrary, it shows how +absurdly petty are the violations of the law punished by fine or +imprisonment. + +Their whole history, from Charlemagne down until the last fifty years, +is a series of going to pieces the moment the strong hand of authority +is taken away from them. The German, and especially the Prussian +policeman, has become the greatest official busybody in the world. No +German's house is his castle. The policeman enters at will and, backed +by the authorities, questions the householder about his religion, his +servants, the attendance of his children at school, the status of the +guests staying in his house, and about many other matters besides. If +one of his children by reason of ill health is taught at home, the +authorities demand the right to send an inspector every six months to +examine him or her, to be sure that the child is properly taught. The +policeman is in attendance on the platform at every public meeting, +armed with authority to close the meeting if either speeches or +discussion seem to him unpatriotic, unlawful, or strife-breeding. +Professors, pastors, teachers are all muzzled by the state, and must +preach and teach the state orthodoxy or go! A young professor of +political economy in Berlin only lately was warned, and has become +strangely silent since. + +The de-Germanizing of the German abroad is in line with this, and a +constant source of annoyance to the powers that be. Buda-Pesth was +founded by Germans in 1241, and now not one-tenth of the population is +German. As the Franks became French, as the Long Beards became +Italians, so the Germans become Americans in America, English in +England, Austrian and Bohemian in Austria and Bohemia. It has been a +problem to prevent their becoming Poles where the state has settled +Germans for the distinct purpose of ousting the Poles. + +In China, in South America, and even in Sumatra I have heard German +officials tell with indignation of how their compatriots rapidly take +the local color, and lose their German habits and customs and point of +view. + +One of the half dozen best-known bankers in Berlin has lamented to me +that he must change his people in South America every few years, as +they soon go to pieces there. Army officers came home from China +indignant to find their compatriots there speaking English and +unwilling even to speak German. Even as long ago as the time of the +Thirty Years' War a forgotten chronicler, Adam Junghaus von der +Ohritz, writes: "Further, it is a misfortune to the Germans that they +take to imitating like monkeys and fools. As soon as they come among +other soldiers, they must have Spanish or other outlandish clothes. If +they could babble foreign languages a little, they would associate +themselves with Spaniards and Italians." Wilhelm von Polentz, in his +"das Land der Zukunft," writes: "die Deutsch-Amerikaner sind für die +alte Heimat dauernd verloren, politisch ganz und kulturell beinahe +vollständig." + +Bismarck knew these people and the present Emperor knows these people, +better than do you and I! Bismarck even insisted upon using the German +text, and once returned a letter of congratulation from an official +body because it was written in the Latin text. Even the Great Elector +must have recognized this weakness when he said: "Gedenke dass du bist +em Deutscher!" The present Kaiser lends his whole social influence to +keep the Germans German. He will have the bill of fare in German, he +prefers the dreadful word Mundtuch to napkin. His officers very often +demand that the bill of fare in a German hotel shall be presented to +them in German and not in French. And they are quite right to do so, +and quite right to hang the German world with the sign "Verboten"; +quite right to distribute titles and medals and orders, for the more +they are uniformed and decorated and ticketed and drilled, and taken +care of, the better they like it, and the more contented these people +are. Overorganization has brought this about. Their theories have +hardened into a veritable imprisonment of the will. They have drifted +away from Goethe's wise saying: "That man alone attains to life and +freedom who daily has to conquer them anew." + +Let me refer again just here to the socialist propaganda, which seems +to the outsider so strong here in Germany. Even this is far flabbier +than it looks, as I have attempted to explain elsewhere. In such +strong and out-and-out industrial centres as Essen, Duisburg-Mühlheim, +Saarbrücken, and Bochum, where a vigorous fight has been made against +socialism, the following are the figures of the last election in 1912 +when the socialists largely increased their vote throughout other +parts of Germany: + + NATIONALLIBERAL ZENTRUM SOCIALDEMOKRAT + +Essen............ 25,937 42,832 40,503 +Duisburg-Mühlheim 33,934 31,559 34,187 +Saarbrücken...... 25,108 24,228 4,157 +Bochum........... 42,257 37,650 64,833 + +I cite this example because it seems as though the growth of socialism +in Germany were in direct contradiction to my argument that they are a +soft, an impressionable, an amenable, and easily led and governed +people. + +State socialism as thus far put into practice in Germany is, in a +nutshell, the decision on the part of the state or the rulers that the +individual is not competent to spend his own money, to choose his own +calling, to use his own time as he will, or to provide himself for his +own future and for the various emergencies of life. And by the minute +state control, they are rapidly bringing the whole population to an +enfeebled social and political condition, where they can do nothing +for themselves. + +They have been knocked about and dragooned by their own rulers and, be +it said and emphasized, they have received certain compensations and +gained certain advantages, if nothing else an orderliness, safety, and +care for the people by the state unequalled elsewhere in the world. +But there is no gainsaying, on the other hand, that they have lost the +fruits that are plucked by the nations of more individualistic +training. + +They have clean streets, cheap music and drama, and a veritable mesh +of national education with interstices so small that no one can +escape, and they are coddled in every direction; but they have no +stuff for colonizers, and they have been not infrequently wofully +lacking in stalwart statesmen, and leaders. + +To deprive the worker of his choice of expenditure, by taking all but +a pittance of it in taxation, is a dangerous deprivation of moral +exercise. To be able to choose for oneself is a vitally necessary +appliance in the moral gymnasium, even if here and there one chooses +wrong. It is a curious trend of thought of the day, which proposes to +cure social evils always by weakening, rather than by strengthening +the individual. + +Socialism is merely a moral form of putting a sharper bit in +humanity's mouth; when of course the highest aim, the optimistic view, +is to train people to go as fast and straight and far as possible, +with the least possible hampering of their natural powers by +legislation. "Some men are by nature free, others slaves," writes +Aristotle, but whether this axiom can be accepted fully or not, it is +undoubtedly true that you can first dragoon and then coddle a whole +people, into a lack of independence and a shrinking from the +responsibilities of freedom. + +We are drugging the people ourselves just now with legislation as a +cure for the evils of industrialism, but such legislation will only do +what soporifics can do, they numb the pain, but they never bring +health. What a forlorn philosophy it is! Men take advantage, rob and +steal, we say, and to do away with this we give up the fight for fair +play and orderliness and propose sweeping away all the prizes of life, +hoping thus to do away with the highwaymen of commerce and finance. If +there is no booty, there will be no bandit, we say, forgetting +altogether the corollary that if there are no prizes there will be no +prizemen! Neither God nor Nature gives anything to those who do not +struggle, and both God and Nature appoint the stern task-master, +Necessity, to see to it that we do struggle. Now come the ignorant and +the socialists, demanding that the state step in and roll back the +very laws of creation by supplying what is not earned from the surplus +of the strong. Who cannot see anarchy looming ahead of this programme, +for it is surely a lunatic negation of all the laws of God and Nature? +They do not seem to see either in America or in England that state +supervision carried too far leads straight to the sanction of all the +demands of socialism and syndicalism. Legislation was never intended +to be the father of a people, but their policeman. Overlegislation, +whether by an autocrat or a democratic state, leads straight to +revolution, to Caesarism, or to slavery. + +In Germany the state by giving much has gained an appalling control +over the minute details of human intercourse. I am no philosophic +adviser to the rich; it is as the champion of the poor man that I +detest socialism and all its works, for in the end it only leads +backward to slavery. Every vote the workingman gives to a policy of +wider state control is another link for the chains that are meant for +his ankles, his wrists, and his neck. If the state is to take care of +me when I am sick or old or unemployed, it must necessarily deprive me +of my liberty when I am well and young and busy, and thus make my very +health a kind of sickness. A year in Germany ought to cure any +sensible workingman of the notion that the state is a better guardian +of his purse and his powers than he is himself. A distinguished German +publicist, criticising this overpowering interference of the state, +writes: "Mir ist wohl bewusst dass diese Gedanken einst weilen fromme +Wünsche bleiben werden: die Schatten lähmender Müdigkeit die fiber +unserer Politik lagern, lassen wenig Hoffnung auf fröhliche +Initiative. Allein immer kann und wird es nicht so bleiben." And he +ends with the ominous words: "Reform oder Revolution!" + +One often hears the apostles of a certain kittenish humanitarianism, +talking of the great good that would result if we in America would +provide light wines and beer and music, and parks and gardens, for our +people. They see the crowds of men and women and children flocking by +thousands to such resorts in Germany, where they eat tons of cakes and +Brödchens and jam, and where they drink gallons of beer and wine, and +where they sit hour after hour apparently quite content. Why, Lord +love you, ladies and gentlemen, our populace would never be content +with such mild amusements! Fancy "Silver Dollar" Sullivan or "Bath-house" +John attempting to cajole their cohorts in such fashion! + +It may be a pity that our people are not thus easily amused, but, on +the other hand, it means simply that our energy, our vitality, our +national nervousness if you like, will not be so easily satisfied. Our +disorderly nervousness, or nervous disorderliness, though it has been +a tremendous asset in keeping us bounding along industrially and +commercially, and though it gives an exhilarating, champagne-like +flavor to our atmosphere, has cost us dear. If you will have freedom, +you will have those who are ruined by it; just as, if you will have +social and political servitude, you will have a stodgy, unindependent +populace. + +Only one out of sixty perpetrators of homicidal crime suffers the +extreme penalty attaching to such crimes in America, and these +figures, I admit, are a shocking revelation of supine justice and +sentimental executive, as when politics can even bend our President to +grant silly pardons, with baleful results upon the doings of other +wealthy criminals. We use as large an amount of habit-forming drugs +per capita as is used in the Chinese empire, so says Dr. Wright, who +was commissioned by the State Department to gather facts on this +subject. We import and consume 500,000 pounds of opium yearly, when +70,000 pounds, including its derivatives and preparations, should +suffice for our medical needs. In the year 1910 no less than 185,000 +ounces of cocaine were imported, manufactured, and consumed, although +15,000 ounces would supply every legitimate need. America collected +$340,000,000 from tariff taxes in 1911, and $40,000,000 of this from +tobacco and alcoholics. + +My readers may look back to the title of this chapter and ask: What +has all this to do with the status of women in Germany? I have told +you in these few pages the whole secret. The men are not independent; +what can you expect of the women! The men have, until very lately, had +no surplus wealth or leisure, and have now, to all appearance, little +surplus vitality or energy. Germany is getting to be a very tired-looking +nation. One hears almost as little laughter in Germany as in +India. Gayety and laughter are the bubbles and foam on the glass of +life, proving that it is charged with energy. Do not believe me, +although I have carefully watched many thousands of Germans in all +parts of Germany taking their pleasure and their ease; come over and +see for yourself! These thousands at their simple recreations are not +gay. I grant the dangers we run by the opposite policy, but these are +the results we have to fear from the German methods. + +It is the men who +must supply the leisure, the independence, the setting, the background +for the women. All Europe says that our women are spoiled, that they +are tyrants, that they treat us men badly, that they flout us, do not +do their duty by us, and finally divorce us. We can afford to let them +say it! We have given our women an independence that many of them +abuse, it is true. We perhaps give them more than their share to +spend, and more of luxury than is good for them; and all too many of +the underbred among them paint and bejewel and begown themselves to +imitate the lecherous barbarism of the too free. But one of the +greatest ladies in Germany tells me, "I am never so flattered as when +I am taken for an American!" I can pay her no handsomer compliment +than to reply that she is worthy of the mistake. Our women revive the +drooping dukedoms of England, and few will maintain that some of them +at least are unsuited to the position. I have seen them in Germany as +Frau Gräfin this or that, and not only their appearance but their +house-keeping machinery, running noiselessly and accurately, proves +that there is something more than dollars behind them. + +One of the rare human beings whom I have known, who has at the same +time the characteristics of the generous comrade, the good fellow, and +the fine gentleman; who in moral courage in time of terrible strain, +or in physical courage when one's back is to the wall, never quailed, +is an American woman; and thousands of my countrymen will say the +same. + +You cannot produce this type without freedom, without giving them +opportunity, and taking the risks that are inherent in giving free +scope to personal prowess. But they are not the women whom our blatant +newspapers exploit, nor the women who buy the British aristocracy to +launch them socially, nor the women who pervade the continental hotels +and restaurants, nor the women whom as a rule the foreigner has the +opportunity to meet. They are the women who have helped us to absorb +the 21,000,000 aliens who have entered America since the Civil War; +the women who stood behind us when we fought out that war for four +years, leaving a million men on the fields of battle; the women who in +the realm of housekeeping, to come down to practical levels, have +revolutionized these duties and turned a drudgery into an art as have +no other women in the world. The best answer the American can make to +the luxurious lawlessness of some of our women, is to point to the +house-keeping and home-making of his compatriots, not only at home but +right here in Germany. Fifty years ago it could not have been said, +but to-day there is no doubt in my mind that American house-keeping is +the best in the world. In comfort, in the smooth running of the +household machinery, in good food and drink, perhaps in too lavish and +too luxurious hospitality, we are nowadays almost in a class by +ourselves in matters of housewifery. + +The English attitude of women toward men is somewhat that of +comradeship, and once married the man's comfort is looked after with +some care; the American attitude of women toward men, in the more +luxurious circles, is often, I admit, that of a spoiled child toward a +gift-bringing uncle, and she permits him to worship her along the +lines of a restricted rubric; but in Germany the subordination, the +unquestioning and unthinking adulation, the blind acceptance of +inferiority have not only softened the men but robbed the women of +even sufficient independence to make them the helpmates that they try +to be. There have been women of social and even political influence: +Bettina von Arnim, Caroline Schlegel, Charlotte Stieglitz, Rahel +Varnhagen, and lately Frau Lebin, who seems to have been a soothing +adjunct of the Foreign Office. It is rather as admirers than as +executives that they shine. Their attitude toward the great Goethe, +and his nonchalant polygamy toward them, is difficult for us to +understand and approve. + +"The gentle Henrietta then, +And a third Mary next did reign, +And Joan and Jane and Andria; +And then a pretty Thomasine, +And then another Katherine, +And then a long et cetera." + +No real man is a misogynist, for not to like women is not to be a man. +There are, however, many men, both in Germany and out of it, who +greatly dislike sham women; that is, women who shirk their functional +responsibilities. This form of dislike is a healthy instinct. Women +are given the greatest and most inspiring of all tasks: to make men; +and a woman who cannot make a man, by giving birth to one, or by +developing one as son or husband, has failed more deplorably even than +a man who cannot make a living. This task of theirs constitutes a +superiority impossible to deny or to overcome. A woman, therefore, who +craves man's activities and standards is as foolish as though a wheat-field +should long to be a bakery. Most healthy-minded men hold this +view, though some of us may think that German men overemphasize it. + +The coarse sentimentality of the lower classes has been noted, but it +is not confined to them. The premarital relations of all but the most +cultured and experienced, are marked by a mawkish sweetness which is +all the more noticeable in contrast with the dull routine of saving +and slaving which follows. She begins by being photographed sitting in +her hero's lap, and ends by sitting on the less comfortable chair to +darn his socks and to tend his babies. There are women enthroned, and +who deserve to be, in Germany as in other countries; but taken in the +mass, speaking in hundreds of thousands, it is not an inaccurate +picture to say that the women are not taken seriously in Germany +except as mothers and servants. + +The census of 1910 shows that there are 32,040,166 men in Germany and +32,885,827 women, or 845,661 more women than men. The number of men in +proportion to the number of women is steadily increasing in Germany, +showing that the habits of the men are more and more feminine, that +the state provides for them and protects them, and that the women take +good care of them. + +In a virile state, where the men take risks, where they play hazardous +games, where they travel and seek adventure, where they emigrate to +seek new opportunities, the women will greatly outnumber the men. The +excess of females in England and Wales in 1871 was 594,000; in 1881, +694,000; in 1891, 896,000; in 1911, 1,178,000. The United Kingdom has +the largest surplus of women of leisure in the world, and just now +they are taking advantage of their numerical superiority in the most +delightful and comical feminine fashion. They are proving their right +to assist in coercing others to obey the laws, by disobeying the laws +themselves. By pouring vitriol on golf-greens, by pinning their +defiance to these dishevelled greens with hair-pins, they propose to +provoke the recalcitrant to recognition of their right to pin their +names to seats in the House of Commons. It is all so sweetly feminine, +that the stranger is astonished to hear such women dubbed unwomanly. +Pray, what could be more womanly in England, than to pin a protest to +a golf-green with a hair-pin! + +The German army, which is in itself a school of hygiene for the man, +where the death-rate is the lowest of any army in Europe, and the many +provisions for the state care of the population, all go to coddle the +men and protect them. The various forms of labor insurance alone in +Germany cost the state over $250,000 a day, and if we include the +amount expended in compensation in all its forms, the yearly bill of +the state for the care of its sick, injured and aged, amounts to +nearly $170,000,000. No wonder that between the care of a +grandmotherly state, and the attentions of a subservient womankind, +the male population increases. I sometimes question whether there is +not something of the hot-house culture about this male crop. Certainly +consumption and other diseases are very wide-spread. A very detailed +and careful investigation of certain forms of weakness is being made +by our Rockefeller Institute at this time, and if I am not mistaken in +the results of what these investigations have thus far disclosed, it +will be found that Germany has her full share of rottenness to deal +with. To those who care to corroborate these hints with facts I +recommend the reading of certain recent numbers of the hygienic +Rundschau, a German technical magazine of repute. + +There is a lack of vitality and elasticity, a stodgy, plodding way of +working, much indulgence in gregarious eating and drinking, and very +mild forms of exercise and holiday-making, comparatively little sport, +almost no game-playing where boys and men hustle one another about as +in foot-ball and polo, and very long hours of application, from the +school-boy to the ministers of state, all of which tend to and do +produce a physical lack of alertness, vivacity, and audacity in the +men of practically all classes. + +The way to see the people of a country is to stand by the hour in the +large industrial towns and watch them as they go to and from their +work; to watch them flocking in and out of railway stations, and at +work in large numbers in the fields of Saxony, Silesia, and other +parts of Prussia; to spend hours, and I admit that they are tedious +hours, strolling through factories, ship-yards, mines, and offices, +paying no attention to the talk of your guide, but studying the faces +and physique of the men and women. Having done this, an impartial +observer is bound to remark that industrial and commercial Germany is +taking a tremendous toll for the rapid progress she has made. It may +be no worse here than elsewhere, but neither has the problem of a +healthy, happy, toiling population been satisfactorily solved here, +though perhaps better here than elsewhere. I have heard the women and +girls in factories singing at their work, but the bird is no less +caged because it sings. + +Men who ought to know better set an example of long hours of +confinement at their work which is quite unnecessary. They tell you +with pride that they are at it from eight or nine in the morning till +seven and often till later at night. That is something that no sane +man ought to be proud of. On investigation you find that in industrial +and commercial circles, and in the offices of the state, men take two +hours for luncheon and then return to work till nightfall. Two hours +in the open air at the end of the day could be managed easily, but +they do not want it. There is no vitality left for a game, for +exercise, for a bath, and a change. + +They drug themselves with work, and slip away to the theatre, to a +concert, to a Verein or circle, unwashed, ungroomed, and physically +torpid, and the great mass of the population, high and low alike, +outside the army officers, look it. + +The army officer's career is dependent upon his mental and physical +vigor. The cylinder is quickly handed him and the helmet taken away if +he grows too fat and too slow physically and mentally. There is no +nepotism, no favoritism, and on reaching a certain rank he goes, if he +falls below the standard required, and consequently he keeps himself +fit. But a huge bureaucracy, with its stupid promotions by years and +not by ability, with its government stroke, and its dangling pensions, +positively breeds lassitude, laziness, and dulness. You may see it on +every hand in government offices, in the railway and postal services, +where men are evidently kept on not for their fitness but by the +tyranny of the system. High officials admit as much. + +In the little state of Prussia the railways pay well and are well +managed, but they are clogged to a certain extent by inefficient and +unnecessary employees, and were the system spread over the United +States the chaos in a dozen years would be almost irreparable, and +even here the complaints are many and vigorous. Probably one male over +twenty-five years of age out of every four is in government employ. +This alone would account for the general air of lassitude which is one +of the most noticeable features of German life. The Germans as a whole +are beginning to look tired. It is a German, not an Italian or a +Frenchman, the philosopher Nietzsche, who writes: "Seit es Menschen +giebt, hat der Mensch sich zu wenig gefreut; das allein ist unsere +Erbsünde." + +There has been a great change in the status of women in the +last twenty-five years. The apophthegm of Pericles, or rather of +Thucydides, "that woman is best who is least spoken of among men, +either for good or evil," is not so rigidly enforced. Increased wealth +throughout Germany has left the German woman more leisure from the +drudgery of the home. She is not so wholly absorbed by the duties of +nurse, cook, and house-maid as she once was. But even to-day her +economies and her ability to keep her house with little outside +assistance are amazing. Some of the most delightful meals I have +taken, have been in professional households, where small incomes made +it necessary that wife and daughters should do most of the work. + +The German professor has his faults, but in his own simple home, the +work of the day behind him, his family about him at his well-filled +but not luxurious board, with some member of the family not unlikely +to be an accomplished musician and with his own unrivalled store of +learning at your service, when he raises his glass to you, filled with +his best, with a smile and a hearty "Prosit," he is hard to beat as a +host, to my thinking. Perhaps there is nothing like overindulgence to +make one crave simplicity, and no doubt this accounts for the fact +that the really great ones of earth are satisfied and happy with +enough, and abhor too much. + +They tell me that the Dienstmädchen is no longer what she used to be, +but to my untutored eye her duties still seem to be as comprehensive +as those of a Sioux squaw, and her performances unrivalled. As is to +be expected, Germany is not blessed with trained servants. They are +helpers rather than professional servants. In the scores of houses, +public and private, where I have been a guest, only in one or two had +the servants more than an alphabetical knowledge of what was due to +one's clothes and shoes. The servants are rigidly protected by the +state: they must have so much time off, they cannot be dismissed +without weeks of warning, and they themselves carry books with their +moral and professional biographies therein, which are always open to +the inspection of the police; and they must all be insured. + +In many towns, and cities too, there are hospitals and bands of nurses +who for a small annual payment undertake to take over and care for a +sick servant. If the doctor prescribes a "cure" for your servant, away +she goes at the expense of the state to be taken care of. Wages are +very small as compared with ours. Ten dollars a month for a cook, five +for a house-maid, ten for a man-servant, forty to fifty for a +chauffeur, and of course more in the larger and more luxurious +establishments; though a chef who serves dinners for forty and fifty +in an official household I know is content with twenty dollars a +month. A nursery governess can be had for twelve, and a well-educated +English governess for twenty dollars a month. Even these wages are +higher than ten years ago. To be more explicit, in a small household +where three servants are kept the cook receives 30 marks, the maid-servant +25 marks, and the nursery governess 35 marks a month. In the +household of an official of some means the man-servant receives 45 +marks, the cook 30 marks, and the maid-servant 30 marks a month. When +dinners or other entertainments are given, outside help is called in. +In the household of a rich industrial, whose family consists of +himself, wife, and four children, the man-servant receives 80 marks, +the chauffeur 200, the cook 45, the lady's maid 35, the house-maid 25, +kitchen-maid 12, and the governess 30 marks a month. + +I carry away with me delightful pictures of German households, big, +little, and medium; and though it does not fit in nicely with my main +argument, households whose mistresses were patterns of what a +châtelaine should be. But I must leave that loop-hole for the critics, +for I am trying only to tell the truth and to be fair, and not to be +scientific or to bolster up a thesis. + +I can see the big castle, centuries old, with its rambling buildings +winging away from it on every side, and in the court-yard its regal-looking +mistress positively garlanded with her dozen children. There +is no sign of the decadence of the aristocracy here. We sit down +twenty or more every day at the family luncheon. Tutors and +governesses are at every turn. A French abbé, as silken in manner and +speech as his own soutane, bowls over all my prejudices of creed and +custom, as I watch him rule with the lightest of hands and the softest +of voices a brood of termagant small boys; to turn from this to a game +of billiards, and from that to the Merry Widow waltz on the piano, +that we may dance. An aide-de-camp trained in India and a French abbé, +I am convinced that these are the apotheosis of luxury in a large +household. My Protestant brethren would, I am sure, throw their +prejudices to the winds could they spend an evening with my friend, +Monsieur l'Abbé! Nor Erasmus, nor Luther, nor Calvin would have had +the heart to burn him. He is just as good a fellow as we are, knows +far more, can turn his hand to anything from photography to the +driving of a stubborn pony, knows his world as few know it, and yet is +inviolably not of it. I have chatted with Jesuit priests teaching our +Western Indians; I have travelled with a preaching friar in Italy on +his round of sermonizing; I have seen them in South America, in India, +China, and Japan, and I recognize and acclaim their self-denying +prowess, but no one of them was a more dangerous missionary than my +last-named friend among them, Monsieur l'Abbe! + +"For ever through life the Curé goes + With a smile on his kind old face-- +With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, + And his green umbrella-case." + +There was a profusion at this castle, a heartiness of welcome, a +patriarchal attitude toward the countless servants and satellites, an +acreage of roaming space in the buildings, that smacked of the +feudalism back to which both the castle and the family dated. How many +Englishmen or Americans who sniff at German civilization ever see +anything of the inside of German homes? Very few, I should judge, from +the lame talk and writing on the subject. Let us go from this +mediaeval setting for modern comfort to a smaller establishment. Here +a miniature Germania, with blue eyes and golden hair, presides, +looking like a shaft of sunlight in front of you as she leads the way +about the paths of her gloomy forest. In these, and in not a few other +houses, there is little luxury, no waste, a certain Spartan air of +training, but abundance of what is necessary and a cheery and frank +welcome. + +I sometimes think the Germans themselves lose much by their rather +overdeveloped tendency to meet not so often in one another's homes as +in a neutral place: a restaurant, a garden, a Verein or circle, of +which there is an interminable number. You certainly get to know a man +best and at his best in his own home, and you never get to know a wife +and a mother out of that environment; for a woman is even more +dependent than a man upon the sympathetic atmosphere that frames her. +I should be, after my experience, and I am, the last person in the +world to say that the Germans are not hospitable; but there is much +less visiting even among themselves, and much less of constant +reception of strangers in their homes, than with us. Habit, lack of +wealth, lack of trained servants, and a certain proud shyness, and in +some cases indifference and a lack of vitality which welcomes the +trouble of being host, account for this. No doubt, too, the old habit +of economy remains even when there is no longer the same necessity for +it, and saving and gayety do not go well together. In Geldsachen hurt +die Gemüthlichkeit auf. + +I should be sorry to spoil my picture by the overemphasis of details. +The reader will not see what I have intended to paint, if he gets only +an impression of caution, of economy, of sordidness and fatigue. No +nation that gives birth to an untranslatable word like Gemüthlichkeit +can be without that characteristic. The English words "home" and +"comfort," the French word "esprit," and the German word +Gemüthlichkeit have no exact equivalents in other languages. This in +itself is a sure sign of a quality in the nation which bred the word. +The difficulty lies in the fact that another language is another life. + +The Germans are not cheerful as we are cheerful; they are not happy as +we are happy; they are not free as we are free; they are not polite as +we are polite; they are not contented as we are contented; and no one +for a moment who is even an amateur observer and an amateur +philologist combined would claim that the three words, love and amour +and Liebe mean the same thing. No word in the English language is used +so often from the pulpit as the word love, but this cannot be said of +the use of amour in France or of Liebe in Germany. Nations pour +themselves into the tiny moulds of words and give us statuettes of +themselves. The Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, and the Teuton have filled +these three words with a certain vague philosophy of themselves, a +hazy composite photograph of themselves. No one writer or painter, no +one incident, no one tragedy, no one day or year of history has done +this. To us, love is the coldest, cleanest, as it is perhaps the most +loyal of the three. L'amour sounds to us seductive, enticing, often +indeed little more than lust embroidered to make a cloak for ennui. +Liebe is to us friendly, soft, childlike. + +The nations of the earth, close as they are together in these days, +are worlds apart in thought. Each builds its life in words, and the +words are as little alike as in the days of Babel; and thus it comes +about that we misunderstand one another. We translate one another only +into our own language, and understand one another as little as before, +because we only know one another in translations, and the best of the +life of each nation remains and always will remain untranslatable. No +one has ever really translated the Greek lyrics or the choruses of +Aeschylus, or the incomparable songs of Heine. Who could dream of +putting the best of Robert Louis Stevenson into German, or Kipling's +rollicking ballads of soldier life into Spanish, or Walter Pater into +Dutch, or Edgar Allan Poe into Russian! The one language common to us +all, music, tells as many tales as there are men to hear. Each melody +melts into the blackness or the brightness of the listener's soul and +becomes a thousand melodies instead of one. What does the moaning +monotony of a Korean love-song mean to the westerner, or what does the +Swan song mean to the Korean? Only God knows. We can never translate +one nation into the language of another; our best is only an +interpretation, and we must always meet the criticism that we have +failed with the reply that we had never hoped to succeed. We are +forever explaining ourselves even in our own small circles; how can we +dare to suggest even, that we have made one people to speak clearly in +the language of another? The best we can do is to give a kindly, a +good-humored, and, at all times and above all things, a charitable +interpretation. Information, facts, are merely the raw material of +culture; sympathy is its subtlest essence. + +There is a world of good humor, of cheerfulness, of contentment, of +domestic peace and happiness in Germany. There are courtesy, +politeness, even grand manners here and there. But these words mean +one thing to them, another thing to us, and it is that I am striving, +feebly enough to be sure, to make clear. May I beg the reader and the +student to follow me with this point clearly in mind? While I am +outlining with these painful details that their ways are not as our +ways, I am not denouncing their ways, but merely offering matter for +consideration and comparison. + +A nation is most often punished for its faults by the exaggeration of +its qualities, and if, as it seems to me, Germany suffers like the +rest of us in this respect, it is none of my doing. It will be my +failure and the reader's failure, if we do not profit by watching +these qualities in ourselves, and in others festering into faults. +Woman's position and ambitions, the home, the amusements, and the +satisfactions of life, are very different in Germany from ours. I note +these as facts, not as inferiorities. I note, too, that in Germany, as +elsewhere, Hegel was profoundly right in his dictum, that everything +earned to its extreme becomes its contrary. Too much caution may +become a positive menace to safety; too much orderliness may result in +individual incapacity for sell-control; just as liberty rots into +license, and demos descends to a crown and sceptre and tyranny. I am +merely calling attention to this great law of national development, +that the exaggeration of even fine qualities is the road to the +punishment of our faults, in Germany, as in every other nation under +the sun. + +It is only when you have had a peep into a small farmer's house in +Saxony, into the artisans' houses in the busy Rhine and Westphalia +country; spent a night in a peasant's house and stable, for they are +under the same roof, in the mountains of the South; and visited the +greater establishments of the large land-holder and the less +pretentious houses of the gentleman farmer, and the country houses, +big and little, in all parts of Germany, that you get anything of the +real flavor of Germany. + +If, as Burke says, it is impossible to indict a whole nation, it is +even more difficult to fit a people with a few discriminating and +really enlightening adjectives. One word I dare to apply to them all, +though I know well how different they are in the north and south and +east and west, as diversified indeed as any nation in the world, and +that is the word patient. They can stand longer, sit longer, eat +longer, drink longer, work longer hours, and dream longer, and dawdle +longer than any people except the Orientals. This custom may date back +to far distant times. Sitting, in the Greek view, was a posture of +supplication (Odyssey, XIV, 29-31). The Emperor himself sets the +example. He is an indefatigable stander, if I may coin the word, and +on horseback he can apparently spend the day and night without +inconvenience. Their patient quarry work in archeology and in +comparative philology laid the foundations for the new history-writing +of Heeren and Mommsen; and their scholarship to-day is still of the +digging kind. They seldom produce a Jebb, a Jowett, a Verrall, and +never that type of scholar, wit and poet combined, a Lowell or an +Arthur Hugh Clough. Indeed, with a suspicious self-consciousness the +German professional mind inclines to be contemptuous of any learning +that is not unpalatably dry. What men can read with enjoyment cannot +be learning, they maintain. + +I have visited half a dozen hospitals, and on one or two occasions +been present at an operation by a famous surgeon. It is evident from +the bearing of patients, nurses, and students that they are dealing +with a less highly strung population than ours. Indeed, the surgeons +who know both countries tell me that here in Germany they have more +endurance of this phlegmatic kind. They suffer more like animals. +Their patience reaches down to the very roots of their being. + +On that delightful big fountain, in that paradise of fountains, +Nuremberg, the statues of the electors and citizens picture men who +were untroubled and cheerful, slow-moving, contented, patient; while +the little figures on the guns are positively jolly. The only mournful +figure on the whole fountain is a man with a book on his knees +teaching a child. He is pallid, even in bronze, and his face is lined +as he muses over the problem that has stumped the wisest of us: how to +make a man by stuffing a child with books! It cannot be done, but we +follow this will-o'-the wisp through the swamps of experience with the +pitiable enthusiasm of despair. + +Only liberty can make a man, and she is such a costly mistress that +with our increasing hordes of candidates for independence we cannot +afford her; so we go on fooling the people with mechanical education. +But even this figure is patient! + +The Germans are patient even with their food. What would become of +them without the goose, the pig, the calf, and the duck, that meagre +alimentary quartette? The country is white with home-raised geese, and +yet they imported 8,337,708 in 1910, and 7,236,581 in 1911. + +One of their most charming bits of classic art is the famous miniature +statue of the Gooseman; and the real name of the great Gutenberg, who, +by his invention of printing, did more than any other mortal to make +it easy for the human race to acquire the anserine mental habits, and +the anserine moral characteristics, was Gänsfleisch! + +The goose is really the national bird of the German people. You eat +tons of goose, and then you sleep beneath the feathers. The goose +first nourishes you and then protects your digestion. The +extraordinary make-up of the German bed must be laid to the door of +the guilty goose. The pillows are so soft that your head is ever +sinking, never at rest. Instead of easily applied blankets, that you +can adapt to the temperature, you are given a great cloud of feathers, +sewn in a balloon-like bag, which floats upon you according to your +degree of restlessness, and leaves you for the floor, when in stupid +sleepiness you endeavor to protect your whole person at once with its +flimsy and wanton formlessness. As a rule the bed is built up at the +head so that you are continually sliding down, down under the goose +feathers, your nose and mouth are soon covered, and who can breathe +with his toes! + +They accumulate comfort very slowly. The wages are small and the +satisfactions are small. On the street-cars the conductor is grateful +for a tip of five pfennigs, and his daily customers are handed from +the car-steps and respectfully saluted in return for this tiny +douceur. When you dine or lunch at a friend's house you are expected +to leave something in the expectant palm of his servant who sees you +out. + +Women carry small parcels of food to the theatre, to the tea and beer +gardens, and thus save the small additional expense. Many a time have +I seen these thrifty housewives pocket the sugar and the zwiebacks and +Brödchen left over. In the hotels, soap, paper, and common +conveniences of the kind are taken, so I am told, not, I maintain, as +a theft, but as an economy. We are in the habit of carrying our small +change loose in a trousers pocket, but the German almost without +exception carries even his ten and five pfennig pieces carefully in a +purse. Outside many of the big shops is placed a row of niches where +you may leave your unfinished cigar till you return. The economy thus +illustrated shows a certain disregard, of a not altogether agreeable +chance of interchangeability, that might even be dangerous to health. +On the other hand, it is a wise precaution that marks beer-glasses and +beer-jugs with a line, to show just how much beer you are entitled to. +This puts the foam-stealing vendor at your mercy. + +The entertainments, dinners, luncheons, teas, except among the small +cosmopolitan companies who do not count as examples of German manners +and customs, are very prolonged affairs. There is much standing about. +At ten o'clock, having dined at half-past seven, beer, tea, coffee, +sandwiches are brought in, and you begin the gastronomics over again +on a smaller scale. There is no occasion when eating and drinking are +not part of the programme. If you go to the play or the opera you may +eat and drink there; if you go for a walk the goal is not a bath and a +rub-down, but beer or chocolate and cakes. + +I am not sure that there is +not something in the theory that their soil has less iron in it, being +so intensively cultivated, and that our food is consequently stronger +than theirs; at all events, they eat more frequently and more +copiously than we do. It seems to me that both the men and the women +show it in their faces and figures. They are a heavy, puffy, tumbling +lot after forty; and with my prepossessions on the subject I am +inclined to put it down to irregular eating, to too much eating of +soft and sweet food, too much drinking of fattening beverages, and +much, much too little regular exercise, and to the fact that they are +still infants in the matter of personal hygiene. Dressing-gowns, +slippers, proper care of the teeth and hair, regular ablutions, +changing of clothes, all these dozens of helps to health are patiently +neglected. It is just as troublesome to take care of yourself, to +groom your person, to be regular in your habits, and restrained and +careful in your diet as to take proper care of a horse or a dog. It +shows a rather high grade of persistent prowess in a man just to keep +himself fit, to keep himself in working or playing health. Without the +drilling they receive in the army in these matters, one wonders where +this population would be. + +The doggedness, the patience of the German is notable, but the +alertness, vivacity, the energy easily on tap, these are lacking both +among the men and the women, and, as it seems to me, for these easily +apparent reasons. There are more rest-cures, rheumatism, heart, liver, +kidney, anaemic cures in Germany, and to suit all purses, than in all +Anglo-Saxondom combined, even if subject territories are included. In +Saxony alone, which is not renowned for its cures, the number of +visitors at Augustus Bad, Bad Elester, Hermanus Bad, Schandau, and +some seven others has increased from 13,000 ten years ago to 30,000 in +1910. + +Between 1900 and 1909, while the population of Germany increased 15 +per cent., the days of sickness in the insurance funds increased 59 +per cent. and the expenditure 95 per cent. Some alterations were made +in the law between those years permitting a certain extension of the +days of sickness, but an accurate percentage may be taken between the +years 1905 and 1909. During those years the population increased by 7 +per cent., the days of sickness by 17 per cent., and the expenditure +out of the sick-funds by 32 per cent. The total cost of sickness +insurance in 1900 was $42,895,000 and in 1909 $83,640,000. What will +happen in Great Britain when sickness insurance comes into thorough +working order is worthy of caricature. The way my Irish friends will +play that game fills me with joy. It is an abominable harness to put +on the Anglo-Saxon, and he has my very best wishes if he refuses to +wear it tamely. It is only another piece of tired legislation that +solves nothing. Even Germany would be a thousand times better off +without it. This attempting to make pills and powders take the place +of love one another, is merely the politician sneaking away from his +problem. Of course, it is impossible to tell how many people are sick +by being paid for it, probably not a small number. We all have +mornings when we would turn over and stick to our pillows if we were +sure of payment for doing so. The German apparently is the only person +in the world who is happy, aegrescit medendo. The Germans keep going, +we must all admit that, but at a slower pace, with less energy to +spare, and with far less robust love of life. + +If the men are patient, the women must be more so, and they are. The +marriage service still reads: "He shall be your ruler, and you shall +be his vassal." The women are not only patient with all that requires +patience of the men, but they are patient with the men besides, a +heavy additional burden from the American point of view. Beethoven +writes: "Resignation! Welch' elendes Hülfsmittel! Und doch bleibt es +mir das einzige übrige." They take resignation for granted as we never +do. + +Some ten years ago only, was formed the Women's Suffrage League in +Germany. It was necessary to organize in the free city of Hamburg, +because women were not allowed either to form or to join political +unions in Prussia! It is only within a very few years that the girls' +higher schools have been increased and cared for in due proportion to +the schools provided for the higher education of the boys. The first +girls' rowing club was organized at Cassel in 1911. Even now as I +write there are protests and petitions from the male masters against +women teachers in the higher positions of even these schools. In the +discussions as to the proper subjects to be taught to the girls, who +in 1912 began attending the newly constituted continuation schools for +girls in Berlin, there is a strong party who argue that all of them +should be taught only house-keeping and the duties pertaining thereto. +To the great majority of German men, children and the kitchen are and +ought to be the sole preoccupations of women, with occasional church +attendance thrown in. + +There have been enormous changes in the place women hold in the German +world in the last thirty years. The Red Cross organization of the +women throughout Germany is admirable and as complete and efficient as +the army that it is intended to help; one can hardly say more. There +are many private charities in Berlin and other cities, managed +entirely by women, and doing excellent and sensible work; such as the +kindergartens, the Pestalozzi-Froebelhaus for example, where four +hundred children are taken care of daily and fifteen thousand ten-pfennig +meals provided, besides classes for the young women students +under the supervision of the Berliner Verein für Volkserziehung, with +courses in the elements of law and politics and other matters likely +to concern them in their activities as teachers, nurses, or charity +helpers; the invalid-kitchens; the societies for looking after young +girls; the work in the Temperance League; the Lette-Verein, one of the +most sane and sensible institutions in the world for the training of +girls and young women, where they turn out some two thousand girls a +year trained in house-wifely economy; the wonderful and pitiful colony +at Bielefeld, founded by one of Germany's greatest organizers and +saints, Pastor Bodelschwing, and now carried on by his equally able +son, and aided largely by the sympathy and resources of women. Only +another Saint Francis could have imagined, and produced, and loved +into usefulness such an institution. + +The summer colonies, called gartenlauben colonies, where the outlying +and unused land on the outskirts of the cities is divided up into +small parcels and rented for a nominal sum to the poorer working +people of the city, constitute a most sensible form of philanthropy. +You see them, each named by its proprietor, with a flag flying, with +the light barriers dividing them, and with the small huts erected as a +shelter, where flowers and fruits and vegetables are grown, often +adding no small amount to income, and in every case offering the +soundest kind of work and recreation. These colonies were started by a +woman in France, and the idea worked its way through Belgium to +Germany, and they are now supported and helped by the direct interest +of the Empress. The woman who put this scheme into operation ought to +have a monument! At Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, on a plot lent +by the city, there are thirteen of these colonies divided into over a +thousand plots. + +There are three-quarters of a million women in Germany who are +independent owners and heads of establishments of different kinds, and +some ten million who are bread-winners. Of the increase in the number +of women students I have written in another chapter, and of their +increasing participation in the political, economical, literary, and +scholarly life of the nation there are many examples. Once or twice I +have even heard them speak in public, and speak well, while if my +memory serves me, this was practically unknown in my university days +here. The problem of domestic apprenticeship is also being worked out +by the women of Germany. In Munich, in Frankfurt-am-Main and elsewhere +this most difficult and delicate question is being partially answered +at least. Girls are apprenticed to families needing them, under the +supervision of a committee of women. The girls and their families +agree to certain terms, and the families agree also to teach them +household duties, give them proper food, eight hours' sleep, their +Sunday out, and so on. The German women's societies who have thus +boldly tackled this problem are plucky indeed, and prove easily enough +that there is a large and growing body of women in Germany, who have +minds and wills of their own and great executive ability. + +Let me suggest to some of our idle women that they pay a visit to the +Hausfrauenbund at Frankfort and the Frauenverein-Arbeitererinnenheim +at Munich, before they pass judgment upon this chapter. For I should +be sorry to leave the impression that all the women of Germany are +listless, oppressed, and without any feeling of civic responsibility. + +All these things have been accomplished by women in Germany with far +less sympathy from the men than they receive in America or in England. +Cato wrote of women's suffrage: "Pray what will they not assail, if +they carry their point? Call to mind all the principles governing them +by which your ancestors have held the presumption of women in check, +and made them subject to their husbands.
As soon as they have begun +to be your equals they will be your superiors." It is an older story +than the unread realize, this of the rights of women. The bulk of +Germany's male population still hold to Cato's view. It is not so much +that they are antagonistic, except in the case of the teachers, where +the women have become active competitors; they are in their patient +way impervious. Nor can it be said that any very large number of the +women themselves are eager for more rights; rather are they becoming +restless because they receive so little consideration. + +Their pleasures are simple and restricted, regular attendance at the +theatre, at concerts, an occasional dinner at a restaurant to +celebrate an anniversary, excursions with the whole family to a beer +restaurant of a Sunday, and the endless meeting together for reading, +sewing, and gossip--no German woman apparently but what belongs to a +verein or circle, meeting, say, once a week. + +The women and the men are gregarious. Vae soli is the motto of the +race. They love to take their pleasures in crowds, and I am not sure +that this does not dull the enthusiasm for personal rights and +gratifications, and for individual supremacy and dignity. It is rare +to find a German who would subscribe to Andrew Marvell's misogynist +lines: + +"Two paradises are in one +To live in Paradise alone." + +It is typical of this love of being together that an independent +member of the Reichstag, owing allegiance to no party, is called a +Wilde, and this same word Wilde, or wild man, is applied to the +student at the university who belongs to no corps or association of +students. This love of being together, of touching elbows on all +occasions, makes them more easily led and ruled. They hate the +isolation necessary for independence and revolt. + +Of the relations between men and women I long ago came to the +conclusion that this is a subject best left to the scientific +explorer. It is, however, open to the casual observer to comment upon +the monstrous percentage of illegitimacy in Berlin, 20 per cent. or +one child out of every five, born out of wedlock; 14 per cent. in +Bavaria; and 10 per cent. for the whole empire. This alone tells a sad +tale of the attitude of the men and women toward one another. There is +a long journey ahead of the women who propose to lift their sisters on +to a plane above the animals in this respect. In the matter of divorce +Prussia comes fourth in the list of European nations. Norway, with the +cheapest and easiest, and at the same time the wisest, divorce law in +the world, has almost the lowest percentage of divorce. In 1910 there +were 390 divorces out of 400,000 existing marriages, of which 14,600 +had taken place that year. The percentage is thus only about 2 1/2 per +year. The total per 100,000 of the population in Switzerland is 43; in +France 33; in Denmark 27; and in Prussia 21. In industrial Saxony +there are 32 and in Catholic Bavaria 13. The number of married people +in Germany according to the last census shows an increase, the number +of bachelors and widowed persons a decrease. Since 1871 the number of +married persons has increased by 2 per cent. The birth rate shows a +proportional decline. The problem that bothers all social economists +is to the fore in Germany as elsewhere, for the people between sixty +and seventy years of age number 14.65 per cent. of the population, +while the young people under ten number only 11.12, and those between +twenty and thirty 10.93 per cent. The birth rate therefore shows the +same tendency as in France, England, and America. A recent +investigation on a small scale seems to show that bureaucracy has a +certain influence here. Of 300 officials questioned, only 10, or 312 +per thousand, had more than two children. It is not an impossible, but +certainly a laughable, outcome of state interference carried too far, +should it result, in the state's becoming an incubator for the unfit, +in a country where the pensions for officers and employees of the +state have risen from 50,000,000 marks in 1900 to 111,000,000 marks in +1911. + +Even in higher circles in Germany there is a gushing idealism about +the relations of the sexes. In their songs and sayings, as well as in +their mythology, there is a laudation of love that is overstimulating. +The lines of that inconsequential philosopher, that irresponsible +moralist, that dreamy Puritan, Emerson, + +"Give all to love; +Obey thy heart; +Friends, kindred, days, +Estate, good fame, +Plans, credit and the Muse-- +Nothing refuse" + +would be warmly praised in Germany. + +"I could not love thee, dear, so much +Loved I not honour more" + +are lines more to our taste. Even love should have a deal of toughness +of fibre in it to be worth much. + +I must leave it to my readers to guess what I think of the German +woman; indeed, it is of little consequence what any individual opinion +is, if matter is given for the formation of an opinion by others. +Truth cannot afford to be either gallant or merciless. There are women +in Germany whom no man can know without respect, without admiration, +without affection. There are the blue eyes, sunny hair, peach-bloom +complexions of the north; there are the dark-eyed, black-haired, +heavy-browed women of the Black Forest; there is often a Quakerish +elegance of figure and apparel to be seen on the streets of the +cities, and from time to time one sees a real Germania, big of frame, +bold of brow, fearless of glance--patet dea! + +But we can none of us be quite sure of the impartiality of our taste +in such matters. Our baby fingers and our baby lips were taught to +love a certain type of beauty. Our mothers wove a web of admiration +and devotion from which no real man ever escapes; our maturer passions +lashed themselves to an image from which we can never wholly break +away; our sins and sorrows and adventures have been drenched in the +tears of eyes that are like no other eyes; and consequently the man +who could pretend to cold neutrality would be a reprobate. + +The German looks to Germany, the Englishman to England, the Frenchman +to France, as do you and I to America, for + +"The face that launched a thousand ships +And burnt the topless towers +of Ilium." + + + +VIII "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND" + + +Of every one hundred inhabitants of Germany, including men, women, and +children, one is a soldier. There are, roughly, 65,000,000 inhabitants +and 650,000 soldiers. + +The American army is about equal in numbers to the corps of officers +of Germany's army and navy. To the American, as to almost every other +foreigner, the German army means only one thing: war. We all hear one +thing: + +"And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far +Ancestral voices prophesying war." + +I believe this is a half-truth, and dangerous accordingly. This army +has been in existence for over forty years, and has done far more to +keep the peace than any other one factor in Europe, except, perhaps, +the British navy. + +The German army protects the German people not only from external +foes, but from internal diseases. It is the greatest school of hygiene +in the world, on account of its sound teaching, the devotion, skill, +and industry of its officers, the number of its pupils, and its widely +distributed lessons and influence. + +Culture taken by itself is livery business, and when combined with +much beer and wine drinking, irregular eating and a disinclination for +regular exercise, culture becomes a positive menace to health. Of this +danger to the German, their own great man Bismarck spoke in the +Abgeordnetenhaus in 1881: "Bei uns Deutschen wird mit wenigem so viel +Zeit totgeschlagen wie mit Biertrinken. Wer beim Frühschoppen sitzt +oder beim Abendschoppen und gar noch dazu raucht und Zeitungen liest, +hält sich voll ausreichend beschäftigt und geht mit gutem Gewissen +nach Haus in dem Bewusstsein, das Seinige geleistet zu haben." + +("The Germans waste more time drinking beer than in any other way. The +man who sits with his morning or his afternoon glass of beer beside +him, and who, in addition, smokes and reads the newspapers, considers +that he is much occupied, and goes home with a good conscience, +feeling that he has fully done his duty.") + +"Jeden Feind besiegt der Deutsche: +Nur den Durst besiegt er nicht." + +Which I permit myself to translate into these two lines: + +"The German conquers every foe, +Except his thirst, that lays him low." + +Even if the German army were not necessary as a policeman, it could +not be spared as a physician by the German people. It is to be forever +kept in mind that the German is brought up on rules; the American and +the Englishman on emergencies. Emergencies provide a certain +discipline of themselves, and our philosophy of civilization leaves it +to the individual to get his own discipline from his own emergencies. +We call it the formation of character. The German thinks this method a +hap-hazard method, and burdens men with rules, and the army is +Germany's greatest school-master along those lines. We are inclined to +think that it results in a machine-made citizen. + +There are three classes of men who pick up the bill of fare of life +and look it over: Civilization's paralyzed ones, with no appetite, who +can choose what they will without regard to the prices; the cautious, +those with appetite but who are hampered in their choice by the +prices; the bold, those with appetite and audacity, who rely upon +their courage to satisfy the landlord. The Germans are only just +beginning to look over the world's bill of fare in this last lordly +fashion, to which some of us have long been accustomed. I see no +reason why they should not do so, though I see clearly enough the +suspicion and jealousy it creates. + +They have been swathed in "Forbidden" so long that their taste for +daring was late in coming. Our colonies, small wars, punitive +expeditions, and control over neighboring territories are not planned +for far ahead; but the exigencies of the situations are met by the +remedies and solutions of men fitted by their training in school, in +sport, in social and political life for just such work, and who are +the more efficient the more they do of it. We are inclined to do +things, and to think them out the day after; while the German thinks +them out the week before, and then sometimes hesitates to do them at +all. + +The German goes more slowly, perhaps more successfully, in commercial +and industrial undertakings, but always with a chart in front of him, +a pair of spectacles on his nose, and with no desire to take chances. + +In the rough-and-tumble world, the American and the Englishman went +ahead the faster; in a more orderly world, and commerce, industry, and +war are all far more scientific or orderly than of yore, the German +has come into his own and goes ahead very fast. He has not made +friends and supporters as have the other two: first, because he is a +new-comer; and also, I believe, because human nature, even when it is +not adventurous itself, loves adventure, and has a liking for the man +who is a law unto himself. Indeed, the Germans themselves have a +sneaking fondness for such a one. At any rate there is far more +imitation of American and English ways in Germany, than of German +manners, customs, and methods in America or in England. + +"Experiment is not sufficient," writes Theophrastus von Hohenheim, +called Paracelsus; "experience must verify what can be accepted or not +accepted; knowledge is experience." For the moment, but it is probably +not for long, we have the advantage in the knowledge bred of +experience. + +The German comes from the forest, loves the forest. "Kein Yolk ist so +innig mit seinem Wald erwachsen wie das Deutsche, keines liebt den +Wald so sehr." ("No nation has grown up so at one with its forests as +have the Germans; no other nation loves its forests as do they.") He +walks, and meditates, and sings in the forest, and nowadays goes to +the forest with his skis, his snow-shoes, and his sled. Our great +games are, many of them, personal conflicts, and attended by some +personal risk, and demanding both discipline in preparing for them and +severe discipline in the playing. Our love of the aleatory, of betting +our belongings, our powers, our persons even, against life, is not +commonly alive in Germany. The Germans are only just emerging into +safety and confidence in themselves, and beginning cautiously to agree +with us that + +"He either fears his fate too much, + Or his deserts are small, +That dares not put it to the touch + To gain or lose it all." + +From these sombre forests came a race who still find it lonely to be +alone, and they herd together still for safety as of old, and have no +love of physical speculation. They are daring in thought and theory, +but cautious in physical and personal matters. An office stool +followed by a pension contents all too many men in Germany. + +"Reden, Handeln, Tun und Wandeln +Zeigt der Menschen Wesen nicht. +Was im Herzen sie im Stillen +Fest verschliessen, stumm verhüllen, +Ist ihr richtigs Angesicht." + +An overwhelming majority of Germans believe that this is man's real +portrait; an overwhelming majority of Americans would not even +understand it. + +The German army is the antidote to this lack of +physical discipline, this lack of strenuous physical life. The army +takes the place of our West, of our games, of our sports; just as it +takes the place of England's colonies and public schools and games and +sports. When looked at in this way, when its double duty is +recognized, the enormous cost of it is not so material. The expense of +the German army is not greater than our armies, plus what we spend for +games and sport and colonial adventure. + +Germany has 4,570 miles of frontier to guard, to begin with, and her +total area is 208,780 square miles, or an area one fourth less than +that of our State of Texas, with a population per square mile of +310.4. Of this population 1,000,000, roughly, are subjects of foreign +powers. Five hundred thousand are from Austria-Hungary, 100,000 each +from Finland and Russia, nearly 100,000 from Italy, some 17,000 +Americans, and so on. In 1900 the population speaking German numbered +51,000,000. + +This compact little country is the very heart of Europe, surrounded by +Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, +Denmark, and, across the North Sea, England. In the case of trouble in +Europe, Germany is the centre. Nothing can happen that does not +concern her, that must not indeed concern her vitally. She has fought at +one time or another in the last hundred years with Russia, Austria- +Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and +England, and the various German states among themselves; or her soldiers +have fought against their soldiers, whether or not the various countries +named were geographically and politically then what they are now. + +Russia's population in 1910 was 160,748,000, and including the Finnish +provinces, 163,778,800. Since 1897 the population of Russia has +increased at the annual rate of 2,732,000. The boundaries between +Russia and Germany are mere sand dunes, and by rail the Russian +outposts are only a few hours from Berlin. France is only across the +Rhine, and it is no secret that some months ago Great Britain had +worked out a plan by which she could put 150,000 troops on the +frontiers of Germany, at the service of France, in thirteen days. +Germany's ocean commerce must pass through the Straits of Dover, down +the English Channel, within striking distance of Plymouth, Portsmouth, +Dover, Brest, and Cherbourg. France, which has been looked upon as a +somewhat negligible quantity, has taken on a new lease of life. When +Napoleon died, in 1821, he left France swept clean of her fighting +men, whose bones were bleaching all the way from Madrid to Moscow. +France has recuperated and is almost another nation to-day from the +stand-point of virility. She far surpasses Germany in literature, art, +and science, and is taking her old place in the world. She led the way +in motor construction, in field-artillery, in aviation, and now she is +producing a champion middle-weight sparrer, and, marvel of marvels, +has actually beaten Scotland at foot-ball! She has always had brains, +and now her stability and virility are reviving. This has not passed +unnoticed in Germany. No wonder Germany looks upon her navy as +something more than a Winstonchurchillian luxury! + +One may understand at once from this situation, and from her past +history, that Germany has the sound good sense not to be influenced by +the latest school of sentimentalists, who pretend to believe that the +world is a polyglot Sunday-school, with converted millionaires as +teachers therein; or, if not that, a counting-house, where all +questions of honor, race, religion, love, pride, all the questions +which bubble their answers in our blood, are to be settled by weighing +their comparative cost in dollars. We do not realize how new is this +word sentimental. John Wesley, writing of this word "sentimental" as +used in Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," says: "Sentimental, what is +that? It is not English, it is not sense, it conveys no determinate +idea. Yet one fool makes many, and this nonsensical word (who would +believe it) is become a fashionable one." + +Germany has been taught by bitter experiences, and harsh masters, that +the ultimate power to command must rest with that authority which, if +necessary, can compel people to obey. They recognize, too, the mawkish +mental foolery of any plan of living together which ignores the part +which physical force must necessarily play in any political or social +life which is complete. They agree, too, as does every intelligent man +in Christendom, that the appeal to reason is far preferable to an +appeal to war. But, pray, what is to be done where there is no reason +to appeal to? Are reasonable men to strip themselves of all armor, and +suffer unreason to prevail? + +An army or a fleet is no more an incitement to war among reasonable +men, than a policeman is an incentive to burglary or homicide. An army +is not a contemptuous protest against Christianity; it is a sad +commentary on Christianity's failure and inefficiency. An army and a +fleet are merely a reasonable precaution which every nation must take, +while awaiting the conversion of mankind from the predatory to the +polite. + +As yet the Germans have not been overtaken by the tepid wave of +feminism, which for the moment is bathing the prosperity-softened +culture of America and England. It is a harsh remedy, but both America +and England would gain something of virility if they were shot over. +We are all apt enough to become womanish, agitated, or acidulous, +according to age and condition, when we are reaping in security the +fields cleared, enriched, and planted by a hardy ancestry of pioneers. +There were no self-conscious peace-makers; no worshippers of those two +epicene idols: a God too much man, and a man too much God; no devotees +of third-sexism, in the days of Waterloo and Gettysburg, when we had +men's tasks to occupy us. + +We are playing with our dolls just now, driving our coaches over the +roads, sailing our yachts in the waters, eating the fruits of the +fields that have been won for us by the sweat and blood of those gone +before. Germany has no leisure for that, no doll's house as yet to +play in, and she is perhaps more fortunate than she knows. + +One can understand, too, that Germany has little patience with the +confused thinking which maintains that military training only makes +soldiers and only incites to martial ambitions; when, on the contrary, +she sees every day that it makes youths better and stronger citizens, +and produces that self-respect, self-control, and cosmopolitan +sympathy which more than aught else lessen the chances of conflict. + +I can vouch for it that there are fewer personal jealousies, +bickerings, quarrels in the mess-room or below decks of a war-ship, or +in a soldiers' camp or barracks, than in many church and Sunday-school +assemblies, in many club smoking-rooms, in many ladies' sewing or +reading circles. Nothing does away more surely with quarrelsomeness +than the training of men to get on together comfortably, each giving +way a little in the narrow lanes of life, so that each may pass +without moral shoving. There are no such successful schools for the +teaching of this fundamental diplomacy as the sister services, the +army and the navy. + +My latest visit to Germany has converted me completely to the wisdom +of compulsory service. Nor am I merely an academic disciple. I have +had a course in it myself, and were it possible in America I should +give any boy of mine the benefit of the same training. In Germany, at +any rate, no student of the situation there would deny that, barring +Bismarck, the army has done more for the nation than any other one +factor that can be named. Soldiers and sailors train themselves, and +train others, first of all to self-control, not to war. It is a pity +that "compulsory service" has come to mean merely training to fight. In +Germany, at any rate, it means far more than that. Two generations of +Germans have been taught to take care of themselves physically without +drawing a sword. + +It is rather a puzzling commentary upon the growth of democracy, that +in America and in England, where most has been conceded to the +majority, there is least inclination on their part to accept the +necessary personal burden of keeping themselves fit, not necessarily +for war, but for peace, by accepting universal and compulsory +training. The only fair law would be one demanding that no one should +be admitted to look on at a game of cricket, foot-ball, or base-ball +who could not pass a mild examination in these games, or give proof of +an equivalent training. That would be honorable democracy in the realm +of sport. + +There formerly existed in Bavaria a supplementary tax on estates left +by persons who had not served in the active army. It was done away +with at the formation of the empire. There is a proposal now to vote +such an additional tax for all Germany, and a very fair tax it would +be. + +I am not discussing here the question of compulsory service in +England. It is not difficult to see that part of England's army must +of necessity be a professional army, which can be sent here and there +and everywhere, and that conscription would not answer the purpose, +for compulsory conscription could hardly demand of its recruits that +they should serve in India, in Canada, or in Bermuda or Egypt, for the +length of time necessary to make their service of value. Conscription, +too, on a scale to make an army serviceable against the trained troops +of the Continent is out of the question. Therefore, so far as +compulsory service for military duty only is concerned, I see no hope +for it in England. But in a land of free men such as is, or used to +be, England, and in America, compulsory service ought to be undertaken +with pride and with pleasure, as a moral, not as a military, duty for +the salvation of the country from internal foes, and as a nucleus +around which could rally the nation as a whole in case of attack from +external foes. Patriotism among us has come to a pretty pass indeed +when the nation is divided into two classes: those growling against +the taxation of their surplus; and those with their tongues hanging +out in anticipation of, and their hands clutching for, unearned doles. +And now, the more shame to us, must be added a third class who use +public office for private profit. What if we all turned to and gave +something without being forced to do so? Where would the "Yellow +peril" and the "German menace" be then? We should have much less +exciting and inciting talk and writing if our nerves and digestions +were in better order. Nothing calms the nerves, increases confidence, +and lessens the chance of promiscuous quarrelling better than hard +work. + +Even if what the German army has accomplished along these lines were +not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or +experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation, +when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies. +Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and +autocratic government, or she is lost. "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland." +She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her +safety as a nation. If Germany were governed as is France, where they +have had nine new governments since the beginning of the twentieth +century, and forty-four since the republic replaced the empire forty-one +years ago--not counting six dismissals of the cabinet when the +prime minister remained--or fifty changes of government in less than +that number of years, Germany would have lost her place on the map. +France remains only because, so far as defence is concerned, France is +France plus the British fleet. + +Political geography is the sufficient reason for Germany's army and +navy. Let us be fair in these judgments and admit at once, that if +Japan were where Mexico is, and Russia where Canada is, and Germany +separated from us by a few hours' steaming, certain peace-mongers +would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would +have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb +runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in +not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the +world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no +such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared +at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why +Germany offers little resistance to the ruling of an autocratic +militarism. The sailors and the stokers would rather obey captain and +officers, however they may have been chosen for them, than to be sunk +at sea; and nowadays Germany is ever on the high seas, battling hard +to protect and to increase her commerce abroad, and to protect her +huge industrial population at home. Germany can take no chances for +the moment, for only "Wer sich regiert, der ist mit Zufall fertig." + +One wishes often that one's lips were not sealed, one's pen not stayed +by the imperious demands of honor, to abstain from all mention of +discoveries or conversations made under the roof of hospitality, for +nothing could well be more enlightening than a description of a chat +between the great war-lord of Germany and a leading pacifist: the one +completely equipped with knowledge of the history, temper, and +temperament of his people; the other obsessed by a fantastic +exaggeration of the power and influence of money, even in the world of +culture and international politics, and preaching his panacea in the +land, of all others, where even now mere money has the least +influence, all honor to that land! + +Spinoza, the greatest of modern Jews, and the father of modern +philosophy, writes: "It is not enough to point out what ought to be; +we must also point out what can be, so that every one may receive his +due without depriving others of what is due to them." And in another +place: "Things should not be the subject of ridicule or complaint, but +should be understood." Those who know little of the history of the +development of Germany, and particularly of Prussia, cannot possibly +understand another reason for the political apathy of the Germans and +their pleased support of their army. It is this: they have been +trained in everything except self-government, in everything except +politics. Perhaps their governors know them better than we do. Their +progress has come from direction from above, not from assertion from +below. The art or arts of self-government, throughout their +development as a nation, have been forcibly omitted from their +curriculum. Every step in our national progress, on the contrary, has +been taken by the people, shoulder to shoulder, breaking their way up +and out into light and freedom. There is little or no trace of any +such movement of the people in Germany, and there is little taste for +it, and no experience to make such effort successful. We, who have +profited by the teaching of this political experience, do not realize +in the least how handicapped are the people who have not had it. + +One hundred years ago half the inhabitants of Prussia were practically +in the toils of serfdom. It was only by an edict of 1807, to take +effect in 1810, that personal serfdom with its consequences, +especially the oppressive obligation of menial service, was abolished +in the Prussian monarchy. Caste extended actually to land. All land +had a certain status, from which the owners and their retainers took +their political position and rights. The edict of 1807 was in reality +a land reform bill, and gave for the first time free trade in land in +Prussia. It was vom Stein, a Bismarck born too soon, who induced +Frederick William II, King of Prussia, and grandson of the Great +Elector, to abolish serfdom, to open the civil service to all classes, +and to concede certain municipal rights to the towns. But vom Stein +was dismissed from the service of his weak-kneed sovereign on the +ground that he was an enemy of France, and was obliged to take refuge +in Russia. Like other martyrs, his efforts watered the political earth +for a fruitful harvest. + +It is well to know where we are in the world's culture and striving +when we speak of other nations. What were we doing, what was the rest +of the world doing, in those days when the Hanoverian peasant's son, +Scharnhorst, and Clausewitz were about to lay the foundations of this +German army, now the most perfect machine of its kind in the world? +These were the days prepared for by Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin +Franklin, Voltaire, Rousseau; by Pitt and Louis XV, and George III; +the days of near memories of Wolfe, Montcalm, and Clive; days when +Hogarth was caricaturing London; days when the petticoats of the +Pompadour swept both India and Canada into the possession of England. +These names and the atmosphere they produce, show by comparison how +rough a fellow was this Prussia of only a hundred years ago. He had +not come into the circle of the polite or of the political world. He +was tumbling about, un-licked, untaught, inexperienced, already +forgetful of the training of the greatest school-master of the +previous century, Frederick the Great, who had made a man of him. + +We were already politicians to a man in those days, and the Englishman +Pitt was map-maker, by special warrant, to all Europe. + +When the Prussians were serfs politically, our House of +Representatives, in 1796, debated whether to insert in their reply to +the President's speech the remark that "this nation is the freest and +most enlightened in the world." It is true that this was at the time +when Europe was producing Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Hegel, +Fichte, Mozart, Haydn, Herschel, and about ready to introduce Walter +Scott, Wordsworth, Shelley, Heine, Balzac, Beethoven, and Cuvier; when +Turner was painting, Watt building the steam-engine, Napoleon in +command of the French armies, and Nelson of the British fleet; but +this bombastic babble of ours harmed nobody then, and only serves to +show what a number of intellectual serfs must have been members of +that particular House of Representatives. + +We have not overcome this habit of slapdash comparative criticism, for +only the other day a distinguished American inventor left Berlin with +these words as his final message: "We have nothing to learn from +Germany." But in the nineteenth century, where does the American of +sober intelligence, if Lincoln be omitted, find a match for Bismarck +as a statesman, Heine as a wit and song-writer, Wagner, Brahms, and +Beethoven as musicians, Goethe as a man of letters and poet, the still +living influence of Lessing and Winckelmann as critics, Fichte as a +scholarly patriot, Hegel and Kant as philosophers, von Humboldt, +Liebig, Helmholtz, Bunsen, and Haeckel as scientists, Moltke and Roon +as soldiers, Ranke and Mommsen as historians, Auerbach, Spielhagen, +Sudermann, Freytag, "Fritz" Reuter, and Hauptmann as novelists and +dramatists, Krupp and Borsig as manufacturers, and the Rothschilds as +bankers? Lincoln, Lee, Sherman, Jackson, and Grant may equal these men +in their own departments, but aside from them our only superiority, and +a very questionable superiority it is, lies in our trust-and-tariff- +incubated millionaires. Let us try to see straight, if only that we may +learn and profit by the superiority of others. + +These explanations that I have given, historical, political, external, +and internal, offer reasons worth pondering both why we do not +understand Germany's huge armament and why Germany looks upon it as a +necessity. + +However much the expenditure on fleet and army may be disguised, the +burden is colossal. In the year 1878 the net expenditure, ordinary and +extraordinary, for purposes of defence, for army and navy and all +other military purposes whatsoever including pensions, amounted to +452,000,000 marks; in 1888, to 660,000,000 marks; in 1898, to +882,000,000 marks; and in 1908, to 1,481,000,000 marks. + +The total expenses, net, of the empire in 1908 were 1,735,000,000 +marks, showing that only 254,000,000 marks out of the grand total of +1,735,000,000 were spent for other than military purposes. As the army +and navy now stand at a peace strength of some 700,000 men, and as +these men are all in the prime of their working power, the loss in +wages and in productive work may be put very conservatively at +600,000,000 marks, which brings the cost of the support of the +military establishment of Germany up to 2,000,000,000 marks and more +per annum, or $500,000,000. + +Many Americans were dismayed when our total national expenditure +reached the $1,000,000,000 point, and the Congress voting this +expenditure was nicknamed the "Billion-dollar Congress." What would we +say of an expenditure of half a billion dollars for defence alone! +With what admiration, too, must we regard 65,000,000 people, living in +an area one quarter smaller than Texas, on a by-no-means rich or +fertile soil, who can bear cheerfully the burden, each year, of half +our total national expenditure, merely on the military and naval +barricade which enables them to toil in peace and security. + +Humanity has, indeed, made but a poor zigzag progress from the +gorilla; Christianity, just now engaged in blessing the rival banners +of warriors setting out for one another's throats, has failed +ignominiously to bring the wolf in man to baptism, when the central +state of Christian Europe must arm to the teeth one in every eighteen +of her adult male inhabitants, and spend half a billion dollars a +year, to protect herself from assault and plunder. + +If the hairy, skin-clad cave-dwellers, or the man who left us the +Neanderthal skull, could have a look at us now, here in Berlin, in +many ways the centre of the most enlightened people in the world, they +would undoubtedly go mad trying to understand what we mean by the word +''progress.'' And yet we smile indulgently at the poor farmers in +Afghanistan who till their fields with a rifle slung across their +shoulders. What is Germany doing but that! And an enormously heavy +rifle it is, costing just seven times as much as all other national +expenditures together; in short, it costs seven marks of soldier to +protect every one mark of plough. I admit frankly the horror and the +absurdity of all this; but as an argument for disarmament, "it does +not lie," as the lawyers phrase it. It is a criticism, and an +unanswerable one, of our failure as human beings to enthrone reason +and to tame our passions; but it is a veritable call to arms to +protect ourselves, not a reason for not doing so. Let the +international gluttons overeat themselves till they are seriously ill; +but it would be madness to starve ourselves in the meantime, and yet +that is the grotesque logic of certain of our preachers of +disarmament. + +At the moment of writing there are 1,000,000 men at each other's +throats in the Balkans, there is a revolution in Mexico, and incipient +anarchy in Central America; as an emollient to this, Great Britain is +about to present a bust of the late King Edward to the Peace Palace at +the Hague! I can imagine myself saying "Pretty pussy, nice pussy," to +the wild-cats I have shot in Nebraska and Dakota, but I should not be +here if I had; and however small my value to the world I live in, I +estimate it as worth at least a ton of wild-cats. + +I am bound, however, in fairness to call the attention of the unwary +dabbler in statistics to a point of grave importance in dealing with +German finances. The German Empire, so far as expenditure and income +are concerned, is merely an office, a clearing-house so to speak, for +the states which together make up the empire. The expenses of the +empire, for example, in 1910 were $757,900,000 and of the army and +navy, including extraordinary expenditures, $314,919,325; this does +not include pensions, clerical expenses, interest, sinking-fund, and +loss of productive labor, as did the figures on a preceding page. To +the ignorant or to the malicious, who quote these figures to bolster +up a socialist or pacifist preachment, this looks as though Germany +had spent one half of her grand total on the army and navy. But this +is quite wrong. In addition to the expenditures of this imperial +clearing-house called the German Empire, there was spent by the states +$1,467,325,000: the so-called clearinghouse bearing the whole burden +of expenses for army and navy, the separate states nothing except the +per capita tax, called the matriculation tax, of some 80 pfennigs. To +make this matter still more clear, as it is a constant source of error +not only to the foreigner but to the Germans themselves, the income of +the empire for 1910 was $757,900,000, the income of all the states +$1,463,150,000, or of the empire and the states combined +$2,221,050,000. In the same way the debt of the empire in 1910 stood +at $1,224,150,000, and the debt of the states of the empire at +$3,856,325,000, or a grand total outstanding indebtedness of all +Germany of $5,080,475,000. + +Of late years the imperial expenditure of Great Britain, for example, +has amounted to some $935,000,000 a year; but various local bodies +spend also some $900,000,000 a year. Some of this is cross-spending, +but the grand total amounts to some $1,500,000,000 a year. + +Before writing or speaking of Germany it is well to know at least what +Germany is. To pick up a hand-book and to quote therefrom the figures +relating to the German Empire, as though these covered Germany, as is +often done, is as accurate and helpful to the inquirer, as though one +should take the figures of the New York clearing-house as accurate +descriptions of the total and detailed business of all the New York +banks and trust companies. A clearing-house is merely a piece of +machinery for the adjustment of differences between a host of debtors +and creditors. The comparative cost of the German army and navy can +only be figured properly against the income and expenditure of the +total wealth of all Germany. And all Germany is something more than +the German Empire, which in certain respects is only a book-keeper, an +adjuster of differences. + +"Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland? +Ist's Preussenland? Ist's Schwabenland? +Ist's wo am Rhein die Rebe blüht? +Ist's wo am Belt die Möve zieht? +O nein! O nein! O nein! +Sein Vaterland muss grösser sein. + +"Des ganze Deutschland soil es sein! +O Gott vom Himmel, sieh' darein, +Und gib uns rechten deutschen Muth; +Dass wir es lieben treu und gut! +Des soil es sein! des soil es sein! +Des ganze Deutschland soll es sein!" + +The official title of the sovereign is not Emperor of Germany, or +Emperor of the Germans, but German Emperor. Thus the territorial +rights of other heads of states are safeguarded. Even the popularity +of the first Emperor, who wished to be named Emperor of Germany and +who disputed with Bismarck for hours over the question, could not +bring this about, and he was proclaimed at Versailles merely German +Emperor. + +However heavy the burden of armament may be, we must be careful to put +such expenditure in its proper perspective and in its proper +relations, not only to the German Empire, which for official, +clerical, and statistical matters is quite a different entity, but to +"das ganze Deutschland." The German Empire is the clearinghouse, the +adjutant, the executive officer, the official clerk, the +representative in many social, financial, military, and diplomatic +capacities of Germany; but it is not, and never for a moment should be +confused with, what all Germans love, and what it has cost them blood +and tears and great sacrifices to bring into the circle of the +nations, the German Fatherland! + +In 1910 the total funded debt of the empire amounted to 4,896,600,000 +marks, and the debt in 1912 had risen to 5,396,887,801 marks. In the +six years ending March, 1911, Germany's debt increased by +$415,000,000. + +In 1910 the funded debt of Germany (empire and states) was +$4,896,600,000; of France $6,905,000,000; of England $3,894,500,000, +and of Russia $4,880,750,000. It is a curious psychical and social +phenomenon that, though we are as suspicious as criminals of one +another's good faith in keeping the peace, we are veritable angels of +innocence in trusting one another financially, for back of these huge +debts we keep in ready money, that is, gold, to pay them: Germany at +the present writing $275,000,000 in the Reichsbank; France +$640,000,000 in the Bank of France; England a paltry $175,000,000 in +the Bank of England; and Russia $625,000,000 in the Bank of Russia. We +all live upon credit, an elastic moral tie which seems to be +illimitably stretchable, and both a nation's and an individual's +wealth is measured not by what he has, but by what he is, that is to +say, by his character or credit. It is startling to find how we +distrust one another along certain lines and how we trust one another +along others. The total amount of gold in these four countries would +just about pay the interest at four per cent. for two years on their +total indebtedness! + +From what we have seen of the proportion of expenditure that goes to +military purposes, it cannot be denied that Germany is increasing her +liabilities at an extraordinary rate, and largely for purposes of +protection. In the last two years the interest on her increased debt +alone, at four per cent., amounts to $5,000,000; while the interest at +four per cent. upon military expenditures of all kinds amounts to the +tidy sum of $20,000,000 per annum. The German, however, faces these +facts and figures, not as a matter of choice, not as a matter of +insurance wholly, but as a hard necessity. It is what the delayed +conversion of the world is costing him, not to speak of what it costs +the rest of us. He is surrounded by enemies; he is not by nature a +fighting man; his whole industrial and commercial progress and his +amassed wealth have come from training, training, training; and he +sees no alternative, and I am bound to say that I see none either, but +a nation trained also to defence, cost what it may. + +The last German estimates (1912) balance with a revenue and +expenditure of $671,222,605. The naval expenditure is put at +$114,306,575; the army expenditure is put at $192,627,080. Both the +army and navy are being largely increased. In the year 1916 the +strength of the navy is expected to be about 79,000 men, and of the +army and navy combined 767,000. In the last ten years two nations have +almost doubled their naval personnel: Germany has increased hers from +31,157 to 60,805, and Austria-Hungary from 9,069 to 17,277. In Great +Britain the increase has been about one seventh, and this one seventh +is about equal to the present strength of Austria. + +The gross naval expenditure, estimated, of the United States for 1912 +amounts to $132,848,030, and the number of men 63,468. The gross naval +expenditure of Great Britain, estimated, for the same year is put at +$224,410,235, and the number of men 134,000. The gross naval +expenditure of Germany is put at $114,306,575, which includes $489,235 +for air-ships and experiments therewith, the number of men 66,783. +France proposes to spend, plus an addition due to operations in +Morocco, $90,000,000, number of men 58,404; and Japan $44,309,145, +number of men 49,389. Two new corps have been voted for the German +army, to be numbered 24 and 25; one is for the Russian frontier, with +head-quarters at Allenstein, and the other for the French frontier, +with head-quarters at Sarrebourg or Mulhouse. A German army corps on a +war footing comprises about 52,000 men, with 150 guns and 16,000 +horses. The reader should notice, as a reminder of the still latent +jealousies of the different states of the German Empire, that the +three army corps raised in Bavaria are not numbered consecutively, +twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three, but one, two, and three! + +To the American the pay of the German troops, officers and men, is +ludicrously small. It is evident that men do not undertake to fit +themselves to be officers, and to struggle through frequent and severe +examinations to remain officers, for the pay they receive. A +lieutenant receives for the first three years $300 a year, from the +fourth to the sixth year $425, from the seventh to the ninth year +$495, from the tenth to the twelfth year $550, and after the twelfth +year $600 a year. A captain receives from the first to the fourth year +$850, from the fifth to the eighth year $1,150, and the ninth year and +after $1,275 a year. Of one hundred officers who join, only an average +of eight ever attain to the command of a regiment. In Bavaria and +Würtemberg, promotion is quicker by from one to three years than in +Prussia. In Prussia promotion to Oberleutnant averages 10 years, to +captain or Rittmeister 15 years, to major 25 years, to colonel 33 +years, and to general 37 years. It would not be altogether inhuman if +these gentlemen occasionally drank a toast to war and pestilence! + +A commanding general, or general inspector of cavalry or field +artillery, receives $3,495; a division commander, or inspector of +cavalry, field and heavy artillery, $3,388; a brigade commander, +$2,565; commander of a regiment, or officer of the general staff of +the same rank, $2,193. There are various additions to these sums for +travelling, keep of horses, house-rent, and the like. All soldiers and +officers travel at reduced rates on the railways, and are allowed a +certain amount of luggage free. It is a commentary upon the three +nations, that in Germany the soldier receives a reduced rate when +travelling, in England the golfer pays a reduced rate, and in America, +until lately, the politicians were given free passes. One could almost +produce the three countries from that limited knowledge. + +At the cadet school at Gross Lichterfelde there are a thousand pupils. +They are taught riding, swimming, dancing, French, English, +mathematics, and of course receive technical military instruction. The +fee is $200, but for the sons of officers, and according to their +means, the fees are reduced to $112, $75, and even as low as $22, and +in some deserving cases no fee at all is charged. + +There is no professional army in Germany, as in England and in +America. Every German who is physically fit must serve practically +from the age of seventeen to forty-five. Those in the infantry serve +two years; those in the cavalry and horse artillery and mounted +rifles, three years. About forty-eight per cent. who are examined are +rejected as unfit, not necessarily because they are incapable of +service, but because the expense of training all is too great. These +men receive 40 pfennigs a day, 27 pfennigs being deducted for their +food. + +There are some 40,000 men who join the army voluntarily for a term of +two or three years, and who re-enlist and become non-commissioned +officers, and if they remain twelve years they are entitled to $200 on +leaving the service, and head the lists of candidates for the railway, +postal, police, street-cleaning, and other civil services. Some 10,000 +men who have passed a certain examination serve only one year and are +entitled to certain privileges. + +Each man in the infantry serves 2 years in the active army, 5 years in +the active reserve, 5 years in the first division of the Landwehr, 6 +years in the second division of the Landwehr, and 6 years in the +Landsturm. Colonel Gädke calculates that Germany has now under arms +not less than 714,000 soldiers and sailors, and that 4,800,000 can be +put into the field if wanted out of the 6,000,000 who have done +service with the colors. Out of this enormous total, practically none, +according to the last census, is illiterate. Our American census of +1910 gives the number of men of militia age in New England as +1,458,900, and in the whole country 20,473,684. + +Promotion from the ranks, as we understand it, is practically unknown. +The German officers pass through the ranks, it is true, as part of +their education at the beginning of their military career, but those +who do so join in the beginning as candidates for commissions, and +have been provisionally accepted by the commander and officers of the +regiment they propose to join, as must every candidate for a +commission in the German army. If the candidate is not wanted, it is +hinted to him that this is the case, and he must go elsewhere, as this +decision is final. Every German regiment's officers' mess is thus in +some sort a club. + +Officers are supplied from the cadet corps, and from those who join +the ranks as candidates for commissions. All cadets must pass through +a war-school before obtaining a commission. Of these there are 10 in +Prussia, Würtemberg, and Saxony, and 1 at Munich in Bavaria. They +there receive their commissions as second lieutenants. There are 9 +Prussian schools, the Hauptkadettenanstalt at Gross Lichterfelde, and +8 Kadetten-Häuser; and 1 at Dresden and 1 at Munich. Some of these I +have visited, and been made at home with the greatest courtesy and +hospitality. These German cadet schools are to a great extent +charitable institutions for the sons of officers and civilian +officials. The charges range, as I have indicated above, from $200 a +year to nothing at all. + +There are in addition schools of musketry, a school for instruction in +machine-gun practice, instruction in infantry battalion practice, a +school of military gymnastics, of military equitation, officers' +riding-schools, a military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where +officers may study the technical engineering and communication +services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery +school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a +cavalry telegraph school, and the staff colleges. + +Of technical military matters I know nothing. I have some experience +in handling horses in harness and under saddle, and on subjects with +which I am familiar I venture to pass judgments in the class-room. I +have visited many of these class-rooms, and listened to the teaching +and lectures in French, English, strategy, and political geography, +and kindred topics, and if the rest of the instruction is on a par +with what I heard there is no criticism to be made. I may not say +where, but one of the instructors in French was a real pleasure to +listen to. + +The courses and examinations which lead up, in the Kriegesakademie, or +staff college, to the grade of fitness for the general staff, or the +technical division of the general staff, or administrative staff work, +or employment as instructors, are of the very stiffest. An officer who +succeeds in reaching such proficiency, that he is sent up to the +general staff must be a very blue ribbon of a scholar in his own +field. + +The quarters, the food, the training, are Spartan indeed at the cadet +schools, but how valuable that is, is shown in the faces, manners, +physique, and general bearing of the picked youths one sees at the +Kriegesakademie in Berlin. No one after seeing these fellows would +deny for a moment the value of a sound, hard discipline. The same may +be seen at our own West Point, where the transformation of many a +country bumpkin, into an officer and a gentleman, in four years is +almost unbelievable. + +The truth is that most of us suffer from lack of discipline, and the +intelligent men of every nation will one day insist that, if the state +is to meddle in insurance and other matters, it must logically, and +for its own salvation, demand compulsory service; not necessarily for +war, but for social and economic peace within its own boundaries. It +is a political absurdity that you may tax individuals to provide +against accident and sickness to themselves, but that you may not tax +individuals by compulsory service to provide against accident and +sickness to the state. There can be nothing but ultimate confusion +where the state pays a man if he is ill, pays him if he is hurt, pays +him when he is old, and yet does not force him to keep well, and thus +avoid accident and a pauper's old age by obliging him to submit to two +or three years' sound physical training. Whether the training is done +with a gun or without it matters little. Most men of our breed like to +know how to kill things, so that a gun would probably be an +inducement. + +The more one knows of the severe demands upon the officers of the +German army and of their small pay, the more one realizes that if they +are not angels there must be some further explanation of their +willingness to undertake the profession. First of all, the Emperor is +a soldier and wears at all times the soldier's uniform. Further, he +gives from his private purse a small allowance monthly to the poorer +officers of the guard regiments. A German officer receives +consideration on all sides, whether it be in a shop, a railway-carriage, +a drawing-room, or at court. + +To a certain extent his uniform is a dowry; he expects and often gets +a good marriage portion in return for his shoulder-straps and brass +buttons; and in every case it gives him a recognized social position, +in a country where the social lines are drawn far more strictly than +in any other country outside of Austria and India. This constant +wearing of the sword is no new thing. Tacitus, who would have been an +uncompromising advocate of compulsory service had he lived in our +time, writes: "A German transacts no business, public or private, +without being completely armed. The right of carrying arms is assumed +by no person whatever till the state has declared him duly qualified." +It is the recognized occupation of the nobility, and, in very many +families, a tradition. In the army of Saxony, on January 1, 1911, out +of every hundred officers of the war ministry, of the general +commands, and of the higher staff, 44.33 per cent. were noblemen; of +the officers of the infantry, 26.19 were noblemen; of the cavalry, +60.92 were noblemen; and of the officers of the entire army, all arms, +24.98 were noblemen. + +It is worth chronicling in this connection, for the benefit of those +who wish a real insight into German social life, that few people +discriminate between the old nobility, or men who take their titles +from the possession of land and their descendants, and the new and +morbidly disliked nobility, who have bought or gained their patents of +nobility, as is done often enough in England, by profuse contributions +to charity or to semi-political and cultural undertakings favored by +the court, or by direct contributions to party funds, by valuable +services rendered, or by mere length of service. This new nobility, +anxious about their status, satisfied to have arrived, jealous of +rivals, are the dead weight which ties Germany fast to bureaucratic +government and to a policy of no change. They represent, even in +educated Germany, a complacent mediocrity; indignant at rebuke, +indifferent to progress, heedless of experience, impatient of +criticism, haters of haste, and jealous of superiority. Even Bismarck, +the creator of this bureaucracy, lamented the insolence and bad +manners of the state servants. + +The essential and ever-present quality of the real aristocrat and of a +real aristocracy is, of course, courage. It may dislike change, but it +is not afraid of it. The real gentleman, of course, does not care +whether he is a gentleman or not. The characteristic of an artificial, +tailor-made aristocracy is timidity and a shrinking from change. This +new nobility, created because it is carefully charitable, or +serviceable, or long in office, is not only in possession of the civil +service, but occupies high posts in the army and navy. While not +minimizing its value, it is everywhere maintained in Germany that it +acts as a bulwark against progress. They are a nobility of office-holders, +and they partake of the qualities and characteristics of the +office-holder everywhere. They sometimes forget the country in the +office; while the older nobility, which made Germany, despises the +office except as an instrument or weapon to be used for the welfare of +the country. The political pessimism in Germany to-day is caused by, +and comes from, this army of the new nobility. + +Americans and English both write of Germany, and speak of it, as being +in the grip of a small group of aristocrats. Not at all; it is in the +shaky and self-conscious control of men whose patents of nobility were +given them with their office, a titled bureaucracy, in short. Let us +prove this statement by running through the list of the chief officers +of the state. Of the officials of the German Empire: the chancellor's +grandfather, Bethmann-Hollweg, was a professor, and afterward minister +of education; the secretary of state's father was plain Herr +Kiderlein-Wächter; the under-secretary of state is Herr Zimmermann; +the secretary of the interior is Herr Delbrück; of finance, Herr +Wermuth; of justice, Herr Lisco; of the navy, von Tirpitz, who was +recently ennobled; the postmaster is Herr Kraetke. Not one of these +officials of the empire is of the old nobility! + +Of the 11 ministers of the kingdom of Prussia, the minister for +agriculture, von Schorlemer; for war, von Heeringen; for education, +von Trott zu Solz; and for the interior, von Dallwitz, are of +the old nobility; but the other 7 ministers are not. Of the 12 +Oberpräsidenten, men who rule the provinces, 6 are noblemen; of the 37 +Regierungspräsidenten, 14 are of the nobility, 23 are not. This should +dispose finally of the frequently heard assertion that Germany and +Prussia are ruled by a small group of the landed nobility and that +there is no way open to the talents. It is fair to say that a very +small and intimate court group do have a certain influence in naming +the candidates for these posts, but they are too wily to keep these +positions for themselves. + +I suppose we all like, in a childish way, to wear placards of our +prowess in the form of orders and decorations, but the evening attire +of this bureaucratic nobility often looks as though there had been a +ceramic eruption, a sort of measles of decorations. Men's breasts are +covered with medals, stars, porcelain plaques, and their necks are +hung with ribbons with a dangling medallion, all distributed from the +patriarchal imperial Christmas-tree for every conceivable service from +cleaning the streets to preaching properly on the imperial yacht. Men +collect them as they would stamps or butterflies, and some of them +must be very expert. + +The officers and the officials who are recognized as giving their +services as a family tradition, as a patriotic service, or out of +sheer love of the profession of arms, are rather liked than disliked, +and give a tone and set a standard for all the rest. Both these +officers and their men are respected. Of no German soldier could it be +written: + +"I went into a theatre as sober as could be, +They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; +They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, +But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the + stalls." + +On the contrary, every effort is made to keep the army pleased with +itself and proud of itself. The chancellor of the empire is always +given military rank; officers are not allowed to marry unless they +have, or acquire by marriage, a suitable income; the dignity of the +officer is upheld and his pride catered to; officers are made to feel +that they are the darlings of the Fatherland by everybody from the +Emperor down. + +This artificial stimulant goes far to keep them contented, and the +fact that the scale of comfortable living in Germany was twenty years +ago far below, and is even now not equal to, that of the equivalent +classes with us makes the task easier. They have not been taught to +want the things we want, and are still satisfied with less. And back +of and behind it all is the feeling among the leaders, that the army +furnishes no small amount of the patriotic cement necessary to hold +Germany together. Ulysses lashed himself to the mast as he passed the +sirens of luxury and leisure, and for the German Ulysses the army +supplies the cords. It is not the foreign student of German life alone +who notices that the Germans, even now, seem to be tribal rather than +national. The best friends of Germany in Germany also recognize this +weakness, comment upon it, and favor every possible expedient to +overcome it. + +I admit frankly my admiration for this Spartan three quarters of a +million of soldiers and sailors, and their officers. It offers a +splendid example of patriotism, of disregard for the weakening +comforts, luxuries, and fussy pleasures that absorb too much of our +vitality; and of disdain for the material successes, which in their +selfish rivalry, breed the very industrial distresses which are now +our problems. At least here is a large professional body whose aims, +whose way of living, and whose earnings prove that there can be a +social hierarchy not dependent upon money. It is one of the finest +lessons Germany has to teach, and long may she teach it. + +That is distinctly the side of the army that I know and approve +without reserve. Of its value as a fighting force it would be +ridiculous, in my case, to write. I have read and heard scores of +criticisms and comments from many sources, and they range from those +who claim that the German army is unbeatable, even if attacked from +all sides, to those who maintain that it is already stale and +mechanical. + +The war of 1866, when Prussia represented Germany, lasted thirty-five +days; the war against Denmark lasted six months and twelve days; the +war against France lasted six months and nine days. Thirty-six German +cavalry regiments did not lose a man during the whole campaign of +1870-1871; and the Sixth Army Corps was hardly under fire. There has +been no long, practical, and therefore decisive test of the army. Of +the transport and commissary services during the French war, when +Germany toward the end of it had 630,000 men in the field, certainly +we, with the deplorable mismanagement and scandal of our Spanish war, +and the British with the investigations after the Egyptian campaign +fresh in memory, have nothing to say, except that it was wholly +admirable and beyond the breath of suspicion of greed, thievery, or +political chicanery. There was no rotten leather, and no poisoned +beef. + +Officers, too, in the French war, were called upon to do their duty +and to obey, and no individual brilliancy which interfered with the +general plan was condoned or pardoned, no matter how highly placed the +relatives or how influential the connections of the offender. A +distinguished general, after a successful and heroic victory, who had +been tempted into a bloody battle against orders, was called before +his superiors, told that the first lesson the soldier had to learn was +obedience, and sent home! A brother of the chief of staff went into +the war a captain and came back a captain! + +I am wondering what our underpaid, unnoticed regulars in the army and +navy would have to say, were they free to speak, of the conduct of our +last martial escapade with Spain, by our press and by our politicians. +There would be no stories of the German kind, I am sure, and no single +record of an influential civilian who did not get all the glory that +he deserved. My impulsive countrymen are always manufacturing heroes +and saviors, but fortunately the crosses upon which they crucify them +are erected almost as fast as the crowns are nicely fitted and +comfortable, so that there is little danger of permanent tyranny. What +Richelieu said of the French applies to some extent to ourselves: "Le +propre du caractère français c'est que, ne se tenant pas fermement au +bien, il ne s'attache non plus longtemps au mal." + +During and after the Franco-German war there was no cheap heroism, no +feminine excitability producing litters of heroes; no slobbering, +osculatory advertising; no press undertaking the duties of a general +staff, which in our Spanish war almost completely clouded the real +heroism and patriotism that were in evidence. There were no newspaper-made +heroes, hastening back to exchange cheap military glory for votes +and delicious notoriety. For all of which, gentlemen, let us thank +God, and give praise where it is due. + +The army, too, is an interesting commentary upon the changes that are +so rapidly taking place in Germany, from an agricultural to a +manufacturing nation. Of every 100 recruits that presented themselves +there were passed as fit, in 1902, for the First Army Corps, of those +from the country 72.76; of those from the towns 63.88; in 1910 these +figures had fallen to 67.24 and 53.66. In the Second Army Corps the +recruits passed as fit, from the towns, had fallen from 60.74 in 1902 +to 50.42 in 1910. In the Fifth Army Corps, of recruits from the towns +the percentage of those passed fell from 60.07 to 46.13. In the Sixth +Army Corps the percentage fell from 50.14 to 43.83. In the Sixteenth +Army Corps from 67.50 to 58.80. In the Eighteenth Army Corps the +recruits from the towns passed as fit had fallen from 60.46 in 1902 to +46.58 in 1910. The average for the whole empire, of those from the +towns passed as fit, had fallen from 53.52 in 1902 to 47.87 in 1910. +The First Army Corps has its head-quarters at Königsberg, and recruits +from that neighborhood; the Second Army Corps has its head-quarters at +Stettin, and recruits from Pomerania; the Fifth Army Corps has its +headquarters at Posen, and recruits from Posen and Lower Silesia; the +Sixth Army Corps has its head-quarters at Breslau, and recruits from +Silesia; the Sixteenth Army Corps has its headquarters at Metz, and +recruits from Lorraine; the Eighteenth Army Corps has its head-quarters +at Frankfurt-am-Main, and recruits from that neighborhood. +These figures are enough to make my point, without giving the +statistics for all the twenty-three corps, which is, that in spite of +the precautions taken, the German recruit, especially from the towns, +in whatever part of the country, is losing vigor and stamina. + +Even this hard-and-fast arrangement of a bureaucratic government with +a military backbone does not solve all the problems. When one sees, +however, the German school-boy, and the German recruit during the +first weeks of his training, in the barracks and out, and I have +watched thousands of them, and then looks over this same material +after two or three years of training, it is hard to believe that they +are the same, and that even these hard-working officers have been able +to bring about such a change. + +Of the charges of brutality and severity I only know what the +statistics tell me, that in an army of over 600,000 men there were +some 500 cases brought to the notice of the superior officers last +year. In 1911 there were 12,919 convictions for crimes and +misdemeanors and 578 desertions. Of the 32,711 common soldiers in the +Saxon army in 1911, 30 committed suicide; in 1909, 29; in 1905, 24; in +1901, 36; that is to say, roughly, one man per thousand. Of the why +and wherefore I cannot say, but Saxony is a peculiarly overpopulated +section of Germany, and the population is overdriven; and the German +everywhere is a dreamy creature compared with us, of less toughness of +fibre either morally or physically, and no doubt, here and there, +under-exercising and over-thinking make the world seem to be a mad +place and impossible to live in. Indeed, it is no place to live in for +the best of us if we take it, or ourselves, too seriously. The German +army is an educated army, as is no other army in the world, and there +are the diseases peculiar to education to combat. A mediocre ability +to think, and a limited intellectual experience, coupled with a +craving for miscellaneous reading, breed new microbes almost as fast +as science discovers remedies for the old ones. + +Bismarck's words, "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland," meant to him, and +mean to-day, far more than that the army is necessary for defence. It +is the best all-round democratic university in the world; it is a +necessary antidote for the physical lethargy of the German race; it is +essential to discipline; it is a cement for holding Germany together; +it gives a much-worried and many-times-beaten people confidence; the +poverty of the great bulk of its officers keeps the level of social +expenditure on a sensible scale; it offers a brilliant example, in a +material age, of men scorning ease for the service of their country; +it keeps the peace in Europe; and until there is a second coming, of a +Christ of pity, and patience, and peace, it is as good a substitute +for that far-off divine event as puzzled man has to offer. + +It is silly and superficial to look upon the German army only as a +menace, only as a cloud of provocations in glittering uniforms, only +as a helmeted frown with a turned-up moustache. It is not, and I make +no such claim for it, an army or an officers' corps of Puritans or of +self-sacrificing saints, but it does partake of the dreamy, idealistic +German nature, as does every other institution in Germany. Though, as +a whole, it is a fighting machine, the various parts of it are not +imbued with that spirit alone. The uneasy pessimism of the dreamer, +which distrusts the comfortable solutions of the business-like +politicians, and leaders, in their own and in other countries, is as +noticeable in the army as in all other departments of German life. + +"And all through life I see a cross, +Where sons of God yield up their breath; +There is no gain except by loss, +There is no life except by death, +There is no vision but by faith; +Nor glory but by bearing shame, +Nor justice but by taking blame." + +There have been many, and there are still, soldiers who hold that +creed. There are not a few of them in Germany. + + + +IX GERMAN PROBLEMS + + +A great nation like Germany must have characteristics, anxieties, +problems, and responsibilities, some of which are peculiar to itself. +The individual must be of small importance who has not problems and +burdens of his own arising from his environment, position, work, and +his personal relations with other men; as well as problems of temper, +temperament, health, education, and traditions peculiar to himself. + +Wise men recognize two things about every other man: that he has his +own problems, and that no one else thoroughly understands either +another man's handicaps or his advantages; and that the only way to +judge him is not to go behind the returns, but to note how he lives +with these same problems. They are there, there is no doubt about +that; the question is, does he smile or scowl? does he work away +toward a solution, or allow himself to be swamped by them? do they +dominate him, or he them? has he that sun of life, vitality, +sufficient to burn away the fog, or does he live and die in a moist, +semi-impenetrable fog, in which he flounders timidly and rather +aimlessly about, always rather discouraged, rather in the dark, and +lamentably damp in person and in spirits? The only fair test of a +man's life is his living of it, and the same is true of a nation. + +Of Germany's history, traditions, and temperament I have written. No +one can fail to note the chief characteristics: their gregariousness, +their melancholic and subjective way of looking at life, their passion +for music. It is more what they think, than what they do or see, that +gives them pleasure. They agree with Erasmus, that "it is a foolish +error to believe that happiness is dependent upon things; it is +dependent entirely upon one's opinion of them." The indefinite has no +terrors for them, they delight indeed in the indefinable. They have +done little in great sculpture and architecture, or the founding and +ruling of colonies, as compared with their supreme achievements in +music, in philosophy, in lyric poetry. + +The art of music, which moves one greatly toward nothing in +particular; which supplies sounds but not a language for the mysteries +of feeling; which easily carries a sensitive soul away from its +sorrows or drowns it in tears, and all without offering a semblance of +a practical solution; which orchestrates a greater fury, a more +poignant jealousy, a sweeter note of bird, a harsher clang of weapons, +than any human energy can even imagine to exist; this art with which +marching soldiers sing away their fatigue, but not really; with which +disconsolate lovers wing their hopes, but not really; with which the +pious pipe themselves to heaven, but not really; with which, by +strings and beaten skins, organ-pipes and blowing brass, an +anaesthesia of ecstasy is produced, leaving one only the weaker +against the dourness and doggedness of the devil; with which men and +women hymn themselves home to God, only to lose Him when they leave +the threshold of His house; which choruses from a thousand throats +patriotism, defiance, self-confidence, but arms none of them with any +useful weapon; which with drums and brass can send any lout to heroism +without his knowing why; this art which burns up the manhood of its +devotees--who ever heard of a great tenor who was a great man, or +even of a great musician for more than half of whose life one must +needs not apologize?--this art flourishes in Germany not without +reason, and not for nothing. + +In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children +could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in +Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the +part-song known to every college man in America, "On a Bank Two Roses +Grew," as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or +have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great +clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will +not deny the delights of music in Germany. In Berlin there is not a +hall suitable for a musical recital that is not engaged a year, +sometimes more, in advance. + +In the beautiful Golden Hall of the castle of the Grand Duke of +Mecklenburg-Schwerin, at Schwerin, I have attended a concert given by +the Grand Duke's own orchestra, where the selections were all +compositions of former leaders or members of the orchestra, dating +back over a period of two hundred years. For centuries in this +particular grand duchy music and the theatre, supported and guided by +the sovereign, have offered a school of entertainment and instruction +to the people. At this present writing, special trains are run to +Schwerin from the surrounding country districts, and the people for +miles around subscribe for their seats for the whole winter, and +attend the theatre and certain concerts as regularly as children go to +school. It sounds oddly to the ears of an American to hear criticism +to the effect, that there are more high-class music and more classical +plays than the people have either time or money for. Here is a +population which is actually overindulging in culture. We complain of +too little; here they complain of too much. It makes one wonder +whether any of the problems of social life are satisfactorily soluble; +whether indeed it be not true that even the virtues carried to an +extreme do not become vices. Philanthropy in more than one city in +America is spending time, money, and energy to bring about this very +enthusiasm for music and the more intellectual arts which, it is +maintained, here in Schwerin at least, has gone too far. + +These problems are not so easy of solution as the ignorant and the +inexperienced think. Imagine the inhabitants of Hoboken, New Jersey; +of Lynn, Massachusetts; of Kalamazoo, Michigan; of Bloody Gulch, +Idaho, spending too much time and money listening to the music of +Palestrina and Bach, or to the plays of Shakespeare; and yet what +money and energy would not be spent by certain enthusiasts for the +arts did they think such a result possible! And, after all, it might +prove not a blessing, but a danger. + +Whenever or wherever you are in the company of Germans you notice +their pleasure and their keen interest in the subjective, rather than +in the objective side of life. It is from within out that they are +stirred, not as we are, by outside things working upon us. They are +still the dreaming, drinking, singing, impulsive Germans of Tacitus. +Titus Livius, Plutarch, and Machiavelli, all maintained that the +successive invasions of the Germans into Italy were for the sake of +the wine to be found there. Plutarch writes that "the Gauls were +introduced to the Italian wine by a Tuscan named Arron, and so excited +were they by the desire for more that, taking their wives and children +with them, they journeyed across the Alps to conquer the land of such +good vintages, looking upon other countries as sterile and savage by +comparison. Even if this be not history, it is an impression; and at +any rate, from that day to this the Germans have agreed with the +dictum of Aulus Gellius: "Prandium autem abstemium, in quo nihil vini +potatur, canium dicitur: quoniam canis vino caret." When the Roman +historian first came into contact with them he notes, that their bread +was lighter than other bread, because "they use the foam from their +beer as yeast." + +Tacitus writes of them: "The Germans abound with rude strains of +verse, the reciters of which, in the language of the country, are +called 'Bards.'" + +I visited a private stable in Bavaria, as well ordered and as well +kept as any private stable in America or in England, and the head +coachman was a reader of poetry; and though he had received numerous +offers of higher wages in the city, declined them, giving as one +reason that the view from the window of his room could not be equalled +elsewhere! Where can one find a stable-man in our country who reads +Shelley or Edgar Allan Poe, or who ever heard of William James and +Pragmatism? I may be doing an injustice to the stable-men of Boston, +but I doubt it. + +There are scores of pages of notes to my hand, recounting similar if +not such startling examples of the German temperament among high and +low. Musical, melancholic, gregarious, subjective, these are their +true characteristics, but the superficial among us do not see these +things because they are hidden behind the great army, the new navy and +mercantile marine, the factories, the increased commercial values, the +strenuous agricultural and industrial pushing ahead of the last thirty +years. But they are there, they represent the German temperament, they +are the internal character of Germania, always to be taken into +account in judging her, or in wondering why she does this or that, or +why she does it in this or that way. + +"As imagination bodies forth +The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen +Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing +A local habitation and a name." + +This is what the purely subjective mind is ever doing, and when it is +carried too far it is insanity. The individual no longer sees things +as they are, but he sees others and himself in strange, horrible, or +ludicrous shapes. + +Barring Japan, I suppose Germany yields more easily +to the temptation of the subjective malady of suicide than any other +country. In Saxony, for example, the rate was lately 39.2 per 100,000 +of the population, in England and Wales 7.5. During the five years +ending with 1908 there were for every 100 suicides among males in the +United States 136 in Germany, and for every 100 suicides of females +125 in Germany. In Vienna, and for racial purposes this is Germany, +1,558 persons killed themselves in 1912. Children committing suicide +because they have failed in their examinations is not uncommon in +Germany; in America and in England the teachers are more likely to +succumb than the children. We do not commit suicide in America from +any sense of shame at our intellectual shortcomings--what a +decimating of the population there would be if we did!--it is more +apt to be caused by ill health consequent upon a straining chase for +dollars. In Prussia during the five years, 1902-1907, divorce +increased from 17.7 to 20.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, and suicide from +20 to 30.7. + +If the observer does not take this difference of temperament into +account, he does not realize how new and strange it is to find Germany +these days, making its first and strongest impression upon the +outsider by its industrial progress. The more intelligent men in +Germany are beginning to see the dangers to real progress in such +feverish devotion to industry, and to recognize that the life of the +population is absorbed too largely by science, finance, and commerce. +To see so much of the intelligence of the nation exercising itself in +material researches, to see such undue fervor in calculations of self- +interest, does not leave an enlivening impression. Such an ideal of +life is paltry in itself and involves grave dangers in the future. It +is a long stride in the wrong direction since Hegel wrote of Germany +as "the guardian of the sacred fire of intellect." + +Out of this temperament has grown the self-consciousness, the uneasy +vanity, the "touchiness" which has made Germany of late years the +despair of the diplomats all over the world. She has become a +chameleon-like menace to peace everywhere in the world. What she +wants, what will offend her dignity, when she will feel hurt, what +amount of consideration will suffice, when she will change color to +match a changed situation, and in what color she will choose to hide +her plans or to make manifest her demands, no man knows. She will not +see things as they are, but always as an exhalation from her own mind. +As one of her own poets has written: "Deutschland ist Hamlet." + +At this present moment she does not see either England or America as +they are, quite peaceably disposed toward her but she sees them, and +persists in seeing them, as they would be were Germany in their place. +She is forever looking into a mirror instead of through the open +window. "The mailed fist," "the rattling of the sabre," "the friend in +shining armor," "querelle allemande," are all phrases born in Germany +in the last thirty years. + +She even sees herself a little out of focus, and though I admit her +precarious position in the heart of Europe, she exaggerates the +necessity for her autocratic military government to meet the +situation. That philosophical and literary radical Lord Morley, now +wearing a coronet, in the land where logic is a foundling and +compromise a darling, writes: "A weak government throws power to +something which usurps the name of public opinion, and public opinion +as expressed by the ventriloquists of the newspapers is at once more +capricious and more vociferous than it ever was." This, strange to +say, is exactly the opinion of the German autocrats, who maintain that +no democracy can be a strong military power. It remains for England, +and perhaps later America, to prove her wrong. + +The sovereign lady +Germania, being of this temper and disposition, of this psychological +make-up, let us look at her dealings with certain embarrassing +problems in her own household. The over-stimulation of ill-regulated +mental activity as the result of regimental education is one of the +minor problems. Some fourteen million dollars worth of cheap and nasty +literature is peddled by the agents of certain publishing houses, and +sold all over Germany to those recently taught to read but not trained +to think; and this, it is to be remembered, is still a land of low +wages, of strict economies, and of small expenditures on books. For +Germany that is an enormous sum and represents a very wide-spread +evil. I recognize that it is not only in Germany, but in France, +England, and America, that the ethically hysterical have assumed that +modesty and health and common-sense are characteristics of the +intellectually mediocre. That the neglect of all, and the breaking of +some, of the Ten Commandments is essential to the creation of art or +literature, or necessary to a courageous freedom of living, is a +contention with which I agree less and less the more I know of art, +literature, and life. But, as I have remarked elsewhere in this +volume, the Strindbergs and Wildes and Gorkis are having their day in +Germany just now, and beneath this again is this large distribution of +the lawless and sooty literature, frankly intended as a debauch for +the gutter-snipe and his consort. Even the coarse, and in no line +squeamish, Rabelais wrote that, "Science sans conscience n'est que +ruine de l'âme." + +There is but a puny barrier against this, for the statistical year-book +of German cities gives the number of public libraries in forty-two +cities as 179. Twenty-seven of these cities gave an annual support +to 114 of these libraries of only $64,847! According to the figures of +Herr Ernest Schultze, in 1907 the forty largest German cities, with a +population of 11,380,000, had public libraries containing a sum total +of 807,000 volumes. In the year 1906-1907, 5,437,000 volumes were +taken out and 1,607,476 persons frequented the public reading-rooms, +and in these forty-two cities $280,095 were contributed from private +sources for such library purposes. In 1910 Germany had in some 400 +cities, each of more than 10,000 inhabitants, about 650 public +libraries and reading-rooms, with together about 3,250,000 volumes. + +Berlin has thirty public libraries with 231,300 volumes; the number of +books taken out in 1910 was 1,655,000. Hamburg has one public library +with 100,000 volumes, of which 1,364,000 were taken out. Breslau has 7 +libraries and 4 reading-rooms, with 75,578 volumes. Leipzig has 7 +libraries and 3 reading-rooms, with 42,100 volumes. Munich has 6 +libraries and 26,671 volumes. Cologne has 7 libraries and 6 reading- +rooms, with 24,898 volumes. + +The smallest library is in the village +community of Dudweiler, in the Rhine province, which contains 132 +volumes for the 22,000 inhabitants. + +There were 14,941 books published +in Germany in 1880, 18,875 in 1890, 24,792 in 1900, and 31,281 in +1910. + +There were 13,470 books published in America in 1910, 9,209 of +them by American authors. + +There were 10,914 books published in England in 1911, of which 2,384 +were new editions. Of this number 2,215, which includes 933 new +editions and 40 translations, were fiction; religion, 930; sociology, +725; science, 650; geography, 601; biography, 476; history, 429; +technology, 525. In 1820, there were only 26 novels published in +England. + +Of the 31,281 books published in Germany in 1910, 4,852 dealt with +education and juvenile literature; 4,134, belles-lettres; 3,215, law +and political economy; 2,510, theology; 2,082, commerce and industry; +1,981, medicine; 1,884, philology and literary history; 1,480, +geography, including maps; 667, military science and equestry; 1,030, +agriculture and forestry; 1,750, natural science and mathematics; +1,108, engineering and construction; 1,254, history and biography; +981, art; and 668 on philosophy and theosophy. + +There were some 9,000 writers of books in America in 1910, or one +author in 10,000 of the population, already more than enough; there +were some 8,000 in Great Britain, or one author in about 5,500 of the +population; while in Germany there are over 31,000 writers, or one +author in every 2,097 of the population, including men, women, and +children of all ages, an unreasonable and disastrous proportion. If we +estimate the number of adult males of Germany at 14,000,000, the +number who voted at the last election, then there was one author to +every 450, a most unhealthy proportion, and bearing out exactly what +has been said of the German temperament and constitutional bias. +Furthermore, this accounts for the fact that Germany imports some +700,000 agricultural laborers each year to garner the food harvests, +for which she has not sufficient recruits, and who, by the way, take +out of the country each year some $35,000,000 in wages. Twenty per +cent. of the miners in Westphalia are foreigners, eight per cent. of +them Italians, and there are nearly half a million foreigners employed +as common laborers in the various industries of Germany. + +Wherever one travels now in the world, he finds that most courageous +and self-sacrificing of all the pioneers, the missionary: American, +British, French, Italian. The best of them, on the plains of North +America, in the destructive climate of India, in China, in all the +islands of all the seas, are, whatever their creed, soldiers of whom +we are all proud; for they fight not only against the overwhelming +prejudice of those whom they seek to save, but against the widespread +prejudice of their own people, and against the well-founded suspicion +and contempt aroused by their own black sheep. I have found them, here +a Jesuit, there a Presbyterian, winning my friendship and my +admiration, despite fundamental differences of belief about many +things. There are few Germans among them! Even in this field Germany +produces theological controversialists whom we have all studied, +orthodox and destructive, but few pioneers, and practically no +Augustines or Loyolas, Wesleys or Booths, Livingstones or Stanleys. +Columba, an Irish refugee, founded on the island of Iona, off the west +coast of Scotland, a mission station, whence went missionaries and +preachers to the conversion not only of England, but of the tribes of +Germany. It was only in the sixth century that the Franks, only in the +ninth century that the Saxons, and only in the tenth century that the +Danes became Christians. + +Neither at home nor abroad are her successes +those which deal with men by winning their allegiance, their +submission, their loyalty, or their respectful regard. She is pre-eminent +in the things of the mind, in subjective matters, and in her +regimental dealings with, and arrangements for, the inanimate side of +life. + +As an example on the credit side of her governing is the very +complete and successful system of land-banks, introduced by Frederick +the Great and since modelled somewhat upon the French methods, which +have protected the farmer from usury, insured him money at low rates +for improvements, for the purchase of tools, cattle, and fertilizers, +and enabled him to do, by sensible co-operation, what would have been +impossible for him as an individual. So successful has been this +co-operation between the banks and the united farming communities that it +were well worth a chapter of description were it not that, through the +initiative of President Taft and the able and industrious assistance +of our officials in Europe, among whom our ambassador in Paris, Mr. +Herrick, may be mentioned as untiring, there will shortly appear a +complete exposition and explanation of the scheme, available for those +of my countrymen interested in the matter. Or if they will journey to +Ireland they may see there what Sir Horace Plunkett has done to +revolutionize, and against tremendous odds, agriculture. And, be it +noted, it has been done, with emphatic warnings against the modern +fallacy of leaning upon state aid. It is estimated that our farmers +would be saved between $20,000,000 and $40,000,000 a year in interest +alone were we to adopt similar methods of loaning to the land-owners. +The Preussische Centralgenossenschaftskasse, or Central Bank of +Co-operative Associations, has revolutionized, one may here use the word +without exaggeration, agricultural methods, throughout Prussia and +Germany. + +In Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa there are 5,000,000 acres of land in +wheat, which is practically the size of Germany's wheat acreage, but +Germany produces 140,000,000 bushels of wheat off her parcel of land; +while the wheat raised on the same area in these three States is only +55,000,000 bushels. + +France and Minnesota each plant 16,000,000 acres in wheat, but France +produces 324,000,000 bushels and Minnesota 188,000,000 bushels. In +round numbers we support 90,000,000 people on 3,000,000 square miles +of land, and we could support 150 per square mile just as easily as +30, and even then there would be not even a fraction of the density of +population of Denmark, 178; the Netherlands, 470; France, 189; Saxony, +830; England and Wales, 405.6. The average wheat yield of our country +is about 14 bushels per acre in good years, it might just as well be +25; the average cotton yield is about four-tenths of a bale per acre, +and four times that amount could be raised as easily. + +In 1900, 10,500,000 people were engaged in agriculture in America, or +35.7 per cent. of the population; as over against 37.7 in 1890 and +44.3 in 1880. Of these 10,500,000, 5,700,000 were owners, renters, or +overseers, or 56 per cent., and only 4,500,000 were actual farm +laborers; and more than half of these, or 2,350,000, were members of +the family, leaving only some 2,000,000 actual agricultural wage-earners, +or employable agricultural laborers. Five-eighths of these +were under twenty-five years of age, and of the white regular workers +only one-tenth were over thirty-five years of age. This shows how +unstable is the foundation of our agricultural prosperity, the chief +asset of plenty and contentment of our country. Mr. Get-Rich-Quick has +moved on to the shifting and more exciting opportunities of the +cities, where poor human nature, aided and abetted by weak +philanthropy, and demagogic fishing for votes by eleemosynary +legislation, provides him with a mild form of riotous living, and a +fatted calf of doles in case of accident, sickness, penury, or old +age. + +In our American cities of over 8,000 inhabitants the increase in +population from 1790 to 1900 has been from 3.4 per cent. to 33 per +cent. In cities of 2,500 and over the increase from 1880 to 1900 has +been from 29.3 per cent. to 40.2 per cent. In the State of New York +the farming population is smaller than ever before, and in parts of +New England it is smaller than one hundred years ago. In 1909 there +were 15,000 deserted farms with a total of 1,130,000 acres. The +average size of farms in the United States in 1850 was 212 acres; in +1890, 121 acres. Wages in the reaping season on fruit, grain, and +cotton farms are enormous, running to four and five dollars a day. We +are behind every country in Europe except Russia, in our agricultural +methods. Some day the American people will discover, may it not be too +late, that the tall talk and highfalutin boastings of the politicians +and alien journalists in their midst do nothing to make two blades of +grass grow where one grew before. + +Germany may not have solved this problem, indeed no nation which +offers undue legislative alleviation for human frailty will ever solve +it, but at least she has not shirked the problem, and presents for our +enlightenment a scheme in full and smooth working order. + +In dealing with German problems it is fair to give examples where her +methods have been wholly and entirely successful. The man who does not +know one tree or shrub from another cannot travel in trains, motor-cars, +or afoot without remarking the neatness, symmetry, and the +flourishing condition of the forests. In these matters Germany so far +surpasses us that we may be said to be merely in a kindergarten stage +of development. As early as 1783 a German traveller, Johann David +Schoepf, was distressed to see the waste of valuable wood in America. +He tells of a furnace in New Jersey which exhausted a forest of nearly +20,000 acres in twelve to fifteen years, and goes on to prophesy the +grave danger to America unless coal is discovered and used instead of +wood. + +The public forests in America contain about nine per cent. of +the total land area and about twenty-five per cent. of the forest area +of the country. In Germany the state owns about 40 per cent. of the +forests, and nearly 70 per cent. of the forest area is under state +control. The total forest area of the empire is 34,569,800 acres, and +two-thirds bear pine, larch, and red and white fir. In a recent year +the Federal States made a net profit of $38,250,000 from public lands +and forests, and the entire profit from the German forests was +estimated at $110,000,000. When one remembers that Germany is less +than the size of Texas, and that from her forests alone, in one year, +she received an income equal to more than one-tenth of our total +national expenditure for that same year, the fact of our childish +wastefulness is brought home to us, and makes a patriot feel that a +Gifford Pinchot should be given a free hand. I can only write of the +subject as one technically entirely ignorant, but that Germany is a +university of forestry is not only attested by the demand for her +teachers in India, and in America, and elsewhere in the world, but by +the condition of the forests themselves all over Germany, which no +traveller, from America at any rate, can fail to notice without +surprise and delight. + +Germany, like the rest of us, has been obliged +to face the various social problems that arise from original sin, but +which vote-getters are pleased to ascribe to industrial progress. In +our country, with a population of some thirty to the square mile, +while in the kingdom of Saxony the density of the population is 830.6 +to the square mile, it is hard to believe that we suffer from +overcrowding so much as from overindulgence, wastefulness, and fussy +legislation. None the less, we have 42 institutions for the feeble-minded, +115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, 350 hospitals +for the insane, 1,200 refuge houses, 1,300 prisons, 1,500 hospitals, +and 2,500 almshouses. We have 2,000,000 annually who are cared for in +homes and hospitals, 300,000 insane and feeble-minded, 160,000 blind +or deaf, 80,000 prisoners, and 100,000 paupers in almshouses and out, +and we spend each year about $100,000,000 in taking care of them. We +are as wasteful and careless in these matters as we have been until +very lately in our forestry methods. + +In the early days of the empire Germany undertook to deal with these +social problems. The German Empire took over some of the principles of +socialism, but retained, and retains absolutely, the power of applying +those principles. Bismarck himself admitted that his advocacy of the +industrial insurance laws was selfish. "My idea was to bribe the +working classes, or shall I say to win them over, to regard the state +as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in +their welfare." Whatever else may have resulted, discontent, whether +well-founded or not, is not now under discussion, has not been +lessened. In 1912 more than one-half of the electors voted +"discontented" as over against the less than one-half who voted +"contented." The mass of the people may be better clothed, better fed, +better housed, better cared for in sickness and in old age, than +formerly, but they are not satisfied. No state can go much further +than Germany has gone along the lines of state interference, guidance, +and control of the personal affairs of its people, and nothing is more +surprising about the whole matter than the general acceptance in +America and in England of such legislation as having proved altogether +successful. I doubt if any intelligent German considers these various +pension schemes as altogether successful. I can vouch for it that many +German statesmen make no such claims in private, whatever they may say +in public. + +Some of the barren figures, needing no comment, are of +interest in this connection. The cost of insurance in Germany has +risen to over $500,000 a day, the total cost of state insurance +exceeding $250,000,000 a year at the present time, a fairly heavy tax +upon small employers. In 1909, of 422,076 decisions by the industrial +unions, 76,352 were appealed against, and of the 100,000 arbitration +judgments, 22,794 were appealed against. So difficult is it to settle +to the claimant's satisfaction the amount of salve necessary for his +particular wound when, as is true in these cases, the salve is a grant +of money for a longer or shorter period! + +In 1886 there were, roughly, +100,000 accidents reported and 10,000 compensated, but as they became +more thoroughly acquainted with the game, the figures rose in 1908 to +662,321 accidents and 142,965 compensations. + +The vast increase of the +claims for trifling injuries is shown by the fact that in twenty years +from 1888 to 1908, despite the increase of the total compensation from +$1,475,000 to $38,715,000, the average compensation per accident fell +from $58.50 to $38.83. In the two years 1907 to 1909 the number of +members of those state-insured increased by 380,819, while the days of +sickness increased by 26,219,632! The cost of sickness insurance alone +rose from $42,895,000 in 1900 to $83,640,000 in 1909. The Workmen's +Compensation Act in England costs, for management, commission, legal +and medical fees, $20,000,000 a year, while the compensation paid out +was $13,500,000. The insurance companies calculate that for every $500 +of compensation, the employers have paid $750! + +It is becoming increasingly evident that the logical result of state +charity, or call it state insurance to avoid controversy, over a large +field, and including millions of beneficiaries and claimants, is that +the army of officials, the expenses of administration, and the +payments themselves must sooner or later break the back of the state +morally, politically, and financially. It rapidly increases parasitism +among the receivers; makes a powerful though indifferent army of state +servants of the distributers; and loses financially to the state far +more in expense of administration, and loss of useful labor of the +army of civil servants, than it gains by the loss to the state of +individual incapacity resulting in pauperism and invalidism, which +must be cared for. To put it briefly, it is far more dangerous to the +state to tell the individual that he shall be taken care of than to +tell him that he must shift for himself. As for the effect upon the +individual, it is a lowering medicine, making the patient gradually +dependent upon the drug, and bringing him finally to the incurable +invalidism of surly apathy. To change Patrick Henry's fiery peroration +slightly: Give me liberty or in the end you give me moral and +political death. + +Students of the various forms of this modern +political nostrum, of getting rid of the fools who are rich by +deceiving the fools who are poor, will remember the decree of the +Provisional Government of the French Republic in 1848: "This +Government undertakes to guarantee the existence of the workman by +work. It undertakes to guarantee work to every citizen." On March 9 +public works were started and 3,000 men employed. March 15 saw 14,000 +on the pay-rolls, most of them unoccupied because there was no +suitable work. Those not working received "inactivity pay" of a franc +a day. The end of April saw 100,000 on the pay-rolls. In May a +minister ventured to suggest that it was the workman's duty to work! +There were murmurs of disapproval, but the public treasury was nearing +bankruptcy, and on June 22 an order was promulgated, that all of these +workmen between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five were to enlist +in the army. An insurrection followed this order that workmen should +work, and 3,000 citizens were shot down in the streets, and another +3,000 were sent to penal colonies in Algeria. The French are a logical +people. The state promised suitable work; that always means, from the +point of view of the worker, agreeable work, and not too fatiguing at +that. Of course, no such thing is possible, and the end was riot, +murder, and penal servitude. The state can no more provide suitable +and agreeable methods of livelihood for its citizens, than it can +provide them with a duty-loving, unenvious, and honest disposition. As +I have remarked elsewhere, the only thing that stands between state +socialism and the instant solution of all our social problems is human +nature! This mongrel demand for an artificial equality, is worse, +because more degrading than any tyranny of church or state even. Every +man wants superiority and distinction for himself, he only wants +equality, invisibility, and inarticulateness for others. + +When some +such system as this is put to work in Ireland, I shall envy every +physician in Ireland, for he will live in a joyous round of farces +such as the world has never provided before for the lovers of the +humorous. Already Ireland, with only 701,620 electors, out of a total +of 8,058,025 in the United Kingdom, is represented in the House of +Commons by 103 members out of the total of 670; and out of the 935,000 +old-age pensioners on the lists at the beginning of 1912, Ireland had +202,810, and was drawing $12,943,000 out of the total paid of +$59,445,500, while the total population of Ireland was 4,368,599, and +of the rest of the United Kingdom 40,533,557! Further, as an example +of the slight value of education in the game of politics, out of the +41,710 illiterate voters in the United Kingdom, Ireland has 22,515. +Long life to Ireland for her gallant attack upon humbuggery with +humbuggery! And this is, too, the little island that sent the +Wellesleys, the Pallisers, the Moores, the Eyres, the Cootes, the +Napiers, the Wolseleys, and Roberts to fight England's battles, and +half the officers and privates who conquered India; which in the Seven +Years' War furnished Austria with her best generals (Brown, Lacy, +O'Donnell), and whose exiles, called the "Wild Geese," flocked to the +standard of Washington in 1776. This is proof positive that they are +not naturally a parasitic race. + +Even in Germany, where there is not a +tithe of the impish humour that exists in Ireland, the Socialists have +so misused the immense bureaucracy that must carry on the mere +clerical work of insurance, that a new law passed the Reichstag in +June, 1911, containing several hundred amendments. Employers must now +pay one-half instead of one-third of the sickness insurance premiums, +which gives them one-half instead of one-third of the management +authority. + +The management had degenerated into a mere game of politics, with the +Socialists in such disproportionate control that they were rapidly +turning the insurance machinery into a well-organized body for the +exploitation of their own political doctrines; and the employer and +the state were helpless. It is, therefore, amusing to the man on the +spot to find certain English writers offering as proof of the success +of the insurance laws the fact that the Socialists, who once opposed, +are now satisfied with them. Of course they are satisfied with them. +They have had a war-chest and weapons put into their hands such as +they have never had before. Nor have these detailed parchment +solutions of social questions done away with all the tramps, poor, +sick, and destitute. Over a million persons passed through the +municipal night shelters in Berlin during the last year; and there are +still admittedly some 5,000 tramps in Germany. The vicious circle is +in evidence in Germany as elsewhere. It might be possible to regulate +men's earning power by legislation, but even when this colossal task +is done, there must follow the regulation of the spending power to +make it complete. What conceivable legislative regulation can efface +the difference between what A, B, and C will get out of five dollars +once they have them! That is the real problem, but no one proposes a +solution of it. A will use his five dollars to make him more powerful, +B will use his in dissipation, and C will lose his. How is that to be +regulated? And without that regulation you will have rich men and +tramps all over again. + +In urban and rural districts containing over 10,000 inhabitants, some +$40,000,000 was expended for sick and poor relief, and this does not +include the hundreds of districts with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants +for which there are no figures. Even the wholly admirable Elberfeld +system of charity, known all over the world to charity-workers, which +is, briefly, investigation of cases by voluntary workers personally +and privately, and each dealing with a small number, has not solved +the problem. There were 1,537 strikes in Germany in 1909, and 2,109 in +1910. In 1910, 8,269 industrial plants were affected, in which 372,119 +persons were employed, and 2,209 plants were obliged to shut down +entirely. There were as many as 154,093 persons on strike at the same +time. In 1910 there were also 1,121 lock-outs, affecting 10,381 plants +and 314,988 persons. + +Here again, as in the case of the temperament of the German people, +one must look deeper than the average traveller has the time or the +necessary experience back of him to do, in order to see and to sift +the facts. Scores of travellers have told me: "I have never seen a +tramp, a beggar, a drunken man in Germany." I can only reply that I +have seen tramps at large, and colonies of them besides; that I have +seen hundreds of the poverty-stricken and diseased; that there are +more than thirty drunkards' homes in Germany; and that between 1879 +and 1901 the number of persons under treatment for alcoholism had +increased from 12,000 to 65,000, an increase of 500 per cent.; the +cases of heart disease and rheumatism increased by 600 per cent.; +while the total population had increased 33 per cent. There are +125,000 patients admitted to the public and private lunatic asylums of +Germany, and there are accommodations in public and private hospitals +for 1,300,000 in-patients passing through them in the year; in 1909, +544,183 persons were tried before the courts of first instance and +convicted, of whom 49,697 were between twelve and eighteen years of +age; and in the same year there were 183,700 illegitimate births and +14,225 suicides, or 22.3 per 100,000 of the population. The poor law +authorities state that the cost to the empire of alcoholism in all its +forms of poverty, crime, and disease amounts to some $13,000,000 a +year. In 1910 Germany consumed 1,704 million gallons of malt liquors, +the United States, 1,851 million gallons; of beer we consumed 20.09 +gallons and Germany 26.47 gallons per capita. Germany's drink bill +even ten years ago was $560,000,000 for beer, $140,000,000 for +spirits, and $125,000,000 for wine. There is a wine, beer, or spirit +dealer in Berlin for every 157 of the inhabitants, men, women, and +children. It has always been the avowed policy of autocracies to atone +for the lack of political freedom by lax regulations in regard to +moral matters. The citizen is imprisoned for insulting the state, but +he may insult his own person by dissipation up to any limit, this side +of disorderliness in public. Drinking, gambling, and other forms of +vice are provided for the citizens of Berlin comfortably and, +comparatively speaking, cheaply. Lotteries are sanctioned by all the +states, and they use this incentive to the worst form of gambling for +all sorts of purposes, from repairing churches to building patriotic +monuments, and replenishing the treasury. + +This is by no means an attack upon Germany or upon German methods in +these matters; probably both in America and in England we are worse +off in these respects than are they, but unprejudiced people will +agree that it is high time to learn that not even German methods have +solved these complicated and heatedly argued questions of social +reform. Germany, due to its compactness and well-drilled and +subservient population, should succeed if any nation can, for social +legislation has never been in stronger or wiser hands or more +admirably and honestly administered. In America such opportunities +offered to the on-politics-living big and little bosses would lead +swiftly to anarchy. We have laws enough now, but the baser politicians +protect our city tramps, our gunmen, our decadents, our incendiaries +against our elected magistrates, in order that they may keep ready to +hand, and increase, the raw material of a purchasable vote, by the +domination and protection of which they keep themselves in power. That +is the whole secret of our municipal misgovernment wherever it exists, +and also the reason for our barbarous crimes. We have a cowed +magistracy seeking re-election from the manipulators of the +purchasable voters. + +The truth is that the Sacculina method of social reform is nowhere a +success, certainly not in Germany. The Sacculina is a crustacean. It +attaches itself in the form of a simple sac to the crab, into which +its blood-vessels extend. It loses its power of locomotion and its +limbs disappear. It lives at the expense of the crab; activity is not +necessary, and it becomes the highest type of parasite, with no organs +except ovaries and blood-vessels. It can propagate, but has lost all +power or desire to do anything else. We have succeeded in producing no +small number of people of the Sacculina type by playing social and +political crab for them, and we are on the way to produce more, until +the crab is exhausted and the Sacculina is shaken into the water to +sink or swim for himself. "Charity causes half the suffering she +relieves, but she can never relieve half the suffering she causes. + +Compulsory insurance was tried in the practical and economical Swiss +city of Basle and given up, because it was found that each year it was +the same small class who reaped the benefit of the insurance. The crab +gained nothing and the Sacculina became rapidly impotent. Basle, if I +mistake not, will have imitators, inclined to the philosophy of +Frederick the Great, who was surely no enemy to rational progress, but +who once said: "Depuis bien longtemps je suis convaincu qu'un mal qui +reste vaut mieux qu'un bien qui change." + +A good deal of modern legislation is due to fatigue, and some of the +rest to ill-founded apprehension, that unless there is a change of +some kind the masters of the legislators will discharge them, because +they do not furnish enough novelties. In the meantime nobody is bold +enough to proclaim to the restless ones, seeking ever some new thing, +that there is nothing original except what has been forgotten. The +originality of such students of history, and panderers to majorities, +as the leaders of the discontented in England, Germany and in America, +dates back to about the time of the fall of Pericles and the Athenian +republic. + +The cry of "discontent" has become a fetich among unthinking +politicians. We are all, thank God, discontented, and a poor lot we +should be if we were not. The workingman's discontent has been +over-emphasized, for the reason that what he demands is material, +ponderable, for sale, easy to see, and not far out of the reach of +one's hand. He wants more rooms, more meat, more tobacco, more beer, +more leisure. I am glad he does want them, and let me say just once, +in answer to my detractors along these lines, that the workingman has +no heartier champion than am I. I applaud his discontent just as I +cherish my own, for "it is precisely this that keeps us all alive!" It +is just because I wish him well that every ounce of my influence and +experience are his, to open his eyes to the demagogues who fatten upon +him, fool him, rope him, throw him and brand him, as they have done in +Germany, as they are attempting to do in England, and as they will +shortly begin to do in America. State socialism means slavery for him, +with an army of officials living on him. He will be given so much +bread, and beer, and meat, and tobacco; so much music, theatre, and +literature; and there will grow up an army whose business it will be +to keep him in order, and to cut him down if he revolts, as was done +by the police in one of the suburbs of Berlin not long ago. The German +workman is already so entangled in the ropes of insurance, so harried +by petty officials, so branded by the police, and he has permitted to +increase such a host of guardians, that revolt or revolution is +practically impossible. Counting the army, navy, and officials, there +are said to be three million officials, great and small in Germany; +and there are fourteen million electors, or, roughly, one policeman to +every five adults. And those three million policemen, armed with +lethal and legal weapons, are inflexibly and unalterably for no +change. Does the workingman ever stop to think that those officials +draw salaries amounting to something like $1,200,000,000 a year, and +is he still fool enough to think that he does not pay those salaries +to these slave-drivers! I have said that the population is well fed, +well clothed, and well looked after. Of course they are. No slave-owner +so maltreats his slaves that they cannot work for him! But is +man fed by bread alone, even in the sugared form of music and +theatricals? + +If the socialist Pygmalion ever succeeds in bringing his statue to +life, how she will scorn him, hate his suffocating environment, wish +for the wealth and softness he cannot give, desert him, begging to +return to her marble tomb again. + +Long life to discontent, say I; but +is the workingman such a fool that his eyes are not opened when a man +of Bismarck's way of thinking, when an autocrat like the Emperor have +favored state socialism! Does he not see that socialism is the neatest +hangman of them all to strangle his discontent! Does he not see the +demagogue gradually assuming the features and the powers of the +tyrant! Tyranny is not alone the prerogative of an aristocracy. "It is +the place of a court to make its servants insignificant. If the people +should fall into the same humor, and should choose their servants on +the same principles of mere obsequiousness and flexibility, and total +vacancy and indifference of opinion in all public matters, then no +party of the state will be sound, and it will be vain to think of +saving it." Thus writes Burke, the champion of our American revolt +against his own country. The electors, now so flattered by the smooth +phrases of their tyrants disguised as liberators, will one day be +aghast to find themselves in a veritable house of correction paid for +from their own savings. They will have learnt then, at last, that you +cannot get rid of the fools who are rich by deceiving the fools who +are poor; and corporalism will be found to be a harsher, fussier, a +more meddlesome and a more indifferent tyrant than even feudalism. + +Even at the Krupp works at Essen, and the various branches elsewhere, +where there is the most elaborate combination of Lady Bountiful and +successful business anywhere in the world, men are not satisfied. If +they are not contented there, then nowhere in this world will the +workingman be contented. The Krupp business employs some 70,000 +persons. In the particular Essen works, for a hundred years, there has +never been a strike, though others of their employees elsewhere have +used the strike. Though the Cadburys and Levers and Taylors, in +England, the Armours, the United States Steel Corporation, the +National Cash Register Company, the Procter and Gamble Company, the +General Electric Company, and others in America, and the famous and +successful adoption of co-operation in Monsieur Godin's iron foundry +at Guise, in France, have worked along the lines of recognition of +their workmen's right to participate in the profits, there is nothing +on such an elaborate scale as at Essen, under the regime of the +Krupps. + +From 1904 to 1910 the Krupps spent, for beneficial institutions of all +kinds, $14,250,000, or 56 per cent. of the dividends during that time. +I have passed many hours at Essen, and seen thoroughly, from cellar to +attic, this truly noble institution for the comfortable and safe +guardianship of men, women, and children who are at the same time +factors in a huge and successful industrial enterprise. There are +schools, technical schools, hospitals, convalescent homes, a library +with 71,000 volumes, theatre, orchestra, band, lectures, concerts, +pension and insurance funds, lodgings for bachelors, tenements and +dwellings for married people, separate cottages for widows and +widowers too old for work, and every opportunity, with a high rate of +interest, for saving. There is in existence a co-operative store, as +well managed as the co-operative stores at Tuxedo Park, and with much +the same system of rebates. There are bathing facilities, gymnasium, a +boat club, a system of providing hot meals from a central kitchen, +reading-rooms and smoking-rooms. There is invested, not including the +value of the land, which has risen enormously in value, over +$12,500,000 in houses for the working-people, the return on the money +being about 2 3/4 per cent. It would require volumes--indeed, two +bulky volumes were issued last year by the company to celebrate the +hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Krupp works--to +describe merely the machinery for making the people comfortable. + +In 1851 the Krupps exhibited at the exposition in London the first +cannon made of cast steel; now they turn out more shells and shrapnel +in a week than were used at the whole battle of Königgrätz (Sadowa), +which lasted from eight o'clock in the morning till four o'clock in +the afternoon on July 3, 1866. The queen of this, the greatest factory +of destructive agencies in the world, is a gentle Madonna-faced lady +who might well pose for a statue of peace, and whose loveliness is a +mirror of the countless and untiring benefactions with which the +people who work here are surrounded. Both the powers and the people of +Germany may well be proud of the Krupps, for if sane beneficence were +to be raised to the rank of statehood this great colony would well +deserve the honor. The gross profits for the last year were +$9,000,000, half of which was written off and the rest devoted to the +reserve, to dividends, and to contributions to the invalid and pension +funds of the employees, which now amount to $9,500,000. The employees +also have on deposit with the management $8,700,000. The contribution +of the Krupps to the workmen's state-insurance fund amounted, in 1910, +to $1,320,000. The Krupp family is rich, but what would their wealth +have been had they practised the gobbling and juggling financial +methods of ----; but I will not pillory my own countrymen by name, for, +after all, our political methods have made them, and not they +themselves. + +The German manufacturer has been at a disadvantage, too, +for several reasons, and this may well be noted as one of Germany's +problems. She has not the deposits of coal that have made England +rich, nor the wonderful soil of America, from which alone we take +$9,000,000,000 every year, nor France's population, now at a +standstill, and which can feed itself off its own soil. She has been a +large borrower of capital to finance her enormous expansion of +industry and commerce, and, above all, the gold supply of the world, +which in the last resort is the foundation of credit, is not in her +hands, nor can it be so long as British and American fleets keep the +ocean highways over which that gold travels. + +The world's gold output in 1911 was $493,100,000; of this $177,600,000 +came from the Transvaal; $100,350,000 from the United States; +$63,600,000 from Australia; $42,300,000 from Russia; $23,300,000 from +Mexico; $35,600,000 from Rhodesia, India, and Canada; and $15,650,000 +from Central and South America, or $458,000,000, of the total output +of $493,100,000, from countries which in time of war would be unlikely +to ship gold to Germany. More than one half the output comes from the +British Empire alone. To those who are satisfied with the easy answer +to the reason for the increased cost of living, that the output of +gold has increased, it must be puzzling to learn that of the total +output, in round numbers, of $500,000,000, $150,000,000 is used in the +arts and manufactures and $150,000,000 goes to India, where it is +buried and hoarded, and $100,000,000 is retained in the United States +for currency and other purposes. In spite of the fact that the gold +output of the world doubled between 1890 and 1897, and nearly doubled +again between 1897 and 1911, money is dear, and is likely to be so +long as present conditions last. + +The reason for the higher cost of living is to be found in the +movement of the population, from the dulness of the plough to the +sprightliness of the cinematograph. This choice every freeman has a +right to make for himself, but the trouble arises when the politician +comes forward and pays his admission to the cinematograph +entertainment, out of the public funds, in order to get his vote. The +man who does not leave the plough under those conditions is either a +fool or a saint, and the percentage of the growth of cities is a fair +measure of their relative numbers. The increased cost of living is the +result, not of too much gold, but of too little labor on the land, and +this is due, in turn, to the voluptuous rhetoric of the political +street-walkers, whose promises of pleasure are as illegitimate as they +are impossible of fulfilment. A debtor nation like Germany is highly +sensitive to these conditions, and just as she is overcoming, by her +splendid success as a manufacturing nation this problem, she is met by +increased and ever-increasing rivalry. America, in 1901, exported +$466,000,000 of manufactures; in 1891 only $188,000,000; but in 1911, +$910,000,000; and in 1912, $1,021,753,918. We now have in America +225,000 manufacturing plants employing 6,000,000 people, with an +annual pay-roll of $3,500,000,000 and producing every twelve months +$15,000,000,000 worth of goods. The total value of exports and imports +of Japan thirty years ago was $30,000,000, or 87 cents per capita; in +1911 the figures were $480,000,000, or $10 per capita. England during +the years 1911 and 1912 surpassed all previous figures both for +exports and imports. Germany's rivals, it is thus seen, have not been +idle. + +The agricultural population of Germany in 1850 was 65 in the 100; it +is now less than one third. In 1911, after a bad year for the farmers, +Germany was obliged to pay out some $200,000,000 more than usual for +food. The total loans of the German banks on industrial securities +rose from $107,000,000 in 1890 to $632,000,000 in 1910, and bankers +themselves admit that Germany has fallen into the error of seeking and +accepting credit far beyond the value of the capital that they have to +work with. Still more dangerous is the fact that 55 per cent. of the +savings-bank moneys of Germany is locked up in mortgages. In 1907, 217 +new companies were formed in Germany, issuing $62,050,900 in +securities; in 1909, 179 new companies issued $54,929,450 of +securities; in 1910, 186 new companies issued $57,437,700 of +securities. In 1910, 340 companies increased their capital by +$142,657,200. In 1910 there were 5,295 companies in Germany with a +nominal capital of $3,680,979,400. It is estimated that since 1895 +there has been invested in industrial companies in Germany +$1,200,000,000. It is to be said also that since 1897 German +agricultural production has doubled, German industrial production +increased sevenfold, and Germany is said to have $4,750,000,000 in her +savings-banks. The value of imports for home consumption, exclusive of +the precious metals, in 1911 was $2,386,200,000; the value of the +exports of home produce, exclusive of the precious metals, was +$2,025,450,000. It is a quaint result of her temperament and her good +forestry, that Germany sells $25,000,000 worth of toys a year; she is +veritably the workshop of Santa Claus, and many more than 25,000,000 +children would bless her did they know. + +German financiers affirm that she can stand alone financially, while +others assert that one sixth of her capital, I have heard it placed at +one third, is borrowed from France and England. It is certain at least +that the American panic of 1907, and the recent war in the Near East, +have seriously embarrassed Germany financially. + +As Germany can only feed, even in good harvest years, forty-eight or +forty-nine millions of her people, a large proportion of her profits +from industry must necessarily go to the purchase of food for the +other sixteen or seventeen millions. The consumption of meat has +increased among all classes in Germany, and both the demands of the +individual and of the state have increased with the increased wealth +of the country. In Prussia alone the number of those subject to income +tax has increased from 2,400,000 in 1892 to 6,200,000 in 1912; but the +taxes have increased as well, or from $800,000,000 to $1,675,000,000. + +In the endeavor to increase the manufacturing output and to find new +markets German credit has been stretched to a dangerous tenuity. While +the war feeling was at its height the Kölnische Zeitung, a +conservative and able journal, wrote: "In case of war both France and +Germany will be obliged to borrow; but it is certain that the credit +of Germany cannot as yet be compared with the credit of France: this +is a strong guarantee of peace." + +Wermuth, said by impartial judges to be the ablest secretary of the +treasury the German Empire has had in a quarter of a century, resigned +in 1912, on the general ground that he would not be responsible for +the finances of the empire, if it was proposed to continue the +constant increase of national expenditure, by a constant increase of +borrowing, and an ever-increasing amount of interest-bearing +liabilities. He must have smiled to himself when an Imperial issue at +four per cent. put out in February, 1913, was not only not over-subscribed +but not even all taken. + +Unlike the French, who invest their +savings small and large in national loans, the Germans neglect even +their own national loans, preferring the higher returns for their +investments from the innumerable industries launched in modern +Germany; so pronounced is this form of investment, that a director of +the Deutsche Bank has warned his countrymen, that every month's +profits are no sooner gained than they are put out again in new +enterprises, either by the individuals themselves, or by the banks in +which they are deposited. As a result, the liquid capital at the +disposal of Germany is dangerously out of proportion to her borrowings +and her working capital. It shows a fine confidence in the future, and +it proves what needs no proof: the immense industrial and commercial +progress, and the immense sea-carrying trade of Germany. Germany is +like a man with $1,000 in the bank to check upon, but doing business +with $100,000 of borrowed capital, upon which he must pay interest, +and out of which he must take his running expenses. Such a one has no +provision for a bad year, and must depend upon more credit in case of +trouble; and in the case of Germany, it may be added, his personal and +family expenses have largely increased. The German imperial debt had +increased during the first twenty-two years of the present Emperor's +reign, or from 1888 to 1910, by $1,040,000,000, and of that sum some +$650,000,000 were added in the ten years from 1900 to 1910, when +Germany was building her fleet. + +Between the years 1905 and 1910 the total export trade of Germany +increased by $408,225,000, but the whole of the increase was due to +the heavier forms of manufactures: machinery, iron ware, coal-tar +dyes, iron wire, steel rails, and raw iron. The increasing competition +is shown by the fact that during those same years her exports of the +finer manufactures, such as cotton and woollen goods, clothing, gold +and silver ware, porcelain, maps, prints, and the like, actually +decreased by $66,975,000! + +I am not maintaining for a moment that these problems are peculiar to +Germany, but merely that, owing to the rapid progress, they are +aggravated, and that to point out Germany as a model of successful +achievement, along these and other lines, in order to bolster up +political cure-alls at home, is a betrayal of crass ignorance of the +general internal situation of the country, and once such prejudiced +pleaders are found out, the rebound will go too far the other way. +That were a pity, too, for we have much to learn from Germany. + +The $30,000,000 in gold in the Julius Tower at Spandau, called the +war-chest, and the income from railroads, forests, and mines, are to be +put down on the other side of the ledger, but as a year's war, it is +calculated, would cost France, England, or Germany some $2,300,000,000 +each, these sums are of negligible importance. + +The Prussian railways +cost $2,250,000,000, and are now valued at twice that sum, and pay an +average of seven per cent. on the invested capital. Maintenance costs +are included in the total annual expenses, and there is no, so it is +claimed, actual depreciation. Of the net revenue of $157,330,417 in +1909, about $55,000,000 are transferred to the state revenue, out of +which all charges of the state, including interest on bonds, are paid. +The rest is used for new construction, sinking funds, reserve funds, +and so on. + +The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1909-1910 +states that there are nearly $19,000,000,000 of railway capital +outstanding in America. There are 240,438 miles of single track in the +United States; 59,000 locomotives, 35,000 for freight, and a total of +2,290,000 cars of all kinds; and the railways carried in one year +971,683,000 passengers and 1,850,000,000 tons of freight. In 1910, 386 +persons were killed, but, what is often forgotten, more than one half +the total accidents were due to stealing rides and trespassing on the +tracks. The railways in the United States are our largest purchasers +by far, and for every dollar they earn 42 cents is spent in wages, 26 +cents for material, raw or manufactured, before anything is given out +for interest on loans or dividends. + +A first-class ticket in Germany is taxed 16 per cent. on the price of +the ticket; a second-class ticket, 8 per cent.; a third-class ticket, +4 per cent.; the fourth-class ticket, nothing. Crowded and +uncomfortable travelling in Germany is cheap; comfortable travelling +in Germany is very dear indeed. The herding of people in the fourth- +class carriages in Germany resembles our cattle-cars rather than +transportation for human beings. Such conditions would not be +tolerated in America, but against these state-owned railways there is +no redress. No luggage, except hand luggage, is carried free. Not +once, but many times in Germany, my first-class ticket found me no +accommodation, and often in changing from the main line to a branch +line not even a first-class compartment. Shippers in the coal and iron +districts, when I was there, complained bitterly that there were not +enough freight-cars, that their complaints were smothered in +bureaucratic portfolios, and that private enterprise in the shape of +proposals to build new lines was disregarded. The tyranny of Prussia +extends even into the railway field. The Oderberg-Wien line was built +to avoid using the Saxon state railway lines, was a spite railway in +fact. Here again there was no redress, no one to appeal to against the +autocrat. + +In a debate in the Reichstag, in January, 1913, there was much +complaint that the Prussian government was conducting the railways +with the least possible outlay, thus saving money for the state, but +hampering the industrial interests of the country. It was stated that +there were not enough engines or freight-cars, there was an inadequate +staff, and that as a consequence, the loss to the coal industry had +been $11,500,000 and to the coal-miners $3,375,000. + +On the state-owned +railways of the west of France the break-down is ludicrously complete, +and the people are staggered by the official estimates that it will +require at least $100,000,000 to put them in decent running order. + +In twenty years the American railways have practically been rebuilt, +with heavier rails, better bridges, more permanent stations, and so +on; while twenty years ago it cost a passenger 2.165 cents to travel a +mile, to-day it costs him 1.916 cents. We need a lot of bustling about +abroad before we realize how much we have to be grateful for at home! + +Probably the most costly and the most troublesome of Germany's +problems is her conquered provinces: Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, +Alsace-Lorraine, and Poland. Hanover, which was taken by Prussia and +her king deposed, is nowadays a minor matter of the relations between +courts, individuals, and families, which may be said to be settled by +the arranged marriage between the Kaiser's charming daughter and the +heir to the Duke of Cumberland, whose ancestors were kings of Hanover. + +The Danes, on the other hand, in the northern part of these provinces, +still resist Prussianization. They keep to themselves and their +language, send their children to school in Denmark, and resist all +attempts at social and racial incorporation. They are troublesome, as +an independent and surly daughter-in-law might be troublesome. +Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, on the contrary, are outspoken and +potentially dangerous foes in Germany's own household. + +In 1872 Bismarck said: "Alsace-Lorraine will be placed on an equality +with the other German states,
so that the people may be induced to +forget, in a comparatively short time, the trouble and distress of the +war and of annexation." In 1912, a loyal Alsatian German writes: "Das +Elsass, dies jungstgeborene Kind der deutschen Völkerfamilie, braucht +etwas mehr Liebe." Forty years of Prussian rule have not fulfilled the +promise of Bismarck. This same Alsatian writer continues: "In short, +we are approaching ever nearer to the condition of the citizens of all +the other German States, as Baden, Saxony, Bavaria, where they are +also not always of one mind with the higher ruling powers." + +It is difficult for the American, who, no matter what particular State +he lives in, is first of all a citizen of the United States, to +understand this jealousy and, in some quarters, bitter dislike of +Prussia. If the State of New York had sixty million of our ninety +million population, and if the governor of New York were also +perpetual President of the United States, commanded the army and navy, +controlled the foreign policy, and appointed the cabinet ministers, +who were responsible to him alone, we could get an approximate idea of +how the people of Virginia, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California +would feel toward New York. This is a rough-drawn comparison with the +situation in Germany. If, in addition, we had the Philippine Islands +where Maine is, and Cuba where Texas is, it is easy to recognize the +consequent complications. + +We should remember this picture in dealing with this German problem, +which, at any rate, from the point of view of kindly feeling and +successful adoption of these foreign peoples into the German family, +has been a dire failure. The miserable failure of the Germans in +Southwest Africa, their inconclusive war with the Herreros, and the +absolute break-down of Prussian methods with the natives, is scarcely +more typical than the failure in Alsace-Lorraine and Poland. The +Prussian belief in sand-paper as an emollient must be by now rudely +shaken. + +At last a constitution has been given the two conquered provinces. The +governor is to be advised by a parliament, but the government is not +responsible to the parliament, which is composed of two houses. The +upper house has thirty-six members, eighteen of whom are nominees of +the Emperor and eighteen from the churches, universities, and +principal cities. The lower house is to be elected by popular +franchise. Three years' residence in the same place entitles a man to +a vote, but every voter over thirty-five years of age has two votes, +and every voter over forty-five has three votes. + +This, as an American can appreciate, has not been received with +enthusiasm, and their conduct has been so provoking that the Emperor, +during a recent visit, scolded the people, in an interview with the +mayor of a certain town, and, what caused great amusement among the +enemies of Prussia, threatened to incorporate them into Prussia, as +had been done with Hanover, if they were not better behaved. This, of +course, was seized upon as an admission that to be taken into the +Prussian family was of all the hardships the most dreadful. The +socialist journal Vorwärts spoke of Prussia as "that brutal country +which thus openly confesses its dishonor to all the world." Herr +Scheidemann asked in the Reichstag, if Prussia then acknowledged +herself to be a sort of house of correction, and "has Prussia, then, +become the German Siberia?" In 1911 the Reichstag gave the provinces +three votes in the Federal Council. + +Metz, it is said, is more French than ever, and thousands troop across +the boundaries on the anniversary of the French national holiday, to +celebrate it on French soil. The conquered provinces are kept in +order, but the French language, French customs, French culture, are +still to the fore, and so far as loyalty, affection, or a change of +mind and heart is concerned the conversion is still incomplete. The +inhabitants have been baptized Germans, but very few of them have +taken voluntarily, their first communion of nationalization. + +"On changerait plutôt le coeur de place, +Que de changer la vieille Alsace." + +The German, Karl Lamprecht, in his valuable history of contemporary +Germany, is more hopeful of the situation than are other writers and +observers. Professor Werner Wittich maintains that the best of the +intellectual side of life in Alsace is impregnated with French culture +and traditions; and even German officers long stationed in the two +conquered provinces admit the stubborn allegiance of the people to +French customs, habits, beliefs, and traditions. But however that may +be, and it is admittedly a question that different prejudices and +hopes will answer differently, there is no denial on the part of any +one, high or low, that the Prussian bureaucratic mandarins have made +no progress in winning the affection or the voluntary loyalty of the +people. The Prussian has had recourse to the advice given by Prince +Billow, "if you cannot be loved, then you must be feared." A friend +who is only a friend, an ally who is only an ally, a servant who only +serves you because he is afraid of you, is not only an uncomfortable +but a dangerous factor in any establishment, whether domestic or +national. Corporalism, begun by Frederick the Great and fastened upon +Germany by Bismarck, has had its successes. I recognized them, indeed, +on returning to Germany after twenty-five years, as astounding +successes, but they have their weak side too. A barracks can never be +the ideal of a home, nor a corporal the ideal of a guide, philosopher, +and friend. Their own philosopher Nietzsche writes: "the state is the +coldest of all cold monsters." + +Joseph de Maistre, writing of the Slav temperament, says: "Si on +enterrait un désir Slave sous une forteresse, il la ferait sauter." +Germany has some reason to believe that this is true. + +In the northeast of Germany live some 3,000,000 Poles under Prussian +supervision and laws, and ruled by a Prussian governor. There are some +7,000,000 or 8,000,000 Poles divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary, +and Prussia, and behind these are 165,000,000 Russians. The boundary +between this mass and Germany is one of sand; and the railway journey +from Posen to Berlin, is a matter of only four hours. If we were in +Germany's shoes, we should probably take some pains to be well guarded +in that quarter. We should, however, do it in quite another fashion. +We should, if possible, turn over the inhabitants to their own +governing, as England has done in South Africa, as we have tried to do +in Cuba, and as we would do gladly in the Philippines, if every +intelligent man who knows the situation there, were not assured that +robbery, murder, and license would follow on the heels of our +departure; and that instead of doing a magnanimous thing we should be +shirking our responsibilities in the most cowardly fashion. It is bad +enough to know, that we have such cynical political sophists in +Congress, that they would even suffer that catastrophe to innocent +people in the Philippines, if they thought it would make them votes at +home. + +Prussia does not recognize such methods of ruling. Corporalism is +their only way, and, where the people are fit to govern themselves, a +very bad and humiliating way, for the Eden of the bureaucrat is the +hell of the governed. If the Germans approve it for themselves, it is +not our business to comment; but where these methods are applied to +foreign peoples, we both anticipate and applaud their failure. + +The insurrections in Russian and Austrian Poland, had their echoes in +Posen, and since 1849 Prussia has tried in every way to substitute +Germans for Poles, in the country, and to make the German language +predominant in the churches, schools, and in the administration. The +Poles have resisted, emphasizing their resistance in 1867, when they +were included in the North German Federation, and again in 1871, when +they were included in the new German Empire. + +The Emperor William I, in 1886, said: "The increasing predominance of +the Polish over the German element in certain provinces of the east +makes it a duty of the government to guarantee the existence and the +development of the German population." Since 1871 the Poles have +increased so much faster than the Germans that there is danger of +complete extermination of the German population. In 1902 the grandson +of William I, the present Emperor, said at Marienburg: "Polish +arrogance is unbearable, and I am obliged to appeal to my people to +defend themselves against it, for the preservation of their national +well-being. It is a question of the defence of the civilization and +the culture of Germany. To-day and to-morrow, as in the past, we must +fight against the common enemy." This speech of the Emperor was made +at Marienburg, a fine old town, once very prosperous, and in the days +of the Wars of the Roses playing a conspicuous part with the other +Hanseatic towns. This town was also the head and seat of the Teutonic +Order, and it was this Teutonic Order which, in 1230, began the work +of converting the then heathen Prussians, along lines not unlike those +of the Prussian Ansiedlungskommission of to-day. + +Prussia has attempted to solve this question by establishing a +government in the province, pledged to the introduction of the German +language, and so far as possible of German manners and customs. This +has been met with fierce opposition, and never have I heard in the +colonies of other countries, except in Korea, under the present +Japanese administration, such fanatical hatred, expressed in words, as +I have heard in Posen. If you dislike Prussia, do not attempt to +revile her yourself; rather go to Posen and hear it done in a far more +satisfying way. + +The religious question enters largely into the matter, and the +ignorant Poles are even taught that the Virgin Mary, or the "Polish +Queen," will not understand their intercessions if they are not made +in the Polish language. In 1870 there was one Polish newspaper in +Germany, to-day there are 138. + +From 1886 to 1910 the Ansiedlungskommission or committee of +colonization, have spent $170,896,325, and have received $51,863,175, +leaving a net expenditure of $119,033,150. This large expenditure has +resulted in the settlement upon the land of 18,507 families, or about +111,000 persons. The total number settled is now 131,000 persons. Each +male adult German settler has cost the state something over $32,000! +This is probably the most extravagant colonization scheme ever +attempted in the world. + +But even this expenditure has not brought success, and for a very +interesting reason. Again the Germans have been remarkably successful +in their dealings with the inanimate, but the Arcana imperii are still +hidden from them. They have redeemed the land, taught the Poles, as +well as the German settlers, how to farm successfully; largely +increased the output of grain, fruit, pigs, calves, chickens, geese, +and eggs, for which Germany spends several hundred millions a year +abroad; and seen to it that the breed of cows, pigs, horses, chickens, +and geese is kept at a high standard. But now the Poles will sell no +more land. They have profited, not been ruined, by what has come out +of the belly of the Trojan horse! The commission is at a standstill, +and it is now proposed to enforce the Prussian law of 1908 for the +expropriation of Polish estates. This law was overwhelmingly defeated +in the Reichstag in February, 1913, but the Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg +declared that it was an affair of Prussia, with which the +Reichstag has nothing to do, and the sand-paper of the Prussian +bureaucracy will probably be rubbed upon the Polish wound anew. + +This attempt to build a line of moral and intellectual forts, +supplemented by German settlers, on the land between Russia and +Prussia, and to stop the inrush of the Slavic population, has ample +excuse behind it. It is undoubtedly in case of war a serious danger to +Germany to leave herself unguarded there. As to what will come of the +social and racial questions, prophecy alone can answer, and I have far +too much imagination to venture upon prophecy. The care and +thoroughness with which the work is done is beyond all praise, but it +is as difficult to make your brother love you by taking thought +thereon, as it is to add a cubit to one's stature by the same method. + +Professor Ludwig Bernhard, while regretting that this attempt at +Germanization has not succeeded, admits that Prussian methods are +hopeless in such matters. They have, on the contrary, awakened +national feeling, encouraged the forming of agricultural societies, +and strengthened the Bank of Posen, which has become the financial +citadel of opposition. Professor Bernhard goes so far as to say that +he doubts if even the putting into force of the expropriation law of +1908 will bring about any better results. To an American this lack of +unity seems to be perhaps of exaggerated importance. Wir brauchen +nicht diese Nordlichter (We do not need these northern luminaries), is +a phrase of a certain Bavarian official, and in lower or louder tones +one hears the phrase all over Germany outside of Prussia, and loudest +of all in these conquered provinces. + +To legislate men into mechanical relations with one another may keep +the peace temporarily, but it is not a final solution of the intricate +problem of living together in our huddled civilization. The day has +gone by when we could rule men without gaining at least their respect, +and if possible their affection. Prussia's stiffness and newness as a +governing power; her lack of a high moral or religious tone, for there +is a rapidly increasing tendency there to agree with the writer during +the French Revolution: la question de dieu man que d'actualité; her +hard and inflexible methods, make her a churlish neighbor and an +arrogant master. In forty years Prussia has accomplished great things +despite these disadvantages of temperament, of tradition, and despite +these external dangers and problems. She is learning now that there +are not only individuals but whole peoples who say, as William the +Conqueror said to the Pope: "Never have I taken an oath of fealty, nor +shall I ever do so." + + + +X "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE" + + +It has always been considered sound doctrine among Christians that +they should love one another. Vigorous exponents of the doctrine, +however, have ever been few in numbers. As the world gets more +crowded, and we find it more and more difficult to make room for +ourselves, and to get a living, we find antagonisms and defensive +tactics, occupying so much of our time and energy that loving one +another is almost lost sight of. It has been found necessary even +among those of the same nation to legislate for love. We call such +laws, with dull contempt for irony, social legislation. In Germany, +and now in England, the modern sacrament of loving one another +consists in licking stamps; these stamps are then stuck on cards, +which bind the brethren together in mutual and adhesive helpfulness. + +With nations the problem is not so easily and superficially solved; +because no one body of legislators and police has jurisdiction over +all the parties concerned. As a result of this just now in Europe, +wisdom is not the arbiter; on the contrary, prejudices, passions, +indiscretions, and follies on the part of all the antagonists preserve +a certain dangerous equipoise. + +After you have seen something and heard a great deal of these +antagonisms between nations; read their newspapers; talked with the +protagonists and with their rulers, and with the responsible servants +of the State; discussed with professors and legislators these +questions; and listened to the warriors on both sides, you are +somewhat bewildered. There are so many reasons why this one should +distrust that one, so many rather unnatural alliances for protection +against one another, so much friendship of the sort expressed by the +phrase, "on aime toujours quelqu'un contre quelqu'un," so much +suspicious watching the movements of one another, that one is reminded +of the jingle of one's youth: + +"There's a cat in the garden laying for a rat, +There's a boy with a catapult a-laying for the cat, +The cat's name is Susan, the boy's name is Jim. +And his father round the corner is a-laying for him." + +Even to the youngest of us, and to the most inexperienced, this +betokens a strained situation. The first and most natural result is +that each nation's "watchmen who sit above in an high tower," whether +they be the professionals selected by the people or merely amateur +patriots, are forever crying out for greater armaments. + +At the time of the Boxer troubles in China, when Germany sent some +ships to demand reparation for the murder of her ambassador in Peking, +she had only two ships left at home to guard her own shores. When all +England was exasperated by the Boer telegram sent by the Kaiser, or, +if the truth is to be told, by his advisers, the late Baron Marshal +von Bieberstein and Prince Hohenlohe, to President Kruger, official +Germany lamented publicly that she lacked a powerful navy. Only a week +after the Boers declared war the Kaiser is reported to have said: +"Bitter is our need of a strong navy." Germany has noticed, too, not +without suspicion, that-- + +In 1904 England had 202,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +none in the North Sea. + +In 1907 England had 135,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +166,000 tons in the North Sea. + +In 1909 England had 123,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +427,000 tons in the North Sea. + +In 1912 England had 126,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +481,000 tons in the North Sea. + +At last accounts England had 50,000 tons of war-ships in the +Mediterranean and 500,000 tons in the North Sea. + +There has been a steady increase of the navy in Germany. In 1900 the +tonnage of war-ships and large cruisers over 5,000 tons was 152,000; +in 1911 it was 823,000. The number of heavy guns in 1900 was 52; in +1911 it was 330. The horse-power of engines in 1900 was 160,000; in +1911 it was 1,051,000. The naval crews in 1900 numbered 28,326; in +1911, 57,353; and in 1913 the German naval personnel will consist of +3,394 officers and 69,495 men. Between 1900 and 1911 the tonnage of +the British fleet increased from 215,000 to 1,716,000; of the German +fleet from 152,000 to 829,000. + +In ten years British naval expenditure has increased from $172,500,000 +to $222,500,000; in Germany the expenditure has jumped from +$47,500,000 to $110,000,000; in America the increase is from +$80,000,000 to $132,500,000. Out of these total sums Great Britain +spends one third, America one fifth, and Germany one half on new +construction. + +Germany has a navy league numbering over one million active and +honorary members; a periodical, Die Flotte, published by the league +with a circulation of over 400,000. This league not only educates but +excites the whole nation by a vigorous campaign which never ceases. It +takes its members on excursions to seaports to see the ships; it holds +exhibitions throughout the country with pictures and lecturers; it +supports seamen's homes, and helps to equip boys wishing to enter the +navy; it lends its encouragement to the two school-ships which are +partly supported from public funds; it sees to it that war-ships are +named after provinces and cities, creating a friendly rivalry among +them; and lately, out of its surplus funds, it has presented a gun-boat +to the nation. + +The leading spirit of this organization is Admiral von Tirpitz, at +present the German secretary of the navy and probably the most +dangerous mischief-maker in Europe. In addition to this work a +campaign is waged in the press for the increase of the navy, in which +a number of experts are engaged. I have been told by Germans who ought +to know, but who deprecate this exciting campaigning, that the press +is so largely influenced by Admiral von Tirpitz and his corps of +press-agents and writers, that it is even difficult to procure the +publication of a protest or a reply. Indeed, were it my habit to go +into personal matters, I could offer ample proof of this contention, +that the opponents of naval expansion are cleverly shut out of the +press altogether. + +Wilhelmshafen, the naval station on the North Sea, has been fortified +till it is said to be impregnable; the same has been done for +Heligoland, and the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser have also been +strongly fortified. At Kiel are the naval technical school, an +arsenal, and dry and floating docks, and the canal itself is being +widened and deepened to meet the needs of the largest ships of war. + +When it is remembered that the beginnings of all this date back only +to 1898, when the first navy bill was passed through the Reichstag +with much difficulty, and only after the Emperor and his ministers had +brought every influence to bear upon the members, Germany is certainly +to be congratulated upon her success. Nor is she to be blamed for +remembering, and regretting, that the two most important harbors used +by her trade are Antwerp and Rotterdam, the one in Belgium, the other +in Holland. + +The Kielerwoche, or Kiel Regatta, has grown from the sailing-matches +of a few small yachts into one of the best-managed, most picturesque, +and gayest yachting weeks in the world. Indeed, from the stand-point +of hospitality, orderliness, imposing array of shipping, and good +racing and friendliness to the stranger, I am not sure that it is +equalled at either Newport or Cowes. Were I writing merely from my +personal experience, I should declare unhesitatingly that it is the +most splendid and best-managed picnic on the water that one can +attend, and lovers of yachts and yachting should not fail to see it. +This Kielerwoche, too, has, and is intended to have, an influence in +teaching the Germans to aid and abet their Emperor and his ministers +in making Germany a great sea power. + +When a nation for more than a hundred years has been quite comfortably +safe from any fear of attack because she has been easily first in +commerce, wealth, industry, and in sea power, it comes as a shock, +even to a phlegmatic people, to learn that they are being rapidly +overhauled commercially, financially, industrially, and as a fighting +force on the sea; and all this within a few years. + +England with her money subsidies, with her troops, and with her navy +has heretofore provided against Continental aggression by the +diplomatic philosophy of a balance of power. She has arranged her +alliances with Continental powers so that no one of them could become +a menace to herself. She did so against the Spain of Charles V, the +France of Louis XIV, the France of Napoleon, the Russia of the late +Czar, and now against the Germany of William II. The France of the +great Napoleon, in attempting to complete the commercial isolation of +England by compelling Russia to close her ports to her, buried herself +in snow and ice on the way back from Moscow, and delivered herself up +completely a little later at Waterloo. That was the nearest to success +of any attempt to break through the doctrine of the balance of power. + +In the year 800 A. D. the Catholic Church, which took over the Roman +supremacy to translate it into a spiritual empire, accepted a German +Emperor, Charlemagne, as her man-at-arms. One hundred and fifty years +later she accepted still another, Otto I. This partnership was called +the Holy Roman Empire. It has been noted, but is still misunderstood, +that the difference between the Catholic Church before and after the +Reformation was very marked. The Catholic Church claimed to be not +only a system of belief but a system of government. Infallibility was +to include secular as well as religious matters, and the church strove +to rule as a secular emperor and as a spiritual tyrant. To-day Roman +Catholicism is a sect, one among many; Roman Catholics themselves +would be the last to consent to any temporal universal power. + +The Protestants, too, were at first inclined to the methods of Rome. +Luther teaches intolerance, and Calvin burns a heretic and writes in +favor of the doctrine: Jure gladii coercendos esse hereticos. The real +reformation only came when we had reformed the reformers, but it was +that spiritual and political legacy from Rome that the Teuton world, +including ourselves, fought to nullify. + +There was no successful revolt against this curious spiritual +Caesarism until the son of a Saxon miner named Luther married out of +monkdom, burnt the Pope's commands on a bonfire, and plunged all +Europe first into a peasants' war, followed by a dividing of Europe +between a Protestant union and a Catholic league, and then a thirty +years' war, which destroyed two thirds of the population of what is +now Germany. After three hundred years of disunion and hatreds, +Prussia united their country by a cement of blood and iron, and in the +last forty years has made out of her the most powerful nation on the +continent of Europe. + +It is only very lately that any of us have realized what has happened. +So little attention has been paid to the matter that there is no +sufficient and worthy history of Germany in English. More than we +realize, Germany is a new factor in politics, a new rival in commerce, +a new knight in the tournament lists. This accounts, in no small +degree, for the uneasiness Germany causes in the world. + +Forty years ago Germany was known to a few students as having supplied +us with music, mythology, and a certain amount of enchanting +literature; scholarship along certain lines; and work in philosophy +that a few in America and in England were studying. As a knight in +shining armor, demanding a place at the council-board of nations, and +ready to resent any passing over of her claims to recognition in the +discussion and settlement of international politics, she is a +newcomer. + +One of the chief causes for the restlessness, particularly in England, +the heart of the greatest empire in the world, is that this new-comer +must be made room for at the table, received with courtesy, and +consulted. Another individual has married into the family, and must +gradually find her place there. Of all nations in the world, England +is the slowest to make new friends and acquaintances, and easily the +most awkward in doing so. She is a good friend when you know her, but +with the most abominable manners to strangers. + +The Englishman, for example, pops into his club to escape the world, +not to seek it there. The English club and the English home are +primarily for seclusion, not for companionship, and this +characteristic alone is wofully hard for the stranger to understand. +To the gregarious German, priding himself upon Gemüthlichkeit, loving +reunions, restaurants, his Stammtisch, formal and punctilious in his +politeness, unused to the ways of the world, but yet convinced that he +is now a great man politically and commercially, the Englishman is not +only an enigma but an insult. I am criticising neither. I have +received unbounded hospitality and friendliness from both. I have +ridden, fought, drunk, travelled, and lived with both, but for that +very reason I understand how horribly and continually they rub one +another the wrong way. + +In the fundamental matter of morals the German looks upon the +Englishman as a hypocrite, and the Englishman looks upon the German as +rather unpolished and undignified. Berlin is open all night, London +closes at half-past twelve. The British Sunday is a gloomy suppression +of vitality, touched up here and there with preaching and hymn-singing, +and fringed with surreptitious golf; the German Sunday is a +national fair, with a blossoming of all kinds of amusements, deluged +with beer, and attended by whole families as their only relaxation +during the week. + +The German licenses vice, lotteries, and gambling; the Englishman +refuses to recognize the existence of any of the three. The German +does not understand the Englishman's point of view in these matters, +which is that, though he knows these things to exist, and that he is +no better in actual practice than other men, he refuses to accept +these as his ideal. He denounces and passes judgment upon, and +punishes men and women, who go too far in their appreciation and +practice of apolausticism as a philosophy of life. He might have run +away from danger himself, but he none the less scorns the man who did +so. The shipwreck, the fire, the test of moral courage and endurance, +may have found him a coward, or weak, or a deserter, but he holds that +he must none the less measure the coward, the weakling, and the +deserter, not by his own possible weakness if put to the same tests, +but by his ideal of a courageous and straightforward Englishman. I +agree with him wholly and heartily. If our sympathy is to go out on +every occasion, to the man who failed to come up to the mark of noble +manhood, just because we feel that we might under like circumstances +have failed too, then we give up the code of honor altogether, and our +ideals droop to the level from which we fight and pray to be +preserved. + +We pass judgment upon the coward, upon the failure, upon the man who +has not mastered his life and life itself, unhesitatingly. It is hard +to do, it looks as though one were without pity and without sympathy. +Not so; it is because we have great sympathy, and I hope unending +pity, and a growing charity, and constant willingness to lend a hand; +but to condone failure is to commit the selfish and unpardonable +cowardice of not judging another that you may not be forced to judge +yourself too harshly. That is far from being hypocrisy. Indeed, in +these days it is one of the hardest things to do, so fast are we +levelling down socially and politically and even morally. It looks +like an assumption of superiority when, God knows, it is only a +timorous attempt on our part not to lose our grip on the ideals that +help to keep us out of the dust and the mud. But he who lets others +off lightly in order that he may not be thought to have too high a +standard himself, or because he fears that he may one day fail +himself, such a one is the coward of cowards, the candidate for the +lowest place in hell; and well he deserves it, for he helps to lower +the standard of manhood, and he tarnishes the shield of honor of the +whole race. Let them call us hypocrites till they strangle doing so, +for when we lower our standards because we fear that we cannot live up +to them ourselves, all will be lost. To be mild with other men, +because we distrust ourselves, is a poisonous sympathy that rots away +the life of him who receives it, and of him who gives it, and ends in +a slobbering charity which must finally protect itself by tyranny and +cruelty. Not infrequently in dealing with individuals and with subject +nations it is senseless cruelty to be over-kind. + +This sneer of Saxon hypocrisy, of "Perfide Albion," is seldom +explained to other people by men of our race, and we Americans and +Englishmen have taken little pains to make it clear. We should not be +surprised, therefore, if we are misunderstood. We have been easily +first so long that we have neglected the explanation or the defence of +ourselves to others. + +The Germans, too, have something of the same indifference. A most +sympathetic observer of German manners and customs, and a man for +whose honesty and gentleness I have the highest esteem, Père Didon, +remarked of the Germans: "J'ai essayé maintes fois de découvrir chez +l'Allemand une sympathie quelconque pour d'autres nations; je n'y ai +pas réussi." + +I call attention again to the important point, that it has been +difficult to manufacture an all-round German patriotism. As a +consequence patriotism in Germany is more than a sentiment, it is a +theory, a doctrine, a theme to which statesmen, philosophers and +poets, and rulers devote their energies. The German looks upon his +nation not only as a people, but as a race, almost as a formal +religion; hence perhaps his hatred of the Jew and the Slav, and his +difficulties with all foreign peoples within his borders. In order to +build up his patriotism the German has been taught systematically to +dislike first the Austrians, then the French, now the English; and let +not the American suppose that he likes him any better, for he does +not. This patriotism, once developed, was drawn on for funds for an +army, then for a navy. At the present time there must be some +explanation offered, and the explanation is fear of England, dislike +of British arrogance. In one of his latest speeches the Kaiser said: +"We need this fleet to protect ourselves from arrogance"; that, of +course, means, always means, British arrogance. + +From the moment a child goes to school, by pictures on the walls, by +an indirect teaching of history and geography, he is led on discreetly +to find England in Germany's way. At the present writing German school +children, and German students, and German recruits are imbued with the +idea that Germany's relations with England are in some sort an +armistice. This poisonous teaching of patriotism has produced wide-spread +enmity of feeling among the innocent, but this enmity has built +the navy. And now that in certain quarters it is found desirable to +soothe and calm this feeling, it proves to be more difficult to subdue +than it was to arouse. The monster that Frankenstein called up devours +its own creator. Now that England can no longer be the enemy, because +Germany's greatest present and future danger is from the Slav races, +there are evidences that the German state is teaching the dog not to +bark at England any more. + +Germany has not neglected England, but of late she has paid her the +wrong kind of attention. Erasmus, the scholar-rapier, as Luther was +the hammer, of the Reformation, visits England and writes: "Above all, +speak no evil of England to them. They are proud of their country +above all nations in the world, as they have good reason to be." + +Kant, the German philosopher, on his clock-like rounds in Königsberg, +knew something of England and writes of her: "Die englische Nation, +als Volk betrachtet, ist das schätzbarste Ganze von Menschen im +Verhältniss unter einander; aber als Staat gegen fremde Staaten der +verderblichste, gewaltsamste, herrschsüchtigste und kriegerregendste +von allen." + +("The English, as a people, in their relations to one another are a +most estimable body of men, but as a nation in their relations with +other nations they are of all people the most pernicious, the most +violent, the most domineering, and the most strife-provoking.") + +Another German, something of a scholar, something of a philosopher, +but a wit and a singer, Heine, visited England, and, as he handed a +fee to the verger who had shown him around Westminster Abbey, said: "I +would willingly give you twice as much if the collection were +complete!" To him Napoleon defeated was a greater man than the +"starched, stiff" Wellington; and the "potatoes boiled in water and +put on the table as God made them" and the "country with three hundred +religions and only one sauce were a constant source of amused +annoyance. The German professors and students, who in the early part +of the nineteenth century lauded English constitutional liberty to the +skies and made a god of Burke, have soured toward England since. + +"What does Germany want?" asked Thiers of the German historian Ranke. +"To destroy the work of Louis XIV," was the reply. Professor +Treitschke and his successor in the chair of history at Berlin, +Professor Delbrück, have been outspoken in their denunciation of +England. Mommsen, Schmoller, Schiemann, Zorn of Bonn, and his +colleague there, von Dirksen, Professor Dietrich Schaefer, Professor +Adolph Wagner, and many other scholars have been, and are, politicians +in Germany, and none of them friendly to England, to France, or to +America. Bismarck himself remarked of these gentlemen: "Die Politik +ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich +einbilden, sie ist eben eine Kunst" ("Politics is not a science as +many professorial gentlemen fancy; it is an art"); and again: "Die +Arbeit des Diplomaten, seine Aufgabe, besteht in dem praktischen +Verkehr mit Menschen, in der richtigen Beurtheilung von dem, was +andere Leute unter gewissen Umständen wahrscheinlich thun werden, in +der richtigen Erkennung der Absichten anderer; in der richtigen +Darstellung der seinigen" ("The work of the diplomat, his chief task, +indeed, consists in the practical dealing with men, in his sound +judgment of what other people would probably do under certain +circumstances, in his correct interpretation of the intentions and +purposes of other people, and in the accurate presentation of his +own"). + +He began his political life in 1862 with the phrase: "Die grossen +Fragen können durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse nicht entschie den +werden, sondern durch Eisen und Blut" ("The great questions cannot be +decided by speeches and the decisions of majorities, but by iron and +blood"). + +It is a well-known professor who writes: "Denn die einzige Gefahr, die +den Frieden in Europa und damit den Weltfrieden droht, liegt in den +krankhaften Übertreibungen des englischen Imperialismus" ("The only +danger to the peace of Europe, and that includes the peace of the +world, lies in the morbid excesses of British imperialism"). Another +quotation from the same pen reads: "So far as other perils to the +British Empire are concerned, they are of much the same character, but +the empire suffers too from the selfish policy of English business, +which, in order to create big business, does not hesitate to interfere +with the declared policy of the state." Then follows the statement +that English traders have smuggled guns to the Persian Gulf. + +Professor Zorn writes: "The possibility that while our Emperor was +seeking rest and refreshment in Norwegian waters and enjoying the +beauties of the Norwegian landscape, English ships were lying in +readiness to annihilate German ships." It is hard to believe that such +lunatic lies can come from the pen of a professor in good standing. + +"Ohne zu übertreiben kann man sagen dass heute nur der allerkleinste +Teil der deutschen Presse geneigt ist, den Engländern Gerechtigkeit +widerfahren zu lassen, bei Behandlung allgemeiner Fragen sich auch +einmal auf den englischen Standpunkt der Betrachtung wenigstens +zeitweise zu versetzen. England ist fur viele 'der' Feind an sich, und +em Feind dem man keine Rücksichten schuldet." + +("It is no exaggeration to say that nowadays only the tiniest minority +of the German press is inclined to do justice to the English by at +least occasionally looking at questions from the British point of +view. England is for many the enemy of enemies and an enemy to whom no +consideration is due.") Thus writes one of the cooler heads in the +Kölnische Zeitung. + +Doctor Herbert von Dirksen, of Bonn, writing of the Monroe Doctrine, +says: "By what right does America attempt to check the strongest +expansion policy of all other nations of the earth?" During the Boer +war Germany was showered with post-cards and caricatures of the +English. British soldiers with donkey heads marched past Queen +Victoria and the Prince of Wales; the venerable Queen Victoria is +pictured plucking the tail feathers from an ostrich which she holds +across her knees; the three generals, Methuen, Buller, and Gatacre, +take off their faces to discover the heads of an ass, a sheep, and a +cow; Chamberlain is depicted as the instigator of the war, with his +pockets and hands full of African shares; a parade of the stock-exchange +volunteers depicts them as all Jews, with the Prince of Wales +as a Jew reviewing them; the Prince of Wales is pictured surrounded by +vulgar women, who ask, "Say, Fatty, you are not going to South +Africa?" to which the Prince replies, "No, I must stay here to take +care of the widows and orphans!" English soldiers are depicted in the +act of hitting and kicking women and children. + +In the war with Denmark +in 1864 the Austrian navy met with a disaster at sea. A German +publicist even then wrote: "I was grieved at the demonstrations of joy +about this in the English Parliament. It was not sympathy with the +Danes but petty spite and malice at the defeat of a foreign fleet. But +at the same time it is a consolatory proof that the English are afraid +of the future German navy." This quotation is interesting as showing +how far back the quarrel dates. + +It would be merely a question of how +much time one cares to devote to scissors and paste to multiply these +examples of Germany's journalistic and professorial state of mind. It +is unfortunate that some of this writing in the press is done by those +who are often in consultation with the Emperor, and on some political +subjects his advisers. I have suggested in another chapter that +Germany suffers far more from the theoretical and book-learned +gentlemen who surround the Emperor than from his indiscretions. In +more than one instance his indiscretions were due to their blundering. +Their knowledge of books far surpasses their knowledge of men, and +nothing can be more dangerous to any nation than to be counselled and +guided by pedants rather than by men of the world. This projecting a +world from the gaseous elements of one's own cranium and dealing with +that world, instead of the world that exists, is a danger to everybody +concerned. + +"Bedauernswert sei es allerdings, dass wir in unserem politischen +Leben nicht mit gentlemen zu thun haben, dies sei aber em Begriff der +uns überhaupt abgehe," writes Prince Hohenlohe in his memoirs. ("It is +of all things most to be regretted that in our political life we do +not have gentlemen to deal with, but this is a conception of which we +are totally deficient.") + +A daring colonial secretary, speaking in the Reichstag of certain +scandals in the German colonies, said bluntly: "A reprehensible caste +feeling has grown up in our colonies, the conception of a gentleman +being in England different from that in Germany." + +When Lord Haldane came to Berlin, on his mission to discover if +possible a working basis for more friendly relations between the two +countries, his eyes were greeted in the windows of every book-shop +with books and pamphlets with such titles as "Krieg oder Frieden mit +England," "Das Perfide Albion," "Deutschland und der Islam," "Ist +England kriegslustig," "Deutschland sei Wach," "England's +Weltherrschaft und die deutsche Luxusflotte," "John Bull und wir," and +a long list of others, all written and advertised to keep alive in the +German people a sense of their natural antagonism to England. + +During the last year the "Letters of Bergmann" brought up again the +controversy, that should have been left to die, over the treatment of +the Emperor Friedrich by an English surgeon. + +In discussing Senator Lodge's resolution before the United States +Senate, on the Monroe Doctrine, the German press spoke of us as +"hirnverbrannte Yankees," "bornierte Yankeegehirne" ("crazy Yankees," +"provincial Yankee intellects"); and the words "Dollarika," +"Dollarei," and "Dollarman" are further malicious expressions of their +envy, frequently used. The Germans are persistently taught that there +are neither scholars nor students in America or in England. One worthy +writes: "Die Engländer lernen nichts. Der Sport lässt ihnen keine Zeit +dazu. Man ist hinterher auch zu müde." + +I am always very glad, when I happen to be in Europe, that I belong to +a nation that can afford to take these flings with the greatest good-humor. +As the burly soldier replied when questioned in court as to why +he allowed his small wife to beat him: "It pleases her and it don't +hurt I." + +This struggle for recognition as a great nation, to be received on +equal terms by the rest of us, has upset the nerves of certain classes +in Germany, and among them the untravelled and small-town-dwelling +professor. + +I am a craftsman in letters myself, in a small way, but I am no +believer that books are the only key to life, or the only way to find +a solution for its riddles and problems. Life is language, and books +only the dictionaries; men are the text, books only the commentaries. +Books are only good as a filter for actual experiences. A man must +have a rich and varied experience of men and women before he can use +books to advantage. Life is varied, men and women many, while the +individual life is short; wise men read books, therefore, to enrich +their experience, not merely as the pedant does, to garner facts. +"J'étudie les livres en attendant que J'étudie les hommes," writes +Voltaire. "Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a +mighty bloodless substitute for life," writes Stevenson. + +Montgolfier sees a woman's skirt drying and notices that the hot air +fills it and lifts it, and this gives him the idea for a balloon. + +Denis Papin sees the cover lifted from a pot by the steam, and there +follow the myriad inventions in which steam is the driving power. + +Newton, dozing under an apple-tree, is hit on the head by a falling +apple, and there follows the law of gravitation. + +Franklin flies a kite, and a shock of electricity starts him upon the +road to his discoveries. + +Archimedes in his bath notices that his body seems to grow lighter, +and there follows the great law which bears his name. + +These are the foundation-stones upon which the whole house of science +is built, and no one of them was dug out of a book. Charlemagne could +not read, and Napoleon, when he left school for Paris, carried the +recommendation from his master that he might possibly become a fair +officer of marines, but nothing more! A capital example of the ability +of the man of books to measure the abilities of the man of the world. + +Reading and writing are modern accomplishments, and we grossly +exaggerate their importance as man-makers. That, it has always been my +contention, is the fatal fallacy of modern education, and you may see +it carried to its extreme in Germany, for men who have not lived +broadly are merely hampered by books. It is as though one studied a +primer with an etymological dictionary at his side. Germans are +renowned writers of commentaries, but you cannot deal with men and +with life by the aid of commentaries. Exegesis solves no international +quarrels, and the mastery of men is not gained with dictionaries and +grammars. + +We are all prone to forget the end in the means, for the end is far +away and the means right under our noses. We all recognize, when we +are pulled up short and made to think, that, after all, the arts and +letters, religion and philosophy and statecraft, are for one ultimate +purpose, which is to develop the complete man. Everything must be +measured by its man-making power. Ideas that do not grow men are +sterile seed. Men who do not move other men to action and to growth +are not to be excused because they stir men to the merely pleasant +tickling of thinking lazily and feeling softly. Thus Lincoln was a +greater man than Emerson; Bismarck a greater than Lessing; Cromwell a +greater than Bunyan; Napoleon a greater than Corneille and Racine; +Pericles greater than Plato; and Caesar greater than Virgil. + +The man who only makes maps for the mind is only half a man, until his +thinking, his influence, his dreams and enthusiasms take on the +potency of a man and come into action. Even if men of action do evil, +as some of those I mention have done, they have translated theories +into palpable things that permit men to judge whether they be good or +bad; and the really great artists, thinkers, and saints are as fertile +as though they were female, and gave birth, to living things. Their +thinking is a form of action. The real test of successful organization +is the thoroughness of the thinking behind it; on the other hand, the +only test of thinking is the success of the thought in actual +execution, and the Germans often take this too much for granted. We +really know and hold as an inalienable intellectual possession only +what we have gained by our own effort, and with a certain degree of +actual exertion. People who have never worked out their own salvation +always join, at last, that large class in the body politic who don't +know what they want, and who will never be happy till they get it. + +When it comes to dealing with inanimate things, books of rules are +invaluable. Hence, in chemistry, physics, archaeology, philology, +exegesis, the Germans have forged ahead; their intellectual street-cleaning +is unsurpassed; but the ship of state needs not only men to +take observations and to read charts, but men to trim the sails to the +fitful breezes, the blustering winds, the tempests and the changing +currents of life. They must know, too, the methods, the manners, the +habits of other men who sail the seas of life. It is just here that +the German fails; he lacks the confidence of experience, and bursts +into bluster and bravado. He is a believer in vicarious experience, +and is as little likely to be saved by it, in this world at least, as +he is by vicarious sacrifice. + +His imagination does not make allowances for either England or +America. He does not see, for example, that the Monroe Doctrine is not +open for discussion for the simple reason that America has announced +it as American policy; just as Prussia took part three times in the +dismemberment of Poland; just as Prussia pounced upon Silesia; just as +Germany took Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein and Frankfort, and +held the ring while Austria-Hungary bagged Bosnia and Herzegovina, and +by the word of her Emperor, promised to do the same thing for Russia, +when Japan declared war against her. We have decided that we will have +no European sovereignty in South America, and this side war, that is +the end of the matter, call it the Monroe Doctrine or what you will. +It only makes for uneasiness and bad temper to discuss it. It is the +national American policy. It may be right or wrong theoretically, but +international law has nothing to do with it. The German professors who +discuss it from that stand-point, are beating the air and raising a +dust in the world's international drawing-room. + +This German mania for translating facts back into philosophy and then +dancing through a discussion of theories is not understood, much less +appreciated, by the rest of the world. We can never get on if we are +to introduce the discussion of the lines of every new battle-ship by +arguments as to the sea-worthiness of the ark. Those of us who control +a quarter of the habitable globe, and the inhabitants thereof, are +much too busy to discuss the legal aspects of the land-grabbing of the +Pharaohs. Geography is not metaphysics, but it is wofully hard for the +professorial mind to grasp this. + +"Given a mouse's tail, and he will guess +With metaphysic quickness at the mouse." + +In much the same way German statesmen and the German press do not +understand, or do not care to understand, that British statesmen when +they speak in the House of Commons, or when they go to the country +asking increased appropriations for the navy, must give some reason +for their request. There is only one reason, and that is that there is +a growing navy across the North Sea, which, whether now it is or is +not a menace, may be a menace to their ship-fed island, and they must +have ships and men and guns enough to guard the sea-lanes which their +food-laden ships must sail through. + +They may be awkward sometimes in their expression of this self-evident +fact, they may call their own fleet a necessity and the other fleet a +luxury, but that is a negligible question of verbal manners; the fact +remains that their fleet is, and all the world knows it is, and it is +laughable to discuss it, the prime necessity of their existence. + +As long as we Christians have given up any shred of belief in +Christian ethics, as applicable to international disputes, we must +live by the law of the strongest. We do not bless the poor in spirit, +but the self-confident; we do not bless the meek, but the proud; we do +not bless the peace-makers, but those who urge us to prepare for war; +we do not bless the reviled and the persecuted and the slandered, but +those who revolt against injustice and tyranny; we do not approve the +cutting off of the right hand, but admire the mailed fist; and it is +only adding to the confusion to raise millions for war ourselves, and +then to present a handsomely bound copy of the Beatitudes to our +rivals. + +I shall be wantonly misunderstood if these reflections be taken as a +criticism of Germany. This situation involves Germany in censure no +more than other nations. It is only that Germany shows herself to be +somewhat childish and peevishly provincial, in girding at an +unchangeable situation, either in South America or in the North Sea. + +This is not altogether Germany's fault. She is suffering from growing +pains, and from grave internal unrest. She is only just of age as a +nation, and her constitution is so inflexible that it is a constant +source of irritation. She is governed by an autocracy, and the two +strongest parties numerically in her Reichstag are the party of the +Catholics and the party of the Socialists. She has built up a +tremendous trade on borrowed capital, and every gust of wind in the +money market makes her fidgety. Her population increases at the rate +of some 800,000 a year, but her educational system produces such a +surplus of laborers who wish to work in uniforms, or in black coats +and stiff collars, that there is a dearth of agricultural laborers, +and she imports 700,000 Hungarians, Poles, Slays, and Italians every +year to harvest her crops. + +This same system of education has taught youths to think for +themselves before either the mental or moral muscles are tough enough, +with the result that she is the agnostic and materialistic nation of +Europe, and her capital the most licentious and immoral in Europe. + +This is the result of secular education everywhere. Freedom of +thought, yes, but not freedom of thought any more than freedom of +morals, or freedom of manners, or political freedom, in extreme youth; +that only makes for anarchy political, mental, and moral. + +There is much undigested, not to say indigestible, republicanism about +just now in China and in Portugal, for example; just as there are +materialism and agnosticism in Germany and in France, not due to +super-intellectualism but to juvenile thinking. The Chinese are just +as fit for a republic--an actual republic is still a long way off +as are callow German youths, and notoriety-loving French students, for +freedom to disbelieve and to destroy. No country can long survive a +majority of women teachers in the public schools, together with no +Bible and no religious teaching there. I have no prejudices favoring +orthodoxy, but I have a fairly wide experience which has given me one +article of a creed that I would go to the stake for, and that is that +it is of all crimes the worst to give freedom political, moral, or +religious to those who are unprepared for it. + +Germany's taste in literature, once so natural and healthy, has become +morbid, and Sudermann and Gorky and Oscar Wilde, and the rest of the +unhealthy crew who swarm about the morgues, the dissecting-rooms, and +the houses of assignation of life, the internuntiata libidinum, the +leering conciliatrices of the dark streets, are her favorites now. +There is no surer sign of mental ill-health than a taste for lowering +literature, an appetite for this self-dissecting, this complacent, +self-contemplating form of intellectual exercise. + +This is no heated assault on German culture. It is a natural phase of +development. Youthful candidates for worldliness all go through this +pornocratic stage. "The impudence of the bawd is modesty, compared +with that of the convert," writes the Marquis of Halifax. The German +professor and the German bourgeois in their Rake's Progress are only a +little more awkward, a little more heavy-handed, a little coarser in +speech, than others, that is all. The period of twenty-five years +during which I have known Germany has developed before my eyes the +concomitants of vast and rapid industrial and commercial progress, and +they are: a love of luxury, a great increase in gambling, a +materialistic tone of mind, a wide-spread increase of immorality, and +a tendency to send culture to the mint, and to the market-place to be +stamped, so that it may be readily exchanged for the means of soft +living. These internal changes account to some extent for her restless +external policy. A man's digestion has a good deal to do with the +color of the world when he looks at it. There is more yellow in life +from biliousness, than from the state of the atmosphere. + +Aside from these domestic causes there is no reason why Germany should +take a sentimental or pious view of these questions of international +amity. Her own history is development by war. "Any war is a good war +when it is undertaken to increase the power of the state," said +Frederick the Great. "Nur das Volk wird eine gesicherte Stellung in +der Welt haben, das von kriegerischen Geiste erfüllt ist" ("Only that +nation will hold a safe place in the world which is imbued with a +warlike spirit") writes Germany's great military philosopher +Clausewitz. + +We took Cuba and the Philippines; England took India, Hong Kong, and +Egypt; Japan took Korea and southern Manchuria; Italy took Tripoli; +France took Fez; Russia took Finland and northern Manchuria; +Austria-Hungary took Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Prussia and Germany have +a long list, including Silesia, Poland, Hanover, and Alsace-Lorraine. +Austria-Hungary tears up the Berlin treaty; France, Germany, and Spain +tear up the Algeciras treaty; Italy tears up the treaty of Paris; and +it is part of the game that we should all hold up our hands, avert our +faces, and thank God that we are not as other men are, when these +things are done. The justifications of these actions are all of the +most pious and penitent description. We were forced to do so, we say, +in order to hasten the bringing in of our own specially patented and +exclusive style of the kingdom of heaven, but outside of perhaps India +and Egypt, and the Philippines, it would be hard to find to-day any +trace of the promised kingdom. Germany, for example, had nine per +cent. of Moroccan trade, the total of Moroccan trade with all +countries only amounted to $27,500,000 a year, and she was compelled +to interfere for the protection of her traders, forsooth! The outcome +of the business, after an exciting situation lasting for months, was +that Germany got a slice of territory from France, mostly swamps, +which reaches from the Congo to the Atlantic Ocean, and reported to +be, by her own engineers, uninhabitable. + +It is the pleasant formula of +polite statesmen and politicians to say, that it is a pity that +Germany came into the world competition a hundred years too late, when +the best colonies had been parcelled out among the other powers. This +is a superficial view of the case, and misses the real point of the +present envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. Germany does not +want colonies, and has no ability of the proper kind, and no willing +and adventurous population to settle them, if she had. Prussia's +dealing with aborigines is a subject for comic opera. + +Germany came +into the modern world as a dreamer, as a maker of melodies, as a +singer of songs, as a sort of post-graduate student in philosophy and +in theoretical, and later applied science. She introduced us to +classical philology, to modern methods of historical research, to the +comparative study of ethnic religions, to daring and scholarly +exegesis, to the study of the science of language. She discovered +Shakespeare to the English; Eduard Mätzner and Eduard Müller, and +German scholars in the study of phonetics, have written our English +grammars and etymological dictionaries for us, and helped to lay the +foundations for knowledge of our own language. Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, +one need not mention more, attempted to pass beyond the bounds of +human experience and to formulate laws for the process; +Schleiermacher, maintaining that Christian faith is a condition of +devout feeling, a fact of inward experience, an object which may be +observed and described, had an unbounded influence in America, and +many are the ethical discourses I have listened to which owed more to +Schleiermacher than to their authors. Humboldt, Liebig, Bunsen, +Helmholtz, Johannes Müller, Von Baer, Virchow, Koch, Diesel, even the +British and American man in the street, with little interest in such +matters, knows some of these names; while Schopenhauer and Nietzsche +are symbols of revolt, whose names are flung into an argument by many +who only know their names, but who fondly suppose that the one stands +for despair and suicide, and the other for the joy and unbridled +license of the strong man. + +Reckoning by epochs, it was only yesterday +that Germany said to the world: "No more of this!" + +"Hang up philosophy! +Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, +Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, +It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more!" + +Of a sudden our scholar threw off his gown and cap, and said: "I +propose to play base-ball and foot-ball with you, I propose to have a +hand in the material spoils of life, I propose to have a seat at the +banquet and to propose toasts and to be toasted!" Faust of a sudden +left his gloomy, cobwebby laboratory, flung a fine cloak over his +shoulders, stuck a dandy feather in his cap, buckled on a rapier, and +began roistering with the best of us. We sneered and smiled at first, +let us be frank and admit it. We did not think much of this new buck. +We had little fear that the professor, even if he took off his +spectacles and slippers and dressing-gown, and exchanged his pipe for +a cigarette, would cut much of a figure as a lover. He was new to the +game, we were old hands at it, but the first thing we knew he had +given the world's mistress, France, a scolding, and flung her into a +corner, a cowering heap of outraged finery; and she has only been safe +ever since in the rôle of a sort of mistress of England on +board-wages. + +A new cock in the barn-yard is never received with great +cordiality. He must win his place and his power with his beak and his +spurs. We all of us had enough to do before this fellow came along. We +are a little jealous of him, we are all uneasier because he is about, +and he has done so well at our games, now that he has indeed hung up +philosophy, that we are not even sure that it is safe to take him on +in a serious match. We have endeavored, therefore, to keep him +occupied with his own neighbors, to whom we have extended our best +wishes and our moral backing, which is known as keeping the balance of +power in Europe. + +But a new Germany has come into the world. Germany nowadays has a +large class, as have the rest of us, who belong to that increasing +number of extraordinary people who want money without even knowing how +to get on without it. The only satisfactory test of the right to +wealth is the ability to get on without it. One of modern +civilization's most dangerous pitfalls is the subversive doctrine that +all men shall have wealth, even before they have proved their ability +to do without it. Germany is gradually arriving at this puny stage of +culture, whose beginnings may be said to date from that ominous year +for culture, 1492, when Lorenzo di Medici died and Columbus discovered +America! + +During all this time statesmen have insisted that there is no good +reason why Germany and England should not be on good terms; gentlemen +of various trades and professions from both countries, speaking +halting English or embarrassed German, as the case may be, cross each +other's boundaries, comment upon the beauties of the respective +countries, and overeat themselves in ponderous endeavors to appear +cordial and appreciative. Mayors and aldermen swap stories and +compliments over turtle and sherry, or over sauerkraut and +Johannisberger; bands of students visit Oxford or Heidelberg, and +there is a chorus of praise of Goethe from one side, of Shakespeare +from the other; and all the while there is an unceasing antiphonal of +grimaces and abuse in the press. Not even when Germany exports her +latest stage novelties to London, and pantomimic platitudes are +dandled under colored lights, does the turmoil of martial talk cease. +Not even Teutonic lechery, in the guise of Reinhartian art, dressed in +nothing but silence, and making faces at the British censor on the +boards of the music-halls, avails anything. + +Of course all this is nuts to the irresponsible journalists, to the +manufacturers of powder, guns, and ships, and to politicians and +diplomats out of employment; but it is hard on the taxpayer, who has +no dividends from manufacturers of lethal weapons and ships, nor from +newspapers, and no notoriety from the self-imposed jobs of the +unofficial diplomats. + +Perhaps of all these factors the press, in its wild gamble to make +money out of sensationalism, is most to blame. The press, for the sake +of gain, has soiled and soured the milk of human kindness by exposing +it, carelessly and unceasingly, to the pathogenic dangers of the dust +of the street and the gutter. It is wholly unfitting and always +demoralizing when the priest, the politician, and the journalist turn +their attention to private gain. Any one of these three who makes a +great fortune out of his profession is damned by that fact alone. The +only payment, beyond a living, that these three should look to is, +respect, consideration, and the honor of serving the state unselfishly +and wisely. The world will be all the happier when there are no more +Shylocks permitted in any of these professions. + +Germany is autocratic, philosophical, and continental; England is +democratic, political, and insular. It is hopeless to suppose that the +great mass of the people of one country will understand the other, +and, for this is the important point, it is wholly unnecessary. + +We get on best and with least friction with people whom we do not +understand in the least. A man may have known and liked people with +whose aims, opinions, employment, creeds he has the smallest sympathy. +One may mention such diverse personalities as John L. Sullivan, the +prize-fighter, Cardinal Rampolla, Mr. Roosevelt, Doctor Jameson, the +Kaiser, President Diaz of Mexico, numerous Jew financiers, Lord +Haldane the scholar-statesman, and a long list of professors, pious +priests, sportsmen, and idlers, not to speak of Hindus and +Mohammedans, Japanese and Chinese, and half a dozen Sioux chiefs. With +these gentlemen, a few of many with whom one may have been upon such +pleasant terms that they have even confided in him and trusted him +with their secrets, one may have passed many pleasant hours. It +probably never entered such a man's head to wonder whether they liked +him, and he never discussed with them the question of his liking for +them. We get on by keeping our own personalities, prejudices, and +creeds intact. There is no other way. + +Other men will give even a more diverse list of friends and +acquaintances, and never for a moment dream that there is any mystery +in being friends with all. Nothing is ever gained by flattery. To the +serious man flattery in the form of sincere praise makes him more +responsible and only sadder, because he knows how much he falls below +what is expected of him, and what he expects of himself. Lip-flattery +makes a real man feel as though his sex had been mistaken, he feels as +though he had been given curling-tongs instead of a razor for his +morning toilet. These pompous flatteries that pass between Germany and +England to-day, make both sides self-conscious and a little ashamed to +write and to speak them, and to hear and applaud them. + +America and England are shortly to celebrate the signing of the treaty +of Ghent, which marks a hundred years of peace between the two +nations. We have not been without opportunities to quarrel. We have +whole classes of people in America who detest England, and in England +there are not a few who do not conceal successfully their contempt for +America, but we have had peace, and since England, at the time of our +war with Spain, said "Hands off!" to the powers that wished to +interfere, there has been a great increase of friendly feeling. But +there has been little or no flattery passing back and forth. We have +sent ambassador after ambassador to England who were almost more +American than the Americans. Phelps and Lowell and Hay and Choate and +Reid were all American in name, in tradition, in their successes, and +in their way of looking at life. By their learning, their wit, and +their criticisms, by their writing and speaking, by their presentation +of the claims to greatness of our great men, by their unhesitating +avowal in public and in private of their allegiance to the ideals of +the republic they served, they have made clear the American point of +view. Above all, they have shown their pride in their own country by +acknowledging and praising the great qualities of England and the +English. There has been no fulsome flattery, no bowing the knee to +foreign idols, and what has been the result? The American ambassador +for years has been the most popular diplomatic figure in Great +Britain. An increasing number of Englishmen even, nowadays, know who +Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln were, and our understanding of +one another has grown rapidly out of this frank and manly attitude. We +were jealous and suspicious a hundred years ago, as are England and +Germany to-day, but we have changed all that by our attitude of +good-humored independence, and by eliminating altogether from our +intercourse the tainted delicacy of compliment, and the canting +endearments of the diplomatic cocotte. We have emphasized our +differences to the great benefit of the fine qualities that we have +and cherish in common. + +The individual Protestant does not dislike the individual Papist, half +so much as he dislikes his neighbor in the next pew, who refuses +Sunday after Sunday to repeat the service and the creed at the same +pace as the others, and hence to "descend into Hell" with the rest of +the congregation. The Sioux chief was far more annoyed by his neighbor +of the same tribe in the next-door reservation than he was by me. The +pugilist scorned "Tug" Wilson, a brother fisticuffs sovereign, but had +no feeling against his parish priest. Theological protagonists are +notoriously bitter against one another, but we have all found many of +them amiable companions ourselves. It is the fellow next door, who +wears purple socks, or who parts his hair in the middle, or who wears +his coat-sleeves longer than our tailor cuts ours, or who eats his +soup with a noise, or who has damp hands, or talks through his nose, +who irritates us and makes us wish occasionally for the unlimited +club-using freedom of the stone age. It is your first cousin with +incurable catarrh, and a slender income who is too much with you, and +who spoils your temper, not the anarchist orator who threatens your +property and almost your life. + +"What do these Germans want?" asked a distinguished cabinet minister +of me. "They want consideration," I replied, "which is the most +difficult thing in the world for the Englishman to offer anybody." +"But, you don't mean to say," he continued, "that they really want to +cut our throats on account of our bad manners?" I cannot phrase it +better, nor can I give a more illuminating illustration of the +misunderstanding. That is exactly the reason, and the paramount +reason, why nations and why individuals attempt to cut one another's +throats. Whatever the fundamental differences may have been that have +led to war between nations, the tiny spark that started the explosion +has always been some phase of rudeness or bad manners. + +Counting my school-days, I can remember about a dozen personal +conflicts in which I have engaged, with pardonable pleasure. Not one +of them was a question of territory, or religious difference, or of +racial hatred; indeed, the last one was due to being shouldered in the +street when my equanimity was already disturbed by a lingering +recovery from a feverish cold. + +It is, after all, the little differences that count. If politically +and socially Germany were a little more sure of herself, if she were +not ever omnia tuta timens Dido; and if England were not as ever quite +so sure of herself, I believe intercourse between them would be less +strained. + +"The little gnat-like buzzings shrill, + The hurdy-gurdies of the street. +The common curses of the will + These wrap the cerements round our feet." + +The smothered voice, the tepid manner, the affected and hesitating +under-statement, of a certain middlish class of English men and women, +and, alas, their American imitators, who are striving toward their +comical interpretation of the Vere de Vere manner, are the promoters +of guffaws in private, and uneasiness in public, between nations, to a +far greater extent than the bold individualist, whose voice and +manners, good or bad, are all his own. It is these small attritions +that wear us down, and produce a sub-acid dislike between nations as +between individuals. It is these that prepare the ground for a fine +crop of misunderstandings. + +But are we not to know our neighbors the English, the Germans, the +French? I for one consider that not to know German and Germany, for +example, is nowadays not to be fully educated. Most of us, however, +have had our nerves unstrung by the speeding-up process that has gone +on all over the world of late. We have lost somewhat the power to know +people and to let them alone at the same time. Goethe, one of the +coolest and wisest of men, maintains: "Certain defects are necessary +for the existence of individuality. One would not be pleased if old +friends were to lay aside certain peculiarities." + +We should at least give every man as fair a chance to receive our good +opinion as we give a picture. We should put him in a good light before +we criticise him. We should take time enough to do that to other +nations, as well as to individuals. I have always had much sympathy +for a certain Roman general. He was blind, and a painter who painted +him with two large eyes, he rebuked; another painter, who painted him +in profile, he rewarded. + +It is, after all, something of an art to know people, so that the +knowledge is serviceable, so that you can depict them to yourself and +to others, not as they are as opposed to you, but as they are as a +complement and help to you. + +"No human quality is so well wove +In warp and woof, but there's some flaw in it; +I've known a brave man fly a shepherd's cur, +A wise man so demean himself, drivelling idiocy +Had wellnigh been ashamed on't. For your crafty, +Your worldly-wise man, he, above the rest, +Weaves his own snares so fine, he's often caught in them." + +He who does not make allowances for weaknesses and differences in his +study of human affairs is still in the infant class. It is a grave +danger to every state that critics, smart or shallow, with their tu +quoque weapons, their silly ridicule, their emphasis upon differences +as though they were disasters, their constant failure to recognize the +value of certain weaknesses, their stupidity in not painting great men +who happen to be blind, in profile, and their harping upon the flaws, +and their neglect of the fine texture of human qualities that are +strange to them, that these critics are not muzzled, or, if that is +impossible, disregarded. + +They make it appear that amicable relations between nations are next +to impossible. If you escape one danger of offending, you are sure to +give offence in some other way, they seem to say. They are hysterical +in their self-consciousness, "as if a man did flee from a lion and a +bear met him, or went in the house and leaned his hand on the wall and +a serpent bit him." Sir Edward Grey writes on this subject: "I +sometimes think that half the difficulties of foreign policy arise +from the exceeding ingenuity of different countries in attributing +motives and intentions to the governments of each other. As far as I +can observe, the press of various countries is much more fertile in +inventing motives and intentions for the governments of the different +countries than the foreign ministers of these countries are +themselves. Foreign governments and our own government live from hand +to mouth and have fewer deep plans than people might suppose. There is +an old warning that you should not spend too much time in looking at +the dark cupboard for the black cat that is not there, and I think if +sometimes we were a little less suspicious of deep design or motive +that the affairs of the world would progress more smoothly." + +The trouble lies in our undertaking the impossible, to the neglect of +the obvious and the possible. The basic fact of nationality is a +preference for our own ways, customs, and habits over those of other +people. If the Chinese and Japanese, the Servians and Albanians, the +English and the Germans liked one another as well as they like their +own, there would be no nationalism to protect or to preserve. Such +racial and traditional liking of nation for nation is impossible of +achievement. No journeyings, speechifyings, banquets, or compliments +will bring it about. On the contrary, I am not sure that it is not +these very differences which cheer us and give us a new flavor in our +pleasure in living, when we cross the Atlantic, the Channel, or the +Rhine. What we should strive for is not social and racial absorption, +but social and racial difference and distinction, with that pride in +our own which makes for patience in the understanding of others. + +It is the petty, self-conscious American who hates the English, the +provincial Englishman who hates the German, the socially insecure +German who hates the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the American. +Those of us who are poised, secure, satisfied, and at bottom proud of +our race, our breeding, and our country, are neither irritable nor +irritating in the matter of international relations. We have enough to +do, and let others alone. Let us dine one another, criticise one +another in the effort to improve ourselves, praise one another where +the praise serves to establish our own ideals; but let us give up this +forced and awkward courting by banquets, deputations, and conferences. +Let us study the great art of leaving one another alone. This is a +time-hallowed doctrine. The greatest of all satirists and critics of +manners knew this secret of successful intercourse with one another. +One of the characters in the "Frogs" of Aristophanes is made to say: +"Don't come trespassing upon my mind; you have a house of your own." +Propinquity does not necessarily entail intimacy; as the world grows +smaller, more and more people think so, perhaps often enough only to +escape from themselves, a favorite form of elopement these days. Some +men are fed by solitude and starved by too much companionship, and the +same is true of nations. You cannot control others till you have +learned to control yourself, or save another till you yourself are +saved, and most of us had better be about that business. + +It is England's business to know just now, and to some extent ours, +how many ships Germany is building and how many men she has in +training to man them; but it is not in the least anybody's business to +question her motives or to attempt to dictate her policy. It is our +business to shut up, and to build ships and to train men according to +our notions of what is necessary for safety in case of an explosion. +We should be about our father's business, not about our brother's +business. + +It is shallow thinking and lack of knowledge of the men and women of +stranger countries, and above all that terrible itching to be doing +something, which lead to these futile excursions and this silly talk. + +Can anything be more maudlin than to suppose that international +sensitiveness, that commercial rivalries, that tariff discriminations, +that territorial misunderstandings, are to be soothed and smoothed +away, by dissertations upon how much we owe to one another in matters +of culture? Think what we owe to Goethe and Lessing, to Spinoza and +Kant, to Heine and Mozart and Wagner and Beethoven, reiterates the +Englishman; think what we owe to Shakespeare and Milton, to Byron and +Shelley and Scott, to Lister and Newton, answers the German! Who can +go to war with the countrymen of Racine and Molière and Pascal and +Montesquieu and Descartes? repeats the friend of France; and by others +are trumpeted the fraternal relations that we ought to cultivate with +the countrymen of Dante, or of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. +This is phantom friendship, and we all know in our heart of hearts, +that we would fight any or all of them at the drop of a handkerchief, +if they hurt our feelings, ruffled our national pride, or maltreated +in a foreign land the meanest of our racial brothers. Straining after +such artificial bonds of union is as irritating as it is unreal. + +Germany has few heartier admirers of Bismarck than am I; England has +few franker friends of her great gentlemen in peace and war than am I; +I have read and profited by French literature far more than from +anything America has produced; if I can write so that here and there a +brother has profited therefrom, I owe it to the Frenchmen I have +studied; but these are all nothing as compared with my heart's real +allegiances. There is a gulp in my throat when I dream of that weary, +misunderstood, but patient and humble peace-maker, who held the scales +between the millions of my own countrymen, shooting and stabbing one +another to death fifty years ago. No other man can be quite like him +to me; he remains my master of men, as is Lee my ideal of the Happy +Warrior. I understand the grim humor in his sad eyes, I love that +lined face, cut from the granite of self-control, that tamed volcano +face, seamed and scarred by the lava of his trials and his tears; I +can see how the illuminating and conciliatory anecdotes were his +relief from the pain of an aching heart; my muscles harden and my +nerves tingle as I recall the puppet politicians and fancy +self-advertising warriors who crucified him slowly. The country and the +people that Lincoln believed in, I must believe in and fight for too. +Washington was an Englishman and baptized us, but Lincoln was an +American who officiated at our first communion as a united people. + +I ask no Englishman, no German, no Frenchman to agree with me, but I +ask them to leave me alone with my dead, to leave me in peace with my +living problems, to force no artificial friendships upon me, and thus +to let our respect for one another increase naturally. + +Has the Englishman, has the German, no sanctuaries to be left +undisturbed; no heart-strings that are not to be fumbled at by busy +fingers; no personal dignities to be shrouded from investigations; no +sweet silences of sorrow that are barred to foreign mourners? If he +have not, then all this clamor at the doors of national privacy is +well enough; but let them remember that when nations lose their +dignity and their racial pride, there is sure to follow the squabbling +and the jealousy, the rough speech and vulgar manners, of the domestic +circle, in the same plight of spiritual shamelessness. The best that +any of us learn is to be a little more patient, a little more +charitable, a little more careful of the dignity of others in our own +homes, or abroad, and then the light goes out! + + + +XI CONCLUSION + + +Criticism is temptingly easy when it consists, as it so often does, in +merely noting what is different, or what is not there. Helpful +criticism I take to be the discovery of what is there, and its +revelation, with an examination of its history, its truth, and its +value. That kind of criticism is close to creation itself, and few +there are sufficiently self-sacrificing to endow and to train +themselves to undertake it. + +It makes life very complicated to think too much about it, but to take +a step further, and to attempt to apply logic to life, that way +madness lies. It is of the very essence of life that things are never +as they ought to be, but only as they can be for the time being. We +may be optimistic enough to believe that this is a good world, but it +is none the less true that unbending virtue seldom receives the +temporal rewards for which most of us are striving, and with which +alone most of us are content. We are forced to doubt, therefore, the +goodness which finds life easy and comfortable, and since we must +still at all hazards be charitable in our judgments of one another, we +become, most of us, opportunists in morals. + +In dealing with the men, manners, affairs, and the soul of a stranger +people, therefore, one must use what experience, knowledge, good-humor, +and impartiality one has, without assumption of superiority, +without making high demands, and without ceasing to be at least as +opportunist as we are at home. Because things are different, they are +not necessarily better or worse, and if certain things are not there, +it is perhaps because they do not belong there. Above all, we should +refrain from applying a stern logic to the life of another country +which we never use in measuring our own. + +The whole north of Germany is a flat, barren plain, with the Elbe, the +Oder, the Weser flowing west and north. The north of Germany on a +raised map looks like a vast sea-shore, and so it is. To the south a +great river, the Rhine, pierces its way from Frankfort through a +beautiful gorge in the mountains, and has its source near that of the +Danube. Barbarossa called this river, "that royal street." This sea-shore +is cultivated and populous; this river has been made a great +commercial highway. Cologne, one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, +is now a seaport; Strasburg, three hundred miles inland, can receive +boats of six hundred tons; and the tributary river, the Main, has been +deepened so that now Frankfort receives steamers from the Rhine. Three +quarters of the through trade of Holland is German water-borne trade. +Now the Dortmund-Ems canal, which is one hundred and sixty-eight miles +long, and can be used by ships of a thousand tons, gives an outlet, +via the Rhine, at Emden. All this is the work of a patient, +persistent, and economical people working under great natural +disadvantages. + +As compared with America this is an unfruitful land, and, as I have +noted, surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies. In 1902 Traugott +Müller estimated the value of Germany's production of wheat, potatoes, +vegetablesthe products of the gardens and the fields, in shortat +$605,000,000; the production of beef, mutton, pork at $669,500,000; of +the dairies at $406,000,000; of cotton, sugar, alcohol, wine, and wood +at $322,000,000; or a total of $2,002,000,000. The United States is +seventeen times as large, but by no means seventeen times as +productive. + +Germany, again, is divided into a number of states, all, with the +exception of Prussia, with its population of 40,000,000 out of the +total of 65,000,000, comparatively small. These states are not merely +divided by legal and geographical lines, but by traditions, different +ruling families, religion, tastes, habits, and manners, and even +geologically. Bernhard Cotta, writing of Germany, says: "Geologically +there is a Spain, an England, a Sweden, a Russia, a France, but no +Germany." They are different individuals, not different members of the +same family. They have been cemented together by coercion. + +Over this whole country for three hundred years have swept all the +fighting men of Europe. Until 1870 it was a tournament ground for the +Swedes, Russians, French, Dutch, Belgians, Italians, Hungarians, +English, and the various German states. It was shot over, till it is a +wonder that there are any young birds, not to speak of old cocks and +hens left, to begin with over again. + +A feature of the political situation, which scarcely enters into +political calculations in America, is the sharp division between +Protestants and Catholics, with a political party of Catholics +numbering one fourth of the total members, in the Reichstag. In 1905 +there were 37,646,852 Protestants and 22,109,644 Catholics in Germany, +the Roman Catholics being in a majority in Baden, Bavaria, and +Alsace-Lorraine. In the past these religious differences have entailed +all the most repulsive features of war, waged to the point of +extermination. "Lieber Rom als Liberal," is still a punning war-cry +marking the dislike of Rome and the fear of Socialism. + +With us religion has become largely an organized attempt, using +charity as patronage, to reconcile piety and plenty, with the result +that with the exception of the Catholic Church dealing with the lately +arrived immigrants, and the Methodists and Baptists dealing with the +ignorant masses, black and white, in the South, religion in the sense +of an organized church has little hold upon the people, especially in +the large cities. + +In America the indifference to religion is the result of suspicion. +The congregations are too largely black-coated and white-collared, and +the lay officers of the churches much too solemnly sleek and serenely +solvent to attract the weak, the unfortunate, the sorrowing, and the +sinner. The mere appearance of the congregation in a prosperous +Protestant church in an American city is a mockery of Christianity. +Any man who preaches to men who can own a seat in God's house is a +craven opportunist. Until the doors of the churches are open all the +week, and the seats in the churches free, to claim that the Christ is +there is little short of blasphemy. It is no wonder that those who +need Him most, never dream of seeking for Him in these ecclesiastical +clubs. + +In Germany half-baked thinking, following upon, and as the result of, +the barracks and corporal methods of education, have turned the +Protestant population from the churches. The slovenly and patchy +omniscience of the partly educated, leads them to believe that they +know enough not to believe. Renan, though a doubter himself, saw the +weakness of this form of disbelief when he wrote: "There are in +reality but few people who have a right not to believe in +Christianity." + +The people living upon this ethnographical chess-board have been for +centuries rather tribal than national, and are still rather +philosophical than political, rather idealistic than practical, rather +dreamy than adventurous. To organize this population for self-support +and self-defence, to ignore differences, racial and religious, to +stamp out the jealousies of small rulers, required severe measures, +and we are all learning to-day that democracies are seldom severe with +themselves. A tyrannical autocracy, led by the Great Elector, +Frederick the Great, and Bismarck, produced from this welter of +discord the astonishing results of to-day. + +We have to-day, in an area of 208,780 square miles, 5,604 square miles +representing the lately conquered territory of Alsace-Lorraine, a +population of 64,903,423, of whom 1,028,560 are subjects of foreign +powers. To defend this area there are to be, according to figures +estimated even as this volume goes to press, a million men under arms +in the army and navy. Their enormous progress in trade, in industry, +in shipbuilding, is set out in full in every year-book, for the +curious to ponder. In so short a time, on so poor a soil, in such a +restricted space, with such a past of distress and disaster, and +dealing with such conflicting interests, a like success in nation-building +is unparalleled. + +Industrial and martial beehive though it would seem to be, there are +provided for the native and the foreigner feasts of music, of art, and +of study that cost little. There are quiet streams, lovely, lonely +walks, and quaint towns that are nests of archaeological interest. In +Weimar, in Stuttgart, in Schwerin, in Düsseldorf, in Karlsruhe, not to +mention Munich, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg, there +are centres of culture. The best that the mind of man creates is still +spread out there as of yore for whomsoever will to partake, but ever +in less abundance and with less enthusiasm. And these names are a mere +fraction of the number of such places. + +The rivalries between the states is now to a large extent an elevating +rivalry of culture, dotting the map of Germany with resting-places for +the curious, the scholarly, or the sentimental traveller. You may have +plain living and high thinking in scores of the cities and towns of +Germany, and you will be considered neither an outcast nor an +eccentric; indeed, you will find no small part of the population your +companions. + +You may stroll for miles on the banks of that tiny stream the +Zschopau, and expect to see sprites and nymphs, so hidden are its +windings; and where in all the world will a handkerchief cover an Ulm, +an Augsburg, a Rothenburg, Ansbach, Nuremberg, Würzburg, with their +wealth of associations? + +The Fugger family, of Augsburg, tell us again that there is nothing +new in the world. Five hundred years ago they were millionaires. One +of these Fuggers had a voice even in the election of Charles V, and we +are still hard at it trying to keep our Fuggers from meddling in +politics. Another Fugger, Marcus by name, wrote a capital book on the +horse in the sixteenth century, and at the last horse-show at Olympia, +in 1912, a Fugger came over from Germany and took away the first prize +for officers' chargers. So far flung was their fame as money-lenders +that usury was called "Fuggerei"! + +Heirs of great houses got out of hand then as now, and Duke Albert III +of Bavaria married Agnes Bernauer, the barber's daughter, and even the +Archduke Ferdinand of Austria ran off with Fräulein Welser. One +citizen of Augsburg fitted out a squadron to take possession of +Venezuela, which had been given him by the Emperor Charles V. For some +reason the squadron did not sail; Lord Salisbury and President +Cleveland could have told this adventurous Augsburger that he was +better off at home! + +Bishop Boniface, of Würzburg, was an Englishman, and his father was a +wheelwright. He put cart-wheels in his coat-of-arms, and they have +remained to this day in the arms of the town, a fine reminder to +snobbery that ancestry only explains, it cannot exalt. + +"Pigmies are pigmies still, though perch'd on Alps, +And pyramids are pyramids in vales." + +The atmosphere in these towns is one of repose. They are still wise +enough to know that the miraculous improvements in speed brought about +by steam and electricity have not shortened the journey of the soul to +heaven by one second. They know that Socrates on a donkey really goes +faster than Solly Goldberg in his sixty-horse-power motor-car. They +are suspicious of the new cosmopolitan creed, that successful +advertising endows a man with eternal life. Countless political quacks +have been caricatured, advertised, and cinematographed into +familiarity, but wise men still read Plato and Aristotle. The penny +press has not convinced them that popularity is immortality; they +recognize popularity as merely glory paid in pennies. They partake to +some extent of the patience of the Oriental. They suspect, as most men +of wide intellectual experience do, that the man who cannot wait must +be a coward at bottom, afraid of himself, or of the world, or of God. + +This is wholly true of many Germans, despite the clang of arms, the +noise of steam-hammers, the shrieking locomotives, the puffing +steamers, the clinking of their gold, and the shouting of their +pedlers, now scattered all over the world. It is this combination, in +the same small area, of noise and repose; of political subserviency at +home and sabre-rattling abroad; of close organization at home and +colonizing inefficiency abroad; of moral and intellectual freedom, one +might almost call it moral and intellectual anarchy these days, and at +the same time submission to a domestic and social tyranny unknown to +us, that makes even a timid author feel that he is discovering the +Germans to his countrymen, so little do they know of this side of +German life. + +They are not at all what the Americans and the English +think they are. They want peace, and we think they want war. The huge +armaments are intended to frighten us, just as were the grotesquely +ugly masks of the Chinese warriors. They intend to frighten us all +with their 850,000 soldiers, their great fleet, their air-ships and +aeroplanes, and when they go to Agadir again they hope to be able to +stay there till their demands are granted. They are the last comers +into the society of nations and they mean to insist upon recognition. +But this demand is an artificial one so far as the great mass of +Germans is concerned. It is the Prussian conqueror, and the small +class, officer, official and royal, representing that conqueror, who +are determined upon this course. They have unified Germany, they have +made the laws and forced obedience to them; and the heavily taxed, +hard-driven, politically powerless people are helpless. + +Nowhere has socialistic legislation been so cunningly and skilfully +used for the enslavement of the people. No small part of every man's +wages is paid to him in insurance; insurance for unemployment, for +accident, sickness, and old age. There is but faint hope of saving +enough to buy one's freedom, and if the slave runs away he leaves, of +course, all the premiums he has paid in the hands of his master. A +general uprising is guarded against by a redoubtable force of +officials, officers, and soldiers, whose very existence depends upon +their defence of and upholding of the state under its present laws and +rulers. + +Our grandfathers and fathers, some of them, talked and read of Saint-Simon, +of Fourier, Robert Owen, Maurice Kingsley, and the Brook Farm +experiment, and believed, no doubt, that the dawn of the twentieth +century would have extracted at least some balm from these theories +for the healing of our social woes. They would rub their eyes in +amazement were they to awake in 1912 to find more armed men, more +ships of war, more fighting, more strikes and trade disputes, than +ever before. Above all, they would be puzzled to find the nation which +is most advanced in the application of the theory of state socialism +with the largest army, the heaviest taxation, and the second most +formidable fleet. + +The library in which, as a small boy, I was permitted to browse, where +I read those wonderful Black Forest Stories and my first serious +novel, On the Heights, contained a bust of Goethe, and on the shelves +were Fichte, Freytag, Spielhagen, Strauss, and a miscellaneous +collection of German authors grave and gay, or perhaps melancholy were +a better word, for even now I should find it hard to point to a German +author who is distinctively gay. No visitor to that library, and they +numbered many distinguished visitors, American and foreign, from +Emerson and Alcott and George Macdonald to others less well known, +dreamed that the serene marble features of Goethe would be replaced by +the granite fissures of the face of Bismarck; and that Auerbach's +Black Forest Stories would be less known than Albert Ballin's fleet of +mercantile ships. As I dream myself back to that big chair wherein I +could curl up my whole person, and still leave room for at least two +fair-sized dogs, I see as in no other way the almost unbelievable +change that has come over Germany. The Black Forest Stories, Hammer +and Anvil, The Lost Manuscript, Werther, Fichte, Kant, Hegel, +Schopenhauer, Strauss, Heine were Germany then; Bismarck, Ballin, and +Krupp are Germany now. Germany was Hamlet then; Germany is Shylock, +Shylock armed to the teeth, now. + +No nation can change in one generation, as has Germany, by the natural +development of its innate characteristics; such a change must be +forced and artificial to take place in so short a time. This is not +only the internal danger to Germany itself, but the danger to all +those superficial observers who point to Germany as having solved +certain social and economic problems. She has not solved them by +healthy growth into better ways; she has suppressed them, strangled +them, suffocated them. + +The heroes and heroines of my Black Forest Stories have been rudely +stuffed into the uniforms of officials, soldiers, factory hands, and +Red Cross nurses. The toy-shops have been developed, on borrowed +capital, into ship-building yards and factories for guns and +ammunition. The dreamer in dressing-gown and slippers has been forced +into the cap and apron of the workman. The small sovereigns have been +frightened into allegiance to the war lord, whose shadow falls upon +every corner of Germany. + +In this new scheme of things it soon became evident, that the +individual was incompetent to take care of himself along lines best +suited to the plans of his new conqueror, therefore part of his +earnings were taken from all alike to provide against accident, +sickness, unemployment, and old age, and thus bind him fast to the +chariot of his warrior lord. Germany, having given up the belief that +the salvation of her own soul was of prime importance, became +suspiciously concerned about the souls and bodies of the people. We +are all to some extent following her example. The wise among us are +sad, the capitalist and his ally the demagogue are seen everywhere all +smiles, rubbing their hands, for the more people are made to believe +that they can be, and ought to be, taken care of, the more the +machinery is put into their hands, the more plunder comes their way, +the more indispensable they are. + +The great majority of people who write or speak of Germany applaud +this situation; let me frankly say, what everybody will be saying in +twenty-five years, I deplore it. It is a purely artificial, +incompetent, and dreary solution. Even Hamlet were better than +Shylock. + +Fortunately there is also a large and increasing class in Germany who +distrust the situation. They point to the fact that technical +education is producing an army of dingy artisans, who turn out the +cheap and nasty by the million, an education which chokes idealism and +increases the growing flippancy in matters of faith and morals; they +sneer, and well they may, at the manufactured art, the carpenter's +Gothic architecture, the sickly literature, the decaying interest in +scholarship; they find fewer and fewer candidates for exploration and +colonization; they rankle under the series of diplomatic ineptitudes +since Bismarck; they see France, Russia, and England antagonized and +leagued against them, and their own allies, Austria-Hungary and Italy, +in a confused state of squabble with their neighbors; they are nervous +and disquieted by the financial and industrial conditions; they +condemn whole-heartedly the political caste system by which much of +the best material in Germany is barred from the councils and the +diplomatic and executive activities of the nation; there are not a few +who would welcome an inconclusive war that would, they think, put an +end to this system, and make the ruler and the officials responsible +to the people; they wish to open the doors of this governmental, +legislative, educational, industrial hot-house, and give the nation a +chance to grow naturally in the open air. + +The policy of making other people afraid of you must have an end, the +policy of making others respect and like you can have no end. There is +no question which is the natural law of national development. Neither +for the individual nor for a nation is it wholesome to increase +antagonisms and to lessen the conciliatory points of contact with the +world. + +Many of the weaknesses, much of the strength of Germany are +artificial. They have not grown, they have been forced. The very +barrenness of the soil, the ring of enemies, the soft moral and social +texture of the population, have, so their little knot of rulers think, +made necessary these harsh, artificial forcing methods. + +The outstanding proof of the artificiality of this civilization is its +powerlessness to propagate. Germans transplanted from their hothouse +civilization to other countries cease to be Germans; and nowhere in +the world outside Germany is German civilization imitated, liked, or +adopted. The German is nonplussed to find the Pole in the East, the +Frenchman in the West, the Dane in the North, scoffing at his alte +Kultur, as he calls it, and he is irritated beyond measure by the +German from America, who returns to the Vaterland to criticise, to +sneer, and to thank God that he is an American, not a German citizen. +Germans become English citizens, no Englishmen become Germans; +millions of Germans have become Americans, no Americans become +Germans. No other population would be amenable to the Prussian methods +that have made Germany, nor is there anywhere in the world a people +demanding Prussian methods, while there are millions under the +Prussian yoke who hate it. + +The German rhetoric to the effect that Germany is to save the world by +Teutonizing the world, is laughable. Prussia is the ventriloquist +behind this half-hearted boast. + +Werther, and Faust, and Lohengrin, are far more real than those +scarecrows autocracy, bureaucracy, and militarism, triplets of straw, +premature births, not destined to live, of which Germany boasts to-day +as the most precocious children in the world. They are just that, +precocious children, teaching the pallid religion of dependence upon +the state and enforcing the anarchical morality of man's despair of +himself. Our descendants will have Werther and Faust and Lohengrin, as +the companions of their dreams at least, when that autocracy shall +have been blown to the winds, when that bureaucracy shall have dried +up and wasted away, when that exaggerated militarism shall be but +bleaching bones and dust. + +Who has not lived in Germany as a house of dreams, seen the Valkyrie +race by, heard the swan song, wept with Werther and with Marguerite, +smiled cynically with Mephistopheles, languished with the Palm Tree +and the Pine of Heine; who has not sat at the feet of Germany as a +philosopher, and traced the very fissures of his own brain in +following thinking into thought; but who in all the world longs for +this new Germany of the barracks, the corporal and the pedler? +Germania as a malicious vestal clad in horrid armor and making +mischief in the world is a very present danger; Germania with a torch +lighting the world to salvation is a phantom, a ghost, seen by hasty +and nervous observers, who rush out to proclaim an adventure that may +excite a passing interest in themselves. Her methods to-day are +solution by suffocation; no wonder those of us who loved her in our +youth see in her a ghost to-day. I am thankful that I was her pupil +when she had other things to teach, when she wore other robes, when +she was modest, and not snatching at the trident of Neptune, nor +clutching at the casque of Mars. + +"Wir wissen zu viel, wir wollen zu wenig," became the national +complaint, and Germany has attempted to transform herself. She has +succeeded in the transformation, but the transformation is not a +success. Even that learned English friend of Germany, Lord Haldane, +does not see, or will not see, that a people thinking themselves into +action, instead of developing into action naturally, through action, +must suffer from the artificiality of the process. Lord Haldane +applauds their thought-out organization in industrial, commercial, and +military matters, but he fails to mention the squandering of +individual capacity and energy that has resulted in Germany's growing +dependence upon a wooden bureaucracy. Organization is only good as a +means; it is stupefying as an end. Germany has organized herself into +an organization, and is the most over-governed country in the world. +What every democracy of free men wants is not as much, but as little, +organization as possible compatible with economical administration of +industry, the army, the navy, and the affairs of the state. You can +think out a game of chess, but you cannot think out life ahead of the +living of it without cramping it and finally killing it. Life is to +live, not to think, after all. Neither a nation nor an individual has +ever thought out the way to power. This is where the metaphysician +invariably fails when he mistakes thinking for living, when he +mistakes organization, which can never be more than a mould for life, +for life itself. To plan an army is not to produce one, however good +the plan; even to plan a campaign, once you have an army, is to court +disaster unless there is a living man to thrust the plan aside when +the emergencies arise that make up the whole of life, but have nothing +to do with organization. + +If all men were tailors, or lawyers, or farmers, or miners, then we +could think out an organization into which they would fit, but +unfortunately for the metaphysician, all men are not categories; all +men are men! In like manner, if all men were cases, then government by +lawyers would be successful, but men and women are neither categories +nor cases. It is purely fantastic, the mere reasoned confusion of the +philosopher, to point to Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel and their successors +as the originators of Germany's progress. If Germany had developed +along those lines, she would be something quite different from what +she is. The Great Elector, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Bismarck +made Germany, and her philosophers and pedants are only responsible +for the softness that made it possible. Metaphysicians and lawyers +have their place, but they will inevitably ruin any people whom they +are permitted to govern. + +The reader will perhaps look back through these pages to discover a +contradiction. He will seem to find evidence that Germany's position +in the world called for just this present Germany, which is a factory +town with a garden attached, surrounded by an armed camp. I deny the +contradiction. I have tried to analyze and to give the reasons for +Germany's development along these meretricious and disappointing +lines, but I am the last to admit that the outcome is satisfactory, or +that the rest of the world should look to Germany to point out the way +of salvation. A steaming orchid-house is not the place to go to learn +to grow the fruits of the earth in their due season for the +nourishment of a free people. You will find some brilliantly colored +flowers there, in the gay uniforms of the artificial tropics, but they +shrink and shrivel in the open air. They have been trained to grow +luxuriantly in this stifling atmosphere, but they feed no one, please +no one, who will not consent to live in a glass house with them. + +Because a people is blindfolded, its preachers and pedagogues gagged, +its officials subservient, is all the more reason why they should be +easily led, but no reason at all for supposing that they will lead +anybody else. + +I have said here and there that I have learned much, and that we all +have much to learn from Germany. I permit myself to repeat it. She has +shown us that the short-cut to the governing of a people by +suppression and strangulation results in a dreary development of +mediocrity. She has proved again that the only safety in the world for +either an individual or a nation is to be loved and respected, and in +these days no one respects slavery or loves threats. + +From an American point of view, any sacrifice, any war, were better +than the domination of the Prussian methods of nation-making. No +nation should be by its traditions and its ideals more ready to arm +itself, and to keep itself armed if necessary for years, against the +possibility of the transference of such methods to the American +continent than the United States of North America. + +"Theuer ist mir der Freund, doch auch den Feind kann ich nützen, +Zeigt mir der Freund, was ich kann, lehrt mir der Feind was ich soll," + +writes Schiller. + +We Americans have much to learn from both our friends and our enemies. +We have both in Germany, and we should cultivate the temper of mind +which profits by the encouragement of our friends and the criticism of +our foes. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Germany and the Germans, by Price Collier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE GERMANS *** + +***** This file should be named 19036-8.txt or 19036-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/3/19036/ + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Germany and the Germans + From an American Point of View (1913) + +Author: Price Collier + +Release Date: August 12, 2006 [EBook #19036] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE GERMANS *** + + + + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>GERMANY AND THE GERMANS</h1> + +<h2>FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW</h2> + +<p></p> + +<p>BY PRICE COLLIER</p> + +<p>CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK 1913</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>Copyright, 1913, by Charles Scribner’s Sons</p> + +<p>Published May, 1913</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>To MY WIFE KATHARINE whose deserving far outstrips my giving</p> + +<p></p> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table> +<tr><td style="font-size:smaller">CHAPTER</td><td></td></tr> + +<tr><td></td><td>INTRODUCTION</td></tr> + +<tr><td>I.</td><td>THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY</td></tr> + +<tr><td>II.</td><td>FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK</td></tr> + +<tr><td>III.</td><td>THE INDISCREET</td></tr> + +<tr><td>IV.</td><td>GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS</td></tr> + +<tr><td>V.</td><td>BERLIN</td></tr> + +<tr><td>VI.</td><td>“A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS”</td></tr> + +<tr><td>VII.</td><td>THE DISTAFF SIDE</td></tr> + +<tr><td>VIII.</td><td>“OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND”</td></tr> + +<tr><td>IX.</td><td>GERMAN PROBLEMS</td></tr> + +<tr><td>X.</td><td>“FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE”</td></tr> + +<tr><td>XI.</td><td>CONCLUSION</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<p> +The first printed suggestion that America should be called America +came from a German. Martin Waldseemüller, of Freiburg, in his +<i>Cosmographiae Introductio</i>, published in 1507, wrote: “I do not see why +any one may justly forbid it to be named after Americus, its +discoverer, a man of sagacious mind, Amerige, that is the land of +Americus or America, since both Europe and Asia derived their names +from women.”</p> + +<p>The first complete ship-load of Germans left Gravesend July the 24th, +1683, and arrived in Philadelphia October the 6th, 1683. They settled +in Germantown, or, as it was then called, on account of the poverty of +the settlers, Armentown.</p> + +<p>Up to within the last few years the majority of our settlers have been +Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. The English, Dutch, +Swedes, Germans, Scotch-Irish, who settled in America, were all, less +than two thousand years ago, one Germanic race from the country +surrounding the North Sea.</p> + +<p>Since 1820 more than 5,200,000 Germans have settled in America. This +immigration of Germans has practically ceased, and it is a serious +loss to America, for it has been replaced by a much less desirable +type of settler. In 1882 western Europe sent us 563,174 settlers, or +87 per cent., while southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey +sent 83,637, or 13 per cent. In 1905 western Europe sent 215,863, or +21.7 per cent., and southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey, +808,856, or 78.9 per cent. of our new population. In 1910 there were +8,282,618 white persons of German origin in the United States; +2,501,181 were born in Germany; 3,911,847 were born in the United +States, both of whose parents were born in Germany; 1,869,590 were +born in the United States, one parent born in the United States and +one in Germany.</p> + +<p>Not only have we been enriched by this mass of sober and industrious +people in the past, but Peter Mühlenberg, Christopher Ludwig, Steuben, +John Kalb, George Herkimer, and later Francis Lieber, Carl Schurz, +Sigel, Osterhaus, Abraham Jacobi, Herman Ridder, Oswald Ottendorfer, +Adolphus Busch, Isidor, Nathan, and Oscar Straus, Jacob Schiff, Otto +Kahn, Frederick Weyerheuser, Charles P. Steinmetz, Claus Spreckels, +Hugo Münsterberg, and a catalogue of others, have been leaders in +finance, in industry, in war, in politics, in educational and +philanthropic enterprises, and in patriotism.</p> + +<p>The framework of our republican institutions, as I have tried to +outline in this volume, came from the “Woods of Germany.” Professor H. +A. L. Fisher, of Oxford, writes: “European republicanism, which ever +since the French Revolution has been in the main a phenomenon of the +Latin races, was a creature of Teutonic civilization in the age of the +sea-beggars and the Roundheads. The half-Latin city of Geneva was the +source of that stream of democratic opinion in church and state, +which, flowing to England under Queen Elizabeth, was repelled by +persecution to Holland, and thence directed to the continent of North +America.”</p> + +<p>In these later days Goethe, in a letter to Eckermann, prophesied the +building of the Panama Canal by the Americans, and also the prodigious +growth of the United States toward the West.</p> + +<p>In a private collection in New York, is an autograph letter of George +Washington to Frederick the Great, asking that Frederick should use +his influence to protect that French friend of America, Lafayette.</p> + +<p>In Schiller’s house in Weimar there still hangs an engraving of the +battle of Bunker Hill, by Müller, a German, and a friend of the poet.</p> + +<p>Bismarck’s intimate friend as a student at Göttingen, and the man of +whom he spoke with warm affection all his life, was the American +historian Motley.</p> + +<p>The German soldiers in our Civil War were numbered by the thousands. +We have many ties with Germany, quite enough, indeed, to make a bare +enumeration of them a sufficient introduction to this volume.</p> + +<p>On more than one occasion of late I have been introduced in places, +and to persons where a slight picture of what I was to meet when the +doors were thrown open was of great help to me. I was told beforehand +something of the history, traditions, the forms and ceremonies, and +even something of the weaknesses and peculiarities of the society, the +persons, and the personages. I am not so wise a guide as some of my +sponsors have been, but it is something of the kind that I have wished +and planned to do for my countrymen. I have tried to make this book, +not a guidebook, certainly not a history; rather, in the words of +Bacon, “grains of salt, which will rather give an appetite than offend +with satiety,” a sketch, in short, of what is on the other side of the +great doors when the announcer speaks your name and you enter Germany.</p> + +<p></p> + +<h1 style="page-break-before:always">GERMANY AND THE GERMANS</h1> + +<h2>FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW</h2> + +<h3>I THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY</h3> + +<p> +Eighty-one years before the discovery of America, seventy-two years +before Luther was born, and forty-one years before the discovery of +printing, in the year 1411, the Emperor Sigismund, the betrayer of +Huss, transferred the Mark of Brandenburg to his faithful vassal and +cousin, Frederick, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg. Nuremberg was at one +time one of the great trading towns between Germany, Venice, and the +East, and the home later of Hans Sachs. Frederick was the lineal +descendant of Conrad of Hohenzollern, the first Burgrave of Nuremberg, +who lived in the days of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1189); and this +Conrad is the twenty-fifth lineal ancestor of Emperor William II of +Germany. It is interesting to remember in this connection that when we +count back our progenitors to the twenty-first generation they number +something over two millions. When we trace an ancestry so far, +therefore, we must know something of the multitude from which the +individual is descended, if we are to gather anything of value +concerning his racial characteristics. The solace of all genealogical +investigation is the infallible discovery, that the greatest among us +began in a small way.</p> + +<p>If you paddle up the Elbe and the Havel from Hamburg to Potsdam, you +will find yourself in the territory conquered from the heathen Wends +in the days of Henry I, the Fowler (918-935), which was the cradle of +what is now the German Empire.</p> + +<p>The Emperor Sigismund, who was often embarrassed financially by reason +of his wars and journeyings had borrowed some four hundred thousand +gold florins from Frederick, and it was in settlement of this debt +that he mortgaged the territory of Brandenburg, and on the 8th of +April, 1417, the ceremony of enfeoffment was performed at Constance, +by which the House of Hohenzollern became possessed of this territory, +and was thereafter included among the great electorates having a vote +in the election of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.</p> + +<p>It was Henricus Auceps, or Henry the Fowler, (so called because the +envoys sent to offer him the crown, found him on his estates in the +Hartz Mountains among his falcons), who fought off the Danes in the +northwest, and the Slavonians, or Wends, in the northeast, and the +Hungarians in the southeast, and established frontier posts or marks +for permanent protection against their ravages. These marks, or +marches, which were boundary lines, were governed by markgrafs or +marquises, and finally gave the name of marks to the territory itself. +The word is historically familiar from its still later use in noting +the old boundaries between England and Scotland, and England and +Wales, which are still called marks.</p> + +<p>Henry the Fowler was also called Henry “the City Builder.” After the +death of the last of the Charlemagne line of rulers, the Franks +elected Conrad, Duke of Franconia, to succeed to the throne, and he on +his death-bed advised his people to choose Henry of Saxony to succeed, +for the times were stormy and the country needed a strong ruler. The +Hungarians in the southeast, and the Wends, the old Slavonic +population of Poland, were pillaging and harrying more and more +successfully, and the more successfully the more impudently. Henry +began the building of strong-walled, deep-moated cities along his +frontier, and made one, drawn by lot, out of every ten families of the +countryside, go to live in these fortified towns. Their rulers were +burgraves, or city counts. Titles now so largely ornamental were then +descriptive of duties and responsibilities.</p> + +<p>In the light of their future greatness, it is well to take note of +these two frontier counties, or marches. The first, called the +Northern March, or March of Brandenburg, was the religious centre of +the Slays, and was situated in the midst of forests and marshes just +beyond the Elbe. This March of Brandenburg was won from the Slays in +the first instance by the Saxons and Franks of the Saxon plain. When +the burgrave, Frederick of Hohenzollern, came to take possession of +his new territory he was received with the jesting remark: “Were it to +rain burgraves for a whole year, we should not allow them to grow in +the march.” But Frederick’s soldiers and money, and his Nuremberg +jewels, as his cannon were called, ended by gaining complete control, +a control in more powerful hands to-day than ever before.</p> + +<p>The second, called the Eastern or Austrian March, was situated in the +basin of the Danube. These two great states were formed in lands that +had ceased to be German and had become Slav or Finnish territory. The +fighting appetite of the German tribes, and the spirit of chivalry +later, which had drawn men in other days in France to the East, in +Spain against the Moors, in Normandy against England, were offered an +opportunity and an outlet in Germany, by forays and fighting against +the Finns and Slays.</p> + +<p>Out of the conquest and settlement of these territories grew, what we +know to-day, as the German Empire and the Austrian Empire. Out of +their margraves, who were at first sentinel officers guarding the +outer boundaries of the empire, and mere nominees of the Emperor, have +developed the Emperor of Germany and the Emperor of Austria, the one +ruling over the most powerful nation, the other the head of the most +exclusive court, in Europe.</p> + +<p>When a man becomes a power in the world, these days, our first impulse +is to ask about his ancestry. Who were his father and his mother; what +and who were his grandfathers and grandmothers, and who were their +forebears. Where did they come from, what was the climate; did they +live by the sea, or in the mountains, or in the plains. We are at once +hot on the trail of his success. Be he an American, we wish to know +whether his people came from Holland, from France, from England, or +from Belgium; where did they settle, in New England, in New York, or +in the South. We no longer accept ability as a miracle, but +investigate it as an evolution. If the man be great enough, cities vie +with each other to claim him as their child; he acquires an Homeric +versatility in cradles.</p> + +<p>Whatever one may think of William II of Germany, he is just now the +predominating figure in Europe, if not in the world. This must be our +excuse for a word or two concerning the race from which came his +twenty-fifth lineal ancestor.</p> + +<p>It is exactly five hundred years since his present empire was founded +in the sandy plains about the Elbe, and a thousand years before that +brings us to the dim dawn of any historical knowledge whatever about +the Germans. When the Cimbrians and Teutonians came into contact with +the Romans, in 113 B. C., is the beginning of all things for these +people. In that year the inhabitants of the north of Italy awoke one +morning to find a swarm of blue-eyed, light-haired, long-limbed +strangers coming down from the Alps upon them. The younger and more +light-hearted warriors came tobogganing down the snow-covered +mountain-sides on their shields. They had been crowded out of what is +now Switzerland, and called themselves, though they were much alike in +appearance, the Cimbri and the Teutones. They defeated the Roman +armies sent against them, and, turning to the south and west, went on +their way along the north shores of the Mediterranean into what is now +France. They had no history of their own. Tacitus writes that they +could neither read nor write: “Literarum secreta viri pariter ac +feminae ignorant.” Very little is to be found concerning them in the +Roman writers. The books of Pliny which treated of this time are lost. +It was toward the middle of the century before Christ that Caesar +advanced to the frontier of what may be called Germany. He met and +conquered there these men of the blood who were to conquer Rome, and +to carry on the name under the title of the Holy Roman Empire. Caesar +met the ancestors of those who were to be Caesars, and with an eye on +Roman politics, wrote the “Commentaries,” which were really +autobiographical messages, with the Germans as a text and an excuse.</p> + +<p>Tacitus, born just about one hundred years after the death of Caesar, +and who had access to the lost works of Pliny, was a moralist +historian and a warm friend of the Germans. Over their shoulders he +rapped the manners and morals of his own countrymen. “Vice is not +treated by the Germans” (German, the etymologists say, is composed of +<i>Ger</i>, meaning spear or lance, and <i>Man</i>, meaning chief or lord; <i>Deutsch</i>, +or <i>Teutsch</i>, comes from the Gothic word <i>Thiudu</i>, meaning nation, and a +Deutscher, or Teutscher, meant one belonging to the nation), he tells +his countrymen, “as a subject of raillery, nor is the profligacy of +corrupting and being corrupted called the fashion of the age.” With +Rooseveltian enthusiasm he writes that the Germans consider it a crime +“to set limits to population, by rearing up only a certain number of +children and destroying the rest.”</p> + +<p>The republicanism of Europe and America had its roots in this Teutonic +civilization. “No man dictates to the assembly; he may persuade but +cannot command. When anything is advanced not agreeable to the people, +they reject it with a general murmur. If the proposition pleases, they +brandish their javelins. This is their highest and most honorable mark +of applause; they assent in a military manner, and praise by the sound +of their arms,” continues our author.</p> + +<p>The great historian of the Roman historians, and of Rome, Gibbon, +lends his authority to this praise of Tacitus in the sentence: “The +most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of +Germany; and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still +distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners.”</p> + +<p>Rome, which was not only a city, a nation, an empire, but a religion; +Rome, which replied to a suggestion that the people of Latium should +be admitted to citizenship, “Thou hast heard, O Jupiter, the impious +words that have come from this man’s mouth. Canst thou tolerate, O +Jupiter, that a foreigner should come to sit in the sacred temple as a +senator, as a consul?” Rome welcomed later the barbarians from the +woods of Germany not only as citizens and consuls, but as emperors; +and their descendants rule the world.</p> + +<p>It was no Capuan training that finally distilled itself in a +Charlemagne, an Otho, a Luther, a Frederick the Great, and a Bismarck; +in an Alfred, a William the Conqueror, a Cromwell, a Clive, a Rhodes, +or a Gordon; in a Washington, a Lincoln, a Grant, a Jackson, and a +Lee.</p> + +<p>Beyond the certified beyond, we see dimly through the mists of +history, hosts of men marching, ever marching from the east, spreading +some toward Norway and Sweden, some skirting the Baltic Sea to the +south; driving their cattle before them, and learning the arts of +peace and war, and self-government, from the harsh school-masters of +pressing needs and tyrannical circumstances, the only teachers that +confer degrees of permanent value. They become fishermen and small +landholders in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. “Jeudi,” or Jupiter’s day, +becomes their god Thor’s day, or Thursday; “Mardi,” or Mars’s day, is +their Tiu’s day, or Tuesday; “Mercredi,” or Mercury’s day, is Odin’s +or Woden’s day, or Wednesday.</p> + +<p>These men trained to solitude in small bands, owing to the +geographical exigencies of their northern country, become the founders +of the particularist or individualistic nations, Great Britain and the +United States among others. Those who had gone south, driven by +pressure from behind, follow the Danube to the north and west, find +the Rhine, and push on into what is now southwestern Europe.</p> + +<p>It is worth noting that the Rhine and the Danube have their sources +near together, and form a line of water from the North Sea to the +Black Sea, a significant line in Europe from the beginning down to +this day. This line of water divides not only lands but nations, +manners, customs, and even speech, and what we call the North, and +what we call the South, may be said to be, with negligible exceptions, +what is north and what is south of those two rivers. It is and always +has been the Mason and Dixon’s line of Europe.</p> + +<p>All of these peoples mould their institutions, from the habits and +customs forced upon them by their surroundings. The members of the +tribe of the Suevi, now Swabians, were not allowed to hold fixed +landed possessions, but were forced to exchange with each other from +time to time, so that no one should become wedded to the soil and grow +rich thereby. Readers of history will remember, that Lycurgus +attempted similar legislation among the Spartans, hoping thus to keep +them simple and hardy, and fit for war.</p> + +<p>How many hundreds of years, these various tribes were working out +their rude political and domestic laws, no man knows. The imaginative +historian pushes his way through the mists, and sees that the tribes +who lived in the Scandinavian peninsula were forced by their cramped +territory to become fishermen and sailors, and cultivators of small +areas of land, accustomed therefore to rule themselves in small +groups, and hence independent and markedly individualist. Such +historians divide even these rude tribes sharply between the +patriarchal and the particularist. The particularist commune developed +from the estate which was self-sufficient, isolated, and independent. +When they were associated together it was for special and limited +purposes, so that independence might be infringed upon to the least +possible extent. The patriarchal commune, on the other hand, proceeded +from the communal family which provided everything for everybody. It +was a general and compulsory partnership, monopolizing every kind of +business that might arise. The particularist group then, and their +moral and political descendants now, strive to organize public +authority, and public life in such a way, that they are distinctly +subordinate to private and individual independence. In the one the +Emperor is the father of the family - the Russian Emperor is still +called “Little Father” - the independence of each member of the family +is swallowed up in the complete authority of the head of the national +family; in the other the president, or constitutional king, is the +executive servant of independent citizens, to whom he owes as much +allegiance as they owe to him.</p> + +<p>In Saxony, to-day, more than ninety per cent. of the agricultural +population are independent peasant proprietors, and the most admirable +and successful agriculturists in the world. It is said indeed that the +<i>Curia Regis</i>, which is the Latinized form of the Witenagemote, or +assembly of wise men, of the Norman and Angevin kings, is the +foundation of the common law of England, and the common law of England +is the law of more than half of the civilized world.</p> + +<p>Whatever the varieties and distinctions of government anywhere in the +world, these two differences are the fundamental and basic +differences, upon which all forms of government have been built up and +developed.</p> + +<p>In the one, everything so far as possible is begun and carried on by +individual initiative; in the other the state gradually takes control +of all enterprise. The philosophy of the one is based upon the saying: +love one another; the political philosophy of the other is based upon +the assumption that men are not brethren, but beasts and mechanical +toys, who can only be governed by legislation and the police. The +ideal of the one is the good Samaritan, the ideal of the other is the +tax-collector. The one depends upon the wine and oil of sympathy and +human brotherhood; the other claims that the right to an iron bed in a +hospital, and the services of a state-paid and indifferent physician, +are “refreshing fruit,” as though sympathy and consideration, which +are what our weaker brethren most need, could be distilled from taxes!</p> + +<p>It is claimed for these Teutonic tribes, that those of them which +drifted down from the Scandinavian peninsula, are the blood and moral +ancestors of the particularist nations now in the ascendant in the +world. The love of independent self-government, born of the +geographical necessities of the situation, stamped itself upon these +people so indelibly, that Englishmen and Americans bear the seal to +this day. This change from the patriarchal to the particularist family +took place in this German race, and took place not in those who came +from the Baltic plain, but in those who came from the Saxon plain.</p> + +<p>The tribes from the Baltic plain, the Goths, for example, merely +overran the Roman civilization, spread over it; drowned it in superior +numbers, and with superior valor; but it was the Germans from the +Scandinavian peninsula who conquered Rome, and conquered her not by +force alone, but by offering to the world a superior social and +political organization. It was to this branch of the German race that +Varus lost his legions, at the place where the Ems has its source, at +the foot of the Teutoburger Wald. Charlemagne was of these, and his +name Karl, or Kerl, or peasant, and the fact that his title is the +only one in the world compounded of greatness and the people in equal +measure, is the pith of what the Germans brought to leaven the whole +political world. He made the common man so great, that the world has +consented to his unique and superlative baptismal title of Karl the +Great, or Carolus Magnus, or Charlemagne.</p> + +<p>The pivotal fact to be remembered is that these German tribes saved +Europe by their love of liberty, and by their virility, from the +decadence of an orientalized Rome. Rome, and all Rome meant, was not +destroyed by these ancestors of ours; on the contrary, they saved what +was best worth saving from the decline and fall of Rome, and made out +of it with their own vigorous laws a new world, the modern western +world. Great Britain, Germany, and the United States are not descended +from Egypt, Greece, or Rome, but from “those barbarians who issued +from the woods of Germany.”</p> + +<p>Every school-boy should be taught that Rome died of a disease +contracted from contact with the Oriental, the Syrian, the Jew, the +Greek, the riffraff of the eastern and southern shores of the +Mediterranean; who, by the way, make up the bulk of the immigration +into America at this time. Rome was an incurable invalid long before +the Germans took control of the western world and saved it.</p> + +<p>When the Roman Emperor Augustus died, in 14 A. D., to be succeeded by +Tiberius, the Roman Empire was bounded on the north and east by the +Rhine, the Danube, the Black Sea and its southern territory, and +Syria; by all the known country from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean +in northern Africa on the south; and by the Atlantic Ocean as far +north as the river Elbe on the west. Five hundred years later, about +500 A. D., the Barbarians, as they were called, had thrust aside the +Roman Empire. The Saxons controlled the southern and eastern coasts of +England; the Franks were rulers in the whole country from the Loire to +the Elbe; south of them the Visigoths ruled Spain; Italy and all the +country to the north and east of the Adriatic, as far as the Danube, +were in the hands of the Ostrogoths. The Roman Empire had been pushed +to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, with its capital at +Constantinople.</p> + +<p>In another three hundred years, or in 800 A. D., the king of one of +these German tribes revived the title of Roman Emperor, was crowned by +the Pope, Leo III, and governed Europe as Charlemagne. His banner with +the double-headed eagle, representing the two empires of Germany and +Rome, is the standard of Germany to-day. Charles Martel, who led the +West against the East, defeating the Arabs in the country between what +is now Tours and Poitiers, was Charlemagne’s grandfather. What is now +western Europe, became the home and the consolidated kingdom of the +German tribes who had drifted down from the west of the Baltic, and +into the Saxon plain. They had become masters in this territory: after +victories over the Mongolian tribes, and the Huns under Attila, who +had conquered and plundered as far as Strasburg, Worms, and Treves, +and were finally defeated near what is now Chalons; after driving off +the Arabs under Charles the Hammer (732); after imposing their rule +upon the Roman Empire, the remains of which cowered in Constantinople, +where the Ottoman Turk took even that from it in 1453, which date may +well be taken as marking the beginning of modern history, and became +themselves thereafter one of the first powers in Christian Europe; a +power which is now, in 1912, the quarrel ground of the Western powers.</p> + +<p>These are Brobdingnagian strides through history, to reach the days of +Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Froissart, and the first +translation of the Bible into a vulgar tongue by Wickliffe, to the +days when Lorenzo de Medici breathed Greece into Europe, and the +feeling for beauty changed from invalidism to convalescence; to the +days when cannon were first used, printing invented, America +discovered, and the man Luther, who gave the Germans their present +language by his translation of the Bible, and who delivered us from +papal tyranny, born; and Agincourt, and Joan of Arc, are picturesque +and poignant features of the historical landscape.</p> + +<p>These rude German tribes had been welded by hardship and warfare, into +compact and self-governing bodies. These loosely bound masses of men, +women, and children, straggling down to find room and food, are now, +in 1400 A. D., France, England, Austria, Germany, Scotland, and Spain. +The same spirit and vigor that roamed the coasts all the way from +Sweden and Norway to the mouth of the Thames, and to the Rhine, the +Seine, and to the Straits of Gibraltar, are abroad again, landing on +the shores of America, circumnavigating Africa, and bringing home +tales of Indians in the west, and Indians in the east. This virile +stock that had been hammered and hewn was now to be polished; and in +Italy, France, England, and Germany grew up a passion for translating +the rough mythology, and the fierce fancy of the north, into painting, +building, poetry, and music.</p> + +<p>France, Germany, England, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Italy, too, grew +out of these German tribes, who poured down from the territory roughly +included between the Rhine, the North Sea, the Oder, and the Danube.</p> + +<p>As we know these countries to-day, the definite thing about them is +their difference. You cross the channel in fifty minutes from Dover to +Calais, you cross the Rhine in five minutes, and the peoples seem +thousands of miles apart. “How did it happen,” asks Voltaire, “that, +setting out from the same point of departure, the governments of +England and of France arrived at nearly the same time, at results as +dissimilar as the constitution of Venice is unlike that of Morocco?”</p> + +<p>One might ask as well how it happened, that the speech of one German +invasion mixing itself with Latin became French, of another Spanish, +of another Portuguese, of another Italian, of another English. These +are interesting inquiries, and in regard to the former it is not +difficult to see, that men grew to be governed differently, according +as the geographical exigencies of their homes were different, and as +they occupied themselves differently.</p> + +<p>The observant traveller in the United States, may see for himself what +differences even a few years of differing climate, and circumstances, +and custom will produce. The inhabitants of Charleston, South +Carolina, are evidently and visibly different from those in Davenport, +Iowa. Two towns of similar size and wealth, Salisbury, Maryland, and +Hingham, Massachusetts, are almost as different, except in speech, and +even in speech the accent is perceptibly different even to the +careless listener, as though Salisbury were in the south of France, +and Hingham in the north of Germany. These changes and differences are +only inexplicable, to those who will not see the ethnographical +miracles taking place under their noses. Look at the mongrel crowd on +Fifth Avenue at midday, and remember what was there only fifty years +ago, and the differentiation which has taken place in Europe due to +climate, intermarriage, laws, and customs seems easy to trace and to +explain.</p> + +<p>The fishermen and tillers of the soil in the Scandinavian peninsula, +afterward the settlers in the Saxon plain and in England, recognized +him who ruled over their settled place of abode as king; while roaming +bands of fighting men would naturally attach themselves to the head of +the tribe, as the leader in war, and recognize him as king. As late as +the death of Charlemagne, when his powerful grip relaxed, the tribes +of Germans, for they were little more even then, fell apart again. +Another family like that of Pepin arose under Robert the Strong, and +under Hugue Capet (987) acquired the title of Kings of France. The +monarchy grew out of the weakening of feudalism, and feudalism had +been the gradual setting, in law and custom, of a way of living +together, of these detached tribes and clans, and their chiefs.</p> + +<p>A powerful warrior was rewarded with a horse, a spear; later, when +territory was conquered and the tribe settled down, land was given as +a reward. Land, however, does not die like a horse, or wear out and +get broken like a spear, and the problem arises after the death of the +owner, as to who is his rightful heir. Does it revert to the giver, +the chief of the tribe, or does it go to the children of the owner? +Some men are strong enough to keep their land, to add to it, to +control those living upon it, and such a one becomes a feudal ruler in +a small way himself. He becomes a duke, a dux or leader, a count, a +margrave, a baron, and a few such powerful men stand by one another +against the king. A Charlemagne, a William the Conqueror, a Louis XIV +is strong enough to rule them and keep them in order for a time. Out +of these conditions grow limited monarchies or absolute monarchies and +national nobilities.</p> + +<p>More than any other one factor, the Crusades broke up feudalism. The +great noble, impelled by a sense of religious duty, or by a love of +adventure, arms himself and his followers, and starts on years of +journeyings to the Holy Land. Ready money is needed above all else. +Lands are mortgaged, and the money-lender and the merchant buy lands, +houses, and eventually power, and buy them cheap. The returning nobles +find their affairs in disarray, their fields cultivated by new owners, +towns and cities grow up that are as strong or stronger than the +castle. Before the Crusades no <i>roturier</i>, or mere tiller of the soil, +could hold a fief, but the demand for money was so great that fiefs +were bought and sold, and Philippe Auguste (1180) solved the problem +by a law, declaring that when the king invested a man with a +sufficient holding of land or fief, he became <i>ipso facto</i> a noble. This +is the same common-sense policy which led Sir Robert Peel to declare, +that any man with an income of $50,000 a year had a right to a +peerage. There can be no aristocracy except of the powerful, which +lasts. The difference to-day is seen in the puppet nobility of +Austria, Italy, Spain, and Germany as compared with the nobility of +England, which is not a nobility of birth or of tradition, but of the +powerful: brewers and bankers, and statesmen and lawyers, and leaders +of public opinion, covering their humble past with ermine, and +crowning their achievements with coronets.</p> + +<p>The Crusades brought about as great a shifting of the balance of +power, as did later the rise of the rich merchants, industrials, and +nabobs in England. As the power of the nobles decreased, the central +power or the power of the kings increased; increased indeed, and +lasted, down to the greatest crusade of all, when democracy organized +itself, and marched to the redemption of the rights of man as man, +without regard to his previous condition of servitude.</p> + +<p>During the thousand years between the time when we first hear of the +German tribes, in 113 B. C., and the year 1411, which marks the +beginnings of what is now the Prussian monarchy, customs were becoming +habits, and habits were becoming laws, and the political and social +origins of the life of our day were being beaten into shape, by the +exigencies of living together of these tribes in the woods of Germany.</p> + +<p>There it was that the essence of democracy was distilled. Democracy, +<i>Demos</i>, the crowd, the people, the nation, were already, in the woods +of Germany, the court of last resort. They growled dissent, and they +gave assent with the brandishing of their weapons, javelins, or +ballots. They were called together but seldom, and between the +meetings of the assembly, the executive work, the judicial work, the +punishing of offenders, was left to a chosen few; left to those who by +their control over themselves, their control over their families, +their control over their neighbors, seemed best qualified to exercise +the delegated control of all.</p> + +<p>The chief aim of their organized government, such as it was, seems to +have been to leave themselves free to go about their private business, +with as little interference from the demands of public business as +possible. The chief concern of each one was to secure his right to +mind his own business, under certain safeguards provided by all. If +those delegated to govern became autocratic, or evil-doers, or used +their power for self-advancement or self-enrichment, they were +speedily brought to book. The philosophy of government, then, was to +make men free to go about their private business. That the time might +come when politics would be the absorbing business of all, dictating +the hours and wages of men under the earth, and reaching up to the +institution of a recall for the angel Gabriel, and a referendum for +the Day of Judgment, was undreamed of. The chiefs of the clans, the +chiefs of the tribes, the kings of the Germans, and finally the +emperors were all elective. The divine right of kings is a purely +modern development. The descendants of these German tribes in England, +elected their king in the days of William the Conqueror even, and as +late as 1689 the Commons of England voted that King James had +abdicated, and that the throne was vacant!</p> + +<p>The so-called mayors of the palace, who became kings, were in their +day representatives of the landholders, delegates of the people, who +advised the king and aided in commanding the armies. These hereditary +mayors of the palace drifted into ever greater and greater control, +until they became hereditary kings. The title was only hereditary, +however, because it was convenient that one man of experience in an +office should be succeeded by another educated to, and familiar with, +the same experiences and duties, and this system of heredity continues +down to this day in business, and in many professions and so long as +there is freedom to oust the incompetent, it is a good system. There +can never be any real progress until the sons take over the +accumulated wisdom and experience of the fathers; if this is not done, +then each one must begin for himself all over again. The hereditary +principle is sound enough, so long as there is freedom of decapitation +in cases of tyranny or folly.</p> + +<p>There has continued all through the history of those of the blood of +the German tribes, whether in Germany, England, America, Norway, +Sweden, or Denmark, the sound doctrine that ability may at any time +take the place of the rights of birth. Power, or command, or +leadership by heredity is looked upon as a convenience, not as an +unimpeachable right.</p> + +<p>Charlemagne (742-814), a descendant of a mayor of the palace who had +become king by virtue of ability, swept all Europe under his sway by +reason of his transcendent powers as a warrior and administrator. He +did for the first time for Europe what Akbar did in his day for India. +In forty-five years he headed fifty-three campaigns against all sorts +of enemies. He fought the Saxons, the Danes, the Slays, the Arabs, the +Greeks, and the Bretons. What is now France, Germany, Belgium, +Holland, Switzerland, Spain, and most of Italy were under his +kingship. He was a student, an architect, a bridge-builder, though he +could neither read nor write, and even began a canal which was to +connect the Danube and the Rhine, and thus the German Ocean, with the +Black Sea. He is one of many monuments to the futility of technical +education and mere book-learning.</p> + +<p>The Pope, roughly handled, because negligently protected, by the Roman +emperors, turns to Charlemagne, and on Christmas Day (800) places a +crown upon his head, and proclaims him “Caesar Augustus” and +“Christianissimus Rex.” The empire of Rome is to be born again with +this virile German warrior at its head. Just a thousand years later, +another insists that he has succeeded to the title by right of +conquest, and gives his baby son the title of “King of Rome,” and just +a thousand years after the death of Charlemagne, in 814, Napoleon +retires to Elba. There is a witchery about Rome even to-day, and an +emperor still sits imprisoned there, claiming for himself the right to +rule the spiritual and intellectual world: “sedet, eternumque sedebit +Infelix Theseus.”</p> + +<p>Louis, called “the Pious,” because the latter part of his life was +spent in mourning his outrageous betrayal, mutilation, and murder of +his own nephew, whose rivalry he feared, succeeded his father, +Charlemagne. He was succeeded again by his three sons, Lothair, Pepin, +and Louis by his first wife, and Charles, who was his favorite son, by +his second wife. He had already divided the great heritage left him by +Charlemagne between his three sons Lothair, Pepin, and Louis; but now +he wished to make another division into four parts, to make room for, +and to give a kingdom to, his son Charles by his second wife. The +three elder sons revolt against their father, and his last years are +spent in vain attempts to reconcile his quarrelsome children. At his +death war breaks out. Pepin dies, leaving, however, a son Pepin to +inherit his kingdom of Aquitaine. Louis and Charles attempt to take +his kingdom from him, his uncle Lothair defends him, and at the great +battle of Fontenay (841) Louis and Charles defeat Lothair. Lothair +gains the adherence of the Saxons, and Charles and Louis at the head +of their armies confirm their alliance, and at Strasburg the two +armies take the oath of allegiance: the followers of Louis took the +oath in German, the followers of Charles in French, and this oath, the +words of which are still preserved, is the earliest specimen of the +French language in existence.</p> + +<p>In 843 another treaty signed at Verdun, between the two brothers +Lothair and Louis and their half-brother Charles, separated for the +first time the Netherlands, the Rhine country, Burgundy, and Italy, +which became the portion of Lothair; all Germany east of this +territory, which went to Louis; and all the territory to the west of +it, which went to Charles. Germany and France, therefore, by the +Treaty of Verdun in 843, became distinct kingdoms, and modern +geography in Europe is born.</p> + +<p>From the death of Henry the Fowler, in 936, down to the nomination of +Frederick I of Bavaria, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg, to be Margrave of +Brandenburg, in 1411, the history of the particular Germany we are +studying is swallowed up in the history of these German tribes of +central Europe and of the Holy Roman Empire. It is in these years of +the seven Crusades, from 1095 to the last in 1248; of Frederick +Barbarossa; of the centuries-long quarrel between the Welfs, or +Guelphs, and the Waiblingers, or Ghibellines, which were for years in +Italy, and are still in Germany, political parties; of the Hanseatic +League of the cities to protect commerce from the piracies of a +disordered and unruled country; of the Dane and the Norman descents +upon the coasts of France, Germany, and England, and of their burning, +killing, and carrying into captivity; of the Saracens scouring the +Mediterranean coasts and sacking Rome itself; of the Wends and Czechs, +Hungarian bands who dashed in upon the eastern frontiers of the now +helpless and amorphous empire of Charlemagne, all the way from the +Baltic to the Danube; of the quarrel between Henry IV and that <i>Jupiter +Ecclesiasticus</i>, Hildebrand, or Gregory VII, who has left us his +biography in the single phrase, “To go to Canossa”; of Genghis Khan +and his Mongol hordes; of the long fight between popes and emperors +over the right of investiture; of Rudolph of Hapsburg; of the throwing +off of their allegiance to the Empire of the Kings of Burgundy, +Poland, Hungary, and Denmark; of the settlement of the question of the +legal right to elect the emperor by Charles IV, who fixed the power in +the persons of seven rulers: the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine +of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margraf of Brandenburg, and the +three Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne; of the independence +of the great cities of northern Italy; of Otto the Great, whose first +wife was a granddaughter of Alfred the Great, and who was the real +founder of the Holy Roman Empire, in the sense that a German prince +rules over both Germany and Italy with the approval of the Pope, and +in the sense that he, a duke of Saxony, appropriates the western +empire (962), goes to Rome, delivers the Pope, subdues Italy, and +fixes the imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany; of the +beginning of that hope of a world-church and a world-state, of a +universal church and a universal kingdom, which took form in what is +known as the Holy Roman Empire; of that greatest of all forgeries, the +Donation of Constantine by the monk Isidor, discovered and revealed by +Cardinal Nicolaus, of Cura, in which it is pretended that Constantine +handed over Rome to the Pope and his successors forever, with all the +power and privileges of the Caesars, and of the effects of this, the +most successful lie ever told in the world, during the seven hundred +years it was believed: it is in these years of turbulence and change +that one must trace the threads of history, from the first appearance +of the Germans, down to the time when what is now Prussia became a +frontier post of the empire under the rule of a Hohenzollern.</p> + +<p>It is, perhaps, of all periods in history, the most interesting to +Americans, for then and there our civilization was born. Writing of +the conquest of the British Isles by the Germans, J. R. Green says: +“What strikes us at once in the new England is this, that it was the +one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Rome. In other +lands, in Spain or Gaul or Italy, though they were equally conquered +by German peoples, religion, social life, administrative order, still +remained Roman.” The roots of our civilization, are to be dug for in +those days when the German peoples met the imperialism and the +Christianity of Rome, and absorbed and renewed them. The Roman Empire, +tottering on a foundation of, it is said, as many as fifty million +slaves - even a poor man would have ten slaves, a rich man ten or +twenty thousand - and overrun with the mongrel races from Syria, +Greece, and Africa, and hiding away the remnants of its power in the +Orient, became in a few centuries an easy prey to our ancestors “of +the stern blue eyes, the ruddy hair, the large and robust bodies.”</p> + +<blockquote> +“Caerula quis stupuit lumina? flavam<br /> +Caesariem, et madido torquentem cornua cirro?<br /> +Nempe quod haec illis natura est omnibus una,”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">writes Juvenal of their resemblance to one another.</p> + +<p>By the year 1411 long strides had been made toward other forms of +social, political, religious, and commercial life, due to the German +grip upon Europe. Dante, whose grandmother was a Goth, was not only a +poet but a fighter for freedom, taking a leading part in the struggle +of the Bianchi against the Neri and Pope Boniface, was born in 1265 +and died in 1321; Francis of Assisi, born in 1182, not only +represented a democratic influence in the church, but led the earliest +revolt against the despotism of money; the movement to found cities +and to league cities together for the furtherance of trade and +industry, and thus to give rights to whole classes of people hitherto +browbeaten by church or state or both, began in Italy; and the +alliance of the cities of the Rhine, and the Hansa League, date from +the beginning of the thirteenth century; the discovery of how to make +paper dates from this time, and printing followed; the revolt of the +Albigenses against priestly dominance which drenched the south of +France in blood began in the twelfth century; slavery disappeared +except in Spain; Wycliffe, born in 1324, translated the Gospels, threw +off his allegiance to the papacy, and suffered the cheap vengeance of +having his body exhumed and its ashes scattered in the river Swift; +Aquinas and Duns Scotus delivered philosophy from the tyranny of +theology; Roger Bacon (1214) practically introduced the study of +natural science; Magna Charta was signed in 1215; Marco Polo, whose +statue I have seen among those of the gods, in a certain Chinese +temple, began his travels in the thirteenth century; the university of +Bologna was founded before 1200 for the untrammelled study of medicine +and philosophy; Abelard, who died in 1142, represented, to put it +pithily, the spirit of free inquiry in matters theological, and +lectured to thousands in Paris. What do these men and movements mean? +I am wofully wrong in my ethnographical calculations if these things +do not mean, that the people of whom Tacitus wrote, “No man dictates +to the assembly; he may persuade but cannot command,” were shaping and +moulding the life of Europe, with their passionate love of individual +liberty, with their sturdy insistence upon the right of men to think +and work without arbitrary interference. Out of this furnace came +constitutional government in England, and republican government in +America. We owe the origins of our political life to the influence of +these German tribes, with their love of individual freedom and their +stern hatred of meddlesome rulers, or a meddlesome state or +legislature.</p> + +<p>Germany had no literature at this time. When Froissart was writing +French history, and Joinville his delightful chronicles; when Chaucer +and Wycliffe were gayly and gravely making play with the monks and +priests, the only names known in Germany were those of the mystics, +Eckhart and Tauler. When the time came, however, Germany was defiantly +individualist in Luther, and Protestantism was thoroughly German. It +was not from tales of the great, not from knighthood, chivalry, or +their roving singer champions, that German literature came; but from +the fables and satires of the people, from Hans Sachs and from the +Luther translation of the Bible. This is roughly the setting of +civilization, in which the first Hohenzollerns found themselves when +they took over the Mark of Brandenburg, in the early years of the +fifteenth century.</p> + +<p>Here is a list of them, of no great interest in themselves, but +showing the direct descent down to the present time; for from the +Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the French Revolution the German states +were without either men or measures, except Frederick the Great, that +call for other than dreary comment:</p> + +<table> +<tr><td>Frederick I of Nuremberg</td><td>1417</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick II</td><td>1440</td></tr> +<tr><td>Albert III</td><td>1470</td></tr> +<tr><td>Johann III</td><td>1476</td></tr> +<tr><td>Joachim I</td><td>1499</td></tr> +<tr><td>Joachim II</td><td>1535</td></tr> +<tr><td>Johann George</td><td>1571</td></tr> +<tr><td>Joachim Frederick</td><td>1598</td></tr> +<tr><td>Johann Sigismund of Poland (first Duke of Prussia)</td><td>1608</td></tr> +<tr><td>George William</td><td>1619</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick William (the Great Elector)</td><td>1640</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick III, Frederick I of Prussia (crowned first King of Prussia in 1701)</td><td>1657-1713</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick William I (son of Frederick I of Prussia)</td><td>1688-1740</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick II (the Great) (son of Frederick William I)</td><td>1712-1786</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick William II (son of Augustus William, brother of Frederick the Great)</td><td>1744-1787</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick William III (son of Frederick William II)</td><td>1770-1840</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick William IV (son of Frederick William III, 1795-1861), reigned</td><td>1840-1861</td></tr> +<tr><td>William I (son of Frederick William III, brother of Frederick William IV, 1797-1888), reigned</td><td>1861-1888</td></tr> +<tr><td>Frederick III (son of William I, 1831-1888), reigned from March 9 to June 15, 1888.</td><td></td></tr> +<tr><td>William II (son of Frederick III and Princess Victoria of England), born Jan. 27, 1859, succeeded Frederick III in 1888.</td><td></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>These incidents, names, and dates are mere whisps of history. It is +only necessary to indicate that to articulate this skeleton of +history, clothe it with flesh, and give it its appropriate arms and +costumes would entail the putting of all mediaeval European history +upon a screen, to deliver oneself without apology from any such task. +It may be for this reason that there is no history of Germany in the +English tongue, that ranks above the elementary and the mediocre. +There is a masterly and scholarly history of the <i>Holy Roman Empire</i> by +an Englishman, which no student of Germany may neglect, but he who +would trace the beginnings of Germany from 113 B. C. down to the time +of the Great Elector, 1640, must be his own guide through the +trackless deserts, of the formation into separate nations, of modern +Europe. It is even with misgivings that the student picks his way from +the time of the Great Elector to Bismarck, and to modern Germany.</p> + +<p>The Peace of Westphalia, 1648, marks the end of the Thirty Years’ War, +and finds Germany with a population reduced from sixteen millions to +four millions. Famine which drove men and women to cannibalism, bands +of them being caught cooking human bodies in a caldron for food; +slaughter that drove men to make laws authorizing every man to have +two wives, and punishing men and women who became monks and nuns; +lawlessness that bred roving bands of murderers, who killed, robbed, +and even ate their victims, demanded a ruler of no little vigor to +lead his people back to civic, moral, and material health. The Great +Elector wrested east Prussia from Poland, he defeated and drove off +the Swedes, whom Louis XIV had drawn into an alliance against him, he +travelled from end to end of his country, seeking out the problems of +distress and remedying them by inducing immigration from Holland, +Switzerland, and the north, by building roads, bridges, schools, and +churches, and by encouraging planting, trade, and commerce. He built +the Frederick William Canal connecting the Oder and the Spree, and +introduced the potato to his countrymen. Germany now produces in +normal years fifteen hundred million bushels of potatoes. The splendid +equestrian statue of the Great Elector on the long bridge at Berlin, +is a worthy monument to the first great Hohenzollern.</p> + +<p>When Charles II of Spain died, Louis XIV, the Emperor Leopold I of the +Holy Roman Empire, and the Elector of Bavaria, all three claimed the +right to name his successor. In the war that followed and which lasted +a dozen years, the Emperor, Holland, England, Portugal, the Elector of +Hanover, and the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg, the son of the +Great Elector, were allied against France. Frederick, the Elector of +Brandenburg, was permitted by the Emperor, in return for his services +at this time, to assume the title of King, and he crowned himself and +his wife Sophia Elizabeth, at Königsberg, King and Queen of Prussia, +taking the title of Frederick I of Prussia, January 18th, 1701.</p> + +<p>This <i>novus homo</i> among sovereigns was now a fellow king with the rulers +of England, France, Denmark, and Sweden, and the only crowned head in +the empire, except the Emperor himself, and the Elector of Saxony, who +had been chosen King of Poland in 1697. By persistent sycophancy he +had pushed his way into the inner circle of the crowned. Those who +have picked social locks these latter days by similar sycophancies, by +losses at bridge in the proper quarter, by suffering sly familiarities +to their women folk, and by wearing their personal and family dignity +in sole leather, may know something of the humiliating experiences of +this new monarch. He was a feeble fellow, but his son and successor, +Frederick William I, “a shrewd but brutal boor,” so Lord Rosebery +calls him, and there could not be a better judge, amazed Europe by his +taste for collecting tall soldiers, by his parsimony, his kennel +manners in the treatment of his family and his subjects, and leaves a +name in history as the first, greatest, and the unique collector of +human beings on a Barnumesque scale. All known collectors of birds, +beetles, butterflies, and beasts accord him an easy supremacy, for his +aggregation of colossal grenadiers.</p> + +<p>It is temptingly easy to be epigrammatic, perhaps witty, at the +expense of Frederick William I of Prussia. The man, however, who freed +the serfs; who readjusted the taxes; who insisted upon industry and +honesty among his officials; who proclaimed liberty of conscience and +of thought; who first put on, to wear for the rest of his life, the +uniform of his army, and thus made every officer proud to wear the +uniform himself; and who left his son an army of eighty thousand men, +thoroughly equipped and trained, and an overflowing treasury, may not +be dismissed merely with anecdotes of his eccentric brutality.</p> + +<p>Only the ignorant and the envious, nibble at the successes of other +men, with vermin teeth and venomous tongue. Those people who can never +praise anything whole-heartedly come by their cautious censure from an +uneasy doubt of their own deserving. The contempt of Frederick William +I for learning and learned men, left him leisure for matters of far +more importance to his kingdom at the time. His habitual roughness to +his son was due, perhaps, to the fact that there was a curious strain +of effeminate culture in the man who deified Voltaire. Poor Voltaire, +who called Shakespeare “le sauvage ivre,” or to quote him exactly: “On +croirait que cet ouvrage (Hamlet) est le fruit de l’imagination d’un +sauvage ivre,” who said that Dante would never be read, and that the +comedies of Aristophanes were unworthy of presentation in a country +tavern! One is tempted to believe that the father was a man of +robuster judgment in such matters than the son, whose own rather +mediocre literary equipment, made him the easy prey of that acidulous +vestal of literature, Voltaire. However that may be, he left a useful +and unexpected legacy to his son, provided, indeed, the sinews for the +making of a powerful Prussian kingdom.</p> + +<p>March the 31st, 1740, this eccentric miser died, to be succeeded by +his son, Frederick II, “the Great,” then twenty-eight years old. Here +was a surprise indeed. Of these German kings and princes in their +small dominions it has been written: “And these magnates all aped +Louis XIV as their model. They built huge palaces, as like Versailles +as their means would permit, and generally beyond those limits, with +fountains and avenues and dismally wide paths. Even in our own day a +German monarch has left, fortunately unfinished, an accurate +Versailles on a damp island in a Bavarian lake. In those grandiose +structures they cherished a blighting etiquette, and led lives as dull +as those of the aged and torpid carp in their own stew-ponds. Then, at +the proper season, they would break away into the forest and kill +game. Moreover, still in imitation of their model, they held, as a +necessary feature in the dreary drama of their existence, ponderous +dalliances with unattractive mistresses, in whom they fondly tried to +discern the charms of a Montespan or a La Vallière. This monotonous +programme, sometimes varied by a violent contest whether they should +occupy a seat with or without a back, or with or without arms, +represented the even tenor of their lives.”</p> + +<p>This good stock was evidently lying fallow, and humanity is neither +dignified nor pleasant in the part of fertilizer. Frederick the Great, +it should be remembered, was a Prussian and for Prussia only. He cared +no more about a united Germany than we care for a united America to +include Canada, Mexico, and the Argentine. He cared no more for +Bavarians and Saxons than for Swedes and Frenchmen, and, as we know, +he was utterly contemptuous of German literature or the German +language. He redeemed the shallowness and the torpidity of those other +mediocre rulers by resisting, and resisting successfully, for what +must have been to him seven very long years, the whole force of +Austria and some of the lesser German powers, with the armies of +Russia and France back of them.</p> + +<p>He had a turbulent home life; his father on one occasion even +attempted to hang him with his own hands with the cords of the window +curtains, and when he fled from home he captured him and proposed to +put him to death as a deserter, and only the intervention of the Kings +of Poland and Sweden and the Emperor of Germany prevented it. His +accomplice, however, was summarily and mercilessly put to death before +his eyes. There is no illustration in all history, of such a +successful outcome of the rod theory in education, as this of +Frederick the Great. The father put into practice what Wesley +preached: “Break their wills betimes, whatever it costs; break the +will if you would not damn the child. Let a child from a year old be +taught to fear the rod and to cry softly.”</p> + +<p>The meanness and cruelty, the parsimony and the eccentricities, of the +father left the son an army of eighty thousand troops, troops as +superior to other troops in Europe as are the Japanese infantry to-day, +to the Manchu guards that pick the weeds in the court-yards of +the palace at Mukden; and he left him, too, a kingdom with no debts +and an overflowing treasury. It is seldom that such insane vanities +leave such a fair estate and an heir with such unique abilities for +its skilful exploitation. Of Frederick’s wars against Austria, against +France, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and Poland; of his victories at +Prague, Leuthen, Rossbach, and Zorndorf; of his addition of Siberia +and Polish Prussia to his kingdom; of his comical literary love affair +with Voltaire; of his brutal comments upon the reigning ladies of +Russia and France, which brought upon him their bitter hatred; of his +restoration and improvement of his country; of his strict personal +economy and loyalty to his own people, scores of volumes have been +written. The hero-worshipper, Carlyle, and the Jove of reviewers, +Macaulay, have described him, and many minor scribes besides.</p> + +<p>It is said of his victory of Rossbach, in 1757, that then and there +began the recreation of Germany, the revival of her political and +intellectual life, and union under Prussia and Prussian kings. +Frederick the Great deserves this particular encomium; for as Luther +freed Germany, and all Christendom indeed, from the tyranny of +tradition, as Lessing freed us from the tyranny of the letter, from +the second-hand and half-baked Hellenism of a Racine and a Corneille, +so Frederick the Great freed his countrymen at last from the puerile +slavery to French fashions and traditions, which had made them self- +conscious at home and ridiculous abroad. He first made a Prussian +proud to be a Prussian.</p> + +<p>This last quarter of the eighteenth century in Germany saw the death +of Lessing in 1781, the publication of Kant’s “Kritik der Reinen +Vernunft” in the same year, and the death of the great Frederick in +1786. These names mark the physical and intellectual coming of age of +Germany. Lessing died misunderstood and feared by the card-board +literary leaders of his day, men who still wrote and thought with the +geometrical instruments handed them from France; Kant attempted to +push philosophical inquiry beyond the bounds of human experience, and +Frederick left Prussia at last not ashamed to be Prussia. Napoleon was +eighteen years old when Frederick died, and he, next to Bismarck, did +more to bring about German unity than any other single force. +Unsuccessful Charlemagne though he was, he without knowing it blazed +the political path which led to the crowning of a German emperor in +the palace at Versailles, less than a hundred years after the death of +Frederick the Great. In 1797 at Montebello, Napoleon said: “If the +Germanic System did not exist, it would be necessary to create it +expressly for the convenience of France.”</p> + +<h3>II FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK</h3> + +<p> +Frederick the Great died in 1786, leaving Prussia the most +formidable military power on the Continent. In financial, law, and +educational matters he had made his influence felt for good. He +distributed work-horses and seed to his impoverished nobles; he +encouraged silk, cotton, and porcelain industries; he built the Finow, +the Planesche, and Bromberger Canals; he placed a tariff on meat, +except pork, the habitual food of the poor, and spirits and tobacco +and coffee were added to the salt monopoly; he codified the laws, +which we shall mention later; he aided the common schools, and in his +day were built the opera-house, library, and university in Berlin, and +the new palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam.</p> + +<p>Almost exactly one hundred years after the death of Frederick the +Great, there ended practically, at the death of the Emperor William I, +in 1888, the political career of the man, who with his personally +manufactured cement of blood and iron, bound Germany together into a +nation. The middle of the seventeenth, the middle of the eighteenth, +and the middle of the nineteenth centuries, with the Great Elector, +Frederick the Great, and Bismarck as the central figures, mark the +features of the historical landscape of Germany as with mile-stones.</p> + +<p>How difficult was the task to bring at last an emperor of all Germany +to his crowning at Versailles, January 18, 1871, and how mighty the +artificer who accomplished the work, may be learned from a glance at +the political, geographical, and patriotic incoherence of the land +that is now the German Empire.</p> + +<p>Germany had no definite national policy from the death of Frederick +the Great till the reign of Bismarck began in 1862. Hazy discussions +of a confederation of princes, of a Prussian empire, of lines of +demarcation, of acquisitions of German territory, were the phantoms of +a policy, and even these were due to the pressure of Prussia.</p> + +<p>The general political torpidity is surprisingly displayed, when one +remembers that Goethe (1749-1832), who lived through the French +Revolution, who was thirty-seven years old when Frederick the Great +died, and who lived through the whole flaming life of Napoleon, was +scarcely more stirred by the political features of the time than +though he had lived in Seringapatam. He was a superlatively great man, +but he was as parochial in his politics as he was amateurish in his +science, as he was a mixture of the coxcomb and the boor, in his love +affairs. Lessing, who died in 1781, Klopstock, who died in 1803, +Schiller, who died in 1805, Kant, who died in 1804, Hegel, who died in +1831, Fichte, who died in 1814, Wolf, who died in 1824, “Jean Paul” +Friedrich Richter, who died in 1825, Voss, who died in 1826, +Schelling, who died in 1854, the two Schlegels, August Wilhelm and +Frederick, who died in 1845 and in 1829, Jacob Grimm, who died in +1863, Herder, Wieland, Kotzebue, what a list of names! What a +blossoming of literary activity! But no one of them, these the leaders +of thought in Germany, at the time when the world was approaching the +birthday of democracy through pain and blood, no one of these was +especially interested in politics.</p> + +<p>There was theoretical writing about freedom. Heine mocked at his +countrymen and at the world in general, and deified Napoleon, from his +French mattress, on which he died, in 1856, only fifty-seven years +old. Fichte ended a course of lectures on Duty, with the words: “This +course of lectures is suspended till the end of the campaign. We shall +resume if our country become free, or we shall have died to regain our +liberty.” But Fichte neither resumed nor died! Herder criticised his +countrymen for their slavish following of French forms and models in +their literature, as in their art and social life. And well he might +thus criticise, when one remembers how cramped was the literary vision +even of such men as Voltaire and Heine. We have already mentioned some +of Voltaire’s literary judgments in the preceding chapter, and Heine +ventured to compare Racine to Euripides! No wonder that Germany needed +schooling in taste, if such were the opinions of her advisers. Such +literary canons as these could only be accepted by minds long inured +to provincial, literary, and social slavery.</p> + +<p>Just as every little princeling of those days in Germany took Louis +XIV for his model, so every literary fledgling looked upon Voltaire as +a god, and modelled his style upon the stiff and pompous verses of the +French literary men of that time.</p> + +<p>Not even to-day has Germany escaped from this bondage. In Baden three +words out of ten that you hear are French, and the German wherever he +lives in Germany still invites you to <i>Mittagessen</i> at eight P. M. +because he has no word in his own language for <i>diner</i>, and must still +say <i>anständiger</i> or <i>gebildeter Mensch</i> for gentleman. To make the German +even a German in speech and ideals and in independence has been a +colossal task. One wonders, as one pokes about in odd corners of +Germany even now, whether Herder’s caustic contempt, and Bismarck’s +cavalry boots, have made every German proud to be a German, as now he +surely ought to be. The tribal feeling still exists there.</p> + +<p>Fichte’s lectures on Nationality were suppressed and Fichte himself +looked upon askance. The Schlegels spent a lifetime in giving Germany +a translation of Shakespeare. Hegel wrote the last words of his +philosophy to the sound of the guns at the battle of Jena. Goethe +writes a paragraph about his meeting with Napoleon. Metternich, born +three years before the American Revolution, and who died a year before +the battle of Bull Run, declared: “The cause of all the trouble is the +attempt of a small faction to introduce the sovereignty of the people +under the guise of a representative system.”</p> + +<p>If this was the attitude of the intellectual nobility of the time, +what are we to suppose that Messrs. Muller and Schultze and Fischer +and Kruger, the small shop-keepers and others of their ilk, and their +friends thought? Even forty years later Friedrich Hebbel, in 1844, +paid a visit to the Industrial Exposition in Paris. He writes in his +diary: “Alle diese Dinge sind mir nicht allein gleichgültig; sic sind +mir widerwärtig.” Germany had not awakened even then to any wide +popular interest in the world that was doing things. As Voltaire +phrased it, France ruled the land, England the sea, and Germany the +clouds, even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. This is +the more worth noting, as giving a peg upon which to hang Germany’s +astounding progress since that time. Even as late as Bismarck’s day he +complained of the German: “It is as a Prussian, a Hanoverian, a +Würtemberger, a Bavarian, or a Hessian, rather than as a German, that +he is disposed to give unequivocal proof of patriotism.” The present +ambitious German Emperor said, in 1899, at Hamburg: “The sluggishness +shown by the German people in interesting themselves in the great +questions moving the world, and in arriving at a political +understanding of those questions, has caused me deep anxiety.” What +kind of material had the nation-makers to work with! What a long, +disappointing task it must have been to light these people into a +blaze of patriotism! In those days America, though the population of +the American colonies was only eleven hundred and sixty thousand in +1750, talked, wrote, and fought politics. The outstanding +personalities of the time were patriots, soldiers, politicians, not a +dreamer among them.</p> + +<p>England was so nonchalantly free already, that the betting-book at +White’s Club records that, “Lord Glengall bets Lord Yarmouth one +hundred guineas to five that Buonaparte returns to Paris before Beau +Brummel returns to London!” Burke and Pitt, and Fox and North, and +Canning might look after politics; Hargreaves and Crompton would take +care to keep English industries to the fore, and Watt, and the great +canal-builder Brindley, would solve the problem of distributing coal; +their lordships cracked their plovers’ eggs, unable to pronounce even +the name of a single German town or philosopher, and showed their +impartial interest, much as now they do, in contemporary history, by +backing their opinions with guineas, with the odds on Caesar against +the “Beau.”</p> + +<p>Weimar was a sunny little corner where poetry and philosophy and +literature were hatched, well out of reach of the political storms of +the time. The Grand Duke of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach with his tiny +court, his Falstaffian army, his mint and his customs-houses, with his +well-conducted theatre and his suite of littérateurs, was one of three +hundred rulers in the Germany of that time.</p> + +<p>The Holy Roman Empire, consisting, in Napoleon’s time, of Austria, +Prussia, and a mass of minor states, these last grouped together under +the name of the Confederation of the Rhine, and wholly under French +influence, lasted one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight years, or +from Caesar’s victory of Pharsalia down to August the 1st, 1806, when +Napoleon announced to the Diet that he no longer recognized it.</p> + +<p>This institution had no political power, was merely a theoretical +political ring for the theoretical political conflicts of German +agitators and dreamers, and was composed of the representatives of +this tangle of powerless, but vain and self-conscious little states. +This Holy Roman Empire, with an Austrian at its head, and aided by +France, strove to prevent the development of a strong German state +under the leadership of Prussia. After Napoleon’s day it became a +struggle between Prussia and Austria. Austria had only eight out of +thirty-six million German population, while Prussia was practically +entirely German, and Prussia used her army, politics, and commerce to +gain control in Germany. Even to-day Austria-Hungary contains the most +varied conglomeration of races of any nation in the world. Austria has +26,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 9,000,000 are Germans, 1,000,000 +Italians and Rumanians, 6,000,000 Bohemians and Slovacs, 8,000,000 +Poles and Ruthenians, 2,000,000 Slovenes and Croatians. Of the +19,000,000 of Hungary there are 9,000,000 Magyars, 2,000,000 Germans, +2,500,000 Slovacs and Ruthenians, 3,000,000 Rumanians, and nearly +3,000,000 Southern Slays.</p> + +<p>Weimar was one of the three hundred capitals of this limp empire, with +tariffs, stamps, coins, uniforms, customs, gossip, interests, and a +sovereign of its own. When Bismarck undertook the unifying of the +customs tariffs of Germany, there were even then fifteen hundred +different tariffs in existence!</p> + +<p>Weimar had its salon, its notables: Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Frau +von Stein, Dr. Zimmermann as a valued correspondent; its Grand Duke +Karl August and his consort; Herder, who jealous of the renown of +Goethe, and piqued at the insufficient consideration he received, soon +departed, to return only when the Grand Duchess took him under her +wing and thus satisfied his morbid pride; its love affair, for did not +the beautiful Frau von Werthern leave her husband, carry out a mock +funeral, and, heralded as dead, elope to Africa with Herr von +Einsiedel? But Weimar was as far away from what we now agree to look +upon as the great events of the day, as were Lords Glengall and +Yarmouth at White’s, in Saint James’s.</p> + +<p>It requires imagination to put Goethe and Schiller and Wieland in the +bow window at White’s, and to place Lords Glengall and Yarmouth in +Frau von Stein’s drawing-room in Weimar; but the discerning eye which +can see this picture, knows at a glance why England misunderstands +Germany and Germany misunderstands England. For White’s is White’s and +Weimar is Weimar, and one is British and one is German as much now as +then! In the one the winner of the Derby is of more importance than +any philosopher; in the other, philosophers, poets, professors, and +playwrights are almost as well known, as the pedigrees of the +yearlings to be sold at Newmarket, are known at White’s. They still +have plover’s eggs early in the season at White’s, and they still +recognize the subtle distinction there between “port wine” and “port”; +while in Weimar nobody, unless it be the duke, even boils his +sauerkraut in white wine!</p> + +<p>One could easily write a chapter on Weimar and its self-satisfied +social and literary activities. There were three hundred or more +capitals of like complexion and isolation: some larger, some smaller, +none perhaps with such a splendid literary setting, but all +indifferent with the indifference of distant relatives who seldom see +one another, when the French Revolution exploded its bomb at the gates +of the world’s habits of thought.</p> + +<p>No intelligent man ever objected to the French Revolution because it +stood for human rights, but because it led straight to human wrongs. +The dream was angelic, but the nightmare in which it ended was +devilish. The French Revolution was the most colossal disappointment +that humanity has ever had to bear.</p> + +<p>More than the demagogue gives us credit for, are the great majority of +us eager to help our neighbors. The trouble is that the demagogue +thinks this, the most difficult of all things, an easy task. God and +Nature are harsh when they are training men, and we, alas, are soft, +hence most of our failures. Correction must be given with a rod, not +with a sop. There lies all the trouble.</p> + +<p>The political and philanthropic wise men were setting out for the +manger and the babe, their eyes on the star, laden with gifts, when +they were met by a whiff of grape-shot from the guns commanded by a +young Corsican genius. The French Revolution found us all sympathetic, +but making men of equal height by lopping off their heads; making them +free by giving no one a chance to be free; making them fraternal by +insisting that all should be addressed by the same title of, +“citizen,” was soon seen to be the method of a political nursery.</p> + +<p>It was no fault of the French Revolution that it was no revolution at +all, in any political sense. Men maddened by oppression hit, kick, +bite, and burn. They are satisfied to shake the burden of the moment +off their backs, even though the burden they take on be of much the +same character. “It is perfectly possible, to revive even in our own +day the fiscal tyranny which once left even European populations in +doubt whether it was worth while preserving life by thrift and toil. +You have only to tempt a portion of the population into temporary +idleness, by promising them a share in a fictitious hoard lying in an +imaginary strong-box which is supposed to contain all human wealth. +You have only to take the heart out of those who would willingly labor +and save, by taxing them <i>ad misericordiam</i> for the most laudable +philanthropic objects. For it makes not the smallest difference to the +motives of the thrifty and industrious part of mankind whether their +fiscal oppressor be an Eastern despot, or a feudal baron, or a +democratic legislature, and whether they are taxed for the benefit of +a corporation called Society or for the advantage of an individual +styled King or Lord,” writes Sir Henry Maine. In short it matters not +in the least what you baptize oppression, so long as it is oppression, +or whether you call your tyrant “Jim” or “My Lord,” so long as he is a +tyrant. Many people are slowly awakening to the fact in England and in +America, that plain citizen “Jim” can be a most merciless tyrant in +spite of his unpretentious name and title. No royal tyrant ever dared +to attempt to gain his ends by dynamiting innocent people, as did the +trades-unionists at Los Angeles, or to starve a whole population as +did the trades-unionists in London. We have not escaped tyranny by +changing its name. The idea of the <i>Contrat Social</i> and of all its +dilutions since, has been that individuals go to make up society, and +that society under the name of the state must take charge of those +individuals. The French Revolution was a failure because it fell back +upon that tiresome and futile philosophy of government which had been +that of Louis XIV. Louis XIV took care of the individual units of the +state by exploiting them. He was a sound enough Socialist in theory. +France gained nothing of much value along the lines of political +philosophy.</p> + +<p>Whether it is Louis XIV who says “l’état c’est moi” or the citizens +banded together in a state, who claim that the functions of the state +are to meddle with the business of every man, matters little. It is +the same socialistic philosophy at bottom, and it has produced to-day +a France of thirty-eight millions of people pledged to sterility, one +million of whom are state officials superintending the affairs of the +others at a cost, in salaries alone, of upward of five hundred million +dollars a year.</p> + +<p>In no political or philosophical sense was the French Revolution a +revolution at all. It was a change of administration and leaders, but +not a change of political theory. The French Revolution put the state +in impartial supremacy over all classes by destroying exemptions +claimed by the nobility and the clergy, and thus extended the power of +the state. The English Revolution without bloodshed reduced the power +of the state, not for the advantage of any class, but for individual +liberty and local self-government. We Americans are the political +heirs of the latter, not of the former, revolution.</p> + +<p>Germany was stirred slightly to hope for freedom, but stirred mightily +to protest against anarchy later. These were the two influences from +the French Revolution that affected Germany, and they were so +contradictory that Germany herself was for nearly a hundred years in a +mixed mood. One influence enlivened the theoretical democrat, and the +other sent the armies of all Europe post-haste to save what was left +of orderly government in France.</p> + +<p>But Prussia was not what she had been under Frederick the Great. +Frederick was more Louis XIV than Louis XIV himself. The economic and +political errors of the French Revolution found their best practical +exponent in Frederick the Great. In the introduction to his code of +laws we have already mentioned are the words: “The head of the state, +to whom is intrusted the duty of securing public welfare, which is the +whole aim of society, is authorized to direct and control all the +actions of individuals toward this end.” Further on the same code +reads: “It is incumbent upon the state to see to the feeding, +employment, and payment of all those who cannot support themselves, +and who have no claim to the help of the lord of the manor, or to the +help of the commune: it is necessary to provide such persons with work +which is suitable to their strength and their capacity.”</p> + +<p>When Frederick died he left Prussia in the grip of this enervating +pontifical socialism, which always everywhere ends by palsying the +individual, and through the individual the state, with the blight of +demagogical and theoretical legislation. The fine army grew pallid and +without spirit, the citizens lost their individual pride, the nation +as a whole lost its vigor, and when Napoleon marched into Berlin, he +remarked that the country hardly seemed worth conquering.</p> + +<p>The century from the death of Frederick the Great, in 1786, to the +death of William the First, in 1888, includes, in a convenient period +to remember: the downfall of Frederick’s patriotic edifice; the apathy +and impotency that followed upon the breaking up of the bureaucracy he +had welded into efficiency; the shuffling of the German states by +Napoleon as though they were the pack of cards in a great political +game; a revival of patriotism in Prussia after floggings and insults +that were past bearing; the jealousies and enmities of the various +states, the betrayal of one by the other, and finally the struggle +between Austria and Prussia to decide upon a leader for all Germany; +and at last the war against France, 1870-71, which was to make it +clear to the world that Germany had been Prussianized into an empire.</p> + +<p>Frederick William II, the nephew of Frederick the Great, who succeeded +him, was King of Prussia from 1786 to 1797. Frederick William III, his +son, and the husband of the beautiful and patriotic Queen Louisa, was +King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. Frederick William IV, a loquacious, +indiscreet, loose-lipped sovereign, of moist intellect and mythical +delusions, was King of Prussia from 1840 to 1857, when his mental +condition made his retirement necessary, and he was succeeded by his +brother, Frederick William Ludwig, first as regent, then as king in +1861, known to us as that admirable King and Emperor, William I, who +died in 1888.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of these sovereigns, to +those of us who look upon Germany to-day as autocratically governed in +fact and by tradition, is their willing surrender to the people, on +every occasion when the demand has been, even as little insistent as +the German demand has been. In the case of Frederick William IV, his +claim, at least in words, upon his divine rights as a sovereign was +the mark of a wavering confidence in himself. He was not satisfied +with a rational sanction for his authority, but was forever assuring +his subjects that God had pronounced for him; much as men of low +intelligence attempt to add vigor to their statements by an oath. “I +hold my crown,” he said, “by the favor of God, and I am responsible to +Him for every hour of my government.” Much under the influence of the +two scholars Niebuhr and Ranke, he hated the ideas of the French +Revolution, and dreamed of an ideal Christian state like that of the +Middle Ages. He was caricatured by the journals of the day, and +laughed at by the wits, including Heine, and pictured as a king with +“Order” on one hand, “Counter-order” on the other, and “Disorder” on +his forehead.</p> + +<p>Though Frederick William II marched into France in 1792, to support +the French monarchy, neither his army nor his people were prepared or +fit for this enterprise, and he soon retired. In 1793, Prussia joined +Russia in a second partition of Poland, but in 1795, angry with what +was considered the double dealing of Austria and Russia, Prussia +concluded a peace with France, the treaty of Basle was signed in 1795, +and for ten years Prussia practically took no part in the Napoleonic +wars.</p> + +<p>Napoleon took over the lands on the left bank of the Rhine, took away +the freedom of forty-eight towns, leaving only Hamburg, Bremen, +Frankfort, Augsburg, and Nuremberg, and in 1803 he took Hanover. +Later, in 1805, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden aided Napoleon to fight +the alliance against him of Austria, England, Russia, and Sweden. In +that same year the Electors of Würtemberg and Bavaria were made kings +by Napoleon. In 1806 Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and Hessen seceded +from the German Empire, formed themselves into the Confederation of +the Rhine, and acknowledged Napoleon as their protector. In 1806 +Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, resigned, and there was +neither an empire nor an emperor of Germany, nor was there a Germany +of united interests.</p> + +<p>In 1806 Frederick William III, driven by the grossest insults to his +country and to his wife, finally declared war against France; there +followed the battle of Jena, in which the Germans were routed, and in +that same year Napoleon marched into Berlin unopposed. In 1807 the +Russian Emperor was persuaded to make peace, and Prussia without her +ally was helpless. The Peace of Tilsit, in July, 1807, deprived +Prussia of the whole of the territory between the Elbe and the Rhine, +and this with Brunswick, Hessen-Cassel, and part of Hanover was dubbed +the Kingdom of Westphalia, and Napoleon’s youngest brother Jerome was +made king. The Polish territory of Prussia was given to the Elector of +Saxony, who was also rewarded for having deserted Prussia after the +battle of Jena by being made a king. Prussia was further required to +reduce her army to forty-two thousand men.</p> + +<p>It is neither a pretty nor an inspiriting story, this of the mangling +of Germany by Napoleon; of the German princes bribed by kingly crowns +from the hands of an ancestorless Corsican; but it all goes to show +how far from any sense of common aims and duties, how far from the +united Vaterland of to-day, was the Germany of a hundred years ago. It +adds, too, immeasurably to the laurels of the man who produced the +present German Empire out of his own pocket, and stood as chief +sponsor at its christening at Versailles in 1871.</p> + +<p>This Prussia that sent twenty thousand troops to aid Napoleon against +Russia, and which during the retreat from Moscow went over bodily to +the enemy; this Prussia whose vacillating king simpered with delight +at a kind word from Napoleon, and shivered with dismay at a harsh one; +this army with its officers as haughty as they were incapable, and its +men only prevented from wholesale desertion by severe punishment, an +army rotten at the core, with a coat of varnish over its worm-eaten +fabric; this Prussia humiliated and disgraced after the battle of +Jena, in 1806, in seven years’ time came into its own again. Vom +Stein, Scharnhorst, the son of a Hanoverian peasant, and Hardenberg +put new life into the state. At Waterloo the pummelled squares of red-coats +were relieved by these Prussians, and Blücher, or “Old Marschall +Vorwärts” as he was called, redeemed his countrymen’s years of +effeminate lassitude and vacillation.</p> + +<blockquote>“Such was Vorwärts, such a fighter,<br /> +Such a lunging, plunging smiter,<br /> +Always stanch and always straight,<br /> +Strong as death for love or hate,<br /> +Always first in foulest weather,<br /> +Neck or nothing, hell for leather,<br /> +Through or over, sink or swim,<br /> +Such was Vorwärts-here’s to him!”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">Napoleon goes to Saint Helena and dies in 1821. What he did for +Germany was to prove to her how impossible was a cluster of jealous, +malicious provincial little state governments in the heart of Europe, +protecting themselves from falling apart by the ancient legislative +scaffolding of the Holy Roman Empire. He squeezed three hundred states +into thirty-eight, and the very year of Waterloo, on April the 1st, a +German Napoleon was born who was to further squeeze these states into +what is known to-day as the German Empire.</p> + +<p>The Congress of Vienna was a meeting of the European powers to +redistribute the possessions, that Napoleon had scattered as bribes +and rewards among his friends, relatives, and enemies, so far as +possible, among their rightful owners.</p> + +<p>From the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, Napoleon looked on +while the allies quarrelled at this Congress of Vienna. Prussia +claimed the right to annex Saxony; Russia demanded Poland, and against +them were leagued England, Austria, and France, France represented by +the Mephistophelian Talleyrand, who strove merely to stir the discord +into another war. In the midst of their deliberations word came that +the wolf was in the fold again. Napoleon was riding to Paris, through +hysterical crowds of French men and women, eager for another throw +against the world, if their Little Corporal were there to shake the +dice for them. He had another throw and lost. The French Revolution in +1789, followed by the insurrection of all Europe against that strange +gypsy child of the Revolution, Napoleon, from 1807-1815, ended at last +at Waterloo. This lover, who won whole nations as other men win a maid +or two; this ruler, who had popes for handmaidens and gave kingdoms as +tips, who dictated to kings preferably from the palaces of their own +capitals; this fortunate demon of a man, who had escaped even Mlle. +Montausier, was safely disposed of at Saint Helena, and the ordinary +ways of mortals had their place in the world again.</p> + +<p>The Congress of Vienna reassembled, and the readjustment of the map of +Europe began over again. Prussia is given back what had been taken +away from her. A German confederation was formed in 1815 to resist +encroachments, but with no definite political idea, and its diet, to +which Prussia, Austria, and the other smaller states sent +representatives, became the laughing-stock of Europe. Jealous +bickerings and insistence upon silly formalities paralyzed +legislation. Lawyers and others who presented their claims before this +assembly from 1806-1816 were paid in 1843! The liquidation of the +debts of the Thirty Years’ War was made after two hundred years, in +1850! The laws for the military forces were finally agreed upon in +1821, and put in force in 1840!</p> + +<p>There were three principal forms of government among these states: +first, Absolutist, where the ruler and his officials governed without +reference to the people, as in Prussia and Austria; second, those who +organized assemblies (Landslände), where no promises were made to the +people, but where the nobles and notables were called together for +consultation; and third, a sort of constitutional monarchy with a +written constitution and elected representatives, but with the ruler +none the less supreme. One of the first rulers to grant such a +constitution to his people was the Grand Duke who presided over the +little court at Weimar.</p> + +<p>The mass of the people were wholly indifferent. The intellectuals were +divided among themselves. The schools and universities after 1818 form +associations and societies, the Burschenschaft, for example, and in a +hazy professorial fashion talk and shout of freedom. They were of +those passionate lovers of liberty, more intent on the dower than on +the bride; willing to talk and sing and to tell the world of their own +deserts, but with little iron in their blood.</p> + +<p>When a real man wants to be free he fights, he does not talk; he takes +what he wants and asks for it afterward; he spends himself first and +affords it afterward. These dreamy gentlemen could never make the +connection between their assertions and their actions. They were as +inconsistent, as a man who sees nothing unreasonable in circulating +ascetic opinions and a perambulator at the same time. They were dreary +and technical advocates of liberty.</p> + +<p>At a great festival at the Wartburg, in 1817, the students got out of +hand, burned the works of those conservatives, Haller and Kotzebue, +and the Code Napoleon. This youthful folly was purposely exaggerated +throughout Germany, and was used by the party of autocracy to frighten +the people, and also as a reason for passing even severer laws against +the ebullitions of liberty. At a conference at Carlsbad in 1819 the +representatives of the states there assembled passed severe laws +against the student societies, the press, the universities, and the +liberal professors.</p> + +<p>From 1815-1830 the opinions of the more enlightened changed. The fear +of Napoleon was gradually forgotten, and the hatred of the absolutism +of Prussia and Austria grew.</p> + +<p>In 1830 constitutions were demanded and were guardedly granted in +Brunswick, Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse-Cassel. In 1832 things had gone +so far that at a great student festival the black, red, and gold flag +of the Burschenschaft was hoisted, toasts were drunk to the +sovereignty of the people, to the United States of Germany, and to +Europe Republican! This was followed by further prosecutions. Prussia +condemned thirty-nine students to death, but confined them in a +fortress. The prison-cell of the famous Fritz Reuter may be seen in +Berlin to-day. In Hesse, the chief of the liberal party, Jordan, was +condemned to six years in prison; in Bavaria a journalist was +imprisoned for four years, and other like punishments followed +elsewhere. It was in 1857, when Queen Victoria came to the throne, +that Hanover was cut off from the succession, as Hanover could not +descend to a woman. The Duke of Cumberland became the ruler of +Hanover, and England ceased to hold any territory in Europe.</p> + +<p>From 1839-1847 there was comparative quiet in the political world. The +rulers of the various states succeeded in keeping the liberal +professorial rhetoric too damp to be valuable as an explosive.</p> + +<p>Interwoven with this party in Germany, demanding for the people +something more of representation in the government, was a movement for +the binding together of the various states in a closer union. In 1842 +when the first stone was laid for the completion of the Cologne +Cathedral, at a banquet of the German princes presided over by the +King of Prussia, the King of Würtemberg proposed a toast to “Our +common country!” That toast probably marks the first tangible proof of +the existence of any important feeling upon the subject of German +unity.</p> + +<p>At a congress of Germanists at Frankfort, in 1846, professors and +students, jurists and historians, talked and discussed the questions +of a German parliament and of national unity more perhaps than matters +of scholarship.</p> + +<p>In 1847 Professor Gervinus founded at Heidelberg the <i>Deutsche Zeitung</i>, +which was to be liberal, national, and for all Germany.</p> + +<p>I should be sorry to give the impression that I have not given proper +value to the work of the German professor and student in bringing +about a more liberal constitution for the states of Germany. Liebig of +Munich, Ranke of Berlin, Sybel of Bonn, Ewald of Göttingen, Mommsen in +Berlin, Döllinger in Munich, and such men as Schiemann in Berlin to-day, +were and are, not only scholars, but they have been and are +political teachers; some of them violently reactionary, if you please, +but all of them stirring men to think.</p> + +<p>No such feeling existed then, or exists now, in Germany, as animated +Oxford some fifty years ago when the greatest Sanscrit scholar then +living was rejected by a vote of that body, one voter declaring: “I +have always voted against damned intellect, and I trust I always may!” +A state of mind that has not altogether disappeared in England even +now. Indeed I am not sure, that the most notable feature of political +life in England to-day, is not a growing revolt against legislation by +tired lawyers, and an increasing demand for common-sense governing +again, even if the governing be done by those with small respect for +“damned intellect.”</p> + +<p>The third French revolution of 1848 set fire to all this, not only in +Germany but in Austria, Hungary, Roumania, and elsewhere. We must go +rapidly through this period of seething and of political teething. The +parliament at Frankfort with nothing but moral authority discussed and +declaimed, and finally elected Archduke John of Austria as +“administrator” of the empire. There followed discussions as to +whether Austria should even become a member of the new confederation. +Two parties, the “Little Germanists” and the “Pan Germanists,” those +in favor of including, and those opposed to the inclusion of Austria, +fought one another, with Prussia leading the one and Austria, with the +prestige of having been head of the former Holy Roman Empire, the +other.</p> + +<p>In 1849 Austria withdrew altogether and the King of Prussia was +elected Emperor of Germany, but refused the honor on the ground that +he could not accept the title from the people, but only from his +equals. There followed riots and uprisings of the people in Prussia, +Saxony, Baden, and elsewhere throughout Germany. The Prussian guards +were sent to Dresden to quell the rioting there and took the city +after two days’ fighting. The parliament itself was dispersed and +moved to Stuttgart, but there again they were dispersed, and the end +was a flight of the liberals to Switzerland, France, and the United +States. We in America profited by the coming of such valuable citizens +as Carl Schurz and many others. There were driven from Germany, they +and their descendants, many among our most valuable citizens. The +descendant of one of the worthiest of them, Admiral Osterhaus, is one +of the most respected officers in our navy, and will one day command +it, and we could not be in safer hands. In 1849 the German Federal +fleet was sold at auction as useless; Austria was again in the +ascendant and German subjects in Schleswig were handed over to the +Danes.</p> + +<p>In 1850 both the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria called +congresses, but Prussia finally gave up hers, and the ancient +confederation as of before 1848 met as a diet at Frankfort and from +1851-1858 Bismarck was the Prussian delegate and Austria presided over +the deliberations.</p> + +<p>A factor that made for unity among the German states was the +<i>Zollverein</i>. From 1818-1853 under the leadership of Prussia the various +states were persuaded to join in equalizing their tariffs. Between +1834-5 Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Nassau, +Thuringia, and Frankfort agreed upon a common standard for customs +duties, and a few years later they were joined by Brunswick, Hanover, +and the Mecklenburgs. German industry and commerce had their +beginnings in these agreements. The hundreds of different customs +duties became so exasperating that even jealous little governments +agreed to conform to simpler laws, and probably this commercial +necessity did more to bring about the unity of Germany than the King, +or politics, or the army.</p> + +<p>With the struggles of the various states to obtain constitutions we +cannot deal, nor would it add to the understanding of the present +political condition of the German Empire.</p> + +<p>Prussia, after riots in Berlin, after promises and delays from the +vacillating King, who one day orders his own troops out of the capital +and his brother, later William I, to England to appease the anger of +the mob, and parades the streets with the colors of the citizens in +revolt wrapped about him; and the next day, surly, obstinate, but ever +orating, holds back from his pledges, finally accepts a constitution +which is probably as little democratic as any in the world.</p> + +<p>Of the sixty-five million inhabitants of the German Empire, Prussia +has over forty millions. The Landtag of Prussia is composed of two +chambers, the first called the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, and the +second the Abgeordnetenhaus, or Chamber of Deputies. This upper house +is made up of the princes of the royal family who are of age; the +descendants of the formerly sovereign families of Hohenzollern- +Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; chiefs of the princely houses +recognized by the Congress of Vienna; heads of the territorial +nobility formed by the King; representatives of the universities; +burgomasters of towns with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, and +an unlimited number of persons nominated by the King for life or for a +limited period. This upper chamber is a mere drawing-room of the +sovereign’s courtiers, though there may be, and as a matter of fact +there are at the present time, representatives even of labor in this +chamber, but in a minority so complete that their actual influence +upon legislation, except in a feeble advisory capacity, amounts to +nothing. In this Herrenhaus, or upper chamber, of Prussia there are at +this writing among the 327 members 3 bankers, 8 representatives of the +industrial and merchant class, and 1 mechanic; 12 in all, or not even +four per cent., to represent the industrial, financial, commercial, +and working classes. Even in the lower chamber, or Abgeordnetenhaus, +there are only 10 merchants, 19 manufacturers, 7 labor +representatives, and 1 bank director, or 37 members who represent the +commercial, manufacturing, and industrial interests in a total +membership of 443.</p> + +<p>In the other states of Germany much the same conditions exist. In +Bavaria, in the upper house, or <i>Kammer der Reichsräte</i>, there is no +representative, and in the lower house of 163 members only 29 +representatives of the industrial world.</p> + +<p>In Saxony, the most socialistic state in Germany, the upper chamber +with 49 members has 5 industrials; the lower chamber with 82 members +has 40 representatives of commercial, industrial, and financial +affairs.</p> + +<p>In Würtemberg, in the upper chamber with 51 members there are 3 +industrials; and in the second chamber with 63 members there are 17 +industrials.</p> + +<p>In Baden, of the 37 members of the upper house there are 6 +industrials; of the 73 members of the lower house there are 23 +representatives of commerce and industry.</p> + +<p>This condition of political inequality is the result of the +maintenance of the old political divisions, despite the fact that in +the last thirty years the whole complexion of the country has changed +radically, due to the rapid increase of the city populations +representing the industrial and commercial progress of a nation that +is now the rival of both the United States and Great Britain. In more +than one instance a town with over 300,000 inhabitants will be +represented in the legislature in the same proportion as a country +population of 30,000. Stettin, for example, with a population of +245,000, which is a seventh of the total population of Pomerania, has +only 6 of the 89 provincial representatives. Further, the three-class +system of voting in Prussia and in the German cities, is a unique +arrangement for giving men the suffrage without either power or +privilege. According to this system every male inhabitant of Prussia +aged twenty-five is entitled to vote in the election of members of the +lower house. The voters, however, are divided into three classes. This +division is made by taking the total amount of the state taxes paid in +each electoral district and dividing it into three equal amounts. The +first third is paid by the highest tax-payers; the second third by the +next highest tax-payers, and the last third by the rest. The first +class consists of a comparatively few wealthy people; it may even +happen that a single individual pays a third of the taxes in a given +district. These three classes then elect the members of an electoral +college, who then elect the member of the house. In Prussia it may be +said roughly that 260,000 wealthy tax-payers elect one-third; 870,000 +tax-payers elect one-third, and the other 6,500,000 voters elect one-third +of the members of the electoral college, with the consequence +that the 6,500,000 are not represented at all in the lower house of +Prussia. In order to make this three-class system of voting quite +clear, let us take the case of a city where the same principle may be +seen at work on a smaller scale. In 1910, in the city of Berlin, there +were:</p> + +<p>931 voters of the first class paying 27,914,593 +marks of the total tax.</p> + +<p>32,131 voters of the second class paying +27,908,776 marks of the total tax.</p> + +<p>357,345 voters of the third class paying +16,165,501 marks of the total tax.</p> + +<p>Roughly the voters in the first class each paid $7,500; those in the +second class $218; those in the third class $11. The 931 voters +elected one-third, 32,131 voters elected one-third, and 357,345 +elected one-third of the town councillors. In this same year in Berlin +there were:</p> + +<p>521 persons with incomes between $25,000 and $62,500.</p> + +<p>139 persons with incomes between $62,500 and $125,000.</p> + +<p>22 persons with incomes between $125,000 and $187,500.</p> + +<p>19 persons with incomes between $187,000 and $250,000.</p> + +<p>19 persons with incomes of $250,000 or more. +Or 720 persons in Berlin in 1912 with incomes +of over $25,000 a year, and they are +practically the governors of the city.</p> + +<p>As a result of these divisions according to taxes paid, of the 144 +town councillors elected, only 38 were Social-Democrats, though Berlin +is overwhelmingly Social-Democratic, and consequently the affairs of +this city of more than 2,000,000 inhabitants are in the hands of +33,062 persons who elect two-thirds of the town councillors.</p> + +<p>In the city of Düsseldorf there were, excluding the suburbs, 62,443 +voters at the election for town councillors in 1910. The first class +was composed of 797 voters paying from 1,940 to 264,252 marks of +taxes; 6,645 voters paying from 222 to 1,939 marks; and 55,001 voters +paying 221 marks or less. These 7,442 voters of the first and second +classes were in complete control of the city government by a clear +majority of two-thirds.</p> + +<p>It is this three-class system of voting that makes Prussia, and the +Prussian cities as well, impregnable against any assault from the +democratically inclined. In addition to this system, the old electoral +divisions of forty years ago remain unchanged, and consequently the +agricultural east of Prussia, including east and west Prussia, +Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia, with their large +landholders, return more members to the Prussian lower house than the +much greater population of western industrial Prussia, which includes +Sachsen, Hanover, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hohenzollern, +Hessen-Nassau, and the Rhine. Further, the executive government of +Prussia is conducted by a ministry of state, the members of which are +appointed by the King, and hold office at his pleasure, without +control from the Landtag.</p> + +<p>How little the people succeeded in extorting from King Frederick +William IV in the way of a constitution may be gathered from this +glimpse of the present political conditions of Prussia.</p> + +<p>The local government of Prussia is practically as centralized in a few +hands as the executive government of the state itself. The largest +areas are the provinces, whose chiefs or presidents also are appointed +by the sovereign, and who represent the central government. There are +twelve such provinces in Prussia, ranging in size from the Rhineland +and Brandenburg, with 7,120,519 and 4,093,007 inhabitants +respectively, to Schleswig-Holstein, with 1,619,673.</p> + +<p>Each province is divided into two or more government districts, of +which there are thirty-five in all. At the head of each of these +districts is the district president, also appointed by the crown.</p> + +<p>In addition there is the <i>Kreis</i>, or Circle, of which there are some +490, with populations varying from 20,000 to 801,000. These circles +are, for all practical purposes, governed by the Landrath, who is +appointed for life by the crown, and who is so fully recognized as the +agent of the central government and not as the servant of the locality +in which he rules, that on one occasion several Landräthe were +summarily dismissed for voting against the government and in +conformity to the wishes of the inhabitants of the circle in which +they lived! Though the Landrath is nominated by the circle assembly +for appointment by the crown, he can be dismissed by his superiors of +the central hierarchy. As his promotion, and his career in fact, is +dependent upon these superiors, he naturally sides with the central +government in all cases of dispute or friction.</p> + +<p>Further, and this is important, all officials in Germany are legally +privileged persons. All disputes between individuals and public +authorities in Germany are decided by tribunals quite distinct from +the ordinary courts. These courts are specially constituted, and they +aim at protecting the officials from any personal responsibility for +acts done by them in their official capacity.</p> + +<p>In America, and I presume in Great Britain also, any disputes between +public authorities and private individuals are settled in the ordinary +courts of justice, under the rules of the ordinary law of the land. +This super-common-law position of the Prussian official is a fatal +incentive to the aggravating exaggeration of his importance, and to +the indifference of his behavior to the private citizen. There may be +officials who are uninfluenced by this sheltered position, indeed I +know personally many who are, but there is equally no doubt that many +succumb to arrogance and lethargy as a consequence.</p> + +<p>How thoroughly Prussia is covered by a network of officialdom, is +further discovered when it is known, that the entire area of Prussia +is some twenty thousand square miles less than that of the State of +California. The whole Prussian doctrine of local self-government, too, +is entirely different from ours. Their idea is that self-government is +the performance by locally elected bodies of the will of the state, +not necessarily of the locality which elects them. Local authorities, +whether elected or not, are supposed to be primarily the agents of the +state, and only secondarily the agents of the particular locality they +serve. In Prussia, all provincial and circle assemblies and communal +councils, may be dissolved by royal decree, hence even these elected +assemblies may only serve their constituencies at the will and +pleasure of the central authority.</p> + +<p>It would avail little to go into minute details in describing the +government of Prussia; this slight sketch of the electoral system, and +of the centralization of the government, suffices to show two things +that it is particularly my purpose to make clear. One is the +preponderating influence of Prussia in the empire, due to the +maintenance of power in a single person; and the other is to show how +ridiculously futile it is to refer to Prussia as an example of the +success of social legislation. The state ownership of railroads, old-age +pensions, accident and sickness insurance, and the like are one +thing in Prussia which is a close corporation, and quite another in +any community or country under democratic government. What takes place +in Prussia would certainly not take place in America or in England. To +draw inferences from a state governed as is Prussia, for application +to such democratic communities as America or England, is as valuable +as to argue from the habits of birds, that such and such a treatment +would succeed with fish.</p> + +<p>It was with this autocratic Prussia at his back, that the greatest man +Germany has produced, succeeded in bringing about German unity and the +foundation of the German Empire. As the representative of Prussia in +the Diet, as her ambassador to Russia, and to France, he gained the +insight into the European situation which led him to hold as his +political creed, that only by blood and iron, and not by declamations +and resolutions, could Germany be united.</p> + +<p>“During the time I was in office,” he writes, “I advised three wars, +the Danish, the Bohemian, and the French; but every time I have first +made clear to myself whether the war, if successful, would bring a +prize of victory worth the sacrifices which every war requires, and +which now are so much greater than in the last century. ... I have +never looked at international quarrels which can only be settled by a +national war from the point of view of the Göttingen student code; ... +but I have always considered simply their reaction on the claim of +the German people, in equality with the other great states and powers +of Europe, to lead an autonomous political life, so far as is possible +on the basis of our peculiar national capacity.” In 1863 he writes to +von der Goltz, then German ambassador in Paris: “The question is +whether we are a great power or a state in the German federation, and +whether we are conformably to the former quality to be governed by a +monarch, or, as in the latter case would be at any rate admissible, by +professors, district judges, and the gossips of the small towns. The +pursuit of the phantom of popularity in Germany which we have been +carrying on for the last forty years has cost us our position in +Germany and in Europe; and we shall not win this back again by +allowing ourselves to be carried away by the stream in the persuasion +that we are directing its course, but only by standing firmly on our +legs and being, <i>first of all</i>, a great power and a German federal state +<i>afterward</i>.”</p> + +<p>After Napoleon and the interminable elocutionary squabbles of the +German states, first, for constitutional rights, and, second, for some +basis of unity among themselves, which were the two main streams of +political activity, there were three main steps in the formation of +the now existing empire: first, in 1866, the North German +Confederation under the presidency of Prussia and excluding Austria; +second, the conclusion of treaties, 1866-1867, between the North +German Confederation and the south German states; third, the formal +union of the north and south German states as an empire in 1871.</p> + +<p>Although the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist legally in 1806, it is +to be remembered that as a fiction weighing still upon the imagination +of German politicians, it did not wholly disappear until the war +between Prussia and Austria, for then Prussia fought not only Austria +but Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Nassau, Baden, and the two +Hesse states, and at Sadowa in Bohemia the war was settled by the +defeat of the Austrians before they could be joined by these allies, +who were disposed of in detail. Frankfort was so harshly treated that +the mayor hanged himself, and the Prussianizing of Hanover has never +been entirely forgiven, and the claimants to the throne in exile are +still the centre of a political party antagonistic to Prussia. The +taking over of north Schleswig, of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau +by Prussia after the Austrian war was according to the rough +arbitrament of conquest. “Our right,” replied Bismarck to the just +criticism of this spoliation, “is the right of the German nation to +exist, to breathe, to be united; it is the right and the duty of +Prussia to give the German nation the foundation necessary for its +existence.” In taking Alsace-Lorraine from France, Bismarck insisted +that this was a necessary barrier against France and that Germany’s +possession of Metz and Strassburg were necessities of the situation +also.</p> + +<p>The history of German unity is the biography of Bismarck. Otto Eduard +Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schönhausen, in that Mark of +Brandenburg which was the cradle of the Prussian monarchy, on the +first of April, 1815. His grandfather fought at Rossbach under the +great Frederick. He was confirmed in Berlin in 1831 by the famous +pastor and theologian, Schleiermacher, and maintained all his life +that without his belief in God he would have found no reason for his +patriotism or for any serious work in life.</p> + +<p>He matriculated as a student of law and science at Göttingen in May, +1832, and later at Berlin in 1834. He was a tall, large-limbed, blue-eyed +young giant, the boldest rider, the best swordsman, and the +heartiest drinker of his day. He is still looked upon in Germany as +the typical hero of corps student life, and his pipe, or his Schläger, +or his cap, or his Kneipe jacket is preserved as the relic of a saint. +His was not the tepid virtue born of lack of vitality. One has but to +remember Augustine and Origen and Ignatius Loyola, to recall the fact +that the preachers of salvation, the best of them, have generally had +themselves to tame before they mastered the world.</p> + +<p>This youth Bismarck must have had some vigorous battles with Bismarck +before he married Johanna Friederika Charlotte Dorothea Eleanore von +Puttkamer, July 28, 1847, much against the wishes of her parents, and +settled down to his life-work. As was said of John Pym, “he thought it +part of a man’s religion to see that his country was well governed,” +and his country became his passion. Like most men of intense feeling, +he loved few people and loyally hated many. More men feared and envied +him than liked him. His wife, his sister, his king, a student friend, +Keyserling, and the American, Motley, shared with his country his +affection. Germany might well take it to heart that it was Motley the +American who was of all men dearest to her giant creator. The same +type of American would serve her better to-day than any other, did she +only know it! In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber. In 1852 +a whiff of the old dare-devil got loose, and he fought a duel with +Freiherr von Vincke.</p> + +<p>In 1852 he is sent on his first responsible mission to Vienna, and +found there the traditions of the Metternich diplomacy still ruling. +What Napoleon had said of Metternich he no doubt remembered: “Il ment +trop. Il faut mentir quelquefois, mais mentir tout le temps c’est +trop!” for he adopted quite the opposite policy in his own diplomatic +dealings.</p> + +<p>In 1855 he became a member of the upper house of Prussia, and in 1859 +is sent as minister to St. Petersburg. In May, 1862, he is sent as +minister to Paris, and learns to know, and not greatly to admire, the +third Napoleon and his court.</p> + +<p>On the 23d of September, 1862, he is appointed Staats-minister, and a +week later thunders out his famous blood-and-iron speech. On October +the 8th, 1862, he is definitely named Minister President and Minister +for Foreign Affairs.</p> + +<p>William I had succeeded his brother as king. He was a soldier and a +believer in the army, and wished to spend more on it, and to lengthen +the time of service with the colors to three years. The legislature +opposed these measures. A minister was needed who could bully the +legislature, and Bismarck was chosen for the task. He spent the +necessary money despite the legislative opposition, pleading that a +legislature that refused to vote necessary supplies had <i>ipso facto</i> +laid down its proper functions, and the king must take over the +responsibilities of government that they declined to exercise. The +cavalry boots were beginning to trample their way to Paris, and to the +crowning of an emperor.</p> + +<p>In February, 1864, Prussia and Austria together declare war upon +Denmark over the Schleswig-Holstein succession. They agree to govern +the spoils between them, but fall out over the question of their +respective jurisdiction, and the Prussian army being ready, and the +Moltke plan of campaign worked out, war is declared, and in seven +weeks the Treaty of Prague is signed, in 1866, by which Austria gives +up all her rights in Schleswig-Holstein, and abandons her claim to +take part in the reorganization of Germany. The North German +Confederation is formed to include all lands north of the Main; +Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, the Hesse states, Nassau, and Frankfurt-am-Main +become part of Prussia; and the south German states agree to +remain neutral, but allies of Prussia in war.</p> + +<p>On the 11th of March, 1867, a month after the formation of the +Confederation of the North German States, Bismarck proclaims with +pride in the new Reichstag: “Setzen win Deutschland, so zu sagen, in +den Sattel! Reiten wird es schon können!”</p> + +<p>October 13th, 1868, Leopold von Sigmaringen, a German prince of the +House of Hohenzollern, is named for the first time as a candidate for +the Spanish throne. Nobody in Germany, or anywhere else, was much more +interested in this candidature, than we are now interested in the +woman’s suffrage or the prohibition candidate at home. But France had +looked on with jealous eyes at the vigorous growth and martial +successes of Prussia. It was thought well to attack her and humiliate +her before she became stronger. All France was convinced, too, that +the southern German states would revert to their old love in case of +actual war, and side with the nephew of their former friend, the great +Napoleon. The French ambassador is instructed to force the pace. Not +only must the Prussian King disavow all intention to support the +candidacy of the German prince, but he must be asked to humiliate +himself by binding himself never in the future to push such claims.</p> + +<p>William I is at Ems, and Benedetti, the French ambassador, reluctantly +presses the insulting demand of his country upon the royal gentleman +as he is walking. The King declines to see Benedetti again, and +telegraphs to Bismarck the gist of the interview. Lord Acton writes: +“He [Bismarck] drew his long pencil and altered the text, showing only +that Benedetti had presented an offensive demand, and that the King +had refused to see him. That there might be no mistake he made this +official by sending it to all the embassies and legations. Moltke +exclaimed, ‘You have converted surrender into defiance.’ ” The altered +telegram was also sent to the <i>Norddeutscher Allgemeine Zeitung</i> and to +officials. It is not perhaps generally known that General Lebrun went +to Vienna in June, 1870, to discuss an alliance with Austria for an +attack on the North German Confederation in the following spring. +Bismarck knew this. This was on the 13th of July, 1870; on the 16th +the order was given to mobilize the army, on the 31st followed the +proclamation of the King to his people: “Zur Errettung des +Vaterlandes.” On August the 2d, King William took command of the +German armies, and on September 1st, Napoleon handed over his sword, +and on January the 18th, 1871, King William of Prussia was proclaimed +German Emperor in the Hall of the Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles.</p> + +<blockquote>“It sounds so lovely what our fathers did,<br /> +And what we do is, as it was to them,<br /> +Toilsome and incomplete.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">It is easy to forget in such a rapid survey of events that Bismarck +could have had any serious opposition to face as he tramped through +those eight years, from 1862 to 1870, with a kingdom on his back. It +is easy to forget that King William himself wished to abdicate in +those dark hours, when his people refused him their confidence, and +called a halt upon his endeavors to strengthen the absolutely +essential instrument for Prussia’s development, the army; it is easy +to forget that even the silent and seemingly imperturbable Moltke +hesitated and wavered a little at the audacity of his comrade; it is +easy to forget the conspiracy of opposition of the three women of the +court, the Crown Princess, Frau von Blumenthal, and Frau von Gottberg, +all of English birth, and all using needles against this man +accustomed to the Schläger and the sword; it is easy to forget that +even Queen Victoria’s influence was used against him to prevent the +reaping of the justifiable fruits of victory in 1871; it is easy to +forget what a bold throw it was to go to war with Austria, and to +array Prussia against the very German states she must later bind to +herself; it is easy to forget the dour patience of this irascible +giant with the petulant and often petty legislature with which he had +to deal.</p> + +<p>I cannot understand how any German can criticise Bismarck, but there +are official prigs who do; little decorated bureaucrats who live their +lives out poring over papers, with an eye out for a “von” before their +bourgeois names, and as void of audacity as a sheep; men who creep up +the stairway to promotion and recognition, clinging with cautious grip +to the banisters. One sees them, their coats covered with the ceramic +insignia of their placid servitude, decorations tossed to them by the +careless hand of a master who is satisfied if they but sign his +decrees, with the i’s properly dotted, and the t’s unexceptionably +crossed. They are the crumply officials who melted into +defencelessness and moral decrepitude after Frederick the Great, and +again at the glance of Napoleon, and who owe the little stiffness they +have to the fact that Bismarck lived. It is one of the things a full-blooded +man is least able to bear in Germany, to hear the querulous +questioning of the great deeds of this man, whose boot-legs were +stiffer than the backbones of those who decry him.</p> + +<p>What a splendid fellow he was!</p> + +<blockquote>“Give me the spirit that, on this life’s rough sea,<br /> +Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind,<br /> +Even till his sail-yards tremble and his masts do crack,<br /> +And his rapt ship run on her side so low<br /> +That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air.<br /> +There is no danger to a man that knows<br /> +What life and death is - there’s not any law<br /> +Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful<br /> +That he should stoop to any other law.”</blockquote> + +<p>He was no worshipper of that flimsy culture which is, and has been for +a hundred years, an obsession of the German. He knew, none knew better +indeed, that the choicest knowledge is only mitigated ignorance. He +surprised Disraeli with his mastery of English, and Napoleon with his +fluency in French, both of which he had learned from his Huguenot +professors. The popular man, the popular book, the popular music, +picture, or play, were none of them a golden calf to him. He mastered +what he needed for his work, and pretended to no enthusiasm for +intellectualism as such. He knew that there is no real culture without +character, and that the mere aptitude for knowing and doing without +character is merely the simian cleverness that often dazzles but never +does anything of importance. “Culture!” writes Henry Morley, “the aim +of culture is to bring forth in their due season the fruits of the +earth.” Any learning, any accomplishments, that do not serve a man to +bring forth the fruits of the earth in their due season are merely +mental gimcracks, flimsy toys, to admire perhaps, to play with, and to +be thrown aside as useless when duty makes its sovereign demands.</p> + +<p>Much as Germany has done for the development of the intellectual life +of the world, she has suffered not a little from the superficial +belief still widely held that instruction, that learning, are culture. +Their Great Elector, their Frederick the Great, and their Bismarck, +should have taught them the contrary by now.</p> + +<p>The newly crowned German Emperor left Versailles on March 7th for +Berlin, and on March 21st the first Diet of the new empire was opened, +and began the task of adapting the constitution to the altered +circumstances of the new empire.</p> + +<p>The German Empire now consists of four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, +Saxony, and Würtemberg; of six grand duchies: Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, +Saxe-Weimar, Oldenburg, Meeklenburg-Strelitz, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin; +of five duchies: Saxe-Meinigen, Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, +Brunswick, and Anhalt; of seven principalities: Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, +Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Waldeck, Reuss (older line), +Reuss (younger line), Lippe, and Schaumburg-Lippe; of three free +towns: Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck; and of one imperial province: +Alsace Lorraine.</p> + +<p>The new empire is in a sense a continuation of the North German +Confederation. There are 25 states, the largest, Prussia, with a +population of over 40,000,000; the smallest, Schaumburg-Lippe, with a +population of a little more than 46,000 and an area of 131 square +miles.</p> + +<p>The central or federal authority controls the army, navy, foreign +relations, railways, main roads, canals, post and telegraph, coinage, +weights and measures, copyrights, patents, and legislation over nearly +the whole field of civil and criminal law, regulation of press and +associations, imperial finance and customs tariffs, which are now the +same throughout Germany.</p> + +<p>Bavaria still manages her own railways, and Saxony and Würtemberg have +certain privileges and exemptions. Administration is still almost +entirely in the hands of the separate states.</p> + +<p>The law is imperial, but the judges are appointed by the states, and +are under its authority. The supreme court of appeal (Reichsgericht) +sits at Leipsic.</p> + +<p>The head of the executive government is the Emperor, no longer +elective but hereditary, and attached to the office of the King of +Prussia. Outside of Prussia he has little power in civil matters and +no veto on legislation. He is commander-in-chief of the army and of +the navy; foreign affairs are in his hands, and in the federal +council, or Bundesrath, he exercises a mighty influence due to +Prussia’s preponderating influence and voting power. There is no +cabinet, just as there is no cabinet in Great Britain, that modern +institution being merely a legislative fiction down to this day. The +chancellor of the empire, who is also prime minister of Prussia, with +several secretaries of state, is chief minister for all imperial +affairs. The chancellor presides in the Bundesrath, and has the right +to speak in the Reichstag, and frequently does speak there. Indeed, +all his more important pronouncements are made there. The chancellor +is responsible to the Emperor alone, by whom he is nominated, and not +to the representatives of the people.</p> + +<p>The federal council, or Bundesrath, or upper chamber of the empire, +consists of delegates appointed by and representing the rulers of the +various states. There are 58 members. Prussia has 17, Bavaria 6, +Saxony 4, Würtemberg 4, Baden 3, Hessen 3, Mecklenburg-Schwerin 2, +Brunswick 2, and each of the other states 1.</p> + +<p>This body meets in Berlin, sits in secret, and the delegates have no +discretion, but vote as directed by their state governments. Here it +is that Prussia, and through Prussia the Emperor, dominates. This +Bundesrath is the most powerful upper chamber in the world. With +respect to all laws concerning the army and navy, and taxation for +imperial purposes, the vote of Prussia shall decide disputes, if such +vote be cast in favor of maintaining existing arrangements. In other +words, Prussia is armed in the Bundesrath with a conservative veto! In +declaring war and making treaties, the consent of the Bundesrath is +required. The following articles also give the Bundesrath a very +complete control of the Reichstag. Article 7 reads: “The Bundesrath +shall take action upon (1) the measures to be proposed to the +Reichstag and the resolutions passed by the same; (2) the general +administrative provisions and arrangements necessary for the execution +of the imperial laws, so far as no other provision is made by law; (3) +the defects which may be discovered in the execution of the imperial +laws or of the provisions and arrangements heretofore mentioned.”</p> + +<p>The Reichstag, or lower house, is elected by universal suffrage in +electoral districts which were originally equal, but as we have noted +are far from equal now. This house has three hundred and ninety-seven +members, of whom two hundred and thirty-five are from Prussia. It sits +for five years, but may be dissolved by the Bundesrath with the +consent of the Emperor. All members of the Bundesrath, as well as the +chancellor, may speak in the Reichstag. Nor the chancellor, nor any +other executive officer, is responsible to the Reichstag, nor can be +removed by its vote, and the ministers of the Emperor are seldom or +never chosen from this body. This Reichstag is really only nominally a +portion of the governing body. It has the right to refuse to pass a +bill presented by the government, but if it does so it may be +summarily dismissed, as has happened several times, and another +election usually provides a more amenable body.</p> + +<p>Of the various political parties in the Reichstag we have written +elsewhere. It is, perhaps, fair to say that such powerful parties as +the Socialists and the Centrum must be reckoned with by the +chancellor. He cannot actually trample upon them, nor can he disregard +wholly their wishes in framing and in carrying through legislation. It +would be going much too far in characterizing the weakness of the +Reichstag to leave that impression upon the reader. None the less it +remains true that it is the executive who rules and has the whip-hand, +and who in a grave crisis can override the representatives of the +people assembled in the Reichstag, and on more than one occasion this +has been done.</p> + +<p>It seems highly unnecessary to announce after this description of the +imperial constitution that there is no such thing in Germany as +democratic or representative government. But this fact cannot be +proclaimed too often since in other countries it is continually +assumed that this is the case. All sorts of deductions are made, all +sorts of illustrations used, all sorts of legislative and social +lessons taught from the example of Germany, without the smallest +knowledge apparently on the part of those who make them, that Germany +to-day is no more democratic than was Turkey twenty years ago.</p> + +<p>What can be done and what is done in Germany has no possible bearing +upon what can be done in America or in England. All analogies are +false, all illustrations futile, all examples valueless, for the one +reason that the empire of Germany is governed by one man, who declaims +his independence of the people and admits his responsibility to God +alone. This may be either a good or a bad thing. Certainly in many +matters of economical and comfortable government for the people- +witness more particularly the development and wise control of their +municipalities-they are a century ahead of us, but this is not the +question under discussion. The point is, that a compact nation under +strict centralized control, served by a trained horde of officials +with no wish for a change, and backed by a standing army of over seven +hundred thousand men, who are not only a defence against the +foreigner, but a powerful police against internal revolution, cannot +serve as a model in either its successes or failures for a democratic +country like ours. Where in Germany legislative schemes succeed easily +when this huge bureaucratic machine is behind them, they would fail +ignominiously in a country lacking this machinery, and lacking these +pitiably tame people accustomed to submission.</p> + +<p>In France, for example, that thrifty and individualistic folk made a +complete failure of the attempt to foist contributory old-age pensions +upon them, and I doubt whether such sumptuary legislation can succeed +with us. That, however, is neither here nor there. The gist of the +matter is, that because such things succeed in Germany, gives not the +slightest reason for supposing that they will succeed with us. If this +outline of their history and this sketch of their government have done +nothing else, it must have made this clear. It may also help to show +how vapid is the talk about what the German people will or will not +do; whether they will or will not have war, for example. We shall have +war when the German Kaiser touches a button and gives an order, and +the German people will have no more to say in the matter than you and I.</p> + +<h3>III THE INDISCREET</h3> + +<p> +The casual observer of life in England would find himself forced to +write of sport, even as in India he would write of caste, as in +America he would note the undue emphasis laid upon politics. In +Germany, wherever he turns, whether it be to look at the army, to +inquire about the navy, to study the constitution, or to disentangle +the web of present-day political strife; to read the figures of +commercial and industrial progress, or the results of social +legislation; to look on at the Germans at play during their yachting +week at Kiel, or their rowing contests at Frankfort, he finds himself +face to face with the Emperor.</p> + +<p>The student visits Berlin, or Potsdam, or Wilhelmshöhe; or with a long +stride finds himself on the docks at Hamburg or Bremen, or beside the +Kiel Canal, or in Kiel harbor facing a fleet of war-ships; or he lifts +his eyes into the air to see a dirigible balloon returning from a +voyage of two hundred and fifty miles toward London over the North +Sea, and the Emperor is there. Is it the palace hidden in its +shrubbery in the country; is it the clean, broad streets and +decorations of the capital; is it a discussion of domestic politics, +or a question of foreign politics, the Emperor’s hand is there. His +opinion, his influence, what he has said or has not said, are +inextricably interwoven with the woof and web of German life.</p> + +<p>We may like him or dislike him, approve or disapprove, rejoice in +autocracy or abominate it, admire the far-reaching discipline, or +regret the iron mould in which much of German life is encased, but for +the moment all this is beside the mark. Here is a man who in a quarter +of a century has so grown into the life of a nation, the most powerful +on the continent, and one of the three most powerful in the world, +that when you touch it anywhere you touch him, and when you think of +it from any angle of thought, or describe it from any point of view, +you find yourself including him.</p> + +<p>Personally, I should have been glad to leave this chapter unwritten. I +have no taste for the discussion and analysis of living persons, even +when they are of such historic and social importance, and of such +magnitude, that I am thus given the proverbial license of the cat. But +to write about Germany without writing about the Emperor is as +impossible as to jump away from one’s own shadow. When the sun is +behind any phase or department of German life, the shadow cast is that +of Germany’s Emperor.</p> + +<p>This is not said because it is pleasing to whomsoever it may be, for +in Germany, and in much of the world outside Germany, this situation +is looked upon as unfavorable, and even deplorable; and certainly no +American can look upon it with equanimity, for it is of the essence of +his Americanism to distrust it. It is, however, so much a fact that to +neglect a discussion of this personality would be to leave even so +slight a sketch of Germany as this, hopelessly lop-sided. He so +pervades German life that to write of the Germany of the last twenty-five +years without attempting to describe William the Second, German +Emperor, would be to leave every question, institution, and problem of +the country without its master-key.</p> + +<p>In other chapters dealing more particularly with the political +development of Germany, and with the salient characteristics, mental +and moral, of the people, we shall see how it has come about, that one +man can thus impregnate a whole nation of sixty-five millions with his +own aims and ambitions, to such an extent, that they may be said, so +to speak, to live their political, social, martial, religious, and +even their industrial, life in him. It is a phenomenon of personality +that exists nowhere else in the world to-day, and on so large a scale +and among so enlightened a people, perhaps never before in history.</p> + +<p>Nothing has made scientific accuracy in dealing with the most +interesting and most important factors in the world, so utterly +inaccurate and misleading, as those infallibly accurate and impersonal +agents, electricity and the sun. If one were to judge a man by his +photographs, and the gossip of the press, one would be sure to know +nothing more valuable about him than that his mustache is brushed up, +and that his brows are permanently lowering. Personality is so evasive +that one may count upon it that when a machine says “There it is!” +then there it is not! You will have everything that is patent and +nothing that is pertinent.</p> + +<p>We are forever talking and writing about the smallness of the world, +of how much better we know one another, and of how much more we should +love one another, now that we flash photographs and messages to and +fro, at a speed of leagues a second. Nothing could be more futile and +foolish. These things have emphasized our differences, they have done +nothing to realize our likeness to one another. We are as far from one +another as in the days, late in the tenth century, when they +complained in England that men learned fierceness from the Saxon of +Germany, effeminacy from the Fleming, and drunkenness from the Dane.</p> + +<p>As probably the outstanding figure and best-known, superficially +known, man in the world, the German Emperor has escaped the notice of +very few people who notice anything. His likeness is everywhere, and +gossip about him is on every tongue. He is as familiar to the American +as Roosevelt, to the Englishman as Lloyd-George, to the Frenchman as +Dreyfus, to the Russian as his Czar, and to the Chinese and Japanese +as their most prominent political figure. And yet I should say that he +is comparatively little known, either externally or internally, as he +is.</p> + +<p>It is perhaps the fate of those of most influence to be misunderstood. +Of this, I fancy, the Emperor does not complain. Indeed, those feeble +folk who complain of being misunderstood, ought to console themselves +with the thought that practically all our imperishable monuments, are +erected to the glory of those whom we condemned and criticised; +starved and stoned; burned and crucified, when we had them with us.</p> + +<p>William II, German Emperor and King of Prussia, was born January 27, +1859, and became German Emperor June 15, 1888. He is, therefore, in +the prime of life, and looks it. His complexion and eyes are as clear +as those of an athlete, and his eyes, and his movements, and his talk +are vibrating with energy. He stands, I should guess, about five feet +eight or nine, has the figure and activity of an athletic youth of +thirty, and in his hours of friendliness is as careless in speech, as +unaffected in manner, as lacking in any suspicion of self- +consciousness, or of any desire to impress you with his importance, as +the simplest gentleman in the land.</p> + +<p>Alas, how often this courageous and gentlemanly attitude has been +taken advantage of! I have headed this chapter <i>The Indiscreet</i>, and I +propose to examine these so-called indiscretions in some detail, but +for the moment I must ask: Is there any excuse for, or any social +punishment too severe for, the man who, introduced into a gentleman’s +house in the guise of a gentleman, often by his own ambassador, leaves +it, to blab every detail of the conversation of his host, with the +gesticulations and exclamation points added by himself? To add a +little to his own importance, he will steal out with the +conversational forks and spoons in his pockets, and rush to a +newspaper office to tell the world that he has kept his soiled napkin +as a souvenir. The only indiscretion in such a case is when the host, +or his advisers, or gentlemen anywhere, heed the lunatic laughter of +such a social jackal.</p> + +<p>To count one’s words, to tie up one’s phrases in caution, to dip each +sentence in a diplomatic antiseptic, in the company of those to whom +one has conceded hospitality, what a feeble policy! Better be brayed +to the world every day as indiscreet than that!</p> + +<p>It is a fine quality in a man to be in love with his job. Even though +you have little sympathy with Savonarola’s fierceness or Wesley’s +hardness, they were burning up all the time with their allegiance to +their ideals of salvation. They served their Lord as lovers. Many men, +even kings and princes and other potentates, give the impression that +they would enjoy a holiday from their task. They seem to be harnessed +to their duties rather than possessed by them; they appear like +disillusioned husbands rather than as radiant lovers.</p> + +<p>The German Emperor is not of that class. He loves his job. In his +first proclamation to his people he declared that he had taken over +the government “in the presence of the King of kings, promising God to +be a just and merciful prince, cultivating piety and the fear of God.” +He has proclaimed himself to be, as did Frederick the Great and his +grandfather before him, the servant of his people. Certainly no one in +the German Empire works harder, and what is far more difficult and far +more self-denying, no one keeps himself fitter for his duties than he. +He eats no red meat, drinks almost no alcohol, smokes very little, +takes a very light meal at night, goes to bed early and gets up early. +He rides, walks, shoots, plays tennis, and is as much in the open air +as his duties permit.</p> + +<p>It is not easy for the American to put side by side the attitudes of a +man, who is the autocratic master and at the same time declares +himself to be the first servant of his people. Perhaps if it is +phrased differently it will not seem so contradictory. What this +Emperor means, and what all princes who have believed in their right +to rule meant, was not that they were the servants of their people, +but the servants of their own obligations to their people, and of the +duties that followed therefrom. If in addition to this the claim is +made by the sovereign, that his right to rule is of divine origin, +then his service to his obligations becomes of the highest and most +sacred importance.</p> + +<p>We should not allow our democratic prejudices to stifle our +understanding in such matters. We are trying to get clearly in +perspective a ruler, who claims to rule in obedience to no mandates +from the people, but in obedience to God. We could not be ruled by +such a one in America; and in England such a ruler would be deemed +unconstitutional. It is elementary, but necessary to repeat, that we +are writing of Germany and the Germans, and of their history, +traditions, and political methods. We are making no defence of either +the German Emperor or the German people; neither are we occupying an +American pulpit to preach to them the superiority of other methods +than their own. My sole task is to make clear the German situation, +and not by any means to set up my own or my countrymen’s standards for +their adoption. I am not searching for that paltry and ephemeral +profit that comes from finding opportunities to laugh or to sneer. I +am seeking for the German successes, and they are many, and for the +reasons for them, and for the lessons that we may learn from them. Any +other aim in writing of another people is ignoble.</p> + +<p>This attitude of the ruler will be as incomprehensible to the +democratic citizen as alchemy, but, in order to draw anything like +true inferences or useful deductions, in order to understand the +situation and to get a true likeness of the ruler, one must take this +utterly unfamiliar and to us incomprehensible claim into +consideration, and acknowledge its existence whether we admit the +claim as justifiable or not. The relation of such a ruler to his +people is like that of a Catholic bishop to his flock. The contract is +not one made with hands, but is an inalienable right on the one hand, +and an undisseverable tie upon the other. Bismarck wrote on this +subject: “Für mich sind die Worte, ‘von Gottes Gnaden,’ welche +christliche Herrscher ihrem Namen beifügen, kein leerer Schall, +sondern ich sehe darin das Bekenntniss, des Fürsten das Scepter was +ihnen Gott verliehen hat, nur nach Gottes Willen auf Erden führen +wollen.”</p> + +<p>On several occasions the German Emperor has made it unmistakably clear +that this is his view of the origin and sanctity of his +responsibilities. “If we have been able to accomplish what has been +accomplished, it is due above all things to the fact that our house +possesses a tradition by virtue of which we consider that we have been +appointed by God to preserve and direct, for their own welfare, the +people over whom he has given us power.” These words are from a speech +made in 1897 at Bremen. In 1910, at Königsberg, he declares: “It was +in this spot that my grandfather in his own right placed the royal +crown of Prussia upon his head, insisting once again that it was +bestowed upon him by the grace of God alone, and not by parliaments +and meetings and decisions of the people. He thus regarded himself as +the chosen instrument of heaven, and as such carried out his duties as +a ruler and lord. I consider myself such an instrument of heaven, and +shall go my way without regard to the views and opinions of the day.”</p> + +<p>Prince Henry of Prussia, the popular, and deservedly popular, sailor +brother of the Emperor, has signified his entire allegiance to this +doctrine by saying that he was actuated by one single motive: “a +desire to proclaim to the nations the gospel of your Majesty’s sacred +person, and to preach that gospel alike to those who will listen and +to those who will not.”</p> + +<p>This language has a strange and far-away sound to us. It is as though +one should come into the market-place with the bannered pomp of +Milton’s prose upon his lips. The vicious would think it a trick, the +idle would look upon it as a heavy form of joking, the intelligent +would see in it a superstition, or a dream of knighthood that has +faded into unrecognizable dimness. Some men, on the other hand, might +wish that all rulers and governors whatsoever were equally touched +with the sanctity of their obligations.</p> + +<p>It is somewhat strange in this connection to remember, that we all +wish to have our wives and daughters believers; that we all wish to +bind to us those whom we love with more sacred bonds than those which +we ourselves can supply. We are none of us loath to have those who +keep our treasures, believe in some code higher than that of “honesty +is the best policy.” As Archbishop Whately said: “Honesty is the best +policy, but he who is honest for that reason is not an honest man.”</p> + +<p>Far be it from me to appear as an advocate of the divine right of +kings; but I am no fit person for this particular task if I have only +a sniff, or a guffaw, as an explanation of another’s beliefs. History +sparkles with the lives of men and women, who proclaimed themselves +messengers and servants of God, obedient to him first, and utterly and +courageously negligent of that feline commodity, public opinion. Every +man, even to-day,</p> + +<blockquote>“Who each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star,<br /> +Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are,”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">has a grain of this salt of divine independence in him. To-day, even +as in the days of Pericles: “It is ever from the greatest hazards that +the greatest honors are gained,” and the greatest hazard of all is to +shut your visor and couch your lance and have at your task with a +whispered: God and my Right! It is well to remember that under no +government, whether democratic or aristocratic, has the individual +ever been given any rights. He has always everywhere been pointed to +his duties; his rights he must conquer for himself.</p> + +<p>The liberal in theology, as the liberal in politics, has perhaps +leaned too far toward softness. The democratization of religion has +gone on with the rest, and in our rebound from Calvin, and John Knox, +and Jonathan Edwards, we have left all discipline and authority out of +account. We have preached so persistently of the fatherhood of God, of +his nearness to us, of his profound pity for us, that we have lost +sight of his justice and his power. This nearness has become a sort of +innocuous neighborliness, and God is looked upon not as a ruler, but +as a vaporish good fellow whose chief business it is to forgive. We +have substituted a feverish-handed charity for a sinewy faith, and are +excusing our divorce from divinely imposed duties, by a cheerful but +illicit intercourse with chance acquaintances, all of whom are dubbed +social service.</p> + +<p>This Cashmere-shawl theology is as idle an interpretation of man’s +relation to the universe, and far more debilitating, than any that has +gone before. When we come to measure rulers who make divine claims for +their duties, from any such coign of flabbiness as this, no wonder we +stand dumb. I am willing to concede that perhaps even an emperor has +been baptized with the blood of the martyrs, and feels himself to be +in all sincerity the instrument of God; if we are to understand this +one, we must admit so much.</p> + +<p>In certain departments of life, we not only grant, but we demand, that +our wives and mothers should look upon their special duties and +peculiar functions as divinely imparted, and as beyond argument, and +as above coercion. This assumption, therefore, of inalienable rights +is not so strange to us; on the contrary, it is an every-day affair in +most of our lives. This particular manifestation of it is all that is +new or surprising. We Americans and English look upon it as dangerous, +but the Germans, more mystical and far more lethargic about liberty +than are we, are not greatly disturbed by it. The secular press, +largely in Jewish hands, and the new socialist members of the +Reichstag, jealous of their prerogatives but unable to assert them, +criticise and even scream their abhorrence and unbelief; but I am much +mistaken, if the mass of the Germans are at heart much disturbed by +their Emperor’s assertions of his divine right to rule. A conservative +member of the Reichstag speaks of, “a parliament which will maintain +the monarch in his strong position as the wearer of the German +imperial crown, not the semblance of a monarch but one that is +dependent upon something higher than party and parliament - one +dependent upon the King of all kings.”</p> + +<p>To a thoroughbred American, with two and more centuries of the +traditions of independence behind him, this question of the divine +right of kings is a commonplace. He is a king himself, he holds his +own rights to be divine, and his influence and his power to be limited +only by his character and his abilities, like that of any other +sovereign. He may rule over few or many, he may control the destiny of +only one or of many subjects, he may be well known or little known, +but that he is a sovereign individual by the grace of God, it never +occurs to him to doubt. It is perhaps for this reason that the real +American is placid and unself-conscious before this claim. It is those +who admit and suffer from the exactions and tyrannies of such a claim +that he pities, not the man who makes it, whom he distrusts. I carry +my sovereignty under my hat, says the American; if any man or men can +knock off the hat and take away the sovereignty, there is a fair field +and no favor; for those who whimper and complain of tyranny he has +long since ceased to have a high regard.</p> + +<p>That William the Second is the chief figure of interest in the world +to-day is due, not alone to this assumption of a divine relation to +the state, or to his own vigorous and electric personality, but to the +freedom to develop and to express that personality. Men in politics +have dwindled in importance and in power, as the voters have increased +in numbers and in influence. Genius must be true to itself to bloom +luxuriantly. It is impossible to be seeking the suffrage of a +constituency and at the same time to be wholly one’s self. The German +Emperor is unhampered, as is no other ruler, by considerations of +popular favor; and at the same time he directs and influences not +Russian peasants, nor Turkish slaves, but an instructed, enlightened, +and ambitious people. This environment is unique in the world to-day, +and the Germans as a whole seem to consider their ruler a valuable +asset, despite occasional vagaries that bring down their own and +foreign criticism upon him.</p> + +<p>Here we have a versatile and vigorous personality with no shadow of a +stain upon his character, and with no question upon the part of his +bitterest enemy of the honesty of his intentions, or of his devotion +to his country’s interests. So far as he has been assailed abroad, it +is on the score that he has made his country so powerful in the last +twenty-five years that Germany is a menace to other powers; so far as +he has been criticised at home it is on the score of his +indiscretions.</p> + +<p>It is of prime importance, therefore, both to glance at the progress +of Germany and to examine these so-called indiscretions. Throughout +these chapters will be found facts and figures dealing with the fairy-like +change which has taken place in Germany since my own student +days. I can remember when a chimney was a rare sight. Now there are +almost as many manufacturing towns as then there were chimneys. +Leipzig was a big country town, Pforzheim, Chemnitz, Oschatz, +Elberfeld, Riessa, Kiel, Essen, Rheinhausen, and their armies of +laborers, and their millions of output, were mere shadows of what they +are now.</p> + +<p>In 1873, when Bismarck began his attempts at railway legislation, +Germany was divided into sixty-three “railway provinces,” and there +were fifteen hundred different tariffs, and it is to be remembered +that it was only as late as 1882 that the state system of railways at +last triumphed in Prussia. In only ten years the railway trackage has +increased from 49,041 to 52,216 miles; the number of locomotives from +18,291 to 26,612; freight-cars from 398,000 to 558,000; the passengers +carried from 804,000,000 to 1,457,000,000; and the tons of freight +carried from 341,000,000 tons to 519,000,000 tons. In Prussia alone +there are 1,000,000 more horses, 1,000,000 more beef cattle, and +10,000,000 more pigs. The total production of beet sugar in the world +approximates 7,000,000 tons; of this amount Germany produces 2,500,000 +tons. Great Britain consumes more sugar per head of the population +than any other country, and of her consumption of 1,460,000 tons of +beet sugar all of it is produced from beets grown on the continent. +Between 1885 and 1912 the population increased from 46,000,000 to +66,000,000. The expenditure on the navy has increased in the last ten +years from $47,500,000 to $110,000,000, and the number of men from +31,157 to 60,805, with another increase in both money and men, voted +at the moment of this writing in the summer of 1912.</p> + +<p>The debt of Germany, exclusive of paper money, in 1887 was 486,201,000 +marks; in 1903 it stood at 2,733,500,000. In 1911 the funded debt of +the empire was 4,524,000,000 marks, and the funded debt of the states +14,880,000,000; and the floating debt amounts to 991,000,000, of which +Prussia alone bears 610,000,000 and the empire 300,000,000. Between +the years 1871 and 1897 a debt of $500,000,000 was incurred, bearing +an average interest charge of 3 3/4 per cent. In the year 1908 the +combined expenditures of the states and of the empire reached the +enormous total of $1,775,000,000. The debt of the city of Berlin alone +in 1910 had reached $110,750,000 and has increased in the last two +years.</p> + +<p>For purposes of comparison one may note that our own later national +budgets run roughly to $1,000,000,000. The British budget for 1911 was +$906,420,000. After the French war, speculation on a large scale +ensued. The payment of the $1,000,000,000 indemnity had a bad effect. +As has often happened in America, money, or the mere means of +exchange, was taken for wealth. The earth will be as cold as the moon +before men learn that the only real wealth is health. Many schemes and +companies were floated and after 1873 there was a prolonged financial +crisis in Germany. It is said that bankruptcy and the liquidation of +bubble companies entailed a loss of a round $90,000,000. It was in +1876-7, when Germany was thus suffering, that the policy of protection +was mooted and finally put into operation by Bismarck in 1879. Ten +years later the laws for accident, old age, and sickness insurance +were passed, at the instigation and under the direct influence of the +present Emperor.</p> + +<p>The tonnage of steam vessels under 4,000 tons in Great Britain (net +tons) was, some five years ago, 8,165,527; in Germany (gross tons), +977,410; but the tonnage of steam vessels of 4,000 tons and over was +in Great Britain 1,446,486, in Germany 1,119,537! It should be added +that no small part of Great Britain’s big ships belong to the American +Shipping Trust, sailing under the British flag. Albert Ballin became a +director of the Hamburg-American line in 1886, and was made general +director in 1900. During his directorship the capital of the line has +been increased from 15,000,000 to 125,000,000 of marks, and the number +of steamers from 26 to 170.</p> + +<p>Germany’s combined export and import trade in 1880 was $1,429,025,000; +in 1890, $1,875,050,000; and in 1905 it was $3,324,018,000; in 1910, +$4,019,072,250. The German production of coal and coal products in +1910 was the highest in its history, amounting to 265,148,232 metric +tons. It would be easy enough to chronicle the commercial and +industrial strides of Germany during the last quarter of a century by +the compilation of a catalogue of figures. It is not my intention to +persuade the reader to believe in any such fantastic theory as that +the present Kaiser is entirely responsible for this progress. I am no +Pygmalion that I can make an Emperor by breathing prayers before pages +of statistics.</p> + +<p>It is only fair, however, in any sketch of the Emperor to give this +skeleton outline of what has taken place in the empire over which he +rules, and which, in certain quarters, it is said, he menaces by his +predilection for war. These few figures spell peace, they do not spell +war, and the ruler who has some 700,000 armed men at his back, and a +navy the second in strength in the world guarding his shores, and a +mercantile marine carrying his trade which is hard on the heels of +Great Britain as a rival, but who has none the less kept his country +at peace with the world for twenty-five years, may be credited at +least with good intentions.</p> + +<p>It may be said in answer to this same argument that this building and +training and enriching of a nation are a threat in themselves. True, a +strong man is more dangerous than a weak one; but it is equally true +that a strong man is a greater safeguard than a weak one where the +question of peace is at stake. It is also true that a rich and +powerful man must needs take more precautions against attack and +robbery than a tramp. A tramp seldom carries even a bunch of keys, and +pays no premium on fire, accident, or burglary insurance.</p> + +<p>William the Second knows his history as well as any of his people, and +incomparably better than his English, French, or American critics. He +knows that only twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great, +the Prussian power went down before Napoleon like a house of cards, +and that the country’s humiliation was stamped in bold outlines when +Napoleon was received in Berlin with the ringing of bells, the firing +of cannons, and he himself greeted as a savior and a benefactor. That +was only a hundred years ago. Is it an indiscretion, then, when the +present ruler, speaking at Brandenburg the 5th of March, 1890, says: +“I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a responsibility +conferred upon me by God, and that it is, as is written in the Bible, +my duty to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called +upon to give an account; those who try to interfere with my task, I +shall crush”?</p> + +<p>On his accession to the throne his first two proclamations were to the +army and the navy, his third to the people. On the 14th of July, 1888, +he reviewed the fleet at Kiel, and for the first time an Emperor of +Germany and King of Prussia appeared there in the uniform of an +admiral. In April, 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth year +of her reign, and Prince Henry represented Germany, appearing as +admiral of the fleet in an old battle-ship, the <i>King William</i>. On the +24th of April the Emperor telegraphed to his brother: “I regret +exceedingly that I cannot put at your disposition for this celebration +a better ship, especially when all other countries are appearing with +their finest ships of war. It is a sad consequence of the manoeuvring +of those unpatriotic persons who have obstructed the construction of +even the most necessary war-ships. But I shall know no rest till I +have placed our navy on a par for strength with our army.” From that +day to this he has gone steadily forward demanding of his people a +strong army and a powerful fleet. He now has both. He has pulled +Germany out of danger and beyond the reach, for the moment at least, +of any repetition of the catastrophe and humiliation of a hundred +years ago. This is a solid fact, and for this situation the Emperor is +largely, one might almost say wholly, responsible.</p> + +<p>One hears and one reads criticisms of the Emperor’s habit of speaking +and writing of “my navy.” It is said that the other states of Germany +have borne taxation to build the fleet, and that it is no more the +Emperor’s than that of the King of Bavaria, or of Würtemberg, or of +Saxony. This is the petty, pin-pricking babble of boarding-school +girls, or of those official supernumeraries who have turned sour in +their retirement. Even the honest democrat is made indignant. If the +German navy is not the work of William the Second, then its parentage +is far to seek; and if the German navy is not proud to be called “my +navy,” it is wofully lacking in gratitude to its creator.</p> + +<p>No man who looks back over his own career, say of twenty-five years, +but is both chastened and amused. He is chastened by the unforeseen +dangers that he has escaped; he is amused by the certificates of +failure, and the prophecies of disaster, that always everywhere +accompany the man who takes part in the game in preference to sitting +in the reserved seats, or peeking through a hole in the fence. I have +not been honored with any such intimate association with the German +Emperor as would enable me to say whether he has a highly developed +sense of humor or not. I can only say for myself, that if I had lived +through his Majesty’s last twenty-five years, I should need no other +fillip to digestion than my chuckles over the prophecies of my +enemies.</p> + +<p>It has been said of him that he is volatile; that he flies from one +task to another, finishing nothing; that his artistic tastes are the +extravagant dreams of a Nero; that he loves publicity as a worn and +obese soprano loves the centre of the stage; that his indiscretions +would bring about the discharge of the most inconspicuous petty +official. Others speak and write of him as a hero of mythology, as a +mystic and a dreamer, looking for guidance to the traditions of +mediaeval knighthood; while others, again, dub him a modernist, insist +that he is a commercial traveller, hawking the wares of his country +wherever he goes, and with an eye ever to the interests of Bremen and +Hamburg and Essen and Pforzheim. Again, you hear that he is a Prussian +junker, or that he is a cavalry officer, with all the prejudices and +limitations of such a one; while, on the other hand, he is chided for +enlisting the financial help of rich Jews and industrials. He is +versatile, but versatility is a virtue so long as it does not extend +to one’s principles. Every man who has profoundly influenced the life +of the world, from Moses to Lincoln, has been versatile. Carlyle goes +so far as to say: “I confess, I have no notion of a truly great man +that could not be all sorts of men.” He speaks French well enough to +address the Académie; he speaks English as well as a cultivated +American, and no one speaks it more distinctly, more crisply, more +trippingly upon the tongue, these days; he preaches a capital sermon; +he is an accomplished binder of books; he is a successful and +enthusiastic farmer, and he is frankly audacious in his loves and +hatreds, his ambitions and his beliefs. He has, in short, no vermin +blood in him at any rate. If you do not like him, you know why; and if +you do, you know why as easily. He even knows what he believes about +woman’s suffrage and about God, a rare conciseness of thinking in +these troublous times.</p> + +<p>There stands before you a man apparently as sound in mind and in body +as any man who treads German soil; a man of great vivacity of mind and +manner, and of wholesome delight in living; who bears huge +responsibilities with good humor, and that most unwholesome of all +things, undisputed power, with humility. At a banquet in Brandenburg +the 5th of March, 1890, speaking of his many voyages, he said: “He +who, alone at sea, standing on the bridge, with nothing over him but +God’s heaven, has communed with himself will not mistake the value of +such voyages. I could wish for many of my countrymen that they might +live through similar hours of self-contemplation, where a man takes +stock of what he has tried to do, and of what he has accomplished. +Then it is that a man is cured of vanity, and we have all of us need +of that.”</p> + +<p>It is obvious that a man cannot be modest, as the above quotation +would indicate, and at the same time preening with vanity; a Sir +Philip Sidney and a Jew peddler; a careless, dashing cavalry officer +or proud Prussian squire, and at the same time a wary and astute +insurance agent for the empire; a preacher of duty and honor, and +belief in God, and at the same time a political comedian deceiving his +rivals abroad, and hoodwinking his subjects at home.</p> + +<p>Not a few men, even of slight powers of observation and of meagre +experience, have noted the strange fact that a blank and direct +statement of the truth is very apt to be put down as a lie; and that a +man who frankly expresses his beliefs and ambitions, and openly goes +about his business and his pleasures with no thought of concealment, +is often regarded as Machiavellian and deceitful, because a timid and +cautious world finds it hard to believe that he is really as audacious +as he appears.</p> + +<p>Even those with the most limited list, of the great names of history +at their disposal, cannot fail to remember that simplicity and +directness have in the persons of their highest exemplars been +misunderstood; hunted down like wild beasts, burned, crucified, and +then, when they were well out of the way, crowned and held up to +humanity as the saviors of the race. We will have none of them when +authority, faith, truth, courage, show us our distorted images in the +mirror of their lives. Crucify him, crucify him! has always been the +cry when such a one asserts his moral kingship, or his sonship to God, +or his audacious intention to live his own life; and in less tragic +fashion, but none the less along the same lines, the world tends to +pick at, and to fray the moral garments of, its leaders still to-day. +When such a one succeeds through sheer simplicity, then that last +feeble epitaph of mediocrity is applied to him: “He is lucky,” because +so few people realize that “luck,” is merely not to be dependent upon +luck.</p> + +<p>It is apparent from the quotations I have given, and many more of the +same tenor are at our disposal, that the personality we are studying +has a very definite image of his place in the world, of the duties he +is called upon to perform, of his rights according to his own +conception of his authority and responsibilities, and of his +intentions.</p> + +<p>It is equally apparent that he looks upon history in quite another way +than that usually accepted by the modern scientific historian. Taine +and Green may explain everything, even kings and emperors, by the +forces of climate, environment, and the slow-heaving influence of the +people. This school of historians will tell you how Charlemagne, and +Luther, and Cromwell, and Napoleon are to be accounted for by purely +material explanations.</p> + +<p>The German Emperor apparently believes that the history of the world +and the development of mankind are due to a series of mighty factors, +mysteriously endowed from on high and bearing the names of men, and +not infrequently the names of emperors and kings. He is continually +recalling his ancestors, the Great Elector, Frederick the Great, and +William I, his grandfather. These men made Prussia and Prussia made +the German Empire, he declares. To the Brandenburg Parliament he says: +“It is the great merit of my ancestors that they have always stood +aloof from and above all parties, and that they have always succeeded +in making political parties combine for the welfare of the whole +people.”</p> + +<p>Due to a quality in the German character that need not be discussed +here, it is true that they have been led, and driven, and welded by +powerful individuals. No Magna Charta, no Cromwell, no Declaration of +Independence is to be found in German history. No vigorous demand from +the people themselves marks their progress. You can read all there is +of German history in the biographies of the Great Elector, of +Frederick William the First, of Frederick the Great, of York, of von +Stein, Hardenberg, Sharnhorst, and Blücher, of Bismarck, William I, +and the present Emperor.</p> + +<p>What the Kaiser believes of history is true of German history. If he +asserts himself as he does in Germany, it is because two hundred and +fifty years of German history put him wholly and entirely in the +right. It is to be presumed that what every student of German history +may see for himself, has not escaped the flexible intelligence of the +present Emperor, and that is, that only the autocratic kings of +Prussia succeeded, and that only an autocratic statesman succeeded, in +bringing the whole country into line, by the acknowledgment of the +King of Prussia, and his heirs forever, as German emperors.</p> + +<p>The first so-called indiscretion of the present Emperor was +magnificent. He dismissed Bismarck two years after he came to the +throne. If you have ever been the owner of a yacht and your sailing-master +has grown to be a tyrant, and you have taken your courage in +your hand and bundled him over the side, you have had in a microcosmic +way the sensations of such an experience.</p> + +<p>It is said that Bismarck, then seventy-five years old, and since 1862 +accustomed to undisputed power, demurred to the wish of the Emperor +that the other ministers should have access to him directly, and not +as heretofore only through the chancellor. It is said too that the +matter-of-fact and somewhat cynical Bismarck, had but scanty respect +for the mystical view of his grandfather as a saint, that the Emperor +everywhere proclaimed. In 1896, the 20th of February, in speaking of +his grandfather, he refers to him as: “The Emperor William, that +personality which has become for us in some sort that of a saint.”</p> + +<p>Bismarck, too, objected to the Emperor’s policy as regards the +treatment of, and the legislation for, the workingmen. On February the +5th, 1890, he writes to Bismarck: “It is the duty of the state to +regulate the duration and conditions of work in such manner that the +health and the morality of the workingman may be preserved, and that +his needs may be satisfied and his desire for equality before the law +assured.”</p> + +<blockquote>“Now this is the tale of the Council the German +Kaiser decreed,<br /> +<br /> +“And the young king said:-‘I have found it, +the road to the rest ye seek:<br /> + +The strong shall wait for the weary, and the +hale shall halt for the weak;<br /> + +With the even tramp of an army where no man +breaks from the line,<br /> + +Ye shall march to peace and plenty, in the +bond of brotherhood — sign!’ ”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">Whatever the reasons, the criticisms, or the causes, the man whom we +have been describing was as certain to dismiss Bismarck from office, +as a bird is certain to fly and not to swim. The ruler who at a +banquet May the 4th, 1891, proclaimed: “There is only one master of +the nation: and that is I, and I will not abide any other”; and later, +on the 16th of November, in an address to recruits said: “I need +Christian soldiers, soldiers who say their Pater Noster. The soldier +should not have a will of his own, but you should all have but one +will and that is my will; there is but one law for you and that is +mine.” Again, in addressing the recruits for the navy on the 5th of +March, 1895, he said to them: “Just as I, as Emperor and ruler, +consecrate my life and my strength to the service of the nation, so +you are pledged to give your lives to me.” Such a man could not share +his rule with Bismarck.</p> + +<p>Bismarck left Berlin amid groans and tears. A prop had been rudely +pushed from beneath the empire. The young Emperor would stumble and +sway, and fall without this strong guide beside him. Men said this was +the first sign of an imperious will and temper.</p> + +<p>There is an Arab proverb which runs: “When God wishes to destroy an +ant he gives it wings.” The Kaiser was to be given power for his own +destruction. But what has happened? Absolutely nothing of these evil +prophecies. In 1884 Bismarck was saying to Gerhard Rohlfs, the African +explorer: “The main thing is, we neither can nor really want to +colonize. We shall never have a fleet like France. Our artisans and +lawyers and time-expired soldiers are no good as colonists.” If the +ideas of William the Second were to prevail, it was time that Bismarck +went over the side as pilot of the ship of state. The Kaiser in +appropriate terms regretted the loss of this tried public servant and +said: “However, the course remains the same — full steam ahead!”</p> + +<p>Three days after the Jameson raid, on the 3d of January, 1896, the +Kaiser telegraphed to President Krüger: “I beg to express to you my +sincere congratulations that, without help from foreign powers, you +have succeeded with your own people and by your own strength in +driving out the armed bands which attempted to disturb the peace of +your country, and in reestablishing order and in defending the +independence of your people from attacks from outside.”</p> + +<p>On the 28th of October, 1908, <i>The Daily Telegraph</i> of London published +a long interview with the Emperor, the gist of which was that the +British press and people continued to distrust him, while all the time +he was and had been the friend of Great Britain. The Emperor cited +instances of his friendship, declared the English were as mad as March +hares not to believe in him; insisted that by reason of Germany’s +increasing foreign commerce, and on account of the growing menace to +peace in the Pacific Ocean, Germany was determined to have an adequate +fleet, which perhaps one day even England might be glad to have +alongside of her own.</p> + +<p>In addition to these two incidents, the Emperor had written a letter +to Lord Tweedmouth, who was already then a sick man, and probably not +wholly responsible, in which it was said he had offered advice as to +the increase of the British navy.</p> + +<p>I have described these furious indiscretions, as they were called at +the time, together, though they were years apart; for these +utterances, and the constant repetition of his sense of responsibility +to God, and not to the people he governs, are the heart of this whole +contention that the German Emperor is indiscreet, is indiscreet even +to the point of damaging his own prestige, and injuring his country’s +interests abroad.</p> + +<p>Of all these so-called indiscretions there is the question to ask: +Should these things have been said? Should these things have been +written? There are several things to be said in answer to these +questions. I shall treat each one in turn, but all these statements +told the truth and cleared the air. The Krüger telegram was not +written by the Emperor, and when the worst construction is put upon +it, it expressed what? It was merely the condemnation of freebooting +methods, a condemnation, be it said, that it received from many right- +minded and sincerely patriotic Englishmen, a condemnation too that was +re-echoed from America. Only the honorable and winning personality of +one of the most patriotic and charming men in England, Sir Starr +Jameson, saved the raid from looking like piracy. A brave man spoke +his mind about it, and he happened to be in a position so conspicuous +that the rumble of his words was heard afar.</p> + +<p>So far as <i>The Daily Telegraph</i> interview is concerned, the secret +history of the incident has never been fully divulged. One may say, +however, without fear of contradiction that the importance of the +matter was unduly magnified, by those, both at home and abroad, who +had something to gain by exaggeration. It is admitted on all sides by +those best informed that at any rate the Emperor was neither +responsible for the publication, a point to be kept in mind, nor for +the choice of expressions used in the interview.</p> + +<p>The letter to Lord Tweedmouth was a friendly communication dealing +with the conditions of the British and German fleets in the past and +present, and without a word in it that might not have been published +in <i>The Times</i>. It was quite innocent of the sinister significance +placed upon it by those who had not seen it; and the British Ministry +declined to publish it for entirely different reasons, reasons in no +way connected with the German Emperor.</p> + +<p>As we read <i>The Daily Telegraph</i> interview to-day, it is a plain +document. Every word of it is true. The moment one looks at it from +the point of view, that the Emperor of Germany is sincerely desirous +of an amiable understanding with England, and that he is, for the +peace and quiet of the world, working toward that end, there is no +adverse criticism to be passed upon it. The English are thoroughly and +completely mistaken about the attitude of the German Emperor toward +them. He is far and away the best and most powerful friend they have +in Europe, and I, for one, would be willing to forgive him were he +irritated at their misunderstanding of him. Personally, I have not the +shadow of a doubt that had France or Russia treated the German Emperor +with the cool distrust shown him by the British, the German army and +fleet would have moved ere this.</p> + +<p>To those who know the Britisher he is forgiven for those luxuries of +insular stupidity which punctuate his history. I know what a fine +fellow he is, and I pass them by. Mr. Churchill speaks of the German +fleet as a “luxury”; but this is only one of those cold-storage +impromptus that a reputation for cleverness must keep on hand, and +when Lord Haldane in a clumsy attempt to praise the German Emperor +speaks of him as “half English” I laugh, as one laughs at the story of +fat Gibbon kneeling to propose to a lady and requiring a servant to +get him on his legs again. British courting often needs a lackey to +keep it on its legs.</p> + +<p>Could anything be more burningly irritable to the Germans than those +two unnecessary statements? For the moment I am dealing with the +attitude of the Emperor alone. Of the tirades of Chamberlain and +Woltmann, Schmoller, Treitschke, Delbrück, Zorn, and other +under-exercised professors, one may speak elsewhere. They are as +unpardonable as the yokel rhetoric of our British friends. Of the +Emperor’s insistence upon his friendliness, of his outspoken betrayal +of his real feelings, of his audacious policy of telling the blunt +truth, I am, alas, no fair judge, for I am too entirely the advocate +of keeping as few cats in the bag as possible. If these things had not +been said and written, it is true that there would have been no +tumult; having been said and written, I fail to see the slightest +indication in the political life of either Germany or England to-day +that they did harm. Certainly, from his own point of view of what his +position entails, they can hardly, as the radicals in Germany claim, +be considered as unconstitutional or beyond his prerogative.</p> + +<p>When the German Emperor says: “I,” he refers to the authority and +responsibility and dignity of the German imperial crown. He is not +magnifying his personal importance; he is emphasizing the dignity and +importance of every German citizen. Let us try to understand the +situation before we pass judgment! Both German radicalism and German +socialism are peculiar to Germany, and everywhere misunderstood +abroad. They both demand things of the government for the easement of +their position, they both demand certain privileges, but they do not +seek or want either authority or responsibility. Look at the figures +of their proportionate increase and compare this with their actual +influence in the Reichstag to-day. From 1881 to 1911, here is the +percentage of votes cast by the five representative political parties:</p> + +<table> +<tr><td></td><td>1881</td><td>1893</td><td>1911</td></tr> + +<tr><td>The National Liberals</td><td>14.6</td><td>12.9</td><td>14.0</td></tr> + +<tr><td>The Freisinnige and south German +Volkspartei</td><td>23.2</td><td>14.2</td><td>13.1</td></tr> + +<tr><td>The Conservatives, including the +Deutsche and Freikonservative</td><td>23.7</td><td>20.4</td><td>12.4</td></tr> + +<tr><td>The Centrum (Catholic party)</td><td>23.2</td><td>19.0</td><td>16.3</td></tr> + +<tr><td>The social Democrats</td><td>6.1</td><td>23.2</td><td>34.8</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>If it were thought for a moment in Germany that the Socialists could +come into real power, their vote and the number of their +representatives in the Reichstag would dwindle away in one single +election.</p> + +<p>The average German is no leader of men, no lover of an emergency, no +social or political colonist, and he would shrink from the initiative +and daring and endurance demanded by a real political revolution and a +real change of authority, as a hen from water. The very quality in his +ruler that we take for granted he must dislike is the quality that at +the bottom of his heart he adores, and he reposes upon it as the very +foundation of his sense of security, and as the very bulwark behind +which he makes grimaces and shakes his fist at his enemies. Such men +as the present chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, a very calm spectator +of his country’s doings, and the Emperor himself, both know this.</p> + +<p>As he looks at history and at life, it follows that he must be +interested in everything that concerns his people, and not +infrequently take a hand in settling questions, or in pushing +enterprises, that seem too widely apart to be dealt with by one man, +and too far afield for his constitutional obligations to profit by his +interference. Certainly German progress shows that the Germans can +have no ground to quote: “Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi,” +of their Emperor.</p> + +<p>In the discussion of this question, I may remind my American readers, +although the German constitution is dealt with elsewhere, that there +is one difference between Germany and America politically, that must +never be left out of our calculations. Such constitution and such +rights as the German citizens have, were granted them by their rulers. +The people of Prussia, or of Bavaria, or of Würtemberg, have not given +certain powers to, and placed certain limitations upon, their rulers; +on the contrary, their rulers have given the people certain of their +own prerogatives and political privileges, and granted to the people +as a favor, a certain share in government and certain powers, that +only so long as seventy years ago belonged to the sovereign alone. It +is not what the people have won and then shared with the ruler, but it +is what the ruler has inherited or won and shared with the people, +that makes the groundwork of the constitutions of the various states, +and of the empire of Germany. Nothing has been taken away from the +people of Prussia or from any other state in Germany that they once +had; but certain rights and privileges have been granted by the rulers +that were once wholly theirs. Bear this in mind, that it is William II +and his ancestors who made Prussia Prussia, and voluntarily gave +Prussians certain political rights, and not the citizens of Prussia +who stormed the battlements of equal rights and made a treaty with +their sovereign.</p> + +<p>The King of Prussia is the largest landholder and the richest citizen +of Prussia. We have seen what he expects of his navy and of his army. +Speaking on the 6th of September, 1894, he says: “Gentlemen, +opposition on the part of the Prussian nobility to their King is a +monstrosity.”</p> + +<p>But arid details are not history, and in this connection let us have +done with them. I have documented this chapter with dates and +quotations because the situation politically, is so far away from the +experience or knowledge of the American, that he must be given certain +facts to assist his imagination in making a true picture. I have done +this, too, that the Kaiser may have his real background when we +undertake to place him understandingly in the modern world. Here we +have patriarchal rule still strong and still undoubting, coupled with +the most successful social legislation, the most successful state +control of railways, mines, and other enterprises; and a progress +commercial and industrial during the last quarter of a century, second +to none.</p> + +<p>This ruler believes it to be essentially a part of his business to be +a Lorenzo de Medici to his people in art; their high priest in +religion; their envoy extraordinary to foreign peoples; their watchful +father and friend in legislation dealing with their daily lives; their +war-lord, and their best example in all that concerns domestic +happiness and patriotic citizenship. He fulfils the words of the old +German chronicle which reads: “Merito a nobis nostrisque posteris +pater patriae appelatur quia erat egregius defensor et fortissimus +propugnator nihili pendens vitam suam contra omnia adversa propter +justitiam opponere.”</p> + +<p>If history is not altogether valueless in its description of symptoms, +the Germans are of a softer mould than some of us, more malleable, +rather tempted to imitate than led by self-confidence to trust to +their own ideals, and less hard in confronting the demands of other +peoples, that they should accept absorption by them. + +Spurned and disdained by Louis XIV, they fawned upon him, built +palaces like his, dressed like his courtiers, wrote and spoke his +language, copied his literary models, and even bored themselves with +mistresses because this was the fashion at Versailles. He stole from +them, only to be thrown the kisses of flattery in return. He sneered +at them, only to be begged for his favors in return. He took their +cities in time of peace, and they acknowledged the theft by a smirking +adulation that he allowed one of their number to be crowned a king.</p> + +<p>As for Napoleon, he performed a prolonged autopsy upon the Germans. +They were dismembered or joined together as suited his plans. At his +beck they fought against one another, or against Russia, or against +England. He tossed them crowns, that they still wear proudly, as a +master tosses biscuits to obedient spaniels. He put his poor relatives +to rule over them, here and there, and they were grateful. He marched +into their present capital, took away their monuments, and the sword +of Frederick the Great, and they hailed him with tears and rejoicing +as their benefactor, while their wittiest poet and sweetest singer, +lauded him to the skies.</p> + +<p>It is unpleasant to recall, but quite unfair to forget, these +happenings of the last two hundred years in the history of the German +people. What would any man say, after this, was their greatest need, +if not self-confidence; if not twenty-five years of peace to enable +them to recover from their beatings and humiliation; if not a powerful +army and navy to give them the sense of security, by which alone +prosperity and pride in their accomplishments and in themselves can be +fostered; if not a ruler who holds ever before their eyes their ideals +and the unfaltering energy required of them to attain them!</p> + +<p>What nation would not be self-conscious after such dire experiences? +What nation would not be tenderly sensitive as to its treatment by +neighboring powers? What nation would not be even unduly keen to +resent any appearance of an attempt to jostle it from its hard-won +place in the sun? Their self-consciousness and sensitiveness and +vanity are patent, but they are pardonable. As the leader of the +Conservative party in the Reichstag, Doctor von Heydebrandt, speaking +at Breslau in October, 1911, anent the Morocco controversy, said, +after, alluding to the “bellicose impudence” of Lloyd-George: “The +[British] ministry thrusts its fist under our nose, and declares, I +alone command the world. It is bitterly hard for us who have 1870 +behind us.” They feel that they should no longer be treated to such +bumptiousness.</p> + +<p>I trust that I am no swashbuckler, but I have the greatest sympathy +with the present Emperor in his capacity as war-lord, and in his +insistent stiffening of Germany’s martial backbone.</p> + +<p>When shall we all recover from a certain international sickliness that +keeps us all feverish? The continual talk and writing about +international friendships, being of the same family, or the same race, +the cousin propagandism in short, is irritating, not helpful. I do not +go to Germany to discover how American is Germany, nor to England to +discover how American is England; but to Germany to discover how +German is Germany, to England to see how English is England. I much +prefer Americans to either Germans or Englishmen, and they prefer +Germans or Englishmen, as the case may be, to Americans. What spurious +and milksoppy puppets we should be if it were not so. So long as there +are praters going about insisting that Germany, with a flaxen pig-tail +down her back, and England, in pumps instead of boots, and a poodle +instead of a bulldog, shall sit forever in the moonlight hand in hand; +or that America shall become a dandy, shave the chin-whisker, wear a +Latin Quarter butterfly tie of red, white, and blue, and thrum a banjo +to a little brown lady with oblique eyes and a fan, all day long; just +so long will the bulldog snarl, the flaxen-haired maiden look sulky, +the chin-whisker become stiffer and more provocative, and the +fluttering fan seem to threaten blows.</p> + +<p>We have been surfeited with peace talk till we are all irritable. One +hundredth part of an ounce of the same quality of peace powders that +we are using internationally would, if prescribed to a happy family in +this or any other land, lead to dissensions, disobedience, domestic +disaster, and divorce. Mr. Carnegie will have lived long enough to see +more wars and international disturbances, and more discontent born of +superficial reading, than any man in history who was at the same time +so closely connected with their origin. Perhaps it were better after +all if our millionaires were educated!</p> + +<p>The peace party need war just as the atheists need God, otherwise they +have nothing to deny, nothing to attack. Peace is a negative thing +that no one really wants, certainly not the kind of peace of which +there is so much talking to-day, which is a kind of castrated +patriotism. Peace is not that. Peace can never be born of such +impotency. When German statesmen declare roundly that they will not +discuss the question of disarmament, they are merely saying that they +will not be traitors to their country. If the Emperor rattles the +sabre occasionally, it is because the time has not come yet, when this +German people can be allowed to forget what they have suffered from +foreign conquerors, and what they must do to protect themselves from +such a repetition of history.</p> + +<p>When the final judgment is passed upon the Emperor, we must recall his +deep religious feeling that he is inevitably an instrument of God; his +ingrained and ineradicable method of reading history as though it were +a series of the ipse dixits of kings; his complacent neglect of how +the work of the world is done by patient labor; of how works of art +are only born of travail and tears: his obsession by that curious +psychology of kings that leads them to believe that they are somehow +different, and under other laws, as though they lived in another +dimension of space. In addition, he is a man of unusually rapid mental +machinery, of overpowering self-confidence, of great versatility, of +many advantages of training and experience, and, above all, he is +unhampered. He is answerable directly to no one, to no parliament, to +no minister, to no people. He is father, guardian, guide, school- +master, and priest, but in no sense a servant responsible to any +master save one of his own choosing.</p> + +<p>The only wonder is that he is not insupportable. Those who have come +under the spell of his personality declare him to be the most +delightful of companions; what Germany has grown to be under his reign +of twenty-five years all the world knows, much of the world envies, +some of the world fears; what his own people think of him can best be +expressed by the statement that his supremacy was never more assured +than to-day.</p> + +<p>I agree that no one man can be credited with the astonishing expansion +of Germany in all directions in the last thirty years; but so +interwoven are the advice and influence, the ambitions and plans, of +the German Emperor with the progress of the German people, that this +one personality shares his country’s successes as no single individual +in any other country can be said to do.</p> + +<p>Whether he likes Americans or not one can hardly know. No doubt he has +made many of them think so; and, alas, we suffer from a national +hallucination that we are liked abroad, when as a matter of fact we +are no more liked than others; and in cultured centres we are in +addition, laughed at by the careless and sneered at by the sour.</p> + +<p>That the Kaiser is liked by Americans, both by those who have met him +and by those who have not, is, I think, indisputable. He is of the +stuff that would have made a first-rate American. He would have been a +sovereign there as he is a sovereign here. He would have enjoyed the +risks, and turmoil, and competition; he would have enjoyed the fine, +free field of endeavor, and he would have jousted with the best of us +in our tournament of life, which has trained as many knights <i>sans peur +et sans reproche</i> as any country in the world.</p> + +<p>I believe in a man who takes what he thinks belongs to him, and holds +it against the world; in the man who so loves life that he keeps a +hearty appetite for it and takes long draughts of it; who is ever +ready to come back smiling for another round with the world, no matter +how hard he has been punished. I believe that God believes in the man +who believes in Him, and therefore in himself. Why should I debar a +man from my sympathy because he is a king or an emperor? I admire your +courage, Sir; I love your indiscretions; I applaud your faith in your +God, and your confidence in yourself, and your splendid service to +your country. Without you Germany would have remained a second-rate +power. Had you been what your critics pretend that they would like you +to be, Germany would have been still ruling the clouds.</p> + +<p>Here’s long life to your power, Sir, and to your possessions, and to +you! And as an Anglo-Saxon, I thank God, that all your countrymen are +not like you!</p> + +<h3>IV GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS</h3> + +<p> +In the days when Bismarck was welding the German states into a federal +organization and finally into an empire, he used the press to spray +his opinions, wishes, and suspicions over those he wished to instruct +or to influence. He used it, too, to threaten or to mislead his +enemies at home and abroad. The <i>Hamburger Nachrichten</i> was the +newspaper for which he wrote at one time, and which remained his +confidential organ, though as his power grew he used other journals +and journalists as well.</p> + +<p>As Germany has few traditions of freedom, having rarely won liberty as +a united people, but having been beaten into national unity by her +political giants, or her robuster sovereigns, so the press before and +during Bismarck’s long reign, from 1862 to 1890, was kept well in hand +by those who ruled. It is only lately that caricature, criticism, and +opposition have had freer play. That a journalist like Maximilian +Harden (a friend and confidant of Bismarck, by the way) should be +permitted to write without rebuke and without punishment that the +present Kaiser “has all the gifts except one, that of politics,” marks +a new license in journalistic debate. That this same person was able, +single-handed, to bring about the exposure and downfall of a cabal of +decadent courtiers whose influence with the Emperor was deplored, +proves again how completely the German press has escaped from certain +leading-strings. A sharp criticism of the Emperor in <i>die Post</i>, even as +lately as 1911, excited great interest, and was looked upon as a very +daring performance.</p> + +<p>There are some four thousand daily and more than three thousand weekly +and monthly publications in Germany to-day; but neither the press as a +whole, nor the journalists, with a few exceptions, exert the influence +in either society or politics of the press in America and in England. +As compared with Germany, one is at once impressed with the greater +number of journals and their more effective distribution at home. In +America there are 2,472 daily papers; 16,269 weeklies; and 2,769 +monthlies. Tri-weekly and quarterly publications added bring the total +to 22,806. One group of 200 daily papers claim a circulation of +10,000,000, while five magazines have a total circulation of +5,000,000. It is calculated that there is a daily, a weekly, and a +monthly magazine circulated for every single family in America. Not an +unmixed blessing, by any means, when one remembers that thousands, +untrained to think and uninterested, are thus dusted with the widely +blown comments of undigested news. Editorial comment of any serious +value is, of course, impossible, and the readers are given a strange +variety of unwholesome intellectual food to gulp down, with mental +dyspepsia sure to follow, a disease which is already the curse of the +times in America, where superficiality and insincerity are leading the +social and political dance.</p> + +<p>To carry the comparison further, there are 22,806 newspapers published +in America; 9,500 in England; 8,049 in Germany; and 6,681 in France: +or 1 for every 4,100 of the population in America; 1 for every 4,700 +in Great Britain; 1 for every 7,800 in Germany, and 1 for every 5,900 +in France.</p> + +<p>That a prime minister should have been a contributor to the press, as +was Lord Salisbury; that a correspondent or editorial writer of a +newspaper should find his way into cabinet circles, into diplomacy, or +into high office in the colonies; that the editor and owner of a great +newspaper should become an ambassador to England, as in the case of +Mr. Reid, is impossible in Germany. The character of the men who take +up the profession of journalism suffers from the lack of distinction +and influence of their task. Raymond, Greeley, Dana, Laffan, Godkin, +in America, and Delane, Hutton, Lawson, and their successors, Garvin, +Strachey, Robinson, in England, are impossible products of the German +journalistic soil at present.</p> + +<p>There have been great changes, and the place of the newspaper and the +power of the journalist is increasing rapidly, but the stale +atmosphere of censordom hangs about the press even to-day. Freedom is +too new to have bred many powerful pens or personalities, and the +inconclusive results of political arguments, written for a people who +are comparatively apathetic, lessen the enthusiasm of the political +journalist. There are not three editors in Germany who receive as much +as six thousand dollars a year, and the majority are paid from twelve +hundred to three thousand a year. This does not make for independence. +I am no believer in great wealth as an incentive to activity, but +certainly solvency makes for emancipation from the more debasing forms +of tyranny.</p> + +<p>Several of the more popular newspapers are owned and controlled by the +Jews, and to the American, with no inborn or traditional prejudice +against the Jews as a race, it is somewhat difficult to understand the +outspoken and unconcealed suspicion and dislike of them in Germany. +There is no need to mince matters in stating that this suspicion and +dislike exist. A comedy called “The Five Frankfurters” has been given +in all the principal cities during the last year and has had a long +run in Berlin. It is a scathing caricature of certain Jewish +peculiarities of temperament and ambition.</p> + +<p>There is even an anti-semitic party, small though it be, in the +Reichstag, while the party of the Centre, of the Conservatives and the +Agrarians, is frankly anti-semitic as well. No Jew can become an +officer in the army, no Jew is admitted to one of the German corps in +the universities, no Jew can hold office of importance in the state, +and I presume that no unbaptized Jew is received at court. I am bound +to record my personal preference for the English and American +treatment of the Jew. In England they have made a Jew their prime +minister, and in America we offer him equal opportunities with other +men, and applaud him whole-heartedly when he succeeds, and thump him +soundly with our criticism when he misbehaves. The German fears him; +we do not. We have made Jews ambassadors, they have served in our army +and navy, and not a few of them rank among our sanest and most +generous philanthropists.</p> + +<p>To a certain extent society of the higher and official class shuts its +doors against him. One of the well-known restaurants in Berlin, until +the death of its founder, not long ago, refused admission to Jews.</p> + +<p>I venture to say that no intelligent American stops to think whether +the Speyer brothers, or Kahn, or Schiff, or the members of the house +of Rothschild, are Jews or not, in estimating their political, social, +and philanthropic worth. Even as long ago as the close of the +fourteenth century the great strife between the princes of Germany and +the free cities ceased, in order that both might unite to plunder the +Jews.</p> + +<p>Luther preached: “Burn their synagogues and schools; what will not +burn bury with earth that neither stone nor rubbish remain.” “In like +manner break into and burn their houses.” “Forbid their rabbis to +teach on pain of life and limb.” “Take away all their prayer-books and +Talmuds, in which are nothing but godlessness, lies, cursing, and +swearing.” In the chronicles of the time occurs frequently “Judaei +occisi, combusti.”</p> + +<p>The German comes by his dislike of the Jew through centuries of +traditional conflict, plunder, and hatred, and the very moulder of the +present German speech, Luther, was a furious offender. The Jews have +been materialists through all ages, claim the Germans: “The Jews +require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ +crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks +foolishness.” It is to be in our day the battle of battles, they +claim, whether we are to be socially, morally, and politically +orientalized by this advance guard of the Orient, the Jews, or whether +we are to preserve our occidental ideals and traditions. Many more men +see the conflict, they maintain, than care to take part in it. The +money-markets of the world are ramparts that few men care to storm, +but, if the independent and the intelligent do not withstand this +semitization of our institutions, the ignorant and the degraded will +one day take the matter into their own hands, as they have done +before, and as they do to this day in some parts of Russia.</p> + +<p>There are 600,000 Jews in Germany, 400,000 of them in Prussia and +100,000 of these in Berlin. In New York City alone there are more than +900,000. They are always strangers in our midst. They are of another +race. They have other standards and other allegiances. Perhaps we are +all of us, the most enlightened of us, provincial at bottom, we like +to know who and what our neighbors are, and whence they came; and we +dislike those who are outside our racial and social experiences, and +our moral and religious habits, and the Jew is always, everywhere, a +foreigner. At any rate, so the German maintains.</p> + +<p>Strange as it may sound in these days, the Germans are not at heart +business men. There are more eyes with dreams in them in Germany than +in all the world besides. They work hard, they increase their +factories, their commerce, but their hearts are not in it. The Jew has +amassed an enormous part of the wealth of Germany, considering his +small proportion of the total population. The German, because he is +not at heart a trader, is an easy prey for him.</p> + +<p>These things trouble us in America very little, and we smile cynically +at the not altogether untruthful portraits of “Potash and +Pearlmutter,” and their vermin-like business methods. There is an +undercurrent of feeling in America, that the virile blood is still +there which will stop at nothing to throw off oppression, whether from +the Jew or from any one else. If we are pinched too hard financially, +if confiscation by the government or by individuals goes too far, no +laws even will restrain the violence which will break out for liberty. +So we are at peace with ourselves and with others, trusting in that +quiet might which will take governing into its own hands, at all +hazards, if the state of affairs demands it.</p> + +<p>With the Germans it is different. No people of modern times has been +so harried and harrowed as these Germans. The Thirty Years’ war left +them in such fear and poverty that even cannibalism existed, and this +was years after Massachusetts and Maryland were settled. But nothing +has tarnished their idealism. Whether as followers of Charlemagne, or +as hordes of dreamers seeking to save Christ’s tomb and cradle in the +Crusades, or as intoxicated barbarians insisting that their emperor +must be crowned at Rome, or as the real torch-bearers of the +Reformation, or even now as dreamers, philosophers, musicians, and +only industrial and commercial by force of circumstances, they are, +least of all the peoples, materialists.</p> + +<p>They have given the world lyric poetry, music, mythology, philosophy, +and these are still their souls’ darlings. They entered the modern +world just as science began to marry with commerce and industry, and +so their unworn, fresh, and youthful intellectual vigor found +expression in industry. Renan writes that he owes his pleasure in +intellectual things to a long ancestry of non-thinkers, and he claims +to have inherited their stored-up mental forces. Germany is not unlike +that. Her recent industrial and intellectual activity may be the +release from bondage, of the centuries of stored-up intellectual +energy from the “Woods of Germany.”</p> + +<p>It is true that they are easily governed and amenable, but this is due +not wholly to the fact that they have been so long under the yoke of +rulers, or because they are of cow-like disposition, but because their +ideals are spiritual, not material. The American seeks wealth, the +Englishman power, the Frenchman notoriety, the German is satisfied +with peaceful enjoyment of music, poetry, art, and friendly and very +simple intercourse with his fellows.</p> + +<p>Certainly I am not the man to say he is wrong, when I see how +spiritual things in my own country are cut out of the social body as +though they were annoying and dangerous appendices.</p> + +<p>The German of this type looks down upon the spiritual and intellectual +development of other countries as far inferior to his own. Such an one +in talking to an Englishman feels that he is conversing with a high-spirited, +thoroughbred horse; to a Frenchman, as though he were a +cynical monkey; to an American, as though he were a bright youth of +sixteen.</p> + +<p>The German considers his dealings with the intangible things of life +to be a higher form, indeed the highest form, of intellectual +employment. He is therefore racially, historically, and by temperament +jealous or contemptuous, according to his station in life, of the +cosmopolitan exchanger of the world, the Jew. He denies to him either +patriotism or originality, and looks upon him as merely a distributer, +whether in art, literature, or commerce, as an exchanger who amasses +wealth by taking toll of other men’s labor, industry, and intellect. +It has not escaped the German of this temper, that the whirling gossip +and innuendoes that have lately annoyed the present party in power in +England, have had to do with three names: Isaacs, Samuels, and +Montagu, all Jews and members of the government.</p> + +<p>German politics, German social life, and the German press cannot be +understood without this explanation. The German sees a danger to his +hardly won national life in the cosmopolitanism of the Jew; he sees a +danger to his duty-doing, simple-living, and hard-working governing +aristocracy in the tempting luxury of the recently rich Jew; and +besides these objective reasons, he is instinctively antagonistic, as +though he were born of the clouds of heaven and the Jew of the clods +of earth. This does not mean that the German is a believer, in the +orthodox sense of the word, for that he is not. He loves the things of +the mind not because he thinks of them as of divine creation, and as +showing an allegiance to a divine Creator, but because they are the +playthings of his own manufacture that amuse him most. His superiority +to other nations is that he claims to enjoy maturer toys. Not even +France is so entirely unencumbered by orthodox restraints in matters +of belief.</p> + +<p>So far, therefore, as the German press is Jew-controlled, it is +suspected as being not German politically, domestically, or +spiritually; as not being representative, in short. It should be added +that, though this is the attitude of the great majority in Germany, +there is a small class who recognize the pioneer work that the Jew has +done. Few men are more respected there, and few have more influence +than such men as Ballin and Rathenau and others. For the very reason +that the German is an idealist the Jew has been of incomparable value +to him in the development of his industrial, commercial, and financial +affairs. Not only as a scientific financier has he helped, not only +has he provided ammunition when German industrial undertakings were +weak and stumbling, but along the lines of scientific research, as +chemists, physicists, artists - perhaps no one stands higher than the +Jew Liebermann as a painter - the Jew has done yeoman service to the +country in return for the high wages that he has taken. There are +Germans who recognize this, and there are in the Jewish world not a +few men to whom the doors of enlightened society are always open.</p> + +<p>Whatever one may feel of instinctive dislike, the open-minded +observers of the historical progress of Germany, all recognize that +Germany would not be in the foremost place she now occupies in the +competitive markets of the world, if she had not had the patriotic, +intelligent, and skilful backing of her better-class Jewish citizens.</p> + +<p>Printing was born in Germany, and the town of Augsburg had a newspaper +as early as 1505, while Berlin had a newspaper in 1617 and Hamburg in +1628. Every foreigner who knows Germany at all, knows the names of the +<i>Kölnische Zeitung</i>, the <i>Lokal Anzeiger</i> and <i>Der Tag</i>, <i>Hamburger +Nachrichten</i>, <i>Berliner Tageblatt</i>, <i>Frankfurter Zeitung</i>, and the +<i>Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung</i>, this last the official organ of the +foreign office. The <i>Neue Preussische Zeitung</i>, better known by its +briefer title of <i>Kreuz Zeitung</i>, is a stanch conservative organ, and +for years has published the scholarly comments once a week of +Professor Shiemann, who is a political historian of distinction, and a +trusted friend of the Emperor. The <i>Deutsche Tageszeitung</i> is the organ +of the Agrarian League. The <i>Reichsbote</i> is a conservative journal and +the organ of the orthodox party in the state church. <i>Vorwärts</i> is the +organ of the socialists and, whatever one may think of its politics, +one of the best-edited, as it is one of the best-written, newspapers +in Germany. The <i>Zukunft</i>, a weekly publication, is the personal organ +of Harden, is Harden, in fact. The <i>Zukunft</i> in normal years sells some +22,000 copies at 20 marks, giving an income of 440,000 marks; this +with the advertisements gives an income of say 500,000 marks. The +expenses are about 350,000 marks, leaving a net income to this daring +and accomplished journalist of 150,000 marks a year. In Germany such +an income is great wealth. The <i>Zukunft</i> and its success is a commentary +of value upon the appreciation of, as well as the rarity of, +independent journalism in Germany.</p> + +<p>The <i>Vossische Zeitung</i>, or “Aunty Voss” as it is nicknamed, is a solid, +bourgeois sheet and moderately radical in tone. It is proper, wipes +its feet before entering the house, and may be safely left in the +servants’ hall or in the school-room. <i>Die Post</i> represents the +conservative party politically, is welcome in rich industrial circles, +and is rather liberal in religious matters, though hostile to the +government in matters of foreign politics, and of less influence at +home than the frequent quotations from it in the British press would +lead one to suppose. The two official organs of the Catholics are the +<i>Germania</i> and the <i>Volks Zeitung</i>, of Cologne, whose editor is the well-known Julius +Bachern. The <i>Lokal Anzeiger</i> and the <i>Tageblatt</i> of Berlin attempt, with +no small degree of success, American methods, and give out several +editions a day with particular reference to the latest news.</p> + +<p>Leipsic, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Strasburg, Dresden, Königsberg, +Breslau, with its <i>Schlessische Zeitung</i>, and the Rhine provinces and +the steel and iron industries represented by the <i>Rheinisch- +Westfälischer Zeitung</i>, and other cities and towns have local +newspapers. A good example of such little-known provincial newspapers +is the <i>Augsburger Abendzeitung</i>, with its first-rate reports of the +parliamentary proceedings in Bavaria and its well-edited columns. The +circulation of these journals is, from our point of view, small. The +<i>Berliner Tageblatt</i> in a recent issue declares its paid circulation to +have been 73,000 in 1901; 106,000 in 1905; 190,000 in 1910; and +208,000 in 1911.</p> + +<p>The custom in Germany of eating in restaurants, of taking coffee in +the cafés, of writing one’s letters and reading the newspapers there, +no doubt has much to do with the small subscription lists of German +journals of all kinds, whether daily, weekly, or monthly. The German +economizes even in these small matters. A German family, or small café +or restaurant, may, for a small sum, have half a dozen or more weekly +and monthly journals left, and changed each week; thus they are +circulated in a dozen places at the expense of only one copy. Where a +family of similar standing in America takes in regularly two morning +papers and an evening paper, several weekly and monthly, and perhaps +one or two foreign journals, the German family may take one morning +paper. The custom of having half a dozen newspapers served with the +morning meal, as is done in the larger houses in America and in +England, is practically unknown. Economy is one reason, indifference +is another, provincial and circumscribed interests are others.</p> + +<p>The German has not our keen appetite for what we call news, which is +often merely surmises in bigger type. Only the very small number who +have travelled and made interests and friends for themselves out of +their own country, have any feeling of curiosity even, about the +political and social tides and currents elsewhere.</p> + +<p>An astounding number of Germans know Sophocles, Aeschylus, and +Shakespeare better than we do, but they know nothing, and care +nothing, for the sizzling, crackling stream of purposeless incident, +and sterile comment, that pours in upon the readers of American +newspapers, and which has had its part in making us the largest +consumers of nerve-quieting drugs in the world. All too many of the +pens that supply our press are without education, without experience, +without responsibility or restraint. What Mommsen writes of Cicero +applies to them: “Cicero was a journalist in the worst sense of the +term, over-rich in words as he himself confesses, and beyond all +imagination poor in thought.”</p> + +<p>No one of these journals pretends to such power or such influence as +certain great dailies in America and in England. They have not the +means at their command to buy much cable or telegraphic news, and +lacking a press tariff for telegrams, they are the more hampered. The +German temperament, and the civil-service and political close-corporation +methods, make it difficult for the journalist to go far, +either socially or politically. The German has been trained in a +severe school to seek knowledge, not to look for news, and he does not +make the same demands, therefore, upon his newspaper.</p> + +<p>German relations with the outside world are of an industrial and +commercial kind, and until very lately the German has not been a +traveller, and is not now an explorer, and their colonies are +unimportant; consequently there is no very keen interest on the part +of the bulk of the people in foreign affairs. Even Sir Edward Grey’s +answering speech on the Morocco question did not appear in full in +Berlin until the following day, though Germany had roused itself to an +unusual pitch of excitement and expectancy.</p> + +<p>As the Germans are not yet political animals, so their newspapers +reflect an artificial political enthusiasm. Society, too, is as little +organized as politics. There are no great figures in their social +world. A Beau Brummel, a d’Orsay, a Lady Palmerston, a Lady +Londonderry, a Duke of Devonshire, a Gladstone, a Disraeli, a +Rosebery, would be impossible in Germany, especially if they were in +opposition to the party in power. When a chancellor or other minister +is dismissed by the Kaiser, he simply disappears. He does not add to +the weight of the opposition, but ceases to exist politically. This +has two bad results: it does not strengthen the criticism of the +administration, and it makes the office-holder very loath to leave +office, and to surrender his power. An ex-cabinet officer in America +or in England remains a valuable critic, but an ex-chancellor in +Germany becomes a social recluse, a political Trappist. Even the +leading political figures are after all merely shadowy servants of the +Emperor. They represent neither themselves nor the people, and such +subserviency kills independence and leaves us with mediocrities +gesticulating in the dark, and making phrases in a vacuum.</p> + +<p>There are, it is true, charming hostesses in Berlin, and ladies who +gather in their drawing-rooms all that is most interesting in the +intellectual and political life of the day; but they are almost +without exception obedient to the traditional officialdom, leaning +upon a favor that is at times erratic, and without the daring of +independence which is the salt of all real personality.</p> + +<p>There are, too, country-houses. One castle in Bavaria, how well I +remember it, and the accomplished charm of its owner, who had made its +grandeur cosey, a feat, indeed! But all this is detached from the real +life of the nation, which is forever taking its cue from the court, +leaving any independent or imposing social and political life benumbed +and without vitality. There is no free and stalwart opposition, no +centres of power; and much as one tires of the incessant and feverish +strife political and social at home, one returns to it taking a long +breath of the free air after this hot-house atmosphere, where the +thermometer is regulated by the wishes of an autocrat.</p> + +<p>The press necessarily reflects these conditions. The Social Democrats, +divided into many small parties, and the Agrarians and Ultramontanes, +divided as well, give the press no single point of leverage. These +political parties wrangle among themselves over the dish of votes, but +what is put into the dish comes from a master over whom they have no +control. If they upset the dish they are turned out as they were in +1878, 1887, 1893, and 1907, and when they return they are better +behaved.</p> + +<p>The parties themselves are not real, since thousands of voters lean to +the left merely to express their discontent; but they would desert the +Social Democrats at once did they think there was a chance of real +governing power for them. A small industrial was warned of the awful +things that would happen did the Socialists come into power. “Ah,” he +replied, “but the government would not permit that!” What has the +press to chronicle with insistence and with dignity of such flabby +political and social conditions?</p> + +<p>The press may be, and often is, annoying, as mosquitoes are annoying, +but its campaigns are dangerous to nobody. As I write, it is hard to +believe that within a few days the members of a new Reichstag are to +be elected. There are political meetings, it is true, there are +articles and editorials in the newspapers, there is some languid +discussion at dinner-tables and in society, but there is a sense of +unreality about it all, as though men were thinking: Nothing of grave +importance can happen in any case! We shall have something to say +farther on of political Germany; here it suffices to say that the +press of Germany betrays in its political writing that it is dealing +with shadows, not with realities. “They have been at a great feast of +language, and stolen the scraps,” that’s all.</p> + +<p>The snarling <i>Panther</i> that was sent to Agadir, teeth and claws showing, +came back looking like an adventurous tomcat that wished only to hide +itself meekly in its accustomed haunts; and its unobtrusive bearing +seemed to say, the less said about the matter the better. What a storm +of obloquy would have burst upon such inept diplomacy in America, or +in England, or even in France. Not so here. Everybody was sore and +sorry, but the newspapers and the journalists could raise no protest +that counted. It is all explained by the fact that the people do not +govern, have nothing to do with the whip or the reins, nor have they +any constitutional way of changing coachmen, or of getting possession +of whip and reins; and hooting at the driver, and jeering at the +tangled whip-lash and awkwardly held reins, is poor-spirited business. +Only one political writer, Harden, does it with any effect, and his +pen is said to have upset the Caprivi government.</p> + +<p>As one reads the newspapers day by day, and the weekly and monthly +journals, it becomes apparent that the German imagines he has done +something when he has had an idea; just as the Frenchman imagines he +has done something when he has made an epigram. We are less given +either to thinking or phrasing, and far less gifted in these +directions than either Germans or Frenchmen, and perhaps that is the +reason we have actually done so much more politically. We do things +for lack of something better to do, while our neighbors find real +pleasure in their dreams, and take great pride in their epigrams.</p> + +<p>As all great writing, from that of Xenophon and Caesar till now, is +born of action or the love of it, or as a spiritual incitement to +action, so a people with little opportunity for political action, and +no centres of social life with a real sway or sovereignty, cannot +create or offer substance for the making of a powerful and independent +press.</p> + +<p>There is no New York, no Paris, no London, no Vienna even, in Germany. +Berlin is the capital, but it is not a capital by political or social +evolution, but by force of circumstances. Germany has many centres +which are not only not interested in Berlin, but even antagonistic. +Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Leipsic, Frankfort, Dresden, Breslau, and +besides these, twenty-six separate states with their capitals, their +rulers, courts, and parliaments, go to make up Germany, and perhaps +you are least of all in Germany when you are in Berlin. It is true +that we have many States, many capitals, and many governors in +America, but they have all grown from one, and not, as in Germany, +been beaten into one, and held together more from a sense of danger +from the outside than from any interest, sympathy, and liking for one +another.</p> + +<p>With us each State, too, has a powerful representation both in the +Senate and in the House of Representatives, which keeps the interest +alive, while in Germany Prussia is overwhelmingly preponderant. In the +upper house, or <i>Bundesrat</i>, Prussia has 17 representatives; next comes +Bavaria with 6; and the other states with 4 or less, out of a total of +58 members. In the <i>Reichstag</i>, out of a total of 397 representatives, +Prussia has 236.</p> + +<p>Political society is not all centred in Berlin, as it is in London, +Paris, or Washington, nor is social life there representative of all +Germany. Berlin’s stamp of approval is not necessary to play, or +opera, or book, or picture, or statue, or personality. Indeed, Berlin +often takes a lead in such matters from other cities in Germany where +the artistic life and history are more fully developed, as, for +instance, in other days, Weimar, and now Munich, Dresden, and, in +literary matters, Leipsic. A recent example of this, though of small +consequence in itself, is the case of the opera, the “Rosen Kavalier,” +which was given repeatedly in Dresden and Leipsic, whither many Berlin +people went to hear it, before the authorities in Berlin could be +persuaded to produce it.</p> + +<p>The nobility, the society heavy artillery, come to Berlin only for +three or four weeks, from the middle of January to the middle of +February, to pay their respects to their sovereign at the various +court functions given during that time. They live in the country and +only visit in Berlin. It is complained, that the double taxation +incident to the up-keep of an establishment both in town and in the +country, makes it impossible for them to be much in Berlin. They stay +in hotels and in apartments, and are mere passing visitors in their +own capital. They have, therefore, practically no influence upon +social life, and Berlin is merely the centre of the industrial, +military, official, and political society of Prussia. It is the +clearing-house of Germany, but by no means the literary, artistic, +social, or even the political capital of Germany, as London is the +English, or Paris the French, or as Washington is fast growing to be +the American, capital.</p> + +<p>There is no training-ground for an accomplished or man-of-the-world +journalist, and the views and opinions of a journalist who is more or +less of a social pariah, and he still is that with less than half a +dozen exceptions, and of a man who begs for crumbs from the press +officials at the foreign or other government offices, are neither +written with the grip of the independent and dignified chronicler, nor +received with confidence and respect by the reader.</p> + +<p>It may be a reaction from this negligence with which they are treated +that produces a quality, both in the writing and in the illustrations +of the German newspapers, which is unknown in America. Many of the +illustrated papers indulge in pictorial flings which may be compared +only to the scribbling and coarse drawings, in out-of-the-way places, +of dirty-minded boys. With the exception of the well-known <i>Fliegende +Blätter</i>, <i>Kladderadatsch</i>, and one or two less representative, there is +nothing to compare with the artistic excellence and restrained good +taste of <i>Life</i> or <i>Punch</i>, for example.</p> + +<p>There is one illustrated paper published in Munich, <i>Simplicissimus</i>, +which deserves more than negligent and passing comment. It has two +artists of whom I know nothing except what I have learned from their +work, Th. Th. Heine and Gulbransson. These men are Aristophanic in +their ability as draughtsmen and as censors, in striking at the +weaknesses, political, military, and official, of their countrymen. +Their work is something quite new in Germany, and worthy of comparison +with the best in any country. It is not elegant, it is Rabelaisian; +and though I have nothing to retract in regard to coarseness, and no +wish to commend the attitude taken toward German political and social +life, in fairness one is bound to call attention to the pictorial work +in this particular paper as of a very high order, and to recognize its +power. If Heine could have turned his wit into the drawings of +Hogarth, we should have had something not unlike <i>Simplicissimus</i>, and +any German annoyed at the criticisms of his national life from the pen +of a foreigner, may well turn to his own <i>Simplicissimus</i>, and be humbly +grateful that no foreign pen-point can possibly pierce more deeply, +than this domestic pencil, at work in his own country.</p> + +<p>The danger for the critic and the wit, which few avoid, is that with +incomparable advantages over his opponent he will not play fair. In +spite of the awful reputation of our so-called “yellow press,” which +is often boisterously impudent, and sometimes inclined to indulge in +comments and revelations of the private affairs of individuals which +can only be dubbed coarse and cowardly, there is seldom a descent to +the indescribably indecent caricatures which one finds every week in +the illustrated papers in Germany. As we have noted elsewhere, just as +the citizens of Berlin, as one sees them in the streets and in public +places, give one the impression that they are not house-trained, so +many of the pens and pencils which serve the German press, leave one +with the feeling that their possessors would not know how to behave in +a cultivated and well-regulated household.</p> + +<p>Every gentleman in Germany must have been ashamed of the writing in +the German press after the sinking of the <i>Titanic</i>. There was a blaze +of brutal pharisaism that put a bar-sinister across any claim to +gentlemanliness on the part of the majority. When every brave man in +the world was lamenting the death of Scott, the English Arctic +explorer, one German paper intimated that he had committed suicide to +avoid the bankruptcy forced upon him by England’s lack of generosity +toward his expedition. It is almost unbelievable that such a cur +should have escaped unthrashed, even among the German journalists. +These two examples of lack of fine feeling mark them for what they +are. Among gentlemen no comment is necessary. The mark of breeding is +more often discovered in what one does not say, does not write, does +not do, than in positive action. There was much, at that time, when +fifteen hundred people had been buried in icy water, and scores of +American and English gentlemen had gone down to death, just in answer +to: “Ladies first, gentlemen!” that should have been left unsaid and +unwritten. The quality of the German journalist, with half a dozen +exceptions, was betrayed to the full in those few days, and many a +German cheek mantled with shame.</p> + +<p>However, a man may eat with his knife and still be an authority on +bridge-building; he may tuck his napkin under his chin preparatory to, +and as an armor against, the well-known vagaries of liquids, before he +takes his soup or his soft-boiled eggs, and still be an authority on +soap-making; he may wear a knitted waistcoat with a frock-coat to +luncheon, and be deeply versed in Russian history. He may have no +inkling of the traditions of fair play, or of the reticences of +courtesy, no shred of knightliness, and yet be a scholar in his way. +Indeed, in none of the other cultured countries does one find so many +men of trained minds, but with such untrained manners and morals. In +their hack of sensation-mongering, in their indifference to social +gossip, in their trustworthy and learned comments upon things +scientific, musical, theatrical, literary, and historical, they are as +men to school-boys compared to the American press. They have the utter +contempt for mere smartness that only comes with severe educational +training. They have the scholar’s impatience with trivialities. They +skate, not to cut their names on the ice, but to get somewhere, and +the whole industrial and scientific world knows how quickly they have +arrived.</p> + +<p>Our newspapers make a business of training their readers in that worst +of all habits, mental dissipation. The German press is not thus +guilty. Despite all I have written, I am quite sure that if I were +banished from the active world and could see only half a dozen +journals on my lonely island, one of them would be a German newspaper. +It may be that I have a perverted literary taste, for I can get more +humor, more keen enjoyment, out of a census report or an etymological +dictionary than from a novel. My favorite literary dissipation is to +read the works of that distinguished statistician at Washington, Mr. +O. P. Austin, the poet-laureate of industrial America, or the toilsome +and exciting verbal journeys of the Rev. Mr. Skeat. The classic +humorists do not compare with them, in my humble opinion, as sources +of fantastic surprises. This, perhaps, accounts for my sincere +admiration for that quality of scholarship, learning, and accuracy in +the German press. Nor does the possession of these qualities in the +least controvert the impression given by the German press of political +powerlessness, of social ignorance and incompetence, and of boorish +ignorance of the laws of common decency in international comment and +controversy. A great scholar may be a booby in a drawing-room, and a +lamentable failure as an adviser in matters political and social. “As +a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from +his place.” Germany has put some astonishing failures to her credit +through her belief that learning can take the place of common-sense, +and scholarship do the tasks of that intelligent and experienced +observation to which the abused word, worldliness, is given. Perhaps +it is as well that the German press declines to keep a social diary; +well, too, that it has no candidates for the office of society +Haruspex, whose ghoulish business it is to find omens and prophecies +in the entrails of his victims. In that respect, at any rate, both +society and the press in Germany are as is the salon to the scullery, +compared with ours. As for that little knot of illustrated weekly +papers in England, with their nauseating letter-press for snobs +inside, and their advertisements of patent complexion remedies and +corsets outside, there is nothing like them in Germany or anywhere +else, so far as I know. You may advertise your shooting-party, your +dance, or your dinner-party, and thus keep yourself before the world +as though you were a whiskey, a soap, or a superfluous-hair-destroyer, +if you please, and, alas, many there are who do so. At least Germany +knows nothing of this weekly auction of privacy, this nauseating +snobbery which is a fungus-growth seen at its strongest in British +soil.</p> + +<p>I am bound, both by tradition and experience as an American, to +discover the reason for such conditions in the lack of fluidity in +social and political life in Germany. The industrials, the military, +the nobility, the civil servants, and to some extent the Jews, are all +in separate social compartments; and the political parties as well +keep much to themselves and without the personal give and take outside +of their purely official life which obtains in America and in England.</p> + +<p>It is an impossible suggestion, I know, but if the upper and lower +houses of the empire, or of Prussia, could meet in a match at base-ball, +or golf, or cricket; if the army could play the civil service; +if the newspaper correspondents could play the under-secretaries; if +they could all be induced occasionally, to throw off their mental and +moral uniforms, and to meet merely as men, a current of fresh air +would blow through Germany, that she would never after permit to be +shut out.</p> + +<p>Personal dignity is refreshed, not lost, by a romp. Who has not seen +distinguished Americans and distinguished Englishmen, in their own or +in their friends’ houses, or at one or another of our innumerable +games, behaving like boys out of school, crawling about beneath +improvised skins and growling and roaring in charades; indulging in +flying chaff of one another; in the skirts of their wives and sisters +playing cricket, or base-ball, or tennis with the one hand only; +caricaturing good-humoredly some of their own official business, or +arranging a match of some kind where their own servants join in to +make up a side; or, and well I remember it, half a dozen youths of +about fifty playing cricket with one stump and a broom-handle for an +hour one hot afternoon, amid tumbles and shouts of laughter, and a +shower of impromptu nicknames, and one or two of them bore names known +all over the English-speaking world. Nobody loses any dignity, any +importance; but there is an unconquerable stiffness in Germany that +makes me laugh almost as I make this suggestion. We have only a +certain reserve of serious work in us. To attempt to be serious all +the time is never to be at rest. This worried busyness, which is a +characteristic of the more mediocre of my own countrymen also, is +really a symptom of deficient vitality. Things are in the saddle and +you are the mule and not the man, if you are such an one. The +stiffness and self-consciousness of the Germans is really a sign of +their lack of confidence in themselves. Youth is always more serious +than middle age, for the same reason. A man who is at home in the +world laughs and is gay; he who is shy and doubtful scowls. It is the +God-fearing who are not afraid, it is the man-fearing who are awkward +and uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>The first thing to be afraid of is oneself, but after oneself is +conquered why be afraid to let him loose!</p> + +<p>It would be quite untrue to give the impression that there is no fun, +no harking, no chaff, in Germany, although I am bound to say that +there is little of this last. I can bear witness to a healthy love of +fun, and to an exuberant exploitation of youthful vitality in many +directions among the students and younger officers, for example. +Better companions for a romp exist nowhere. Having been blessed with +an undue surplus of vitality, which for many years kept me fully +occupied in directing its expenditure, alas, not always with success, +I can only add that I found as many youthful companions in a similar +predicament in Germany, as anywhere else.</p> + +<p>But with the Englishman and the American, both temperament and +environment permit youthfulness to last longer. The German must soon +get into the mill and grind and be ground, and he is by temperament +more easily caught and put into the uniform of a constantly correct +behavior. As for us, we are all boys still at thirty, many of us at +fifty, and some of us die ere the school-boy exuberance has all been +squeezed or dried out of us. Not so in Germany. One sees more men in +Germany who give the impression that they could not by any possibility +ever have been boys than with us. They begin to look cramped at +thirty, and they are stiff at fifty, as though they had been fed on a +diet of circumspection, caution, and obedience. They are drilled early +and they soon become amenable, and then even indulgent, toward the +drill-master.</p> + +<p>This German people have not developed into a nation, they have been +squeezed into the mould of a nation. The nation is not for the people, +the people are for the nation. “By the word Constitution,” writes Lord +Bolingbroke, “we mean, whenever we speak with propriety and exactness, +the assemblage of laws, institutions, and customs derived from certain +fixed principles of reason, directed to certain fixed objects of +public good, that compose the general system by which the community +hath agreed to be governed.” The Germans have no such constitution, +for the community was scarcely consulted, much less hath it agreed to +the general system by which it is governed.</p> + +<p>Of course, in every nation its affairs are, and must be, conducted by +officials. That is as true of America as of Germany. The fundamental +difference is that with us these official persons are executive +officers only, the real captain is the people; while in Germany these +official persons are the real governors of the people, subject to the +commands of one who repeatedly and publicly asserts that his +commission is from God and not from the people. This puts whole +classes of the community permanently into uniform, and the wearers of +these uniforms are almost afraid to laugh, and would consider it +sacrilege to romp.</p> + +<p>Caution is a very puny form of morality. “He that observeth the wind +shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” It is +as true politically as of other spheres of life that “he or she who +lets the world or his own portion of it choose his plan of life for +him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of +imitation.” Thus writes John Stuart Mill, and what else can be said of +the political activities of the Germans? What journalist or what +patriot indeed can take seriously a majority that has no power? What +people can call itself free to whom its rulers are not responsible? +The Social Democrats, at the moment of writing, have won one hundred +and ten seats in the Reichstag, but the army and navy estimates are +beyond their reach, the taxes are fixtures, a constitution is a dream, +and if they are cantankerous or truculent the Reichstag will be +dismissed by a wave of the hand. Say what one will, they are a +mammillary people politically, and the strongest party in the +Reichstag is merely an energetic political mangonel. Their leaders +moult opinions, they do not mould them, and could not translate them +into action if they did.</p> + +<p>Not since 1874 has there been a Reichstag so strongly radical, but +nothing will come of it. The Reichskanzler, Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, +did not hesitate to take an early opportunity, after the +opening of the new Reichstag, to state boldly that the issue was +Authority versus Democratization, and that he had no fear of the +result. It is customary for the newly elected Praesidium, the +president and two vice-presidents of the Reichstag, to be received in +audience by the Emperor. On this occasion the Socialists forbade their +representative to go, and the Emperor, therefore, refused to receive +any of them. As usual, they played into his hands. <i>Hans bleibt immer +Hans</i>, and on this occasion his vulgar hack of good manners only +brought contumely upon the whole Reichstag, and left the Emperor as +the outstanding dignified figure in the controversy. Such behavior is +not calculated to invite confidence, and not likely to induce this +enemy-surrounded nation to put its destinies in such hands, not at any +rate for some time to come. “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a +mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart +from him.”</p> + +<p>Intellectually Germany is a republic, and we Americans perhaps beyond +all other peoples have profited by her literature, her philosophy, her +music, her scientific and economic teaching. We have kneaded these +things into our political as well as into our intellectual life. +“Intellectual emancipation, if it does not give us at the same time +control over ourselves, is poisonous.” And who writes thus? Goethe! +But the intellectual freedom of Germany has done next to nothing to +bring about political or, in the realm of journalism, personal self-control.</p> + +<p>It is a strange state of affairs. Intelligent men and women in Germany +do not realize it. Not once, but many times, I have been told: “You +foreigners are forever commenting upon our bureaucracy, our +officialdom, but it is not as all-powerful as you think. We have +plenty of freedom!” These people are often themselves officials, +nearly always related to, or of the society, of the ruling class. The +rulers and the ruling class have naturally no sense of oppression, no +feeling that they are unduly subject to others, since the others are +themselves. I am quite willing to believe of my own and of other +people’s personal opinions that they are not dogmas merely because +they are baptized in intolerance. I must leave it to the reader to +judge from the facts, whether or no the Germans have a political +autonomy, which permits the exercise and development of political +power. A glance at the political parties themselves will make this +perhaps the more clear.</p> + +<p>The official organization of the conservative party, may be said to +date back to the founding of the <i>Neue Preussische Zeitung</i> in 1848, and +the organization of the party in many parts of Germany. Earlier still, +Burke was the hero of the pioneers of this party, whose first +newspaper had for editor, no less a person than Heinrich von Kleist, +and whose first endeavors were to support God and the King, and to +throw off the yoke of foreign domination.</p> + +<p>In 1876 was formed the <i>Deutsch-Konservativ</i> party supporting Bismarck. +“Königthum von Gottes Gnaden” is still their watchword, with +opposition to Social Democracy, support of imperialism, agrarian and +industrial protection, and Christian teaching in the schools, as the +planks of their platform. They also combat Jewish influence +everywhere, particularly in the schools. Allied to this party is the +<i>Bund der Landwirte</i> and the <i>Deutscher Bauernbund</i>. In the election of +1912 they elected forty-five representatives to the Reichstag, a +serious falling off from the sixty-three seats held previous to that +election. The Free Conservative portion of the Conservative party, is +composed of the less autocratic members of the landed nobility, but +there is little difference in their point of view.</p> + +<p>The <i>Centrum</i>, or Catholic party, is in theory not a religious party; in +practice it is, though it does not bar out Protestant members who hold +similar views to their own. Its political activity began in 1870, and +the first call for the formation of the party came from Reichensperger +in the <i>Kölnischer Volkszeitung</i>. The famous leader of the party, and a +politician who even held his own against Bismarck, was the Hanoverian +Justizminister, Doctor Ludwig Windthorst. The stormy time of the party +was from 1873 to 1878, when Bismarck attempted to oppose the growing +power of the Catholic Church, and more particularly of the Jesuits. +The so-called May laws of that year forbade Roman Catholic +intervention in civil affairs; obliged all ministers of religion to +pass the higher-schools examinations and to study theology three years +at a university; made all seminaries subject to state inspection; and +gave fuller protection to those of other creeds. In 1878 Bismarck +needed the support of the Centrum party to carry through the new +tariff, and the May laws, except that regarding civil marriage, were +repealed. The party stands for religious teaching in the primary +schools, Christian marriage, federal character of empire, protection, +and independence of the state. More than any other party it has kept +its representation in the Reichstag at about the same number. In 1903 +they cast 1,875,300 votes and had 100 members. In 1907 they had 103 +members, and in the last election of 1912 they won 93 seats. Even this +Catholic party is now divided. Count Oppersdorff leads the “Only- +Catholic” party, against the more liberal section which has its +head-quarters at Cologne, where the late Cardinal Fisher was the leader. At +the session of the Reichstag in 1913, when the question of the +readmission of the Jesuits was raised, the Centrum party even sided +with the Socialists in the matter of the expropriation law for Posen, +in order to annoy the chancellor for his opposition to themselves. +Such political miscegenation as this does not show a high level of +faith or of policy.</p> + +<p>It may be of interest to the reader to know that in 1903 the +population of Germany was 58,629,000, and the number qualified to vote +12,531,000; in 1907 the population was 61,983,000, and the number +qualified to vote, 13,353,000; in 1912 the population was 65,407,000, +and the qualified voters numbered over 14,000,000, of whom 12,124,503 +voted. In 1903 there were 9,496,000 votes cast; in 1907, 11,304,000. +The German Reichstag has 397 members, or 1 representative to every +156,000 inhabitants; the United States House of Representatives has +433 members, or 1 for every 212,000 inhabitants; England, 670 members, +or 1 for every 62,000; France, 584, or 1 for every 67,000; Italy, 508, +or 1 for every 64,000; Austria, 516, or 1 for every 51,000.</p> + +<p>Despite the fact that the Conservative and the Catholic parties have +much in common, and are the parties of the Right and Centre: these +names are given the political parties in the Reichstag according to +their grouping on the right, centre, and left of the house, looking +from the tribune or speaker’s platform, from which all set speeches +are delivered, they are often at odds among themselves, and Bismarck +and Bülow brought about tactical differences among them for their own +purposes. Their programme may be summed up as “As you were,” which is +not inspiring either as an incentive or as a command.</p> + +<p>The Liberal parties are the National liberale; Fortschrittspartei, or +Progressives; and the Freisinnige Volkspartei, or Liberal Democratic +party.</p> + +<p>The National Liberal party was strongest during the days when +Prussia’s efforts were directed mainly toward a federation and a +strengthening of the bonds which hold the states together; “unter dem +Donner der Kanonen von Königgratz ist der nationalliberale Gedanke +geboren.” Loyalty to emperor and empire, country above party, a fleet +competent to protect the country and its overseas interests, are +watchwords of the party. The party is protectionist, and in matters of +school and church administration in accord with the Free +Conservatives.</p> + +<p>The Liberal Democratic party demands electoral reform, no duties on +foodstuffs, and imperial insurance laws for the workingmen.</p> + +<p>The Fortschrittspartei finds its intellectual beginnings, in the +condensing of the hazy clouds of revolution in 1848, in the persons of +Wilhelm von Humboldt and Freiherr von Stein. Politically, the party +came into being in 1861, and Waldeck, von Hoverbeck, and Virchow are +familiar names to students of German political history; later Eugen +Richter was the leader of the party in the Reichstag. This party is +still for free-trade, in opposition to military and bureaucratic +government, favorable to parliamentary government. Of the grouping and +regrouping of these parties; of their divisions for and against +Bismarck’s policies; of their splits on the questions of free-trade +and protection; of their leanings now to the right, now to the left; +of their differences over details of taxation for purposes of defence; +of their attitudes toward a powerful fleet, and toward the Jesuits, it +would require a volume, and a large one, to describe. Though it is +dangerous to characterize them, they may be said without inaccuracy to +represent the democratic movement in Germany both in thought and +political action, and to hold a wavering place between the +Conservatives and the Social Democrats.</p> + +<p>The Social Democratic party, the party of the wage-earners only +assumed recognizable outlines after the appeal of Ferdinand Lassalle +for a workingman’s congress at Leipsic in 1863. In 1877 they mustered +493,000 voters. Bismarck and the monarchy looked askance at their +growing power. It was attempted to pass a law, punishing with fine and +imprisonment: “wer in einer den öffentlichen Frieden gefährdenden +Weise verschiedene Klassen der Bevölkerung gegeneinander öffentlich +aufreizt oder wer in gleicher Weise die Institute der Ehe, der Familie +und des Eigentums öffentlich durch Rede oder Schrift angreift.” This +was a direct attack upon the Socialists, but the Reichstag refused to +pass the law. In May, 1878, and shortly after in June, two attempts +were made upon the life of the Kaiser. Bismarck then easily and +quickly forced through the new law against the Socialists .</p> + +<p>Under this law newspapers were suppressed, organizations dissolved, +meetings forbidden, and certain leaders banished. For twelve years the +party was kept under the watchful restraint of the police, and their +propaganda made difficult and in many places impossible. After the +repeal of this law, and for the last twenty years, the party has +increased with surprising rapidity. In 1893 the Social Democrats cast +1,787,000 votes; in 1898, 2,107,000; in 1903, more than 3,000,000; and +in the last election, 1912, 4,238,919; and they have just returned 110 +delegates to the Reichstag out of a total of 397 members.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that in America there is one Socialist member of the +House of Representatives; while in Germany, which combines autocratic +methods of government, with something more nearly approaching state +ownership and control, than any other country in the world, the most +numerous party in the present Reichstag is that of the Social +Democrats.</p> + +<p>Freedom is the only medicine for discontent. There is no rope for the +hanging of a demagogue like free speech; no such disastrous gift for +the socialist as freedom of action. Imagine what would have happened +in America if we had attempted to suppress Bryan! The result of giving +him free play and a fair hearing, the result of allowing the people to +judge for themselves, has been a prolonged spectacle of political +hari-kiri which has had a wholesome though negative educational +influence. The most accomplished oratorical Pierrot of our day, who +changes his political philosophy as easily as he changes his costume, +has seen one hundred and sixty cities and towns in America turn to +government by commission, and has kept the heraldic donkey always just +out of reach of the political carrots, until the Republican party +itself fairly pushed the donkey into the carrot-field, but even then +with another leader. No autocrat could have done so much.</p> + +<p>As early as 1887 Auer, Bebel, and Liebknecht outlined the programme of +the party, and this programme, again revised at Erfurt in 1891, stands +as the expression of their demands. They claim that: “Die +Arbeiterklasse kann ihre ökonomischen Kämpfe nicht führen und ihre +ökonomische Organisation nicht entwickeln ohne politisehe Rechte.” +Roughly they demand: the right to form unions and to hold public +meetings; separation of church and state; education free and secular, +and the feeding of school-children; state expenditure to be met +exclusively by taxes on incomes, property, and inheritance; people to +decide on peace and war; direct system of voting, one adult one vote; +citizen army for defence; referendum; international court of +arbitration. Their leader in the Reichstag to-day is Bebel, and from +what I have heard of the debates in that assembly I should judge that +they have not only a majority over any other party in numbers, but +also in speaking ability. The members of the Socialist party always +leave the house in a body, at the end of each session, just before the +cheers are called for, for the Emperor. They have become more and more +daring of late in their outspoken criticism of both the Emperor and +his ministers. In consequence, they are replied to with ever-increasing +dislike and bitterness by their opponents. At a recent +banquet of old university students in Berlin, Freiherr von Zedlitz, +presiding, quoted Barth and Richter: “The victory of Social Democracy +means the destruction of German civilization, and a Social Democratic +state would be nothing more than a gigantic house of correction.”</p> + +<p>In addition to the four important political divisions in the +Reichstag, the Conservative, Liberal, Clerical, and Socialist, there +are many subdivisions of these. Since 1871 there have been some forty +different parties represented, eleven conservative, fourteen liberal, +two clerical, nine national-particularist, and five socialist. To-day, +besides four small groups and certain representatives acknowledging no +party, there are some eleven different factions.</p> + +<table> +<tr> +<td></td><td>1871</td><td>1881</td><td>1893</td><td>1907</td><td>1912</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Right, or Conservative</td><td>895,000</td><td>1,210,000</td><td>1,806,000</td><td>2,141,000</td><td>1,149,916</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Liberal</td><td>1,884,000</td><td>1,948,000</td><td>2,102,000</td><td>3,078,000</td><td>3,227,846</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Clerical</td><td>973,000</td><td>1,618,000</td><td>1,920,000</td><td>2,779,000</td><td>2,012,990</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Social Democrats</td><td>124,000</td><td>312,000</td><td>1,787,000</td><td>3,259,000</td><td>4,238,919</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>So far as one may so divide them, the voters have aligned themselves +as follows: In the last elections, in 1912, the Conservatives and +their allies elected 75 members; the Clericals, 93; the Poles, 18; and +the Guelphs, 5; and these come roughly under the heading of the party +of the Right. Under the heading Left, the National Liberals and +Progressive party elected 88, and the Social Democrats 110 members to +the Reichstag. The parties stand therefore roughly divided at the +moment of writing as 191 Conservative, and 200 Radical, with 6 members +unaccounted for. The Poles with 18 seats, the Alsatians with 5, the +Guelphs and Lorrainers and Danes with 8 seats, and the no-party with 2 +seats, are also represented, but are here placed with the party of the +Right. To divide the parties into two camps gives the result that, +roughly, four and a half millions voted that they were satisfied, and +seven and a half millions that they were not.</p> + +<p>No doubt any chancellor, including Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, would +be glad to divide the Reichstag as definitely and easily as I have +done. Theoretically these divisions may be useful to the reader, but +practically to the leader they are useless. Bebel, the leader of the +Social Democrats, declares himself ready to shoulder a musket to +defend the country; Heydebrandt, the leader of the Conservatives, and +possibly the most effective speaker in the Reichstag, has spoken +warmly in favor of social reform laws; the Clericals are for peace, +almost at any price; the Agrarians or Junkers for a tariff on +foodstuffs and cattle, and one might continue analyzing the parties +until one would be left bewildered at their refining of the political +issues at stake. Back to God and the Emperor; and forward to a +constitutional monarchy with the chancellor responsible to the +Reichstag, and perhaps later a republic, represent the two extremes. +Between the two everything and anything. It is hard to put together a +team out of these diverse elements that a chancellor can drive with +safety, and with the confidence that he will finally arrive with his +load at his destination. In addition to these parties there are the +frankly disaffected representatives of conquered Poland, of conquered +Holstein, of conquered Alsace-Lorraine, and of conquered Hanover, this +last known as the Guelph party; all of them anti-Prussian.</p> + +<p>It is not to be wondered at that the comments, deductions, and +prophecies of foreigners are wildly astray when dealing with German +politics. In America, religious differences and racial differences +play a small rôle at Washington; but the 220 Protestants, the 141 +Catholics, the 3 Jews, the 5 free-thinkers, and so on, in the last +Reichstag are in a way parties as well. In that same assembly 2 +members were over 80, 78 over 60, 271 between 40 and 60, 42 under 40, +and 3 under 30 years of age. One hundred and six members were landed +proprietors; 220 were of the liberal professions, including 37 +authors, 35 judges or magistrates, 21 clericals, 7 doctors, and 1 +artist; 13 merchants; 21 manufacturers; and 20 shopkeepers and +laborers. Seventy-two members were of the nobility, a decided falling +off from 1878, when they numbered 162. Two hundred and fifty members +were educated at a university, and practically all may be said to have +had an education equal if not superior to that given in our smaller +colleges.</p> + +<p>In the American Congress, in the House of Representatives, we have 212 +lawyers, though there are only 135,000 lawyers in our population of +90,000,000. We have in that same assembly 50 business men, +representing the 15,000,000 of our people engaged in trade and +industry. Perhaps the German Reichstag is as fairly representative as +our own House of Representatives, though both assemblies show the +babyhood of civilization which still votes for flashing eyes, thumping +fists, hollering patriotism, and smooth phrases. The surprising +feature of elective assemblies is that here and there Messrs. Self-Control, +Ability, Dignity, and Independence find seats at all. The +members are paid, since 1906, a salary of 3,000 marks, with a +deduction of 20 marks for each day’s absence. They have free passes +over German railways during the session. The Reichstag is elected +every five years.</p> + +<p>The appearance of the Reichstag to the stranger is notable for the +presence of military, naval, and clerical uniforms. It is, as one +looks down upon them, an assembly where at least one-fourth are bald +or thin-haired, and together they give the impression of being big in +the waist, careless in costume, slovenly in carriage, and lacking +proper feeding, grooming, and exercise. It is clearly an assemblage, +not of men of action, but of men of theories. Not only their +appearance betrays this, but their debates as well, and what one knows +of their individual training and preferences goes to substantiate this +judgment of them. There are no soldiers, sailors, explorers, governors +of alien people; no men, in short, who have solved practical problems +dealing with men, but only theorists. Such men as Götzen, Solf, and +others, who have had actual experience of dealing with men, are rare +exceptions. Probably the best men in Germany wish, and wish heartily, +that there were more such men; indeed, I betray no secret when I +declare that the most intelligent and patriotic criticism in Germany +coincides with my own.</p> + +<p>The electoral divisions of Germany, as we have noted elsewhere, have +not been changed for forty years, with a consequent disproportionate +representation from the rural, as over against the enormously +increased population, of the urban and industrial districts. The +Conservatives, for example, in 1907 gained 1 seat for every 18,232 +votes; the Clericals or Centrum, 1 seat for every 20,626 votes; the +National Liberals, 1 for every 30,635 votes; and the Social Democrats, +1 for every 75,781 votes. It may be seen from this, how overwhelming +must be the majority of votes cast by the Social Democrats, in order +to gain a majority representation in the Reichstag itself. In 1912 +they cast more than one-third of the votes, and are represented by 110 +members out of the total of 397.</p> + +<p>For the student of German politics it is important to remember, that +the Social Democrats are not all representatives of socialism or of +democracy. Their demands at this present time are far from the radical +theory that all sources of production should be in the hands of the +people. Only a small number of very red radicals demand that. Their +successes have been, and they are real successes, along the lines of +greater protection and more political liberty for the workingman. The +number of their votes is swelled by thousands of voters who express +their general discontent in that way. The state in Germany owns +railroads, telegraph and telephone lines; operates mines and certain +industries, and both controls and directly helps certain large +manufactories which are either of benefit to the state, or which, if +they were entirely independent, might prove a danger to the state. The +state enforces insurance against sickness, accident, and old age, and +the three million office-holders are dependent upon the state for +their livelihood and their pensions.</p> + +<p>It is a striking thing in Germany to see human nature cropping out, +even under these ideal conditions; for it is difficult to see how the +state could be more grandmotherly in her officious care of her own. +But this is not enough. Physical safety is not enough, the demand is +for political freedom, and for a government answerable to the people +and the people’s representatives. Rich men, powerful men, +representative men by the thousands, men whom one meets of all sorts +and conditions, and who are neither radical nor socialistic, vote the +Social Democrat ticket. The Social Democrats are by no means all +democrats nor all socialists. As a body of voters they are united only +in the expression of their discontent with a government of officials, +practically chosen and kept in power over their heads, and with whose +tenure of office they have nothing to do.</p> + +<p>The fact that the members of the Reichstag are not in the saddle, but +are used unwillingly and often contemptuously as a necessary and often +stubborn and unruly pack-animal by the Kaiser-appointed ministers; the +fact that they are pricked forward, or induced to move by a tempting +feed held just beyond the nose, has something to do, no doubt, with +the lack of unanimity which exists. The diverse elements debate with +one another, and waste their energy in rebukes and recriminations +which lead nowhere and result in nothing. I have listened to many +debates in the Reichstag where the one aim of the speeches seemed to +be merely to unburden the soul of the speaker. He had no plan, no +proposal, no solution, merely a confession to make. After forty-odd +years the Germans, in many ways the most cultivated nation in the +world, are still without real representative government.</p> + +<p>Why should the press or society take this assembly very seriously, +when, as the most important measure of which they are capable, they +can vote to have themselves dismissed by declining to pass supply +bills; and when, as has happened four times in their history, they +return chastened, tamed, and amenable to the wishes of their master?</p> + +<p>No wonder the political writing in the press seems to us vaporish and +without definite aims. It is perhaps due to this weakness that the +writing in the German journals upon other subjects is very good +indeed. The best energies of the writers are devoted to what may be +called educational and literary expositions. In the field of foreign +politics the German press is less well-informed, less instructive, and +consequently irritating. The poverty of material resources makes such +writing as that of Sir Valentine Chirrol, and in former days that of +Mr. G. W. Smalley, beyond the reach of the German journalist, and +their press is painfully narrow, frequently unfair, and often +purposely insulting to foreign countries. They are not only anti- +English, but anti-French, anti-American, and at times bitter. If the +American people read the German newspapers there would be little love +lost between us.</p> + +<h3>V BERLIN</h3> + +<p> +He is a fortunate traveller who enters Berlin from the west, and +toward the end of his journey rolls along over the twelve or fifteen +miles of new streets, glides under the Brandenburger Tor, and finds +himself in Unter den Linden. The Kaiserdamm, Bismarck Strasse, +Berliner Strasse, Charlottenburgerchaussee, Unter den Linden, give the +most splendid street entrance into a city in the world. The pavement +is without a hole, without a crack, and as clear of rubbish of any +kind as a well-kept kitchen floor. The cleanliness is so noticeable +that one looks searchingly for even a scrap of paper, for some trace +of negligence, to modify this superiority over the streets of our +American cities. But there is no consolation; the superiority is so +incontestable that no comparison is possible. For the whole twelve or +fifteen miles the streets are lined with trees, or shrubs, or flowers, +with well-kept grass, and with separate roads on each side for +horsemen or foot-passengers. In the spring and summer the streets are +a veritable garden.</p> + +<p>Broadway is 80 feet wide; Fifth Avenue is 100 feet wide; the Champs +Elysées is 233 feet wide; and Unter den Linden is 196 feet wide, and +has 70 feet of roadway.</p> + +<p>For every square yard of wood pavement in Berlin there are 24 square +yards of asphalt and 37 square yards of stone. The total length of +streets cleaned in Berlin, which has an area of 25 square miles, +according to a report of some few years ago, was 316 miles; there are +700 streets and some 70 open places, and the area cleaned daily was +8,160,000 square yards. The cost of the care of the Berlin streets has +risen with the growth of the city from 1,670,847 marks, [1] in 1880, +to 6,068,557 marks, in 1910. The total cost of the street-cleaning in +New York, in 1907, was $9,758,922, and in Manhattan, The Bronx, and +Brooklyn 5,129 men were employed; while the working force in Berlin, +in 1911, was 2,150. It should be said also that in New York an +enormous amount of scavenging is paid for privately besides. In New +York the street-sweepers are paid $2.19 a day; in Berlin the foremen +receive 4.75 marks the first three years, and thereafter 5 marks; the +men 3.75 marks the first three years, then 4 marks, and after nine +years’ service 4.50 marks. The boy +assistants receive 2 marks, after two years 2.25 marks, and after four +years service 3 marks. The whole force is paid every fourteen days. +The street-cleaning department is divided into thirty-three districts, +these districts into four groups, each with an inspector, and all +under a head-inspector. Attached to each district are depots with +yards for storage of vehicles, apparatus, brooms, shovels, uniforms, +with machine shops, where on more than one occasion I have seen +enthusiastic workmen trying experiments with new machinery to +facilitate their work.</p> + +<p class="footnote">[1] The mark is equal to a little less than twenty-five cents.</p> + +<p>Over this whole force presides, a politician? Far from it; a +technically educated man of wide experience, and, of the official of +my visit I may add, of great courtesy and singular enthusiasm both for +his task and for the men under him. What his politics are concerns +nobody, what the politics of the party in power are concerns him not +at all. That an individual, or a group of individuals, powerful +financially or politically, should influence him in his choice or in +his placing of the men under him is unthinkable. That a political boss +in this or in that district, should dictate who should and who should +not, be employed in the street-cleaning department, even down to the +meanest remover of dung with a dust-pan, as was done for years in New +York and every other city in America, would be looked upon here as a +farce of Topsy-Turvydom, with <i>Alice in Wonderland</i> in the title-rôle.</p> + +<p>The streets are cleaned for the benefit of the people, and not for the +benefit of the pockets of a political aristocracy. The public service +is a guardian, not a predatory organization. In our country when a man +can do nothing else he becomes a public servant; in Germany he can +only become a public servant after severe examinations and ample +proofs of fitness. The superiority of one service over the other is +moral, not merely mechanical.</p> + +<p>The street-cleaning department is recruited from soldiers who have +served their time, not over thirty-five years of age, and who must +pass a doctor’s examination, and be passed also by the police. The +rules as to their conduct, their uniforms, their rights, and their +duties, down to such minute carefulness as that they may not smoke on +duty “except when engaged in peculiarly dirty and offensive labor,” +are here, as in all official matters in Germany, outlined in +labyrinthine detail. Sickness, death, accident, are all provided for +with a pension, and there are also certain gifts of money for long +service. The police and the street-cleaning department co-operate to +enforce the law, where private companies or the city-owned street-railways +are negligent in making repairs, or in replacing pavement +that has been disturbed or destroyed. There is no escape. If the work +is not done promptly and satisfactorily, it is done by the city, +charged against the delinquent, and collected!</p> + +<p>One need go into no further details as to why and wherefore Berlin, +Hamburg, even Cologne in these days, Leipsic, Düsseldorf, Dresden, +Munich, keep their streets in such fashion, that they are as corridors +to the outside of Irish hovels, as compared to the city streets of +America; for the definite and all-including answer and explanation are +contained in the two words: no politics.</p> + +<p>Berlin is governed by a town council, under a chief burgomaster and a +burgomaster, and the civic magistracy, and the police, these last, +however, under state control. The chief burgomaster and the +burgomaster are chosen from trained and experienced candidates, and +are always men of wide experience and severe technical training, who +have won a reputation in other towns as successful municipal +administrators.</p> + +<p>In May, 1912, Wermuth, the son of the blind King of Hanover’s +right-hand man, and he himself the recently resigned imperial secretary of +the treasury, was elected Oberburgomaster of Berlin. Such is the +standing of the men named to govern the German cities. It is as though +Elihu Root should be elected mayor of New York, with Colonel John +Biddle as police commissioner, and Colonel Goethals as commissioner of +street-cleaning. May the day come when we can avail ourselves of the +services of such men to govern our cities!</p> + +<p>The magistracy numbers 34, of whom 18 receive salaries. The town +council consists of 144 members, half of whom must be householders. +They are elected for six years, and one-third of them retire every two +years, but are eligible for re-election. They are elected by the +three-class system of voting, which is described in another chapter. +This three-class system of voting results in certain inequalities. In +Prussia, for example, fifteen per cent. of the voters have two-thirds +of the electoral power, and relatively the same may be said of Berlin.</p> + +<p>Unlike the municipal elections in American cities, the voters have +only a simple ballot to put in the ballot-box. National and state +politics play no part, and the voter is not confused by issues that +have nothing to do with his city government. The government of their +cities is arranged for on the basis that officials will be honest, and +work for the city and not for themselves. Our city organizations often +give the air of living under laws framed to prevent thievery, bribery, +blackmailing, and surreptitious murder. We make our municipal laws as +though we were in the stone age.</p> + +<p>These German cities are also, unlike American cities, autonomous. They +have no state-made charters to interpret and to obey; they are not +restricted as to debt or expenditure; and they are not in the grip of +corporations that have bought or leased water, gas, electricity, or +street-railway franchises, and these, represented by the wealthiest +and most intelligent citizens, become, through the financial +undertakings and interests of these very same citizens, often the +worst enemies of their own city. The German cities are spared also the +confusion, which is injected into our politics by a fortunately small +class of reformers, with the prudish peculiarities of morbid vestals; +men who cannot work with other men, and who bring the virile virtues, +the sound charities, and wholesome morality into contempt.</p> + +<p>We all know him, the smug snob of virtue. You may find him a professor +at the university; you may find him leading prayer-meetings and +preaching pure politics; you may find him the bloodless +philanthropist; you may find him a rank atheist, with his patents for +the bringing in of his own kingdom of heaven. These are the men above +all others who make the Tammanyizing of our politics possible. Honest +men cannot abide the hot-house atmosphere of their self-conscious +virtue. Nothing is more discouraging to robust virtue than the +criticisms of teachers of ethics, who live in coddled comfort, upon +private means, and other people’s ideas.</p> + +<p>Germany is just now suffering from the spasms of moral colic, due to +overeating. All luxury is in one form or another overeating. Berlin +itself has grown too rapidly into the vicious ways of a metropolis, +where spenders and wasters congregate. In 1911 the betting-machines at +the Berlin race-tracks took in $7,546,000, of which the state took for +its license, 16 2/3 per cent. There were 128 days of racing, while in +England they have 540 days’ racing in the year!</p> + +<p>In 1911, 1,300,000 strangers visited Berlin, of whom 1,046,162 were +Germans, 97,683 Russians, 39,555 Austrians, 30,550 Americans, and +16,600 English. Berlin killed 2,000,000 beasts for food, including +10,500 horses; she takes care of 3,000 nightly in her night-shelters, +puts away $17,500,000 in savings-banks, and has deposits therein of +$90,500,000. On the other hand, she has built a palace of vice costing +$1,625,000, in which on many nights between 11 P. M. and 2 A. M. they +sell $8,000 worth of champagne. No one knows his Berlin, who has not +partaken of a “Kalte Ente,” or a “Landwehrtopp,” a “Schlummerpunsch,” +or “Eine Weisse mit einer Strippe.” There is still a boyish notion +about dissipation, and they have their own great classic to quote +from, who in “Faust” pours forth this rather raw advice for gayety:</p> + +<blockquote>“Greift nur hinein ins volle Menschenleben!<br /> +Ein jeder lebt’s, nicht vielen ist’s bekannt,<br /> +Und wo Ihr’s packt, da ist es interessant!”</blockquote> + +<p>Berlin is still in the throes of that sophomorical philosophy of life +which believes that it is, from the point of view of sophistication, +of age, when it is free to be befuddled with wine and befooled by +women. But the German mind has no sympathy with hypocrisy. They may be +brutal in their rather material views of morals, but they are frank. +There may be mental prigs among them, but there are no moral prigs. In +both England and America we suffer from a certain morbid ethical +daintiness. There is a ripeness of moral fastidiousness that is often +difficult to distinguish from rottenness. It is part of the feminism +of America, born of our prosperity, for not one of these fastidious +moralists is not a rich man, and Germany escapes this difficulty.</p> + +<p>The government of a German city is so simple in its machinery that +every voter can easily understand it. No doubt Seth Low and George L. +Rives could explain to an intelligent man the charter under which New +York City is governed, but they are very, very rare exceptions.</p> + +<p>Our city government is bad, not because democracy is a failure, not +because Americans are inherently dishonest, but because we are a +superficially educated people, untrained to think, and, therefore, +still worshipping the Jeffersonian fetich of divided responsibility +between the three branches of the government. The judicial, the +legislative, and the executive are, with minute care, forced to check +and to impede one another, and we even carry this antiquated +superstition, born of a suspicious and timid republicanism, into the +government of our cities. With the exception of those cities in +America which are governed by commissions, our cities are slaves as +compared with the German cities. They are slaves of the predatory +politicians, and they, on the other hand, are the bribed taskmasters +of the rich corporations. The German asks in bewilderment why our men +of wealth, of leisure, and of intelligence are not devoting themselves +to the service of the state and the city. Alas, the answer is the +pitiable one that the electoral machinery is so complicated that the +voters can be and are, continually humbugged; and worse, many of the +wealthy and intelligent, through their stake in valuable city +franchises, are incompetent to deal fairly with the municipal affairs +of their own city. Both in England and in America, the man in the +street is quite sound in his judgment, when he declines to trust those +who dabble in securities with which their own department has dealings. +The British Caesar’s wife official, caught with a handkerchief on her +person, woven on the looms of a company whose directors are dealing +with the British government, can hardly claim exemption from +suspicion, because she bought the handkerchief in America. We all know +that when London sniffles the value of handkerchiefs goes up in New +York. Caesar’s wife finds it difficult to persuade honorable men that +she merely had a financial cold, but not the smallest interest in a +corner in handkerchiefs.</p> + +<p>In the great majority of German cities public-utility services, gas, +water, electricity, street-railways, slaughter-houses, and even +canals, docks, and pawn-shops are owned and controlled by the cities +themselves. There is no loop-hole for private plunder, and there is, +on the contrary, every incentive to all citizens, and to the rich in +particular, to enforce the strictest economy and the most expert +efficiency.</p> + +<p>What theatres, opera-houses, orchestras, museums, what well-paved and +clean streets, what parks Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and San +Francisco might have, had these cities only a part of the money, of +which in the last twenty-five years they have been robbed! It is true +that the older cities of Germany have traditions behind them that we +lack. Art treasures, old buildings, and an intelligent population +demanding the best in music and the drama we cannot hope to supply, +but good house-keeping is another matter. Berlin, for example, is a +new city as compared with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit, +and its growth has been very rapid.</p> + +<p>It cannot be said for us alone that we have grown so fast that we have +had no time to keep pace with the needs of our population. Berlin, all +Germany indeed, has been growing at a prodigious rate. The population +of Berlin in 1800 was 100,000; in 1832 only 250,000; hardly half a +million in 1870; while the population now is over 2,000,000, and over +3,000,000 if one includes the suburbs, which are for all practical +purposes part and parcel of Berlin. Charlottenburg, for example, with +a population of 19,517 in 1871, now has a population of 305,976, and +the vicinage of Berlin has grown in every direction in like +proportions.</p> + +<p>There were no towns in Germany till the eighth century, except those +of the Romans on the Rhine and the Danube. In 1850 there were only 5 +towns in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and in 1870 only +8; in 1890, 26; in 1900, 33; in 1905, 41; in 1910, 47; and nearly the +whole increase of population is now massed in the middle-sized and +large cities. The same may be said of the drift of population in +America. “A thrifty but rather unprogressive provincial town of 60,000 +inhabitants,” writes Mr. J. H. Harper, of New York, in 1810.</p> + +<p>Between 1860 and 1900 the proportion of urban to rural population in +the United States more than doubled. In the last ten years the +percentage of people living in cities, or other incorporated places of +more than 2,500 inhabitants, increased from 40.5 to 46.3 per cent. of +the total; while twenty years ago only 36.1 per cent. of the +population lived in such incorporated places.</p> + +<p>As late as the thirteenth century the Christian chivalry of the time +was spending itself in the task of converting the heathen of what is +now Prussia; and it was well on into the nineteenth century before +serfdom was entirely abolished in this region. It is the newness and +rawness of the population, in the streets of the great German and +Prussian capital which surprise and puzzle the American, almost more +than the cleanliness and orderliness of the streets themselves. It is +as though a powerful monarch had built a fine palace and then, for +lack of company, had invited the people from the fields and farm-yards +to be his companions therein.</p> + +<blockquote>“Jamais un lourdaud, quoi qu’il fasse<br /> +Ne saurait passer pour galaud.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">One should read Hazlitt’s “Essay on the Cockney” to find phrases for +these Berliners. It is a gazing, gaping crowd that straggles along +over the broad sidewalks. Half a dozen to a dozen will stop and stare +at people entering or leaving vehicles, at a shop, or hotel door. I +have seen a knot of men stop and stare at the ladies entering a motor-car, +and on one occasion one of them wiped off the glass with his hand +that he might see the better. It is not impertinence, it is merely +bucolic naïveté. The city in the evening is like a country fair, with +its awkward gallantries, its brute curiosity, its unabashed +expressions of affection by hands and lips, its ogling, coughing, and +other peasant forms of flirtation. It should be remembered that this +people as a race show somewhat less of reticence in matters amatory +than we are accustomed to. In the foyer of the theatre you may see a +young officer walking round and round, his arm under that of his +fiancée or bride, and her hand fondly clasped in his. It is a +commentary, not a criticism, on international manners that the German +royal princess, a particularly sweet and simple maiden, just engaged +to marry the heir of the house of Cumberland, is photographed walking +in the streets of Berlin, her hand clasped in that of her betrothed, +and both he, and her brother who accompanies them, smoking! Gentlemen +do not smoke when walking or driving with ladies, with us, though I am +not claiming that it is a moral disaster to do so. It is a difference +in the gradations of respect worth noting, but nothing more. I have +even seen kissing, as a couple walked up the stairs from one part of +the theatre to another. In the spring and summer the paths of the +<i>Tiergarten</i> of a morning are strewn with hair-pins, a curious, but none +the less accurate, indication of the rather fumbling affection of the +night before.</p> + +<p>To live in a fashionable hotel, in a land whose people you wish to +study, is as valueless an experience as to go to a zoölogical garden +to learn to track a mountain sheep or to ride down a wild boar. You +must go about among the people themselves, to their restaurants, to +their houses, if they are good enough to ask you, and to the resorts +of all kinds that they frequent.</p> + +<p>The manners are better than in my student days, but there is still a +deal of improvised eating and drinking. There is much tucking of +napkins under chins that the person may be shielded from misdirected +food-offerings. There is not a little use of the knife where the fork +or spoon is called for; but this last I always look upon as a remnant +of courage, of the virility remaining in the race from a not distant +time when the knife served to clear the forest, to build the hut, to +kill the deer, and to defend the family from the wolf; and the +traditions of such a weapon still give it predominance over the more +epicene fork, as a link with a stirring past. Mere daintiness in +feeding is characteristic of the lapdog and other over-protected +animals. Unthinking courage in the matter of victuals is rather a +relief from the strained and anxious hygienic watchfulness of the +overcivilized and the overrich. The body should be, and is, regarded +by wholesome-minded people, not as an idol, but as an instrument. The +German no doubt sees something ignominious in counting as one chews a +chop, in the careful measuring of one’s liquids, in the restricting of +oneself to the diet of the squirrel and the cow. He would perhaps +prefer to lose a year or two of life rather than to nut and spinach +himself to longevity. The wholesome body ought of course to be +unerring and automatic in its choice of the quantity and quality of +its fuel.</p> + +<p>A well-dressed man in Berlin is almost as conspicuous as a dancing +bear. This comparison may lead the stranger to infer, in spite of what +has been said of the orderliness of Berlin, that dancing bears are +permitted in the streets. It is only fair to Berlin’s admirable police +president, von Jagow, to say that they are not.</p> + +<p>If one leaves the officers, who are a fine, upstanding, well-groomed +lot, out of the account, the inhabitants of Berlin are almost +grotesque in their dowdiness. This is the more remarkable for the +reason that the citizens of Berlin, wherever you see them, not only in +the West-end, but in the tenement districts, in the public markets, +going to or coming from the suburban trains, in the trains and +underground railway, in the cheaper restaurants and pleasure resorts, +taking their Sunday outing, or in the fourth-class carriages of the +railway trains, or their children in the schools, show a high level of +comfort in their clothing. There is poverty and wretchedness in +Berlin, of which later, but in no great city even in America, does the +mass of the people give such an air of being comfortably clothed and +fed.</p> + +<p>We have been deluged of late years with figures in regard to the cost +of living in this country and in that, and never are statistics such +“damned lies” as in this connection. There is better and cheaper food +in Berlin, and in the other cities of Germany, than anywhere else in +our white man’s world. Having for the moment no free-trade, or +protectionist, or tariff-reform axe to grind, and having tested the +pudding not by my prejudices but my palate, and having eaten a +fifteen-pfennig luncheon in the street, and climbed step by step the +gastronomical stairway in Germany all the way up to a supper at the +court, where eight hundred odd people were served with a care and +celerity, and with hot viands and irreproachable potables, that made +one think of the “Arabian Nights,” I offer my experience and my +opinion with some confidence. You can get enough to stave off hunger +for a few pfennigs, you can get a meal for something under twenty-five +cents, and the whole twenty-five cents will include a glass of the +best beer in the world outside of Munich. If you care to spend fifty +cents there are countless restaurants where you can have a square meal +and a glass of beer for that price; and for a dollar I will give you +as good a luncheon with wine as any man with undamaged taste and +unspoiled digestion ought to have.</p> + +<p>There is one restaurant in Berlin which feeds as many as five thousand +people on a Sunday, where you can dine or sup, and listen to good +music, and enjoy your beer and tobacco for an hour afterward, and all +for something under fifty cents if you are careful in your ordering. +During my walks in the country around Berlin, I have often had an +omelette followed by meat and vegetables, and cheese, and compote, and +Rhine wine, with all the bread I wanted, and paid a bill for two +persons of a little over a dollar. The <i>Brödchen</i>, or rolls, seem to be +everywhere of uniform size and quality, and the butter always good.</p> + +<p>Paris is fast losing its place as the home of good all-round eating as +compared with Berlin. Of course, New York for geographical reasons, +and also because the modern Maecenas lives there, is nowadays the +place where Lucullus would invite his emperor to dine if he came back +to earth; but I am not discussing the nectar and ambrosia classes, but +the beer, bread, and pork classes, and certainly Berlin has no rival +as a provider for them.</p> + +<p>After all our study of statistics, of figures, of contrasts, I am not +sure that we arrive at any very valuable conclusions. American +working-classes work ever shorter hours, gain higher wages, but they +are indubitably less happy, less rich in experience, less serene than +the Germans. This measuring things by dollars, by hours, by pounds and +yard-sticks, measures everything accurately enough except the one +thing we wish to measure, which is a man’s soul. We are producing the +material things of life faster, more cheaply, more shoddily, but it is +open to question whether we are producing happier men and women, and +that is what we are striving to do as the end of it all. Nothing is of +any value in the world that cannot be translated into the terms of +man-making, or its value measured by what it does to produce a man, a +woman, and children living happily together. Wealth does not do this; +indeed, wealth beyond a certain limit is almost certain to destroy the +foundation of all peace, a contented family.</p> + +<p>A shady beer-garden, capital music, and happy fathers and mothers and +children, what arithmetic, or algebra, or census tells you anything of +that? The infallible recipe for making a child unhappy, is to give it +everything it cries for of material things, and never to thwart its +will. We throw wages and shorter hours of work at people, but that is +only turning them out of prison into a desert. No statistics can deal +competently with the comparative well-being of nations, and nothing is +more ludicrous than the results arrived at where Germany is discussed +by the British or American politician. Whatever figures say, and +whatever else they may lack, they are better clothed, better fed and +cared for, and have far more opportunities for rational enjoyment, and +a thousand-fold more for aesthetic enjoyment, than either the English +or the Americans. That they lack freedom, in our sense, is true, but +freedom is for the few. The worldwide complaint of the hardship of +constant work is rather silly, for most of us would die of monotony if +we were not forced to work to keep alive, and to make a living.</p> + +<p>The city, with its broad, clean streets, its beautiful race-course, +shaded walks, its forests and lakes, toward Potsdam, or at Tegel, or +Werder, when the blossoms are out, with its well-kept gardens, its +profusion of flowers and shrubs and trees, is physically the most +wholesome great city in the world; but Hans bleibt immer Hans! Goethe, +after a visit to Berlin, wrote: “There are no more ungodly communities +than in Berlin.” [2]</p> + +<p class="footnote">[2] “Est giebt keine gottlosere Völker als in Berlin.”</p> + +<p>No one knows his Berlin better than that prince of German literary +Bohemians, Paul Lindau, and he makes a character in one of his novels +say of it: “untidy and orderly, so boisterous and so regulated, so +boorish and so kindly, so indescribable-so <i>Berlinish</i>-just that!” [3]</p> + +<p class="footnote">[3] “Staubig und ordentlich, so Taut und geregelt, so grob und +gemütlich, so unbeschreiblich, so berlinerisch, gerade so!”</p> + +<p>In another place the same author writes: “Berlin as the Capital of the +German Empire! There are many respects in which it nevertheless hasn’t +yet succeeded in taking on the character of a cosmopolitan city.” [4] +Not even literature finds material for a city novel. There is no +Balzac, no Thackeray. Germany is still dominated by the village and +the town. Goethe, Auerbach, Spielhagen, Heyse, Gottfried Keller, +Freytag, my unread favorite “Fritz” Reuter, deal not with the life of +cities. There is as yet no drama, no novel, no art, no politics born +of the city. There is no domineering Paris or London or New York as +yet.</p> + +<p class="footnote">[4] “Berlin als Haupstadt des deutchen Reiches: in mancher Beziehung +hatte es sich dem weltstädtischen Charakter doch noch nicht aneignen +können.”</p> + +<p>After some years of acquaintance with Germany as school-boy, as +student at the universities, and lately as a most hospitably received +guest by all sorts and conditions of men, I do not remember meeting a +fop. A German Beau Brummel is as impossible as a French Luther, an +American Goethe, or an English Wagner. We have had attempts at foppery +in America, but no real fops. A genuine fop, whether in art, in +literature, or in costumes, must have brains, ours have been merely +effigies, foppery taking the dull commercial form of a great variety +of raiment. It is a strange contradiction in German life that while +they are as a people governed minutely and in detail, forbidden +personal freedom along certain lines to which we should find it hard +to submit, they are freer morally, freer in their literature, their +art, their music, their social life, and in their unself-conscious +expression of them than other people. There is a curious combination +of legal and governmental slavery, and of spiritual and intellectual +freedom; of innumerable restrictions, and great liberty of personal +enjoyment, and that enjoyment of the most naïf kind. They seem to have +done less to destroy life’s palate with the condiments of +civilization, and therefore, still find plain things savorous.</p> + +<p>I am not sure that the ecumenical sophistication, known as +world-etiquette, marks a very high degree of knowledge or usefulness +anywhere. To know which hat goes with which boots, and what collar and +tie with what coat and waistcoat, and what costume is appropriate at +10 A. M., and what at 10 P. M., and to know the names of the head-waiters +of the principal restaurants, are minor matters. These are the +conveniences of the gentleman, but the characteristic burdens of the +ass. Such a mental equipment is not the stuff of which soldiers, +sailors, statesmen, explorers, or governors are made.</p> + +<p>We must not overrate the value of this feminine worldliness in judging +the Germans. This effeminate categorical imperative of etiquette has +not influenced them greatly as yet. But on the other hand, one must +claim for the amenities of life that they have their value, that they +are, after all, the external decorations of an inward discipline. It +is not necessarily a fine disdain of material things, but rather a +keen sense of moral and physical efficiency, which pays due heed to +wherewithal ye shall be clothed, at any rate outside of Palestine. +Those who dream and discuss may wear anything or nothing. It mattered +not what Socrates wore. But men of action must wear the easy armor +that fits them best for their particular task. Men who toil either at +their pleasure or at their work must change their raiment, if only for +the sake of rest and health. Now that government is in the hands of +the vociferators rather than the meditaters, even politicians must +look to their costumes, merely out of regard to cleanliness. Evening +clothes with a knitted tie dribbling down the shirt front; a frock-coat +as a frame for a colored waistcoat, such as at shooting, or +riding, or golf, we permit ourselves to break forth in, as a weak +surrender to the tailor, or to the ingenuity of our womenfolk who are +not “unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled”; the extraordinary +indulgence in personal fancies in the choice of colored ties, as +though the male citizens of Berlin had been to an auction of the +bastards of a rainbow; the little melon-shaped hats with a band of +thick velvet around them; the awkward slouching gait, as of men +physically untrained; the enormous proportion of men over forty, who +follow behind their stomachs and turn their toes out at an angle of +more than forty-five degrees, whose necks lie in folds over their +collars, and whose whole appearance denotes an uncared-for person and +a negligence of domestic hygiene: these things are significant. No man +who walks with his toes pointing southwest by south, and southeast by +south, when he is going south, will ever get into France on his own +feet, carrying a knapsack and a rifle. Cranach’s painting of Duke +Henry the Pious, in the Dresden Gallery, gives an accurate picture of +the way many Germans still stand and walk; while every athlete knows +that runners and walkers put their feet down straight, or with a +tendency to turn them in rather than out. The Indians of northwest +India, and the Indians of our own West are good examples of this.</p> + +<p>It is evident that the orderliness of Berlin is enforced orderliness +and not voluntary orderliness. Both pedestrians and drivers of all +sorts of vehicles, take all that is theirs and as much more as +possible. There is none of the give and take, and innate love of fair +play and instinctive wish to give the other fellow a chance, so +noticeable in London streets, whether on the sidewalks or in the +roadway. There is a general chip-on-the-shoulder attitude in Prussia, +which may be said, I think not unfairly, to be evident in all ranks, +from their recent foreign diplomacy, down to the pedestrians and +drivers.</p> + +<p>Many people whom I have met, not only foreigners but Germans from +other parts of Germany, are loud in their denunciations of the +Berliners. “<i>Frech</i>” and “<i>roh</i>” are words often used about them. There is +a surly malice of speech and manner among the working classes, that +seems to indicate a wish to atone for political impotence, by braggart +impudence to those whom they regard as superior. When we played horse +as children, we champed the wooden bit, shied, and balked and kicked, +and the worse we behaved the more spirited horses we thought +ourselves. There is a certain social and political radicalism verging +upon anarchy, which plays at life in much the same way, with no better +reason, and with little better result. Shying, balking, and kicking, +and champing the political bit, are only spirited to the childish.</p> + +<p>Their awkward and annoying attentions to women alone on the streets; +their staring and gaping; their rudeness in pushing and shoving; the +general underbred look, the slouching gait, the country-store clothes, +hats, and boots; the fearful and wonderful combinations of raiment; +the sweetbread complexions, as of men under-exercised and not +sufficiently aired and scrubbed; their stiff courtesy to one another +when they recognize acquaintances with hat-sweeping bows; their fierce +gobbling in the restaurants; their lack of small services and +attentions to their own women when they go about in public with them; +their selfish disregard of others in public places, their giving and +taking of hats, coats, sticks, and umbrellas at the <i>garde-robes</i> of the +theatres, for example; their habit of straggling about in the middle +of the streets, like the chickens and geese on a country road: all +these things I have noted too, but I must admit the surprising +personal conclusion that I have grown to like the people. A good pair +of shoulders and an engaging smile go far to mitigate these nuisances. +It makes for good sense in this matter of criticism always to bear in +mind that delicious piece of humor of the psalmist: “Let the righteous +rather smite me friendly; and reprove me. But let not their precious +balms break my head.” The “precious balms” of the lofty and righteous +critic are not of much value when they merely break heads.</p> + +<p>I have been all over Berlin, and in all sorts of places, by day and by +night. I have found myself seated beside all sorts of people in +restaurants and public places, and I have yet to chronicle any +rudeness to me or mine. I like their innocent curiosity, their +unsophisticated ways, their bumpkin love-making in public; and many a +time I have found entertainment from odd companions who seated +themselves near me, when I have strayed into the cheaper restaurants, +to hear and to see something of the Berliner in his native wilds. +Their malice and rudeness and apparent impertinences are due to lack +of experience, to the fact that their manners are still untilled, I +believe, rather than to intentional insult. They are not house-broken +to their new capital, that is all, and that will come in time. Their +malicious jealousy peeps out in all sorts of ways. In the lower house +of the Prussian Diet, recently, a member protested vigorously against +the employment of an American singer in the Opera House! Chauvinism +carried to this extreme becomes comic, and is noted here only to +indicate to what depths of farm-yard provinciality some of the +citizens of this great city can descend.</p> + +<p>They are dreamers and sentimentalists too. There are more kissing, +more fondling, more exuberance of affection, more displays of +friendliness in Germany in a week than in England and America in six +months. I confess without shame that I like to see it, and when it +comes my way, as beyond my deserts it has, I like to feel it. How +lasting is this friendliness I have no means of knowing till the years +to come tell me, but that it is a pleasant atmosphere to live in there +can be no doubt.</p> + +<p>The driving is of the very worst. A man behind a horse, or horses, who +knows even the elements of handling the reins and the whip and the +brake, would be a curiosity indeed. I have not seen a dozen coachmen, +private or public, to whom my youngest child could not have given +invaluable suggestions as to the bitting, harnessing, and handling of +his cattle. On the other hand, I one day saw a street sign twisted out +of its place. I was fascinated by this unexampled mark of negligence. +I determined to watch that sign; alas, within forty-eight hours it was +put right again.</p> + +<p>Let it not be understood that there are no fine horses to be seen in +Berlin. You will go far to find a better lot of horse-flesh, or +better-looking men on the horses, than you will see when the Kaiser +rides by to the castle after his morning exercise; and he sits his +horse and manages him with the easy skill of the real horseman, and +looks every inch a king besides. It is told of Daniel Webster, walking +in London, that a navvy turned to his companion and remarked: “That +bloke must be a king!” You would say the same of the Kaiser if you saw +him on horseback.</p> + +<p>At horse shows and in the Tiergarten, and in riding-places in other +cities, I have looked at hundreds of horses, and, if I mistake not, +Germany is both buying and breeding the very best in the way of +mounts, though their civilian riders are often of the scissors +variety. There are comparatively few harness horses, and in Berlin +scarcely a dozen well-turned-out private carriages, outside the +imperial equipages, which are always superbly horsed and beautifully +turned out; so my eyes tell me at least, and I have watched the +streets carefully for months. The minor details of a properly turned-out +carriage (bits, chains, liveries, saddle-cloths, and so on) are +still unknown here. I have had the privilege of driving and riding +some of the horses in the imperial stables; and I have seen all of +them at one time or another being exercised in harness and under the +saddle. I have never driven a better-mannered four, or ridden more +perfectly broken saddle-horses. There are three hundred and twenty-six +horses in his Majesty’s stables, and for a private stable of its size +it has no equal in the world. I may add, too, that there is probably +no better “whip” in the world to-day, whether with two horses, four +horses, or six horses, than the gentleman who trains the harness +horses in the imperial stables. This German coachman would be a +revelation at a horse show in either New York or London. If the +citizens of Berlin were as well-mannered as the horses in the imperial +stables, this would be the most elegant capital in the world. It is to +be regretted that his Majesty’s very accomplished master of the horse +cannot also hold the position of <i>censor morum</i> to the citizens of +Berlin. Individual prowess in the details of cosmopolitan etiquette +has not reached a high level, but in all matters of mere house-keeping +there are no better municipal housewives than these German cities and +towns.</p> + +<p>As a further example, the statues of Berlin are carefully cleaned in +the spring, but what statues! With the exception of the Lessing, the +Goethe, and the Great Elector statues, the statue of Frederick the +Great, and the reclining statues of the late emperor and empress, by +Begas, and one or two others, one sees at once that these citizens are +no more capable of ornamenting their city than of dressing themselves.</p> + +<p>Poor Bismarck! Grotesque figures (men, women, animals) surround the +base of his statue in Berlin, in Leipsic; and in Hamburg, clad in a +corrugated golf costume, with a colossal two-handed sword in front of +him, he is a melancholy figure, gazing out over a tumble-down beer-garden. +At Wannsee, near Berlin, there is, I must admit, a really fine +bust of Bismarck. On a solid square pedestal of granite, covered with +ivy and surrounded by the whispering, or sighing, or creaking and +cracking trees that he loved, and facing the setting sun, and alone in +a secluded corner, just the place he would have chosen, there are the +head and shoulders of the real Bismarck. Here for once he has escaped +the fussy attentions of the artistry that he detested. Lehnbach, who +painted Bismarck so many scores of times, never gave him the color +that his face kept all through life, and with the exception of this +bust, of the scores of Bismarck memorials one sees all commiserate the +lack of artist ability; they do not commemorate Bismarck. If this is +what they do to the greatest man in their history, what is to be +expected elsewhere? What has poor Joachim Friedrich done that he +should pose forever in the Sieges Allee as an intoxicated hitching-post? +What, indeed, have his companions done that they should stand in +two rows there, studies in contortion, with a gilded Russian dancer +with wings at one end of their line, and a woodeny Roland at the +other? But there they are, simpering a paltry patriotism, insipid as +history and ridiculous as art. What has become of Lessing, and +Winckelmann, and Goethe, and their teachings? Is this the price that a +nation must pay for its industrial progress?</p> + +<p>The German, with all his boasting about the “centre of culture,” has +not discovered that the beauty of antiquity is the expression of those +virtues which were useful at the time of Theseus, as Stendhal rightly +tells us. Individual force, which was everything of old, amounts to +almost nothing in our modern civilization. The monk who invented +gunpowder modified sculpture; strength is only necessary now among +subalterns. No one thinks of asking whether Frederick the Great and +Napoleon were good swordsmen. The strength we admire, is the strength +of Napoleon advancing alone upon the First Battalion of the royal +troops near Lake Loffrey in March, 1815; that is strength of soul. The +moral qualities with which we are concerned are no longer the same as +in the days of the Greeks. Before this cockney sculpture was planned, +there should have been a closer study of the history and philosophy of +art in Berlin.</p> + +<p>It is true that we in America are living in a glass house to some +extent in these matters, but where in all Germany is there any modern +sculpture to compare with our Nathan Hale, our Minute Man, and that +most spirited bit of modern plastic art in all the world, the Shaw +Monument in Boston? You cannot stand in front of it without keeping +time, and here lips of bronze sing the song of patriotism till your +heart thumps, and you are ready to throw up your hat as the splendid +young figure and his negro soldiers march by - and they do march by! +It is almost a consolation for what Boston has done to that gallant +soldier and humble servant of God, that modest gentleman, Phillips +Brooks. In a statue to him they have travestied the virtues he +expounded, slain the ideal of the Christ he preached, theatricalized +the least theatrical of men, and placed this piece of mortifying +misunderstanding in bronze under the very eaves of the house that grew +out of his simple eloquence. There is in Leipsic a similar misdemeanor +in a statue of Beethoven. He sits, naked to the waist, in a bronze +chair, with a sort of bath-towel drapery of colored marble about his +legs, and an eagle in front of him. He has a chauffeurish expression +of anxious futility, as though he were about to run over the eagle.</p> + +<p>Men are without great dreams in these days, and art is elaborate and +fussy and self-conscious. The technical part of the work is +predominant. One sees the artist holding up a mirror to himself as he +works. Pygmalion congratulates the statue upon the fact that he carved +it, instead of being lost in the love of creating. It is as though a +lover should sing of himself instead of singing of his lady. The +subtle poison of self-advertisement has crept in, and peers like a +satyr from the picture and from the statue. Even the most prominent +name in German music at this writing is that of a man who is notorious +as an expert salesman of symphonic sensationalism.</p> + +<p>Though the streets are so well kept, the buildings in these miles of +new streets are flimsy-looking, and evidently the work of the +speculative builder. The more pretentious buildings ape a kind of +Nuremberg Renaissance style, and are as effective as a castle made of +cardboard. This does not imply that there are not simple and solid +buildings in Berlin and, in the case of the new library and a score of +other buildings, worthy architecture; but the general impression is +one of haste multiplied by plaster.</p> + +<p>The whole city blossoms with statuary, like a cosmopolitan ’Arriet who +cannot get enough flowers and feathers on her Sunday hat. A certain +comic anthropomorphism is to be seen, even on the balustrades of the +castle, where the good Emperor William is posed as Jupiter, the +Empress Augusta as Juno, Emperor Frederick as Mars, and his wife as +Minerva! On the façades of houses, on the bridges, on the roofs of +apartment houses, on the hotels even, and scattered throughout the +public gardens, are scores of statues, and they are for the most part +what hastily ordered, swiftly completed art, born of the dollar +instead of the pain and travail of love and imagination, must always +be.</p> + +<p>A certain literary snob taken to task by Doctor Parr for pronouncing +the one-time capital of Egypt “Alexandria,” with the accent on the +long i, quoted the authority of Doctor Bentley. “Doctor Bentley and +I,” replied Doctor Parr, “may call it ‘Alexandria,’ but I should +advise you to call it ‘Alexandrïa.’ ” It was all very well for the +Medici, to ornament their cities and their homes with the fruit of the +great artistic springtime of the world, but I should strongly advise +the Berliners to pronounce it “Alexandria” for some years to come. No +matter how fervid the lover, nor how possessed he may be by his +mistress, he cannot turn out every day, even,</p> + +<blockquote>“A halting sonnet of his own poor brain,<br /> +Fashion’d to Beatrice.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">All this pretentious over-ornamentation is cosmeticism, the powder and +paint of the vulgarian striving to conceal by a futile advertisement +her lack of refinement. Paris was teaching the world when there was no +capital in Germany; London has been a commercial centre for a thousand +years, and Oxford was a hundred years old before even the University +of Prague, the first in Germany, was founded by Charles IV in 1348. +You may like or dislike these cities, but, at any rate, they have a +bouquet; Berlin has none.</p> + +<p>When Germany deals with the inanimate and amenable factors of life, +she brings the machinery of modern civilization well-nigh to the point +of perfection. As a municipal and national housewife she has no equal, +none. But art has nothing to do with brooms and dust-pans, and human +nature is woven of surprises and emergencies, and what then? An +interesting example in the streets of Berlin is the difference between +the perfection of the street-cleaning, which deals with the inanimate +and with accurately calculable factors, and the governing of the +street traffic. Horses and men and motor-driven vehicles are not as +dependable as blocks of pavement. When the traffic in the Berlin +streets grows to the proportions of London, Paris, and New York, one +wonders what will happen. Nowhere are there such broad, well-kept +streets in which the traffic is so awkwardly handled.</p> + +<p>The police are all, and must be, indeed, noncommissioned officers of +the army, of nine years service, and not over thirty-five years of +age. They are armed with swords and pistols by night, and in the +rougher parts of the town with the same weapons by day as well. After +ten years service they are entitled to a pension of twenty-sixtieths +of their pay, with an increase of one-sixtieth for each further year +of service. They are not under the city, but under state control, and +the chief of police is a man of distinction, nearly always a nobleman, +and nominated by, and in every case approved by, the Emperor. In +Berlin he is appointed by the King of Prussia. He is a man of such +standing that he may be promoted to cabinet rank. The men are well-turned +out, of heavy build, very courteous to strangers, so far as my +experience can speak for them, and quiet and self-controlled. Under +the police president are one colonel of police, receiving from 6,000 +to 8,500 marks, according to his length of service; 3 majors, +receiving from 5,400 to 6,600 marks; 20 captains, receiving from 4,200 +to 5,400 marks; 156 lieutenants, receiving from 3,000 to 4,500 marks; +450 sergeants, receiving from 1,650 to 2,300 marks; and 5,382 +patrolmen, receiving from 1,400 to 2,100 marks. There are also some +300 mounted police, receiving from 1,400 to 2,600 marks. The colonel, +majors, and captains receive 1,300 marks additional, and the +lieutenants 800 marks additional, for house rent. The mounted police +are well-horsed, but it is no slight to them to say, however, that +their horses are not so well trained and well mannered, nor the men +such skilful horsemen, as those of our mounted squad in New York, who, +man for man and horse for horse, are probably unequalled anywhere else +in the world.</p> + +<p>The demand for these non-commissioned officers of nine years of army +discipline, who cannot be called upon to serve in the army again, has +grown with the growth of the great city, with its need of porters, +watchmen, and the like, and so valuable are their services deemed that +the present police force of Berlin is short of its proper number by +some seven hundred men.</p> + +<p>The examination of those about to become policemen extends over four +weeks, and includes every detail of the multiplicity of duties, which +ranges from the protection of the public from crime, down to tracking +down truants from school, and the regulation of the books of the maid-servant +class. The policeman who aspires to the rank of sergeant +undergoes a still more rigorous examination, extending over twenty +weeks of preparation, during which time he studies - note this list, +ye “young barbarians all at play,” German, rhetoric, writing, +arithmetic, common fractions, geography, history, especially the +history of the House of Hohenzollern from the time of the margraves to +the present time (!), political divisions of the earth, especially of +Prussia and Germany, the essential features of the constitution of the +Prussian Kingdom and German Empire, the organization and working of +the various state authorities in Prussia and Germany, elementary +methods of disinfection, common veterinary remedies, the police law as +applicable to innumerable matters from the treatment of the drunk, +blind, and lame, to evidences of murder, and the press law. The man +who passes such an examination would be more than qualified to take a +degree, at one of our minor colleges, if he knew English and the +classics were not required, and could well afford to sniff +disdainfully at the pelting shower of honorary degrees of Doctor of +Divinity, which descend from the commencement platforms of our more +girlish intellectual factories of orthodoxy.</p> + +<p>The cost of the police in Berlin in 1880 was 2,494,722 marks; in 1890, +3,007,879 marks; in 1900, 6,065,975 marks; and in 1910, 8,708,165 +marks.</p> + +<p>I fancy that after an accident has taken place the literary, legal, +and hygienic details are cared for by the Berlin police as nowhere +else. In their management of the traffic they are distinctly lacking +in decision and watchfulness. On the western side of the Brandenburger +Tor there is seldom an hour, without a tangle of traffic which is +entirely unnecessary if the police knew their business. On the +Tiergarten Strasse, a rather narrow and much used thoroughfare in the +fashionable part of the town, trucks, cabs, and other vehicles are not +kept close to the curbs, often they drive along in pairs, slowing up +all the traffic, and at the east end of the street is a corner which +could easily be remedied by the building of a “refuge,” and an +authoritative policeman to guard the three approaches. Not once, but +scores of times, at the very important corner of Unter den Linden and +Wilhelm Strasse I have seen the policeman talking to friends on the +curb, quite oblivious to a scramble of cabs, wagons, and motors at +cross purposes in the street. Potsdamer Platz presents a difficult +problem at all times of the day, especially when the crowds are coming +from or going toward home, but a few ropes and iron standards, and +four alert Irish policemen, would make it far plainer sailing than now +it is. It is to be remembered, too, that the traffic is a mere dribble +as compared to a torrent, when one remembers Paris, New York, and +London. In 1909 the street accidents in Paris numbered 65,870, and +there was one summons for every 77 motor taxicabs, but Paris is now +without a rival as the dirtiest, worst-paved capital in Europe, and +the home of social anarchy; a place where adventurous spirits will go +soon rather than to Africa, or to the Rocky Mountains, for excitement +in affrays with revolvers, vitriol, and chloroform.</p> + +<p>In London, in 1909, there were 13,388 accidents. In Berlin there was a +total of 4,895 accidents in 1900; 4,797 in 1905; and 4,233 in 1910. +One hundred persons were killed in 1900; 115 in 1905; and 136 in 1910. +In this connection it is to be said, that Berlin has fewer and much +less adventurous inhabitants, very much less complicated traffic, much +broader and better streets, and far fewer problems than the older +cities. If the citizens of Berlin were anything like as capable of +taking care of themselves in the streets, as they should be, there +would be hardly any accidents at all. The new police regulation of the +traffic has been only some four or five years in existence in its more +rigid form, and perhaps neither people nor police are accustomed to +it. Even then, out of the total of 4,233 accidents in 1910, 1,876 of +them were caused by the street-railway cars. This shows of itself how +light the traffic must be, for worse driving and more awkward +pedestrians one would go far to find.</p> + +<p>The cost of Berlin housekeeping increases by leaps and bounds. The +total city expenses were: 45,221,988 marks in 1880; 89,364,270 in +1890; 121,405,356 in 1900; and 355,424,614 in 1910. The debt of Berlin +has risen from 126,161,605 marks in 1880, and 272,912,350 in 1900, to +475,799,231 in 1910, with a very considerable addition voted for 1912. +In the ten years alone between 1897 and 1907 the debt of German cities +including only those with a population of more than 10,000, increased +by $1,050,000,000. Municipal expenditure in Paris has risen in the +last ten years from $59,200,000 to $76,000,000. The budget expenditure +of France has reached $1,040,000,000. In 1898 it was only +$600,000,000.</p> + +<p>It cannot be expected that the best-kept, cleanest, and most orderly +cities in the world, and there need be no hesitation in saying this of +the German cities, should not spend much money, and the states in +which they are situated much money as well. The various states of the +empire spent, according to a report of four years ago, $1,352,500,000; +and the empire itself $738,250,000, or a total of $2,090,750,000. From +the various state or empire controlled enterprises, such as railways, +forests, mines, post and telegraph, imperial printing-office, and so +on, the states and empire received a net income of $216,525,000, and +the balance was, of course, raised by direct and indirect taxation.</p> + +<p>One may put appropriately enough under this heading, the invaluable +and unpaid services of a host of honorary officials, who render expert +service both in the state and city governments. There are over ten +thousand honorary officials in the city of Berlin alone, more than +three thousand of whom serve under the school authorities. They are +chosen from citizens of standing, education, wealth, and ability, and +assist in all the departments with advice and expert knowledge, and +sit upon the various committees. The German citizen has not only his +pocket taxed, but his patriotism also, and a capital philosophy of +government this implies.</p> + +<p>A friend, a large landholder in Saxony, gives, between his services as +a reserve officer in the army and his magisterial and other duties, +something over nine weeks of his time to the state every year, and he +is by no means an exception, he tells me. A certain amount of this is +required of him by the state, with a heavy fine for nonperformance of +these duties. The same is true of the many members of the various +standing committees in the cities. Each citizen is compelled to +contribute a certain proportion of his mental and moral prowess to the +service of his state and city, but he receives a return for it in his +beautifully kept city, in the educational advantages, in the theatres, +concerts, opera, and in the peaceful orderliness, the value of which +only the foreigner can fully appreciate.</p> + +<p>Almost all the court theatres, for example, throughout Germany are +under a director who works in harmony with the reigning prince. The +King of Prussia gives for his theatres in Berlin, Wiesbaden, Hanover, +and Cassel, more than $625,000 a year from his private purse; the Duke +of Anhalt, $75,000 a year to the Dessauer theatre. The players have a +sure position under responsible and intelligent government, and feel +themselves to be not mere puppets, but educational factors with a +certain pride and dignity in their work.</p> + +<p>There are more Shakespeare plays given in Germany in a week than in +all the English-speaking countries together in a year. This is by no +means an exaggeration. The theatre is looked upon as a school. Fathers +and mothers arrange that their older children as well as themselves +shall attend the theatre all through the winter, and subscribe for +seats as we would subscribe to a lending library. During the last year +in Germany, the plays of Schiller were given 1,584 times, of +Shakespeare 1,042 times, the music-dramas of Wagner 1,815 times, the +plays of Goethe 700 times, and of Hauptmann 600 times. There is no +spectacular gorgeousness, as when an Irving, a Booth, or a Beerbohm +Tree sugarcoats Shakespeare to induce us barbarians to go, in the +belief that we are after all not wasting our time, since the +performance tastes a little of the more gorgeous music halls. The +scenery and costumes are sufficient, and the performance always worth +intelligent attention, for the reason that both the director and his +players have given time and scholarship to its interpretation. The +acting is often indifferent as compared to the French stage, but it is +at least always in earnest and intelligent. The theatre prices in +Berlin are high, even as compared with New York prices, but in other +cities and towns of Germany cheaper than in England, France, or +America.</p> + +<p>Pericles passed a law in Athens by which each citizen was granted two +oboli, one to pay for his seat at the theatre, the other to provide +himself with refreshment. In Athens the play began at 6 or 7 A. M., +and during the morning three tragedies and a satirical drama were +played, followed in the afternoon by a comedy. The theatre of +Dionysius seated 30,000 people, who brought their cushions, food, and +drink, and occasionally used them to express their dislike of the +performance or the performers. At one of the larger industrial towns +in Germany, during a Sunday of my visit, there were three +performances; one at 11 A. M., of a patriotic melodrama, “Glaube und +Heimat”; another, at 3.30 P. M., of “Der Freischütz”; and another, at +7.30 P. M., of Sudermann’s play, “Die Ehre.” The prices of seats for +the morning performance ranged from eight cents to forty-five cents; a +little more in the afternoon; and from seventeen cents to $1.15 in the +evening. At the performance I attended the house was crowded and +attentive. I was not enough of an Athenian to attend all three. Even +at the Music Hall in Berlin, where, as in other cities, the thinly +covered salacious is ladled out to the animal man, there was a capital +stage caricature of Oedipus, which atoned for the customary <i>ewig +Legliche</i>, which now rules in these resorts. If for some untoward +reason women ceased to have legs, what would the British and American +theatrical trust managers do!</p> + +<p>The German takes his theatre and his music, as from the beginnings of +these it was intended we all should do. They are not a distraction +merely, but an education, an education of the senses, and through the +senses of the whole man. There are music-lovers and serious playgoers +in America; but for the most part our theatres cater to, and are +filled by, a public seeking a soothing and condimented mental +atmosphere, in which to finish digestion. Theatrical salmagundi is +served everywhere, and seems to be the dish best suited to the +American aesthetic palate as thus far educated. We cannot complain, +since other wares would be quickly provided did we but ask for them.</p> + +<p>America has suffered because she was overtaken by a great material +prosperity before she had a sufficient spiritual and intellectual +development, and up to now the material side of life has had the upper +hand. We buy the best pictures, the rare books and manuscripts, armor +and silver and porcelain, and it must be said that there is a fine +idealism here, because they are bought almost without exception by +uncultured, often almost unlettered, rich men, who know nothing and +care very little for these things, but who are providing rare +educational opportunities for another generation. In 1910 objects of +art to the value of $22,000,000 were imported, in 1911 $36,000,000 +worth, and in 1912 sixty per cent. more than in 1911. In the same way +we hire the best musicians and singers, but our surroundings and the +powerful circumambient ambitions, have not tempted us as yet to live +contentedly and understandingly in any such atmosphere as the Germans +do. It is a striking contrast, perhaps of all the contrasts the most +interesting to the student, this of America growing from industrialism +toward idealism, of Germany growing out of idealism into +industrialism.</p> + +<p>Germany floats in music; in America a few, a very few, float on it. In +Germany everybody sings, almost everybody plays some instrument, and +from the youngest to the oldest everybody understands music; at least +that is the impression you carry away with you from the land of Bach, +Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Brahms, and Beethoven, and Wagner, and I +might fill the page with the others.</p> + +<p>You are at least on the ramparts of Paradise, in the <i>Thomas Kirche</i> in +Leipsic at the weekly Saturday concert of the scholars of the Thomas +Schule. The worldliness is melted out of you, as you sit in the cool, +quiet church with the sunlight slanting in upon you, and the +atmosphere alive with sweet sounds. And this is only one of hundreds +of such experiences all over Germany. At the <i>Kreuz Kirche</i> in Dresden, +at the great Dom church in Berlin at Easter time, for the asking you +may have the oil and wine of music’s Good Samaritan poured upon the +wounds of those sore-pressed travellers, your hopes and ideals, your +dreams and ambitions, that have fallen among thieves, on the long, +long way from Jericho to Jerusalem.</p> + +<p>It is, I must admit, a drab and dreary crowd to look at, these Germans +at the theatre, at the opera, in the concert halls. They do not dress, +or if they are women undress, for their music as do we; their music +dresses for them. They come, most of them, in the clothes that they +have worn all day, each <i>quidlibet induitus</i>. They have many of them a +meal of meat, bread, and beer during the long pause between two of the +acts, always provided for this purpose. Some of them bring little bags +with their own provisions, and only buy a glass of beer. They are +solemnly attentive, an educated and experienced audience there for a +purpose, and not to be trifled with, the most competently critical +audience in the world. I wonder as I look at them whether the fact +that they have no backs to their heads, emphasized nowadays by the +fact that many men wear their hair clipped close to the head, and no +chins (the lack of chins in Germany is almost a national peculiarity) +has any physiological or psychological relation to their prowess in, +and love of, and critical appreciation of, the more nebulous arts: +music, poetry, philosophy, and the serious drama.</p> + +<p>They are as adamant in their observance of the rules in such matters. +More than once I arrived at the opera a few minutes late, once four +minutes late, the doors are closed and guarded, and I listen to the +overture from the outside. At a concert led by the famous von Bülow +half a dozen women come in after the music has begun, rustling, +sibilant, and excited. The music stops, the great conductor turns to +glare at them, and, referring to the geese which are said to have +saved Rome by their hissing, thunders: “Hier ist kein Capitol zu +retten!”</p> + +<p>There are some forty thousand professional musicians in Germany. The +town council of Berlin is now discussing gravely the sum to be +allotted to the support of the Symphony Orchestra, and Charlottenburg +is building an opera house of its own, and Spandau a theatre; and +there has just been formed in Berlin a “Society of the German +Artistes’ Theatre,” with a capital of $200,000, which is a project +along the general lines of the <i>Comédie Française</i>. The discussions and +arguments relating to these municipal expenditures, as I read them in +the newspapers, are all based upon the assumption that the people have +a right to good and cheap music, just as they have a right to good and +cheap beer and bread.</p> + +<p>At Düsseldorf one of the theatres, managed by a woman, and supported +by the best people in the town, is not only a playhouse, but a school +for actors, and a proving-ground for the drama. It is a treat indeed +to attend the performances there. We have tried similar things in +America, but with sad results. Fifty millionaires, no one of whom had +ever read the text of a serious play in his life, build a temple for +the drama, but there are no plays, no actors, no audience, nothing is +accomplished. There is no critical body of real lovers of the drama, +and there are no cheap seats, and there is still that fatuous notion +that exclusiveness, except in the trifling matter of physical +propinquity, can be bought with dollars.</p> + +<p>The only impenetrably exclusive thing in the world is intellect, he is +the only aristocrat left in these democratic days, and we are not +devoting much attention as yet to his breeding. We do not realize that +the only valuable democrat must be an aristocrat. “Culture seeks to do +away with classes and sects; to make the best that has been thought +and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an +atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it +uses them itself, freely; nourished and not bound by them. This is the +social idea; and the men of culture are the true apostles of +equality.”</p> + +<p>In Germany there are more men of culture per thousand of the +population than in any other land, but they rule the country not by +“sweetness and light,” but by force. This seems at first a +contradiction. It is not. Religion, life, and love are all savage +things. Because we have known men who preach but do not believe; men +who breathe and walk who have not lived; men who protest but who have +not loved, we are prone to think of religion, life, and love as soft. +We have conquered and chastened so much of nature: the air, the water, +the bowels of the earth that we fool ourselves with thinking that +culture also is tame, that religion, life, and love are tame too. +Savage things they are! You may know them by that! If you find them +nice, vivacious, amusing, amenable, be sure that they are forgeries.</p> + +<p>This is the profound fallacy underlying the present-day economic peace +propagandism, whose heaviest underwriter, Mr. Carnegie, is, by the +way, an agnostic. While there is faith there will be fighting. Do away +with either and society would crumble. What the Puritans did for us, +the Prussians have done for Germany. They have fought, are fighting, +and will fight for their faith. Though they have many unpleasant +characteristics, this is their most admirable quality. They believe in +an aristocracy of culture with a right to rule. Goethe said of Luther +that he threw back the intellectual progress of mankind by centuries, +by calling in the passions of the multitude to decide on subjects that +ought to have been left to the learned. This is a good example of +imitation culture. This is very much the view that Mr. Balfour holds +in regard to Cromwell. But Luther and Bismarck made Germany. The one +taught Germany to bark, the other taught Germany to bite. The great +deliverers of the world came, not to bring peace, but a sword.</p> + +<p>When you leave the drab crowd in the streets, and enter the houses of +the real rulers of Germany, the contrast between the aristocrat and +the plebeian is nowhere so outstanding. I have seen no finer-looking +specimens of mankind in face and figure and manner than the best of +these men. If you stroll though the halls of the <i>Krieges Academie</i>, +where the pick of the young officers of the German army, are preparing +themselves for the examinations which admit a very small proportion of +them, to appointments on the general staff, you will be delighted with +the faces and figures, and the air of alertness and intelligence +there. And you will find as fine a type of gentlemen, in face, +manners, and figure, at their head as exists anywhere.</p> + +<p>There are complaints that this Prussian aristocracy is socially +exclusive, is given office both in the army and in civil life too +readily; but what an aristocracy it is! These are the men whose +families gave, often their all, to make Prussia, and then to make +Germany. Service of king and country is in their blood. They get small +remuneration for their service. There is no luxury. They spurn the +temptations of money. Hundreds and hundreds of them have never been +inside the house of a rich parvenu, nor have their women. They work as +no other servants work, they live on little, they and their women and +children; and you may count yourself happily privileged if they permit +you the intimacy of their home life.</p> + +<p>Officers and gentlemen there are, living on two thousand five hundred +dollars a year, and most of them on much less, and their wives, as +well born as themselves, darning their socks and counting the pfennigs +with scrupulous care. These are the women whose ancestors flung +themselves against the Roman foe, beside their husbands and brothers; +these are the women who gave their jewels to save Prussia; these are +the women, with the glint of steel and the light of summer skies +braided in their eyes, who have taken their hard, self-denying part in +making Prussia, and the German Empire. No wonder they despise the mere +money-maker, no wonder they will have none of his softness for +themselves, and hate what Milton calls “lewdly pampered luxury,” as a +danger to their children. They know well the moral weapons that won +for this starved, and tormented, and poverty-stricken land its present +place in the world as a great power.</p> + +<blockquote>“And as the fervent smith of yore<br /> + Beat out the glowing blade,<br /> +Nor wielded in the front of war<br /> + The weapons that he made,<br /> +But in the tower at home still plied<br /> + His ringing trade;<br /> +<br /> +“So like a sword the son shall roam<br /> + On nobler missions sent;<br /> +And as the smith remained at home<br /> + In peaceful turret pent,<br /> +So sits the while at home the mother<br /> + Well content.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">I, convinced democrat that I am, know very well that there are, and +always have been, and always will be aristocrats, for there is no +national salvation without them anywhere in the world. The aristocrats +are the same everywhere, no matter what their distinctions of title, +or whether they have none. They are those who believe that they owe +their best to God and to men, and they serve. Likewise the plebeians +are the same all over the world; whatever their presumptions or +denials, they believe that they are here to get what they can out of +God and men, and they take far more than they give.</p> + +<p>Perhaps no feature of German life is so little known, so little +understood, as this simple-living, proud, and exclusive caste, who +have made, and still protect and guard, Prussia and Germany. They say: +“We made Prussia and Germany, and we intend to guard them, both from +enemies at home and from enemies abroad!” My admiration for these men +and women is so unbounded, that I would no more carry criticism with +me into their homes, than I would carry mud into a sanctuary.</p> + +<p>They have done much for Germany, but the best, perhaps, of all is that +they have made economy and simple living feasible and even +fashionable; they have made talent aristocratic; they have insisted +that social life shall be founded on service and breeding and ability. +They will have no dealings with Herr Muller, the rich shopkeeper, but +whatever name the distinguished artist, or public servant, or man of +science, or young giant in any field of intellectual prowess may bear, +he is welcomed. In general this welcome given by German society to +talent holds good. There is, however, a society composed of the great +landed proprietors, who live in the country, who come to Berlin +rarely, and whose horizon is limited severely to their own small +interests, their restricted circle, and by their provincial pride. +They recognize nobody but themselves, for the reason that they know +nobody and nothing else. There is an exclusiveness born of stupidity, +just as there is an exclusiveness born of a sense of duty to one’s +position and traditions in the world. One must recognize that this +side of social life exists in Germany just as it exists in England, +and France, and Austria, but it is fast losing its importance and its +power.</p> + +<p>One hears it lamented that society is changing, that the rich Jew and +the rich gentile are received where twenty-five years ago the social +portals were shut against them, and that many go to their houses who +would not have gone not many years ago. My experience is too slender +to weigh these matters in years; my contention is only that, from an +American or English stand-point, their social life is notably simple, +and still largely founded on merit and service, rather than upon the +means to provide luxury.</p> + +<p>Though there are thousands of people received at court each year, this +does not mean that they are invited to the more intimate parties of +those in court control. They are tolerated, not welcomed. Such people +are invited to the court ball, but never thought of, even, as guests +at the small supper party of, say, a court official later in the +evening. Prussia and Germany are still ruled socially and politically +by a small group of, roughly, fifty thousand men, eight thousand of +them in the frock-coat of the civilian official, and the rest in +military uniforms. Added to this must be named a few great financiers, +shipping and mining and industrial magnates, and great land-owners, +and less than half a dozen journalists, and as many professors.</p> + +<p>According to the census there are in all only 720 persons in Berlin +with incomes of more than $25,000 a year, and 521 of these have +between $25,000 and $60,000 a year, leaving a very small number, indeed, with +incomes adequate, from an American point of view, for extravagant +social expenditure. Of these 200, probably not 50 are figures in the +social life of the capital. It may be seen at once, therefore, that +entertaining cannot be on a lavish or spectacular scale.</p> + +<p>The minister of foreign affairs and the imperial minister of the +interior receive salaries of 36,000 marks, with 14,000 marks +additional for expenses. The Prussian ministers have the same. Other +ministers receive 30,000 marks and 14,000 additional for expenses. The +chancellor of the empire receives 36,000 marks and 64,000 additional +for expenses. The highest receivable pension is three-fourths of the +salary-not counting the additional sum for expenses, or, as it is +named, <i>Repräsentationsaufwand</i> - after forty years of service. The +foreign ambassadors to the more expensive capitals, London, Paris, +Washington, Saint Petersburg, receive 150,000 marks a year. Where one +has seen something of the innumerable demands upon the income of a +foreign ambassador, one is the more amazed that a great democracy like +ours should so restrict the salaries of its representatives abroad +that only rich men dare undertake the duty. What could be more +undemocratic!</p> + +<p>Germany is a rich, very rich, country in the sense that it has the +most intelligent, hardest-working, most fiercely economical, and the +most rationally and most easily contented population of any of the +great powers. But Germany is not rich in surplus and liquid capital as +compared with England, France, or America. It is the more to her +credit that her capital is all hard at work. There is just so much +less for luxury. The people in the streets; the shop-windows; the +scale of charges at places of public resort and amusement; the very +small number of well-turned-out private vehicles; the comparatively +few people who live in houses and not in apartments; the simplicity of +the gowns of the women, and their inexpensive jewelry and other +ornaments; the fewer servants; the salaries and wages of all classes, +point decisively to plain living on the part of practically everybody. +Let me say very emphatically, however, that this economy means no lack +of generosity. I doubt if there are people anywhere so restricted as +to means, and so delightfully hospitable at the same time. Berlin is +not as yet under that cloud that covers the new, uncultivated, and +rich society in America, that tyranny of money which makes men and +women fearful of being without it. Such people shiver at the bare +thought of losing what money will buy, for the shameful reason that +then there would be nothing left to them; and they are driven, many of +them, both in London and in New York, to any humiliation, often to any +degradation, to avoid it. They grossly overrate the value of money, +and they exaggerate the terrors of being without it.</p> + +<p>Professor William James, who succeeded in analyzing what is at the +back of men’s brains as well as anybody, writes: “We have grown +literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one who elects to be poor +in order to simplify and save his inner life. We have lost the power +of even imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have +meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, +the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do, and +not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment +irresponsibly - the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting +shape. ... It is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the +educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our +civilization suffers.” They suffer from this malady less in Germany +than in America or in England. I should like to introduce such people +into dozens of households in Berlin; alas, they could not speak or +understand the moral or mental language there, where there is +everything that makes a home’s heart beat proudly and peaceably, +except money. “La prospérité découvre les vices, et l’adversité les +vertus.”</p> + +<p>These people need no tribute from me, and for their hospitality and +friendliness I can make no adequate return. I sigh to think that we in +America know so little of them. Germany would not be where she is +without them; and I offer them as an example to my countrymen, and to +my countrywomen especially, as showing what self-sacrifice and +simplicity, and loyal service can do for a nation in times of stress; +and what high ideals and sturdy independence and contempt for luxury +can do in the dangerous days of prosperity. Unadvertised, unheralded, +keeping without murmuring or envy to their own traditions, they are +here, as everywhere, the saviors of the world.</p> + +<p>In this great city of Berlin it may seem that I have over-emphasized +their part in the drama of the city’s life. Not so! They are the +backbone of the municipal as of the national body corporate. It is no +easy industrial progress, no increasing wealth and population, no +military prowess, no isolated great leader that makes a nation or a +city. It is the men and women giving the high and unpurchasable gift +of service to the state; giving the fine example of self-sacrificing +and simple living; giving the prowess won by years of hard mental and +moral training; giving the gentle courtesy and kindly welcome of the +patrician to the stranger, who lift a nation or a city to a worthy +place in the world. Seek not for Germany’s strength first in her +fleet, her army, her hordes of workers, nay, not even in her +philosophers, teachers, and musicians, though they glisten in the eyes +of all the world, for you will not find it there. It is in these quiet +and simple homes, that so few Americans and Englishmen ever enter, +that you will find the sweetness and the sternness, the indomitable +pride of service, and the self-sacrificing loyalty that won, and that +keep for Germany her place in the world.</p> + +<h3>VI “A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS”</h3> + +<p> +It can hardly be doubted that could Lord Palmerston have seen what I +have seen of the changes in Germany, he would at least have placed the +“damned,” in another part of his famous sentence. These professors +have turned their prowess into channels which have given Germany, in +this scientific industrial age, a mighty grip upon something more than +theories. It may be dull reading to tell the tale of damned +professordom, but it is to Germany that we must all go to school in +these matters.</p> + +<p>The American chooses his university or college because it is in the +neighborhood; because his father or other relatives went there; +because his school friends are going there; on account of the prestige +of the place; sometimes, too, because one is considered more +democratic than another; sometimes, and perhaps more often than we +think, on account of the athletics; because it is large or small; or +on account of the cost.</p> + +<p>The German youth, owing to widely different customs and ideals, +chooses his university for other reasons. If he be of the well-to-do +classes, and his father before him was a corps student, he is likely +to go first to the university, where his father’s corps will receive +him and discipline him in the ways of a corps student’s life, and +rigorous ways they are, as we shall see. Young men of small means, and +who can afford to waste little time in the amusements of university +life, go at once where the more celebrated professors in their +particular line of work are lecturing.</p> + +<p>Few students in Germany reside +during their whole course of study at one university. The student year +is divided into two so-called semesters. The student remains, say, in +Heidelberg two years or perhaps less, and then moves on, let us say, +to Berlin, or Göttingen, or Leipsic, or Kiel, to hear lectures by +other professors, and to get and to see something of the best work in +law, theology, medicine, history, or belles-lettres, along the lines +of his chosen work.</p> + +<p>One can hardly say too much in praise of this +system. Many a medical, or law, or theological, or philosophical +student, or one who is going in for a scientific course in engineering +or mining, would profit enormously could he go from Harvard to Yale, +or to Johns Hopkins, or to Princeton, or to Columbia, and attend the +lectures of the best men at these and other universities. Many a man +would have gone eagerly to Harvard to hear James in philosophy, Peirce +in mathematics, Abbot in exegesis, or to read Greek with Palmer; or to +Yale to have heard Whitney in philology in my day; or now, to name but +a few, Van Dyke at Princeton, Sloane at Columbia, Wheeler at the +University of California, Paul Shorey at Chicago, and many others are +men whom not to know and to hear in one’s student days is a loss.</p> + +<p>The German student is at a distinct advantage in this privilege of hearing +the best men at whatever university they may be. The number of +students, indeed, at particular German universities rises and falls in +a large measure according to the fame and ability of the professors +who may be lecturing there. One can readily imagine how such men as +Hegel, or Ranke, or Mommsen, who lectured at Berlin; or Liebig or +Döllinger, at Munich; or Ewald, at Göttingen; or Sybel, at Bonn; or +Leibnitz or Schlegel, in their day, or Kuno Fischer, in my day, at +Heidelberg, must have drawn students from all parts of Germany; just +as do Harnack, and Schmidt, and Lamprecht, and Adolph Wagner, +Schmoller, or Gierke, or Schiemann, or Wach, Haeckel, List, Deitsch, +Hering, or Verworm, in these days. Though the German professors are +somewhat hampered by the fact that they are servants of the state, and +their opinions therefore on theological, political, and economic +matters restricted to the state’s views, they are free as no other +teachers in the world to exploit their intellectual prowess for the +benefit of their purses. Each student pays each professor whose +lectures he attends, and as a result there are certain professors in +Germany whose incomes are as high as $50,000 a year.</p> + +<p>Even in intellectual matters state control produces the inevitable state +laziness and indifference. One could tell many a tale of professors +who arrive late at their lecture-rooms, who read slowly, who give just +as little matter as they can, in order to make their prepared work go +as far as possible. Some of them, too, read the same lectures over and +over again, year after year, quite content that they have made a +reputation, gained a fixed tenure of their positions, and are sure of +a pension.</p> + +<p>There are twenty-one universities in Germany, with another +already provided for this year in Frankfort, and practically the +equivalent of a university in Hamburg. The total number of students is +66,358, an increase since 1895 of 37,791. Geographically speaking, one +has the choice between Kiel, Königsberg, and Berlin in the north, +Munich in the south, Strassburg on the boundaries of France, or +Breslau in Silesia. At the present writing Berlin has 9,686 students, +and some 5,000 more authorized to attend lectures, over half of them +grouped under the general heading “Philosophy”; next comes Munich with +7,000, nearly 5,000 of them grouped under the headings “Jurisprudence” +and “Philosophy”; then Leipsic with 5,000; then Bonn with 4,000; and +last in point of numbers Rostock with 800 students. There are now some +1,500 women students at the German universities, but a total of 4,500 +who attend lectures, and Doctor Marie Linden at the beginning of 1911 +was appointed one of the professors of the medical faculty at Bonn, +but the appointment was vetoed by the Prussian ministry.</p> + +<p>In addition to the universities is the modern development of the technical +high-schools, of which there are now eleven, one each in Berlin, Dresden, +Braunschweig, Darmstadt, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Munich, Stuttgart, +Danzig, Aix, and Breslau. These schools have faculties of +architecture, building construction, mechanical engineering, +chemistry, and general science, including mathematics and natural +science. They confer the degree of Doctor of Engineering, and admit +those students holding the certificate of the <i>Gymnasium</i>, +<i>Realgymnasium</i>, and <i>Oberrealschule</i>. They rank now with the +universities, and their 17,000 students may fairly be added to the +grand total number of German students, making 83,000 in all, and if to +this be added the 4,000 unmatriculated students, we have 87,000.</p> + +<p>While the population of Germany has increased 1.4 per cent. in the last +year, the number of students has increased 4.6 per cent. and of the +total number 4.4 per cent. are women. Since the founding of the empire +the population has increased from 40,000,000 to 65,000,000, but the +number of students has increased from 18,000 to 60,000. The teaching +staffs in the universities number 3,400, and in the technical +high-schools 753, or, roughly, there are, in the higher-education +department of Germany, nearly 90,000 persons engaged; as these figures +do not include officials and many unattached teachers and students +indirectly connected with the universities. There are in addition +agricultural high-schools, agricultural institutes, and technical +schools such as veterinary high-schools, schools of mining, forestry, +architecture and building, commercial schools, schools of art and +industry; a naval school at Kiel; a colonial institute at Hamburg, +with sixty professors and tutors, where men are trained for colonial +careers, and which serves also the purpose of distributing information +of all kinds regarding the colonies; there are 400 schools which +prepare for a business career, with 50,000 pupils, and the Socialists +in Berlin maintain an academy for the instruction of their paid +secretaries and organizers in the rudiments and controversial points +of socialism, military academies at Berlin and Munich, besides some 50 +schools of navigation, and 20 military and cadet institutions. There +are also courses of lectures, given under the auspices of the German +foreign office, to instruct candidates for the consular service in the +commercial and industrial affairs of Germany.</p> + +<p>At several of the +universities evening extension lectures are given, an innovation first +tried at Leipsic, where more than seven thousand persons paid small +fees to attend the lectures in a recent year.</p> + +<p>If one considers the +range of instruction from the <i>Volkschulen</i> and <i>Fortbildungsschulen</i> up +through the skeleton list I have mentioned to the universities, and +then on beyond that to the thousands still engaged as students in the +commerce and industry of Germany, as, for example, the technically +employed men in the Krupp Works at Essen, or the Color Works at +Elberfeld, to mention two of hundreds, it is seen that Germany is gone +over with a veritable fine-tooth comb of education. There is not only +nothing like it, there is nothing comparable to it in the world. If +training the minds of a population were the solution of the problems +of civilization, they are on the way to such solution in Germany. +Unfortunately there is no such easy way out of our troubles for +Germany or for any other nation. Some of us will live to see this +fetich of regimental instruction of everybody disappear as astrology +has disappeared. There is a Japanese proverb which runs, “The bottom +of lighthouses is very dark.”</p> + +<p>As early as 1717 Frederick William I in +an edict commanded parents to send their children to school, daily in +summer, twice a week in winter. Frederick the Great at the close of +the Seven Years’ War, 1764, insisted again upon compulsory school +attendance, and prescribed books, studies, and discipline. At the +beginning of the nineteenth century began a great change in the +primary schools due to the influence of Pestalozzi, and in the +secondary schools owing to the efforts of Herder, Frederic August +Wolf, William Humboldt, and Sünern. Humboldt was the Prussian minister +of education for sixteen months. In 1809 he sent a memorial to the +King, urging the establishment and endowment of a university in +Berlin. He used his authority and his great influence to further +higher and secondary education, and fixed the main lines of action +which were followed for a century. He hoped that a liberal education +of his countrymen would make for both an intellectual and moral +regeneration, and emancipate the people from their sluggish obedience +to conventionality. The schools then were part of the ecclesiastical +organization and have never ceased to be so wholly, and until recently +the title of the Prussian minister has been: “Minister of +Ecclesiastical Affairs, Instruction, and Medical Affairs.” That part +of the minister’s title, “Medical Affairs,” has within the last few +months been eliminated.</p> + +<p>The French Revolution, and the dismemberment +of Prussia at Tilsit, put a stop to orderly progress. Stein and his +colleagues, however, started anew; students were sent to Switzerland +to study pedagogical methods; provincial school-boards were +established, and about 1850 all public-school teachers were declared +to be civil servants; and later, in 1872, during Bismarck’s campaign +against the Jesuits, all private schools were made subject to state +inspection. In Prussia to-day no man or woman may give instruction +even as a governess or private tutor, without the certificate of the +state.</p> + +<p>This control of education and teaching by a central authority +is an unmixed blessing. In Prussia, at any rate, the officials are +hard-working, conscientious, and enthusiastic, and the system, whether +one gives one’s full allegiance to it or not, is admirably worked out. +Above all, it completely does away with sham physicians, sham doctors +of divinity, sham engineers, and mining and chemical experts, sham +dentists and veterinary surgeons, who abound in our country, where +shoddy schools do a business of selling degrees and certificates of +proficiency in everything from exegesis to obstetrics. These fakir +academies are not only a disgrace but a danger in America, and here, +as in other matters, Germany has a right to smile grimly at certain of +our hobbledehoy methods of government.</p> + +<p>The elementary schools, or +<i>Volkschulen</i>, are free, and attendance is compulsory from six to +fourteen; in addition, the <i>Fortbildungsschulen</i>, or continuation +schools, can also be made compulsory up to eighteen years of age. +There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools with over +10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private elementary schools with 42,000 +pupils who pay fees.</p> + +<p>Under a regulation of the Department of Trade and +Industry, towns with more than twenty thousand inhabitants are +empowered to make their own rules compelling commercial employees +under eighteen to attend the continuation schools a certain number of +hours monthly, and fining employers who interfere with such +attendance. It has even been suggested that this law be extended to +include girls.</p> + +<p>In Berlin this has already been put into operation, and +this year some 30,000 girls will be compelled to attend continuation +schools, where they will be taught cooking, dress-making, laundry +work, house-keeping economy, and for those who wish it, office work. +It will require some training even to pronounce the name of this new +institution, which requires something more than the number of letters +in the alphabet to spell it, for it has this terrifying title: +<i>Mädchenpflicht-fortbildungsschule</i>.</p> + +<p>The work in these <i>Pflichtfortbildungsschulen</i>, or compulsory +continuation schools, is practical and thorough. The boys are from +fourteen to eighteen years of age, and are obliged to attend three +hours twice a week. Shopkeepers and others, employing lads coming +under the provisions of the law, are obliged by threat of heavy fines +to send them. The boys pay nothing. There are some 34,000 of such +pupils under one jurisdiction in Berlin, and the cost to the city is +$300,000 annually. The curriculum includes letter-writing, book- +keeping, exchange, bank-credits, checks and bills, the duty of the +business man to his home, to the city, and to his fellow business men, +his legal rights and duties, and, in great detail, all questions of +citizenship. Methods of the banks, stock exchange, and insurance +companies are explained. The business man’s relations in detail to the +post-office, the railways, the customs, canals, shipping agencies are +dealt with. The investigation of credits and the general management +from cellar to attic of what we call a “store” are taught, and +lectures are given upon business ethics and family relations and +morals.</p> + +<p>In towns where factories are more common than shops there are +schools similar in kind, as at Dortmund, for example, where you may +begin with horse-shoeing in the cellar, and go up through the work of +carpenter, mason, plumber, sign-painter, poster-designer, to the +designing of stained-glass windows and the modelling of animals and +men.</p> + +<p>In the strictly agricultural districts of Prussia the number of +courses open to those who work upon the land has steadily increased. +In 1882 there were 559 courses of instruction and 9,228 pupils; in +1902, 1,421 such courses and 20,666 pupils; and in 1908, 3,781 courses +and 55,889 pupils. About five per cent. of the cost of such +instruction, which cost the state 566,599 marks in 1908, is paid by +the fees of the pupils themselves.</p> + +<p>To those interested in ways and +means it may serve a purpose to say that the total cost of these +elementary schools amounts to $130,715,250 a year, of which the +various state governments pay $37,500,000 and local authorities the +rest. In 1910 the city of Berlin spent $9,881,987 on its schools. The +average cost per pupil is $13.50. In some of the towns of different +classes of population that I have visited the number of pupils per 100 +inhabitants stands as follows: Berlin, 11.1; Essen, 16.5; Dortmund, +16; Düsseldorf, 13.2; Charlottenburg, 9; Duisburg, 16.7; Oberhausen, +17.7; Bielefeld, 14.7; Bonn, 11.1; Cologne, 13.1.</p> + +<p>There are 170,000 +teachers in these elementary schools, of whom 30,000 are women. They +begin with $250 a year, which is raised to $300 when they are given a +fixed position. By a graduated scale of increase a teacher at the age +of forty-eight (when he may retire) may receive a maximum of $725. A +woman teacher’s salary would vary from $300 to $600 as the maximum. +These figures are for Prussia. In other states of the empire, in +Bavaria and Saxony, for example, the scale of salaries is somewhat +higher.</p> + +<p>The secondary schools are the well-known <i>Gymnasien</i> and +<i>Progymnasien</i>, the <i>Realgymnasien</i>, and the <i>Realschulen</i>. Roughly the +<i>Gymnasien</i> prepare for the universities, and the <i>Realschulen</i> for the +technical schools. Admission to the universities and to any form of +employment under the civil service demands a certificate from one or +another of these secondary schools.</p> + +<p>In 1890, two years after the +present Emperor came to the throne, he called together a conference of +teachers and in an able speech suggested that these secondary schools +devote more time and attention to technical training. As a result of +this, the certificates of the <i>Realgymnasien</i> and <i>Realschulen</i> are now +received as equivalent to those conferred by the <i>Gymnasien</i>, where +Latin and Greek are, as they were then, still paramount.</p> + +<p>Of these +secondary schools some are state schools; others are municipal or +trade-supported schools; some are private institutions; but all are +amenable to the rules, organization, and curricula approved by the +state. All secondary and elementary teachers must meet the +examinational requirements of the state, which fixes a minimum salary +and contributes thereto. In the universities and technical high- +schools all professors are appointed by the state, and largely paid by +the state as well. In the year 1910 the German Empire expended under +the general heading of elementary instruction $130,715,250. Prussia +alone spent $60,424,325; Bavaria, $8,955,825 (though nearly $750,000 +of this total went for building and repairs for both churches and +schools); Baden, $4,176,075; Saxony, $4,573,250; the free city of +Hamburg, $5,561,900. The total expenditures of the empire and of the +states of the empire combined in 1910 amounted to $2,225,225,000; of +this, as we have seen, more than $130,000,000 went for instruction and +allied uses; $198,748,775 was the cost of the army; and $82,362,650 +the cost of the navy, not counting the extraordinary expenditures for +these two arms of the service, which amounted to $5,624,775 for the +army, and $28,183,125 for the navy. The total expenditure of the +Fatherland for schools, army, and navy amounted, therefore, to one- +fifth of the total, or $416,108,225.</p> + +<p>I have grouped these expenditures +together for the reason, that I am still one of those who remain +distrustful and disdainful of the Carnegie holy water, and a firm +believer that the two best schools in Germany, or anywhere else where +they are as well conducted as there, are the army and the navy. Even +if they were not schools of war, they would be an inestimable loss to +the country were they no longer in existence as manhood-training +schools. This is the more clear when it is remembered that, according +to the army standard, both the German peasant and the urban dweller +are steadily deteriorating. In ten years the percentage of physically +efficient men in the rural districts decreased from 60.5 to 58.2 per +cent., and this decrease is even more marked in particular provinces. +Infant mortality, despite better hygienic conditions and more +education, has not decreased, and in some districts has increased; +while the birth-rate, especially in Prussia and Thuringia, has fallen +off as well. For the whole of Germany, the births to every thousand of +the inhabitants were, in 1876, 42.63; in 1891, 38.25; in 1905, 34; and +in 1909, 31.91. In Berlin the births per thousand in 1907 were 24.63 +and in 1911 only 20.84.</p> + +<p>The observer who cares nothing for statistics, +who rambles about in the district of Leipsic, Chemnitz, Riesa, +Oschatz, and in the mountainous district of southeast Saxony, may see +for himself a population lacking in size, vigor, and health, +noticeably so indeed. Education at one end turning out an unwholesome, +“white-collared, black-coated proletariat,” as the Socialists call +them; and industry and commerce, which even tempt the farmer to sell +what he should keep to eat, at the other, are making serious inroads +upon the health and well-being of the population.</p> + +<p>The Chancellor, von +Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking in the Reichstag February 11, 1911, said: +“The fear that we may not be working along the right lines in the +education of our youth is a cause of great anxiety to many people in +Germany. We shall not solve this problem by shunning it!”</p> + +<p>Many social +economists hold that higher education is unfitting numbers of young +men from following the humbler pursuits, while at the same time it is +not making them as efficient as are their ambitions; and such men are +recognized as the most potent chemical in making the milk of human +kindness to turn sour. At a meeting of the Goethebund this year, +advocating school reform, it was evident that many intelligent men in +Germany were not satisfied with present methods of education, which +were characterized as wasting energy in mechanical methods of +teaching, and so robbing youth of its youth. It is beginning to be +understood in Germany, as it has been understood by wise men in all +ages, that “to spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them +too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their +rules is the humour of the scholar.” This commentary of Bacon should +be on the walls of every school and university in Germany. An +education can do nothing more for a man than to make him less fearful +of what he does not know, and to save him from the vulgarity of being +pre-empted wholly by the present, because he knows something of the +past. You cannot educate a man to be a poet or a preacher or a +pianist; that we know. We are only just discovering that the much-lauded +technical education will not make him an engineer or a +shipbuilder or an architect. You may give him the tools and the +elementary rules, but the rest he must do himself. Nine-tenths of the +technically educated men to-day are working for men who were liberally +educated, or who educated themselves. Germany is producing a race of +first-rate clerks and skilled mechanics, who are working hard to +enrich the Jews.</p> + +<p>In America, it is true, we have gone ahead along +educational lines. In 1800, it is said, the average adult American had +82 days of school attendance; in 1900, 146 days. In the last quarter +of a century our secondary schools have increased in number from 1,400 +to 12,000; and during the last eighteen years the proportion of our +youth receiving high-school instruction has doubled, and attendance at +American colleges has increased 400 per cent. while the population +increased by 100 per cent. But education is by no means so strenuous +as in Germany. The hours are shorter, holidays longer, standards +lower, and the emphasis far less insistent. A boy who has not the +mental energy to pass the entrance examinations at Harvard, for +instance, and proceed to a degree there, ought to be drowned, or to +drown himself. I would not say as much of the requirements in Germany, +for they are far more severe. Prince von Hohenlohe in his memoirs +gives an account of a conversation between the Emperor, the Emperor’s +tutor, and himself. The Emperor was regretting the severity of the +examinations in the secondary schools, and it was replied to him that +this was the only way to prevent a flood of candidates for the civil +service!</p> + +<p>There is another all-important factor in Germany bearing upon +this point. A boy must have passed into the upper section of the class +before the last, “<i>Secunda</i>,” as it is called, or have passed an +equivalent examination, in order to serve one year instead of three in +the army. To be an <i>Einjähriger</i> is, therefore, in a way the mark of an +educated gentleman. The tales of suicide and despair of school-boys in +Germany are, alas, too many of them true; and it is to be remembered +that not to reach a certain standard here means that a man’s way is +barred from the army and navy, civil service, diplomatic or consular +service, from social life, in short. The uneducated man of position in +Germany does not exist, cannot exist. This is, therefore, no phantom, +but a real terror. The man of twenty-five who has not won an education +and a degree faces a blank wall barring his entrance anywhere; and +even when, weaponed with the necessary academic passport, he is +permitted to enter, he meets with an appalling competition, which has +peopled Germany with educated inefficients who must work for next to +nothing, and who keep down the level of the earnings of the rest +because there is an army of candidates for every vacant position. On +the other hand, the industries of Germany have bounded ahead, because +the army of chemists and physicists of patience, training, and +ability, who work for small salaries provide them with new and better +weapons than their rivals.</p> + +<p>There are two sides to this question of +fine-tooth-comb education. Its advantages both America and England are +seeing every day in these stout rivals of ours; but its disadvantages +are not to be concealed, and are perhaps doing an undermining work +that will be more apparent in the future than now it is. The very fact +that an alien, an oriental race, the Jews, have taken so +disproportionate a share of the cream of German prosperity, and have +turned this technical prowess to purposes of their own, is, in and of +itself, a sure sign that there may be an educated proletariat working +slavishly for masters whom, with all their learning and all their +mental discipline, they cannot force to abdicate.</p> + +<p>Strange to say, the +federal constitution of 1871, which gave Germany its emperor, did not +include the schools, and each state has its own school system, but in +1875 an imperial school commission was formed which has done much to +make the system of all the states uniform.</p> + +<p>The three classes of +schools recognized as leading later to a university career are the +<i>Gymnasium</i>, in which Latin and Greek are still the fundamental +requirements; the <i>Realgymnasium</i>, in which Latin but no Greek is +required; the <i>Oberrealschule</i>, in which the classics are not taught at +all, but emphasis is laid upon modern languages and natural science. +In addition to these there are the so-called <i>Reformschulen</i>, of very +recent growth, which are an attempt to put less emphasis upon the +classics, but without excluding them entirely from the course, and to +pay more attention proportionately to modern languages, French in +particular. There are in addition some four hundred public and one +thousand or more private higher girls’ schools, with an attendance of +a quarter of a million, all subject to state supervision.</p> + +<p>If one were to make a genealogical tree of the German schools which +educate the children from the age of six up to the age of entrance to +the university, it might be described as follows: First are the +<i>Volkschulen</i>, which every child must attend from six to fourteen. In +the smaller country schools the children of all ages may be in one +school-room and under one teacher; in another, divided into two +classes; in another, into three or four classes; up to the large city +schools, in which they are divided on account of their number into as +many as eight classes. Next would come the <i>Mittelschulen</i>, where the +pupils are carried on a year farther, and where the last year +corresponds to the first year of the so-called +<i>Lehrerbildungsanstalten</i>, or training schools for teachers. These again +are divided into two, one called <i>Praeparanda</i>, the other <i>Seminar</i>, the +former carrying the pupil on to his sixteenth year, the latter to the +nineteenth year and turning him out a full-fledged <i>Volkschule</i> teacher, +and giving him the right to serve only one year in the army.</p> + +<p>If boy or +girl goes on from the fourteenth year, the <i>höhere Knabenschulen</i> and +the <i>höhere Mädchenschulen</i> take them on to the eighteenth or nineteenth +year. Many boys go on till they have passed from the lower <i>Secunda</i>, +next to the last class, which is divided into upper and lower <i>Secunda</i>, +into the upper <i>Secunda</i>, when their certificate entitles them to serve +one year only in the army, when they quit school. Many boys, too, +intending to become officers, leave school at sixteen or seventeen and +go to regular cramming institutions, where they do their work more +quickly and devote themselves to the special subjects required. For +boys intending to go on through the higher schools, there are schools +taking them on from the age of nine, with a curriculum better adapted +than that of the <i>Volkschulen</i> to that end.</p> + +<p>In all these higher schools there is less attention paid to mere +examinations, and more attention paid to the general grip the pupils +have on the work in hand; and of the teaching, as mentioned elsewhere, +too much cannot be said in its praise.</p> + +<p>For those boys who finish their public schooling at the age of +fourteen and then turn to earning their living, there are the +continuation schools, which are in many parts of the country +compulsory, and which are nicely adapted, according to their situation +in shopkeeping cities, in factory towns, or in the country, to give +the pupils the drilling and instruction necessary for their particular +employment. The average amount of expenditure for these continuation +schools is $6,250,000. In Prussia there are some 1,500 of these +schools, with an average attendance of 300,000 pupils.</p> + +<p>According to the last census the proportion of illiterates among the +recruits for the army was 0.02 per cent. The number of those who could +neither read nor write in Germany was, in 1836, 41.44 per cent.; in +1909, 0.01 per cent. If one were to name all the agricultural schools; +technical schools; schools of architecture and building; commercial +schools, for textile, wood, metal, and ceramic industries; art +schools; schools for naval architecture and engineering and +navigation; and the public music schools, it would be seen that it is +no exaggeration to speak of fine-tooth-comb education.</p> + +<p>I have visited +scores of all sorts of schools all over Germany, from a peasant common +school in Posen up to that last touch in education, the schools in +Charlottenburg, the Schulpforta Academy, and such a private boys’ +school as Die Schülerheim-Kolonie des Arndt-Gymnasiums in the +Grünewald near Berlin, and the training schools for the military +cadets. Through the courtesy of the authorities I was permitted, when +I wished it, to sit in the class-rooms, and even to put questions to +the boys and girls in the classes. From the small boys and girls +making their first efforts at spelling to the young woman of seventeen +who translated a paragraph of the “Germania” of Tacitus, not into +German but into French, for me (a problem I offered as a good test of +whether I was merely assisting at a prepared exhibition of the prowess +of the class or whether the minds had been trained to independence), I +have looked over a wide field of teaching and learning in Germany. If +that young person was typical of the pupils of this upper girls’ +school, there is no doubt of their ability to meet an intellectual +emergency of that kind.</p> + +<p>Of one feature of German education one can write without reservation, +and that is the teaching. Everywhere it is good, often superlatively +good, and half a dozen times I have listened to the teaching of a +class in history, in Latin, in German literature, in French +literature, where it was a treat to be a listener. I remember in +particular a class in physical geography, another reading Ovid, +another reading Shakespeare, and another reading Goethe’s “Hermann and +Dorothea,” where I enjoyed my half-hour, as though I had been +listening to a distinguished lecturer on his darling subject.</p> + +<p>We know how little these men and women teachers are paid, but there is +such a flood of intellectual output in Germany that the competition is +ferocious in these callings, and the schools can pick and choose only +from those who have borne the severest tests with the greatest +success. The teaching is so good that it explains in part the amount +of work these poor children are enabled to get through. School begins +at seven in summer, at eight in winter. The course for those intending +to go to the university is nine years; the recitation hours alone +range from twenty-five to thirty-two hours a week; to which must be +added two hours a week of singing and three hours a week of +gymnastics, and this for forty-two weeks in the year. The preparation +for class-work requires from two and a half to four hours more. It +foots up to something like fifty hours a week!</p> + +<p>At Eton, in England, +the boys grumble because they only have a half-holiday every other +day, and four months of the year vacation. It will be interesting to +see which educational method is to produce the men who are to win the +next Waterloo. No wonder that nearly seventy per cent. of those who +reach the standard required of those who need serve only one year +instead of three in the army are near-sighted, and that more than +forty-five per cent. are put on one side as physically unfit. The +increase in population in Germany is so great, however, and the +candidates for the army so numerous, that the authorities are far more +strict in those they accept than in France, for example. There is more +manhood material for the German army and navy every year than is +needed.</p> + +<p>In the first year of the nine-years’ course in a <i>Gymnasium</i> the +25 hours a week are divided: religion, 3 hours; German, 4 hours; +Latin, 8 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; natural +science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year: religion, 2 +hours; German, 3 hours; Latin, 7 hours; Greek, 6 hours - Greek is +begun in the fourth year; French, 3 hours - French is begun in the +third year; history, 3 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; natural science, 2 +hours.</p> + +<p>In the first year in a <i>Realgymnasium</i>: religion, 3 hours; German, 4 +hours; Latin, 8 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; +natural science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year of the +course: religion, 2 hours; German, 3 hours; Latin, 4 hours; French - +begun in third year - 4 hours; English - begun in fourth year - 3 +hours; mathematics, 5 hours; natural science, 5 hours; drawing, 2 +hours.</p> + +<p>In the first year in an <i>Oberrealschule</i>: religion, 3 hours; German, 5 +hours; French, 6 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 5 hours; +natural science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year: +religion, 2 hours; German, 4 hours; French, 4 hours; English - begun +in the fourth year - 4 hours; history, 3 hours; geography, 1 hour; +mathematics, 5 hours; natural science, 6 hours; free-hand drawing - +begun in the second year - 2 hours.</p> + +<p>It may be seen from these schedules where the emphasis is laid in each +of these schools. So far as results are concerned, the pupils about to +leave for the universities seemed to me to know their Latin, Greek, +French, German, and English, and their local and European history +well. Their knowledge of Latin and of either French or English, +sometimes of both, is far superior to anything required of a student +entering any college or university in America. I have asked many +pupils to read passages at sight in Latin, French and English in +schools in various parts of Germany and there is no question of the +grip they have upon what they have been taught. I am, alas, not a +scholar, and can only judge of the requirements and of the training +and its results in subjects where I am at home; and I must take it for +granted that these boys and girls are as well trained in other +subjects where I am incapable of passing judgment. It is improbable, +however, that the same thoroughness does not characterize their work +throughout the whole curriculum. The examination at the end of the +secondary-school period, called <i>Abiturienten-examen</i>, is more thorough +and covers a wider range than any similar examination in America. It +is a test of intellectual maturity. It permits no gaps, covers a wide +ground, leaves no subject dropped on the way, and sends a man or woman +to the university, with an equipment entirely adequate for such +special work as the individual proposes to undertake.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me that in many class-rooms the ventilation was +distinctly bad, but here too I must admit an exaggerated love for +fresh air, born of my own love of out-door exercise.</p> + +<p>There are practically no schools in Germany like the public schools +for boys in England, and our own private schools for boys, like Saint +Paul’s, Groton, Saint Mark’s, and others, where the training of +character and physique are emphasized. Here again I admit my prejudice +in favor of such education. I should be made pulp, indeed, did I try +to run through the boys of a fifth or sixth form at home, but, from +the look of them, I would have undertaken it for a wager in Germany.</p> + +<p>It is not their fault, poor boys. Practically the whole emphasis is +laid upon drilling the mind. Moral and physical matters are left to +the home, and in the home there are no fathers and brothers interested +in games or sport, and in this busy, competitive strife, and with the +small means at the disposal of the majority, there is no time and no +opportunity. Boys and girls seldom leave home for distant boarding-schools. +They go from home to school and from school home every day, +and have none of the advantages to be gained from intercourse with men +outside their own circles. It shows itself in a deplorable lack of +orientation as compared with our lads of the same relative standing. +In dress and bearing, in at-homeness in the world, in ability to take +care of themselves under strange conditions or in an emergency, and in +domestic hygiene they are inferior, and yet they are so competent to +push the national military, industrial, and commercial ball along as +men, that one wonders whether Bagehot’s gibe at certain well-to-do +classes of the Saxons, that “they spend half their time washing their +whole persons,” may not have a grain of truth in it.</p> + +<p>Another feature +of the school life which is prominent, especially in Prussia, is the +incessant and insistent emphasis laid upon patriotism. In every +school, almost in every class-room, is a picture of the Emperor; in +many, pictures also of his father and grandfather. Even in a municipal +lodging-house, where I found some tiny waifs and strays being taught, +there were pictures of the sovereign, and brightly colored pictures of +the war of 1870-71, generally with German personalities on horseback, +and the French as prisoners with bandages and dishevelled clothing. +This war, which began with the first movement of the German army on +August 4, and on the 2d of September next Napoleon was a prisoner; +this war, in which the German army at the beginning of operations +consisted of 384,000 officers and men and which had grown during the +truce to 630,000 on March 1; lost in killed and those who died from +wounds 28,278, of whom 1,871 were officers; this war is flaunted at +the population of Germany continually, and from every possible angle. +We hear very little of our war of 1861-1865, that cost us +$8,000,000,000 with killed and wounded numbering some 700,000. We do +not find it necessary to feed our patriotism with a nursing-bottle.</p> + +<p>At a kindergarten two tots, a boy and a girl, stood at the top of some +steps while the rest marched by and saluted; they later descended and +went through the motions of reviewing the others. They were playing +they were Kaiser and Kaiserin!</p> + +<p>Two small boys in a school-yard discussing their relative prowess as +jumpers end the discussion when one says as a final word: “Oh, I can +jump as high as the Kaiser!”</p> + +<p>We have noted in another article how even police sergeants must be +familiar with the history of the House of Hohenzollern.</p> + +<p>I am an admirer of Germany and her Emperor, with a distinct love of +discipline and a bias in favor of military training, and with an +experience of actual warfare such as only a score or so of German +officers of my generation have had; but I am bound to say I found this +pounding in of patriotism on every side distinctly nauseating. Boys +and girls, and men and women, ought not to need to be pestered with +patriotism. We had a controversy in America some ten years before the +Franco-German War, where in one battle more men were killed and +wounded than in all the battles Prussia, and later Germany, has fought +since 1860.</p> + +<p>In the South, at any rate, we bear the scars and the +mourning of those days still, but nobody would be thanked for +pummelling us with patriotism. In the skirmish with Spain our military +authorities were pestered with candidates for the front. Germany +itself is not more a nation in arms than America would be at the +smallest threat of insult or aggression. But we take those things for +granted. If we have the honor to possess a medal or a decoration, the +gentlemen among us wear it only when asked to do so, or perhaps on the +Fourth of July.</p> + +<p>Germany is even now somewhat loosely cemented together. Their leaders +may feel that it is necessary to keep ever in the minds even of the +children, that Germany is a nation with an Emperor and a victory over +France, France in political rags and patches at the time, behind them.</p> + +<p>They even carry this teaching of patriotism beyond the boundaries of +Germany. The <i>Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein zur Erhaltung des +Deutschtums im Auslande</i>, is a society with headquarters in Berlin +devoting itself to the advancement of German education all over the +world. The society was started privately in 1886, and is now partly +supported by the state. It controls some sixteen hundred centres for +the teaching of German and German patriotism, and German learning. +There are such centres in China, South America, the United States, +Spain, and elsewhere. They number 90 in Europe, 25 in Asia, 20 in +Africa, 70 in Brazil, 40 in Argentina, and 100 in Australia and +Canada. The society is instrumental in having German taught in 5,000 +schools and academies in the United States to 600,000 pupils. The work +is not advertised, rather it is concealed so far as possible, but it +is looked upon as a valuable force for the advancement of German +interests throughout the world.</p> + +<p>In the schools, too, there is an enemy +of which we know nothing, and that is the active propagandism of +socialism, which is anti-military, anti-monarchical, and anti-status +quo. Leaflets and books and pamphlets are widely distributed among the +school children; many of the teachers are in sympathy with these +obstructionist methods; and the authorities may feel that they must do +what they can to combat this teaching. In Prussia, on every side, and +in the industrial towns of Saxony, one sees the evidence of this +impotent discontent expressing itself either openly or in surly malice +of speech and manner. The streets of Berlin, and of the industrial +towns, show this condition at every turn, and when the Reichstag +closes with cheers for the Emperor, the Socialist members leave in a +body before that loyal ceremony takes place.</p> + +<p>We in America are brought up to believe that the best cure for such +maladies is to open the wound, to give freedom of speech, to let every +boy and girl and man and woman find out for himself his citizen’s path +to walk in. We have no policemen on our public platforms, no gags in +the mouths of our professors or preachers, no lurid pictures of +battles, no plastering of the walls of our schools and seminaries with +pictures of our rulers, and withal our German immigrants are perhaps +our best and most patriotic citizens. In America they think less and +do more, and for most men this is the better way. It makes life very +complicated to think too much about it.</p> + +<p>Self-consciousness is the prince of mental and social diseases, as +vanity is the princess, and even self-conscious patriotism seems a +little unwholesome, not quite manly, and often even grotesque. It is +easy to say: “Dic mihi si fueris tu leo, qualis eris?” and if one is a +person of no great importance, it is an embarrassing question to +answer. In this connection I can only say that I should assume that my +lionhood was taken for granted without so much roaring, bristling of +the mane, and switching of the tail. It irritates those who are +discontented, it positively infuriates the redder democrats, and it +bores the children, and, worst of all, proclaims to everybody that the +lion is not quite comfortable and at his ease. The German lion is a +fine, big fellow now, with fangs, and teeth, and claws as serviceable +as need be, and it only makes him appear undignified to be forever +looking at himself in the looking-glass.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be the right or wrong of these comparative methods of +training, Germans trained in the investigation of such matters agree +in telling me that the boys who come up to the universities, +especially in the large cities and towns, are somewhat lax in their +moral standards as regards matters upon which the puritan still lays +great stress.</p> + +<p>In Berlin particularly, where there are some thirty-five hundred +registered and nearly fifty thousand unregistered women devoting +themselves to the seemingly incompatible ends of rapidly accumulating +gold while frantically pursuing pleasure, there is an amount of +immorality unequalled in any capital in Europe. In the whole German +Empire the average of illegitimacy is ten per cent. but in Berlin the +average for the last few years is twenty per cent. Out of every five +children born in Berlin each year one is illegitimate! It is +questionable whether the increasing demands of the army and navy +require such laxity of moral methods in providing therefor.</p> + +<p>There is, +however, a state church in Germany with its head in Berlin, and no +doubt we may safely leave this matter in these better hands than ours. +I beg to say that in mentioning this subject I am quoting unprejudiced +scientific investigators, who, I may say, agree, without a dissenting +voice of importance, that Berlin has become the classical problem +along such lines. In the endeavor to compete with the gayeties +elsewhere, a laxity has been encouraged and permitted that has won for +Berlin in the last ten years, an unrivalled position as a purveyor of +after-dark pleasures. Berlin not only produces a disproportionate +number of such people as Diotrephes, in manners, but also a veritable +horde of those who are like unto the son of Bosor.</p> + +<p>After the sheltered home life and the severe discipline of the higher +schools, a German youth is permitted a freedom unknown to us at the +university. There is no record kept of how or where he spends his +time. He matriculates at one or another of the universities, and for +three, four, or, in the case of medical students, five years, he is +free to work or not to work, as he pleases.</p> + +<p>There are, however, three +factors that serve as bit and reins to keep him in order. The final +examination is severe, thorough, and cannot be passed successfully by +mere cramming; very few of the students have incomes which permit of a +great range of dissipation; and not to pass the examination is a +terrible defeat in life, which cuts a man off from further progress +and leaves him disgraced.</p> + +<p>These are forces that count, and which prevail to keep all but the +least serious within bounds. German life as a whole is so disciplined, +so fitted together, so impossible to break into except through the +recognized channels, that few men have the optimistic elasticity of +mind and spirits, the demonic confidence in themselves, that overrides +such considerations.</p> + +<p>We in America suffer from a superabundance of men +of aleatory dispositions, men who love to play cards with the devil, +who rejoice to wager their future, their reputation, their lives, +against the world. I admit a sneaking fondness for them. They are a +great asset, and a new country needs them, but if we have too many, +Germany has too few. They are forever crying out in Germany for +another Bismarck. Whenever in political matters, in foreign affairs, +even in their religious controversies, things go wrong, men lift their +hands and eyes to heaven and say, “How different if Bismarck were +here!” Bismarck and two of his predecessors as nation-builders were +not afraid to throw dice with the world, and what “the land of damned +professors” could not do, they did.</p> + +<p>When the young men from the +Gymnasium come into the freedom of university life, they toss their +heads a bit, kick up their heels, laugh long and loud at the +Philistine, but just as every German climax is incomplete without +tears, so they too are soon singing: “Ich weiss nicht was soll es +bedeuten dass ich so traurig bin!” the gloom of the Teutoburger Wald +settles down on them, and they buckle to and work with an enduring +patience such as few other men in the world display, and join the +great army here who, bitted and harnessed, are pulling the Vaterland +to the front.</p> + +<p>The British Empire between 1800 and 1910 grew from 1,500,000 square +miles to 11,450,000 square miles, and its trade from $400,000,000 to +$11,020,000,000; not to mention the United States of America, now +considered to be of noticeable importance, though we are universally +sneered at by the Germans, to an extent that no American dreams of who +has not lived among them, as a land of dollars, and, from the point of +view of book-learning, dullards. But it is this, none the less, that +Germany envies, and has set out to rival and if possible to surpass. +No wonder the training must be severe for the athletes who propose to +themselves such a task.</p> + +<p>For a semester or two, perhaps for three, the German student gives +himself up to the rollicking freedom of the corps student’s life. That +life is so completely misunderstood by the foreigner that it deserves +a few words of explanation.</p> + +<p>I am not yet old enough to envy youth, nor sourly sophisticated enough +to deal sarcastically or even lightly with their worship and their +creeds, that once I shared, and with which lately I have been, under +the most hospitable circumstances, invited to renew my acquaintance at +the <i>Commers</i> and the <i>Mensur</i>.</p> + +<p>One may be no longer a constant worshipper at the shrine of blue eyes, +pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and the enshrouding mystery of skirts, which +make for curiosity and reverence in youth; one may have learned, +however, the far more valuable lesson that the best women are so much +nobler than the best men, that the best men may still kneel to the +best women; just as the worst women surpass the worst men in +consciencelessness, brutal selfishness, disloyalty, and degradation. +The female bandit in society, or frankly on the war-path outside, +takes her weapons from an armory of foulness and cruelty unknown to +men; just as the heroines and angels among women fortify themselves in +sanctuaries to which few, if any, men have the key.</p> + +<p>One returns, therefore, to the playground of one’s youth with not less +but with more sympathy and understanding. Far from being “brutalizing +guilds,” far from being mere unions for swilling and slashing, the +German corps, by their codes, and discipline, and standards of manners +and honor, are, from the chivalrous point of view, the leaven of +German student life. In these days many of them have club-houses of +their own, where they take their meals in some cases and where they +meet for their beer-drinking ceremonies.</p> + +<p>There is of course a wide range of expenditure by students at the +German universities, whether they are members of the corps or not. At +one of the smaller universities in a country town like Marburg, for +example, a poor student, with a little tutoring and the system of <i>frei +Tisch</i> - money left for the purpose of giving a free midday meal to +poor students - may scrape along with an expenditure of as little as +twenty dollars a month. A member of a good corps at this same +university is well content with, and can do himself well on, seventy +dollars a month. I have seen numbers of students’ rooms, with bed, +writing-table, and simple furniture, perhaps with a balcony where for +many months in the year one may write and read, which rent for sixty +dollars a year. One may say roughly that at the universities outside +the large towns, and not including the fashionable universities, such +as Bonn or Heidelberg, the student gets on comfortably with fifty +dollars a month. They have their coffee and rolls in the morning, +their midday meal which they take together at a restaurant, and their +supper of cold meats, preserves, cheese, and beer where they will. For +seventy-five cents a day a student can feed himself.</p> + +<p>The hours are Aristotelian, for it was Aristotle in his “Economics,” +and not a nursery rhymer, who wrote: “It is likewise well to rise +before daybreak, for this contributes to health, wealth, and wisdom.” +“Early to bed and early to rise” is a classic.</p> + +<p>At Bonn, a member of one of the three more fashionable corps spends +far more than these sums, and his habits may be less Spartan. The +ridiculous expenditure of some of our mamma-bred undergraduates, who +go to college primarily to cultivate social relations, are unknown +anywhere in Germany, for a student would make himself unpopularly +conspicuous by extravagance. Two to three thousand dollars a year, +even at Bonn, as a member of the best corps, would be amply sufficient +and is considered an extravagant expenditure.</p> + +<p>When the Earl of Essex was sent to Cambridge in Queen Elizabeth’s +time, he was provided with a deal table covered with baize, a truckle-bed, +half a dozen chairs, and a wash-hand basin. The cost of all this +was about $25. When students from all over Europe tramped to Paris to +hear Abelard lecture, they begged their way. They were given special +licenses as scholars to beg. Learning then, as it is still in Germany, +alone of all the nations, was considered to be a pious profession +deserving well of the world. We do not even know the names of our +scholars in America. How many Americans have heard of Gibbs, the +authority on the fundamental laws regulating the trend of +transformation in chemical and physical processes, or of Hill and his +theory of the moon, or of Hale who explains the mystery of sun spots +and measures the magnetic forces that play around the sun? How many +Frenchmen know Pierron’s translation of Aeschylus, or Patin’s studies +in Greek tragedies, or Charles Maguin, or Maurice Croiset, or Paul +Magou or Leconte de Lisle? while in England the mass of the people not +only do not know the names of their scholars, but distrust all mental +processes that are super-canine.</p> + +<p>The origin of the <i>Landmannschaften</i>, <i>Burschenschaften</i>, and the <i>Corps</i> +among the students dates back to the days when the students aligned +themselves with more rigidity than now, according to the various +German states from which they came. The names of the corps still bear +this suggestion, though nowadays the alignment is rather social than +geographical. The Burschenschaften societies of students had their +origin in political opposition to this separation of the students into +communities from the various states. The originators of the +Burschenschaften movement, for example, were eleven students at Jena. +Sobriety and chastity were conditions of entrance, and “Honor, +Liberty, Fatherland” were their watchwords. It was deemed a point of +honor that a member breaking his vows should confess and retire from +the society.</p> + +<p>The societies of the <i>Burschenschaften</i> are still considered to have a +political complexion and the corps proper have no dealings with them.</p> + +<p>In any given semester the number of students in one of these corps +varies from as few as ten, to as many as twenty-five, depending, much +as do our Greek-letter societies and college clubs, upon the number of +available men coming up to the university. Certain corps are composed +almost exclusively of noblemen, but none is distinctly a rich man’s +club.</p> + +<p>An active member of a corps during his first two semesters may do a +certain amount of serious work, but as a rule it is looked upon as a +time “to loaf and invite one’s soul,” and little attempt is made to do +more. Not a few men whom I have known, have not even entered a class-room +during the two or three semesters of this blossoming period.</p> + +<p>I have spent many days and nights with these young gentlemen, at +Heidelberg, at Leipsic, at Marburg, at Bonn, and been made one of them +in their jollity and good-fellowship, and I have agreed, and still +agree, that “Wir sind die Könige der Welt, wir sind’s durch unsere +Freude.”</p> + +<p>They are by no means the swashbuckling, bullying, dissolute companions +painted by those who know nothing about them. They may drink more beer +than we deem necessary for health, or even for comfort; and they may +take their exercise with a form of sword practice that we do not +esteem, they may be proud of the scars of these imitation duels, but +these are all matters of tradition and taste.</p> + +<p>When one writes of eating and drinking, it is hardly fair to make +comparisons from a personal stand-point. An adult of average weight +requires each day 125 grams of proteid or building material, 500 grams +of carbohydrates, 50 grams of fat. This equals, in common parlance, +one pound of bread, one-half pound of meat, one-quarter pound of fat, +one pound of potatoes, one-half pint of milk, one-quarter pound of +eggs, assuming that one egg equals two ounces, and one-eighth pound of +cheese. Divided into three meals, this means: for breakfast, two +slices of bread and butter and two eggs; for dinner: one plateful +potato soup, large helping of meat with fat, four moderate-sized +potatoes, one slice bread and butter; for tea: one glass of milk and +two slices of bread and butter; for supper: two slices of bread and +butter and two ounces of cheese.</p> + +<p>Plain white bread supplies more caloric, or energy, for the price than +any other one food, and, with one or two exceptions, more proteid, or +building material, than any other one food.</p> + +<p>One to one and a half fluid ounces of alcohol is about the amount +which can be completely oxidized in the body in a day. This quantity +is contained in two fluid ounces of brandy or whiskey, five fluid +ounces of port or sherry, ten of claret or champagne or other light +wines, and twenty of bottled beer. All this means that a pint of +claret, or two glasses of champagne, or a bottle of beer, or a glass +of whiskey with some aerated water during the day will not hurt a man, +and adds perhaps to the “agreeableness of life,” as Matthew Arnold +phrases it. At any rate, this table of contents is a much safer +standard of comparison, in judging the eating and drinking habits of +other people, than either your habits or mine.</p> + +<p>The German student probably drinks too much, and it is said by safe +authorities in Germany that his heart, liver, and kidneys suffer; but +he has been at it a long time, and in certain fields of intellectual +prowess he is still supreme, and as we only drink with him now +occasionally when he is our host, perhaps he had best be left to +settle these questions without our criticism.</p> + +<p>In general terms, I have always considered, as a test of myself and +others, that a healthy man is one who lies down at night without fear, +rises in the morning cheerfully, goes to a day’s serious work of some +kind rejoicing in the prospect, meets his friends gayly, and loves his +loves better than himself.</p> + +<p>It is folly to maintain, that it does not require pluck and courage to +stand up to a swinging <i>Schläger</i>, and take your punishment without +flinching, and then to sit without a murmur +while your wounds are sewn up and bandaged. I cannot help my +preference for foot-ball, or base-ball, or rowing, or a cross-country +run with the hounds, or grouse or pheasant shooting, or the shooting +of bigger game, or the driving of four horses, or the handling of a +boat in a breeze of wind, but the “world is so full of a number of +things” that he has more audacity than I who proposes to weigh them +all in the scales of his personal experience, and then to mark them +with their relative values.</p> + +<p>First of all, it is to be remembered that these <i>Schläger</i> contests +between students are in no sense duels; a duel being the setting by +one man of his chance of life against another’s chance, both with +deadly weapons in their hands. These contests with the <i>Schläger</i> at the +German universities, wrongly called duels, are so conducted that there +is no possibility of permanent or even very serious injury to the +combatants. The attendants who put them into their fighting harness, +the doctors who look after them during the contest and who care for +them afterward, are old hands at the game, and no mistakes are made.</p> + +<p>There is no feeling of animosity between the swordsmen as a rule. They +are merely candidates for promotion in their own corps who meet +candidates from other corps, and prove their skill and courage <i>auf die +Mensur</i>, or fighting-ground.</p> + +<p>When a youth joins a corps he chooses a counsellor and friend, a +<i>Leibbursch</i>, as he is called, from among the older men, whose special +care it is, to see to it that he behaves himself properly in his new +environment; he pledges himself to respect the traditions and +standards of the corps, and to keep himself worthy of respect among +his fellows, and among those whom he meets outside. A companionship +and guardianship not unlike this, used to exist in the Greek-letter +society to which I once belonged. He of course abides by the rules and +regulations of the order. It is a time of freedom in one sense, but it +is a freedom closely guarded, and there is rigid discipline here as in +practically all other departments of life in Germany.</p> + +<p>The young students, or <i>Füchse</i>, as they are called, are instructed in +the way they should go by the older students, or <i>Burschen</i>, whose +authority is absolute. This authority extends even to the people whom +they may know and consort with, either in the university or in the +town, and to all questions of personal behavior, debts, dissipation, +manners, and general bearing. In many of the corps there are high +standards and old traditions as regards these matters, and every +member must abide by them. Every corps student is a patriot, ready to +sing or fight for Kaiser and Vaterland, and socialism, even criticism +of his country or its rulers, are as out of place among them as in the +army or navy. They are particular as to the men whom they admit, and a +man’s lineage and bearing and relations with older members of the +corps are carefully canvassed before he is admitted to membership. +Both the present Emperor and one of his sons have been members of a +corps.</p> + +<p>Let us spend a day with them. It is Saturday. We get up rather late, +having turned in late after the <i>Commers</i> of Friday, when the men who +are to fight the next day were drunk to, sung to, and wished good +fortune on the morrow, and sent home early. The trees are turning +green at Bonn, the shrubs are feeling the air with hesitating +blossoms, you walk out into the sunshine as gay as a lark, for the +champagne and the beer of the night before were good, and you sang +away the fumes of alcohol before you went to bed. There was much +laughter, and a speech or two of welcome for the guest, responded to +at 1 A. M. in German, French, English, and gestures with a beer-mug, +and punctuated with the appreciative comments of the company.</p> + +<p>It was a time to slough off twenty years or so and let Adam have his +chance, and the company was of gentlemen who sympathize with and +understand the “Alter Herr,” and are only too delighted if he will let +the springs of youth bubble and sparkle for them, and glad to +encourage him to return to reminiscences of his prowess in love and +war, and ready to pledge him in bumper after bumper success in the +days to come. You might think it a carouse. Far from it.</p> + +<p>The ceremony is presided over by a stern young gentleman, who never +for a moment allows any member of the company to get out of hand, and +who, when a speech is to be made, makes it with grace and complete +ease of manner. Indeed, these young fellows surprise one with their +easy mastery of the art of speech-making. Even the spokesman for the +<i>Füchse</i>, or younger students, at the lower end of the table, rises and +pledges himself and his companions in a few graceful words, with +certain sly references to the possibility that the guest may not have +lost his appreciation of the charms of German womankind, which the +guest in question here and now, and frankly admits; but not a word of +coarseness, not a hint that totters on the brink of an indiscretion, +and what higher praise can one give to speech-making on such an +occasion!</p> + +<p>My particular host and introducer to his old corps is youngest of all, +and though seemingly as lavish in his potations as any one, sings his +way home with me, head as clear, legs as steady, eyes as bright, as +though it were 10 A. M. and not 2 A. M., and as though I had not +seemed to see his face during most of the evening through the bottom +of a beer-mug.</p> + +<p>That was the night before. The next morning we stroll over to the room +where the Schläger contests are to take place. It is packed with +students in their different-colored caps. Beer there is, of course, +but no smoking allowed till the bouts are over.</p> + +<p>I go down to see the men dressing for the fray. They strip to the +waist, put on a loose half-shirt half-jacket of cotton stuff, then a +heavily padded half-jerkin that covers them completely from chin to +knee. The throat is wrapped round and round with heavy silk bandages. +The right arm and hand are guarded with a glove and a heavily padded +leather sleeve; all these impervious to any sword blow. The eyes are +guarded with steel spectacle frames fitted with thick glass. Nothing +is exposed but the face and the top of the head. The exposed parts are +washed with antiseptics, as are also the swords, repeatedly during the +bout. The sword, hilt and blade together, measures one hundred and +five centimetres. There is a heavy, well-guarded hilt, and a pliable +blade with a square end, sharp as a razor on both edges for some six +inches from the end.</p> + +<p>The position in the sword-play is to face squarely one’s opponent, the +sword hand well over the head with the blade held down over the left +shoulder. The distance between the combatants is measured by placing +the swords between them lengthwise, each one with his chest against +the hilt of his own weapon, and this marks the proper distance between +them. When they are brought in and face one another, the umpire, with +a bow, explains the situation. The two seconds with swords crouch each +beside his man, ready to throw up the swords and stop the fighting +between each bout. Two other men stand ready to hold the rather +heavily weighted sword arm of their comrade on the shoulder during the +pauses. Two others with cotton dipped in an antiseptic preparation +keep the points of the swords clean. Still another official keeps a +record in a book, of each cut or scratch, the length of time, the +number of bouts, and the result. The doctor decides when a wound is +bad enough to close the contest.</p> + +<p>At the word “Los!” the blades sing and whistle in the air, the work +being done almost wholly with the wrist, some four blows are +exchanged, there is a pause, then at it again, till the allotted +number of bouts are over, or one or the other has been cut to the +point where the doctor decides that there shall be no more. We follow +them downstairs again, where, after being carefully washed, the +combatants are seated in a chair one after the other, their friends +crowd around and count the stitches as the surgeon works, and comment +upon what particular twist of the wrist produced such and such a gash.</p> + +<p>I have seen scores of these contests, and during the last year as many +as a dozen or more. There is no record of any one ever having been +seriously injured; indeed, I doubt if there are not more men injured +by too much beer than too much sword-play.</p> + +<p>It is perhaps expected that the foot-ball player should sneer at bull-fighting; +the boxer at fencing; the rider to hounds at these <i>Schläger</i> +bouts; and that we game-players should say contemptuous things of the +contests of our neighbors. Personally, if one could eliminate the +horse from the contest, I go so far as to believe that even bull-fighting +is better than no game at all. As for these <i>Schläger</i> +contests, they seem to me no more brutal than our own foot-ball, which +is only brutal to the shivering crowd of the too tender who have never +played it, and not so dangerous as polo or pig-sticking, and a +thousand times better than no contest at all.</p> + +<p>I am not of those who believe that the human body and that human life +are the most precious and valuable things in the world. They are only +servants of the courageous hearts and pure souls that ought to be +their masters. Without training, without obedience, without the +instant willingness to sacrifice themselves for their masters, the +human body and human life are contemptible and unworthy. I claim that +it braces the mind to expose the body; that an education in the +prepared emergencies of games and sport, is the best training for the +unprepared emergencies with which life is strewn.</p> + +<p>The most cruel people I have ever known were gentle enough physically, +but they were hard and sour in their social relations, and often +enough called “good” by their fellows. The disappointments, losses, +sorrows, defeats, of each one of us, trouble, even though +imperceptibly, the waters of life that we all must drink of; and to +ignore or to rejoice at these misfortunes is only muddying what we +ourselves must drink. I believe the hardening of the body goes some +way toward softening the heart and cleansing the soul, and toward +fitting a man with that cheerful charity that supplies the oil of +intercourse in a creaking world of rival interests.</p> + +<p>To see a youth swinging a sword at his fellow’s face with delighted +energy; to see a man riding off vigorously at polo; to see a man hard +at it with the gloves on; to see another flinging himself and his +horse over a wall or across a ditch; to see a man taking his nerves in +hand, to make a two-yard put for a half, when he is one down and two +to play; to see these things without seeing that - perhaps often +enough in a muddy sort of way - the soul is making a slave of the +body, that courage is mastering cowardice, that in an elementary way +the youth is learning how to give himself generously when some great +emergency calls upon him to give his life for an ideal, a tradition, a +duty, is to see nothing but brutality, I admit. Who does not know that +the Carthaginians at Cannae were one thing, the Carthaginians at Capua +another! I have therefore no acidulous effeminacy to pour upon these +German <i>Schläger</i> bouts. I prefer other forms of exercise, but I am a +hardened believer in the manhood bred of contests, and though their +ways are not my ways, I prefer a world of slashed faces to a world of +soft ones.</p> + +<p>Prosit, gentlemen! Better your world than the world of +Semitic haggling and exchange; of caution and smoothness; of the +disasters born of daintiness; of sliding over the ship’s side in +women’s clothes to live, when it was a moral duty to be drowned. +Better your world than any such worlds as those, for</p> + +<blockquote>“If one should dream that such a world began<br /> +In some slow devil’s heart that hated man,<br /> +Who should deny it?”</blockquote> + +<p>Milton held that “a complete and generous education fits a man to +perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both +private and public, of peace and war.” It is my opinion that the +<i>Schläger</i> has its part to play in this matter of education. A mind +trained to the keenness of a razor’s edge, but without a sound body +controlled by a steel will, is of small account in the world. The +whole aim of education is, after all, to make a man independent, to +make the intelligence reach out in keen quest of its object, and at +its own and not at another’s bidding. An education is intended to make +a man his own master, and so far as any man is not his own master, in +just so far is he uneducated. What he knows, or does not know, of +books does not alter the fact.</p> + +<p>Much of the pharisaism and priggishness +on the subject of education arises from the fact that the world is +divided into two camps as regards knowledge: those who believe that +the astronomer alone knows the stars, and those who believe that he +knows them best who sleeps in the open beneath them. In reality, +neither type of mind is complete without the other.</p> + +<p>To turn from any +theoretical discussion of the subject, it remains to be said that +Germany has trained her whole population into the best working team in +the world. Without the natural advantages of either England or America +she has become the rival of both. Her superior mental training has +enabled her to wrest wealth from by-products, and she saves and grows +rich on what America wastes. Whether Germany has succeeded in giving +the ply of character to her youth, as she folds them in her +educational factories, I sometimes doubt. That she has not made them +independent and ready to grapple with new situations, and strange +peoples, and swift emergencies, their own past and present history +shows.</p> + +<p>It is a very strenuous and economical existence, however, for +everybody, and it requires a politically tame population to be thus +driven. The dangerous geographical situation of Germany, ringed round +by enemies, has made submission to hard work, and to an iron +autocratic government necessary. To be a nation at all it was +necessary to obey and to submit, to sacrifice and to save. These +things they have been taught as have no other European people. Greater +wealth, increased power, a larger rôle in the world, are bringing new +problems. Education thus far has been in the direction of fitting each +one into his place in a great machine, and less attention has been +paid to the development of that elasticity of mind which makes for +independence; but men educate themselves into independence, and that +time is coming swiftly for Germany.</p> + +<p>“Also he hath set the world in their heart,” and one wonders what this +population, hitherto so amenable, so economical, and so little +worldly, will do with this new world. The temptations of wealth, the +sirens of luxury, the opportunities for amusement and dissipation, are +all to the fore in the Germany of to-day as they were certainly not +twenty-five years ago. Ulysses, alas, does not bind himself to the +mast very tightly as he passes these enchanted isles of modern luxury. +“The land of damned professors” has learned its lessons from those +same professors so well, that it is now ready to take a postgraduate +course in world politics; and as I said in the beginning, some of our +friends are putting the word “damned” in other parts of this, and +other sentences, when they describe the rival prowess and progress of +the Germans.</p> + +<h3>VII THE DISTAFF SIDE</h3> + +<p> +Madame Necker writes of women: “Les femmes tiennent la place de ces +lagers duvets qu’on introduit dans les caisses de porcelaine; on n’y +fait point d’attention, mais si on les retire, tout se brise.”</p> + +<p>When one sees women and dogs harnessed together dragging carts about +the streets; when one sees women doing the lighter work of sweeping up +leaves and collecting rubbish in the forests and on the larger +estates; doing the gardening work in Saxony and other places; when one +sees them by the hundreds working bare-legged in the beet-fields in +Silesia and elsewhere throughout Germany; when one reads “Viele Weiber +sind gut weil sie nicht wissen wie man es machen muss um böse zu +sein,” and “Der Mann nach Freiheit strebt, das Weib nach Sitte,” two +phrases from the German classics, Lessing and Goethe; when one recalls +the shameless carelessness of Goethe’s treatment of all women; of how +his love-poems were sometimes sent by the same mail to the lady and to +the press; and the unrestrained worship of Goethe by the German women +of his day; when one sees time and time again all over Germany the +women shouldered into the street while the men keep to the sidewalk; +when one sees in the streets, railway carriages, and other public +conveyances, the insulting staring to which every woman is subjected +if she have a trace of good looks, one realizes that at any rate +Madame Necker was not writing of German women. Let me add that so far +as the great Goethe is concerned, it is by no Puritan yard-stick that +I am measuring him, but by the German’s own high standard which +despises any mating of true sentiment with commercialism. “Beatus ille +qui procul negotiis,” certainly applies to one’s affairs of the heart.</p> + +<p>In the gallery at Dresden, where the loveliest mother’s face in all +the world shines down upon you from Raphael’s canvas like a +benediction, there is a small picture by Rubens, “The Judgment of +Paris.” The three goddesses-<i>induitur formosa est</i>; <i>exuitur ipsa forma +est</i> -have taken literally the compliment paid to a certain beautiful +customer by a renowned French dressmaker: “Un rien et madame est +habillée!” They are coquettishly revealing their claims to the +Eve-bitten fruit which Paris holds in his hand. Paris and his friend are +in the most nonchalant of attitudes. They could not be more +indifferent, or more superior in appearance, were they dandies judging +the class for costermonger’s donkeys at a provincial horse-show. The +three most beautiful women in the world are squirming and posturing +for praise, and a decision, before two as sophisticated and self-satisfied +men as one will ever see on canvas or off it.</p> + +<p>The same subject is treated by a man of the same breed, but of a later +day, named Feuerbach, and his picture hangs, I think, in Breslau. Here +again the supersuperiority of the male is portrayed.</p> + +<p>In the Church of Saint Sebaldus at Nuremberg, there is a delightful +mural painting which makes one merry even to recall it. The subject is +the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are being lectured by an elderly man +in flowing robes with a long white beard. His beard alone would more +than supply Adam and Eve with the covering they lack. In an easy +attitude, with neither haste nor anxiety, he is pointing out to them +the error of their ways. He is as detached in manner as though he were +Professor Wundt, lecturing to us at Leipsic on the fourth dimension of +space. Adam is somewhat dejected and reclines upon the ground. Eve, +unabashed, with nothing on but the apple which she is munching, is +evidently in a reckless mood. She looks like a child of fifteen, with +her hair down her back; the defiance of her attitude is that of a +naughty little girl. The world-old problem is under discussion, but +with an air of good humor and cheerfulness on the part of the +lecturer, as though there were still time in the world, as though +hurry were an undiscovered human attribute, as though possibly the +world would still go on even if the problem were left unsolved, and +this first leafy parliament adjourned <i>sine die</i>.</p> + +<p>They were so much wiser than are we! They knew then that there would +be other sessions of congress, and that it was not necessary to decide +everything on that spring day of the year One. But here again in this +picture it is the male attitude toward the woman that is of chief +interest. Adam is plainly bored. What if the woman has broken into the +sanctuary of knowledge, she will only be the bigger fool, he seems to +say. As for the professor in the red robes, his easy, patronizing +manner is indicative enough of his mental top-loftiness toward the +woman question. You can almost hear him say as he strokes his beard: +“Küche, Kinder, Kirche!”</p> + +<p>From the fields of Silesia, where the beet industry is possible only +because there are hundreds of bare-legged girls and women to single +the beets, a process not possible by machinery, at a wage of from +twenty-five to thirty cents a day, to these German paintings with +their illustrations of the spiritual and moral attitude of the German +man toward the German woman, one sees everywhere and among practically +all classes an attitude of condescension toward women among the polite +and polished; an attitude of carelessness bordering on contempt among +the rude. Their attitude is like that of the Jews who cry in their +synagogues, “Thank God for not having made me a woman!”</p> + +<p>One can judge, not incorrectly, of the status of women in a country by +the manners and habits of the men, entirely dissociated from their +relations to women. When one sees men equipped with small mirrors and +small brushes and combs, which they use in all sorts of public places, +even in the streets, in the street-cars, in omnibuses, and in the +theatres; when one opens the door to a knock to find a gentleman, a +small mirror in one hand and a tiny brush in the other, preparing +himself for his entrance into your hotel sitting-room; you are bound +to think that these persons are in the childhood days of personal +hygiene, as it cannot be denied that they are, but also that their +women folk must be still in the Eryops age of social sophistication, +not to put a stop to such bucolic methods of grooming. Even though the +Eryops is a gigantic tadpole, a hundred times older than the oldest +remains of man, this is hardly an exaggeration.</p> + +<p>In no other country in +the cultured group of nations is the animal man so naïvely vain, so +deliciously self-conscious, so untrained in the ways of the polite +world, so serenely oblivious, not merely of the rights of women but of +the simple courtesy of the strong to the weak. It is the only country +I have visited where the hands of the men are better cared for than +the hands of the women; and this is not a pleasant commentary upon the +question of who does the rough work, and who has the vanity and who +the leisure for a meticulous toilet. One must not forget that regular +and systematic cleansing of the person is a very modern fashion. As +late as the early part of the nineteenth century, tooth-brushes were +not allowed in certain French convents, being looked upon as a luxury. +Cleanliness was not very common a century and a half ago in any +country. In 1770 the publication of Monsieur Perrel’s “Pogonotomie, ou +1’Art d’apprendre à se raser soi-même,” created a sensation among +fashionable people, and enthusiasts studied self-shaving. The author +of “Lois de la Galanterie” in 1640 writes: “Every day one should take +pains to wash one’s hands, and one should also wash one’s face almost +as often!”</p> + +<p>The copious streams of hot and cold water, turned into a porcelain tub +at any time of the day or night; the brushes, and soaps, and towels, +and toilet waters, and powders of our day were quite unknown to our +not far-off ancestors. The oft-repeated and minute ablutions of our +day are almost as modern as bicycles, and not as ancient as the +railways. The Germans are only a little behind the rest of us in this +soap and water cult, that is all.</p> + +<p>In the streets and public conveyances of the cities, in the beer-gardens +and restaurants in the country, in the summer and winter +resorts from the Baltic to the Black Forest, from the Rhine to +Bohemia, it is ever the same. They seat themselves at table first, and +have their napkins hanging below their Adam’s apples before their +women are in their chairs; hundreds of times have I seen their women +arrive at table after they were seated, not a dozen times have I seen +their masters rise to receive them; their preference for the inside of +the sidewalk is practically universal; even officers in uniform, but +this is of rare occurrence, will take their places in a railway +carriage, all of them smoking, where two ladies are sitting, and wait +till requested before throwing their cigars away, and what cigars! and +then by smiles and innuendoes make the ladies so uncomfortable that +they are driven from the carriage. Even eleven hundred years ago the +German woman had rather a rough time of it. Charlemagne had nine +wives, but he seems to have been unduly uxorious or unwearying in his +infatuations. He made the wife travel with him, and all nine of them +died, worn out by travel and hardship. There is a constancy of +companionship which is deadly.</p> + +<p>The inconveniences and discomfort of going about alone, for ladies in +Germany, I have heard not from a dozen, but in a chorus from German +ladies themselves. I am reciting no grievances of my compatriots, for +I have seen next to nothing of Americans for a year or more, and I +have no personal complaints, for these soft adventurers scent danger +quickly, and give the masters of the world, whether male or female, a +wide berth.</p> + +<p>These gross manners are the result of two factors in German life that +it is well to keep in mind. They are a poor people, only just emerging +from poverty, slavery, and disaster; poor not only in possessions, but +poor in the experience of how to use them. They do not know how to use +their new freedom. They are as awkward in this new world of theirs, of +greater wealth and opportunity, as unyoked oxen that have strayed into +city streets. The abject deference of the women, who know nothing +better than these parochial masters, adds to their sense of their own +importance. It is largely the women themselves who make their men +insupportable.</p> + +<p>The other factor is the rigid caste system of their social habits. +There is no association between the officers, the nobility, the +officials, the cultured classes, and the middle and lower classes. The +public schools and universities are learning shops; they do not train +youths in character, manners, or in the ways of the world. They do not +play together, or work together, or amuse themselves together. The +creeds and codes, habits and manners of the better classes are, +therefore, not allowed to percolate and permeate those less +experienced. There is no word for gentleman in German. The words +<i>gebildeter</i> and <i>anständiger</i> are used, and it is significant to notice +that the stress is thus laid on mental development or upon obedience +to formal rules. A man may be a very great gentleman and a true +gentleman and not be a scholar. The late Duke of Devonshire cared more +for horses than for books and pictures, and Abraham Lincoln was one of +the greatest gentlemen of all time.</p> + +<p>In Homburg one day I saw a tall, fine-looking, elderly man step aside +and off the sidewalk to let two ladies pass. It was for Germany a +noticeable act. He turned out to be a famous general then in waiting +upon the Emperor. There are not a few such courtly gentlemen in +Germany, not a few whose knightliness compares with that of any +gentleman in the world. Alas for the great bulk of the Germans, they +never come into contact with them, their example is lost, their leaven +of high breeding and courtesy does not lighten the bourgeois loaf! In +America and in England we are all threading our way in and out among +all classes. We are much more democratic. Men of every class are in +contact with men of every other, we play together and work together, +and consequently the level of manners and habits is higher. This state +of things is less marked in south Germany than in Prussia, but is more +or less true everywhere.</p> + +<p>But how can this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where +every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an +exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebrae, and then +bends to kiss the lady’s hand; and where every civilian of any +standing does the same? I am not writing of the nobility and of the +corps of officers in this connection. No doubt there are black sheep +among them, though I have not met them. Of the many scores of them +whom I have met, whom I have ridden with, dined with, romped with, +drunk with, travelled with, I have only to say that they are as +courteous, as unwilling to offend or to take advantage, as are brave +men in other countries I know. I am writing of the average man and +woman, of those who make up the bulk of every population, of those +upon whom it depends whether a national life is healthy or otherwise.</p> + +<p>The very stiffness of these mannerisms, the clacking of heels, the +ducking of heads, the kissing of hands, the countless grave +formalities among the men themselves, are all indicative of social +weakness. They are afraid to walk without the crutches of certain +formulae, of certain hard-and-fast rules, of certain laws that they +worship and fall down before. Slavery is still upon them. Escaped from +a bodily master they fly to the refuge of a moral and spiritual one. +These formalities are prescribed forms which they wear as they wear +uniforms; they are not the result of innate consideration.</p> + +<p>Uniform-wearing is a passion among the Germans, and may be included as +still another indication of the universal desire to take refuge behind +forms, and laws, and fixed customs, the universal desire to shrink +from depending upon their own judgment and initiative. They will not +even bow or kiss a lady’s hand, without a prescription from a social +physician whom they trust.</p> + +<p>The German officials are always officials, always addressed and +addressing others punctiliously by their titles. They do not throw off +officialdom outside their duties and their offices as we do, but they +glory in it. We throw off our uniforms as soon as may be; we feel +hampered by them. This leads to a feeling on the part of the Germans +that we are too free and easy, and not respectful enough toward our +own dignity or toward theirs. We feel, on the other hand, that it is a +farce to go to the every-day markets of life, whether for daily food +or for daily social intercourse, with the bullion and certified checks +of our official dignity; we go rather with the small change that +jingles in all pockets alike, and is ready to be handed out for the +frequent and unimportant buying and selling of the day and hour. We +look upon this grallatory attitude toward life as artificial and +hampering, and prefer to walk among our neighbors as much as possible +upon our own feet.</p> + +<p>I am not pretending to fix standards of etiquette. I can quite +understand that when we grab the hand of the German’s wife and shake +it like a pump-handle instead of bowing over it; that when we nod +cheerfully to him in the street with a wave of the hand or a lifting +of a cane or umbrella instead of taking off our hat; that when we fail +to address both him and his lady with the title belonging to them, no +matter how commonplace that title, we shock his prejudices and his +code of good manners.</p> + +<p>If there is a stranger, a lady, in the drawing-room before dinner the +German men line up in single file and ask to be presented to her. If +the lady is tall and handsome and the party a large one, it looks +almost like an ovation. If you go to dine at an officers’ mess the men +think it their duty to come up and ask to be presented to you. They +wear their mourning bands on the forearm instead of the upperarm; they +wear their wedding-rings on the fourth finger of the right hand; many +of them wear rather more conspicuous jewelry than we consider to be in +good taste.</p> + +<p>The sofa, too, plays a rôle in German households and offices for which +I have sought in vain for an explanation. Not even German archaeology +supplies a historical ancestry for this sofa cult. It is the place of +honor. If you go to tea you are enthroned on the sofa. Even if you go +to an office, say of the police, or of the manager of the city +slaughter-house, or of the hospital superintendent, you are manoeuvred +about till they get you on the sofa, generally behind a table. I soon +discovered that this was the seat of honor. Sofas have their place in +life, I admit. There are sofas that we all remember with tears, with +tenderness, with reverence. They have been the boards upon which we +first appeared in the rôle of lover perhaps; or where we have fondled +and comforted a discouraged child; or where we have pumped new +ambitions and larger life into a weaker brother; or where we have +tossed in the agony of grief or disappointment; or where we have +waited drearily and alone the result of a consultation of moral or +physical life and death in the next room. Indeed, this all reminds me +that I could write an essay on sofas that would be poignant, touching, +autobiographical, luminous, as could most other men, but this would +not explain the position of the sofa in Germany in the least. “Travels +on a Sofa”-I must do it one day, and perhaps, with more serious study +of the subject, light may be thrown upon this question of the sofa in +Germany.</p> + +<p>Even at large and rather formal dinner-parties the host bows and +drinks to his guests, first one and then another. At the end of the +meal, in many households, it is the custom to bow and kiss your +hostess’s hand and say “<i>Mahlzeit</i>,” a shortened form of “May the meal +be blessed to you.” You also shake hands with the other guests and say +“<i>Mahlzeit</i>.” In some smarter houses this is looked upon as old- +fashioned and is not done. I look upon it as a charming custom, and +think it a pity that it should be done away with.</p> + +<p>Young unmarried girls and women courtesy to the elder women and kiss +their hands, also a custom I approve. On the other hand, where a +stalwart officer appears in a small drawing-room and seats himself at +the slender tea-table for a cup of afternoon tea, holding his sword by +his side or between his legs, that seems to me an unnecessary +precaution, even when Americans are present, for many of us nowadays +go about unarmed.</p> + +<p>Except on official or formal occasions it seems a matter of +questionable good taste to appear, say in a hotel restaurant, with +one’s breast hung with medals or with orders on one’s coat or in the +button-hole. Let ’em find out what a big boy am I without help from +self-imposed placards seems to me to be perhaps the more modest way. +The method in vogue in Japanese temples, where the worshippers jangle +a bell to call the attention of the gods to their prayers or +offerings, seems out of place where the god is merely the casual man +in the street, in a Berlin restaurant.</p> + +<p>At more than one dinner the soup is followed by a meat course, after +which comes the fish. This does not mean that the dinners are not +good. I fondly recall a dish of sauerkraut boiled in white wine and +served in a pineapple. I may not give names, but the dinners of Mr. +and Mrs. Fourth of December, of Mrs. Twenty-first of January, of Mr. +and Mrs. Thirtieth of January, and of Mr. and Mrs. February First, and +others rank very high in my gastronomic calendar. Do not imagine from +what I have written that Lucullus has left no disciples in Germany. I +could easily add a page to the list I have mentioned, and because we +look upon some of these customs of the German as absurd is no reason +for forgetting that he often, and from his stand-point rightly, looks +upon us as boors. I like the Germans and I pretend to have learned +very much from them. To sneer at superficial differences is to lose +all profit from intercourse with other peoples. Goethe is right, +“Uberall lernt man nur von dem, den man liebt!” The argument is only +all on our side when we are impervious to impressions and to other +standards of manners and morals than our own.</p> + +<blockquote>“Am Ende hangen wir doch ab<br /> +Von Kreaturen die wir machten”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">are two lines at least from the second part of “Faust” that we can all +understand.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes thrown at us Americans that we love a title, and that +we are not averse to the ornamentation of our names with pseudo and +attenuated “Honorables” and “Colonels” and “Judge” and so on; and I am +bound to admit the impeachment, for I blush at some of my +be-colonelled and becaptained friends, and wonder at their rejoicing over +such effeminate honorifics, especially those colonelcies born of +clattering behind a civilian governor, on a badly ridden horse, a +title which may be compared with that most attenuated title of all, +that of a Texan, who when asked why he was called “colonel” replied, +that he had married the widow of a colonel!</p> + +<p>I prefer “Esqr.” to “Mr.” merely because it makes it easier to assort +the daily mail; “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” and “Miss” are so easily taken for one +another on an envelope, and particularly at Christmas time this more +distinctly legible title avoids, the deplorable misdirection of the +secrets of Santa Claus; aside from that I am happy to be addressed +merely by my name, like any other sovereign.</p> + +<p>We are, too, somewhat overexcited when foreign royalties appear among +us. “What wud ye do if ye were a king an’ come to this counthry?” +asked Mr. Hennessy.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Dooley, “there’s wan thing I wuddent do. I wuddent r-read +th’ Declaration iv Independence. I’d be afraid I’d die laughin’.”</p> + +<p>In Germany not only are titles showered upon the populace, but it is +distinctly and officially stated by what title the office-holder shall +be addressed.</p> + +<p>In a case I know, a certain lady failed to sign herself to one of the +small officials working upon her estate as, let us say, “I remain very +sincerely yours,” or its German equivalent; whereupon the person +addressed wrote and demanded that communications addressed to him +should be signed in the regulation manner. A lawyer was consulted, and +it was found that a similar case had been taken to the courts and +decided in favor of the recipient of wounded vanity.</p> + +<p>In hearty and manly opposition to this attitude toward life is the +example of Admiral X. He had served long and gallantly, and just +before he retired a friend said to him: “I hear that they’re going to +knight you.” “By God, sir, not without a court-martial!” was the +prompt reply. Indeed, things have come to such a pass in England that +the offer of a knighthood to a gentleman of lineage, breeding, and +real distinction, has been for years looked upon as either a joke or +an insult.</p> + +<p>Not so among my German friends; they have a ravenous appetite for +these flimsy tickets of passing commendation. At many, many hospitable +boards in Berlin I have been present where no left breast was barren +of a medal, and where the only medal won by participation in actual +warfare, belonging to one of the guests, was safely packed away in his +house. And as for the titles, there is no room in a small volume like +this to enumerate them all; and the women folk all carry the titles of +the husband, from Frau Ober-Postassistent, Frau Regierungs Assessor, +up to the Chancellor’s lady, who, by the way, wears a title in her +mere face and bearing. Not long ago I saw in a provincial sheet the +notice of the death of a woman of eighty, who was gravely dignified by +her bereaved relatives with the title, and as the relict of, a +veterinary.</p> + +<p>Upon a certain funicular at a mountain resort, where the cars pass one +another up and down every twenty minutes, the conductors salute one +another stiffly each time they pass.</p> + +<p>Of the army of people with titles of Ober-Regierungsrat, Geheimer +Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer +Ober-Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimerat, who also carries the +additional title of “Excellenz” with his title; Referendar, Assessor, +Justizrat, Geheimer Justizrat, Gerichts-Assessor, Amtsrichter, +Amtsgerichtrat, Oberamtsrichter, Landgerichtsdirector, +Amtsgerichtspräsident, Geheimer Finanzrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Ober +Finanzrat, Legationsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Legationsrat, Vice +Konsul, Konsul, General Konsul, Commercienrat, +Wirklichercommercienrat, Staatsanwalt, Staatsanwaltschaftsrat, Herr +Erster Staatsanwalt, where the “Herr” is a legal part of the title; of +those who must be addressed as “Excellenz,” and in addition military +and naval titles, and the horde of handles to names of those in the +railway, postal, telegraph, street-cleaning, forestry, and other +departments, one must merely throw up one’s hands in despair, and bow +to the inevitable disgrace of being quite unable to name this Noah’s-ark +procession of petty dignitaries.</p> + +<p>In the department of post and telegraph a new order has gone forth, +issued during the last few months, by which, after passing certain +examinations, the employees may take the title of Ober-Postschaffner +and Ober-Leitungsaufseher. After thirty years’ service the postman is +dignified with the title of Ober-Briefträger. It is difficult to +understand the type of mind which is flattered by such infantile +honors. At any rate, it is a cheap system of rewards, and so long as +men will work for such trumpery ends the state profits by playing upon +their childish vanity. During the year 1912 more than 7,000 +decorations were distributed, and some 1,500 of these were of the +three classes of the Order of the Red Eagle. On the twenty-fifth +anniversary of the reign of the present Emperor, in 1913, still +another medal is to be struck, to be given to worthy officials and +officers.</p> + +<p>All the professions and all the trades, too, have their pharmacopoeia +of tags and titles, and you will go far afield to find a German woman +who is not Frau Something-or-other Schmidt, or Fischer, or Miller. +Every day one hears women greeting one another as Frau +Oberforstmeister, Frau Superintendent, Frau Medicinalrat, Frau +Oberbergrat, Frau Apothekar, Frau Stadt-Musikdirektor, Frau Doktor +Rechtsanwalt, Frau Geschäftsführer, and the like. All these titles, +too, appear in the hotel registers and in all announcements in the +newspapers. Even when a man dies, his title follows him to the grave, +and even beyond it, in the speech of those left behind.</p> + +<p>These uniforms and titles and small formalities do make, I admit, for +orderliness and rigidity, and perhaps for contentment; since every man +and woman feels that though they are below some one else on the ladder +they are above others; and every day and in every company their vanity +is lightly tickled by hearing their importance, small though it be, +proclaimed by the mention of their titles.</p> + +<p>It pleases the foreigners to laugh and sometimes to jeer at the +universal sign of “<i>Verboten</i>” (Forbidden) seen all over Germany. They +look upon it as the seal of an autocratic and bureaucratic government. +It is nothing of the kind. The army, the bureaucracy, the autocratic +Kaiser at the helm, and the landscape bestrewn with “<i>Verboten</i>” and +“<i>Nicht gestattet</i>” (Not allowed), these are necessities in the case of +these people. They do not know instinctively, or by training or +experience, where to expectorate and where not to; where to smoke and +where not to; what to put their feet on and what not to; where to walk +and where not to; when to stare and when not to; when to be dignified +and when to laugh; and, least of all, how to take a joke; how, when, +or how much to eat, drink, or bathe, or how to dress properly or +appropriately. The Emperor is almost the only man in Germany who knows +what chaff is and when to use it.</p> + +<p>The more you know them, the longer you live among them, the less you +laugh at “<i>Verboten</i>.” The trouble is not that there are too many of +these warnings, but that there are not enough! When you see in flaring +letters in the street-cars, “In alighting the left hand on the left-hand +rail,” when you read on the bill of fare in the dining-car brief +instructions underlined, as to how to pour out your wine so that you +will not spill it on the table-cloth; when you see the list of from +ten to fifteen rules for passengers in railway carriages; when you see +everywhere where crowds go and come, “Keep to the right”; when you see +hanging on the railings of the canals that flow through Berlin a life-buoy, +and hanging over it full instructions with diagrams for the +rescue of the drowning; when you see over a post-box, “Aufschrift und +Marke nicht vergessen” (Do not forget to stamp and address your +envelope); when you see in the church entrances a tray with water and +<i>sal volatile</i>, and the countless other directions and remedies and +preventives on every hand, you shrug your Saxon shoulders and smile +pityingly, if you do not stand and stare and then laugh outright, as I +was fool enough to do at first. But you soon recover from this +superficial view of matters Teutonic. In one cab I rode in I was +cautioned not to expectorate, not to put my feet on the cushions, not +to tap on the glass with stick or umbrella, not to open the windows, +but to ask the driver to do it, and not to open the door till the +auto-taxi stopped; one hardly has time to learn the rules before the +journey is over.</p> + +<p>In April, 1913, more laws are to come into effect for the street +traffic. People may not walk more than three abreast; they may not +swing their canes and umbrellas as they walk; they may not drag their +garments in the street; they may not sing, whistle, or talk loudly in +the street, nor congregate for conversation; there will follow, of +course, a regulation as to the length of women’s dresses to be worn in +the street, and no doubt the police commissioner, an amiable bachelor, +will decree that the shorter the better. All these fussy regulations +are ridiculous to us, but in reality they are horrible and give one a +feeling of suffocation when living in Germany. In the days when +everybody rode a bicycle, each rider was obliged to pass an +examination in proficiency, paid a small tax, and was given a number +and a license. Women who persisted in wearing dangerous hat-pins have +been ejected from public vehicles.</p> + +<p>After April 1, 1913, no shop in Berlin can advertise or hold a bargain +sale without permission of the police. The changed prices must be +affixed to the goods four days before the sale for inspection by the +police, and only two such sales are permitted a year, and these must +take place either before February 15, or between June 15 and August +1st. All particulars of the sale must be handed to the police a week +in advance. In a carriage on the Bavarian railroad, a husband who +kissed and petted his tired wife was complained of by a fellow- +passenger. The husband was tried, judged guilty, and fined. There was +no question but that the woman was his wife; thus there is no loop-hole +left for the legally curious, and thousands of male Germans hug +and kiss one another on railway-station platforms who surely ought to +be fined and imprisoned or deported or hanged! All this may be a relic +of Roman law. Cato dismissed Marilius from the Senate because he +kissed his own wife by daylight in the presence of their own daughter.</p> + +<p>Shortly after leaving Germany, I returned from a few weeks’ shooting +in Scotland. We bundled out of the train onto the station platform in +London. Dogs, gun-cases, cartridge-boxes, men and maid servants, +trunks, bags, baskets, bunches of grouse, and the passengers seemed in +a chaotic huddle of confusion. In Germany at least twenty policemen +would have been needed to disentangle us. I was so torpid from having +been long Teutonically cared for, that I looked on momentarily +paralyzed. There was no shouting, not a harsh word that I heard; and +as I was almost the last to get away, I can vouch for it that in ten +minutes each had his own and was off. I had forgotten that such things +could be done. I had been so long steeped in enforced orderliness, +that I had forgotten that real orderliness is only born of individual +self-control. I forgot that I was back among the free spirits who +govern a quarter of the habitable globe and whose descendants are +making America; and even if here and there one or more, and they are +often recently arrived immigrants, are intoxicated by freedom and +shoot or steal like drunken men; I realized that I am still an +Occidental barbarian, thank God, preferring liberty, even though it is +punctuated now and then with shots and screams and thefts, to official +guardianship, even though I am thus saved the shooting, the screaming, +and the thieving.</p> + +<p>In the nine years ending 1910, our Fourth of July +celebrations cost America in killed, 18,000; in wounded, 35,000; but +even that is better than the civic throttling of the German method. It +seems to be forgotten that the men who keep the world fresh with their +saline vigor, love risks as they love fresh air. They should be +curbed, but not strangled!</p> + +<p>You read their history, you watch closely +their manners, you prowl about among them, in their streets, their +shops, their houses, their theatres; you accompany the crowds on a +holiday in the trains, in the forests, in the summer resorts, at their +concerts or their picnics, in their beer-gardens and restaurants, and +you soon see that the orderliness is all forced upon them from +without, and not due to their own knowledge of how to take care of +themselves.</p> + +<p>In a recent volume by a distinguished German prison +official he writes that, after a careful study of the figures from +1882 to 1910, he has discovered that one person now living in every +twelve in Germany has been convicted of some offence. Doctor +Finkelnburg shows that the number of “criminals” in Germany is +3,869,000, of whom 3,060,000 are males, and 809,000 females. Every 43d +boy and every 213th girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen has +been punished by fine or imprisonment. This does not mean that the +Germans are criminal or disorderly, but, on the contrary, it shows how +absurdly petty are the violations of the law punished by fine or +imprisonment.</p> + +<p>Their whole history, from Charlemagne down until the last fifty years, +is a series of going to pieces the moment the strong hand of authority +is taken away from them. The German, and especially the Prussian +policeman, has become the greatest official busybody in the world. No +German’s house is his castle. The policeman enters at will and, backed +by the authorities, questions the householder about his religion, his +servants, the attendance of his children at school, the status of the +guests staying in his house, and about many other matters besides. If +one of his children by reason of ill health is taught at home, the +authorities demand the right to send an inspector every six months to +examine him or her, to be sure that the child is properly taught. The +policeman is in attendance on the platform at every public meeting, +armed with authority to close the meeting if either speeches or +discussion seem to him unpatriotic, unlawful, or strife-breeding. +Professors, pastors, teachers are all muzzled by the state, and must +preach and teach the state orthodoxy or go! A young professor of +political economy in Berlin only lately was warned, and has become +strangely silent since.</p> + +<p>The de-Germanizing of the German abroad is in line with this, and a +constant source of annoyance to the powers that be. Buda-Pesth was +founded by Germans in 1241, and now not one-tenth of the population is +German. As the Franks became French, as the Long Beards became +Italians, so the Germans become Americans in America, English in +England, Austrian and Bohemian in Austria and Bohemia. It has been a +problem to prevent their becoming Poles where the state has settled +Germans for the distinct purpose of ousting the Poles.</p> + +<p>In China, in South America, and even in Sumatra I have heard German +officials tell with indignation of how their compatriots rapidly take +the local color, and lose their German habits and customs and point of +view.</p> + +<p>One of the half dozen best-known bankers in Berlin has lamented to me +that he must change his people in South America every few years, as +they soon go to pieces there. Army officers came home from China +indignant to find their compatriots there speaking English and +unwilling even to speak German. Even as long ago as the time of the +Thirty Years’ War a forgotten chronicler, Adam Junghaus von der +Ohritz, writes: “Further, it is a misfortune to the Germans that they +take to imitating like monkeys and fools. As soon as they come among +other soldiers, they must have Spanish or other outlandish clothes. If +they could babble foreign languages a little, they would associate +themselves with Spaniards and Italians.” Wilhelm von Polentz, in his +“das Land der Zukunft,” writes: “die Deutsch-Amerikaner sind für die +alte Heimat dauernd verloren, politisch ganz und kulturell beinahe +vollständig.”</p> + +<p>Bismarck knew these people and the present Emperor knows these people, +better than do you and I! Bismarck even insisted upon using the German +text, and once returned a letter of congratulation from an official +body because it was written in the Latin text. Even the Great Elector +must have recognized this weakness when he said: “Gedenke dass du bist +em Deutscher!” The present Kaiser lends his whole social influence to +keep the Germans German. He will have the bill of fare in German, he +prefers the dreadful word Mundtuch to napkin. His officers very often +demand that the bill of fare in a German hotel shall be presented to +them in German and not in French. And they are quite right to do so, +and quite right to hang the German world with the sign “<i>Verboten</i>”; +quite right to distribute titles and medals and orders, for the more +they are uniformed and decorated and ticketed and drilled, and taken +care of, the better they like it, and the more contented these people +are. Overorganization has brought this about. Their theories have +hardened into a veritable imprisonment of the will. They have drifted +away from Goethe’s wise saying: “That man alone attains to life and +freedom who daily has to conquer them anew.”</p> + +<p>Let me refer again just here to the socialist propaganda, which seems +to the outsider so strong here in Germany. Even this is far flabbier +than it looks, as I have attempted to explain elsewhere. In such +strong and out-and-out industrial centres as Essen, Duisburg-Mühlheim, +Saarbrücken, and Bochum, where a vigorous fight has been made against +socialism, the following are the figures of the last election in 1912 +when the socialists largely increased their vote throughout other +parts of Germany:</p> + +<table> +<tr> +<td></td><td>NATIONALLIBERAL</td><td>ZENTRUM</td><td>SOCIALDEMOKRAT</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Essen</td><td>25,937</td><td>42,832</td><td>40,503</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Duisburg-Mühlheim</td><td>33,934</td><td>31,559</td><td>34,187</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Saarbrücken</td><td>25,108</td><td>24,228</td><td>4,157</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Bochum</td><td>42,257</td><td>37,650</td><td>64,833</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>I cite this example because it seems as though the growth of socialism +in Germany were in direct contradiction to my argument that they are a +soft, an impressionable, an amenable, and easily led and governed +people.</p> + +<p>State socialism as thus far put into practice in Germany is, in a +nutshell, the decision on the part of the state or the rulers that the +individual is not competent to spend his own money, to choose his own +calling, to use his own time as he will, or to provide himself for his +own future and for the various emergencies of life. And by the minute +state control, they are rapidly bringing the whole population to an +enfeebled social and political condition, where they can do nothing +for themselves.</p> + +<p>They have been knocked about and dragooned by their own rulers and, be +it said and emphasized, they have received certain compensations and +gained certain advantages, if nothing else an orderliness, safety, and +care for the people by the state unequalled elsewhere in the world. +But there is no gainsaying, on the other hand, that they have lost the +fruits that are plucked by the nations of more individualistic +training.</p> + +<p>They have clean streets, cheap music and drama, and a veritable mesh +of national education with interstices so small that no one can +escape, and they are coddled in every direction; but they have no +stuff for colonizers, and they have been not infrequently wofully +lacking in stalwart statesmen, and leaders.</p> + +<p>To deprive the worker of his choice of expenditure, by taking all but +a pittance of it in taxation, is a dangerous deprivation of moral +exercise. To be able to choose for oneself is a vitally necessary +appliance in the moral gymnasium, even if here and there one chooses +wrong. It is a curious trend of thought of the day, which proposes to +cure social evils always by weakening, rather than by strengthening +the individual.</p> + +<p>Socialism is merely a moral form of putting a sharper bit in +humanity’s mouth; when of course the highest aim, the optimistic view, +is to train people to go as fast and straight and far as possible, +with the least possible hampering of their natural powers by +legislation. “Some men are by nature free, others slaves,” writes +Aristotle, but whether this axiom can be accepted fully or not, it is +undoubtedly true that you can first dragoon and then coddle a whole +people, into a lack of independence and a shrinking from the +responsibilities of freedom.</p> + +<p>We are drugging the people ourselves just now with legislation as a +cure for the evils of industrialism, but such legislation will only do +what soporifics can do, they numb the pain, but they never bring +health. What a forlorn philosophy it is! Men take advantage, rob and +steal, we say, and to do away with this we give up the fight for fair +play and orderliness and propose sweeping away all the prizes of life, +hoping thus to do away with the highwaymen of commerce and finance. If +there is no booty, there will be no bandit, we say, forgetting +altogether the corollary that if there are no prizes there will be no +prizemen! Neither God nor Nature gives anything to those who do not +struggle, and both God and Nature appoint the stern task-master, +Necessity, to see to it that we do struggle. Now come the ignorant and +the socialists, demanding that the state step in and roll back the +very laws of creation by supplying what is not earned from the surplus +of the strong. Who cannot see anarchy looming ahead of this programme, +for it is surely a lunatic negation of all the laws of God and Nature? +They do not seem to see either in America or in England that state +supervision carried too far leads straight to the sanction of all the +demands of socialism and syndicalism. Legislation was never intended +to be the father of a people, but their policeman. Overlegislation, +whether by an autocrat or a democratic state, leads straight to +revolution, to Caesarism, or to slavery.</p> + +<p>In Germany the state by giving much has gained an appalling control +over the minute details of human intercourse. I am no philosophic +adviser to the rich; it is as the champion of the poor man that I +detest socialism and all its works, for in the end it only leads +backward to slavery. Every vote the workingman gives to a policy of +wider state control is another link for the chains that are meant for +his ankles, his wrists, and his neck. If the state is to take care of +me when I am sick or old or unemployed, it must necessarily deprive me +of my liberty when I am well and young and busy, and thus make my very +health a kind of sickness. A year in Germany ought to cure any +sensible workingman of the notion that the state is a better guardian +of his purse and his powers than he is himself. A distinguished German +publicist, criticising this overpowering interference of the state, +writes: “Mir ist wohl bewusst dass diese Gedanken einst weilen fromme +Wünsche bleiben werden: die Schatten lähmender Müdigkeit die fiber +unserer Politik lagern, lassen wenig Hoffnung auf fröhliche +Initiative. Allein immer kann und wird es nicht so bleiben.” And he +ends with the ominous words: “Reform oder Revolution!”</p> + +<p>One often hears the apostles of a certain kittenish humanitarianism, +talking of the great good that would result if we in America would +provide light wines and beer and music, and parks and gardens, for our +people. They see the crowds of men and women and children flocking by +thousands to such resorts in Germany, where they eat tons of cakes and +<i>Brödchens</i> and jam, and where they drink gallons of beer and wine, and +where they sit hour after hour apparently quite content. Why, Lord +love you, ladies and gentlemen, our populace would never be content +with such mild amusements! Fancy “Silver Dollar” Sullivan or “Bath-house” +John attempting to cajole their cohorts in such fashion!</p> + +<p>It may be a pity that our people are not thus easily amused, but, on +the other hand, it means simply that our energy, our vitality, our +national nervousness if you like, will not be so easily satisfied. Our +disorderly nervousness, or nervous disorderliness, though it has been +a tremendous asset in keeping us bounding along industrially and +commercially, and though it gives an exhilarating, champagne-like +flavor to our atmosphere, has cost us dear. If you will have freedom, +you will have those who are ruined by it; just as, if you will have +social and political servitude, you will have a stodgy, unindependent +populace.</p> + +<p>Only one out of sixty perpetrators of homicidal crime suffers the +extreme penalty attaching to such crimes in America, and these +figures, I admit, are a shocking revelation of supine justice and +sentimental executive, as when politics can even bend our President to +grant silly pardons, with baleful results upon the doings of other +wealthy criminals. We use as large an amount of habit-forming drugs +per capita as is used in the Chinese empire, so says Dr. Wright, who +was commissioned by the State Department to gather facts on this +subject. We import and consume 500,000 pounds of opium yearly, when +70,000 pounds, including its derivatives and preparations, should +suffice for our medical needs. In the year 1910 no less than 185,000 +ounces of cocaine were imported, manufactured, and consumed, although +15,000 ounces would supply every legitimate need. America collected +$340,000,000 from tariff taxes in 1911, and $40,000,000 of this from +tobacco and alcoholics.</p> + +<p>My readers may look back to the title of this chapter and ask: What +has all this to do with the status of women in Germany? I have told +you in these few pages the whole secret. The men are not independent; +what can you expect of the women! The men have, until very lately, had +no surplus wealth or leisure, and have now, to all appearance, little +surplus vitality or energy. Germany is getting to be a very tired-looking +nation. One hears almost as little laughter in Germany as in +India. Gayety and laughter are the bubbles and foam on the glass of +life, proving that it is charged with energy. Do not believe me, +although I have carefully watched many thousands of Germans in all +parts of Germany taking their pleasure and their ease; come over and +see for yourself! These thousands at their simple recreations are not +gay. I grant the dangers we run by the opposite policy, but these are +the results we have to fear from the German methods.</p> + +<p>It is the men who +must supply the leisure, the independence, the setting, the background +for the women. All Europe says that our women are spoiled, that they +are tyrants, that they treat us men badly, that they flout us, do not +do their duty by us, and finally divorce us. We can afford to let them +say it! We have given our women an independence that many of them +abuse, it is true. We perhaps give them more than their share to +spend, and more of luxury than is good for them; and all too many of +the underbred among them paint and bejewel and begown themselves to +imitate the lecherous barbarism of the too free. But one of the +greatest ladies in Germany tells me, “I am never so flattered as when +I am taken for an American!” I can pay her no handsomer compliment +than to reply that she is worthy of the mistake. Our women revive the +drooping dukedoms of England, and few will maintain that some of them +at least are unsuited to the position. I have seen them in Germany as +Frau Gräfin this or that, and not only their appearance but their +house-keeping machinery, running noiselessly and accurately, proves +that there is something more than dollars behind them.</p> + +<p>One of the rare human beings whom I have known, who has at the same +time the characteristics of the generous comrade, the good fellow, and +the fine gentleman; who in moral courage in time of terrible strain, +or in physical courage when one’s back is to the wall, never quailed, +is an American woman; and thousands of my countrymen will say the +same.</p> + +<p>You cannot produce this type without freedom, without giving them +opportunity, and taking the risks that are inherent in giving free +scope to personal prowess. But they are not the women whom our blatant +newspapers exploit, nor the women who buy the British aristocracy to +launch them socially, nor the women who pervade the continental hotels +and restaurants, nor the women whom as a rule the foreigner has the +opportunity to meet. They are the women who have helped us to absorb +the 21,000,000 aliens who have entered America since the Civil War; +the women who stood behind us when we fought out that war for four +years, leaving a million men on the fields of battle; the women who in +the realm of housekeeping, to come down to practical levels, have +revolutionized these duties and turned a drudgery into an art as have +no other women in the world. The best answer the American can make to +the luxurious lawlessness of some of our women, is to point to the +house-keeping and home-making of his compatriots, not only at home but +right here in Germany. Fifty years ago it could not have been said, +but to-day there is no doubt in my mind that American house-keeping is +the best in the world. In comfort, in the smooth running of the +household machinery, in good food and drink, perhaps in too lavish and +too luxurious hospitality, we are nowadays almost in a class by +ourselves in matters of housewifery.</p> + +<p>The English attitude of women toward men is somewhat that of +comradeship, and once married the man’s comfort is looked after with +some care; the American attitude of women toward men, in the more +luxurious circles, is often, I admit, that of a spoiled child toward a +gift-bringing uncle, and she permits him to worship her along the +lines of a restricted rubric; but in Germany the subordination, the +unquestioning and unthinking adulation, the blind acceptance of +inferiority have not only softened the men but robbed the women of +even sufficient independence to make them the helpmates that they try +to be. There have been women of social and even political influence: +Bettina von Arnim, Caroline Schlegel, Charlotte Stieglitz, Rahel +Varnhagen, and lately Frau Lebin, who seems to have been a soothing +adjunct of the Foreign Office. It is rather as admirers than as +executives that they shine. Their attitude toward the great Goethe, +and his nonchalant polygamy toward them, is difficult for us to +understand and approve.</p> + +<blockquote>“The gentle Henrietta then,<br /> +And a third Mary next did reign,<br /> +And Joan and Jane and Andria;<br /> +And then a pretty Thomasine,<br /> +And then another Katherine,<br /> +And then a long et cetera.”</blockquote> + +<p>No real man is a misogynist, for not to like women is not to be a man. +There are, however, many men, both in Germany and out of it, who +greatly dislike sham women; that is, women who shirk their functional +responsibilities. This form of dislike is a healthy instinct. Women +are given the greatest and most inspiring of all tasks: to make men; +and a woman who cannot make a man, by giving birth to one, or by +developing one as son or husband, has failed more deplorably even than +a man who cannot make a living. This task of theirs constitutes a +superiority impossible to deny or to overcome. A woman, therefore, who +craves man’s activities and standards is as foolish as though a wheat-field +should long to be a bakery. Most healthy-minded men hold this +view, though some of us may think that German men overemphasize it.</p> + +<p>The coarse sentimentality of the lower classes has been noted, but it +is not confined to them. The premarital relations of all but the most +cultured and experienced, are marked by a mawkish sweetness which is +all the more noticeable in contrast with the dull routine of saving +and slaving which follows. She begins by being photographed sitting in +her hero’s lap, and ends by sitting on the less comfortable chair to +darn his socks and to tend his babies. There are women enthroned, and +who deserve to be, in Germany as in other countries; but taken in the +mass, speaking in hundreds of thousands, it is not an inaccurate +picture to say that the women are not taken seriously in Germany +except as mothers and servants.</p> + +<p>The census of 1910 shows that there are 32,040,166 men in Germany and +32,885,827 women, or 845,661 more women than men. The number of men in +proportion to the number of women is steadily increasing in Germany, +showing that the habits of the men are more and more feminine, that +the state provides for them and protects them, and that the women take +good care of them.</p> + +<p>In a virile state, where the men take risks, where they play hazardous +games, where they travel and seek adventure, where they emigrate to +seek new opportunities, the women will greatly outnumber the men. The +excess of females in England and Wales in 1871 was 594,000; in 1881, +694,000; in 1891, 896,000; in 1911, 1,178,000. The United Kingdom has +the largest surplus of women of leisure in the world, and just now +they are taking advantage of their numerical superiority in the most +delightful and comical feminine fashion. They are proving their right +to assist in coercing others to obey the laws, by disobeying the laws +themselves. By pouring vitriol on golf-greens, by pinning their +defiance to these dishevelled greens with hair-pins, they propose to +provoke the recalcitrant to recognition of their right to pin their +names to seats in the House of Commons. It is all so sweetly feminine, +that the stranger is astonished to hear such women dubbed unwomanly. +Pray, what could be more womanly in England, than to pin a protest to +a golf-green with a hair-pin!</p> + +<p>The German army, which is in itself a school of hygiene for the man, +where the death-rate is the lowest of any army in Europe, and the many +provisions for the state care of the population, all go to coddle the +men and protect them. The various forms of labor insurance alone in +Germany cost the state over $250,000 a day, and if we include the +amount expended in compensation in all its forms, the yearly bill of +the state for the care of its sick, injured and aged, amounts to +nearly $170,000,000. No wonder that between the care of a +grandmotherly state, and the attentions of a subservient womankind, +the male population increases. I sometimes question whether there is +not something of the hot-house culture about this male crop. Certainly +consumption and other diseases are very wide-spread. A very detailed +and careful investigation of certain forms of weakness is being made +by our Rockefeller Institute at this time, and if I am not mistaken in +the results of what these investigations have thus far disclosed, it +will be found that Germany has her full share of rottenness to deal +with. To those who care to corroborate these hints with facts I +recommend the reading of certain recent numbers of the hygienic +Rundschau, a German technical magazine of repute.</p> + +<p>There is a lack of vitality and elasticity, a stodgy, plodding way of +working, much indulgence in gregarious eating and drinking, and very +mild forms of exercise and holiday-making, comparatively little sport, +almost no game-playing where boys and men hustle one another about as +in foot-ball and polo, and very long hours of application, from the +school-boy to the ministers of state, all of which tend to and do +produce a physical lack of alertness, vivacity, and audacity in the +men of practically all classes.</p> + +<p>The way to see the people of a country is to stand by the hour in the +large industrial towns and watch them as they go to and from their +work; to watch them flocking in and out of railway stations, and at +work in large numbers in the fields of Saxony, Silesia, and other +parts of Prussia; to spend hours, and I admit that they are tedious +hours, strolling through factories, ship-yards, mines, and offices, +paying no attention to the talk of your guide, but studying the faces +and physique of the men and women. Having done this, an impartial +observer is bound to remark that industrial and commercial Germany is +taking a tremendous toll for the rapid progress she has made. It may +be no worse here than elsewhere, but neither has the problem of a +healthy, happy, toiling population been satisfactorily solved here, +though perhaps better here than elsewhere. I have heard the women and +girls in factories singing at their work, but the bird is no less +caged because it sings.</p> + +<p>Men who ought to know better set an example of long hours of +confinement at their work which is quite unnecessary. They tell you +with pride that they are at it from eight or nine in the morning till +seven and often till later at night. That is something that no sane +man ought to be proud of. On investigation you find that in industrial +and commercial circles, and in the offices of the state, men take two +hours for luncheon and then return to work till nightfall. Two hours +in the open air at the end of the day could be managed easily, but +they do not want it. There is no vitality left for a game, for +exercise, for a bath, and a change.</p> + +<p>They drug themselves with work, and slip away to the theatre, to a +concert, to a <i>Verein</i> or circle, unwashed, ungroomed, and physically +torpid, and the great mass of the population, high and low alike, +outside the army officers, look it.</p> + +<p>The army officer’s career is dependent upon his mental and physical +vigor. The cylinder is quickly handed him and the helmet taken away if +he grows too fat and too slow physically and mentally. There is no +nepotism, no favoritism, and on reaching a certain rank he goes, if he +falls below the standard required, and consequently he keeps himself +fit. But a huge bureaucracy, with its stupid promotions by years and +not by ability, with its government stroke, and its dangling pensions, +positively breeds lassitude, laziness, and dulness. You may see it on +every hand in government offices, in the railway and postal services, +where men are evidently kept on not for their fitness but by the +tyranny of the system. High officials admit as much.</p> + +<p>In the little state of Prussia the railways pay well and are well +managed, but they are clogged to a certain extent by inefficient and +unnecessary employees, and were the system spread over the United +States the chaos in a dozen years would be almost irreparable, and +even here the complaints are many and vigorous. Probably one male over +twenty-five years of age out of every four is in government employ. +This alone would account for the general air of lassitude which is one +of the most noticeable features of German life. The Germans as a whole +are beginning to look tired. It is a German, not an Italian or a +Frenchman, the philosopher Nietzsche, who writes: “Seit es Menschen +giebt, hat der Mensch sich zu wenig gefreut; das allein ist unsere +Erbsünde.”</p> + +<p>There has been a great change in the status of women in the +last twenty-five years. The apophthegm of Pericles, or rather of +Thucydides, “that woman is best who is least spoken of among men, +either for good or evil,” is not so rigidly enforced. Increased wealth +throughout Germany has left the German woman more leisure from the +drudgery of the home. She is not so wholly absorbed by the duties of +nurse, cook, and house-maid as she once was. But even to-day her +economies and her ability to keep her house with little outside +assistance are amazing. Some of the most delightful meals I have +taken, have been in professional households, where small incomes made +it necessary that wife and daughters should do most of the work.</p> + +<p>The German professor has his faults, but in his own simple home, the +work of the day behind him, his family about him at his well-filled +but not luxurious board, with some member of the family not unlikely +to be an accomplished musician and with his own unrivalled store of +learning at your service, when he raises his glass to you, filled with +his best, with a smile and a hearty “Prosit,” he is hard to beat as a +host, to my thinking. Perhaps there is nothing like overindulgence to +make one crave simplicity, and no doubt this accounts for the fact +that the really great ones of earth are satisfied and happy with +enough, and abhor too much.</p> + +<p>They tell me that the Dienstmädchen is no longer what she used to be, +but to my untutored eye her duties still seem to be as comprehensive +as those of a Sioux squaw, and her performances unrivalled. As is to +be expected, Germany is not blessed with trained servants. They are +helpers rather than professional servants. In the scores of houses, +public and private, where I have been a guest, only in one or two had +the servants more than an alphabetical knowledge of what was due to +one’s clothes and shoes. The servants are rigidly protected by the +state: they must have so much time off, they cannot be dismissed +without weeks of warning, and they themselves carry books with their +moral and professional biographies therein, which are always open to +the inspection of the police; and they must all be insured.</p> + +<p>In many towns, and cities too, there are hospitals and bands of nurses +who for a small annual payment undertake to take over and care for a +sick servant. If the doctor prescribes a “cure” for your servant, away +she goes at the expense of the state to be taken care of. Wages are +very small as compared with ours. Ten dollars a month for a cook, five +for a house-maid, ten for a man-servant, forty to fifty for a +chauffeur, and of course more in the larger and more luxurious +establishments; though a chef who serves dinners for forty and fifty +in an official household I know is content with twenty dollars a +month. A nursery governess can be had for twelve, and a well-educated +English governess for twenty dollars a month. Even these wages are +higher than ten years ago. To be more explicit, in a small household +where three servants are kept the cook receives 30 marks, the maid-servant +25 marks, and the nursery governess 35 marks a month. In the +household of an official of some means the man-servant receives 45 +marks, the cook 30 marks, and the maid-servant 30 marks a month. When +dinners or other entertainments are given, outside help is called in. +In the household of a rich industrial, whose family consists of +himself, wife, and four children, the man-servant receives 80 marks, +the chauffeur 200, the cook 45, the lady’s maid 35, the house-maid 25, +kitchen-maid 12, and the governess 30 marks a month.</p> + +<p>I carry away with me delightful pictures of German households, big, +little, and medium; and though it does not fit in nicely with my main +argument, households whose mistresses were patterns of what a +châtelaine should be. But I must leave that loop-hole for the critics, +for I am trying only to tell the truth and to be fair, and not to be +scientific or to bolster up a thesis.</p> + +<p>I can see the big castle, centuries old, with its rambling buildings +winging away from it on every side, and in the court-yard its regal-looking +mistress positively garlanded with her dozen children. There +is no sign of the decadence of the aristocracy here. We sit down +twenty or more every day at the family luncheon. Tutors and +governesses are at every turn. A French abbé, as silken in manner and +speech as his own soutane, bowls over all my prejudices of creed and +custom, as I watch him rule with the lightest of hands and the softest +of voices a brood of termagant small boys; to turn from this to a game +of billiards, and from that to the Merry Widow waltz on the piano, +that we may dance. An aide-de-camp trained in India and a French abbé, +I am convinced that these are the apotheosis of luxury in a large +household. My Protestant brethren would, I am sure, throw their +prejudices to the winds could they spend an evening with my friend, +Monsieur l’Abbé! Nor Erasmus, nor Luther, nor Calvin would have had +the heart to burn him. He is just as good a fellow as we are, knows +far more, can turn his hand to anything from photography to the +driving of a stubborn pony, knows his world as few know it, and yet is +inviolably not of it. I have chatted with Jesuit priests teaching our +Western Indians; I have travelled with a preaching friar in Italy on +his round of sermonizing; I have seen them in South America, in India, +China, and Japan, and I recognize and acclaim their self-denying +prowess, but no one of them was a more dangerous missionary than my +last-named friend among them, Monsieur l’Abbe!</p> + +<blockquote>“For ever through life the Curé goes<br /> + With a smile on his kind old face-<br /> +With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,<br /> + And his green umbrella-case.”</blockquote> + +<p>There was a profusion at this castle, a heartiness of welcome, a +patriarchal attitude toward the countless servants and satellites, an +acreage of roaming space in the buildings, that smacked of the +feudalism back to which both the castle and the family dated. How many +Englishmen or Americans who sniff at German civilization ever see +anything of the inside of German homes? Very few, I should judge, from +the lame talk and writing on the subject. Let us go from this +mediaeval setting for modern comfort to a smaller establishment. Here +a miniature Germania, with blue eyes and golden hair, presides, +looking like a shaft of sunlight in front of you as she leads the way +about the paths of her gloomy forest. In these, and in not a few other +houses, there is little luxury, no waste, a certain Spartan air of +training, but abundance of what is necessary and a cheery and frank +welcome.</p> + +<p>I sometimes think the Germans themselves lose much by their rather +overdeveloped tendency to meet not so often in one another’s homes as +in a neutral place: a restaurant, a garden, a Verein or circle, of +which there is an interminable number. You certainly get to know a man +best and at his best in his own home, and you never get to know a wife +and a mother out of that environment; for a woman is even more +dependent than a man upon the sympathetic atmosphere that frames her. +I should be, after my experience, and I am, the last person in the +world to say that the Germans are not hospitable; but there is much +less visiting even among themselves, and much less of constant +reception of strangers in their homes, than with us. Habit, lack of +wealth, lack of trained servants, and a certain proud shyness, and in +some cases indifference and a lack of vitality which welcomes the +trouble of being host, account for this. No doubt, too, the old habit +of economy remains even when there is no longer the same necessity for +it, and saving and gayety do not go well together. <i>In Geldsachen hurt +die Gemüthlichkeit auf</i>.</p> + +<p>I should be sorry to spoil my picture by the overemphasis of details. +The reader will not see what I have intended to paint, if he gets only +an impression of caution, of economy, of sordidness and fatigue. No +nation that gives birth to an untranslatable word like <i>Gemüthlichkeit</i> +can be without that characteristic. The English words “home” and +“comfort,” the French word “esprit,” and the German word +Gemüthlichkeit have no exact equivalents in other languages. This in +itself is a sure sign of a quality in the nation which bred the word. +The difficulty lies in the fact that another language is another life.</p> + +<p>The Germans are not cheerful as we are cheerful; they are not happy as +we are happy; they are not free as we are free; they are not polite as +we are polite; they are not contented as we are contented; and no one +for a moment who is even an amateur observer and an amateur +philologist combined would claim that the three words, <i>love</i> and <i>amour</i> +and <i>Liebe</i> mean the same thing. No word in the English language is used +so often from the pulpit as the word <i>love</i>, but this cannot be said of +the use of <i>amour</i> in France or of <i>Liebe</i> in Germany. Nations pour +themselves into the tiny moulds of words and give us statuettes of +themselves. The Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, and the Teuton have filled +these three words with a certain vague philosophy of themselves, a +hazy composite photograph of themselves. No one writer or painter, no +one incident, no one tragedy, no one day or year of history has done +this. To us, love is the coldest, cleanest, as it is perhaps the most +loyal of the three. <i>L’amour</i> sounds to us seductive, enticing, often +indeed little more than lust embroidered to make a cloak for ennui. +<i>Liebe</i> is to us friendly, soft, childlike.</p> + +<p>The nations of the earth, close as they are together in these days, +are worlds apart in thought. Each builds its life in words, and the +words are as little alike as in the days of Babel; and thus it comes +about that we misunderstand one another. We translate one another only +into our own language, and understand one another as little as before, +because we only know one another in translations, and the best of the +life of each nation remains and always will remain untranslatable. No +one has ever really translated the Greek lyrics or the choruses of +Aeschylus, or the incomparable songs of Heine. Who could dream of +putting the best of Robert Louis Stevenson into German, or Kipling’s +rollicking ballads of soldier life into Spanish, or Walter Pater into +Dutch, or Edgar Allan Poe into Russian! The one language common to us +all, music, tells as many tales as there are men to hear. Each melody +melts into the blackness or the brightness of the listener’s soul and +becomes a thousand melodies instead of one. What does the moaning +monotony of a Korean love-song mean to the westerner, or what does the +Swan song mean to the Korean? Only God knows. We can never translate +one nation into the language of another; our best is only an +interpretation, and we must always meet the criticism that we have +failed with the reply that we had never hoped to succeed. We are +forever explaining ourselves even in our own small circles; how can we +dare to suggest even, that we have made one people to speak clearly in +the language of another? The best we can do is to give a kindly, a +good-humored, and, at all times and above all things, a charitable +interpretation. Information, facts, are merely the raw material of +culture; sympathy is its subtlest essence.</p> + +<p>There is a world of good humor, of cheerfulness, of contentment, of +domestic peace and happiness in Germany. There are courtesy, +politeness, even grand manners here and there. But these words mean +one thing to them, another thing to us, and it is that I am striving, +feebly enough to be sure, to make clear. May I beg the reader and the +student to follow me with this point clearly in mind? While I am +outlining with these painful details that their ways are not as our +ways, I am not denouncing their ways, but merely offering matter for +consideration and comparison.</p> + +<p>A nation is most often punished for its faults by the exaggeration of +its qualities, and if, as it seems to me, Germany suffers like the +rest of us in this respect, it is none of my doing. It will be my +failure and the reader’s failure, if we do not profit by watching +these qualities in ourselves, and in others festering into faults. +Woman’s position and ambitions, the home, the amusements, and the +satisfactions of life, are very different in Germany from ours. I note +these as facts, not as inferiorities. I note, too, that in Germany, as +elsewhere, Hegel was profoundly right in his dictum, that everything +earned to its extreme becomes its contrary. Too much caution may +become a positive menace to safety; too much orderliness may result in +individual incapacity for sell-control; just as liberty rots into +license, and demos descends to a crown and sceptre and tyranny. I am +merely calling attention to this great law of national development, +that the exaggeration of even fine qualities is the road to the +punishment of our faults, in Germany, as in every other nation under +the sun.</p> + +<p>It is only when you have had a peep into a small farmer’s house in +Saxony, into the artisans’ houses in the busy Rhine and Westphalia +country; spent a night in a peasant’s house and stable, for they are +under the same roof, in the mountains of the South; and visited the +greater establishments of the large land-holder and the less +pretentious houses of the gentleman farmer, and the country houses, +big and little, in all parts of Germany, that you get anything of the +real flavor of Germany.</p> + +<p>If, as Burke says, it is impossible to indict a whole nation, it is +even more difficult to fit a people with a few discriminating and +really enlightening adjectives. One word I dare to apply to them all, +though I know well how different they are in the north and south and +east and west, as diversified indeed as any nation in the world, and +that is the word patient. They can stand longer, sit longer, eat +longer, drink longer, work longer hours, and dream longer, and dawdle +longer than any people except the Orientals. This custom may date back +to far distant times. Sitting, in the Greek view, was a posture of +supplication (Odyssey, XIV, 29-31). The Emperor himself sets the +example. He is an indefatigable stander, if I may coin the word, and +on horseback he can apparently spend the day and night without +inconvenience. Their patient quarry work in archeology and in +comparative philology laid the foundations for the new history-writing +of Heeren and Mommsen; and their scholarship to-day is still of the +digging kind. They seldom produce a Jebb, a Jowett, a Verrall, and +never that type of scholar, wit and poet combined, a Lowell or an +Arthur Hugh Clough. Indeed, with a suspicious self-consciousness the +German professional mind inclines to be contemptuous of any learning +that is not unpalatably dry. What men can read with enjoyment cannot +be learning, they maintain.</p> + +<p>I have visited half a dozen hospitals, and on one or two occasions +been present at an operation by a famous surgeon. It is evident from +the bearing of patients, nurses, and students that they are dealing +with a less highly strung population than ours. Indeed, the surgeons +who know both countries tell me that here in Germany they have more +endurance of this phlegmatic kind. They suffer more like animals. +Their patience reaches down to the very roots of their being.</p> + +<p>On that delightful big fountain, in that paradise of fountains, +Nuremberg, the statues of the electors and citizens picture men who +were untroubled and cheerful, slow-moving, contented, patient; while +the little figures on the guns are positively jolly. The only mournful +figure on the whole fountain is a man with a book on his knees +teaching a child. He is pallid, even in bronze, and his face is lined +as he muses over the problem that has stumped the wisest of us: how to +make a man by stuffing a child with books! It cannot be done, but we +follow this will-o’-the wisp through the swamps of experience with the +pitiable enthusiasm of despair.</p> + +<p>Only liberty can make a man, and she is such a costly mistress that +with our increasing hordes of candidates for independence we cannot +afford her; so we go on fooling the people with mechanical education. +But even this figure is patient!</p> + +<p>The Germans are patient even with their food. What would become of +them without the goose, the pig, the calf, and the duck, that meagre +alimentary quartette? The country is white with home-raised geese, and +yet they imported 8,337,708 in 1910, and 7,236,581 in 1911.</p> + +<p>One of their most charming bits of classic art is the famous miniature +statue of the Gooseman; and the real name of the great Gutenberg, who, +by his invention of printing, did more than any other mortal to make +it easy for the human race to acquire the anserine mental habits, and +the anserine moral characteristics, was Gänsfleisch!</p> + +<p>The goose is really the national bird of the German people. You eat +tons of goose, and then you sleep beneath the feathers. The goose +first nourishes you and then protects your digestion. The +extraordinary make-up of the German bed must be laid to the door of +the guilty goose. The pillows are so soft that your head is ever +sinking, never at rest. Instead of easily applied blankets, that you +can adapt to the temperature, you are given a great cloud of feathers, +sewn in a balloon-like bag, which floats upon you according to your +degree of restlessness, and leaves you for the floor, when in stupid +sleepiness you endeavor to protect your whole person at once with its +flimsy and wanton formlessness. As a rule the bed is built up at the +head so that you are continually sliding down, down under the goose +feathers, your nose and mouth are soon covered, and who can breathe +with his toes!</p> + +<p>They accumulate comfort very slowly. The wages are small and the +satisfactions are small. On the street-cars the conductor is grateful +for a tip of five pfennigs, and his daily customers are handed from +the car-steps and respectfully saluted in return for this tiny +<i>douceur</i>. When you dine or lunch at a friend’s house you are expected +to leave something in the expectant palm of his servant who sees you +out.</p> + +<p>Women carry small parcels of food to the theatre, to the tea and beer +gardens, and thus save the small additional expense. Many a time have +I seen these thrifty housewives pocket the sugar and the zwiebacks and +<i>Brödchen</i> left over. In the hotels, soap, paper, and common +conveniences of the kind are taken, so I am told, not, I maintain, as +a theft, but as an economy. We are in the habit of carrying our small +change loose in a trousers pocket, but the German almost without +exception carries even his ten and five pfennig pieces carefully in a +purse. Outside many of the big shops is placed a row of niches where +you may leave your unfinished cigar till you return. The economy thus +illustrated shows a certain disregard, of a not altogether agreeable +chance of interchangeability, that might even be dangerous to health. +On the other hand, it is a wise precaution that marks beer-glasses and +beer-jugs with a line, to show just how much beer you are entitled to. +This puts the foam-stealing vendor at your mercy.</p> + +<p>The entertainments, dinners, luncheons, teas, except among the small +cosmopolitan companies who do not count as examples of German manners +and customs, are very prolonged affairs. There is much standing about. +At ten o’clock, having dined at half-past seven, beer, tea, coffee, +sandwiches are brought in, and you begin the gastronomics over again +on a smaller scale. There is no occasion when eating and drinking are +not part of the programme. If you go to the play or the opera you may +eat and drink there; if you go for a walk the goal is not a bath and a +rub-down, but beer or chocolate and cakes.</p> + +<p>I am not sure that there is +not something in the theory that their soil has less iron in it, being +so intensively cultivated, and that our food is consequently stronger +than theirs; at all events, they eat more frequently and more +copiously than we do. It seems to me that both the men and the women +show it in their faces and figures. They are a heavy, puffy, tumbling +lot after forty; and with my prepossessions on the subject I am +inclined to put it down to irregular eating, to too much eating of +soft and sweet food, too much drinking of fattening beverages, and +much, much too little regular exercise, and to the fact that they are +still infants in the matter of personal hygiene. Dressing-gowns, +slippers, proper care of the teeth and hair, regular ablutions, +changing of clothes, all these dozens of helps to health are patiently +neglected. It is just as troublesome to take care of yourself, to +groom your person, to be regular in your habits, and restrained and +careful in your diet as to take proper care of a horse or a dog. It +shows a rather high grade of persistent prowess in a man just to keep +himself fit, to keep himself in working or playing health. Without the +drilling they receive in the army in these matters, one wonders where +this population would be.</p> + +<p>The doggedness, the patience of the German is notable, but the +alertness, vivacity, the energy easily on tap, these are lacking both +among the men and the women, and, as it seems to me, for these easily +apparent reasons. There are more rest-cures, rheumatism, heart, liver, +kidney, anaemic cures in Germany, and to suit all purses, than in all +Anglo-Saxondom combined, even if subject territories are included. In +Saxony alone, which is not renowned for its cures, the number of +visitors at Augustus Bad, Bad Elester, Hermanus Bad, Schandau, and +some seven others has increased from 13,000 ten years ago to 30,000 in +1910.</p> + +<p>Between 1900 and 1909, while the population of Germany increased 15 +per cent., the days of sickness in the insurance funds increased 59 +per cent. and the expenditure 95 per cent. Some alterations were made +in the law between those years permitting a certain extension of the +days of sickness, but an accurate percentage may be taken between the +years 1905 and 1909. During those years the population increased by 7 +per cent., the days of sickness by 17 per cent., and the expenditure +out of the sick-funds by 32 per cent. The total cost of sickness +insurance in 1900 was $42,895,000 and in 1909 $83,640,000. What will +happen in Great Britain when sickness insurance comes into thorough +working order is worthy of caricature. The way my Irish friends will +play that game fills me with joy. It is an abominable harness to put +on the Anglo-Saxon, and he has my very best wishes if he refuses to +wear it tamely. It is only another piece of tired legislation that +solves nothing. Even Germany would be a thousand times better off +without it. This attempting to make pills and powders take the place +of love one another, is merely the politician sneaking away from his +problem. Of course, it is impossible to tell how many people are sick +by being paid for it, probably not a small number. We all have +mornings when we would turn over and stick to our pillows if we were +sure of payment for doing so. The German apparently is the only person +in the world who is happy, <i>aegrescit medendo</i>. The Germans keep going, +we must all admit that, but at a slower pace, with less energy to +spare, and with far less robust love of life.</p> + +<p>If the men are patient, the women must be more so, and they are. The +marriage service still reads: “He shall be your ruler, and you shall +be his vassal.” The women are not only patient with all that requires +patience of the men, but they are patient with the men besides, a +heavy additional burden from the American point of view. Beethoven +writes: “Resignation! Welch’ elendes Hülfsmittel! Und doch bleibt es +mir das einzige übrige.” They take resignation for granted as we never +do.</p> + +<p>Some ten years ago only, was formed the Women’s Suffrage League in +Germany. It was necessary to organize in the free city of Hamburg, +because women were not allowed either to form or to join political +unions in Prussia! It is only within a very few years that the girls’ +higher schools have been increased and cared for in due proportion to +the schools provided for the higher education of the boys. The first +girls’ rowing club was organized at Cassel in 1911. Even now as I +write there are protests and petitions from the male masters against +women teachers in the higher positions of even these schools. In the +discussions as to the proper subjects to be taught to the girls, who +in 1912 began attending the newly constituted continuation schools for +girls in Berlin, there is a strong party who argue that all of them +should be taught only house-keeping and the duties pertaining thereto. +To the great majority of German men, children and the kitchen are and +ought to be the sole preoccupations of women, with occasional church +attendance thrown in.</p> + +<p>There have been enormous changes in the place women hold in the German +world in the last thirty years. The Red Cross organization of the +women throughout Germany is admirable and as complete and efficient as +the army that it is intended to help; one can hardly say more. There +are many private charities in Berlin and other cities, managed +entirely by women, and doing excellent and sensible work; such as the +kindergartens, the Pestalozzi-Froebelhaus for example, where four +hundred children are taken care of daily and fifteen thousand ten-pfennig +meals provided, besides classes for the young women students +under the supervision of the Berliner Verein für Volkserziehung, with +courses in the elements of law and politics and other matters likely +to concern them in their activities as teachers, nurses, or charity +helpers; the invalid-kitchens; the societies for looking after young +girls; the work in the Temperance League; the Lette-Verein, one of the +most sane and sensible institutions in the world for the training of +girls and young women, where they turn out some two thousand girls a +year trained in house-wifely economy; the wonderful and pitiful colony +at Bielefeld, founded by one of Germany’s greatest organizers and +saints, Pastor Bodelschwing, and now carried on by his equally able +son, and aided largely by the sympathy and resources of women. Only +another Saint Francis could have imagined, and produced, and loved +into usefulness such an institution.</p> + +<p>The summer colonies, called gartenlauben colonies, where the outlying +and unused land on the outskirts of the cities is divided up into +small parcels and rented for a nominal sum to the poorer working +people of the city, constitute a most sensible form of philanthropy. +You see them, each named by its proprietor, with a flag flying, with +the light barriers dividing them, and with the small huts erected as a +shelter, where flowers and fruits and vegetables are grown, often +adding no small amount to income, and in every case offering the +soundest kind of work and recreation. These colonies were started by a +woman in France, and the idea worked its way through Belgium to +Germany, and they are now supported and helped by the direct interest +of the Empress. The woman who put this scheme into operation ought to +have a monument! At Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, on a plot lent +by the city, there are thirteen of these colonies divided into over a +thousand plots.</p> + +<p>There are three-quarters of a million women in Germany who are +independent owners and heads of establishments of different kinds, and +some ten million who are bread-winners. Of the increase in the number +of women students I have written in another chapter, and of their +increasing participation in the political, economical, literary, and +scholarly life of the nation there are many examples. Once or twice I +have even heard them speak in public, and speak well, while if my +memory serves me, this was practically unknown in my university days +here. The problem of domestic apprenticeship is also being worked out +by the women of Germany. In Munich, in Frankfurt-am-Main and elsewhere +this most difficult and delicate question is being partially answered +at least. Girls are apprenticed to families needing them, under the +supervision of a committee of women. The girls and their families +agree to certain terms, and the families agree also to teach them +household duties, give them proper food, eight hours’ sleep, their +Sunday out, and so on. The German women’s societies who have thus +boldly tackled this problem are plucky indeed, and prove easily enough +that there is a large and growing body of women in Germany, who have +minds and wills of their own and great executive ability.</p> + +<p>Let me suggest to some of our idle women that they pay a visit to the +Hausfrauenbund at Frankfort and the Frauenverein-Arbeitererinnenheim +at Munich, before they pass judgment upon this chapter. For I should +be sorry to leave the impression that all the women of Germany are +listless, oppressed, and without any feeling of civic responsibility.</p> + +<p>All these things have been accomplished by women in Germany with far +less sympathy from the men than they receive in America or in England. +Cato wrote of women’s suffrage: “Pray what will they not assail, if +they carry their point? Call to mind all the principles governing them +by which your ancestors have held the presumption of women in check, +and made them subject to their husbands. ... As soon as they have begun +to be your equals they will be your superiors.” It is an older story +than the unread realize, this of the rights of women. The bulk of +Germany’s male population still hold to Cato’s view. It is not so much +that they are antagonistic, except in the case of the teachers, where +the women have become active competitors; they are in their patient +way impervious. Nor can it be said that any very large number of the +women themselves are eager for more rights; rather are they becoming +restless because they receive so little consideration.</p> + +<p>Their pleasures are simple and restricted, regular attendance at the +theatre, at concerts, an occasional dinner at a restaurant to +celebrate an anniversary, excursions with the whole family to a beer +restaurant of a Sunday, and the endless meeting together for reading, +sewing, and gossip - no German woman apparently but what belongs to a +verein or circle, meeting, say, once a week.</p> + +<p>The women and the men are gregarious. <i>Vae soli</i> is the motto of the +race. They love to take their pleasures in crowds, and I am not sure +that this does not dull the enthusiasm for personal rights and +gratifications, and for individual supremacy and dignity. It is rare +to find a German who would subscribe to Andrew Marvell’s misogynist +lines:</p> + +<blockquote>“Two paradises are in one<br /> +To live in Paradise alone.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">It is typical of this love of being together that an independent +member of the Reichstag, owing allegiance to no party, is called a +<i>Wilde</i>, and this same word <i>Wilde</i>, or wild man, is applied to the +student at the university who belongs to no corps or association of +students. This love of being together, of touching elbows on all +occasions, makes them more easily led and ruled. They hate the +isolation necessary for independence and revolt.</p> + +<p>Of the relations between men and women I long ago came to the +conclusion that this is a subject best left to the scientific +explorer. It is, however, open to the casual observer to comment upon +the monstrous percentage of illegitimacy in Berlin, 20 per cent. or +one child out of every five, born out of wedlock; 14 per cent. in +Bavaria; and 10 per cent. for the whole empire. This alone tells a sad +tale of the attitude of the men and women toward one another. There is +a long journey ahead of the women who propose to lift their sisters on +to a plane above the animals in this respect. In the matter of divorce +Prussia comes fourth in the list of European nations. Norway, with the +cheapest and easiest, and at the same time the wisest, divorce law in +the world, has almost the lowest percentage of divorce. In 1910 there +were 390 divorces out of 400,000 existing marriages, of which 14,600 +had taken place that year. The percentage is thus only about 2 1/2 per +year. The total per 100,000 of the population in Switzerland is 43; in +France 33; in Denmark 27; and in Prussia 21. In industrial Saxony +there are 32 and in Catholic Bavaria 13. The number of married people +in Germany according to the last census shows an increase, the number +of bachelors and widowed persons a decrease. Since 1871 the number of +married persons has increased by 2 per cent. The birth rate shows a +proportional decline. The problem that bothers all social economists +is to the fore in Germany as elsewhere, for the people between sixty +and seventy years of age number 14.65 per cent. of the population, +while the young people under ten number only 11.12, and those between +twenty and thirty 10.93 per cent. The birth rate therefore shows the +same tendency as in France, England, and America. A recent +investigation on a small scale seems to show that bureaucracy has a +certain influence here. Of 300 officials questioned, only 10, or 312 +per thousand, had more than two children. It is not an impossible, but +certainly a laughable, outcome of state interference carried too far, +should it result, in the state’s becoming an incubator for the unfit, +in a country where the pensions for officers and employees of the +state have risen from 50,000,000 marks in 1900 to 111,000,000 marks in +1911.</p> + +<p>Even in higher circles in Germany there is a gushing idealism about +the relations of the sexes. In their songs and sayings, as well as in +their mythology, there is a laudation of love that is overstimulating. +The lines of that inconsequential philosopher, that irresponsible +moralist, that dreamy Puritan, Emerson,</p> + +<blockquote>“Give all to love;<br /> +Obey thy heart;<br /> +Friends, kindred, days,<br /> +Estate, good fame,<br /> +Plans, credit and the Muse-<br /> +Nothing refuse”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">would be warmly praised in Germany.</p> + +<blockquote>“I could not love thee, dear, so much<br /> +Loved I not honour more”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">are lines more to our taste. Even love should have a deal of toughness +of fibre in it to be worth much.</p> + +<p>I must leave it to my readers to guess what I think of the German +woman; indeed, it is of little consequence what any individual opinion +is, if matter is given for the formation of an opinion by others. +Truth cannot afford to be either gallant or merciless. There are women +in Germany whom no man can know without respect, without admiration, +without affection. There are the blue eyes, sunny hair, peach-bloom +complexions of the north; there are the dark-eyed, black-haired, +heavy-browed women of the Black Forest; there is often a Quakerish +elegance of figure and apparel to be seen on the streets of the +cities, and from time to time one sees a real Germania, big of frame, +bold of brow, fearless of glance - <i>patet dea</i>!</p> + +<p>But we can none of us be quite sure of the impartiality of our taste +in such matters. Our baby fingers and our baby lips were taught to +love a certain type of beauty. Our mothers wove a web of admiration +and devotion from which no real man ever escapes; our maturer passions +lashed themselves to an image from which we can never wholly break +away; our sins and sorrows and adventures have been drenched in the +tears of eyes that are like no other eyes; and consequently the man +who could pretend to cold neutrality would be a reprobate.</p> + +<p>The German looks to Germany, the Englishman to England, the Frenchman +to France, as do you and I to America, for</p> + +<blockquote>“The face that launched a thousand ships<br /> +And burnt the topless towers of Ilium.”</blockquote> + +<h3>VIII “OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND”</h3> + +<p> +Of every one hundred inhabitants of Germany, including men, women, and +children, one is a soldier. There are, roughly, 65,000,000 inhabitants +and 650,000 soldiers.</p> + +<p>The American army is about equal in numbers to the corps of officers +of Germany’s army and navy. To the American, as to almost every other +foreigner, the German army means only one thing: war. We all hear one +thing:</p> + +<blockquote>“And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far<br /> +Ancestral voices prophesying war.”</blockquote> + +<p>I believe this is a half-truth, and dangerous accordingly. This army +has been in existence for over forty years, and has done far more to +keep the peace than any other one factor in Europe, except, perhaps, +the British navy.</p> + +<p>The German army protects the German people not only from external +foes, but from internal diseases. It is the greatest school of hygiene +in the world, on account of its sound teaching, the devotion, skill, +and industry of its officers, the number of its pupils, and its widely +distributed lessons and influence.</p> + +<p>Culture taken by itself is livery business, and when combined with +much beer and wine drinking, irregular eating and a disinclination for +regular exercise, culture becomes a positive menace to health. Of this +danger to the German, their own great man Bismarck spoke in the +Abgeordnetenhaus in 1881: “Bei uns Deutschen wird mit wenigem so viel +Zeit totgeschlagen wie mit Biertrinken. Wer beim Frühschoppen sitzt +oder beim Abendschoppen und gar noch dazu raucht und Zeitungen liest, +hält sich voll ausreichend beschäftigt und geht mit gutem Gewissen +nach Haus in dem Bewusstsein, das Seinige geleistet zu haben.”</p> + +<p>(“The Germans waste more time drinking beer than in any other way. The +man who sits with his morning or his afternoon glass of beer beside +him, and who, in addition, smokes and reads the newspapers, considers +that he is much occupied, and goes home with a good conscience, +feeling that he has fully done his duty.”)</p> + +<blockquote>“Jeden Feind besiegt der Deutsche:<br /> +Nur den Durst besiegt er nicht.”</blockquote> + +<p>Which I permit myself to translate into these two lines:</p> + +<blockquote>“The German conquers every foe,<br /> +Except his thirst, that lays him low.”</blockquote> + +<p>Even if the German army were not necessary as a policeman, it could +not be spared as a physician by the German people. It is to be forever +kept in mind that the German is brought up on rules; the American and +the Englishman on emergencies. Emergencies provide a certain +discipline of themselves, and our philosophy of civilization leaves it +to the individual to get his own discipline from his own emergencies. +We call it the formation of character. The German thinks this method a +hap-hazard method, and burdens men with rules, and the army is +Germany’s greatest school-master along those lines. We are inclined to +think that it results in a machine-made citizen.</p> + +<p>There are three classes of men who pick up the bill of fare of life +and look it over: Civilization’s paralyzed ones, with no appetite, who +can choose what they will without regard to the prices; the cautious, +those with appetite but who are hampered in their choice by the +prices; the bold, those with appetite and audacity, who rely upon +their courage to satisfy the landlord. The Germans are only just +beginning to look over the world’s bill of fare in this last lordly +fashion, to which some of us have long been accustomed. I see no +reason why they should not do so, though I see clearly enough the +suspicion and jealousy it creates.</p> + +<p>They have been swathed in “Forbidden” so long that their taste for +daring was late in coming. Our colonies, small wars, punitive +expeditions, and control over neighboring territories are not planned +for far ahead; but the exigencies of the situations are met by the +remedies and solutions of men fitted by their training in school, in +sport, in social and political life for just such work, and who are +the more efficient the more they do of it. We are inclined to do +things, and to think them out the day after; while the German thinks +them out the week before, and then sometimes hesitates to do them at +all.</p> + +<p>The German goes more slowly, perhaps more successfully, in commercial +and industrial undertakings, but always with a chart in front of him, +a pair of spectacles on his nose, and with no desire to take chances.</p> + +<p>In the rough-and-tumble world, the American and the Englishman went +ahead the faster; in a more orderly world, and commerce, industry, and +war are all far more scientific or orderly than of yore, the German +has come into his own and goes ahead very fast. He has not made +friends and supporters as have the other two: first, because he is a +new-comer; and also, I believe, because human nature, even when it is +not adventurous itself, loves adventure, and has a liking for the man +who is a law unto himself. Indeed, the Germans themselves have a +sneaking fondness for such a one. At any rate there is far more +imitation of American and English ways in Germany, than of German +manners, customs, and methods in America or in England.</p> + +<p>“Experiment is not sufficient,” writes Theophrastus von Hohenheim, +called Paracelsus; “experience must verify what can be accepted or not +accepted; knowledge is experience.” For the moment, but it is probably +not for long, we have the advantage in the knowledge bred of +experience.</p> + +<p>The German comes from the forest, loves the forest. “Kein Yolk ist so +innig mit seinem Wald erwachsen wie das Deutsche, keines liebt den +Wald so sehr.” (“No nation has grown up so at one with its forests as +have the Germans; no other nation loves its forests as do they.”) He +walks, and meditates, and sings in the forest, and nowadays goes to +the forest with his skis, his snow-shoes, and his sled. Our great +games are, many of them, personal conflicts, and attended by some +personal risk, and demanding both discipline in preparing for them and +severe discipline in the playing. Our love of the aleatory, of betting +our belongings, our powers, our persons even, against life, is not +commonly alive in Germany. The Germans are only just emerging into +safety and confidence in themselves, and beginning cautiously to agree +with us that</p> + +<blockquote>“He either fears his fate too much,<br /> + Or his deserts are small,<br /> +That dares not put it to the touch<br /> + To gain or lose it all.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">From these sombre forests came a race who still find it lonely to be +alone, and they herd together still for safety as of old, and have no +love of physical speculation. They are daring in thought and theory, +but cautious in physical and personal matters. An office stool +followed by a pension contents all too many men in Germany.</p> + +<blockquote>“Reden, Handeln, Tun und Wandeln<br /> +Zeigt der Menschen Wesen nicht.<br /> +Was im Herzen sie im Stillen<br /> +Fest verschliessen, stumm verhüllen,<br /> +Ist ihr richtigs Angesicht.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">An overwhelming majority of Germans believe that this is man’s real +portrait; an overwhelming majority of Americans would not even +understand it.</p> + +<p>The German army is the antidote to this lack of +physical discipline, this lack of strenuous physical life. The army +takes the place of our West, of our games, of our sports; just as it +takes the place of England’s colonies and public schools and games and +sports. When looked at in this way, when its double duty is +recognized, the enormous cost of it is not so material. The expense of +the German army is not greater than our armies, plus what we spend for +games and sport and colonial adventure.</p> + +<p>Germany has 4,570 miles of frontier to guard, to begin with, and her +total area is 208,780 square miles, or an area one fourth less than +that of our State of Texas, with a population per square mile of +310.4. Of this population 1,000,000, roughly, are subjects of foreign +powers. Five hundred thousand are from Austria-Hungary, 100,000 each +from Finland and Russia, nearly 100,000 from Italy, some 17,000 +Americans, and so on. In 1900 the population speaking German numbered +51,000,000.</p> + +<p>This compact little country is the very heart of Europe, surrounded by +Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, +Denmark, and, across the North Sea, England. In the case of trouble in +Europe, Germany is the centre. Nothing can happen that does not +concern her, that must not indeed concern her vitally. She has fought +at one time or another in the last hundred years with Russia, Austria-Hungary, +Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and +England, and the various German states among themselves; or her +soldiers have fought against their soldiers, whether or not the +various countries named were geographically and politically then what +they are now.</p> + +<p>Russia’s population in 1910 was 160,748,000, and including the Finnish +provinces, 163,778,800. Since 1897 the population of Russia has +increased at the annual rate of 2,732,000. The boundaries between +Russia and Germany are mere sand dunes, and by rail the Russian +outposts are only a few hours from Berlin. France is only across the +Rhine, and it is no secret that some months ago Great Britain had +worked out a plan by which she could put 150,000 troops on the +frontiers of Germany, at the service of France, in thirteen days. +Germany’s ocean commerce must pass through the Straits of Dover, down +the English Channel, within striking distance of Plymouth, Portsmouth, +Dover, Brest, and Cherbourg. France, which has been looked upon as a +somewhat negligible quantity, has taken on a new lease of life. When +Napoleon died, in 1821, he left France swept clean of her fighting +men, whose bones were bleaching all the way from Madrid to Moscow. +France has recuperated and is almost another nation to-day from the +stand-point of virility. She far surpasses Germany in literature, art, +and science, and is taking her old place in the world. She led the way +in motor construction, in field-artillery, in aviation, and now she is +producing a champion middle-weight sparrer, and, marvel of marvels, +has actually beaten Scotland at foot-ball! She has always had brains, +and now her stability and virility are reviving. This has not passed +unnoticed in Germany. No wonder Germany looks upon her navy as +something more than a Winstonchurchillian luxury!</p> + +<p>One may understand at once from this situation, and from her past +history, that Germany has the sound good sense not to be influenced by +the latest school of sentimentalists, who pretend to believe that the +world is a polyglot Sunday-school, with converted millionaires as +teachers therein; or, if not that, a counting-house, where all +questions of honor, race, religion, love, pride, all the questions +which bubble their answers in our blood, are to be settled by weighing +their comparative cost in dollars. We do not realize how new is this +word sentimental. John Wesley, writing of this word “sentimental” as +used in Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey,” says: “Sentimental, what is +that? It is not English, it is not sense, it conveys no determinate +idea. Yet one fool makes many, and this nonsensical word (who would +believe it) is become a fashionable one.”</p> + +<p>Germany has been taught by bitter experiences, and harsh masters, that +the ultimate power to command must rest with that authority which, if +necessary, can compel people to obey. They recognize, too, the mawkish +mental foolery of any plan of living together which ignores the part +which physical force must necessarily play in any political or social +life which is complete. They agree, too, as does every intelligent man +in Christendom, that the appeal to reason is far preferable to an +appeal to war. But, pray, what is to be done where there is no reason +to appeal to? Are reasonable men to strip themselves of all armor, and +suffer unreason to prevail?</p> + +<p>An army or a fleet is no more an incitement to war among reasonable +men, than a policeman is an incentive to burglary or homicide. An army +is not a contemptuous protest against Christianity; it is a sad +commentary on Christianity’s failure and inefficiency. An army and a +fleet are merely a reasonable precaution which every nation must take, +while awaiting the conversion of mankind from the predatory to the +polite.</p> + +<p>As yet the Germans have not been overtaken by the tepid wave of +feminism, which for the moment is bathing the prosperity-softened +culture of America and England. It is a harsh remedy, but both America +and England would gain something of virility if they were shot over. +We are all apt enough to become womanish, agitated, or acidulous, +according to age and condition, when we are reaping in security the +fields cleared, enriched, and planted by a hardy ancestry of pioneers. +There were no self-conscious peace-makers; no worshippers of those two +epicene idols: a God too much man, and a man too much God; no devotees +of third-sexism, in the days of Waterloo and Gettysburg, when we had +men’s tasks to occupy us.</p> + +<p>We are playing with our dolls just now, driving our coaches over the +roads, sailing our yachts in the waters, eating the fruits of the +fields that have been won for us by the sweat and blood of those gone +before. Germany has no leisure for that, no doll’s house as yet to +play in, and she is perhaps more fortunate than she knows.</p> + +<p>One can understand, too, that Germany has little patience with the +confused thinking which maintains that military training only makes +soldiers and only incites to martial ambitions; when, on the contrary, +she sees every day that it makes youths better and stronger citizens, +and produces that self-respect, self-control, and cosmopolitan +sympathy which more than aught else lessen the chances of conflict.</p> + +<p>I can vouch for it that there are fewer personal jealousies, +bickerings, quarrels in the mess-room or below decks of a war-ship, or +in a soldiers’ camp or barracks, than in many church and Sunday-school +assemblies, in many club smoking-rooms, in many ladies’ sewing or +reading circles. Nothing does away more surely with quarrelsomeness +than the training of men to get on together comfortably, each giving +way a little in the narrow lanes of life, so that each may pass +without moral shoving. There are no such successful schools for the +teaching of this fundamental diplomacy as the sister services, the +army and the navy.</p> + +<p>My latest visit to Germany has converted me completely to the wisdom +of compulsory service. Nor am I merely an academic disciple. I have +had a course in it myself, and were it possible in America I should +give any boy of mine the benefit of the same training. In Germany, at +any rate, no student of the situation there would deny that, barring +Bismarck, the army has done more for the nation than any other one +factor that can be named. Soldiers and sailors train themselves, and +train others, first of all to self-control, not to war. It is a pity +that “compulsory service” has come to mean merely training to fight. In +Germany, at any rate, it means far more than that. Two generations of +Germans have been taught to take care of themselves physically without +drawing a sword.</p> + +<p>It is rather a puzzling commentary upon the growth of democracy, that +in America and in England, where most has been conceded to the +majority, there is least inclination on their part to accept the +necessary personal burden of keeping themselves fit, not necessarily +for war, but for peace, by accepting universal and compulsory +training. The only fair law would be one demanding that no one should +be admitted to look on at a game of cricket, foot-ball, or base-ball +who could not pass a mild examination in these games, or give proof of +an equivalent training. That would be honorable democracy in the realm +of sport.</p> + +<p>There formerly existed in Bavaria a supplementary tax on estates left +by persons who had not served in the active army. It was done away +with at the formation of the empire. There is a proposal now to vote +such an additional tax for all Germany, and a very fair tax it would +be.</p> + +<p>I am not discussing here the question of compulsory service in +England. It is not difficult to see that part of England’s army must +of necessity be a professional army, which can be sent here and there +and everywhere, and that conscription would not answer the purpose, +for compulsory conscription could hardly demand of its recruits that +they should serve in India, in Canada, or in Bermuda or Egypt, for the +length of time necessary to make their service of value. Conscription, +too, on a scale to make an army serviceable against the trained troops +of the Continent is out of the question. Therefore, so far as +compulsory service for military duty only is concerned, I see no hope +for it in England. But in a land of free men such as is, or used to +be, England, and in America, compulsory service ought to be undertaken +with pride and with pleasure, as a moral, not as a military, duty for +the salvation of the country from internal foes, and as a nucleus +around which could rally the nation as a whole in case of attack from +external foes. Patriotism among us has come to a pretty pass indeed +when the nation is divided into two classes: those growling against +the taxation of their surplus; and those with their tongues hanging +out in anticipation of, and their hands clutching for, unearned doles. +And now, the more shame to us, must be added a third class who use +public office for private profit. What if we all turned to and gave +something without being forced to do so? Where would the “Yellow +peril” and the “German menace” be then? We should have much less +exciting and inciting talk and writing if our nerves and digestions +were in better order. Nothing calms the nerves, increases confidence, +and lessens the chance of promiscuous quarrelling better than hard +work.</p> + +<p>Even if what the German army has accomplished along these lines were +not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or +experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation, +when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies. +Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and +autocratic government, or she is lost. “Ohne Armee kein Deutschland.” +She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her +safety as a nation. If Germany were governed as is France, where they +have had nine new governments since the beginning of the twentieth +century, and forty-four since the republic replaced the empire forty-one +years ago — not counting six dismissals of the cabinet when the +prime minister remained — or fifty changes of government in less than +that number of years, Germany would have lost her place on the map. +France remains only because, so far as defence is concerned, France is +France plus the British fleet.</p> + +<p>Political geography is the sufficient reason for Germany’s army and +navy. Let us be fair in these judgments and admit at once, that if +Japan were where Mexico is, and Russia where Canada is, and Germany +separated from us by a few hours’ steaming, certain peace-mongers +would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would +have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb +runs, “It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window,” and we indulge in +not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the +world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no +such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared +at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why +Germany offers little resistance to the ruling of an autocratic +militarism. The sailors and the stokers would rather obey captain and +officers, however they may have been chosen for them, than to be sunk +at sea; and nowadays Germany is ever on the high seas, battling hard +to protect and to increase her commerce abroad, and to protect her +huge industrial population at home. Germany can take no chances for +the moment, for only “Wer sich regiert, der ist mit Zufall fertig.”</p> + +<p>One wishes often that one’s lips were not sealed, one’s pen not stayed +by the imperious demands of honor, to abstain from all mention of +discoveries or conversations made under the roof of hospitality, for +nothing could well be more enlightening than a description of a chat +between the great war-lord of Germany and a leading pacifist: the one +completely equipped with knowledge of the history, temper, and +temperament of his people; the other obsessed by a fantastic +exaggeration of the power and influence of money, even in the world of +culture and international politics, and preaching his panacea in the +land, of all others, where even now mere money has the least +influence, all honor to that land!</p> + +<p>Spinoza, the greatest of modern Jews, and the father of modern +philosophy, writes: “It is not enough to point out what ought to be; +we must also point out what can be, so that every one may receive his +due without depriving others of what is due to them.” And in another +place: “Things should not be the subject of ridicule or complaint, but +should be understood.” Those who know little of the history of the +development of Germany, and particularly of Prussia, cannot possibly +understand another reason for the political apathy of the Germans and +their pleased support of their army. It is this: they have been +trained in everything except self-government, in everything except +politics. Perhaps their governors know them better than we do. Their +progress has come from direction from above, not from assertion from +below. The art or arts of self-government, throughout their +development as a nation, have been forcibly omitted from their +curriculum. Every step in our national progress, on the contrary, has +been taken by the people, shoulder to shoulder, breaking their way up +and out into light and freedom. There is little or no trace of any +such movement of the people in Germany, and there is little taste for +it, and no experience to make such effort successful. We, who have +profited by the teaching of this political experience, do not realize +in the least how handicapped are the people who have not had it.</p> + +<p>One hundred years ago half the inhabitants of Prussia were practically +in the toils of serfdom. It was only by an edict of 1807, to take +effect in 1810, that personal serfdom with its consequences, +especially the oppressive obligation of menial service, was abolished +in the Prussian monarchy. Caste extended actually to land. All land +had a certain status, from which the owners and their retainers took +their political position and rights. The edict of 1807 was in reality +a land reform bill, and gave for the first time free trade in land in +Prussia. It was vom Stein, a Bismarck born too soon, who induced +Frederick William II, King of Prussia, and grandson of the Great +Elector, to abolish serfdom, to open the civil service to all classes, +and to concede certain municipal rights to the towns. But vom Stein +was dismissed from the service of his weak-kneed sovereign on the +ground that he was an enemy of France, and was obliged to take refuge +in Russia. Like other martyrs, his efforts watered the political earth +for a fruitful harvest.</p> + +<p>It is well to know where we are in the world’s culture and striving +when we speak of other nations. What were we doing, what was the rest +of the world doing, in those days when the Hanoverian peasant’s son, +Scharnhorst, and Clausewitz were about to lay the foundations of this +German army, now the most perfect machine of its kind in the world? +These were the days prepared for by Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin +Franklin, Voltaire, Rousseau; by Pitt and Louis XV, and George III; +the days of near memories of Wolfe, Montcalm, and Clive; days when +Hogarth was caricaturing London; days when the petticoats of the +Pompadour swept both India and Canada into the possession of England. +These names and the atmosphere they produce, show by comparison how +rough a fellow was this Prussia of only a hundred years ago. He had +not come into the circle of the polite or of the political world. He +was tumbling about, un-licked, untaught, inexperienced, already +forgetful of the training of the greatest school-master of the +previous century, Frederick the Great, who had made a man of him.</p> + +<p>We were already politicians to a man in those days, and the Englishman +Pitt was map-maker, by special warrant, to all Europe.</p> + +<p>When the Prussians were serfs politically, our House of +Representatives, in 1796, debated whether to insert in their reply to +the President’s speech the remark that “this nation is the freest and +most enlightened in the world.” It is true that this was at the time +when Europe was producing Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Hegel, +Fichte, Mozart, Haydn, Herschel, and about ready to introduce Walter +Scott, Wordsworth, Shelley, Heine, Balzac, Beethoven, and Cuvier; when +Turner was painting, Watt building the steam-engine, Napoleon in +command of the French armies, and Nelson of the British fleet; but +this bombastic babble of ours harmed nobody then, and only serves to +show what a number of intellectual serfs must have been members of +that particular House of Representatives.</p> + +<p>We have not overcome this habit of slapdash comparative criticism, for +only the other day a distinguished American inventor left Berlin with +these words as his final message: “We have nothing to learn from +Germany.” But in the nineteenth century, where does the American of +sober intelligence, if Lincoln be omitted, find a match for Bismarck +as a statesman, Heine as a wit and song-writer, Wagner, Brahms, and +Beethoven as musicians, Goethe as a man of letters and poet, the still +living influence of Lessing and Winckelmann as critics, Fichte as a +scholarly patriot, Hegel and Kant as philosophers, von Humboldt, +Liebig, Helmholtz, Bunsen, and Haeckel as scientists, Moltke and Roon +as soldiers, Ranke and Mommsen as historians, Auerbach, Spielhagen, +Sudermann, Freytag, “Fritz” Reuter, and Hauptmann as novelists and +dramatists, Krupp and Borsig as manufacturers, and the Rothschilds as +bankers? Lincoln, Lee, Sherman, Jackson, and Grant may equal these men +in their own departments, but aside from them our only superiority, +and a very questionable superiority it is, lies in our trust-and-tariff-incubated +millionaires. Let us try to see straight, if only +that we may learn and profit by the superiority of others.</p> + +<p>These explanations that I have given, historical, political, external, +and internal, offer reasons worth pondering both why we do not +understand Germany’s huge armament and why Germany looks upon it as a +necessity.</p> + +<p>However much the expenditure on fleet and army may be disguised, the +burden is colossal. In the year 1878 the net expenditure, ordinary and +extraordinary, for purposes of defence, for army and navy <i>and all +other military purposes whatsoever including pensions</i>, amounted to +452,000,000 marks; in 1888, to 660,000,000 marks; in 1898, to +882,000,000 marks; and in 1908, to 1,481,000,000 marks.</p> + +<p>The total expenses, net, of the empire in 1908 were 1,735,000,000 +marks, showing that only 254,000,000 marks out of the grand total of +1,735,000,000 were spent for other than military purposes. As the army +and navy now stand at a peace strength of some 700,000 men, and as +these men are all in the prime of their working power, the loss in +wages and in productive work may be put very conservatively at +600,000,000 marks, which brings the cost of the support of the +military establishment of Germany up to 2,000,000,000 marks and more +per annum, or $500,000,000.</p> + +<p>Many Americans were dismayed when our total national expenditure +reached the $1,000,000,000 point, and the Congress voting this +expenditure was nicknamed the “Billion-dollar Congress.” What would we +say of an expenditure of half a billion dollars for defence alone! +With what admiration, too, must we regard 65,000,000 people, living in +an area one quarter smaller than Texas, on a by-no-means rich or +fertile soil, who can bear cheerfully the burden, each year, of half +our total national expenditure, merely on the military and naval +barricade which enables them to toil in peace and security.</p> + +<p>Humanity has, indeed, made but a poor zigzag progress from the +gorilla; Christianity, just now engaged in blessing the rival banners +of warriors setting out for one another’s throats, has failed +ignominiously to bring the wolf in man to baptism, when the central +state of Christian Europe must arm to the teeth one in every eighteen +of her adult male inhabitants, and spend half a billion dollars a +year, to protect herself from assault and plunder.</p> + +<p>If the hairy, skin-clad cave-dwellers, or the man who left us the +Neanderthal skull, could have a look at us now, here in Berlin, in +many ways the centre of the most enlightened people in the world, they +would undoubtedly go mad trying to understand what we mean by the word +“progress.” And yet we smile indulgently at the poor farmers in +Afghanistan who till their fields with a rifle slung across their +shoulders. What is Germany doing but that! And an enormously heavy +rifle it is, costing just seven times as much as all other national +expenditures together; in short, it costs seven marks of soldier to +protect every one mark of plough. I admit frankly the horror and the +absurdity of all this; but as an argument for disarmament, “it does +not lie,” as the lawyers phrase it. It is a criticism, and an +unanswerable one, of our failure as human beings to enthrone reason +and to tame our passions; but it is a veritable call to arms to +protect ourselves, not a reason for not doing so. Let the +international gluttons overeat themselves till they are seriously ill; +but it would be madness to starve ourselves in the meantime, and yet +that is the grotesque logic of certain of our preachers of +disarmament.</p> + +<p>At the moment of writing there are 1,000,000 men at each other’s +throats in the Balkans, there is a revolution in Mexico, and incipient +anarchy in Central America; as an emollient to this, Great Britain is +about to present a bust of the late King Edward to the Peace Palace at +the Hague! I can imagine myself saying “Pretty pussy, nice pussy,” to +the wild-cats I have shot in Nebraska and Dakota, but I should not be +here if I had; and however small my value to the world I live in, I +estimate it as worth at least a ton of wild-cats.</p> + +<p>I am bound, however, in fairness to call the attention of the unwary +dabbler in statistics to a point of grave importance in dealing with +German finances. The German Empire, so far as expenditure and income +are concerned, is merely an office, a clearing-house so to speak, for +the states which together make up the empire. The expenses of the +empire, for example, in 1910 were $757,900,000 and of the army and +navy, including extraordinary expenditures, $314,919,325; this does +not include pensions, clerical expenses, interest, sinking-fund, and +loss of productive labor, as did the figures on a preceding page. To +the ignorant or to the malicious, who quote these figures to bolster +up a socialist or pacifist preachment, this looks as though Germany +had spent one half of her grand total on the army and navy. But this +is quite wrong. In addition to the expenditures of this imperial +clearing-house called the German Empire, there was spent by the states +$1,467,325,000: the so-called clearinghouse bearing the whole burden +of expenses for army and navy, the separate states nothing except the +per capita tax, called the matriculation tax, of some 80 pfennigs. To +make this matter still more clear, as it is a constant source of error +not only to the foreigner but to the Germans themselves, the income of +the empire for 1910 was $757,900,000, the income of all the states +$1,463,150,000, or of the empire and the states combined +$2,221,050,000. In the same way the debt of the empire in 1910 stood +at $1,224,150,000, and the debt of the states of the empire at +$3,856,325,000, or a grand total outstanding indebtedness of all +Germany of $5,080,475,000.</p> + +<p>Of late years the imperial expenditure of Great Britain, for example, +has amounted to some $935,000,000 a year; but various local bodies +spend also some $900,000,000 a year. Some of this is cross-spending, +but the grand total amounts to some $1,500,000,000 a year.</p> + +<p>Before writing or speaking of Germany it is well to know at least what +Germany is. To pick up a hand-book and to quote therefrom the figures +relating to the German Empire, as though these covered Germany, as is +often done, is as accurate and helpful to the inquirer, as though one +should take the figures of the New York clearing-house as accurate +descriptions of the total and detailed business of all the New York +banks and trust companies. A clearing-house is merely a piece of +machinery for the adjustment of differences between a host of debtors +and creditors. The comparative cost of the German army and navy can +only be figured properly against the income and expenditure of the +total wealth of all Germany. And all Germany is something more than +the German Empire, which in certain respects is only a book-keeper, an +adjuster of differences.</p> + +<blockquote>“Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?<br /> +Ist’s Preussenland? Ist’s Schwabenland?<br /> +Ist’s wo am Rhein die Rebe blüht?<br /> +Ist’s wo am Belt die Möve zieht?<br /> +O nein! O nein! O nein!<br /> +Sein Vaterland muss grösser sein.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>“Des ganze Deutscbland soil es sein!<br /> +O Gott vom Himmel, sieh’ darein,<br /> +Und gib uns rechten deutschen Muth;<br /> +Dass wir es lieben treu und gut!<br /> +Des soil es sein! des soil es sein!<br /> +Des ganze Deutschland soll es sein!”</blockquote> + +<p>The official title of the sovereign is not Emperor of Germany, or +Emperor of the Germans, but German Emperor. Thus the territorial +rights of other heads of states are safeguarded. Even the popularity +of the first Emperor, who wished to be named Emperor of Germany and +who disputed with Bismarck for hours over the question, could not +bring this about, and he was proclaimed at Versailles merely German +Emperor.</p> + +<p>However heavy the burden of armament may be, we must be careful to put +such expenditure in its proper perspective and in its proper +relations, not only to the German Empire, which for official, +clerical, and statistical matters is quite a different entity, but to +“das ganze Deutschland.” The German Empire is the clearinghouse, the +adjutant, the executive officer, the official clerk, the +representative in many social, financial, military, and diplomatic +capacities of Germany; but it is not, and never for a moment should be +confused with, what all Germans love, and what it has cost them blood +and tears and great sacrifices to bring into the circle of the +nations, the German Fatherland!</p> + +<p>In 1910 the total funded debt of the empire amounted to 4,896,600,000 +marks, and the debt in 1912 had risen to 5,396,887,801 marks. In the +six years ending March, 1911, Germany’s debt increased by +$415,000,000.</p> + +<p>In 1910 the <i>funded</i> debt of Germany (empire and states) was +$4,896,600,000; of France $6,905,000,000; of England $3,894,500,000, +and of Russia $4,880,750,000. It is a curious psychical and social +phenomenon that, though we are as suspicious as criminals of one +another’s good faith in keeping the peace, we are veritable angels of +innocence in trusting one another financially, for back of these huge +debts we keep in ready money, that is, gold, to pay them: Germany at +the present writing $275,000,000 in the Reichsbank; France +$640,000,000 in the Bank of France; England a paltry $175,000,000 in +the Bank of England; and Russia $625,000,000 in the Bank of Russia. We +all live upon credit, an elastic moral tie which seems to be +illimitably stretchable, and both a nation’s and an individual’s +wealth is measured not by what he has, but by what he is, that is to +say, by his character or credit. It is startling to find how we +distrust one another along certain lines and how we trust one another +along others. The total amount of gold in these four countries would +just about pay the interest at four per cent. for two years on their +total indebtedness!</p> + +<p>From what we have seen of the proportion of expenditure that goes to +military purposes, it cannot be denied that Germany is increasing her +liabilities at an extraordinary rate, and largely for purposes of +protection. In the last two years the interest on her increased debt +alone, at four per cent., amounts to $5,000,000; while the interest at +four per cent. upon military expenditures of all kinds amounts to the +tidy sum of $20,000,000 per annum. The German, however, faces these +facts and figures, not as a matter of choice, not as a matter of +insurance wholly, but as a hard necessity. It is what the delayed +conversion of the world is costing him, not to speak of what it costs +the rest of us. He is surrounded by enemies; he is not by nature a +fighting man; his whole industrial and commercial progress and his +amassed wealth have come from training, training, training; and he +sees no alternative, and I am bound to say that I see none either, but +a nation trained also to defence, cost what it may.</p> + +<p>The last German estimates (1912) balance with a revenue and +expenditure of $671,222,605. The naval expenditure is put at +$114,306,575; the army expenditure is put at $192,627,080. Both the +army and navy are being largely increased. In the year 1916 the +strength of the navy is expected to be about 79,000 men, and of the +army and navy combined 767,000. In the last ten years two nations have +almost doubled their naval personnel: Germany has increased hers from +31,157 to 60,805, and Austria-Hungary from 9,069 to 17,277. In Great +Britain the increase has been about one seventh, and this one seventh +is about equal to the present strength of Austria.</p> + +<p>The gross naval expenditure, estimated, of the United States for 1912 +amounts to $132,848,030, and the number of men 63,468. The gross naval +expenditure of Great Britain, estimated, for the same year is put at +$224,410,235, and the number of men 134,000. The gross naval +expenditure of Germany is put at $114,306,575, which includes $489,235 +for air-ships and experiments therewith, the number of men 66,783. +France proposes to spend, plus an addition due to operations in +Morocco, $90,000,000, number of men 58,404; and Japan $44,309,145, +number of men 49,389. Two new corps have been voted for the German +army, to be numbered 24 and 25; one is for the Russian frontier, with +head-quarters at Allenstein, and the other for the French frontier, +with head-quarters at Sarrebourg or Mulhouse. A German army corps on a +war footing comprises about 52,000 men, with 150 guns and 16,000 +horses. The reader should notice, as a reminder of the still latent +jealousies of the different states of the German Empire, that the +three army corps raised in Bavaria are not numbered consecutively, +twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three, but one, two, and three!</p> + +<p>To the American the pay of the German troops, officers and men, is +ludicrously small. It is evident that men do not undertake to fit +themselves to be officers, and to struggle through frequent and severe +examinations to remain officers, for the pay they receive. A +lieutenant receives for the first three years $300 a year, from the +fourth to the sixth year $425, from the seventh to the ninth year +$495, from the tenth to the twelfth year $550, and after the twelfth +year $600 a year. A captain receives from the first to the fourth year +$850, from the fifth to the eighth year $1,150, and the ninth year and +after $1,275 a year. Of one hundred officers who join, only an average +of eight ever attain to the command of a regiment. In Bavaria and +Würtemberg, promotion is quicker by from one to three years than in +Prussia. In Prussia promotion to <i>Oberleutnant</i> averages 10 years, to +captain or <i>Rittmeister</i> 15 years, to major 25 years, to colonel 33 +years, and to general 37 years. It would not be altogether inhuman if +these gentlemen occasionally drank a toast to war and pestilence! + +A commanding general, or general inspector of cavalry or field +artillery, receives $3,495; a division commander, or inspector of +cavalry, field and heavy artillery, $3,388; a brigade commander, +$2,565; commander of a regiment, or officer of the general staff of +the same rank, $2,193. There are various additions to these sums for +travelling, keep of horses, house-rent, and the like. All soldiers and +officers travel at reduced rates on the railways, and are allowed a +certain amount of luggage free. It is a commentary upon the three +nations, that in Germany the soldier receives a reduced rate when +travelling, in England the golfer pays a reduced rate, and in America, +until lately, the politicians were given free passes. One could almost +produce the three countries from that limited knowledge.</p> + +<p>At the cadet school at Gross Lichterfelde there are a thousand pupils. +They are taught riding, swimming, dancing, French, English, +mathematics, and of course receive technical military instruction. The +fee is $200, but for the sons of officers, and according to their +means, the fees are reduced to $112, $75, and even as low as $22, and +in some deserving cases no fee at all is charged.</p> + +<p>There is no professional army in Germany, as in England and in +America. Every German who is physically fit must serve practically +from the age of seventeen to forty-five. Those in the infantry serve +two years; those in the cavalry and horse artillery and mounted +rifles, three years. About forty-eight per cent. who are examined are +rejected as unfit, not necessarily because they are incapable of +service, but because the expense of training all is too great. These +men receive 40 pfennigs a day, 27 pfennigs being deducted for their +food.</p> + +<p>There are some 40,000 men who join the army voluntarily for a term of +two or three years, and who re-enlist and become non-commissioned +officers, and if they remain twelve years they are entitled to $200 on +leaving the service, and head the lists of candidates for the railway, +postal, police, street-cleaning, and other civil services. Some 10,000 +men who have passed a certain examination serve only one year and are +entitled to certain privileges.</p> + +<p>Each man in the infantry serves 2 years in the active army, 5 years in +the active reserve, 5 years in the first division of the <i>Landwehr</i>, 6 +years in the second division of the <i>Landwehr</i>, and 6 years in the +<i>Landsturm</i>. Colonel Gädke calculates that Germany has now under arms +not less than 714,000 soldiers and sailors, and that 4,800,000 can be +put into the field if wanted out of the 6,000,000 who have done +service with the colors. Out of this enormous total, practically none, +according to the last census, is illiterate. Our American census of +1910 gives the number of men of militia age in New England as +1,458,900, and in the whole country 20,473,684.</p> + +<p>Promotion from the ranks, as we understand it, is practically unknown. +The German officers pass through the ranks, it is true, as part of +their education at the beginning of their military career, but those +who do so join in the beginning as candidates for commissions, and +have been provisionally accepted by the commander and officers of the +regiment they propose to join, as must every candidate for a +commission in the German army. If the candidate is not wanted, it is +hinted to him that this is the case, and he must go elsewhere, as this +decision is final. Every German regiment’s officers’ mess is thus in +some sort a club.</p> + +<p>Officers are supplied from the cadet corps, and from those who join +the ranks as candidates for commissions. All cadets must pass through +a war-school before obtaining a commission. Of these there are 10 in +Prussia, Würtemberg, and Saxony, and 1 at Munich in Bavaria. They +there receive their commissions as second lieutenants. There are 9 +Prussian schools, the Hauptkadettenanstalt at Gross Lichterfelde, and +8 Kadetten-Häuser; and 1 at Dresden and 1 at Munich. Some of these I +have visited, and been made at home with the greatest courtesy and +hospitality. These German cadet schools are to a great extent +charitable institutions for the sons of officers and civilian +officials. The charges range, as I have indicated above, from $200 a +year to nothing at all.</p> + +<p>There are in addition schools of musketry, a school for instruction in +machine-gun practice, instruction in infantry battalion practice, a +school of military gymnastics, of military equitation, officers’ +riding-schools, a military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where +officers may study the technical engineering and communication +services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery +school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a +cavalry telegraph school, and the staff colleges.</p> + +<p>Of technical military matters I know nothing. I have some experience +in handling horses in harness and under saddle, and on subjects with +which I am familiar I venture to pass judgments in the class-room. I +have visited many of these class-rooms, and listened to the teaching +and lectures in French, English, strategy, and political geography, +and kindred topics, and if the rest of the instruction is on a par +with what I heard there is no criticism to be made. I may not say +where, but one of the instructors in French was a real pleasure to +listen to.</p> + +<p>The courses and examinations which lead up, in the Kriegesakademie, or +staff college, to the grade of fitness for the general staff, or the +technical division of the general staff, or administrative staff work, +or employment as instructors, are of the very stiffest. An officer who +succeeds in reaching such proficiency, that he is sent up to the +general staff must be a very blue ribbon of a scholar in his own +field.</p> + +<p>The quarters, the food, the training, are Spartan indeed at the cadet +schools, but how valuable that is, is shown in the faces, manners, +physique, and general bearing of the picked youths one sees at the +Kriegesakademie in Berlin. No one after seeing these fellows would +deny for a moment the value of a sound, hard discipline. The same may +be seen at our own West Point, where the transformation of many a +country bumpkin, into an officer and a gentleman, in four years is +almost unbelievable.</p> + +<p>The truth is that most of us suffer from lack of discipline, and the +intelligent men of every nation will one day insist that, if the state +is to meddle in insurance and other matters, it must logically, and +for its own salvation, demand compulsory service; not necessarily for +war, but for social and economic peace within its own boundaries. It +is a political absurdity that you may tax individuals to provide +against accident and sickness to themselves, but that you may not tax +individuals by compulsory service to provide against accident and +sickness to the state. There can be nothing but ultimate confusion +where the state pays a man if he is ill, pays him if he is hurt, pays +him when he is old, and yet does not force him to keep well, and thus +avoid accident and a pauper’s old age by obliging him to submit to two +or three years’ sound physical training. Whether the training is done +with a gun or without it matters little. Most men of our breed like to +know how to kill things, so that a gun would probably be an +inducement.</p> + +<p>The more one knows of the severe demands upon the officers of the +German army and of their small pay, the more one realizes that if they +are not angels there must be some further explanation of their +willingness to undertake the profession. First of all, the Emperor is +a soldier and wears at all times the soldier’s uniform. Further, he +gives from his private purse a small allowance monthly to the poorer +officers of the guard regiments. A German officer receives +consideration on all sides, whether it be in a shop, a railway-carriage, +a drawing-room, or at court.</p> + +<p>To a certain extent his uniform is a dowry; he expects and often gets +a good marriage portion in return for his shoulder-straps and brass +buttons; and in every case it gives him a recognized social position, +in a country where the social lines are drawn far more strictly than +in any other country outside of Austria and India. This constant +wearing of the sword is no new thing. Tacitus, who would have been an +uncompromising advocate of compulsory service had he lived in our +time, writes: “A German transacts no business, public or private, +without being completely armed. The right of carrying arms is assumed +by no person whatever till the state has declared him duly qualified.” +It is the recognized occupation of the nobility, and, in very many +families, a tradition. In the army of Saxony, on January 1, 1911, out +of every hundred officers of the war ministry, of the general +commands, and of the higher staff, 44.33 per cent. were noblemen; of +the officers of the infantry, 26.19 were noblemen; of the cavalry, +60.92 were noblemen; and of the officers of the entire army, all arms, +24.98 were noblemen.</p> + +<p>It is worth chronicling in this connection, for the benefit of those +who wish a real insight into German social life, that few people +discriminate between the old nobility, or men who take their titles +from the possession of land and their descendants, and the new and +morbidly disliked nobility, who have bought or gained their patents of +nobility, as is done often enough in England, by profuse contributions +to charity or to semi-political and cultural undertakings favored by +the court, or by direct contributions to party funds, by valuable +services rendered, or by mere length of service. This new nobility, +anxious about their status, satisfied to have arrived, jealous of +rivals, are the dead weight which ties Germany fast to bureaucratic +government and to a policy of no change. They represent, even in +educated Germany, a complacent mediocrity; indignant at rebuke, +indifferent to progress, heedless of experience, impatient of +criticism, haters of haste, and jealous of superiority. Even Bismarck, +the creator of this bureaucracy, lamented the insolence and bad +manners of the state servants.</p> + +<p>The essential and ever-present quality of the real aristocrat and of a +real aristocracy is, of course, courage. It may dislike change, but it +is not afraid of it. The real gentleman, of course, does not care +whether he is a gentleman or not. The characteristic of an artificial, +tailor-made aristocracy is timidity and a shrinking from change. This +new nobility, created because it is carefully charitable, or +serviceable, or long in office, is not only in possession of the civil +service, but occupies high posts in the army and navy. While not +minimizing its value, it is everywhere maintained in Germany that it +acts as a bulwark against progress. They are a nobility of office-holders, +and they partake of the qualities and characteristics of the +office-holder everywhere. They sometimes forget the country in the +office; while the older nobility, which made Germany, despises the +office except as an instrument or weapon to be used for the welfare of +the country. The political pessimism in Germany to-day is caused by, +and comes from, this army of the new nobility.</p> + +<p>Americans and English both write of Germany, and speak of it, as being +in the grip of a small group of aristocrats. Not at all; it is in the +shaky and self-conscious control of men whose patents of nobility were +given them with their office, a titled bureaucracy, in short. Let us +prove this statement by running through the list of the chief officers +of the state. Of the officials of the German Empire: the chancellor’s +grandfather, Bethmann-Hollweg, was a professor, and afterward minister +of education; the secretary of state’s father was plain Herr +Kiderlein-Wächter; the under-secretary of state is Herr Zimmermann; +the secretary of the interior is Herr Delbrück; of finance, Herr +Wermuth; of justice, Herr Lisco; of the navy, von Tirpitz, who was +recently ennobled; the postmaster is Herr Kraetke. Not one of these +officials of the empire is of the old nobility!</p> + +<p>Of the 11 ministers of the kingdom of Prussia, the minister for +agriculture, von Schorlemer; for war, von Heeringen; for education, +von Trott zu Solz; and for the interior, von Dallwitz, are of the old +nobility; but the other 7 ministers are not. Of the 12 +<i>Oberpräsidenten</i>, men who rule the provinces, 6 are noblemen; of the 37 +<i>Regierungspräsidenten</i>, 14 are of the nobility, 23 are not. This should +dispose finally of the frequently heard assertion that Germany and +Prussia are ruled by a small group of the landed nobility and that +there is no way open to the talents. It is fair to say that a very +small and intimate court group do have a certain influence in naming +the candidates for these posts, but they are too wily to keep these +positions for themselves.</p> + +<p>I suppose we all like, in a childish way, to wear placards of our +prowess in the form of orders and decorations, but the evening attire +of this bureaucratic nobility often looks as though there had been a +ceramic eruption, a sort of measles of decorations. Men’s breasts are +covered with medals, stars, porcelain plaques, and their necks are +hung with ribbons with a dangling medallion, all distributed from the +patriarchal imperial Christmas-tree for every conceivable service from +cleaning the streets to preaching properly on the imperial yacht. Men +collect them as they would stamps or butterflies, and some of them +must be very expert.</p> + +<p>The officers and the officials who are recognized as giving their +services as a family tradition, as a patriotic service, or out of +sheer love of the profession of arms, are rather liked than disliked, +and give a tone and set a standard for all the rest. Both these +officers and their men are respected. Of no German soldier could it be +written:</p> + +<blockquote>“I went into a theatre as sober as could be,<br /> +They gave a drunk civilian room, but ’adn’t none for me;<br /> +They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,<br /> +But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls.”</blockquote> + +<p>On the contrary, every effort is made to keep the army pleased with +itself and proud of itself. The chancellor of the empire is always +given military rank; officers are not allowed to marry unless they +have, or acquire by marriage, a suitable income; the dignity of the +officer is upheld and his pride catered to; officers are made to feel +that they are the darlings of the Fatherland by everybody from the +Emperor down.</p> + +<p>This artificial stimulant goes far to keep them contented, and the +fact that the scale of comfortable living in Germany was twenty years +ago far below, and is even now not equal to, that of the equivalent +classes with us makes the task easier. They have not been taught to +want the things we want, and are still satisfied with less. And back +of and behind it all is the feeling among the leaders, that the army +furnishes no small amount of the patriotic cement necessary to hold +Germany together. Ulysses lashed himself to the mast as he passed the +sirens of luxury and leisure, and for the German Ulysses the army +supplies the cords. It is not the foreign student of German life alone +who notices that the Germans, even now, seem to be tribal rather than +national. The best friends of Germany in Germany also recognize this +weakness, comment upon it, and favor every possible expedient to +overcome it.</p> + +<p>I admit frankly my admiration for this Spartan three quarters of a +million of soldiers and sailors, and their officers. It offers a +splendid example of patriotism, of disregard for the weakening +comforts, luxuries, and fussy pleasures that absorb too much of our +vitality; and of disdain for the material successes, which in their +selfish rivalry, breed the very industrial distresses which are now +our problems. At least here is a large professional body whose aims, +whose way of living, and whose earnings prove that there can be a +social hierarchy not dependent upon money. It is one of the finest +lessons Germany has to teach, and long may she teach it.</p> + +<p>That is distinctly the side of the army that I know and approve +without reserve. Of its value as a fighting force it would be +ridiculous, in my case, to write. I have read and heard scores of +criticisms and comments from many sources, and they range from those +who claim that the German army is unbeatable, even if attacked from +all sides, to those who maintain that it is already stale and +mechanical.</p> + +<p>The war of 1866, when Prussia represented Germany, lasted thirty-five +days; the war against Denmark lasted six months and twelve days; the +war against France lasted six months and nine days. Thirty-six German +cavalry regiments did not lose a man during the whole campaign of +1870-1871; and the Sixth Army Corps was hardly under fire. There has +been no long, practical, and therefore decisive test of the army. Of +the transport and commissary services during the French war, when +Germany toward the end of it had 630,000 men in the field, certainly +we, with the deplorable mismanagement and scandal of our Spanish war, +and the British with the investigations after the Egyptian campaign +fresh in memory, have nothing to say, except that it was wholly +admirable and beyond the breath of suspicion of greed, thievery, or +political chicanery. There was no rotten leather, and no poisoned +beef.</p> + +<p>Officers, too, in the French war, were called upon to do their duty +and to obey, and no individual brilliancy which interfered with the +general plan was condoned or pardoned, no matter how highly placed the +relatives or how influential the connections of the offender. A +distinguished general, after a successful and heroic victory, who had +been tempted into a bloody battle against orders, was called before +his superiors, told that the first lesson the soldier had to learn was +obedience, and sent home! A brother of the chief of staff went into +the war a captain and came back a captain!</p> + +<p>I am wondering what our underpaid, unnoticed regulars in the army and +navy would have to say, were they free to speak, of the conduct of our +last martial escapade with Spain, by our press and by our politicians. +There would be no stories of the German kind, I am sure, and no single +record of an influential civilian who did not get all the glory that +he deserved. My impulsive countrymen are always manufacturing heroes +and saviors, but fortunately the crosses upon which they crucify them +are erected almost as fast as the crowns are nicely fitted and +comfortable, so that there is little danger of permanent tyranny. What +Richelieu said of the French applies to some extent to ourselves: “Le +propre du caractère français c’est que, ne se tenant pas fermement au +bien, il ne s’attache non plus longtemps au mal.”</p> + +<p>During and after the Franco-German war there was no cheap heroism, no +feminine excitability producing litters of heroes; no slobbering, +osculatory advertising; no press undertaking the duties of a general +staff, which in our Spanish war almost completely clouded the real +heroism and patriotism that were in evidence. There were no newspaper-made +heroes, hastening back to exchange cheap military glory for votes +and delicious notoriety. For all of which, gentlemen, let us thank +God, and give praise where it is due.</p> + +<p>The army, too, is an interesting commentary upon the changes that are +so rapidly taking place in Germany, from an agricultural to a +manufacturing nation. Of every 100 recruits that presented themselves +there were passed as fit, in 1902, for the First Army Corps, of those +from the country 72.76; of those from the towns 63.88; in 1910 these +figures had fallen to 67.24 and 53.66. In the Second Army Corps the +recruits passed as fit, from the towns, had fallen from 60.74 in 1902 +to 50.42 in 1910. In the Fifth Army Corps, of recruits from the towns +the percentage of those passed fell from 60.07 to 46.13. In the Sixth +Army Corps the percentage fell from 50.14 to 43.83. In the Sixteenth +Army Corps from 67.50 to 58.80. In the Eighteenth Army Corps the +recruits from the towns passed as fit had fallen from 60.46 in 1902 to +46.58 in 1910. The average for the whole empire, of those from the +towns passed as fit, had fallen from 53.52 in 1902 to 47.87 in 1910. +The First Army Corps has its head-quarters at Königsberg, and recruits +from that neighborhood; the Second Army Corps has its head-quarters at +Stettin, and recruits from Pomerania; the Fifth Army Corps has its +headquarters at Posen, and recruits from Posen and Lower Silesia; the +Sixth Army Corps has its head-quarters at Breslau, and recruits from +Silesia; the Sixteenth Army Corps has its headquarters at Metz, and +recruits from Lorraine; the Eighteenth Army Corps has its head-quarters +at Frankfurt-am-Main, and recruits from that neighborhood. +These figures are enough to make my point, without giving the +statistics for all the twenty-three corps, which is, that in spite of +the precautions taken, the German recruit, especially from the towns, +in whatever part of the country, is losing vigor and stamina.</p> + +<p>Even this hard-and-fast arrangement of a bureaucratic government with +a military backbone does not solve all the problems. When one sees, +however, the German school-boy, and the German recruit during the +first weeks of his training, in the barracks and out, and I have +watched thousands of them, and then looks over this same material +after two or three years of training, it is hard to believe that they +are the same, and that even these hard-working officers have been able +to bring about such a change.</p> + +<p>Of the charges of brutality and severity I only know what the +statistics tell me, that in an army of over 600,000 men there were +some 500 cases brought to the notice of the superior officers last +year. In 1911 there were 12,919 convictions for crimes and +misdemeanors and 578 desertions. Of the 32,711 common soldiers in the +Saxon army in 1911, 30 committed suicide; in 1909, 29; in 1905, 24; in +1901, 36; that is to say, roughly, one man per thousand. Of the why +and wherefore I cannot say, but Saxony is a peculiarly overpopulated +section of Germany, and the population is overdriven; and the German +everywhere is a dreamy creature compared with us, of less toughness of +fibre either morally or physically, and no doubt, here and there, +under-exercising and over-thinking make the world seem to be a mad +place and impossible to live in. Indeed, it is no place to live in for +the best of us if we take it, or ourselves, too seriously. The German +army is an educated army, as is no other army in the world, and there +are the diseases peculiar to education to combat. A mediocre ability +to think, and a limited intellectual experience, coupled with a +craving for miscellaneous reading, breed new microbes almost as fast +as science discovers remedies for the old ones.</p> + +<p>Bismarck’s words, “Ohne Armee kein Deutschland,” meant to him, and +mean to-day, far more than that the army is necessary for defence. It +is the best all-round democratic university in the world; it is a +necessary antidote for the physical lethargy of the German race; it is +essential to discipline; it is a cement for holding Germany together; +it gives a much-worried and many-times-beaten people confidence; the +poverty of the great bulk of its officers keeps the level of social +expenditure on a sensible scale; it offers a brilliant example, in a +material age, of men scorning ease for the service of their country; +it keeps the peace in Europe; and until there is a second coming, of a +Christ of pity, and patience, and peace, it is as good a substitute +for that far-off divine event as puzzled man has to offer.</p> + +<p>It is silly and superficial to look upon the German army only as a +menace, only as a cloud of provocations in glittering uniforms, only +as a helmeted frown with a turned-up moustache. It is not, and I make +no such claim for it, an army or an officers’ corps of Puritans or of +self-sacrificing saints, but it does partake of the dreamy, idealistic +German nature, as does every other institution in Germany. Though, as +a whole, it is a fighting machine, the various parts of it are not +imbued with that spirit alone. The uneasy pessimism of the dreamer, +which distrusts the comfortable solutions of the business-like +politicians, and leaders, in their own and in other countries, is as +noticeable in the army as in all other departments of German life.</p> + +<blockquote>“And all through life I see a cross,<br /> +Where sons of God yield up their breath;<br /> +There is no gain except by loss,<br /> +There is no life except by death,<br /> +There is no vision but by faith;<br /> +Nor glory but by bearing shame,<br /> +Nor justice but by taking blame.”</blockquote> + +<p>There have been many, and there are still, soldiers who hold that +creed. There are not a few of them in Germany.</p> + +<h3>IX GERMAN PROBLEMS</h3> + +<p> +A great nation like Germany must have characteristics, anxieties, +problems, and responsibilities, some of which are peculiar to itself. +The individual must be of small importance who has not problems and +burdens of his own arising from his environment, position, work, and +his personal relations with other men; as well as problems of temper, +temperament, health, education, and traditions peculiar to himself.</p> + +<p>Wise men recognize two things about every other man: that he has his +own problems, and that no one else thoroughly understands either +another man’s handicaps or his advantages; and that the only way to +judge him is not to go behind the returns, but to note how he lives +with these same problems. They are there, there is no doubt about +that; the question is, does he smile or scowl? does he work away +toward a solution, or allow himself to be swamped by them? do they +dominate him, or he them? has he that sun of life, vitality, +sufficient to burn away the fog, or does he live and die in a moist, +semi-impenetrable fog, in which he flounders timidly and rather +aimlessly about, always rather discouraged, rather in the dark, and +lamentably damp in person and in spirits? The only fair test of a +man’s life is his living of it, and the same is true of a nation.</p> + +<p>Of Germany’s history, traditions, and temperament I have written. No +one can fail to note the chief characteristics: their gregariousness, +their melancholic and subjective way of looking at life, their passion +for music. It is more what they think, than what they do or see, that +gives them pleasure. They agree with Erasmus, that “it is a foolish +error to believe that happiness is dependent upon things; it is +dependent entirely upon one’s opinion of them.” The indefinite has no +terrors for them, they delight indeed in the indefinable. They have +done little in great sculpture and architecture, or the founding and +ruling of colonies, as compared with their supreme achievements in +music, in philosophy, in lyric poetry.</p> + +<p>The art of music, which moves one greatly toward nothing in +particular; which supplies sounds but not a language for the mysteries +of feeling; which easily carries a sensitive soul away from its +sorrows or drowns it in tears, and all without offering a semblance of +a practical solution; which orchestrates a greater fury, a more +poignant jealousy, a sweeter note of bird, a harsher clang of weapons, +than any human energy can even imagine to exist; this art with which +marching soldiers sing away their fatigue, but not really; with which +disconsolate lovers wing their hopes, but not really; with which the +pious pipe themselves to heaven, but not really; with which, by +strings and beaten skins, organ-pipes and blowing brass, an +anaesthesia of ecstasy is produced, leaving one only the weaker +against the dourness and doggedness of the devil; with which men and +women hymn themselves home to God, only to lose Him when they leave +the threshold of His house; which choruses from a thousand throats +patriotism, defiance, self-confidence, but arms none of them with any +useful weapon; which with drums and brass can send any lout to heroism +without his knowing why; this art which burns up the manhood of its +devotees - who ever heard of a great tenor who was a great man, or +even of a great musician for more than half of whose life one must +needs not apologize? - this art flourishes in Germany not without +reason, and not for nothing.</p> + +<p>In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children +could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in +Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the +part-song known to every college man in America, “On a Bank Two Roses +Grew,” as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or +have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great +clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will +not deny the delights of music in Germany. In Berlin there is not a +hall suitable for a musical recital that is not engaged a year, +sometimes more, in advance.</p> + +<p>In the beautiful Golden Hall of the castle of the Grand Duke of +Mecklenburg-Schwerin, at Schwerin, I have attended a concert given by +the Grand Duke’s own orchestra, where the selections were all +compositions of former leaders or members of the orchestra, dating +back over a period of two hundred years. For centuries in this +particular grand duchy music and the theatre, supported and guided by +the sovereign, have offered a school of entertainment and instruction +to the people. At this present writing, special trains are run to +Schwerin from the surrounding country districts, and the people for +miles around subscribe for their seats for the whole winter, and +attend the theatre and certain concerts as regularly as children go to +school. It sounds oddly to the ears of an American to hear criticism +to the effect, that there are more high-class music and more classical +plays than the people have either time or money for. Here is a +population which is actually overindulging in culture. We complain of +too little; here they complain of too much. It makes one wonder +whether any of the problems of social life are satisfactorily soluble; +whether indeed it be not true that even the virtues carried to an +extreme do not become vices. Philanthropy in more than one city in +America is spending time, money, and energy to bring about this very +enthusiasm for music and the more intellectual arts which, it is +maintained, here in Schwerin at least, has gone too far.</p> + +<p>These problems are not so easy of solution as the ignorant and the +inexperienced think. Imagine the inhabitants of Hoboken, New Jersey; +of Lynn, Massachusetts; of Kalamazoo, Michigan; of Bloody Gulch, +Idaho, spending too much time and money listening to the music of +Palestrina and Bach, or to the plays of Shakespeare; and yet what +money and energy would not be spent by certain enthusiasts for the +arts did they think such a result possible! And, after all, it might +prove not a blessing, but a danger.</p> + +<p>Whenever or wherever you are in the company of Germans you notice +their pleasure and their keen interest in the subjective, rather than +in the objective side of life. It is from within out that they are +stirred, not as we are, by outside things working upon us. They are +still the dreaming, drinking, singing, impulsive Germans of Tacitus. +Titus Livius, Plutarch, and Machiavelli, all maintained that the +successive invasions of the Germans into Italy were for the sake of +the wine to be found there. Plutarch writes that “the Gauls were +introduced to the Italian wine by a Tuscan named Arron, and so excited +were they by the desire for more that, taking their wives and children +with them, they journeyed across the Alps to conquer the land of such +good vintages, looking upon other countries as sterile and savage by +comparison. Even if this be not history, it is an impression; and at +any rate, from that day to this the Germans have agreed with the +dictum of Aulus Gellius: “Prandium autem abstemium, in quo nihil vini +potatur, canium dicitur: quoniam canis vino caret.” When the Roman +historian first came into contact with them he notes, that their bread +was lighter than other bread, because “they use the foam from their +beer as yeast.”</p> + +<p>Tacitus writes of them: “The Germans abound with rude strains of +verse, the reciters of which, in the language of the country, are +called ‘Bards.’ ”</p> + +<p>I visited a private stable in Bavaria, as well ordered and as well +kept as any private stable in America or in England, and the head +coachman was a reader of poetry; and though he had received numerous +offers of higher wages in the city, declined them, giving as one +reason that the view from the window of his room could not be equalled +elsewhere! Where can one find a stable-man in our country who reads +Shelley or Edgar Allan Poe, or who ever heard of William James and +Pragmatism? I may be doing an injustice to the stable-men of Boston, +but I doubt it.</p> + +<p>There are scores of pages of notes to my hand, recounting similar if +not such startling examples of the German temperament among high and +low. Musical, melancholic, gregarious, subjective, these are their +true characteristics, but the superficial among us do not see these +things because they are hidden behind the great army, the new navy and +mercantile marine, the factories, the increased commercial values, the +strenuous agricultural and industrial pushing ahead of the last thirty +years. But they are there, they represent the German temperament, they +are the internal character of Germania, always to be taken into +account in judging her, or in wondering why she does this or that, or +why she does it in this or that way.</p> + +<blockquote>“As imagination bodies forth<br /> +The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen<br /> +Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing<br /> +A local habitation and a name.”</blockquote> + +<p>This is what the purely subjective mind is ever doing, and when it is +carried too far it is insanity. The individual no longer sees things +as they are, but he sees others and himself in strange, horrible, or +ludicrous shapes.</p> + +<p>Barring Japan, I suppose Germany yields more easily +to the temptation of the subjective malady of suicide than any other +country. In Saxony, for example, the rate was lately 39.2 per 100,000 +of the population, in England and Wales 7.5. During the five years +ending with 1908 there were for every 100 suicides among males in the +United States 136 in Germany, and for every 100 suicides of females +125 in Germany. In Vienna, and for racial purposes this is Germany, +1,558 persons killed themselves in 1912. Children committing suicide +because they have failed in their examinations is not uncommon in +Germany; in America and in England the teachers are more likely to +succumb than the children. We do not commit suicide in America from +any sense of shame at our intellectual shortcomings - what a +decimating of the population there would be if we did! - it is more +apt to be caused by ill health consequent upon a straining chase for +dollars. In Prussia during the five years, 1902-1907, divorce +increased from 17.7 to 20.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, and suicide from +20 to 30.7.</p> + +<p>If the observer does not take this difference of temperament into +account, he does not realize how new and strange it is to find Germany +these days, making its first and strongest impression upon the +outsider by its industrial progress. The more intelligent men in +Germany are beginning to see the dangers to real progress in such +feverish devotion to industry, and to recognize that the life of the +population is absorbed too largely by science, finance, and commerce. +To see so much of the intelligence of the nation exercising itself in +material researches, to see such undue fervor in calculations of self- +interest, does not leave an enlivening impression. Such an ideal of +life is paltry in itself and involves grave dangers in the future. It +is a long stride in the wrong direction since Hegel wrote of Germany +as “the guardian of the sacred fire of intellect.”</p> + +<p>Out of this temperament has grown the self-consciousness, the uneasy +vanity, the “touchiness” which has made Germany of late years the +despair of the diplomats all over the world. She has become a +chameleon-like menace to peace everywhere in the world. What she +wants, what will offend her dignity, when she will feel hurt, what +amount of consideration will suffice, when she will change color to +match a changed situation, and in what color she will choose to hide +her plans or to make manifest her demands, no man knows. She will not +see things as they are, but always as an exhalation from her own mind. +As one of her own poets has written: “Deutschland ist Hamlet.”</p> + +<p>At this present moment she does not see either England or America as +they are, quite peaceably disposed toward her but she sees them, and +persists in seeing them, as they would be were Germany in their place. +She is forever looking into a mirror instead of through the open +window. “The mailed fist,” “the rattling of the sabre,” “the friend in +shining armor,” “<i>querelle allemande</i>,” are all phrases born in Germany +in the last thirty years.</p> + +<p>She even sees herself a little out of focus, and though I admit her +precarious position in the heart of Europe, she exaggerates the +necessity for her autocratic military government to meet the +situation. That philosophical and literary radical Lord Morley, now +wearing a coronet, in the land where logic is a foundling and +compromise a darling, writes: “A weak government throws power to +something which usurps the name of public opinion, and public opinion +as expressed by the ventriloquists of the newspapers is at once more +capricious and more vociferous than it ever was.” This, strange to +say, is exactly the opinion of the German autocrats, who maintain that +no democracy can be a strong military power. It remains for England, +and perhaps later America, to prove her wrong.</p> + +<p>The sovereign lady +<i>Germania</i>, being of this temper and disposition, of this psychological +make-up, let us look at her dealings with certain embarrassing +problems in her own household. The over-stimulation of ill-regulated +mental activity as the result of regimental education is one of the +minor problems. Some fourteen million dollars worth of cheap and nasty +literature is peddled by the agents of certain publishing houses, and +sold all over Germany to those recently taught to read but not trained +to think; and this, it is to be remembered, is still a land of low +wages, of strict economies, and of small expenditures on books. For +Germany that is an enormous sum and represents a very wide-spread +evil. I recognize that it is not only in Germany, but in France, +England, and America, that the ethically hysterical have assumed that +modesty and health and common-sense are characteristics of the +intellectually mediocre. That the neglect of all, and the breaking of +some, of the Ten Commandments is essential to the creation of art or +literature, or necessary to a courageous freedom of living, is a +contention with which I agree less and less the more I know of art, +literature, and life. But, as I have remarked elsewhere in this +volume, the Strindbergs and Wildes and Gorkis are having their day in +Germany just now, and beneath this again is this large distribution of +the lawless and sooty literature, frankly intended as a debauch for +the gutter-snipe and his consort. Even the coarse, and in no line +squeamish, Rabelais wrote that, “Science sans conscience n’est que +ruine de l’âme.”</p> + +<p>There is but a puny barrier against this, for the statistical year-book +of German cities gives the number of public libraries in forty-two +cities as 179. Twenty-seven of these cities gave an annual support +to 114 of these libraries of only $64,847! According to the figures of +Herr Ernest Schultze, in 1907 the forty largest German cities, with a +population of 11,380,000, had public libraries containing a sum total +of 807,000 volumes. In the year 1906-1907, 5,437,000 volumes were +taken out and 1,607,476 persons frequented the public reading-rooms, +and in these forty-two cities $280,095 were contributed from private +sources for such library purposes. In 1910 Germany had in some 400 +cities, each of more than 10,000 inhabitants, about 650 public +libraries and reading-rooms, with together about 3,250,000 volumes. + +Berlin has thirty public libraries with 231,300 volumes; the number of +books taken out in 1910 was 1,655,000. Hamburg has one public library +with 100,000 volumes, of which 1,364,000 were taken out. Breslau has 7 +libraries and 4 reading-rooms, with 75,578 volumes. Leipzig has 7 +libraries and 3 reading-rooms, with 42,100 volumes. Munich has 6 +libraries and 26,671 volumes. Cologne has 7 libraries and 6 reading- +rooms, with 24,898 volumes.</p> + +<p>The smallest library is in the village +community of Dudweiler, in the Rhine province, which contains 132 +volumes for the 22,000 inhabitants.</p> + +<p>There were 14,941 books published +in Germany in 1880, 18,875 in 1890, 24,792 in 1900, and 31,281 in +1910.</p> + +<p>There were 13,470 books published in America in 1910, 9,209 of +them by American authors.</p> + +<p>There were 10,914 books published in England in 1911, of which 2,384 +were new editions. Of this number 2,215, which includes 933 new +editions and 40 translations, were fiction; religion, 930; sociology, +725; science, 650; geography, 601; biography, 476; history, 429; +technology, 525. In 1820, there were only 26 novels published in +England.</p> + +<p>Of the 31,281 books published in Germany in 1910, 4,852 dealt with +education and juvenile literature; 4,134, belles-lettres; 3,215, law +and political economy; 2,510, theology; 2,082, commerce and industry; +1,981, medicine; 1,884, philology and literary history; 1,480, +geography, including maps; 667, military science and equestry; 1,030, +agriculture and forestry; 1,750, natural science and mathematics; +1,108, engineering and construction; 1,254, history and biography; +981, art; and 668 on philosophy and theosophy.</p> + +<p>There were some 9,000 writers of books in America in 1910, or one +author in 10,000 of the population, already more than enough; there +were some 8,000 in Great Britain, or one author in about 5,500 of the +population; while in Germany there are over 31,000 writers, or one +author in every 2,097 of the population, including men, women, and +children of all ages, an unreasonable and disastrous proportion. If we +estimate the number of adult males of Germany at 14,000,000, the +number who voted at the last election, then there was one author to +every 450, a most unhealthy proportion, and bearing out exactly what +has been said of the German temperament and constitutional bias. +Furthermore, this accounts for the fact that Germany imports some +700,000 agricultural laborers each year to garner the food harvests, +for which she has not sufficient recruits, and who, by the way, take +out of the country each year some $35,000,000 in wages. Twenty per +cent. of the miners in Westphalia are foreigners, eight per cent. of +them Italians, and there are nearly half a million foreigners employed +as common laborers in the various industries of Germany.</p> + +<p>Wherever one travels now in the world, he finds that most courageous +and self-sacrificing of all the pioneers, the missionary: American, +British, French, Italian. The best of them, on the plains of North +America, in the destructive climate of India, in China, in all the +islands of all the seas, are, whatever their creed, soldiers of whom +we are all proud; for they fight not only against the overwhelming +prejudice of those whom they seek to save, but against the widespread +prejudice of their own people, and against the well-founded suspicion +and contempt aroused by their own black sheep. I have found them, here +a Jesuit, there a Presbyterian, winning my friendship and my +admiration, despite fundamental differences of belief about many +things. There are few Germans among them! Even in this field Germany +produces theological controversialists whom we have all studied, +orthodox and destructive, but few pioneers, and practically no +Augustines or Loyolas, Wesleys or Booths, Livingstones or Stanleys. +Columba, an Irish refugee, founded on the island of Iona, off the west +coast of Scotland, a mission station, whence went missionaries and +preachers to the conversion not only of England, but of the tribes of +Germany. It was only in the sixth century that the Franks, only in the +ninth century that the Saxons, and only in the tenth century that the +Danes became Christians.</p> + +<p>Neither at home nor abroad are her successes +those which deal with men by winning their allegiance, their +submission, their loyalty, or their respectful regard. She is pre-eminent +in the things of the mind, in subjective matters, and in her +regimental dealings with, and arrangements for, the inanimate side of +life.</p> + +<p>As an example on the credit side of her governing is the very +complete and successful system of land-banks, introduced by Frederick +the Great and since modelled somewhat upon the French methods, which +have protected the farmer from usury, insured him money at low rates +for improvements, for the purchase of tools, cattle, and fertilizers, +and enabled him to do, by sensible co-operation, what would have been +impossible for him as an individual. So successful has been this co- +operation between the banks and the united farming communities that it +were well worth a chapter of description were it not that, through the +initiative of President Taft and the able and industrious assistance +of our officials in Europe, among whom our ambassador in Paris, Mr. +Herrick, may be mentioned as untiring, there will shortly appear a +complete exposition and explanation of the scheme, available for those +of my countrymen interested in the matter. Or if they will journey to +Ireland they may see there what Sir Horace Plunkett has done to +revolutionize, and against tremendous odds, agriculture. And, be it +noted, it has been done, with emphatic warnings against the modern +fallacy of leaning upon state aid. It is estimated that our farmers +would be saved between $20,000,000 and $40,000,000 a year in interest +alone were we to adopt similar methods of loaning to the land-owners. +The Preussische Centralgenossenschaftskasse, or Central Bank of Co-operative +Associations, has revolutionized, one may here use the word +without exaggeration, agricultural methods, throughout Prussia and +Germany.</p> + +<p>In Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa there are 5,000,000 acres of land in +wheat, which is practically the size of Germany’s wheat acreage, but +Germany produces 140,000,000 bushels of wheat off her parcel of land; +while the wheat raised on the same area in these three States is only +55,000,000 bushels.</p> + +<p>France and Minnesota each plant 16,000,000 acres in wheat, but France +produces 324,000,000 bushels and Minnesota 188,000,000 bushels. In +round numbers we support 90,000,000 people on 3,000,000 square miles +of land, and we could support 150 per square mile just as easily as +30, and even then there would be not even a fraction of the density of +population of Denmark, 178; the Netherlands, 470; France, 189; Saxony, +830; England and Wales, 405.6. The average wheat yield of our country +is about 14 bushels per acre in good years, it might just as well be +25; the average cotton yield is about four-tenths of a bale per acre, +and four times that amount could be raised as easily.</p> + +<p>In 1900, 10,500,000 people were engaged in agriculture in America, or +35.7 per cent. of the population; as over against 37.7 in 1890 and +44.3 in 1880. Of these 10,500,000, 5,700,000 were owners, renters, or +overseers, or 56 per cent., and only 4,500,000 were actual farm +laborers; and more than half of these, or 2,350,000, were members of +the family, leaving only some 2,000,000 actual agricultural wage-earners, +or employable agricultural laborers. Five-eighths of these +were under twenty-five years of age, and of the white regular workers +only one-tenth were over thirty-five years of age. This shows how +unstable is the foundation of our agricultural prosperity, the chief +asset of plenty and contentment of our country. Mr. Get-Rich-Quick has +moved on to the shifting and more exciting opportunities of the +cities, where poor human nature, aided and abetted by weak +philanthropy, and demagogic fishing for votes by eleemosynary +legislation, provides him with a mild form of riotous living, and a +fatted calf of doles in case of accident, sickness, penury, or old +age.</p> + +<p>In our American cities of over 8,000 inhabitants the increase in +population from 1790 to 1900 has been from 3.4 per cent. to 33 per +cent. In cities of 2,500 and over the increase from 1880 to 1900 has +been from 29.3 per cent. to 40.2 per cent. In the State of New York +the farming population is smaller than ever before, and in parts of +New England it is smaller than one hundred years ago. In 1909 there +were 15,000 deserted farms with a total of 1,130,000 acres. The +average size of farms in the United States in 1850 was 212 acres; in +1890, 121 acres. Wages in the reaping season on fruit, grain, and +cotton farms are enormous, running to four and five dollars a day. We +are behind every country in Europe except Russia, in our agricultural +methods. Some day the American people will discover, may it not be too +late, that the tall talk and highfalutin boastings of the politicians +and alien journalists in their midst do nothing to make two blades of +grass grow where one grew before.</p> + +<p>Germany may not have solved this problem, indeed no nation which +offers undue legislative alleviation for human frailty will ever solve +it, but at least she has not shirked the problem, and presents for our +enlightenment a scheme in full and smooth working order.</p> + +<p>In dealing with German problems it is fair to give examples where her +methods have been wholly and entirely successful. The man who does not +know one tree or shrub from another cannot travel in trains, motor-cars, +or afoot without remarking the neatness, symmetry, and the +flourishing condition of the forests. In these matters Germany so far +surpasses us that we may be said to be merely in a kindergarten stage +of development. As early as 1783 a German traveller, Johann David +Schoepf, was distressed to see the waste of valuable wood in America. +He tells of a furnace in New Jersey which exhausted a forest of nearly +20,000 acres in twelve to fifteen years, and goes on to prophesy the +grave danger to America unless coal is discovered and used instead of +wood.</p> + +<p>The public forests in America contain about nine per cent. of +the total land area and about twenty-five per cent. of the forest area +of the country. In Germany the state owns about 40 per cent. of the +forests, and nearly 70 per cent. of the forest area is under state +control. The total forest area of the empire is 34,569,800 acres, and +two-thirds bear pine, larch, and red and white fir. In a recent year +the Federal States made a net profit of $38,250,000 from public lands +and forests, and the entire profit from the German forests was +estimated at $110,000,000. When one remembers that Germany is less +than the size of Texas, and that from her forests alone, in one year, +she received an income equal to more than one-tenth of our total +national expenditure for that same year, the fact of our childish +wastefulness is brought home to us, and makes a patriot feel that a +Gifford Pinchot should be given a free hand. I can only write of the +subject as one technically entirely ignorant, but that Germany is a +university of forestry is not only attested by the demand for her +teachers in India, and in America, and elsewhere in the world, but by +the condition of the forests themselves all over Germany, which no +traveller, from America at any rate, can fail to notice without +surprise and delight.</p> + +<p>Germany, like the rest of us, has been obliged +to face the various social problems that arise from original sin, but +which vote-getters are pleased to ascribe to industrial progress. In +our country, with a population of some thirty to the square mile, +while in the kingdom of Saxony the density of the population is 830.6 +to the square mile, it is hard to believe that we suffer from +overcrowding so much as from overindulgence, wastefulness, and fussy +legislation. None the less, we have 42 institutions for the feeble-minded, +115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, 350 hospitals +for the insane, 1,200 refuge houses, 1,300 prisons, 1,500 hospitals, +and 2,500 almshouses. We have 2,000,000 annually who are cared for in +homes and hospitals, 300,000 insane and feeble-minded, 160,000 blind +or deaf, 80,000 prisoners, and 100,000 paupers in almshouses and out, +and we spend each year about $100,000,000 in taking care of them. We +are as wasteful and careless in these matters as we have been until +very lately in our forestry methods.</p> + +<p>In the early days of the empire Germany undertook to deal with these +social problems. The German Empire took over some of the principles of +socialism, but retained, and retains absolutely, the power of applying +those principles. Bismarck himself admitted that his advocacy of the +industrial insurance laws was selfish. “My idea was to bribe the +working classes, or shall I say to win them over, to regard the state +as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in +their welfare.” Whatever else may have resulted, discontent, whether +well-founded or not, is not now under discussion, has not been +lessened. In 1912 more than one-half of the electors voted +“discontented” as over against the less than one-half who voted +“contented.” The mass of the people may be better clothed, better fed, +better housed, better cared for in sickness and in old age, than +formerly, but they are not satisfied. No state can go much further +than Germany has gone along the lines of state interference, guidance, +and control of the personal affairs of its people, and nothing is more +surprising about the whole matter than the general acceptance in +America and in England of such legislation as having proved altogether +successful. I doubt if any intelligent German considers these various +pension schemes as altogether successful. I can vouch for it that many +German statesmen make no such claims in private, whatever they may say +in public.</p> + +<p>Some of the barren figures, needing no comment, are of +interest in this connection. The cost of insurance in Germany has +risen to over $500,000 a day, the total cost of state insurance +exceeding $250,000,000 a year at the present time, a fairly heavy tax +upon small employers. In 1909, of 422,076 decisions by the industrial +unions, 76,352 were appealed against, and of the 100,000 arbitration +judgments, 22,794 were appealed against. So difficult is it to settle +to the claimant’s satisfaction the amount of salve necessary for his +particular wound when, as is true in these cases, the salve is a grant +of money for a longer or shorter period!</p> + +<p>In 1886 there were, roughly, +100,000 accidents reported and 10,000 compensated, but as they became +more thoroughly acquainted with the game, the figures rose in 1908 to +662,321 accidents and 142,965 compensations.</p> + +<p>The vast increase of the +claims for trifling injuries is shown by the fact that in twenty years +from 1888 to 1908, despite the increase of the total compensation from +$1,475,000 to $38,715,000, the average compensation per accident fell +from $58.50 to $38.83. In the two years 1907 to 1909 the number of +members of those state-insured increased by 380,819, while the days of +sickness increased by 26,219,632! The cost of sickness insurance alone +rose from $42,895,000 in 1900 to $83,640,000 in 1909. The Workmen’s +Compensation Act in England costs, for management, commission, legal +and medical fees, $20,000,000 a year, while the compensation paid out +was $13,500,000. The insurance companies calculate that for every $500 +of compensation, the employers have paid $750!</p> + +<p>It is becoming increasingly evident that the logical result of state +charity, or call it state insurance to avoid controversy, over a large +field, and including millions of beneficiaries and claimants, is that +the army of officials, the expenses of administration, and the +payments themselves must sooner or later break the back of the state +morally, politically, and financially. It rapidly increases parasitism +among the receivers; makes a powerful though indifferent army of state +servants of the distributers; and loses financially to the state far +more in expense of administration, and loss of useful labor of the +army of civil servants, than it gains by the loss to the state of +individual incapacity resulting in pauperism and invalidism, which +must be cared for. To put it briefly, it is far more dangerous to the +state to tell the individual that he shall be taken care of than to +tell him that he must shift for himself. As for the effect upon the +individual, it is a lowering medicine, making the patient gradually +dependent upon the drug, and bringing him finally to the incurable +invalidism of surly apathy. To change Patrick Henry’s fiery peroration +slightly: Give me liberty or in the end you give me moral and +political death.</p> + +<p>Students of the various forms of this modern +political nostrum, of getting rid of the fools who are rich by +deceiving the fools who are poor, will remember the decree of the +Provisional Government of the French Republic in 1848: “This +Government undertakes to guarantee the existence of the workman by +work. It undertakes to guarantee work to every citizen.” On March 9 +public works were started and 3,000 men employed. March 15 saw 14,000 +on the pay-rolls, most of them unoccupied because there was no +suitable work. Those not working received “inactivity pay” of a franc +a day. The end of April saw 100,000 on the pay-rolls. In May a +minister ventured to suggest that it was the workman’s duty to work! +There were murmurs of disapproval, but the public treasury was nearing +bankruptcy, and on June 22 an order was promulgated, that all of these +workmen between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five were to enlist +in the army. An insurrection followed this order that workmen should +work, and 3,000 citizens were shot down in the streets, and another +3,000 were sent to penal colonies in Algeria. The French are a logical +people. The state promised suitable work; that always means, from the +point of view of the worker, agreeable work, and not too fatiguing at +that. Of course, no such thing is possible, and the end was riot, +murder, and penal servitude. The state can no more provide suitable +and agreeable methods of livelihood for its citizens, than it can +provide them with a duty-loving, unenvious, and honest disposition. As +I have remarked elsewhere, the only thing that stands between state +socialism and the instant solution of all our social problems is human +nature! This mongrel demand for an artificial equality, is worse, +because more degrading than any tyranny of church or state even. Every +man wants superiority and distinction for himself, he only wants +equality, invisibility, and inarticulateness for others.</p> + +<p>When some +such system as this is put to work in Ireland, I shall envy every +physician in Ireland, for he will live in a joyous round of farces +such as the world has never provided before for the lovers of the +humorous. Already Ireland, with only 701,620 electors, out of a total +of 8,058,025 in the United Kingdom, is represented in the House of +Commons by 103 members out of the total of 670; and out of the 935,000 +old-age pensioners on the lists at the beginning of 1912, Ireland had +202,810, and was drawing $12,943,000 out of the total paid of +$59,445,500, while the total population of Ireland was 4,368,599, and +of the rest of the United Kingdom 40,533,557! Further, as an example +of the slight value of education in the game of politics, out of the +41,710 illiterate voters in the United Kingdom, Ireland has 22,515. +Long life to Ireland for her gallant attack upon humbuggery with +humbuggery! And this is, too, the little island that sent the +Wellesleys, the Pallisers, the Moores, the Eyres, the Cootes, the +Napiers, the Wolseleys, and Roberts to fight England’s battles, and +half the officers and privates who conquered India; which in the Seven +Years’ War furnished Austria with her best generals (Brown, Lacy, +O’Donnell), and whose exiles, called the “Wild Geese,” flocked to the +standard of Washington in 1776. This is proof positive that they are +not naturally a parasitic race.</p> + +<p>Even in Germany, where there is not a +tithe of the impish humour that exists in Ireland, the Socialists have +so misused the immense bureaucracy that must carry on the mere +clerical work of insurance, that a new law passed the Reichstag in +June, 1911, containing several hundred amendments. Employers must now +pay one-half instead of one-third of the sickness insurance premiums, +which gives them one-half instead of one-third of the management +authority.</p> + +<p>The management had degenerated into a mere game of politics, with the +Socialists in such disproportionate control that they were rapidly +turning the insurance machinery into a well-organized body for the +exploitation of their own political doctrines; and the employer and +the state were helpless. It is, therefore, amusing to the man on the +spot to find certain English writers offering as proof of the success +of the insurance laws the fact that the Socialists, who once opposed, +are now satisfied with them. Of course they are satisfied with them. +They have had a war-chest and weapons put into their hands such as +they have never had before. Nor have these detailed parchment +solutions of social questions done away with all the tramps, poor, +sick, and destitute. Over a million persons passed through the +municipal night shelters in Berlin during the last year; and there are +still admittedly some 5,000 tramps in Germany. The vicious circle is +in evidence in Germany as elsewhere. It might be possible to regulate +men’s earning power by legislation, but even when this colossal task +is done, there must follow the regulation of the spending power to +make it complete. What conceivable legislative regulation can efface +the difference between what A, B, and C will get out of five dollars +once they have them! That is the real problem, but no one proposes a +solution of it. A will use his five dollars to make him more powerful, +B will use his in dissipation, and C will lose his. How is that to be +regulated? And without that regulation you will have rich men and +tramps all over again.</p> + +<p>In urban and rural districts containing over 10,000 inhabitants, some +$40,000,000 was expended for sick and poor relief, and this does not +include the hundreds of districts with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants +for which there are no figures. Even the wholly admirable Elberfeld +system of charity, known all over the world to charity-workers, which +is, briefly, investigation of cases by voluntary workers personally +and privately, and each dealing with a small number, has not solved +the problem. There were 1,537 strikes in Germany in 1909, and 2,109 in +1910. In 1910, 8,269 industrial plants were affected, in which 372,119 +persons were employed, and 2,209 plants were obliged to shut down +entirely. There were as many as 154,093 persons on strike at the same +time. In 1910 there were also 1,121 lock-outs, affecting 10,381 plants +and 314,988 persons.</p> + +<p>Here again, as in the case of the temperament of the German people, +one must look deeper than the average traveller has the time or the +necessary experience back of him to do, in order to see and to sift +the facts. Scores of travellers have told me: “I have never seen a +tramp, a beggar, a drunken man in Germany.” I can only reply that I +have seen tramps at large, and colonies of them besides; that I have +seen hundreds of the poverty-stricken and diseased; that there are +more than thirty drunkards’ homes in Germany; and that between 1879 +and 1901 the number of persons under treatment for alcoholism had +increased from 12,000 to 65,000, an increase of 500 per cent.; the +cases of heart disease and rheumatism increased by 600 per cent.; +while the total population had increased 33 per cent. There are +125,000 patients admitted to the public and private lunatic asylums of +Germany, and there are accommodations in public and private hospitals +for 1,300,000 in-patients passing through them in the year; in 1909, +544,183 persons were tried before the courts of first instance and +convicted, of whom 49,697 were between twelve and eighteen years of +age; and in the same year there were 183,700 illegitimate births and +14,225 suicides, or 22.3 per 100,000 of the population. The poor law +authorities state that the cost to the empire of alcoholism in all its +forms of poverty, crime, and disease amounts to some $13,000,000 a +year. In 1910 Germany consumed 1,704 million gallons of malt liquors, +the United States, 1,851 million gallons; of beer we consumed 20.09 +gallons and Germany 26.47 gallons per capita. Germany’s drink bill +even ten years ago was $560,000,000 for beer, $140,000,000 for +spirits, and $125,000,000 for wine. There is a wine, beer, or spirit +dealer in Berlin for every 157 of the inhabitants, men, women, and +children. It has always been the avowed policy of autocracies to atone +for the lack of political freedom by lax regulations in regard to +moral matters. The citizen is imprisoned for insulting the state, but +he may insult his own person by dissipation up to any limit, this side +of disorderliness in public. Drinking, gambling, and other forms of +vice are provided for the citizens of Berlin comfortably and, +comparatively speaking, cheaply. Lotteries are sanctioned by all the +states, and they use this incentive to the worst form of gambling for +all sorts of purposes, from repairing churches to building patriotic +monuments, and replenishing the treasury.</p> + +<p>This is by no means an attack upon Germany or upon German methods in +these matters; probably both in America and in England we are worse +off in these respects than are they, but unprejudiced people will +agree that it is high time to learn that not even German methods have +solved these complicated and heatedly argued questions of social +reform. Germany, due to its compactness and well-drilled and +subservient population, should succeed if any nation can, for social +legislation has never been in stronger or wiser hands or more +admirably and honestly administered. In America such opportunities +offered to the on-politics-living big and little bosses would lead +swiftly to anarchy. We have laws enough now, but the baser politicians +protect our city tramps, our gunmen, our decadents, our incendiaries +against our elected magistrates, in order that they may keep ready to +hand, and increase, the raw material of a purchasable vote, by the +domination and protection of which they keep themselves in power. That +is the whole secret of our municipal misgovernment wherever it exists, +and also the reason for our barbarous crimes. We have a cowed +magistracy seeking re-election from the manipulators of the +purchasable voters.</p> + +<p>The truth is that the Sacculina method of social reform is nowhere a +success, certainly not in Germany. The Sacculina is a crustacean. It +attaches itself in the form of a simple sac to the crab, into which +its blood-vessels extend. It loses its power of locomotion and its +limbs disappear. It lives at the expense of the crab; activity is not +necessary, and it becomes the highest type of parasite, with no organs +except ovaries and blood-vessels. It can propagate, but has lost all +power or desire to do anything else. We have succeeded in producing no +small number of people of the Sacculina type by playing social and +political crab for them, and we are on the way to produce more, until +the crab is exhausted and the Sacculina is shaken into the water to +sink or swim for himself. “Charity causes half the suffering she +relieves, but she can never relieve half the suffering she causes.</p> + +<p>Compulsory insurance was tried in the practical and economical Swiss +city of Basle and given up, because it was found that each year it was +the same small class who reaped the benefit of the insurance. The crab +gained nothing and the Sacculina became rapidly impotent. Basle, if I +mistake not, will have imitators, inclined to the philosophy of +Frederick the Great, who was surely no enemy to rational progress, but +who once said: “Depuis bien longtemps je suis convaincu qu’un mal qui +reste vaut mieux qu’un bien qui change.”</p> + +<p>A good deal of modern legislation is due to fatigue, and some of the +rest to ill-founded apprehension, that unless there is a change of +some kind the masters of the legislators will discharge them, because +they do not furnish enough novelties. In the meantime nobody is bold +enough to proclaim to the restless ones, seeking ever some new thing, +that there is nothing original except what has been forgotten. The +originality of such students of history, and panderers to majorities, +as the leaders of the discontented in England, Germany and in America, +dates back to about the time of the fall of Pericles and the Athenian +republic.</p> + +<p>The cry of “discontent” has become a fetich among unthinking +politicians. We are all, thank God, discontented, and a poor lot we +should be if we were not. The workingman’s discontent has been over-emphasized, +for the reason that what he demands is material, +ponderable, for sale, easy to see, and not far out of the reach of +one’s hand. He wants more rooms, more meat, more tobacco, more beer, +more leisure. I am glad he does want them, and let me say just once, +in answer to my detractors along these lines, that the workingman has +no heartier champion than am I. I applaud his discontent just as I +cherish my own, for “it is precisely this that keeps us all alive!” It +is just because I wish him well that every ounce of my influence and +experience are his, to open his eyes to the demagogues who fatten upon +him, fool him, rope him, throw him and brand him, as they have done in +Germany, as they are attempting to do in England, and as they will +shortly begin to do in America. State socialism means slavery for him, +with an army of officials living on him. He will be given so much +bread, and beer, and meat, and tobacco; so much music, theatre, and +literature; and there will grow up an army whose business it will be +to keep him in order, and to cut him down if he revolts, as was done +by the police in one of the suburbs of Berlin not long ago. The German +workman is already so entangled in the ropes of insurance, so harried +by petty officials, so branded by the police, and he has permitted to +increase such a host of guardians, that revolt or revolution is +practically impossible. Counting the army, navy, and officials, there +are said to be three million officials, great and small in Germany; +and there are fourteen million electors, or, roughly, one policeman to +every five adults. And those three million policemen, armed with +lethal and legal weapons, are inflexibly and unalterably for no +change. Does the workingman ever stop to think that those officials +draw salaries amounting to something like $1,200,000,000 a year, and +is he still fool enough to think that he does not pay those salaries +to these slave-drivers! I have said that the population is well fed, +well clothed, and well looked after. Of course they are. No slave-owner +so maltreats his slaves that they cannot work for him! But is +man fed by bread alone, even in the sugared form of music and +theatricals?</p> + +<p>If the socialist Pygmalion ever succeeds in bringing his statue to +life, how she will scorn him, hate his suffocating environment, wish +for the wealth and softness he cannot give, desert him, begging to +return to her marble tomb again.</p> + +<p>Long life to discontent, say I; but +is the workingman such a fool that his eyes are not opened when a man +of Bismarck’s way of thinking, when an autocrat like the Emperor have +favored state socialism! Does he not see that socialism is the neatest +hangman of them all to strangle his discontent! Does he not see the +demagogue gradually assuming the features and the powers of the +tyrant! Tyranny is not alone the prerogative of an aristocracy. “It is +the place of a court to make its servants insignificant. If the people +should fall into the same humor, and should choose their servants on +the same principles of mere obsequiousness and flexibility, and total +vacancy and indifference of opinion in all public matters, then no +party of the state will be sound, and it will be vain to think of +saving it.” Thus writes Burke, the champion of our American revolt +against his own country. The electors, now so flattered by the smooth +phrases of their tyrants disguised as liberators, will one day be +aghast to find themselves in a veritable house of correction paid for +from their own savings. They will have learnt then, at last, that you +cannot get rid of the fools who are rich by deceiving the fools who +are poor; and corporalism will be found to be a harsher, fussier, a +more meddlesome and a more indifferent tyrant than even feudalism.</p> + +<p>Even at the Krupp works at Essen, and the various branches elsewhere, +where there is the most elaborate combination of Lady Bountiful and +successful business anywhere in the world, men are not satisfied. If +they are not contented there, then nowhere in this world will the +workingman be contented. The Krupp business employs some 70,000 +persons. In the particular Essen works, for a hundred years, there has +never been a strike, though others of their employees elsewhere have +used the strike. Though the Cadburys and Levers and Taylors, in +England, the Armours, the United States Steel Corporation, the +National Cash Register Company, the Procter and Gamble Company, the +General Electric Company, and others in America, and the famous and +successful adoption of co-operation in Monsieur Godin’s iron foundry +at Guise, in France, have worked along the lines of recognition of +their workmen’s right to participate in the profits, there is nothing +on such an elaborate scale as at Essen, under the regime of the +Krupps.</p> + +<p>From 1904 to 1910 the Krupps spent, for beneficial institutions of all +kinds, $14,250,000, or 56 per cent. of the dividends during that time. +I have passed many hours at Essen, and seen thoroughly, from cellar to +attic, this truly noble institution for the comfortable and safe +guardianship of men, women, and children who are at the same time +factors in a huge and successful industrial enterprise. There are +schools, technical schools, hospitals, convalescent homes, a library +with 71,000 volumes, theatre, orchestra, band, lectures, concerts, +pension and insurance funds, lodgings for bachelors, tenements and +dwellings for married people, separate cottages for widows and +widowers too old for work, and every opportunity, with a high rate of +interest, for saving. There is in existence a co-operative store, as +well managed as the co-operative stores at Tuxedo Park, and with much +the same system of rebates. There are bathing facilities, gymnasium, a +boat club, a system of providing hot meals from a central kitchen, +reading-rooms and smoking-rooms. There is invested, not including the +value of the land, which has risen enormously in value, over +$12,500,000 in houses for the working-people, the return on the money +being about 2 3/4 per cent. It would require volumes - indeed, two +bulky volumes were issued last year by the company to celebrate the +hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Krupp works - to +describe merely the machinery for making the people comfortable.</p> + +<p>In 1851 the Krupps exhibited at the exposition in London the first +cannon made of cast steel; now they turn out more shells and shrapnel +in a week than were used at the whole battle of Königgrätz (Sadowa), +which lasted from eight o’clock in the morning till four o’clock in +the afternoon on July 3, 1866. The queen of this, the greatest factory +of destructive agencies in the world, is a gentle Madonna-faced lady +who might well pose for a statue of peace, and whose loveliness is a +mirror of the countless and untiring benefactions with which the +people who work here are surrounded. Both the powers and the people of +Germany may well be proud of the Krupps, for if sane beneficence were +to be raised to the rank of statehood this great colony would well +deserve the honor. The gross profits for the last year were +$9,000,000, half of which was written off and the rest devoted to the +reserve, to dividends, and to contributions to the invalid and pension +funds of the employees, which now amount to $9,500,000. The employees +also have on deposit with the management $8,700,000. The contribution +of the Krupps to the workmen’s state-insurance fund amounted, in 1910, +to $1,320,000. The Krupp family is rich, but what would their wealth +have been had they practised the gobbling and juggling financial +methods of — ; but I will not pillory my own countrymen by name, for, +after all, our political methods have made them, and not they +themselves.</p> + +<p>The German manufacturer has been at a disadvantage, too, +for several reasons, and this may well be noted as one of Germany’s +problems. She has not the deposits of coal that have made England +rich, nor the wonderful soil of America, from which alone we take +$9,000,000,000 every year, nor France’s population, now at a +standstill, and which can feed itself off its own soil. She has been a +large borrower of capital to finance her enormous expansion of +industry and commerce, and, above all, the gold supply of the world, +which in the last resort is the foundation of credit, is not in her +hands, nor can it be so long as British and American fleets keep the +ocean highways over which that gold travels.</p> + +<p>The world’s gold output in 1911 was $493,100,000; of this $177,600,000 +came from the Transvaal; $100,350,000 from the United States; +$63,600,000 from Australia; $42,300,000 from Russia; $23,300,000 from +Mexico; $35,600,000 from Rhodesia, India, and Canada; and $15,650,000 +from Central and South America, or $458,000,000, of the total output +of $493,100,000, from countries which in time of war would be unlikely +to ship gold to Germany. More than one half the output comes from the +British Empire alone. To those who are satisfied with the easy answer +to the reason for the increased cost of living, that the output of +gold has increased, it must be puzzling to learn that of the total +output, in round numbers, of $500,000,000, $150,000,000 is used in the +arts and manufactures and $150,000,000 goes to India, where it is +buried and hoarded, and $100,000,000 is retained in the United States +for currency and other purposes. In spite of the fact that the gold +output of the world doubled between 1890 and 1897, and nearly doubled +again between 1897 and 1911, money is dear, and is likely to be so +long as present conditions last.</p> + +<p>The reason for the higher cost of living is to be found in the +movement of the population, from the dulness of the plough to the +sprightliness of the cinematograph. This choice every freeman has a +right to make for himself, but the trouble arises when the politician +comes forward and pays his admission to the cinematograph +entertainment, out of the public funds, in order to get his vote. The +man who does not leave the plough under those conditions is either a +fool or a saint, and the percentage of the growth of cities is a fair +measure of their relative numbers. The increased cost of living is the +result, not of too much gold, but of too little labor on the land, and +this is due, in turn, to the voluptuous rhetoric of the political +street-walkers, whose promises of pleasure are as illegitimate as they +are impossible of fulfilment. A debtor nation like Germany is highly +sensitive to these conditions, and just as she is overcoming, by her +splendid success as a manufacturing nation this problem, she is met by +increased and ever-increasing rivalry. America, in 1901, exported +$466,000,000 of manufactures; in 1891 only $188,000,000; but in 1911, +$910,000,000; and in 1912, $1,021,753,918. We now have in America +225,000 manufacturing plants employing 6,000,000 people, with an +annual pay-roll of $3,500,000,000 and producing every twelve months +$15,000,000,000 worth of goods. The total value of exports and imports +of Japan thirty years ago was $30,000,000, or 87 cents per capita; in +1911 the figures were $480,000,000, or $10 per capita. England during +the years 1911 and 1912 surpassed all previous figures both for +exports and imports. Germany’s rivals, it is thus seen, have not been +idle.</p> + +<p>The agricultural population of Germany in 1850 was 65 in the 100; it +is now less than one third. In 1911, after a bad year for the farmers, +Germany was obliged to pay out some $200,000,000 more than usual for +food. The total loans of the German banks on industrial securities +rose from $107,000,000 in 1890 to $632,000,000 in 1910, and bankers +themselves admit that Germany has fallen into the error of seeking and +accepting credit far beyond the value of the capital that they have to +work with. Still more dangerous is the fact that 55 per cent. of the +savings-bank moneys of Germany is locked up in mortgages. In 1907, 217 +new companies were formed in Germany, issuing $62,050,900 in +securities; in 1909, 179 new companies issued $54,929,450 of +securities; in 1910, 186 new companies issued $57,437,700 of +securities. In 1910, 340 companies increased their capital by +$142,657,200. In 1910 there were 5,295 companies in Germany with a +nominal capital of $3,680,979,400. It is estimated that since 1895 +there has been invested in industrial companies in Germany +$1,200,000,000. It is to be said also that since 1897 German +agricultural production has doubled, German industrial production +increased sevenfold, and Germany is said to have $4,750,000,000 in her +savings-banks. The value of imports for home consumption, exclusive of +the precious metals, in 1911 was $2,386,200,000; the value of the +exports of home produce, exclusive of the precious metals, was +$2,025,450,000. It is a quaint result of her temperament and her good +forestry, that Germany sells $25,000,000 worth of toys a year; she is +veritably the workshop of Santa Claus, and many more than 25,000,000 +children would bless her did they know.</p> + +<p>German financiers affirm that she can stand alone financially, while +others assert that one sixth of her capital, I have heard it placed at +one third, is borrowed from France and England. It is certain at least +that the American panic of 1907, and the recent war in the Near East, +have seriously embarrassed Germany financially.</p> + +<p>As Germany can only feed, even in good harvest years, forty-eight or +forty-nine millions of her people, a large proportion of her profits +from industry must necessarily go to the purchase of food for the +other sixteen or seventeen millions. The consumption of meat has +increased among all classes in Germany, and both the demands of the +individual and of the state have increased with the increased wealth +of the country. In Prussia alone the number of those subject to income +tax has increased from 2,400,000 in 1892 to 6,200,000 in 1912; but the +taxes have increased as well, or from $800,000,000 to $1,675,000,000.</p> + +<p>In the endeavor to increase the manufacturing output and to find new +markets German credit has been stretched to a dangerous tenuity. While +the war feeling was at its height the <i>Kölnische Zeitung</i>, a +conservative and able journal, wrote: “In case of war both France and +Germany will be obliged to borrow; but it is certain that the credit +of Germany cannot as yet be compared with the credit of France: this +is a strong guarantee of peace. + +Wermuth, said by impartial judges to be the ablest secretary of the +treasury the German Empire has had in a quarter of a century, resigned +in 1912, on the general ground that he would not be responsible for +the finances of the empire, if it was proposed to continue the +constant increase of national expenditure, by a constant increase of +borrowing, and an ever-increasing amount of interest-bearing +liabilities. He must have smiled to himself when an Imperial issue at +four per cent. put out in February, 1913, was not only not over-subscribed +but not even all taken.</p> + +<p>Unlike the French, who invest their +savings small and large in national loans, the Germans neglect even +their own national loans, preferring the higher returns for their +investments from the innumerable industries launched in modern +Germany; so pronounced is this form of investment, that a director of +the Deutsche Bank has warned his countrymen, that every month’s +profits are no sooner gained than they are put out again in new +enterprises, either by the individuals themselves, or by the banks in +which they are deposited. As a result, the liquid capital at the +disposal of Germany is dangerously out of proportion to her borrowings +and her working capital. It shows a fine confidence in the future, and +it proves what needs no proof: the immense industrial and commercial +progress, and the immense sea-carrying trade of Germany. Germany is +like a man with $1,000 in the bank to check upon, but doing business +with $100,000 of borrowed capital, upon which he must pay interest, +and out of which he must take his running expenses. Such a one has no +provision for a bad year, and must depend upon more credit in case of +trouble; and in the case of Germany, it may be added, his personal and +family expenses have largely increased. The German imperial debt had +increased during the first twenty-two years of the present Emperor’s +reign, or from 1888 to 1910, by $1,040,000,000, and of that sum some +$650,000,000 were added in the ten years from 1900 to 1910, when +Germany was building her fleet.</p> + +<p>Between the years 1905 and 1910 the total export trade of Germany +increased by $408,225,000, but the whole of the increase was due to +the heavier forms of manufactures: machinery, iron ware, coal-tar +dyes, iron wire, steel rails, and raw iron. The increasing competition +is shown by the fact that during those same years her exports of the +finer manufactures, such as cotton and woollen goods, clothing, gold +and silver ware, porcelain, maps, prints, and the like, actually +decreased by $66,975,000!</p> + +<p>I am not maintaining for a moment that these problems are peculiar to +Germany, but merely that, owing to the rapid progress, they are +aggravated, and that to point out Germany as a model of successful +achievement, along these and other lines, in order to bolster up +political cure-alls at home, is a betrayal of crass ignorance of the +general internal situation of the country, and once such prejudiced +pleaders are found out, the rebound will go too far the other way. +That were a pity, too, for we have much to learn from Germany.</p> + +<p>The $30,000,000 in gold in the Julius Tower at Spandau, called the +war-chest, and the income from railroads, forests, and mines, are to be +put down on the other side of the ledger, but as a year’s war, it is +calculated, would cost France, England, or Germany some $2,300,000,000 +each, these sums are of negligible importance.</p> + +<p>The Prussian railways +cost $2,250,000,000, and are now valued at twice that sum, and pay an +average of seven per cent. on the invested capital. Maintenance costs +are included in the total annual expenses, and there is no, so it is +claimed, actual depreciation. Of the net revenue of $157,330,417 in +1909, about $55,000,000 are transferred to the state revenue, out of +which all charges of the state, including interest on bonds, are paid. +The rest is used for new construction, sinking funds, reserve funds, +and so on.</p> + +<p>The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1909- +1910 states that there are nearly $19,000,000,000 of railway capital +outstanding in America. There are 240,438 miles of single track in the +United States; 59,000 locomotives, 35,000 for freight, and a total of +2,290,000 cars of all kinds; and the railways carried in one year +971,683,000 passengers and 1,850,000,000 tons of freight. In 1910, 386 +persons were killed, but, what is often forgotten, more than one half +the total accidents were due to stealing rides and trespassing on the +tracks. The railways in the United States are our largest purchasers +by far, and for every dollar they earn 42 cents is spent in wages, 26 +cents for material, raw or manufactured, before anything is given out +for interest on loans or dividends.</p> + +<p>A first-class ticket in Germany is taxed 16 per cent. on the price of +the ticket; a second-class ticket, 8 per cent.; a third-class ticket, +4 per cent.; the fourth-class ticket, nothing. Crowded and +uncomfortable travelling in Germany is cheap; comfortable travelling +in Germany is very dear indeed. The herding of people in the fourth- +class carriages in Germany resembles our cattle-cars rather than +transportation for human beings. Such conditions would not be +tolerated in America, but against these state-owned railways there is +no redress. No luggage, except hand luggage, is carried free. Not +once, but many times in Germany, my first-class ticket found me no +accommodation, and often in changing from the main line to a branch +line not even a first-class compartment. Shippers in the coal and iron +districts, when I was there, complained bitterly that there were not +enough freight-cars, that their complaints were smothered in +bureaucratic portfolios, and that private enterprise in the shape of +proposals to build new lines was disregarded. The tyranny of Prussia +extends even into the railway field. The Oderberg-Wien line was built +to avoid using the Saxon state railway lines, was a spite railway in +fact. Here again there was no redress, no one to appeal to against the +autocrat.</p> + +<p>In a debate in the Reichstag, in January, 1913, there was much +complaint that the Prussian government was conducting the railways +with the least possible outlay, thus saving money for the state, but +hampering the industrial interests of the country. It was stated that +there were not enough engines or freight-cars, there was an inadequate +staff, and that as a consequence, the loss to the coal industry had +been $11,500,000 and to the coal-miners $3,375,000.</p> + +<p>On the state-owned +railways of the west of France the break-down is ludicrously complete, +and the people are staggered by the official estimates that it will +require at least $100,000,000 to put them in decent running order.</p> + +<p>In twenty years the American railways have practically been rebuilt, +with heavier rails, better bridges, more permanent stations, and so +on; while twenty years ago it cost a passenger 2.165 cents to travel a +mile, to-day it costs him 1.916 cents. We need a lot of bustling about +abroad before we realize how much we have to be grateful for at home! </p> + +<p>Probably the most costly and the most troublesome of Germany’s +problems is her conquered provinces: Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, +Alsace-Lorraine, and Poland. Hanover, which was taken by Prussia and +her king deposed, is nowadays a minor matter of the relations between +courts, individuals, and families, which may be said to be settled by +the arranged marriage between the Kaiser’s charming daughter and the +heir to the Duke of Cumberland, whose ancestors were kings of Hanover.</p> + +<p>The Danes, on the other hand, in the northern part of these provinces, +still resist Prussianization. They keep to themselves and their +language, send their children to school in Denmark, and resist all +attempts at social and racial incorporation. They are troublesome, as +an independent and surly daughter-in-law might be troublesome. Alsace-Lorraine +and Posen, on the contrary, are outspoken and potentially +dangerous foes in Germany’s own household.</p> + +<p>In 1872 Bismarck said: “Alsace-Lorraine will be placed on an equality +with the other German states, ... so that the people may be induced to +forget, in a comparatively short time, the trouble and distress of the +war and of annexation.” In 1912, a loyal Alsatian German writes: “Das +Elsass, dies jungstgeborene Kind der deutschen Völkerfamilie, braucht +etwas mehr Liebe.” Forty years of Prussian rule have not fulfilled the +promise of Bismarck. This same Alsatian writer continues: “In short, +we are approaching ever nearer to the condition of the citizens of all +the other German States, as Baden, Saxony, Bavaria, where they are +also not always of one mind with the higher ruling powers.” + +It is difficult for the American, who, no matter what particular State +he lives in, is first of all a citizen of the United States, to +understand this jealousy and, in some quarters, bitter dislike of +Prussia. If the State of New York had sixty million of our ninety +million population, and if the governor of New York were also +perpetual President of the United States, commanded the army and navy, +controlled the foreign policy, and appointed the cabinet ministers, +who were responsible to him alone, we could get an approximate idea of +how the people of Virginia, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California +would feel toward New York. This is a rough-drawn comparison with the +situation in Germany. If, in addition, we had the Philippine Islands +where Maine is, and Cuba where Texas is, it is easy to recognize the +consequent complications.</p> + +<p>We should remember this picture in dealing with this German problem, +which, at any rate, from the point of view of kindly feeling and +successful adoption of these foreign peoples into the German family, +has been a dire failure. The miserable failure of the Germans in +Southwest Africa, their inconclusive war with the Herreros, and the +absolute break-down of Prussian methods with the natives, is scarcely +more typical than the failure in Alsace-Lorraine and Poland. The +Prussian belief in sand-paper as an emollient must be by now rudely +shaken.</p> + +<p>At last a constitution has been given the two conquered provinces. The +governor is to be advised by a parliament, but the government is not +responsible to the parliament, which is composed of two houses. The +upper house has thirty-six members, eighteen of whom are nominees of +the Emperor and eighteen from the churches, universities, and +principal cities. The lower house is to be elected by popular +franchise. Three years’ residence in the same place entitles a man to +a vote, but every voter over thirty-five years of age has two votes, +and every voter over forty-five has three votes.</p> + +<p>This, as an American can appreciate, has not been received with +enthusiasm, and their conduct has been so provoking that the Emperor, +during a recent visit, scolded the people, in an interview with the +mayor of a certain town, and, what caused great amusement among the +enemies of Prussia, threatened to incorporate them into Prussia, as +had been done with Hanover, if they were not better behaved. This, of +course, was seized upon as an admission that to be taken into the +Prussian family was of all the hardships the most dreadful. The +socialist journal <i>Vorwärts</i> spoke of Prussia as “that brutal country +which thus openly confesses its dishonor to all the world.” Herr +Scheidemann asked in the Reichstag, if Prussia then acknowledged +herself to be a sort of house of correction, and “has Prussia, then, +become the German Siberia?” In 1911 the Reichstag gave the provinces +three votes in the Federal Council.</p> + +<p>Metz, it is said, is more French than ever, and thousands troop across +the boundaries on the anniversary of the French national holiday, to +celebrate it on French soil. The conquered provinces are kept in +order, but the French language, French customs, French culture, are +still to the fore, and so far as loyalty, affection, or a change of +mind and heart is concerned the conversion is still incomplete. The +inhabitants have been baptized Germans, but very few of them have +taken voluntarily, their first communion of nationalization.</p> + +<blockquote>“On changerait plutôt le coeur de place,<br /> +Que de changer la vieille Alsace.”</blockquote> + +<p>The German, Karl Lamprecht, in his valuable history of contemporary +Germany, is more hopeful of the situation than are other writers and +observers. Professor Werner Wittich maintains that the best of the +intellectual side of life in Alsace is impregnated with French culture +and traditions; and even German officers long stationed in the two +conquered provinces admit the stubborn allegiance of the people to +French customs, habits, beliefs, and traditions. But however that may +be, and it is admittedly a question that different prejudices and +hopes will answer differently, there is no denial on the part of any +one, high or low, that the Prussian bureaucratic mandarins have made +no progress in winning the affection or the voluntary loyalty of the +people. The Prussian has had recourse to the advice given by Prince +Billow, “if you cannot be loved, then you must be feared.” A friend +who is only a friend, an ally who is only an ally, a servant who only +serves you because he is afraid of you, is not only an uncomfortable +but a dangerous factor in any establishment, whether domestic or +national. Corporalism, begun by Frederick the Great and fastened upon +Germany by Bismarck, has had its successes. I recognized them, indeed, +on returning to Germany after twenty-five years, as astounding +successes, but they have their weak side too. A barracks can never be +the ideal of a home, nor a corporal the ideal of a guide, philosopher, +and friend. Their own philosopher Nietzsche writes: “the state is the +coldest of all cold monsters.”</p> + +<p>Joseph de Maistre, writing of the Slav temperament, says: “Si on +enterrait un désir Slave sous une forteresse, il la ferait sauter.” +Germany has some reason to believe that this is true.</p> + +<p>In the northeast of Germany live some 3,000,000 Poles under Prussian +supervision and laws, and ruled by a Prussian governor. There are some +7,000,000 or 8,000,000 Poles divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary, +and Prussia, and behind these are 165,000,000 Russians. The boundary +between this mass and Germany is one of sand; and the railway journey +from Posen to Berlin, is a matter of only four hours. If we were in +Germany’s shoes, we should probably take some pains to be well guarded +in that quarter. We should, however, do it in quite another fashion. +We should, if possible, turn over the inhabitants to their own +governing, as England has done in South Africa, as we have tried to do +in Cuba, and as we would do gladly in the Philippines, if every +intelligent man who knows the situation there, were not assured that +robbery, murder, and license would follow on the heels of our +departure; and that instead of doing a magnanimous thing we should be +shirking our responsibilities in the most cowardly fashion. It is bad +enough to know, that we have such cynical political sophists in +Congress, that they would even suffer that catastrophe to innocent +people in the Philippines, if they thought it would make them votes at +home.</p> + +<p>Prussia does not recognize such methods of ruling. Corporalism is +their only way, and, where the people are fit to govern themselves, a +very bad and humiliating way, for the Eden of the bureaucrat is the +hell of the governed. If the Germans approve it for themselves, it is +not our business to comment; but where these methods are applied to +foreign peoples, we both anticipate and applaud their failure.</p> + +<p>The insurrections in Russian and Austrian Poland, had their echoes in +Posen, and since 1849 Prussia has tried in every way to substitute +Germans for Poles, in the country, and to make the German language +predominant in the churches, schools, and in the administration. The +Poles have resisted, emphasizing their resistance in 1867, when they +were included in the North German Federation, and again in 1871, when +they were included in the new German Empire.</p> + +<p>The Emperor William I, in 1886, said: “The increasing predominance of +the Polish over the German element in certain provinces of the east +makes it a duty of the government to guarantee the existence and the +development of the German population.” Since 1871 the Poles have +increased so much faster than the Germans that there is danger of +complete extermination of the German population. In 1902 the grandson +of William I, the present Emperor, said at Marienburg: “Polish +arrogance is unbearable, and I am obliged to appeal to my people to +defend themselves against it, for the preservation of their national +well-being. It is a question of the defence of the civilization and +the culture of Germany. To-day and to-morrow, as in the past, we must +fight against the common enemy.” This speech of the Emperor was made +at Marienburg, a fine old town, once very prosperous, and in the days +of the Wars of the Roses playing a conspicuous part with the other +Hanseatic towns. This town was also the head and seat of the Teutonic +Order, and it was this Teutonic Order which, in 1230, began the work +of converting the then heathen Prussians, along lines not unlike those +of the Prussian <i>Ansiedlungskommission</i> of to-day.</p> + +<p>Prussia has attempted to solve this question by establishing a +government in the province, pledged to the introduction of the German +language, and so far as possible of German manners and customs. This +has been met with fierce opposition, and never have I heard in the +colonies of other countries, except in Korea, under the present +Japanese administration, such fanatical hatred, expressed in words, as +I have heard in Posen. If you dislike Prussia, do not attempt to +revile her yourself; rather go to Posen and hear it done in a far more +satisfying way.</p> + +<p>The religious question enters largely into the matter, and the +ignorant Poles are even taught that the Virgin Mary, or the “Polish +Queen,” will not understand their intercessions if they are not made +in the Polish language. In 1870 there was one Polish newspaper in +Germany, to-day there are 138.</p> + +<p>From 1886 to 1910 the <i>Ansiedlungskommission</i> or committee of +colonization, have spent $170,896,325, and have received $51,863,175, +leaving a net expenditure of $119,033,150. This large expenditure has +resulted in the settlement upon the land of 18,507 families, or about +111,000 persons. The total number settled is now 131,000 persons. Each +male adult German settler has cost the state something over $32,000! +This is probably the most extravagant colonization scheme ever +attempted in the world.</p> + +<p>But even this expenditure has not brought success, and for a very +interesting reason. Again the Germans have been remarkably successful +in their dealings with the inanimate, but the <i>Arcana imperii</i> are still +hidden from them. They have redeemed the land, taught the Poles, as +well as the German settlers, how to farm successfully; largely +increased the output of grain, fruit, pigs, calves, chickens, geese, +and eggs, for which Germany spends several hundred millions a year +abroad; and seen to it that the breed of cows, pigs, horses, chickens, +and geese is kept at a high standard. But now the Poles will sell no +more land. They have profited, not been ruined, by what has come out +of the belly of the Trojan horse! The commission is at a standstill, +and it is now proposed to enforce the Prussian law of 1908 for the +expropriation of Polish estates. This law was overwhelmingly defeated +in the Reichstag in February, 1913, but the Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg +declared that it was an affair of Prussia, with which the +Reichstag has nothing to do, and the sand-paper of the Prussian +bureaucracy will probably be rubbed upon the Polish wound anew.</p> + +<p>This attempt to build a line of moral and intellectual forts, +supplemented by German settlers, on the land between Russia and +Prussia, and to stop the inrush of the Slavic population, has ample +excuse behind it. It is undoubtedly in case of war a serious danger to +Germany to leave herself unguarded there. As to what will come of the +social and racial questions, prophecy alone can answer, and I have far +too much imagination to venture upon prophecy. The care and +thoroughness with which the work is done is beyond all praise, but it +is as difficult to make your brother love you by taking thought +thereon, as it is to add a cubit to one’s stature by the same method.</p> + +<p>Professor Ludwig Bernhard, while regretting that this attempt at +Germanization has not succeeded, admits that Prussian methods are +hopeless in such matters. They have, on the contrary, awakened +national feeling, encouraged the forming of agricultural societies, +and strengthened the Bank of Posen, which has become the financial +citadel of opposition. Professor Bernhard goes so far as to say that +he doubts if even the putting into force of the expropriation law of +1908 will bring about any better results. To an American this lack of +unity seems to be perhaps of exaggerated importance. <i>Wir brauchen +nicht diese Nordlichter</i> (We do not need these northern luminaries), is +a phrase of a certain Bavarian official, and in lower or louder tones +one hears the phrase all over Germany outside of Prussia, and loudest +of all in these conquered provinces.</p> + +<p>To legislate men into mechanical relations with one another may keep +the peace temporarily, but it is not a final solution of the intricate +problem of living together in our huddled civilization. The day has +gone by when we could rule men without gaining at least their respect, +and if possible their affection. Prussia’s stiffness and newness as a +governing power; her lack of a high moral or religious tone, for there +is a rapidly increasing tendency there to agree with the writer during +the French Revolution: <i>la question de dieu man que d’actualité</i>; her +hard and inflexible methods, make her a churlish neighbor and an +arrogant master. In forty years Prussia has accomplished great things +despite these disadvantages of temperament, of tradition, and despite +these external dangers and problems. She is learning now that there +are not only individuals but whole peoples who say, as William the +Conqueror said to the Pope: “Never have I taken an oath of fealty, nor +shall I ever do so.</p> + +<h3>X “FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE”</h3> + +<p> +It has always been considered sound doctrine among Christians that +they should love one another. Vigorous exponents of the doctrine, +however, have ever been few in numbers. As the world gets more +crowded, and we find it more and more difficult to make room for +ourselves, and to get a living, we find antagonisms and defensive +tactics, occupying so much of our time and energy that loving one +another is almost lost sight of. It has been found necessary even +among those of the same nation to legislate for love. We call such +laws, with dull contempt for irony, social legislation. In Germany, +and now in England, the modern sacrament of loving one another +consists in licking stamps; these stamps are then stuck on cards, +which bind the brethren together in mutual and adhesive helpfulness. </p> + +<p>With nations the problem is not so easily and superficially solved; +because no one body of legislators and police has jurisdiction over +all the parties concerned. As a result of this just now in Europe, +wisdom is not the arbiter; on the contrary, prejudices, passions, +indiscretions, and follies on the part of all the antagonists preserve +a certain dangerous equipoise.</p> + +<p>After you have seen something and heard a great deal of these +antagonisms between nations; read their newspapers; talked with the +protagonists and with their rulers, and with the responsible servants +of the State; discussed with professors and legislators these +questions; and listened to the warriors on both sides, you are +somewhat bewildered. There are so many reasons why this one should +distrust that one, so many rather unnatural alliances for protection +against one another, so much friendship of the sort expressed by the +phrase, “on aime toujours quelqu’un contre quelqu’un,” so much +suspicious watching the movements of one another, that one is reminded +of the jingle of one’s youth:</p> + +<blockquote>“There’s a cat in the garden laying for a rat,<br /> +There’s a boy with a catapult a-laying for the cat,<br /> +The cat’s name is Susan, the boy’s name is Jim.<br /> +And his father round the corner is a-laying for him.”</blockquote> + +<p>Even to the youngest of us, and to the most inexperienced, this +betokens a strained situation. The first and most natural result is +that each nation’s “watchmen who sit above in an high tower,” whether +they be the professionals selected by the people or merely amateur +patriots, are forever crying out for greater armaments.</p> + +<p>At the time of the Boxer troubles in China, when Germany sent some +ships to demand reparation for the murder of her ambassador in Peking, +she had only two ships left at home to guard her own shores. When all +England was exasperated by the Boer telegram sent by the Kaiser, or, +if the truth is to be told, by his advisers, the late Baron Marshal +von Bieberstein and Prince Hohenlohe, to President Kruger, official +Germany lamented publicly that she lacked a powerful navy. Only a week +after the Boers declared war the Kaiser is reported to have said: +“Bitter is our need of a strong navy.” Germany has noticed, too, not +without suspicion, that -</p> + +<p>In 1904 England had 202,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +none in the North Sea.</p> + +<p>In 1907 England had 135,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +166,000 tons in the North Sea.</p> + +<p>In 1909 England had 123,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +427,000 tons in the North Sea.</p> + +<p>In 1912 England had 126,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +481,000 tons in the North Sea.</p> + +<p>At last accounts England had 50,000 tons of war-ships in the +Mediterranean and 500,000 tons in the North Sea.</p> + +<p>There has been a steady increase of the navy in Germany. In 1900 the +tonnage of war-ships and large cruisers over 5,000 tons was 152,000; +in 1911 it was 823,000. The number of heavy guns in 1900 was 52; in +1911 it was 330. The horse-power of engines in 1900 was 160,000; in +1911 it was 1,051,000. The naval crews in 1900 numbered 28,326; in +1911, 57,353; and in 1913 the German naval personnel will consist of +3,394 officers and 69,495 men. Between 1900 and 1911 the tonnage of +the British fleet increased from 215,000 to 1,716,000; of the German +fleet from 152,000 to 829,000.</p> + +<p>In ten years British naval expenditure has increased from $172,500,000 +to $222,500,000; in Germany the expenditure has jumped from +$47,500,000 to $110,000,000; in America the increase is from +$80,000,000 to $132,500,000. Out of these total sums Great Britain +spends one third, America one fifth, and Germany one half on new +construction.</p> + +<p>Germany has a navy league numbering over one million active and +honorary members; a periodical, <i>Die Flotte</i>, published by the league +with a circulation of over 400,000. This league not only educates but +excites the whole nation by a vigorous campaign which never ceases. It +takes its members on excursions to seaports to see the ships; it holds +exhibitions throughout the country with pictures and lecturers; it +supports seamen’s homes, and helps to equip boys wishing to enter the +navy; it lends its encouragement to the two school-ships which are +partly supported from public funds; it sees to it that war-ships are +named after provinces and cities, creating a friendly rivalry among +them; and lately, out of its surplus funds, it has presented a gun-boat +to the nation.</p> + +<p>The leading spirit of this organization is Admiral von Tirpitz, at +present the German secretary of the navy and probably the most +dangerous mischief-maker in Europe. In addition to this work a +campaign is waged in the press for the increase of the navy, in which +a number of experts are engaged. I have been told by Germans who ought +to know, but who deprecate this exciting campaigning, that the press +is so largely influenced by Admiral von Tirpitz and his corps of +press-agents and writers, that it is even difficult to procure the +publication of a protest or a reply. Indeed, were it my habit to go +into personal matters, I could offer ample proof of this contention, +that the opponents of naval expansion are cleverly shut out of the +press altogether.</p> + +<p>Wilhelmshafen, the naval station on the North Sea, has been fortified +till it is said to be impregnable; the same has been done for +Heligoland, and the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser have also been +strongly fortified. At Kiel are the naval technical school, an +arsenal, and dry and floating docks, and the canal itself is being +widened and deepened to meet the needs of the largest ships of war.</p> + +<p>When it is remembered that the beginnings of all this date back only +to 1898, when the first navy bill was passed through the Reichstag +with much difficulty, and only after the Emperor and his ministers had +brought every influence to bear upon the members, Germany is certainly +to be congratulated upon her success. Nor is she to be blamed for +remembering, and regretting, that the two most important harbors used +by her trade are Antwerp and Rotterdam, the one in Belgium, the other +in Holland.</p> + +<p>The <i>Kielerwoche</i>, or Kiel Regatta, has grown from the sailing-matches +of a few small yachts into one of the best-managed, most picturesque, +and gayest yachting weeks in the world. Indeed, from the stand-point +of hospitality, orderliness, imposing array of shipping, and good +racing and friendliness to the stranger, I am not sure that it is +equalled at either Newport or Cowes. Were I writing merely from my +personal experience, I should declare unhesitatingly that it is the +most splendid and best-managed picnic on the water that one can +attend, and lovers of yachts and yachting should not fail to see it. +This <i>Kielerwoche</i>, too, has, and is intended to have, an influence in +teaching the Germans to aid and abet their Emperor and his ministers +in making Germany a great sea power.</p> + +<p>When a nation for more than a hundred years has been quite comfortably +safe from any fear of attack because she has been easily first in +commerce, wealth, industry, and in sea power, it comes as a shock, +even to a phlegmatic people, to learn that they are being rapidly +overhauled commercially, financially, industrially, and as a fighting +force on the sea; and all this within a few years.</p> + +<p>England with her money subsidies, with her troops, and with her navy +has heretofore provided against Continental aggression by the +diplomatic philosophy of a balance of power. She has arranged her +alliances with Continental powers so that no one of them could become +a menace to herself. She did so against the Spain of Charles V, the +France of Louis XIV, the France of Napoleon, the Russia of the late +Czar, and now against the Germany of William II. The France of the +great Napoleon, in attempting to complete the commercial isolation of +England by compelling Russia to close her ports to her, buried herself +in snow and ice on the way back from Moscow, and delivered herself up +completely a little later at Waterloo. That was the nearest to success +of any attempt to break through the doctrine of the balance of power.</p> + +<p>In the year 800 A. D. the Catholic Church, which took over the Roman +supremacy to translate it into a spiritual empire, accepted a German +Emperor, Charlemagne, as her man-at-arms. One hundred and fifty years +later she accepted still another, Otto I. This partnership was called +the Holy Roman Empire. It has been noted, but is still misunderstood, +that the difference between the Catholic Church before and after the +Reformation was very marked. The Catholic Church claimed to be not +only a system of belief but a system of government. Infallibility was +to include secular as well as religious matters, and the church strove +to rule as a secular emperor and as a spiritual tyrant. To-day Roman +Catholicism is a sect, one among many; Roman Catholics themselves +would be the last to consent to any temporal universal power.</p> + +<p>The Protestants, too, were at first inclined to the methods of Rome. +Luther teaches intolerance, and Calvin burns a heretic and writes in +favor of the doctrine: <i>Jure gladii coercendos esse hereticos</i>. The real +reformation only came when we had reformed the reformers, but it was +that spiritual and political legacy from Rome that the Teuton world, +including ourselves, fought to nullify.</p> + +<p>There was no successful revolt against this curious spiritual +Caesarism until the son of a Saxon miner named Luther married out of +monkdom, burnt the Pope’s commands on a bonfire, and plunged all +Europe first into a peasants’ war, followed by a dividing of Europe +between a Protestant union and a Catholic league, and then a thirty +years’ war, which destroyed two thirds of the population of what is +now Germany. After three hundred years of disunion and hatreds, +Prussia united their country by a cement of blood and iron, and in the +last forty years has made out of her the most powerful nation on the +continent of Europe.</p> + +<p>It is only very lately that any of us have realized what has happened. +So little attention has been paid to the matter that there is no +sufficient and worthy history of Germany in English. More than we +realize, Germany is a new factor in politics, a new rival in commerce, +a new knight in the tournament lists. This accounts, in no small +degree, for the uneasiness Germany causes in the world.</p> + +<p>Forty years ago Germany was known to a few students as having supplied +us with music, mythology, and a certain amount of enchanting +literature; scholarship along certain lines; and work in philosophy +that a few in America and in England were studying. As a knight in +shining armor, demanding a place at the council-board of nations, and +ready to resent any passing over of her claims to recognition in the +discussion and settlement of international politics, she is a +newcomer.</p> + +<p>One of the chief causes for the restlessness, particularly in England, +the heart of the greatest empire in the world, is that this new-comer +must be made room for at the table, received with courtesy, and +consulted. Another individual has married into the family, and must +gradually find her place there. Of all nations in the world, England +is the slowest to make new friends and acquaintances, and easily the +most awkward in doing so. She is a good friend when you know her, but +with the most abominable manners to strangers.</p> + +<p>The Englishman, for example, pops into his club to escape the world, +not to seek it there. The English club and the English home are +primarily for seclusion, not for companionship, and this +characteristic alone is wofully hard for the stranger to understand. +To the gregarious German, priding himself upon <i>Gemüthlichkeit</i>, loving +reunions, restaurants, his <i>Stammtisch</i>, formal and punctilious in his +politeness, unused to the ways of the world, but yet convinced that he +is now a great man politically and commercially, the Englishman is not +only an enigma but an insult. I am criticising neither. I have +received unbounded hospitality and friendliness from both. I have +ridden, fought, drunk, travelled, and lived with both, but for that +very reason I understand how horribly and continually they rub one +another the wrong way.</p> + +<p>In the fundamental matter of morals the German looks upon the +Englishman as a hypocrite, and the Englishman looks upon the German as +rather unpolished and undignified. Berlin is open all night, London +closes at half-past twelve. The British Sunday is a gloomy suppression +of vitality, touched up here and there with preaching and hymn-singing, +and fringed with surreptitious golf; the German Sunday is a +national fair, with a blossoming of all kinds of amusements, deluged +with beer, and attended by whole families as their only relaxation +during the week.</p> + +<p>The German licenses vice, lotteries, and gambling; the Englishman +refuses to recognize the existence of any of the three. The German +does not understand the Englishman’s point of view in these matters, +which is that, though he knows these things to exist, and that he is +no better in actual practice than other men, he refuses to accept +these as his ideal. He denounces and passes judgment upon, and +punishes men and women, who go too far in their appreciation and +practice of apolausticism as a philosophy of life. He might have run +away from danger himself, but he none the less scorns the man who did +so. The shipwreck, the fire, the test of moral courage and endurance, +may have found him a coward, or weak, or a deserter, but he holds that +he must none the less measure the coward, the weakling, and the +deserter, not by his own possible weakness if put to the same tests, +but by his ideal of a courageous and straightforward Englishman. I +agree with him wholly and heartily. If our sympathy is to go out on +every occasion, to the man who failed to come up to the mark of noble +manhood, just because we feel that we might under like circumstances +have failed too, then we give up the code of honor altogether, and our +ideals droop to the level from which we fight and pray to be +preserved.</p> + +<p>We pass judgment upon the coward, upon the failure, upon the man who +has not mastered his life and life itself, unhesitatingly. It is hard +to do, it looks as though one were without pity and without sympathy. +Not so; it is because we have great sympathy, and I hope unending +pity, and a growing charity, and constant willingness to lend a hand; +but to condone failure is to commit the selfish and unpardonable +cowardice of not judging another that you may not be forced to judge +yourself too harshly. That is far from being hypocrisy. Indeed, in +these days it is one of the hardest things to do, so fast are we +levelling down socially and politically and even morally. It looks +like an assumption of superiority when, God knows, it is only a +timorous attempt on our part not to lose our grip on the ideals that +help to keep us out of the dust and the mud. But he who lets others +off lightly in order that he may not be thought to have too high a +standard himself, or because he fears that he may one day fail +himself, such a one is the coward of cowards, the candidate for the +lowest place in hell; and well he deserves it, for he helps to lower +the standard of manhood, and he tarnishes the shield of honor of the +whole race. Let them call us hypocrites till they strangle doing so, +for when we lower our standards because we fear that we cannot live up +to them ourselves, all will be lost. To be mild with other men, +because we distrust ourselves, is a poisonous sympathy that rots away +the life of him who receives it, and of him who gives it, and ends in +a slobbering charity which must finally protect itself by tyranny and +cruelty. Not infrequently in dealing with individuals and with subject +nations it is senseless cruelty to be over-kind.</p> + +<p>This sneer of Saxon hypocrisy, of “Perfide Albion,” is seldom +explained to other people by men of our race, and we Americans and +Englishmen have taken little pains to make it clear. We should not be +surprised, therefore, if we are misunderstood. We have been easily +first so long that we have neglected the explanation or the defence of +ourselves to others.</p> + +<p>The Germans, too, have something of the same indifference. A most +sympathetic observer of German manners and customs, and a man for +whose honesty and gentleness I have the highest esteem, Père Didon, +remarked of the Germans: “J’ai essayé maintes fois de découvrir chez +l’Allemand une sympathie quelconque pour d’autres nations; je n’y ai +pas réussi.”</p> + +<p>I call attention again to the important point, that it has been +difficult to manufacture an all-round German patriotism. As a +consequence patriotism in Germany is more than a sentiment, it is a +theory, a doctrine, a theme to which statesmen, philosophers and +poets, and rulers devote their energies. The German looks upon his +nation not only as a people, but as a race, almost as a formal +religion; hence perhaps his hatred of the Jew and the Slav, and his +difficulties with all foreign peoples within his borders. In order to +build up his patriotism the German has been taught systematically to +dislike first the Austrians, then the French, now the English; and let +not the American suppose that he likes him any better, for he does +not. This patriotism, once developed, was drawn on for funds for an +army, then for a navy. At the present time there must be some +explanation offered, and the explanation is fear of England, dislike +of British arrogance. In one of his latest speeches the Kaiser said: +“We need this fleet to protect ourselves from arrogance”; that, of +course, means, always means, British arrogance.</p> + +<p>From the moment a child goes to school, by pictures on the walls, by +an indirect teaching of history and geography, he is led on discreetly +to find England in Germany’s way. At the present writing German school +children, and German students, and German recruits are imbued with the +idea that Germany’s relations with England are in some sort an +armistice. This poisonous teaching of patriotism has produced wide-spread +enmity of feeling among the innocent, but this enmity has built +the navy. And now that in certain quarters it is found desirable to +soothe and calm this feeling, it proves to be more difficult to subdue +than it was to arouse. The monster that Frankenstein called up devours +its own creator. Now that England can no longer be the enemy, because +Germany’s greatest present and future danger is from the Slav races, +there are evidences that the German state is teaching the dog not to +bark at England any more.</p> + +<p>Germany has not neglected England, but of late she has paid her the +wrong kind of attention. Erasmus, the scholar-rapier, as Luther was +the hammer, of the Reformation, visits England and writes: “Above all, +speak no evil of England to them. They are proud of their country +above all nations in the world, as they have good reason to be.”</p> + +<p>Kant, the German philosopher, on his clock-like rounds in Königsberg, +knew something of England and writes of her: “Die englische Nation, +als Volk betrachtet, ist das schätzbarste Ganze von Menschen im +Verhältniss unter einander; aber als Staat gegen fremde Staaten der +verderblichste, gewaltsamste, herrschsüchtigste und kriegerregendste +von allen.”</p> + +<p>(“The English, as a people, in their relations to one another are a +most estimable body of men, but as a nation in their relations with +other nations they are of all people the most pernicious, the most +violent, the most domineering, and the most strife-provoking.”)</p> + +<p>Another German, something of a scholar, something of a philosopher, +but a wit and a singer, Heine, visited England, and, as he handed a +fee to the verger who had shown him around Westminster Abbey, said: “I +would willingly give you twice as much if the collection were +complete!” To him Napoleon defeated was a greater man than the +“starched, stiff” Wellington; and the “potatoes boiled in water and +put on the table as God made them” and the “country with three hundred +religions and only one sauce were a constant source of amused +annoyance. The German professors and students, who in the early part +of the nineteenth century lauded English constitutional liberty to the +skies and made a god of Burke, have soured toward England since.</p> + +<p>“What does Germany want?” asked Thiers of the German historian Ranke. +“To destroy the work of Louis XIV,” was the reply. Professor +Treitschke and his successor in the chair of history at Berlin, +Professor Delbrück, have been outspoken in their denunciation of +England. Mommsen, Schmoller, Schiemann, Zorn of Bonn, and his +colleague there, von Dirksen, Professor Dietrich Schaefer, Professor +Adolph Wagner, and many other scholars have been, and are, politicians +in Germany, and none of them friendly to England, to France, or to +America. Bismarck himself remarked of these gentlemen: “Die Politik +ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich +einbilden, sie ist eben eine Kunst” (“Politics is not a science as +many professorial gentlemen fancy; it is an art”); and again: “Die +Arbeit des Diplomaten, seine Aufgabe, besteht in dem praktischen +Verkehr mit Menschen, in der richtigen Beurtheilung von dem, was +andere Leute unter gewissen Umständen wahrscheinlich thun werden, in +der richtigen Erkennung der Absichten anderer; in der richtigen +Darstellung der seinigen” (” The work of the diplomat, his chief task, +indeed, consists in the practical dealing with men, in his sound +judgment of what other people would probably do under certain +circumstances, in his correct interpretation of the intentions and +purposes of other people, and in the accurate presentation of his +own”).</p> + +<p>He began his political life in 1862 with the phrase: “Die grossen +Fragen können durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse nicht entschie den +werden, sondern durch Eisen und Blut” (“The great questions cannot be +decided by speeches and the decisions of majorities, but by iron and +blood”).</p> + +<p>It is a well-known professor who writes: “Denn die einzige Gefahr, die +den Frieden in Europa und damit den Weltfrieden droht, liegt in den +krankhaften übertreibungen des englischen Imperialismus” (“The only +danger to the peace of Europe, and that includes the peace of the +world, lies in the morbid excesses of British imperialism”). Another +quotation from the same pen reads: “So far as other perils to the +British Empire are concerned, they are of much the same character, but +the empire suffers too from the selfish policy of English business, +which, in order to create big business, does not hesitate to interfere +with the declared policy of the state.” Then follows the statement +that English traders have smuggled guns to the Persian Gulf.</p> + +<p>Professor Zorn writes: “The possibility that while our Emperor was +seeking rest and refreshment in Norwegian waters and enjoying the +beauties of the Norwegian landscape, English ships were lying in +readiness to annihilate German ships.” It is hard to believe that such +lunatic lies can come from the pen of a professor in good standing.</p> + +<p>“Ohne zu übertreiben kann man sagen dass heute nur der allerkleinste +Teil der deutschen Presse geneigt ist, den Engländern Gerechtigkeit +widerfahren zu lassen, bei Behandlung allgemeiner Fragen sich auch +einmal auf den englischen Standpunkt der Betrachtung wenigstens +zeitweise zu versetzen. England ist fur viele ‘der’ Feind an sich, und +em Feind dem man keine Rücksichten schuldet.”</p> + +<p>(“It is no exaggeration to say that nowadays only the tiniest minority +of the German press is inclined to do justice to the English by at +least occasionally looking at questions from the British point of +view. England is for many the enemy of enemies and an enemy to whom no +consideration is due.”) Thus writes one of the cooler heads in the +<i>Kölnische Zeitung</i>.</p> + +<p>Doctor Herbert von Dirksen, of Bonn, writing of the Monroe Doctrine, +says: “By what right does America attempt to check the strongest +expansion policy of all other nations of the earth?” During the Boer +war Germany was showered with post-cards and caricatures of the +English. British soldiers with donkey heads marched past Queen +Victoria and the Prince of Wales; the venerable Queen Victoria is +pictured plucking the tail feathers from an ostrich which she holds +across her knees; the three generals, Methuen, Buller, and Gatacre, +take off their faces to discover the heads of an ass, a sheep, and a +cow; Chamberlain is depicted as the instigator of the war, with his +pockets and hands full of African shares; a parade of the stock-exchange +volunteers depicts them as all Jews, with the Prince of Wales +as a Jew reviewing them; the Prince of Wales is pictured surrounded by +vulgar women, who ask, “Say, Fatty, you are not going to South +Africa?” to which the Prince replies, “No, I must stay here to take +care of the widows and orphans!” English soldiers are depicted in the +act of hitting and kicking women and children.</p> + +<p>In the war with Denmark +in 1864 the Austrian navy met with a disaster at sea. A German +publicist even then wrote: “I was grieved at the demonstrations of joy +about this in the English Parliament. It was not sympathy with the +Danes but petty spite and malice at the defeat of a foreign fleet. But +at the same time it is a consolatory proof that the English are afraid +of the future German navy.” This quotation is interesting as showing +how far back the quarrel dates.</p> + +<p>It would be merely a question of how +much time one cares to devote to scissors and paste to multiply these +examples of Germany’s journalistic and professorial state of mind. It +is unfortunate that some of this writing in the press is done by those +who are often in consultation with the Emperor, and on some political +subjects his advisers. I have suggested in another chapter that +Germany suffers far more from the theoretical and book-learned +gentlemen who surround the Emperor than from his indiscretions. In +more than one instance his indiscretions were due to their blundering. +Their knowledge of books far surpasses their knowledge of men, and +nothing can be more dangerous to any nation than to be counselled and +guided by pedants rather than by men of the world. This projecting a +world from the gaseous elements of one’s own cranium and dealing with +that world, instead of the world that exists, is a danger to everybody +concerned.</p> + +<p>“Bedauernswert sei es allerdings, dass wir in unserem politischen +Leben nicht mit gentlemen zu thun haben, dies sei aber em Begriff der +uns überhaupt abgehe,” writes Prince Hohenlohe in his memoirs. (“It is +of all things most to be regretted that in our political life we do +not have gentlemen to deal with, but this is a conception of which we +are totally deficient.”)</p> + +<p>A daring colonial secretary, speaking in the Reichstag of certain +scandals in the German colonies, said bluntly: “A reprehensible caste +feeling has grown up in our colonies, the conception of a gentleman +being in England different from that in Germany.”</p> + +<p>When Lord Haldane came to Berlin, on his mission to discover if +possible a working basis for more friendly relations between the two +countries, his eyes were greeted in the windows of every book-shop +with books and pamphlets with such titles as “Krieg oder Frieden mit +England,” “Das Perfide Albion,” “Deutschland und der Islam,” “Ist +England kriegslustig,” “Deutschland sei Wach,” “England’s +Weltherrschaft und die deutsche Luxusflotte,” “John Bull und wir,” and +a long list of others, all written and advertised to keep alive in the +German people a sense of their natural antagonism to England.</p> + +<p>During the last year the “Letters of Bergmann” brought up again the +controversy, that should have been left to die, over the treatment of +the Emperor Friedrich by an English surgeon.</p> + +<p>In discussing Senator Lodge’s resolution before the United States +Senate, on the Monroe Doctrine, the German press spoke of us as +“hirnverbrannte Yankees,” “bornierte Yankeegehirne” (“crazy Yankees,” +“provincial Yankee intellects”); and the words “Dollarika,” +“Dollarei,” and “Dollarman” are further malicious expressions of their +envy, frequently used. The Germans are persistently taught that there +are neither scholars nor students in America or in England. One worthy +writes: “Die Engländer lernen nichts. Der Sport lässt ihnen keine Zeit +dazu. Man ist hinterher auch zu müde.”</p> + +<p>I am always very glad, when I happen to be in Europe, that I belong to +a nation that can afford to take these flings with the greatest good-humor. +As the burly soldier replied when questioned in court as to why +he allowed his small wife to beat him: “It pleases her and it don’t +hurt I.”</p> + +<p>This struggle for recognition as a great nation, to be received on +equal terms by the rest of us, has upset the nerves of certain classes +in Germany, and among them the untravelled and small-town-dwelling +professor.</p> + +<p>I am a craftsman in letters myself, in a small way, but I am no +believer that books are the only key to life, or the only way to find +a solution for its riddles and problems. Life is language, and books +only the dictionaries; men are the text, books only the commentaries. +Books are only good as a filter for actual experiences. A man must +have a rich and varied experience of men and women before he can use +books to advantage. Life is varied, men and women many, while the +individual life is short; wise men read books, therefore, to enrich +their experience, not merely as the pedant does, to garner facts. +“J’étudie les livres en attendant que J’étudie les hommes,” writes +Voltaire. “Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a +mighty bloodless substitute for life,” writes Stevenson.</p> + +<p>Montgolfier sees a woman’s skirt drying and notices that the hot air +fills it and lifts it, and this gives him the idea for a balloon.</p> + +<p>Denis Papin sees the cover lifted from a pot by the steam, and there +follow the myriad inventions in which steam is the driving power.</p> + +<p>Newton, dozing under an apple-tree, is hit on the head by a falling +apple, and there follows the law of gravitation.</p> + +<p>Franklin flies a kite, and a shock of electricity starts him upon the +road to his discoveries.</p> + +<p>Archimedes in his bath notices that his body seems to grow lighter, +and there follows the great law which bears his name.</p> + +<p>These are the foundation-stones upon which the whole house of science +is built, and no one of them was dug out of a book. Charlemagne could +not read, and Napoleon, when he left school for Paris, carried the +recommendation from his master that he might possibly become a fair +officer of marines, but nothing more! A capital example of the ability +of the man of books to measure the abilities of the man of the world.</p> + +<p>Reading and writing are modern accomplishments, and we grossly +exaggerate their importance as man-makers. That, it has always been my +contention, is the fatal fallacy of modern education, and you may see +it carried to its extreme in Germany, for men who have not lived +broadly are merely hampered by books. It is as though one studied a +primer with an etymological dictionary at his side. Germans are +renowned writers of commentaries, but you cannot deal with men and +with life by the aid of commentaries. Exegesis solves no international +quarrels, and the mastery of men is not gained with dictionaries and +grammars.</p> + +<p>We are all prone to forget the end in the means, for the end is far +away and the means right under our noses. We all recognize, when we +are pulled up short and made to think, that, after all, the arts and +letters, religion and philosophy and statecraft, are for one ultimate +purpose, which is to develop the complete man. Everything must be +measured by its man-making power. Ideas that do not grow men are +sterile seed. Men who do not move other men to action and to growth +are not to be excused because they stir men to the merely pleasant +tickling of thinking lazily and feeling softly. Thus Lincoln was a +greater man than Emerson; Bismarck a greater than Lessing; Cromwell a +greater than Bunyan; Napoleon a greater than Corneille and Racine; +Pericles greater than Plato; and Caesar greater than Virgil.</p> + +<p>The man who only makes maps for the mind is only half a man, until his +thinking, his influence, his dreams and enthusiasms take on the +potency of a man and come into action. Even if men of action do evil, +as some of those I mention have done, they have translated theories +into palpable things that permit men to judge whether they be good or +bad; and the really great artists, thinkers, and saints are as fertile +as though they were female, and gave birth, to living things. Their +thinking is a form of action. The real test of successful organization +is the thoroughness of the thinking behind it; on the other hand, the +only test of thinking is the success of the thought in actual +execution, and the Germans often take this too much for granted. We +really know and hold as an inalienable intellectual possession only +what we have gained by our own effort, and with a certain degree of +actual exertion. People who have never worked out their own salvation +always join, at last, that large class in the body politic who don’t +know what they want, and who will never be happy till they get it.</p> + +<p>When it comes to dealing with inanimate things, books of rules are +invaluable. Hence, in chemistry, physics, archaeology, philology, +exegesis, the Germans have forged ahead; their intellectual street-cleaning +is unsurpassed; but the ship of state needs not only men to +take observations and to read charts, but men to trim the sails to the +fitful breezes, the blustering winds, the tempests and the changing +currents of life. They must know, too, the methods, the manners, the +habits of other men who sail the seas of life. It is just here that +the German fails; he lacks the confidence of experience, and bursts +into bluster and bravado. He is a believer in vicarious experience, +and is as little likely to be saved by it, in this world at least, as +he is by vicarious sacrifice.</p> + +<p>His imagination does not make allowances for either England or +America. He does not see, for example, that the Monroe Doctrine is not +open for discussion for the simple reason that America has announced +it as American policy; just as Prussia took part three times in the +dismemberment of Poland; just as Prussia pounced upon Silesia; just as +Germany took Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein and Frankfort, and +held the ring while Austria-Hungary bagged Bosnia and Herzegovina, and +by the word of her Emperor, promised to do the same thing for Russia, +when Japan declared war against her. We have decided that we will have +no European sovereignty in South America, and this side war, that is +the end of the matter, call it the Monroe Doctrine or what you will. +It only makes for uneasiness and bad temper to discuss it. It is the +national American policy. It may be right or wrong theoretically, but +international law has nothing to do with it. The German professors who +discuss it from that stand-point, are beating the air and raising a +dust in the world’s international drawing-room.</p> + +<p>This German mania for translating facts back into philosophy and then +dancing through a discussion of theories is not understood, much less +appreciated, by the rest of the world. We can never get on if we are +to introduce the discussion of the lines of every new battle-ship by +arguments as to the sea-worthiness of the ark. Those of us who control +a quarter of the habitable globe, and the inhabitants thereof, are +much too busy to discuss the legal aspects of the land-grabbing of the +Pharaohs. Geography is not metaphysics, but it is wofully hard for the +professorial mind to grasp this.</p> + +<blockquote>“Given a mouse’s tail, and he will guess<br /> +With metaphysic quickness at the mouse.”</blockquote> + +<p>In much the same way German statesmen and the German press do not +understand, or do not care to understand, that British statesmen when +they speak in the House of Commons, or when they go to the country +asking increased appropriations for the navy, must give some reason +for their request. There is only one reason, and that is that there is +a growing navy across the North Sea, which, whether now it is or is +not a menace, may be a menace to their ship-fed island, and they must +have ships and men and guns enough to guard the sea-lanes which their +food-laden ships must sail through.</p> + +<p>They may be awkward sometimes in their expression of this self-evident +fact, they may call their own fleet a necessity and the other fleet a +luxury, but that is a negligible question of verbal manners; the fact +remains that their fleet is, and all the world knows it is, and it is +laughable to discuss it, the prime necessity of their existence.</p> + +<p>As long as we Christians have given up any shred of belief in +Christian ethics, as applicable to international disputes, we must +live by the law of the strongest. We do not bless the poor in spirit, +but the self-confident; we do not bless the meek, but the proud; we do +not bless the peace-makers, but those who urge us to prepare for war; +we do not bless the reviled and the persecuted and the slandered, but +those who revolt against injustice and tyranny; we do not approve the +cutting off of the right hand, but admire the mailed fist; and it is +only adding to the confusion to raise millions for war ourselves, and +then to present a handsomely bound copy of the Beatitudes to our +rivals.</p> + +<p>I shall be wantonly misunderstood if these reflections be taken as a +criticism of Germany. This situation involves Germany in censure no +more than other nations. It is only that Germany shows herself to be +somewhat childish and peevishly provincial, in girding at an +unchangeable situation, either in South America or in the North Sea.</p> + +<p>This is not altogether Germany’s fault. She is suffering from growing +pains, and from grave internal unrest. She is only just of age as a +nation, and her constitution is so inflexible that it is a constant +source of irritation. She is governed by an autocracy, and the two +strongest parties numerically in her Reichstag are the party of the +Catholics and the party of the Socialists. She has built up a +tremendous trade on borrowed capital, and every gust of wind in the +money market makes her fidgety. Her population increases at the rate +of some 800,000 a year, but her educational system produces such a +surplus of laborers who wish to work in uniforms, or in black coats +and stiff collars, that there is a dearth of agricultural laborers, +and she imports 700,000 Hungarians, Poles, Slays, and Italians every +year to harvest her crops.</p> + +<p>This same system of education has taught youths to think for +themselves before either the mental or moral muscles are tough enough, +with the result that she is the agnostic and materialistic nation of +Europe, and her capital the most licentious and immoral in Europe.</p> + +<p>This is the result of secular education everywhere. Freedom of +thought, yes, but not freedom of thought any more than freedom of +morals, or freedom of manners, or political freedom, in extreme youth; +that only makes for anarchy political, mental, and moral.</p> + +<p>There is much undigested, not to say indigestible, republicanism about +just now in China and in Portugal, for example; just as there are +materialism and agnosticism in Germany and in France, not due to +super-intellectualism but to juvenile thinking. The Chinese are just +as fit for a republic - an actual republic is still a long way off - +as are callow German youths, and notoriety-loving French students, for +freedom to disbelieve and to destroy. No country can long survive a +majority of women teachers in the public schools, together with no +Bible and no religious teaching there. I have no prejudices favoring +orthodoxy, but I have a fairly wide experience which has given me one +article of a creed that I would go to the stake for, and that is that +it is of all crimes the worst to give freedom political, moral, or +religious to those who are unprepared for it.</p> + +<p>Germany’s taste in literature, once so natural and healthy, has become +morbid, and Sudermann and Gorky and Oscar Wilde, and the rest of the +unhealthy crew who swarm about the morgues, the dissecting-rooms, and +the houses of assignation of life, the <i>internuntiata libidinum</i>, the +leering <i>conciliatrices</i> of the dark streets, are her favorites now. +There is no surer sign of mental ill-health than a taste for lowering +literature, an appetite for this self-dissecting, this complacent, +self-contemplating form of intellectual exercise.</p> + +<p>This is no heated assault on German culture. It is a natural phase of +development. Youthful candidates for worldliness all go through this +pornocratic stage. “The impudence of the bawd is modesty, compared +with that of the convert,” writes the Marquis of Halifax. The German +professor and the German bourgeois in their Rake’s Progress are only a +little more awkward, a little more heavy-handed, a little coarser in +speech, than others, that is all. The period of twenty-five years +during which I have known Germany has developed before my eyes the +concomitants of vast and rapid industrial and commercial progress, and +they are: a love of luxury, a great increase in gambling, a +materialistic tone of mind, a wide-spread increase of immorality, and +a tendency to send culture to the mint, and to the market-place to be +stamped, so that it may be readily exchanged for the means of soft +living. These internal changes account to some extent for her restless +external policy. A man’s digestion has a good deal to do with the +color of the world when he looks at it. There is more yellow in life +from biliousness, than from the state of the atmosphere.</p> + +<p>Aside from these domestic causes there is no reason why Germany should +take a sentimental or pious view of these questions of international +amity. Her own history is development by war. “Any war is a good war +when it is undertaken to increase the power of the state,” said +Frederick the Great. “Nur das Volk wird eine gesicherte Stellung in +der Welt haben, das von kriegerischen Geiste erfüllt ist” (“Only that +nation will hold a safe place in the world which is imbued with a +warlike spirit”) writes Germany’s great military philosopher +Clausewitz.</p> + +<p>We took Cuba and the Philippines; England took India, Hong Kong, and +Egypt; Japan took Korea and southern Manchuria; Italy took Tripoli; +France took Fez; Russia took Finland and northern Manchuria; Austria-Hungary +took Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Prussia and Germany have a +long list, including Silesia, Poland, Hanover, and Alsace-Lorraine. +Austria-Hungary tears up the Berlin treaty; France, Germany, and Spain +tear up the Algeciras treaty; Italy tears up the treaty of Paris; and +it is part of the game that we should all hold up our hands, avert our +faces, and thank God that we are not as other men are, when these +things are done. The justifications of these actions are all of the +most pious and penitent description. We were forced to do so, we say, +in order to hasten the bringing in of our own specially patented and +exclusive style of the kingdom of heaven, but outside of perhaps India +and Egypt, and the Philippines, it would be hard to find to-day any +trace of the promised kingdom. Germany, for example, had nine per +cent. of Moroccan trade, the total of Moroccan trade with all +countries only amounted to $27,500,000 a year, and she was compelled +to interfere for the protection of her traders, forsooth! The outcome +of the business, after an exciting situation lasting for months, was +that Germany got a slice of territory from France, mostly swamps, +which reaches from the Congo to the Atlantic Ocean, and reported to +be, by her own engineers, uninhabitable.</p> + +<p>It is the pleasant formula of +polite statesmen and politicians to say, that it is a pity that +Germany came into the world competition a hundred years too late, when +the best colonies had been parcelled out among the other powers. This +is a superficial view of the case, and misses the real point of the +present envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. Germany does not +want colonies, and has no ability of the proper kind, and no willing +and adventurous population to settle them, if she had. Prussia’s +dealing with aborigines is a subject for comic opera.</p> + +<p>Germany came +into the modern world as a dreamer, as a maker of melodies, as a +singer of songs, as a sort of post-graduate student in philosophy and +in theoretical, and later applied science. She introduced us to +classical philology, to modern methods of historical research, to the +comparative study of ethnic religions, to daring and scholarly +exegesis, to the study of the science of language. She discovered +Shakespeare to the English; Eduard Mätzner and Eduard Müller, and +German scholars in the study of phonetics, have written our English +grammars and etymological dictionaries for us, and helped to lay the +foundations for knowledge of our own language. Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, +one need not mention more, attempted to pass beyond the bounds of +human experience and to formulate laws for the process; +Schleiermacher, maintaining that Christian faith is a condition of +devout feeling, a fact of inward experience, an object which may be +observed and described, had an unbounded influence in America, and +many are the ethical discourses I have listened to which owed more to +Schleiermacher than to their authors. Humboldt, Liebig, Bunsen, +Helmholtz, Johannes Müller, Von Baer, Virchow, Koch, Diesel, even the +British and American man in the street, with little interest in such +matters, knows some of these names; while Schopenhauer and Nietzsche +are symbols of revolt, whose names are flung into an argument by many +who only know their names, but who fondly suppose that the one stands +for despair and suicide, and the other for the joy and unbridled +license of the strong man.</p> + +<p>Reckoning by epochs, it was only yesterday +that Germany said to the world: “No more of this!”</p> + +<blockquote>“Hang up philosophy!<br /> +Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,<br /> +Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,<br /> +It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more!”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">Of a sudden our scholar threw off his gown and cap, and said: “I +propose to play base-ball and foot-ball with you, I propose to have a +hand in the material spoils of life, I propose to have a seat at the +banquet and to propose toasts and to be toasted!” Faust of a sudden +left his gloomy, cobwebby laboratory, flung a fine cloak over his +shoulders, stuck a dandy feather in his cap, buckled on a rapier, and +began roistering with the best of us. We sneered and smiled at first, +let us be frank and admit it. We did not think much of this new buck. +We had little fear that the professor, even if he took off his +spectacles and slippers and dressing-gown, and exchanged his pipe for +a cigarette, would cut much of a figure as a lover. He was new to the +game, we were old hands at it, but the first thing we knew he had +given the world’s mistress, France, a scolding, and flung her into a +corner, a cowering heap of outraged finery; and she has only been safe +ever since in the rôle of a sort of mistress of England on board- +wages.</p> + +<p>A new cock in the barn-yard is never received with great +cordiality. He must win his place and his power with his beak and his +spurs. We all of us had enough to do before this fellow came along. We +are a little jealous of him, we are all uneasier because he is about, +and he has done so well at our games, now that he has indeed hung up +philosophy, that we are not even sure that it is safe to take him on +in a serious match. We have endeavored, therefore, to keep him +occupied with his own neighbors, to whom we have extended our best +wishes and our moral backing, which is known as keeping the balance of +power in Europe.</p> + +<p>But a new Germany has come into the world. Germany nowadays has a +large class, as have the rest of us, who belong to that increasing +number of extraordinary people who want money without even knowing how +to get on without it. The only satisfactory test of the right to +wealth is the ability to get on without it. One of modern +civilization’s most dangerous pitfalls is the subversive doctrine that +all men shall have wealth, even before they have proved their ability +to do without it. Germany is gradually arriving at this puny stage of +culture, whose beginnings may be said to date from that ominous year +for culture, 1492, when Lorenzo di Medici died and Columbus discovered +America!</p> + +<p>During all this time statesmen have insisted that there is no good +reason why Germany and England should not be on good terms; gentlemen +of various trades and professions from both countries, speaking +halting English or embarrassed German, as the case may be, cross each +other’s boundaries, comment upon the beauties of the respective +countries, and overeat themselves in ponderous endeavors to appear +cordial and appreciative. Mayors and aldermen swap stories and +compliments over turtle and sherry, or over sauerkraut and +Johannisberger; bands of students visit Oxford or Heidelberg, and +there is a chorus of praise of Goethe from one side, of Shakespeare +from the other; and all the while there is an unceasing antiphonal of +grimaces and abuse in the press. Not even when Germany exports her +latest stage novelties to London, and pantomimic platitudes are +dandled under colored lights, does the turmoil of martial talk cease. +Not even Teutonic lechery, in the guise of Reinhartian art, dressed in +nothing but silence, and making faces at the British censor on the +boards of the music-halls, avails anything.</p> + +<p>Of course all this is nuts to the irresponsible journalists, to the +manufacturers of powder, guns, and ships, and to politicians and +diplomats out of employment; but it is hard on the taxpayer, who has +no dividends from manufacturers of lethal weapons and ships, nor from +newspapers, and no notoriety from the self-imposed jobs of the +unofficial diplomats.</p> + +<p>Perhaps of all these factors the press, in its wild gamble to make +money out of sensationalism, is most to blame. The press, for the sake +of gain, has soiled and soured the milk of human kindness by exposing +it, carelessly and unceasingly, to the pathogenic dangers of the dust +of the street and the gutter. It is wholly unfitting and always +demoralizing when the priest, the politician, and the journalist turn +their attention to private gain. Any one of these three who makes a +great fortune out of his profession is damned by that fact alone. The +only payment, beyond a living, that these three should look to is, +respect, consideration, and the honor of serving the state unselfishly +and wisely. The world will be all the happier when there are no more +Shylocks permitted in any of these professions.</p> + +<p>Germany is autocratic, philosophical, and continental; England is +democratic, political, and insular. It is hopeless to suppose that the +great mass of the people of one country will understand the other, +and, for this is the important point, it is wholly unnecessary.</p> + +<p>We get on best and with least friction with people whom we do not +understand in the least. A man may have known and liked people with +whose aims, opinions, employment, creeds he has the smallest sympathy. +One may mention such diverse personalities as John L. Sullivan, the +prize-fighter, Cardinal Rampolla, Mr. Roosevelt, Doctor Jameson, the +Kaiser, President Diaz of Mexico, numerous Jew financiers, Lord +Haldane the scholar-statesman, and a long list of professors, pious +priests, sportsmen, and idlers, not to speak of Hindus and +Mohammedans, Japanese and Chinese, and half a dozen Sioux chiefs. With +these gentlemen, a few of many with whom one may have been upon such +pleasant terms that they have even confided in him and trusted him +with their secrets, one may have passed many pleasant hours. It +probably never entered such a man’s head to wonder whether they liked +him, and he never discussed with them the question of his liking for +them. We get on by keeping our own personalities, prejudices, and +creeds intact. There is no other way.</p> + +<p>Other men will give even a more diverse list of friends and +acquaintances, and never for a moment dream that there is any mystery +in being friends with all. Nothing is ever gained by flattery. To the +serious man flattery in the form of sincere praise makes him more +responsible and only sadder, because he knows how much he falls below +what is expected of him, and what he expects of himself. Lip-flattery +makes a real man feel as though his sex had been mistaken, he feels as +though he had been given curling-tongs instead of a razor for his +morning toilet. These pompous flatteries that pass between Germany and +England to-day, make both sides self-conscious and a little ashamed to +write and to speak them, and to hear and applaud them.</p> + +<p>America and England are shortly to celebrate the signing of the treaty +of Ghent, which marks a hundred years of peace between the two +nations. We have not been without opportunities to quarrel. We have +whole classes of people in America who detest England, and in England +there are not a few who do not conceal successfully their contempt for +America, but we have had peace, and since England, at the time of our +war with Spain, said “Hands off!” to the powers that wished to +interfere, there has been a great increase of friendly feeling. But +there has been little or no flattery passing back and forth. We have +sent ambassador after ambassador to England who were almost more +American than the Americans. Phelps and Lowell and Hay and Choate and +Reid were all American in name, in tradition, in their successes, and +in their way of looking at life. By their learning, their wit, and +their criticisms, by their writing and speaking, by their presentation +of the claims to greatness of our great men, by their unhesitating +avowal in public and in private of their allegiance to the ideals of +the republic they served, they have made clear the American point of +view. Above all, they have shown their pride in their own country by +acknowledging and praising the great qualities of England and the +English. There has been no fulsome flattery, no bowing the knee to +foreign idols, and what has been the result? The American ambassador +for years has been the most popular diplomatic figure in Great +Britain. An increasing number of Englishmen even, nowadays, know who +Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln were, and our understanding of +one another has grown rapidly out of this frank and manly attitude. We +were jealous and suspicious a hundred years ago, as are England and +Germany to-day, but we have changed all that by our attitude of good-humored +independence, and by eliminating altogether from our +intercourse the tainted delicacy of compliment, and the canting +endearments of the diplomatic cocotte. We have emphasized our +differences to the great benefit of the fine qualities that we have +and cherish in common.</p> + +<p>The individual Protestant does not dislike the individual Papist, half +so much as he dislikes his neighbor in the next pew, who refuses +Sunday after Sunday to repeat the service and the creed at the same +pace as the others, and hence to “descend into Hell” with the rest of +the congregation. The Sioux chief was far more annoyed by his neighbor +of the same tribe in the next-door reservation than he was by me. The +pugilist scorned “Tug” Wilson, a brother fisticuffs sovereign, but had +no feeling against his parish priest. Theological protagonists are +notoriously bitter against one another, but we have all found many of +them amiable companions ourselves. It is the fellow next door, who +wears purple socks, or who parts his hair in the middle, or who wears +his coat-sleeves longer than our tailor cuts ours, or who eats his +soup with a noise, or who has damp hands, or talks through his nose, +who irritates us and makes us wish occasionally for the unlimited +club-using freedom of the stone age. It is your first cousin with +incurable catarrh, and a slender income who is too much with you, and +who spoils your temper, not the anarchist orator who threatens your +property and almost your life.</p> + +<p>“What do these Germans want?” asked a distinguished cabinet minister +of me. “They want consideration,” I replied, “which is the most +difficult thing in the world for the Englishman to offer anybody.” +“But, you don’t mean to say,” he continued, “that they really want to +cut our throats on account of our bad manners?” I cannot phrase it +better, nor can I give a more illuminating illustration of the +misunderstanding. That is exactly the reason, and the paramount +reason, why nations and why individuals attempt to cut one another’s +throats. Whatever the fundamental differences may have been that have +led to war between nations, the tiny spark that started the explosion +has always been some phase of rudeness or bad manners.</p> + +<p>Counting my school-days, I can remember about a dozen personal +conflicts in which I have engaged, with pardonable pleasure. Not one +of them was a question of territory, or religious difference, or of +racial hatred; indeed, the last one was due to being shouldered in the +street when my equanimity was already disturbed by a lingering +recovery from a feverish cold.</p> + +<p>It is, after all, the little differences that count. If politically +and socially Germany were a little more sure of herself, if she were +not ever <i>omnia tuta timens Dido</i>; and if England were not as ever quite +so sure of herself, I believe intercourse between them would be less +strained.</p> + +<blockquote>“The little gnat-like buzzings shrill,<br /> + The hurdy-gurdies of the street.<br /> +The common curses of the will-<br /> + These wrap the cerements round our feet.”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">The smothered voice, the tepid manner, the affected and hesitating +under-statement, of a certain middlish class of English men and women, +and, alas, their American imitators, who are striving toward their +comical interpretation of the Vere de Vere manner, are the promoters +of guffaws in private, and uneasiness in public, between nations, to a +far greater extent than the bold individualist, whose voice and +manners, good or bad, are all his own. It is these small attritions +that wear us down, and produce a sub-acid dislike between nations as +between individuals. It is these that prepare the ground for a fine +crop of misunderstandings.</p> + +<p>But are we not to know our neighbors the English, the Germans, the +French? I for one consider that not to know German and Germany, for +example, is nowadays not to be fully educated. Most of us, however, +have had our nerves unstrung by the speeding-up process that has gone +on all over the world of late. We have lost somewhat the power to know +people and to let them alone at the same time. Goethe, one of the +coolest and wisest of men, maintains: “Certain defects are necessary +for the existence of individuality. One would not be pleased if old +friends were to lay aside certain peculiarities.”</p> + +<p>We should at least give every man as fair a chance to receive our good +opinion as we give a picture. We should put him in a good light before +we criticise him. We should take time enough to do that to other +nations, as well as to individuals. I have always had much sympathy +for a certain Roman general. He was blind, and a painter who painted +him with two large eyes, he rebuked; another painter, who painted him +in profile, he rewarded.</p> + +<p>It is, after all, something of an art to know people, so that the +knowledge is serviceable, so that you can depict them to yourself and +to others, not as they are as opposed to you, but as they are as a +complement and help to you.</p> + +<blockquote>“No human quality is so well wove<br /> +In warp and woof, but there’s some flaw in it;<br /> +I’ve known a brave man fly a shepherd’s cur,<br /> +A wise man so demean himself, drivelling idiocy<br /> +Had wellnigh been ashamed on’t. For your crafty,<br /> +Your worldly-wise man, he, above the rest,<br /> +Weaves his own snares so fine, he’s often caught in them.”</blockquote> + +<p>He who does not make allowances for weaknesses and differences in his +study of human affairs is still in the infant class. It is a grave +danger to every state that critics, smart or shallow, with their tu +quoque weapons, their silly ridicule, their emphasis upon differences +as though they were disasters, their constant failure to recognize the +value of certain weaknesses, their stupidity in not painting great men +who happen to be blind, in profile, and their harping upon the flaws, +and their neglect of the fine texture of human qualities that are +strange to them, that these critics are not muzzled, or, if that is +impossible, disregarded.</p> + +<p>They make it appear that amicable relations between nations are next +to impossible. If you escape one danger of offending, you are sure to +give offence in some other way, they seem to say. They are hysterical +in their self-consciousness, “as if a man did flee from a lion and a +bear met him, or went in the house and leaned his hand on the wall and +a serpent bit him.” Sir Edward Grey writes on this subject: “I +sometimes think that half the difficulties of foreign policy arise +from the exceeding ingenuity of different countries in attributing +motives and intentions to the governments of each other. As far as I +can observe, the press of various countries is much more fertile in +inventing motives and intentions for the governments of the different +countries than the foreign ministers of these countries are +themselves. Foreign governments and our own government live from hand +to mouth and have fewer deep plans than people might suppose. There is +an old warning that you should not spend too much time in looking at +the dark cupboard for the black cat that is not there, and I think if +sometimes we were a little less suspicious of deep design or motive +that the affairs of the world would progress more smoothly.”</p> + +<p>The trouble lies in our undertaking the impossible, to the neglect of +the obvious and the possible. The basic fact of nationality is a +preference for our own ways, customs, and habits over those of other +people. If the Chinese and Japanese, the Servians and Albanians, the +English and the Germans liked one another as well as they like their +own, there would be no nationalism to protect or to preserve. Such +racial and traditional liking of nation for nation is impossible of +achievement. No journeyings, speechifyings, banquets, or compliments +will bring it about. On the contrary, I am not sure that it is not +these very differences which cheer us and give us a new flavor in our +pleasure in living, when we cross the Atlantic, the Channel, or the +Rhine. What we should strive for is not social and racial absorption, +but social and racial difference and distinction, with that pride in +our own which makes for patience in the understanding of others.</p> + +<p>It is the petty, self-conscious American who hates the English, the +provincial Englishman who hates the German, the socially insecure +German who hates the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the American. +Those of us who are poised, secure, satisfied, and at bottom proud of +our race, our breeding, and our country, are neither irritable nor +irritating in the matter of international relations. We have enough to +do, and let others alone. Let us dine one another, criticise one +another in the effort to improve ourselves, praise one another where +the praise serves to establish our own ideals; but let us give up this +forced and awkward courting by banquets, deputations, and conferences. +Let us study the great art of leaving one another alone. This is a +time-hallowed doctrine. The greatest of all satirists and critics of +manners knew this secret of successful intercourse with one another. +One of the characters in the “Frogs” of Aristophanes is made to say: +“Don’t come trespassing upon my mind; you have a house of your own.” +Propinquity does not necessarily entail intimacy; as the world grows +smaller, more and more people think so, perhaps often enough only to +escape from themselves, a favorite form of elopement these days. Some +men are fed by solitude and starved by too much companionship, and the +same is true of nations. You cannot control others till you have +learned to control yourself, or save another till you yourself are +saved, and most of us had better be about that business.</p> + +<p>It is England’s business to know just now, and to some extent ours, +how many ships Germany is building and how many men she has in +training to man them; but it is not in the least anybody’s business to +question her motives or to attempt to dictate her policy. It is our +business to shut up, and to build ships and to train men according to +our notions of what is necessary for safety in case of an explosion. +We should be about our father’s business, not about our brother’s +business.</p> + +<p>It is shallow thinking and lack of knowledge of the men and women of +stranger countries, and above all that terrible itching to be doing +something, which lead to these futile excursions and this silly talk.</p> + +<p>Can anything be more maudlin than to suppose that international +sensitiveness, that commercial rivalries, that tariff discriminations, +that territorial misunderstandings, are to be soothed and smoothed +away, by dissertations upon how much we owe to one another in matters +of culture? Think what we owe to Goethe and Lessing, to Spinoza and +Kant, to Heine and Mozart and Wagner and Beethoven, reiterates the +Englishman; think what we owe to Shakespeare and Milton, to Byron and +Shelley and Scott, to Lister and Newton, answers the German! Who can +go to war with the countrymen of Racine and Molière and Pascal and +Montesquieu and Descartes? repeats the friend of France; and by others +are trumpeted the fraternal relations that we ought to cultivate with +the countrymen of Dante, or of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. +This is phantom friendship, and we all know in our heart of hearts, +that we would fight any or all of them at the drop of a handkerchief, +if they hurt our feelings, ruffled our national pride, or maltreated +in a foreign land the meanest of our racial brothers. Straining after +such artificial bonds of union is as irritating as it is unreal.</p> + +<p>Germany has few heartier admirers of Bismarck than am I; England has +few franker friends of her great gentlemen in peace and war than am I; +I have read and profited by French literature far more than from +anything America has produced; if I can write so that here and there a +brother has profited therefrom, I owe it to the Frenchmen I have +studied; but these are all nothing as compared with my heart’s real +allegiances. There is a gulp in my throat when I dream of that weary, +misunderstood, but patient and humble peace-maker, who held the scales +between the millions of my own countrymen, shooting and stabbing one +another to death fifty years ago. No other man can be quite like him +to me; he remains my master of men, as is Lee my ideal of the Happy +Warrior. I understand the grim humor in his sad eyes, I love that +lined face, cut from the granite of self-control, that tamed volcano +face, seamed and scarred by the lava of his trials and his tears; I +can see how the illuminating and conciliatory anecdotes were his +relief from the pain of an aching heart; my muscles harden and my +nerves tingle as I recall the puppet politicians and fancy self-advertising +warriors who crucified him slowly. The country and the +people that Lincoln believed in, I must believe in and fight for too. +Washington was an Englishman and baptized us, but Lincoln was an +American who officiated at our first communion as a united people.</p> + +<p>I ask no Englishman, no German, no Frenchman to agree with me, but I +ask them to leave me alone with my dead, to leave me in peace with my +living problems, to force no artificial friendships upon me, and thus +to let our respect for one another increase naturally.</p> + +<p>Has the Englishman, has the German, no sanctuaries to be left +undisturbed; no heart-strings that are not to be fumbled at by busy +fingers; no personal dignities to be shrouded from investigations; no +sweet silences of sorrow that are barred to foreign mourners? If he +have not, then all this clamor at the doors of national privacy is +well enough; but let them remember that when nations lose their +dignity and their racial pride, there is sure to follow the squabbling +and the jealousy, the rough speech and vulgar manners, of the domestic +circle, in the same plight of spiritual shamelessness. The best that +any of us learn is to be a little more patient, a little more +charitable, a little more careful of the dignity of others in our own +homes, or abroad, and then the light goes out!</p> + +<h3>XI CONCLUSION</h3> + +<p> +Criticism is temptingly easy when it consists, as it so often does, in +merely noting what is different, or what is not there. Helpful +criticism I take to be the discovery of what is there, and its +revelation, with an examination of its history, its truth, and its +value. That kind of criticism is close to creation itself, and few +there are sufficiently self-sacrificing to endow and to train +themselves to undertake it.</p> + +<p>It makes life very complicated to think too much about it, but to take +a step further, and to attempt to apply logic to life, that way +madness lies. It is of the very essence of life that things are never +as they ought to be, but only as they can be for the time being. We +may be optimistic enough to believe that this is a good world, but it +is none the less true that unbending virtue seldom receives the +temporal rewards for which most of us are striving, and with which +alone most of us are content. We are forced to doubt, therefore, the +goodness which finds life easy and comfortable, and since we must +still at all hazards be charitable in our judgments of one another, we +become, most of us, opportunists in morals.</p> + +<p>In dealing with the men, manners, affairs, and the soul of a stranger +people, therefore, one must use what experience, knowledge, good-humor, +and impartiality one has, without assumption of superiority, +without making high demands, and without ceasing to be at least as +opportunist as we are at home. Because things are different, they are +not necessarily better or worse, and if certain things are not there, +it is perhaps because they do not belong there. Above all, we should +refrain from applying a stern logic to the life of another country +which we never use in measuring our own.</p> + +<p>The whole north of Germany is a flat, barren plain, with the Elbe, the +Oder, the Weser flowing west and north. The north of Germany on a +raised map looks like a vast sea-shore, and so it is. To the south a +great river, the Rhine, pierces its way from Frankfort through a +beautiful gorge in the mountains, and has its source near that of the +Danube. Barbarossa called this river, “that royal street.” This sea-shore +is cultivated and populous; this river has been made a great +commercial highway. Cologne, one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, +is now a seaport; Strasburg, three hundred miles inland, can receive +boats of six hundred tons; and the tributary river, the Main, has been +deepened so that now Frankfort receives steamers from the Rhine. Three +quarters of the through trade of Holland is German water-borne trade. +Now the Dortmund-Ems canal, which is one hundred and sixty-eight miles +long, and can be used by ships of a thousand tons, gives an outlet, +via the Rhine, at Emden. All this is the work of a patient, +persistent, and economical people working under great natural +disadvantages.</p> + +<p>As compared with America this is an unfruitful land, and, as I have +noted, surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies. In 1902 Traugott +Müller estimated the value of Germany’s production of wheat, potatoes, +vegetables-the products of the gardens and the fields, in short-at +$605,000,000; the production of beef, mutton, pork at $669,500,000; of +the dairies at $406,000,000; of cotton, sugar, alcohol, wine, and wood +at $322,000,000; or a total of $2,002,000,000. The United States is +seventeen times as large, but by no means seventeen times as +productive.</p> + +<p>Germany, again, is divided into a number of states, all, with the +exception of Prussia, with its population of 40,000,000 out of the +total of 65,000,000, comparatively small. These states are not merely +divided by legal and geographical lines, but by traditions, different +ruling families, religion, tastes, habits, and manners, and even +geologically. Bernhard Cotta, writing of Germany, says: “Geologically +there is a Spain, an England, a Sweden, a Russia, a France, but no +Germany.” They are different individuals, not different members of the +same family. They have been cemented together by coercion.</p> + +<p>Over this whole country for three hundred years have swept all the +fighting men of Europe. Until 1870 it was a tournament ground for the +Swedes, Russians, French, Dutch, Belgians, Italians, Hungarians, +English, and the various German states. It was shot over, till it is a +wonder that there are any young birds, not to speak of old cocks and +hens left, to begin with over again.</p> + +<p>A feature of the political situation, which scarcely enters into +political calculations in America, is the sharp division between +Protestants and Catholics, with a political party of Catholics +numbering one fourth of the total members, in the Reichstag. In 1905 +there were 37,646,852 Protestants and 22,109,644 Catholics in Germany, +the Roman Catholics being in a majority in Baden, Bavaria, and Alsace-Lorraine. +In the past these religious differences have entailed all +the most repulsive features of war, waged to the point of +extermination. “Lieber Rom als Liberal,” is still a punning war-cry +marking the dislike of Rome and the fear of Socialism.</p> + +<p>With us religion has become largely an organized attempt, using +charity as patronage, to reconcile piety and plenty, with the result +that with the exception of the Catholic Church dealing with the lately +arrived immigrants, and the Methodists and Baptists dealing with the +ignorant masses, black and white, in the South, religion in the sense +of an organized church has little hold upon the people, especially in +the large cities.</p> + +<p>In America the indifference to religion is the result of suspicion. +The congregations are too largely black-coated and white-collared, and +the lay officers of the churches much too solemnly sleek and serenely +solvent to attract the weak, the unfortunate, the sorrowing, and the +sinner. The mere appearance of the congregation in a prosperous +Protestant church in an American city is a mockery of Christianity. +Any man who preaches to men who can own a seat in God’s house is a +craven opportunist. Until the doors of the churches are open all the +week, and the seats in the churches free, to claim that the Christ is +there is little short of blasphemy. It is no wonder that those who +need Him most, never dream of seeking for Him in these ecclesiastical +clubs.</p> + +<p>In Germany half-baked thinking, following upon, and as the result of, +the barracks and corporal methods of education, have turned the +Protestant population from the churches. The slovenly and patchy +omniscience of the partly educated, leads them to believe that they +know enough not to believe. Renan, though a doubter himself, saw the +weakness of this form of disbelief when he wrote: “There are in +reality but few people who have a right not to believe in +Christianity.”</p> + +<p>The people living upon this ethnographical chess-board have been for +centuries rather tribal than national, and are still rather +philosophical than political, rather idealistic than practical, rather +dreamy than adventurous. To organize this population for self-support +and self-defence, to ignore differences, racial and religious, to +stamp out the jealousies of small rulers, required severe measures, +and we are all learning to-day that democracies are seldom severe with +themselves. A tyrannical autocracy, led by the Great Elector, +Frederick the Great, and Bismarck, produced from this welter of +discord the astonishing results of to-day.</p> + +<p>We have to-day, in an area of 208,780 square miles, 5,604 square miles +representing the lately conquered territory of Alsace-Lorraine, a +population of 64,903,423, of whom 1,028,560 are subjects of foreign +powers. To defend this area there are to be, according to figures +estimated even as this volume goes to press, a million men under arms +in the army and navy. Their enormous progress in trade, in industry, +in shipbuilding, is set out in full in every year-book, for the +curious to ponder. In so short a time, on so poor a soil, in such a +restricted space, with such a past of distress and disaster, and +dealing with such conflicting interests, a like success in nation-building +is unparalleled.</p> + +<p>Industrial and martial beehive though it would seem to be, there are +provided for the native and the foreigner feasts of music, of art, and +of study that cost little. There are quiet streams, lovely, lonely +walks, and quaint towns that are nests of archaeological interest. In +Weimar, in Stuttgart, in Schwerin, in Düsseldorf, in Karlsruhe, not to +mention Munich, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg, there +are centres of culture. The best that the mind of man creates is still +spread out there as of yore for whomsoever will to partake, but ever +in less abundance and with less enthusiasm. And these names are a mere +fraction of the number of such places.</p> + +<p>The rivalries between the states is now to a large extent an elevating +rivalry of culture, dotting the map of Germany with resting-places for +the curious, the scholarly, or the sentimental traveller. You may have +plain living and high thinking in scores of the cities and towns of +Germany, and you will be considered neither an outcast nor an +eccentric; indeed, you will find no small part of the population your +companions.</p> + +<p>You may stroll for miles on the banks of that tiny stream the +Zschopau, and expect to see sprites and nymphs, so hidden are its +windings; and where in all the world will a handkerchief cover an Ulm, +an Augsburg, a Rothenburg, Ansbach, Nuremberg, Würzburg, with their +wealth of associations?</p> + +<p>The Fugger family, of Augsburg, tell us again that there is nothing +new in the world. Five hundred years ago they were millionaires. One +of these Fuggers had a voice even in the election of Charles V, and we +are still hard at it trying to keep our Fuggers from meddling in +politics. Another Fugger, Marcus by name, wrote a capital book on the +horse in the sixteenth century, and at the last horse-show at Olympia, +in 1912, a Fugger came over from Germany and took away the first prize +for officers’ chargers. So far flung was their fame as money-lenders +that usury was called “Fuggerei”!</p> + +<p>Heirs of great houses got out of hand then as now, and Duke Albert III +of Bavaria married Agnes Bernauer, the barber’s daughter, and even the +Archduke Ferdinand of Austria ran off with Fräulein Welser. One +citizen of Augsburg fitted out a squadron to take possession of +Venezuela, which had been given him by the Emperor Charles V. For some +reason the squadron did not sail; Lord Salisbury and President +Cleveland could have told this adventurous Augsburger that he was +better off at home!</p> + +<p>Bishop Boniface, of Würzburg, was an Englishman, and his father was a +wheelwright. He put cart-wheels in his coat-of-arms, and they have +remained to this day in the arms of the town, a fine reminder to +snobbery that ancestry only explains, it cannot exalt.</p> + +<blockquote>“Pigmies are pigmies still, though perch’d on Alps,<br /> +And pyramids are pyramids in vales.”</blockquote> + +<p>The atmosphere in these towns is one of repose. They are still wise +enough to know that the miraculous improvements in speed brought about +by steam and electricity have not shortened the journey of the soul to +heaven by one second. They know that Socrates on a donkey really goes +faster than Solly Goldberg in his sixty-horse-power motor-car. They +are suspicious of the new cosmopolitan creed, that successful +advertising endows a man with eternal life. Countless political quacks +have been caricatured, advertised, and cinematographed into +familiarity, but wise men still read Plato and Aristotle. The penny +press has not convinced them that popularity is immortality; they +recognize popularity as merely glory paid in pennies. They partake to +some extent of the patience of the Oriental. They suspect, as most men +of wide intellectual experience do, that the man who cannot wait must +be a coward at bottom, afraid of himself, or of the world, or of God.</p> + +<p>This is wholly true of many Germans, despite the clang of arms, the +noise of steam-hammers, the shrieking locomotives, the puffing +steamers, the clinking of their gold, and the shouting of their +pedlers, now scattered all over the world. It is this combination, in +the same small area, of noise and repose; of political subserviency at +home and sabre-rattling abroad; of close organization at home and +colonizing inefficiency abroad; of moral and intellectual freedom, one +might almost call it moral and intellectual anarchy these days, and at +the same time submission to a domestic and social tyranny unknown to +us, that makes even a timid author feel that he is discovering the +Germans to his countrymen, so little do they know of this side of +German life.</p> + +<p>They are not at all what the Americans and the English +think they are. They want peace, and we think they want war. The huge +armaments are intended to frighten us, just as were the grotesquely +ugly masks of the Chinese warriors. They intend to frighten us all +with their 850,000 soldiers, their great fleet, their air-ships and +aeroplanes, and when they go to Agadir again they hope to be able to +stay there till their demands are granted. They are the last comers +into the society of nations and they mean to insist upon recognition. +But this demand is an artificial one so far as the great mass of +Germans is concerned. It is the Prussian conqueror, and the small +class, officer, official and royal, representing that conqueror, who +are determined upon this course. They have unified Germany, they have +made the laws and forced obedience to them; and the heavily taxed, +hard-driven, politically powerless people are helpless.</p> + +<p>Nowhere has socialistic legislation been so cunningly and skilfully +used for the enslavement of the people. No small part of every man’s +wages is paid to him in insurance; insurance for unemployment, for +accident, sickness, and old age. There is but faint hope of saving +enough to buy one’s freedom, and if the slave runs away he leaves, of +course, all the premiums he has paid in the hands of his master. A +general uprising is guarded against by a redoubtable force of +officials, officers, and soldiers, whose very existence depends upon +their defence of and upholding of the state under its present laws and +rulers.</p> + +<p>Our grandfathers and fathers, some of them, talked and read of Saint-Simon, +of Fourier, Robert Owen, Maurice Kingsley, and the Brook Farm +experiment, and believed, no doubt, that the dawn of the twentieth +century would have extracted at least some balm from these theories +for the healing of our social woes. They would rub their eyes in +amazement were they to awake in 1912 to find more armed men, more +ships of war, more fighting, more strikes and trade disputes, than +ever before. Above all, they would be puzzled to find the nation which +is most advanced in the application of the theory of state socialism +with the largest army, the heaviest taxation, and the second most +formidable fleet.</p> + +<p>The library in which, as a small boy, I was permitted to browse, where +I read those wonderful <i>Black Forest Stories</i> and my first serious +novel, <i>On the Heights</i>, contained a bust of Goethe, and on the shelves +were Fichte, Freytag, Spielhagen, Strauss, and a miscellaneous +collection of German authors grave and gay, or perhaps melancholy were +a better word, for even now I should find it hard to point to a German +author who is distinctively gay. No visitor to that library, and they +numbered many distinguished visitors, American and foreign, from +Emerson and Alcott and George Macdonald to others less well known, +dreamed that the serene marble features of Goethe would be replaced by +the granite fissures of the face of Bismarck; and that Auerbach’s +<i>Black Forest Stories</i> would be less known than Albert Ballin’s fleet of +mercantile ships. As I dream myself back to that big chair wherein I +could curl up my whole person, and still leave room for at least two +fair-sized dogs, I see as in no other way the almost unbelievable +change that has come over Germany. The <i>Black Forest Stories</i>, <i>Hammer +and Anvil</i>, <i>The Lost Manuscript</i>, Werther, Fichte, Kant, Hegel, +Schopenhauer, Strauss, Heine were Germany then; Bismarck, Ballin, and +Krupp are Germany now. Germany was Hamlet then; Germany is Shylock, +Shylock armed to the teeth, now.</p> + +<p>No nation can change in one generation, as has Germany, by the natural +development of its innate characteristics; such a change must be +forced and artificial to take place in so short a time. This is not +only the internal danger to Germany itself, but the danger to all +those superficial observers who point to Germany as having solved +certain social and economic problems. She has not solved them by +healthy growth into better ways; she has suppressed them, strangled +them, suffocated them.</p> + +<p>The heroes and heroines of my <i>Black Forest Stories</i> have been rudely +stuffed into the uniforms of officials, soldiers, factory hands, and +Red Cross nurses. The toy-shops have been developed, on borrowed +capital, into ship-building yards and factories for guns and +ammunition. The dreamer in dressing-gown and slippers has been forced +into the cap and apron of the workman. The small sovereigns have been +frightened into allegiance to the war lord, whose shadow falls upon +every corner of Germany.</p> + +<p>In this new scheme of things it soon became evident, that the +individual was incompetent to take care of himself along lines best +suited to the plans of his new conqueror, therefore part of his +earnings were taken from all alike to provide against accident, +sickness, unemployment, and old age, and thus bind him fast to the +chariot of his warrior lord. Germany, having given up the belief that +the salvation of her own soul was of prime importance, became +suspiciously concerned about the souls and bodies of the people. We +are all to some extent following her example. The wise among us are +sad, the capitalist and his ally the demagogue are seen everywhere all +smiles, rubbing their hands, for the more people are made to believe +that they can be, and ought to be, taken care of, the more the +machinery is put into their hands, the more plunder comes their way, +the more indispensable they are.</p> + +<p>The great majority of people who write or speak of Germany applaud +this situation; let me frankly say, what everybody will be saying in +twenty-five years, I deplore it. It is a purely artificial, +incompetent, and dreary solution. Even Hamlet were better than +Shylock.</p> + +<p>Fortunately there is also a large and increasing class in Germany who +distrust the situation. They point to the fact that technical +education is producing an army of dingy artisans, who turn out the +cheap and nasty by the million, an education which chokes idealism and +increases the growing flippancy in matters of faith and morals; they +sneer, and well they may, at the manufactured art, the carpenter’s +Gothic architecture, the sickly literature, the decaying interest in +scholarship; they find fewer and fewer candidates for exploration and +colonization; they rankle under the series of diplomatic ineptitudes +since Bismarck; they see France, Russia, and England antagonized and +leagued against them, and their own allies, Austria-Hungary and Italy, +in a confused state of squabble with their neighbors; they are nervous +and disquieted by the financial and industrial conditions; they +condemn whole-heartedly the political caste system by which much of +the best material in Germany is barred from the councils and the +diplomatic and executive activities of the nation; there are not a few +who would welcome an inconclusive war that would, they think, put an +end to this system, and make the ruler and the officials responsible +to the people; they wish to open the doors of this governmental, +legislative, educational, industrial hot-house, and give the nation a +chance to grow naturally in the open air.</p> + +<p>The policy of making other people afraid of you must have an end, the +policy of making others respect and like you can have no end. There is +no question which is the natural law of national development. Neither +for the individual nor for a nation is it wholesome to increase +antagonisms and to lessen the conciliatory points of contact with the +world.</p> + +<p>Many of the weaknesses, much of the strength of Germany are +artificial. They have not grown, they have been forced. The very +barrenness of the soil, the ring of enemies, the soft moral and social +texture of the population, have, so their little knot of rulers think, +made necessary these harsh, artificial forcing methods.</p> + +<p>The outstanding proof of the artificiality of this civilization is its +powerlessness to propagate. Germans transplanted from their hothouse +civilization to other countries cease to be Germans; and nowhere in +the world outside Germany is German civilization imitated, liked, or +adopted. The German is nonplussed to find the Pole in the East, the +Frenchman in the West, the Dane in the North, scoffing at his <i>alte +Kultur</i>, as he calls it, and he is irritated beyond measure by the +German from America, who returns to the <i>Vaterland</i> to criticise, to +sneer, and to thank God that he is an American, not a German citizen. +Germans become English citizens, no Englishmen become Germans; +millions of Germans have become Americans, no Americans become +Germans. No other population would be amenable to the Prussian methods +that have made Germany, nor is there anywhere in the world a people +demanding Prussian methods, while there are millions under the +Prussian yoke who hate it.</p> + +<p>The German rhetoric to the effect that Germany is to save the world by +Teutonizing the world, is laughable. Prussia is the ventriloquist +behind this half-hearted boast.</p> + +<p>Werther, and Faust, and Lohengrin, are far more real than those +scarecrows autocracy, bureaucracy, and militarism, triplets of straw, +premature births, not destined to live, of which Germany boasts to-day +as the most precocious children in the world. They are just that, +precocious children, teaching the pallid religion of dependence upon +the state and enforcing the anarchical morality of man’s despair of +himself. Our descendants will have Werther and Faust and Lohengrin, as +the companions of their dreams at least, when that autocracy shall +have been blown to the winds, when that bureaucracy shall have dried +up and wasted away, when that exaggerated militarism shall be but +bleaching bones and dust.</p> + +<p>Who has not lived in Germany as a house of dreams, seen the Valkyrie +race by, heard the swan song, wept with Werther and with Marguerite, +smiled cynically with Mephistopheles, languished with the Palm Tree +and the Pine of Heine; who has not sat at the feet of Germany as a +philosopher, and traced the very fissures of his own brain in +following thinking into thought; but who in all the world longs for +this new Germany of the barracks, the corporal and the pedler? +<i>Germania</i> as a malicious vestal clad in horrid armor and making +mischief in the world is a very present danger; <i>Germania</i> with a torch +lighting the world to salvation is a phantom, a ghost, seen by hasty +and nervous observers, who rush out to proclaim an adventure that may +excite a passing interest in themselves. Her methods to-day are +solution by suffocation; no wonder those of us who loved her in our +youth see in her a ghost to-day. I am thankful that I was her pupil +when she had other things to teach, when she wore other robes, when +she was modest, and not snatching at the trident of Neptune, nor +clutching at the casque of Mars.</p> + +<p>“Wir wissen zu viel, wir wollen zu wenig,” became the national +complaint, and Germany has attempted to transform herself. She has +succeeded in the transformation, but the transformation is not a +success. Even that learned English friend of Germany, Lord Haldane, +does not see, or will not see, that a people thinking themselves into +action, instead of developing into action naturally, through action, +must suffer from the artificiality of the process. Lord Haldane +applauds their thought-out organization in industrial, commercial, and +military matters, but he fails to mention the squandering of +individual capacity and energy that has resulted in Germany’s growing +dependence upon a wooden bureaucracy. Organization is only good as a +means; it is stupefying as an end. Germany has organized herself into +an organization, and is the most over-governed country in the world. +What every democracy of free men wants is not as much, but as little, +organization as possible compatible with economical administration of +industry, the army, the navy, and the affairs of the state. You can +think out a game of chess, but you cannot think out life ahead of the +living of it without cramping it and finally killing it. Life is to +live, not to think, after all. Neither a nation nor an individual has +ever thought out the way to power. This is where the metaphysician +invariably fails when he mistakes thinking for living, when he +mistakes organization, which can never be more than a mould for life, +for life itself. To plan an army is not to produce one, however good +the plan; even to plan a campaign, once you have an army, is to court +disaster unless there is a living man to thrust the plan aside when +the emergencies arise that make up the whole of life, but have nothing +to do with organization.</p> + +<p>If all men were tailors, or lawyers, or farmers, or miners, then we +could think out an organization into which they would fit, but +unfortunately for the metaphysician, all men are not categories; all +men are men! In like manner, if all men were cases, then government by +lawyers would be successful, but men and women are neither categories +nor cases. It is purely fantastic, the mere reasoned confusion of the +philosopher, to point to Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel and their successors +as the originators of Germany’s progress. If Germany had developed +along those lines, she would be something quite different from what +she is. The Great Elector, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Bismarck +made Germany, and her philosophers and pedants are only responsible +for the softness that made it possible. Metaphysicians and lawyers +have their place, but they will inevitably ruin any people whom they +are permitted to govern.</p> + +<p>The reader will perhaps look back through these pages to discover a +contradiction. He will seem to find evidence that Germany’s position +in the world called for just this present Germany, which is a factory +town with a garden attached, surrounded by an armed camp. I deny the +contradiction. I have tried to analyze and to give the reasons for +Germany’s development along these meretricious and disappointing +lines, but I am the last to admit that the outcome is satisfactory, or +that the rest of the world should look to Germany to point out the way +of salvation. A steaming orchid-house is not the place to go to learn +to grow the fruits of the earth in their due season for the +nourishment of a free people. You will find some brilliantly colored +flowers there, in the gay uniforms of the artificial tropics, but they +shrink and shrivel in the open air. They have been trained to grow +luxuriantly in this stifling atmosphere, but they feed no one, please +no one, who will not consent to live in a glass house with them.</p> + +<p>Because a people is blindfolded, its preachers and pedagogues gagged, +its officials subservient, is all the more reason why they should be +easily led, but no reason at all for supposing that they will lead +anybody else.</p> + +<p>I have said here and there that I have learned much, and that we all +have much to learn from Germany. I permit myself to repeat it. She has +shown us that the short-cut to the governing of a people by +suppression and strangulation results in a dreary development of +mediocrity. She has proved again that the only safety in the world for +either an individual or a nation is to be loved and respected, and in +these days no one respects slavery or loves threats.</p> + +<p>From an American point of view, any sacrifice, any war, were better +than the domination of the Prussian methods of nation-making. No +nation should be by its traditions and its ideals more ready to arm +itself, and to keep itself armed if necessary for years, against the +possibility of the transference of such methods to the American +continent than the United States of North America.</p> + +<blockquote>“Theuer ist mir der Freund, doch auch den Feind kann ich nützen,”<br /> +Zeigt mir der Freund, was ich kann, lehrt mir der Feind was ich soll,”</blockquote> + +<p class="follow">writes Schiller.</p> + +<p>We Americans have much to learn from both our friends and our enemies. +We have both in Germany, and we should cultivate the temper of mind +which profits by the encouragement of our friends and the criticism of +our foes.</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Germany and the Germans, by Price Collier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE GERMANS *** + +***** This file should be named 19036-h.htm or 19036-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/3/19036/ + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Germany and the Germans + From an American Point of View (1913) + +Author: Price Collier + +Release Date: August 12, 2006 [EBook #19036] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE GERMANS *** + + + + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao + + + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS + +FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + +BY PRICE COLLIER + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK 1913 + + + +Copyright, 1913, by Charles Scribner's Sons + +Published May, 1913 + + + +To MY WIFE KATHARINE whose deserving far outstrips my giving + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + +INTRODUCTION + +I. THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY + +II. FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK + +III. THE INDISCREET + +IV. GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS + +V. BERLIN + +VI. "A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS" + +VII. THE DISTAFF SIDE + +VIII. "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND" + +IX. GERMAN PROBLEMS + +X. "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE" + +XI. CONCLUSION + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The first printed suggestion that America should be called America +came from a German. Martin Waldseemueller, of Freiburg, in his +Cosmographiae Introductio, published in 1507, wrote: "I do not see why +any one may justly forbid it to be named after Americus, its +discoverer, a man of sagacious mind, Amerige, that is the land of +Americus or America, since both Europe and Asia derived their names +from women." + +The first complete ship-load of Germans left Gravesend July the 24th, +1683, and arrived in Philadelphia October the 6th, 1683. They settled +in Germantown, or, as it was then called, on account of the poverty of +the settlers, Armentown. + +Up to within the last few years the majority of our settlers have been +Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. The English, Dutch, +Swedes, Germans, Scotch-Irish, who settled in America, were all, less +than two thousand years ago, one Germanic race from the country +surrounding the North Sea. + +Since 1820 more than 5,200,000 Germans have settled in America. This +immigration of Germans has practically ceased, and it is a serious +loss to America, for it has been replaced by a much less desirable +type of settler. In 1882 western Europe sent us 563,174 settlers, or +87 per cent., while southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey +sent 83,637, or 13 per cent. In 1905 western Europe sent 215,863, or +21.7 per cent., and southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey, +808,856, or 78.9 per cent. of our new population. In 1910 there were +8,282,618 white persons of German origin in the United States; +2,501,181 were born in Germany; 3,911,847 were born in the United +States, both of whose parents were born in Germany; 1,869,590 were +born in the United States, one parent born in the United States and +one in Germany. + +Not only have we been enriched by this mass of sober and industrious +people in the past, but Peter Muehlenberg, Christopher Ludwig, Steuben, +John Kalb, George Herkimer, and later Francis Lieber, Carl Schurz, +Sigel, Osterhaus, Abraham Jacobi, Herman Ridder, Oswald Ottendorfer, +Adolphus Busch, Isidor, Nathan, and Oscar Straus, Jacob Schiff, Otto +Kahn, Frederick Weyerheuser, Charles P. Steinmetz, Claus Spreckels, +Hugo Muensterberg, and a catalogue of others, have been leaders in +finance, in industry, in war, in politics, in educational and +philanthropic enterprises, and in patriotism. + +The framework of our republican institutions, as I have tried to +outline in this volume, came from the "Woods of Germany." Professor H. +A. L. Fisher, of Oxford, writes: "European republicanism, which ever +since the French Revolution has been in the main a phenomenon of the +Latin races, was a creature of Teutonic civilization in the age of the +sea-beggars and the Roundheads. The half-Latin city of Geneva was the +source of that stream of democratic opinion in church and state, +which, flowing to England under Queen Elizabeth, was repelled by +persecution to Holland, and thence directed to the continent of North +America." + +In these later days Goethe, in a letter to Eckermann, prophesied the +building of the Panama Canal by the Americans, and also the prodigious +growth of the United States toward the West. + +In a private collection in New York, is an autograph letter of George +Washington to Frederick the Great, asking that Frederick should use +his influence to protect that French friend of America, Lafayette. + +In Schiller's house in Weimar there still hangs an engraving of the +battle of Bunker Hill, by Mueller, a German, and a friend of the poet. + +Bismarck's intimate friend as a student at Goettingen, and the man of +whom he spoke with warm affection all his life, was the American +historian Motley. + +The German soldiers in our Civil War were numbered by the thousands. +We have many ties with Germany, quite enough, indeed, to make a bare +enumeration of them a sufficient introduction to this volume. + +On more than one occasion of late I have been introduced in places, +and to persons where a slight picture of what I was to meet when the +doors were thrown open was of great help to me. I was told beforehand +something of the history, traditions, the forms and ceremonies, and +even something of the weaknesses and peculiarities of the society, the +persons, and the personages. I am not so wise a guide as some of my +sponsors have been, but it is something of the kind that I have wished +and planned to do for my countrymen. I have tried to make this book, +not a guidebook, certainly not a history; rather, in the words of +Bacon, "grains of salt, which will rather give an appetite than offend +with satiety," a sketch, in short, of what is on the other side of the +great doors when the announcer speaks your name and you enter Germany. + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS + +FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + + + +GERMANY AND THE GERMANS FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW + +I THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY + + +Eighty-one years before the discovery of America, seventy-two years +before Luther was born, and forty-one years before the discovery of +printing, in the year 1411, the Emperor Sigismund, the betrayer of +Huss, transferred the Mark of Brandenburg to his faithful vassal and +cousin, Frederick, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg. Nuremberg was at one +time one of the great trading towns between Germany, Venice, and the +East, and the home later of Hans Sachs. Frederick was the lineal +descendant of Conrad of Hohenzollern, the first Burgrave of Nuremberg, +who lived in the days of Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1189); and this +Conrad is the twenty-fifth lineal ancestor of Emperor William II of +Germany. It is interesting to remember in this connection that when we +count back our progenitors to the twenty-first generation they number +something over two millions. When we trace an ancestry so far, +therefore, we must know something of the multitude from which the +individual is descended, if we are to gather anything of value +concerning his racial characteristics. The solace of all genealogical +investigation is the infallible discovery, that the greatest among us +began in a small way. + +If you paddle up the Elbe and the Havel from Hamburg to Potsdam, you +will find yourself in the territory conquered from the heathen Wends +in the days of Henry I, the Fowler (918-935), which was the cradle of +what is now the German Empire. + +The Emperor Sigismund, who was often embarrassed financially by reason +of his wars and journeyings had borrowed some four hundred thousand +gold florins from Frederick, and it was in settlement of this debt +that he mortgaged the territory of Brandenburg, and on the 8th of +April, 1417, the ceremony of enfeoffment was performed at Constance, +by which the House of Hohenzollern became possessed of this territory, +and was thereafter included among the great electorates having a vote +in the election of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. + +It was Henricus Auceps, or Henry the Fowler, (so called because the +envoys sent to offer him the crown, found him on his estates in the +Hartz Mountains among his falcons), who fought off the Danes in the +northwest, and the Slavonians, or Wends, in the northeast, and the +Hungarians in the southeast, and established frontier posts or marks +for permanent protection against their ravages. These marks, or +marches, which were boundary lines, were governed by markgrafs or +marquises, and finally gave the name of marks to the territory itself. +The word is historically familiar from its still later use in noting +the old boundaries between England and Scotland, and England and +Wales, which are still called marks. + +Henry the Fowler was also called Henry "the City Builder." After the +death of the last of the Charlemagne line of rulers, the Franks +elected Conrad, Duke of Franconia, to succeed to the throne, and he on +his death-bed advised his people to choose Henry of Saxony to succeed, +for the times were stormy and the country needed a strong ruler. The +Hungarians in the southeast, and the Wends, the old Slavonic +population of Poland, were pillaging and harrying more and more +successfully, and the more successfully the more impudently. Henry +began the building of strong-walled, deep-moated cities along his +frontier, and made one, drawn by lot, out of every ten families of the +countryside, go to live in these fortified towns. Their rulers were +burgraves, or city counts. Titles now so largely ornamental were then +descriptive of duties and responsibilities. + +In the light of their future greatness, it is well to take note of +these two frontier counties, or marches. The first, called the +Northern March, or March of Brandenburg, was the religious centre of +the Slays, and was situated in the midst of forests and marshes just +beyond the Elbe. This March of Brandenburg was won from the Slays in +the first instance by the Saxons and Franks of the Saxon plain. When +the burgrave, Frederick of Hohenzollern, came to take possession of +his new territory he was received with the jesting remark: "Were it to +rain burgraves for a whole year, we should not allow them to grow in +the march." But Frederick's soldiers and money, and his Nuremberg +jewels, as his cannon were called, ended by gaining complete control, +a control in more powerful hands to-day than ever before. + +The second, called the Eastern or Austrian March, was situated in the +basin of the Danube. These two great states were formed in lands that +had ceased to be German and had become Slav or Finnish territory. The +fighting appetite of the German tribes, and the spirit of chivalry +later, which had drawn men in other days in France to the East, in +Spain against the Moors, in Normandy against England, were offered an +opportunity and an outlet in Germany, by forays and fighting against +the Finns and Slays. + +Out of the conquest and settlement of these territories grew, what we +know to-day, as the German Empire and the Austrian Empire. Out of +their margraves, who were at first sentinel officers guarding the +outer boundaries of the empire, and mere nominees of the Emperor, have +developed the Emperor of Germany and the Emperor of Austria, the one +ruling over the most powerful nation, the other the head of the most +exclusive court, in Europe. + +When a man becomes a power in the world, these days, our first impulse +is to ask about his ancestry. Who were his father and his mother; what +and who were his grandfathers and grandmothers, and who were their +forebears. Where did they come from, what was the climate; did they +live by the sea, or in the mountains, or in the plains. We are at once +hot on the trail of his success. Be he an American, we wish to know +whether his people came from Holland, from France, from England, or +from Belgium; where did they settle, in New England, in New York, or +in the South. We no longer accept ability as a miracle, but +investigate it as an evolution. If the man be great enough, cities vie +with each other to claim him as their child; he acquires an Homeric +versatility in cradles. + +Whatever one may think of William II of Germany, he is just now the +predominating figure in Europe, if not in the world. This must be our +excuse for a word or two concerning the race from which came his +twenty-fifth lineal ancestor. + +It is exactly five hundred years since his present empire was founded +in the sandy plains about the Elbe, and a thousand years before that +brings us to the dim dawn of any historical knowledge whatever about +the Germans. When the Cimbrians and Teutonians came into contact with +the Romans, in 113 B. C., is the beginning of all things for these +people. In that year the inhabitants of the north of Italy awoke one +morning to find a swarm of blue-eyed, light-haired, long-limbed +strangers coming down from the Alps upon them. The younger and more +light-hearted warriors came tobogganing down the snow-covered +mountain-sides on their shields. They had been crowded out of what is +now Switzerland, and called themselves, though they were much alike in +appearance, the Cimbri and the Teutones. They defeated the Roman +armies sent against them, and, turning to the south and west, went on +their way along the north shores of the Mediterranean into what is now +France. They had no history of their own. Tacitus writes that they +could neither read nor write: "Literarum secreta viri pariter ac +feminae ignorant." Very little is to be found concerning them in the +Roman writers. The books of Pliny which treated of this time are lost. +It was toward the middle of the century before Christ that Caesar +advanced to the frontier of what may be called Germany. He met and +conquered there these men of the blood who were to conquer Rome, and +to carry on the name under the title of the Holy Roman Empire. Caesar +met the ancestors of those who were to be Caesars, and with an eye on +Roman politics, wrote the "Commentaries," which were really +autobiographical messages, with the Germans as a text and an excuse. + +Tacitus, born just about one hundred years after the death of Caesar, +and who had access to the lost works of Pliny, was a moralist +historian and a warm friend of the Germans. Over their shoulders he +rapped the manners and morals of his own countrymen. "Vice is not +treated by the Germans" (German, the etymologists say, is composed of +Ger, meaning spear or lance, and Man, meaning chief or lord; Deutsch, +or Teutsch, comes from the Gothic word Thiudu, meaning nation, and a +Deutscher, or Teutscher, meant one belonging to the nation), he tells +his countrymen, "as a subject of raillery, nor is the profligacy of +corrupting and being corrupted called the fashion of the age." With +Rooseveltian enthusiasm he writes that the Germans consider it a crime +"to set limits to population, by rearing up only a certain number of +children and destroying the rest." + +The republicanism of Europe and America had its roots in this Teutonic +civilization. "No man dictates to the assembly; he may persuade but +cannot command. When anything is advanced not agreeable to the people, +they reject it with a general murmur. If the proposition pleases, they +brandish their javelins. This is their highest and most honorable mark +of applause; they assent in a military manner, and praise by the sound +of their arms," continues our author. + +The great historian of the Roman historians, and of Rome, Gibbon, +lends his authority to this praise of Tacitus in the sentence: "The +most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of +Germany; and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still +distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners." + +Rome, which was not only a city, a nation, an empire, but a religion; +Rome, which replied to a suggestion that the people of Latium should +be admitted to citizenship, "Thou hast heard, O Jupiter, the impious +words that have come from this man's mouth. Canst thou tolerate, O +Jupiter, that a foreigner should come to sit in the sacred temple as a +senator, as a consul?" Rome welcomed later the barbarians from the +woods of Germany not only as citizens and consuls, but as emperors; +and their descendants rule the world. + +It was no Capuan training that finally distilled itself in a +Charlemagne, an Otho, a Luther, a Frederick the Great, and a Bismarck; +in an Alfred, a William the Conqueror, a Cromwell, a Clive, a Rhodes, +or a Gordon; in a Washington, a Lincoln, a Grant, a Jackson, and a +Lee. + +Beyond the certified beyond, we see dimly through the mists of +history, hosts of men marching, ever marching from the east, spreading +some toward Norway and Sweden, some skirting the Baltic Sea to the +south; driving their cattle before them, and learning the arts of +peace and war, and self-government, from the harsh school-masters of +pressing needs and tyrannical circumstances, the only teachers that +confer degrees of permanent value. They become fishermen and small +landholders in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. "Jeudi," or Jupiter's day, +becomes their god Thor's day, or Thursday; "Mardi," or Mars's day, is +their Tiu's day, or Tuesday; "Mercredi," or Mercury's day, is Odin's +or Woden's day, or Wednesday. + +These men trained to solitude in small bands, owing to the +geographical exigencies of their northern country, become the founders +of the particularist or individualistic nations, Great Britain and the +United States among others. Those who had gone south, driven by +pressure from behind, follow the Danube to the north and west, find +the Rhine, and push on into what is now southwestern Europe. + +It is worth noting that the Rhine and the Danube have their sources +near together, and form a line of water from the North Sea to the +Black Sea, a significant line in Europe from the beginning down to +this day. This line of water divides not only lands but nations, +manners, customs, and even speech, and what we call the North, and +what we call the South, may be said to be, with negligible exceptions, +what is north and what is south of those two rivers. It is and always +has been the Mason and Dixon's line of Europe. + +All of these peoples mould their institutions, from the habits and +customs forced upon them by their surroundings. The members of the +tribe of the Suevi, now Swabians, were not allowed to hold fixed +landed possessions, but were forced to exchange with each other from +time to time, so that no one should become wedded to the soil and grow +rich thereby. Readers of history will remember, that Lycurgus +attempted similar legislation among the Spartans, hoping thus to keep +them simple and hardy, and fit for war. + +How many hundreds of years, these various tribes were working out +their rude political and domestic laws, no man knows. The imaginative +historian pushes his way through the mists, and sees that the tribes +who lived in the Scandinavian peninsula were forced by their cramped +territory to become fishermen and sailors, and cultivators of small +areas of land, accustomed therefore to rule themselves in small +groups, and hence independent and markedly individualist. Such +historians divide even these rude tribes sharply between the +patriarchal and the particularist. The particularist commune developed +from the estate which was self-sufficient, isolated, and independent. +When they were associated together it was for special and limited +purposes, so that independence might be infringed upon to the least +possible extent. The patriarchal commune, on the other hand, proceeded +from the communal family which provided everything for everybody. It +was a general and compulsory partnership, monopolizing every kind of +business that might arise. The particularist group then, and their +moral and political descendants now, strive to organize public +authority, and public life in such a way, that they are distinctly +subordinate to private and individual independence. In the one the +Emperor is the father of the family -- the Russian Emperor is still +called "Little Father" -- the independence of each member of the family +is swallowed up in the complete authority of the head of the national +family; in the other the president, or constitutional king, is the +executive servant of independent citizens, to whom he owes as much +allegiance as they owe to him. + +In Saxony, to-day, more than ninety per cent. of the agricultural +population are independent peasant proprietors, and the most admirable +and successful agriculturists in the world. It is said indeed that the +Curia Regis, which is the Latinized form of the Witenagemote, or +assembly of wise men, of the Norman and Angevin kings, is the +foundation of the common law of England, and the common law of England +is the law of more than half of the civilized world. + +Whatever the varieties and distinctions of government anywhere in the +world, these two differences are the fundamental and basic +differences, upon which all forms of government have been built up and +developed. + +In the one, everything so far as possible is begun and carried on by +individual initiative; in the other the state gradually takes control +of all enterprise. The philosophy of the one is based upon the saying: +love one another; the political philosophy of the other is based upon +the assumption that men are not brethren, but beasts and mechanical +toys, who can only be governed by legislation and the police. The +ideal of the one is the good Samaritan, the ideal of the other is the +tax-collector. The one depends upon the wine and oil of sympathy and +human brotherhood; the other claims that the right to an iron bed in a +hospital, and the services of a state-paid and indifferent physician, +are "refreshing fruit," as though sympathy and consideration, which +are what our weaker brethren most need, could be distilled from taxes! + +It is claimed for these Teutonic tribes, that those of them which +drifted down from the Scandinavian peninsula, are the blood and moral +ancestors of the particularist nations now in the ascendant in the +world. The love of independent self-government, born of the +geographical necessities of the situation, stamped itself upon these +people so indelibly, that Englishmen and Americans bear the seal to +this day. This change from the patriarchal to the particularist family +took place in this German race, and took place not in those who came +from the Baltic plain, but in those who came from the Saxon plain. + +The tribes from the Baltic plain, the Goths, for example, merely +overran the Roman civilization, spread over it; drowned it in superior +numbers, and with superior valor; but it was the Germans from the +Scandinavian peninsula who conquered Rome, and conquered her not by +force alone, but by offering to the world a superior social and +political organization. It was to this branch of the German race that +Varus lost his legions, at the place where the Ems has its source, at +the foot of the Teutoburger Wald. Charlemagne was of these, and his +name Karl, or Kerl, or peasant, and the fact that his title is the +only one in the world compounded of greatness and the people in equal +measure, is the pith of what the Germans brought to leaven the whole +political world. He made the common man so great, that the world has +consented to his unique and superlative baptismal title of Karl the +Great, or Carolus Magnus, or Charlemagne. + +The pivotal fact to be remembered is that these German tribes saved +Europe by their love of liberty, and by their virility, from the +decadence of an orientalized Rome. Rome, and all Rome meant, was not +destroyed by these ancestors of ours; on the contrary, they saved what +was best worth saving from the decline and fall of Rome, and made out +of it with their own vigorous laws a new world, the modern western +world. Great Britain, Germany, and the United States are not descended +from Egypt, Greece, or Rome, but from "those barbarians who issued +from the woods of Germany." + +Every school-boy should be taught that Rome died of a disease +contracted from contact with the Oriental, the Syrian, the Jew, the +Greek, the riffraff of the eastern and southern shores of the +Mediterranean; who, by the way, make up the bulk of the immigration +into America at this time. Rome was an incurable invalid long before +the Germans took control of the western world and saved it. + +When the Roman Emperor Augustus died, in 14 A. D., to be succeeded by +Tiberius, the Roman Empire was bounded on the north and east by the +Rhine, the Danube, the Black Sea and its southern territory, and +Syria; by all the known country from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean +in northern Africa on the south; and by the Atlantic Ocean as far +north as the river Elbe on the west. Five hundred years later, about +500 A. D., the Barbarians, as they were called, had thrust aside the +Roman Empire. The Saxons controlled the southern and eastern coasts of +England; the Franks were rulers in the whole country from the Loire to +the Elbe; south of them the Visigoths ruled Spain; Italy and all the +country to the north and east of the Adriatic, as far as the Danube, +were in the hands of the Ostrogoths. The Roman Empire had been pushed +to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, with its capital at +Constantinople. + +In another three hundred years, or in 800 A. D., the king of one of +these German tribes revived the title of Roman Emperor, was crowned by +the Pope, Leo III, and governed Europe as Charlemagne. His banner with +the double-headed eagle, representing the two empires of Germany and +Rome, is the standard of Germany to-day. Charles Martel, who led the +West against the East, defeating the Arabs in the country between what +is now Tours and Poitiers, was Charlemagne's grandfather. What is now +western Europe, became the home and the consolidated kingdom of the +German tribes who had drifted down from the west of the Baltic, and +into the Saxon plain. They had become masters in this territory: after +victories over the Mongolian tribes, and the Huns under Attila, who +had conquered and plundered as far as Strasburg, Worms, and Treves, +and were finally defeated near what is now Chalons; after driving off +the Arabs under Charles the Hammer (732); after imposing their rule +upon the Roman Empire, the remains of which cowered in Constantinople, +where the Ottoman Turk took even that from it in 1453, which date may +well be taken as marking the beginning of modern history, and became +themselves thereafter one of the first powers in Christian Europe; a +power which is now, in 1912, the quarrel ground of the Western powers. + +These are Brobdingnagian strides through history, to reach the days of +Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Froissart, and the first +translation of the Bible into a vulgar tongue by Wickliffe, to the +days when Lorenzo de Medici breathed Greece into Europe, and the +feeling for beauty changed from invalidism to convalescence; to the +days when cannon were first used, printing invented, America +discovered, and the man Luther, who gave the Germans their present +language by his translation of the Bible, and who delivered us from +papal tyranny, born; and Agincourt, and Joan of Arc, are picturesque +and poignant features of the historical landscape. + +These rude German tribes had been welded by hardship and warfare, into +compact and self-governing bodies. These loosely bound masses of men, +women, and children, straggling down to find room and food, are now, +in 1400 A. D., France, England, Austria, Germany, Scotland, and Spain. +The same spirit and vigor that roamed the coasts all the way from +Sweden and Norway to the mouth of the Thames, and to the Rhine, the +Seine, and to the Straits of Gibraltar, are abroad again, landing on +the shores of America, circumnavigating Africa, and bringing home +tales of Indians in the west, and Indians in the east. This virile +stock that had been hammered and hewn was now to be polished; and in +Italy, France, England, and Germany grew up a passion for translating +the rough mythology, and the fierce fancy of the north, into painting, +building, poetry, and music. + +France, Germany, England, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Italy, too, grew +out of these German tribes, who poured down from the territory roughly +included between the Rhine, the North Sea, the Oder, and the Danube. + +As we know these countries to-day, the definite thing about them is +their difference. You cross the channel in fifty minutes from Dover to +Calais, you cross the Rhine in five minutes, and the peoples seem +thousands of miles apart. "How did it happen," asks Voltaire, "that, +setting out from the same point of departure, the governments of +England and of France arrived at nearly the same time, at results as +dissimilar as the constitution of Venice is unlike that of Morocco?" + +One might ask as well how it happened, that the speech of one German +invasion mixing itself with Latin became French, of another Spanish, +of another Portuguese, of another Italian, of another English. These +are interesting inquiries, and in regard to the former it is not +difficult to see, that men grew to be governed differently, according +as the geographical exigencies of their homes were different, and as +they occupied themselves differently. + +The observant traveller in the United States, may see for himself what +differences even a few years of differing climate, and circumstances, +and custom will produce. The inhabitants of Charleston, South +Carolina, are evidently and visibly different from those in Davenport, +Iowa. Two towns of similar size and wealth, Salisbury, Maryland, and +Hingham, Massachusetts, are almost as different, except in speech, and +even in speech the accent is perceptibly different even to the +careless listener, as though Salisbury were in the south of France, +and Hingham in the north of Germany. These changes and differences are +only inexplicable, to those who will not see the ethnographical +miracles taking place under their noses. Look at the mongrel crowd on +Fifth Avenue at midday, and remember what was there only fifty years +ago, and the differentiation which has taken place in Europe due to +climate, intermarriage, laws, and customs seems easy to trace and to +explain. + +The fishermen and tillers of the soil in the Scandinavian peninsula, +afterward the settlers in the Saxon plain and in England, recognized +him who ruled over their settled place of abode as king; while roaming +bands of fighting men would naturally attach themselves to the head of +the tribe, as the leader in war, and recognize him as king. As late as +the death of Charlemagne, when his powerful grip relaxed, the tribes +of Germans, for they were little more even then, fell apart again. +Another family like that of Pepin arose under Robert the Strong, and +under Hugue Capet (987) acquired the title of Kings of France. The +monarchy grew out of the weakening of feudalism, and feudalism had +been the gradual setting, in law and custom, of a way of living +together, of these detached tribes and clans, and their chiefs. + +A powerful warrior was rewarded with a horse, a spear; later, when +territory was conquered and the tribe settled down, land was given as +a reward. Land, however, does not die like a horse, or wear out and +get broken like a spear, and the problem arises after the death of the +owner, as to who is his rightful heir. Does it revert to the giver, +the chief of the tribe, or does it go to the children of the owner? +Some men are strong enough to keep their land, to add to it, to +control those living upon it, and such a one becomes a feudal ruler in +a small way himself. He becomes a duke, a dux or leader, a count, a +margrave, a baron, and a few such powerful men stand by one another +against the king. A Charlemagne, a William the Conqueror, a Louis XIV +is strong enough to rule them and keep them in order for a time. Out +of these conditions grow limited monarchies or absolute monarchies and +national nobilities. + +More than any other one factor, the Crusades broke up feudalism. The +great noble, impelled by a sense of religious duty, or by a love of +adventure, arms himself and his followers, and starts on years of +journeyings to the Holy Land. Ready money is needed above all else. +Lands are mortgaged, and the money-lender and the merchant buy lands, +houses, and eventually power, and buy them cheap. The returning nobles +find their affairs in disarray, their fields cultivated by new owners, +towns and cities grow up that are as strong or stronger than the +castle. Before the Crusades no roturier, or mere tiller of the soil, +could hold a fief, but the demand for money was so great that fiefs +were bought and sold, and Philippe Auguste (1180) solved the problem +by a law, declaring that when the king invested a man with a +sufficient holding of land or fief, he became ipso facto a noble. This +is the same common-sense policy which led Sir Robert Peel to declare, +that any man with an income of $50,000 a year had a right to a +peerage. There can be no aristocracy except of the powerful, which +lasts. The difference to-day is seen in the puppet nobility of +Austria, Italy, Spain, and Germany as compared with the nobility of +England, which is not a nobility of birth or of tradition, but of the +powerful: brewers and bankers, and statesmen and lawyers, and leaders +of public opinion, covering their humble past with ermine, and +crowning their achievements with coronets. + +The Crusades brought about as great a shifting of the balance of +power, as did later the rise of the rich merchants, industrials, and +nabobs in England. As the power of the nobles decreased, the central +power or the power of the kings increased; increased indeed, and +lasted, down to the greatest crusade of all, when democracy organized +itself, and marched to the redemption of the rights of man as man, +without regard to his previous condition of servitude. + +During the thousand years between the time when we first hear of the +German tribes, in 113 B. C., and the year 1411, which marks the +beginnings of what is now the Prussian monarchy, customs were becoming +habits, and habits were becoming laws, and the political and social +origins of the life of our day were being beaten into shape, by the +exigencies of living together of these tribes in the woods of Germany. + +There it was that the essence of democracy was distilled. Democracy, +Demos, the crowd, the people, the nation, were already, in the woods +of Germany, the court of last resort. They growled dissent, and they +gave assent with the brandishing of their weapons, javelins, or +ballots. They were called together but seldom, and between the +meetings of the assembly, the executive work, the judicial work, the +punishing of offenders, was left to a chosen few; left to those who by +their control over themselves, their control over their families, +their control over their neighbors, seemed best qualified to exercise +the delegated control of all. + +The chief aim of their organized government, such as it was, seems to +have been to leave themselves free to go about their private business, +with as little interference from the demands of public business as +possible. The chief concern of each one was to secure his right to +mind his own business, under certain safeguards provided by all. If +those delegated to govern became autocratic, or evil-doers, or used +their power for self-advancement or self-enrichment, they were +speedily brought to book. The philosophy of government, then, was to +make men free to go about their private business. That the time might +come when politics would be the absorbing business of all, dictating +the hours and wages of men under the earth, and reaching up to the +institution of a recall for the angel Gabriel, and a referendum for +the Day of Judgment, was undreamed of. The chiefs of the clans, the +chiefs of the tribes, the kings of the Germans, and finally the +emperors were all elective. The divine right of kings is a purely +modern development. The descendants of these German tribes in England, +elected their king in the days of William the Conqueror even, and as +late as 1689 the Commons of England voted that King James had +abdicated, and that the throne was vacant! + +The so-called mayors of the palace, who became kings, were in their +day representatives of the landholders, delegates of the people, who +advised the king and aided in commanding the armies. These hereditary +mayors of the palace drifted into ever greater and greater control, +until they became hereditary kings. The title was only hereditary, +however, because it was convenient that one man of experience in an +office should be succeeded by another educated to, and familiar with, +the same experiences and duties, and this system of heredity continues +down to this day in business, and in many professions and so long as +there is freedom to oust the incompetent, it is a good system. There +can never be any real progress until the sons take over the +accumulated wisdom and experience of the fathers; if this is not done, +then each one must begin for himself all over again. The hereditary +principle is sound enough, so long as there is freedom of decapitation +in cases of tyranny or folly. + +There has continued all through the history of those of the blood of +the German tribes, whether in Germany, England, America, Norway, +Sweden, or Denmark, the sound doctrine that ability may at any time +take the place of the rights of birth. Power, or command, or +leadership by heredity is looked upon as a convenience, not as an +unimpeachable right. + +Charlemagne (742-814), a descendant of a mayor of the palace who had +become king by virtue of ability, swept all Europe under his sway by +reason of his transcendent powers as a warrior and administrator. He +did for the first time for Europe what Akbar did in his day for India. +In forty-five years he headed fifty-three campaigns against all sorts +of enemies. He fought the Saxons, the Danes, the Slays, the Arabs, the +Greeks, and the Bretons. What is now France, Germany, Belgium, +Holland, Switzerland, Spain, and most of Italy were under his +kingship. He was a student, an architect, a bridge-builder, though he +could neither read nor write, and even began a canal which was to +connect the Danube and the Rhine, and thus the German Ocean, with the +Black Sea. He is one of many monuments to the futility of technical +education and mere book-learning. + +The Pope, roughly handled, because negligently protected, by the Roman +emperors, turns to Charlemagne, and on Christmas Day (800) places a +crown upon his head, and proclaims him "Caesar Augustus" and +"Christianissimus Rex." The empire of Rome is to be born again with +this virile German warrior at its head. Just a thousand years later, +another insists that he has succeeded to the title by right of +conquest, and gives his baby son the title of "King of Rome," and just +a thousand years after the death of Charlemagne, in 814, Napoleon +retires to Elba. There is a witchery about Rome even to-day, and an +emperor still sits imprisoned there, claiming for himself the right to +rule the spiritual and intellectual world: "sedet, eternumque sedebit +Infelix Theseus." + +Louis, called "the Pious," because the latter part of his life was +spent in mourning his outrageous betrayal, mutilation, and murder of +his own nephew, whose rivalry he feared, succeeded his father, +Charlemagne. He was succeeded again by his three sons, Lothair, Pepin, +and Louis by his first wife, and Charles, who was his favorite son, by +his second wife. He had already divided the great heritage left him by +Charlemagne between his three sons Lothair, Pepin, and Louis; but now +he wished to make another division into four parts, to make room for, +and to give a kingdom to, his son Charles by his second wife. The +three elder sons revolt against their father, and his last years are +spent in vain attempts to reconcile his quarrelsome children. At his +death war breaks out. Pepin dies, leaving, however, a son Pepin to +inherit his kingdom of Aquitaine. Louis and Charles attempt to take +his kingdom from him, his uncle Lothair defends him, and at the great +battle of Fontenay (841) Louis and Charles defeat Lothair. Lothair +gains the adherence of the Saxons, and Charles and Louis at the head +of their armies confirm their alliance, and at Strasburg the two +armies take the oath of allegiance: the followers of Louis took the +oath in German, the followers of Charles in French, and this oath, the +words of which are still preserved, is the earliest specimen of the +French language in existence. + +In 843 another treaty signed at Verdun, between the two brothers +Lothair and Louis and their half-brother Charles, separated for the +first time the Netherlands, the Rhine country, Burgundy, and Italy, +which became the portion of Lothair; all Germany east of this +territory, which went to Louis; and all the territory to the west of +it, which went to Charles. Germany and France, therefore, by the +Treaty of Verdun in 843, became distinct kingdoms, and modern +geography in Europe is born. + +From the death of Henry the Fowler, in 936, down to the nomination of +Frederick I of Bavaria, sixth Burgrave of Nuremberg, to be Margrave of +Brandenburg, in 1411, the history of the particular Germany we are +studying is swallowed up in the history of these German tribes of +central Europe and of the Holy Roman Empire. It is in these years of +the seven Crusades, from 1095 to the last in 1248; of Frederick +Barbarossa; of the centuries-long quarrel between the Welfs, or +Guelphs, and the Waiblingers, or Ghibellines, which were for years in +Italy, and are still in Germany, political parties; of the Hanseatic +League of the cities to protect commerce from the piracies of a +disordered and unruled country; of the Dane and the Norman descents +upon the coasts of France, Germany, and England, and of their burning, +killing, and carrying into captivity; of the Saracens scouring the +Mediterranean coasts and sacking Rome itself; of the Wends and Czechs, +Hungarian bands who dashed in upon the eastern frontiers of the now +helpless and amorphous empire of Charlemagne, all the way from the +Baltic to the Danube; of the quarrel between Henry IV and that Jupiter +Ecclesiasticus, Hildebrand, or Gregory VII, who has left us his +biography in the single phrase, "To go to Canossa"; of Genghis Khan +and his Mongol hordes; of the long fight between popes and emperors +over the right of investiture; of Rudolph of Hapsburg; of the throwing +off of their allegiance to the Empire of the Kings of Burgundy, +Poland, Hungary, and Denmark; of the settlement of the question of the +legal right to elect the emperor by Charles IV, who fixed the power in +the persons of seven rulers: the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine +of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, the Margraf of Brandenburg, and the +three Archbishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne; of the independence +of the great cities of northern Italy; of Otto the Great, whose first +wife was a granddaughter of Alfred the Great, and who was the real +founder of the Holy Roman Empire, in the sense that a German prince +rules over both Germany and Italy with the approval of the Pope, and +in the sense that he, a duke of Saxony, appropriates the western +empire (962), goes to Rome, delivers the Pope, subdues Italy, and +fixes the imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany; of the +beginning of that hope of a world-church and a world-state, of a +universal church and a universal kingdom, which took form in what is +known as the Holy Roman Empire; of that greatest of all forgeries, the +Donation of Constantine by the monk Isidor, discovered and revealed by +Cardinal Nicolaus, of Cura, in which it is pretended that Constantine +handed over Rome to the Pope and his successors forever, with all the +power and privileges of the Caesars, and of the effects of this, the +most successful lie ever told in the world, during the seven hundred +years it was believed: it is in these years of turbulence and change +that one must trace the threads of history, from the first appearance +of the Germans, down to the time when what is now Prussia became a +frontier post of the empire under the rule of a Hohenzollern. + +It is, perhaps, of all periods in history, the most interesting to +Americans, for then and there our civilization was born. Writing of +the conquest of the British Isles by the Germans, J. R. Green says: +"What strikes us at once in the new England is this, that it was the +one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Rome. In other +lands, in Spain or Gaul or Italy, though they were equally conquered +by German peoples, religion, social life, administrative order, still +remained Roman." The roots of our civilization, are to be dug for in +those days when the German peoples met the imperialism and the +Christianity of Rome, and absorbed and renewed them. The Roman Empire, +tottering on a foundation of, it is said, as many as fifty million +slaves -- even a poor man would have ten slaves, a rich man ten or +twenty thousand -- and overrun with the mongrel races from Syria, +Greece, and Africa, and hiding away the remnants of its power in the +Orient, became in a few centuries an easy prey to our ancestors "of +the stern blue eyes, the ruddy hair, the large and robust bodies." + +"Caerula quis stupuit lumina? flavam +Caesariem, et madido torquentem cornua cirro? +Nempe quod haec illis natura est omnibus una," + +writes Juvenal of their resemblance to one another. + +By the year 1411 long strides had been made toward other forms of +social, political, religious, and commercial life, due to the German +grip upon Europe. Dante, whose grandmother was a Goth, was not only a +poet but a fighter for freedom, taking a leading part in the struggle +of the Bianchi against the Neri and Pope Boniface, was born in 1265 +and died in 1321; Francis of Assisi, born in 1182, not only +represented a democratic influence in the church, but led the earliest +revolt against the despotism of money; the movement to found cities +and to league cities together for the furtherance of trade and +industry, and thus to give rights to whole classes of people hitherto +browbeaten by church or state or both, began in Italy; and the +alliance of the cities of the Rhine, and the Hansa League, date from +the beginning of the thirteenth century; the discovery of how to make +paper dates from this time, and printing followed; the revolt of the +Albigenses against priestly dominance which drenched the south of +France in blood began in the twelfth century; slavery disappeared +except in Spain; Wycliffe, born in 1324, translated the Gospels, threw +off his allegiance to the papacy, and suffered the cheap vengeance of +having his body exhumed and its ashes scattered in the river Swift; +Aquinas and Duns Scotus delivered philosophy from the tyranny of +theology; Roger Bacon (1214) practically introduced the study of +natural science; Magna Charta was signed in 1215; Marco Polo, whose +statue I have seen among those of the gods, in a certain Chinese +temple, began his travels in the thirteenth century; the university of +Bologna was founded before 1200 for the untrammelled study of medicine +and philosophy; Abelard, who died in 1142, represented, to put it +pithily, the spirit of free inquiry in matters theological, and +lectured to thousands in Paris. What do these men and movements mean? +I am wofully wrong in my ethnographical calculations if these things +do not mean, that the people of whom Tacitus wrote, "No man dictates +to the assembly; he may persuade but cannot command," were shaping and +moulding the life of Europe, with their passionate love of individual +liberty, with their sturdy insistence upon the right of men to think +and work without arbitrary interference. Out of this furnace came +constitutional government in England, and republican government in +America. We owe the origins of our political life to the influence of +these German tribes, with their love of individual freedom and their +stern hatred of meddlesome rulers, or a meddlesome state or +legislature. + +Germany had no literature at this time. When Froissart was writing +French history, and Joinville his delightful chronicles; when Chaucer +and Wycliffe were gayly and gravely making play with the monks and +priests, the only names known in Germany were those of the mystics, +Eckhart and Tauler. When the time came, however, Germany was defiantly +individualist in Luther, and Protestantism was thoroughly German. It +was not from tales of the great, not from knighthood, chivalry, or +their roving singer champions, that German literature came; but from +the fables and satires of the people, from Hans Sachs and from the +Luther translation of the Bible. This is roughly the setting of +civilization, in which the first Hohenzollerns found themselves when +they took over the Mark of Brandenburg, in the early years of the +fifteenth century. + +Here is a list of them, of no great interest in themselves, but +showing the direct descent down to the present time; for from the +Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the French Revolution the German states +were without either men or measures, except Frederick the Great, that +call for other than dreary comment: + +Frederick I of Nuremberg, 1417 +Frederick II, 1440 +Albert III, 1470 +Johann III, 1476 +Joachim I, 1499 +Joachim II, 1535 +Johann George, 1571 +Joachim Frederick, 1598 +Johann Sigismund of Poland (first Duke of Prussia), 1608 +George William, 1619 +Frederick William (the Great Elector), 1640 +Frederick III, Frederick I of Prussia (crowned first King of Prussia + in 1701), 1657-1713 +Frederick William I (son of Frederick I of Prussia), 1688-1740 +Frederick II (the Great) (son of Frederick William I), 1712-1786 +Frederick William II (son of Augustus William, brother of + Frederick the Great), 1744-1787 +Frederick William III (son of Frederick William II), 1770-1840 +Frederick William IV (son of Frederick William III, 1795-1861), reigned, + 1840-1861 +William I (son of Frederick William III, brother of Frederick William IV, + 1797-1888), reigned, 1861-1888 +Frederick III (son of William I, 1831-1888), reigned from March 9 + to June 15, 1888. +William II (son of Frederick III and Princess Victoria of England), + born Jan. 27, 1859, succeeded Frederick III in 1888. + +These incidents, names, and dates are mere whisps of history. It is +only necessary to indicate that to articulate this skeleton of +history, clothe it with flesh, and give it its appropriate arms and +costumes would entail the putting of all mediaeval European history +upon a screen, to deliver oneself without apology from any such task. +It may be for this reason that there is no history of Germany in the +English tongue, that ranks above the elementary and the mediocre. +There is a masterly and scholarly history of the Holy Roman Empire by +an Englishman, which no student of Germany may neglect, but he who +would trace the beginnings of Germany from 113 B. C. down to the time +of the Great Elector, 1640, must be his own guide through the +trackless deserts, of the formation into separate nations, of modern +Europe. It is even with misgivings that the student picks his way from +the time of the Great Elector to Bismarck, and to modern Germany. + +The Peace of Westphalia, 1648, marks the end of the Thirty Years' War, +and finds Germany with a population reduced from sixteen millions to +four millions. Famine which drove men and women to cannibalism, bands +of them being caught cooking human bodies in a caldron for food; +slaughter that drove men to make laws authorizing every man to have +two wives, and punishing men and women who became monks and nuns; +lawlessness that bred roving bands of murderers, who killed, robbed, +and even ate their victims, demanded a ruler of no little vigor to +lead his people back to civic, moral, and material health. The Great +Elector wrested east Prussia from Poland, he defeated and drove off +the Swedes, whom Louis XIV had drawn into an alliance against him, he +travelled from end to end of his country, seeking out the problems of +distress and remedying them by inducing immigration from Holland, +Switzerland, and the north, by building roads, bridges, schools, and +churches, and by encouraging planting, trade, and commerce. He built +the Frederick William Canal connecting the Oder and the Spree, and +introduced the potato to his countrymen. Germany now produces in +normal years fifteen hundred million bushels of potatoes. The splendid +equestrian statue of the Great Elector on the long bridge at Berlin, +is a worthy monument to the first great Hohenzollern. + +When Charles II of Spain died, Louis XIV, the Emperor Leopold I of the +Holy Roman Empire, and the Elector of Bavaria, all three claimed the +right to name his successor. In the war that followed and which lasted +a dozen years, the Emperor, Holland, England, Portugal, the Elector of +Hanover, and the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg, the son of the +Great Elector, were allied against France. Frederick, the Elector of +Brandenburg, was permitted by the Emperor, in return for his services +at this time, to assume the title of King, and he crowned himself and +his wife Sophia Elizabeth, at Koenigsberg, King and Queen of Prussia, +taking the title of Frederick I of Prussia, January 18th, 1701. + +This novus homo among sovereigns was now a fellow king with the rulers +of England, France, Denmark, and Sweden, and the only crowned head in +the empire, except the Emperor himself, and the Elector of Saxony, who +had been chosen King of Poland in 1697. By persistent sycophancy he +had pushed his way into the inner circle of the crowned. Those who +have picked social locks these latter days by similar sycophancies, by +losses at bridge in the proper quarter, by suffering sly familiarities +to their women folk, and by wearing their personal and family dignity +in sole leather, may know something of the humiliating experiences of +this new monarch. He was a feeble fellow, but his son and successor, +Frederick William I, "a shrewd but brutal boor," so Lord Rosebery +calls him, and there could not be a better judge, amazed Europe by his +taste for collecting tall soldiers, by his parsimony, his kennel +manners in the treatment of his family and his subjects, and leaves a +name in history as the first, greatest, and the unique collector of +human beings on a Barnumesque scale. All known collectors of birds, +beetles, butterflies, and beasts accord him an easy supremacy, for his +aggregation of colossal grenadiers. + +It is temptingly easy to be epigrammatic, perhaps witty, at the +expense of Frederick William I of Prussia. The man, however, who freed +the serfs; who readjusted the taxes; who insisted upon industry and +honesty among his officials; who proclaimed liberty of conscience and +of thought; who first put on, to wear for the rest of his life, the +uniform of his army, and thus made every officer proud to wear the +uniform himself; and who left his son an army of eighty thousand men, +thoroughly equipped and trained, and an overflowing treasury, may not +be dismissed merely with anecdotes of his eccentric brutality. + +Only the ignorant and the envious, nibble at the successes of other +men, with vermin teeth and venomous tongue. Those people who can never +praise anything whole-heartedly come by their cautious censure from an +uneasy doubt of their own deserving. The contempt of Frederick William +I for learning and learned men, left him leisure for matters of far +more importance to his kingdom at the time. His habitual roughness to +his son was due, perhaps, to the fact that there was a curious strain +of effeminate culture in the man who deified Voltaire. Poor Voltaire, +who called Shakespeare "le sauvage ivre," or to quote him exactly: "On +croirait que cet ouvrage (Hamlet) est le fruit de l'imagination d'un +sauvage ivre," who said that Dante would never be read, and that the +comedies of Aristophanes were unworthy of presentation in a country +tavern! One is tempted to believe that the father was a man of +robuster judgment in such matters than the son, whose own rather +mediocre literary equipment, made him the easy prey of that acidulous +vestal of literature, Voltaire. However that may be, he left a useful +and unexpected legacy to his son, provided, indeed, the sinews for the +making of a powerful Prussian kingdom. + +March the 31st, 1740, this eccentric miser died, to be succeeded by +his son, Frederick II, "the Great," then twenty-eight years old. Here +was a surprise indeed. Of these German kings and princes in their +small dominions it has been written: "And these magnates all aped +Louis XIV as their model. They built huge palaces, as like Versailles +as their means would permit, and generally beyond those limits, with +fountains and avenues and dismally wide paths. Even in our own day a +German monarch has left, fortunately unfinished, an accurate +Versailles on a damp island in a Bavarian lake. In those grandiose +structures they cherished a blighting etiquette, and led lives as dull +as those of the aged and torpid carp in their own stew-ponds. Then, at +the proper season, they would break away into the forest and kill +game. Moreover, still in imitation of their model, they held, as a +necessary feature in the dreary drama of their existence, ponderous +dalliances with unattractive mistresses, in whom they fondly tried to +discern the charms of a Montespan or a La Valliere. This monotonous +programme, sometimes varied by a violent contest whether they should +occupy a seat with or without a back, or with or without arms, +represented the even tenor of their lives." + +This good stock was evidently lying fallow, and humanity is neither +dignified nor pleasant in the part of fertilizer. Frederick the Great, +it should be remembered, was a Prussian and for Prussia only. He cared +no more about a united Germany than we care for a united America to +include Canada, Mexico, and the Argentine. He cared no more for +Bavarians and Saxons than for Swedes and Frenchmen, and, as we know, +he was utterly contemptuous of German literature or the German +language. He redeemed the shallowness and the torpidity of those other +mediocre rulers by resisting, and resisting successfully, for what +must have been to him seven very long years, the whole force of +Austria and some of the lesser German powers, with the armies of +Russia and France back of them. + +He had a turbulent home life; his father on one occasion even +attempted to hang him with his own hands with the cords of the window +curtains, and when he fled from home he captured him and proposed to +put him to death as a deserter, and only the intervention of the Kings +of Poland and Sweden and the Emperor of Germany prevented it. His +accomplice, however, was summarily and mercilessly put to death before +his eyes. There is no illustration in all history, of such a +successful outcome of the rod theory in education, as this of +Frederick the Great. The father put into practice what Wesley +preached: "Break their wills betimes, whatever it costs; break the +will if you would not damn the child. Let a child from a year old be +taught to fear the rod and to cry softly." + +The meanness and cruelty, the parsimony and the eccentricities, of the +father left the son an army of eighty thousand troops, troops as +superior to other troops in Europe as are the Japanese infantry to-day, +to the Manchu guards that pick the weeds in the court-yards of +the palace at Mukden; and he left him, too, a kingdom with no debts +and an overflowing treasury. It is seldom that such insane vanities +leave such a fair estate and an heir with such unique abilities for +its skilful exploitation. Of Frederick's wars against Austria, against +France, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and Poland; of his victories at +Prague, Leuthen, Rossbach, and Zorndorf; of his addition of Siberia +and Polish Prussia to his kingdom; of his comical literary love affair +with Voltaire; of his brutal comments upon the reigning ladies of +Russia and France, which brought upon him their bitter hatred; of his +restoration and improvement of his country; of his strict personal +economy and loyalty to his own people, scores of volumes have been +written. The hero-worshipper, Carlyle, and the Jove of reviewers, +Macaulay, have described him, and many minor scribes besides. + +It is said of his victory of Rossbach, in 1757, that then and there +began the recreation of Germany, the revival of her political and +intellectual life, and union under Prussia and Prussian kings. +Frederick the Great deserves this particular encomium; for as Luther +freed Germany, and all Christendom indeed, from the tyranny of +tradition, as Lessing freed us from the tyranny of the letter, from +the second-hand and half-baked Hellenism of a Racine and a Corneille, +so Frederick the Great freed his countrymen at last from the puerile +slavery to French fashions and traditions, which had made them self- +conscious at home and ridiculous abroad. He first made a Prussian +proud to be a Prussian. + +This last quarter of the eighteenth century in Germany saw the death +of Lessing in 1781, the publication of Kant's "Kritik der Reinen +Vernunft" in the same year, and the death of the great Frederick in +1786. These names mark the physical and intellectual coming of age of +Germany. Lessing died misunderstood and feared by the card-board +literary leaders of his day, men who still wrote and thought with the +geometrical instruments handed them from France; Kant attempted to +push philosophical inquiry beyond the bounds of human experience, and +Frederick left Prussia at last not ashamed to be Prussia. Napoleon was +eighteen years old when Frederick died, and he, next to Bismarck, did +more to bring about German unity than any other single force. +Unsuccessful Charlemagne though he was, he without knowing it blazed +the political path which led to the crowning of a German emperor in +the palace at Versailles, less than a hundred years after the death of +Frederick the Great. In 1797 at Montebello, Napoleon said: "If the +Germanic System did not exist, it would be necessary to create it +expressly for the convenience of France." + + + +II FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK + + +Frederick the Great died in 1786, leaving Prussia the most +formidable military power on the Continent. In financial, law, and +educational matters he had made his influence felt for good. He +distributed work-horses and seed to his impoverished nobles; he +encouraged silk, cotton, and porcelain industries; he built the Finow, +the Planesche, and Bromberger Canals; he placed a tariff on meat, +except pork, the habitual food of the poor, and spirits and tobacco +and coffee were added to the salt monopoly; he codified the laws, +which we shall mention later; he aided the common schools, and in his +day were built the opera-house, library, and university in Berlin, and +the new palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam. + +Almost exactly one hundred years after the death of Frederick the +Great, there ended practically, at the death of the Emperor William I, +in 1888, the political career of the man, who with his personally +manufactured cement of blood and iron, bound Germany together into a +nation. The middle of the seventeenth, the middle of the eighteenth, +and the middle of the nineteenth centuries, with the Great Elector, +Frederick the Great, and Bismarck as the central figures, mark the +features of the historical landscape of Germany as with mile-stones. + +How difficult was the task to bring at last an emperor of all Germany +to his crowning at Versailles, January 18, 1871, and how mighty the +artificer who accomplished the work, may be learned from a glance at +the political, geographical, and patriotic incoherence of the land +that is now the German Empire. + +Germany had no definite national policy from the death of Frederick +the Great till the reign of Bismarck began in 1862. Hazy discussions +of a confederation of princes, of a Prussian empire, of lines of +demarcation, of acquisitions of German territory, were the phantoms of +a policy, and even these were due to the pressure of Prussia. + +The general political torpidity is surprisingly displayed, when one +remembers that Goethe (1749-1832), who lived through the French +Revolution, who was thirty-seven years old when Frederick the Great +died, and who lived through the whole flaming life of Napoleon, was +scarcely more stirred by the political features of the time than +though he had lived in Seringapatam. He was a superlatively great man, +but he was as parochial in his politics as he was amateurish in his +science, as he was a mixture of the coxcomb and the boor, in his love +affairs. Lessing, who died in 1781, Klopstock, who died in 1803, +Schiller, who died in 1805, Kant, who died in 1804, Hegel, who died in +1831, Fichte, who died in 1814, Wolf, who died in 1824, "Jean Paul" +Friedrich Richter, who died in 1825, Voss, who died in 1826, +Schelling, who died in 1854, the two Schlegels, August Wilhelm and +Frederick, who died in 1845 and in 1829, Jacob Grimm, who died in +1863, Herder, Wieland, Kotzebue, what a list of names! What a +blossoming of literary activity! But no one of them, these the leaders +of thought in Germany, at the time when the world was approaching the +birthday of democracy through pain and blood, no one of these was +especially interested in politics. + +There was theoretical writing about freedom. Heine mocked at his +countrymen and at the world in general, and deified Napoleon, from his +French mattress, on which he died, in 1856, only fifty-seven years +old. Fichte ended a course of lectures on Duty, with the words: "This +course of lectures is suspended till the end of the campaign. We shall +resume if our country become free, or we shall have died to regain our +liberty." But Fichte neither resumed nor died! Herder criticised his +countrymen for their slavish following of French forms and models in +their literature, as in their art and social life. And well he might +thus criticise, when one remembers how cramped was the literary vision +even of such men as Voltaire and Heine. We have already mentioned some +of Voltaire's literary judgments in the preceding chapter, and Heine +ventured to compare Racine to Euripides! No wonder that Germany needed +schooling in taste, if such were the opinions of her advisers. Such +literary canons as these could only be accepted by minds long inured +to provincial, literary, and social slavery. + +Just as every little princeling of those days in Germany took Louis +XIV for his model, so every literary fledgling looked upon Voltaire as +a god, and modelled his style upon the stiff and pompous verses of the +French literary men of that time. + +Not even to-day has Germany escaped from this bondage. In Baden three +words out of ten that you hear are French, and the German wherever he +lives in Germany still invites you to Mittagessen at eight P. M. +because he has no word in his own language for diner, and must still +say anstaendiger or gebildeter Mensch for gentleman. To make the German +even a German in speech and ideals and in independence has been a +colossal task. One wonders, as one pokes about in odd corners of +Germany even now, whether Herder's caustic contempt, and Bismarck's +cavalry boots, have made every German proud to be a German, as now he +surely ought to be. The tribal feeling still exists there. + +Fichte's lectures on Nationality were suppressed and Fichte himself +looked upon askance. The Schlegels spent a lifetime in giving Germany +a translation of Shakespeare. Hegel wrote the last words of his +philosophy to the sound of the guns at the battle of Jena. Goethe +writes a paragraph about his meeting with Napoleon. Metternich, born +three years before the American Revolution, and who died a year before +the battle of Bull Run, declared: "The cause of all the trouble is the +attempt of a small faction to introduce the sovereignty of the people +under the guise of a representative system." + +If this was the attitude of the intellectual nobility of the time, +what are we to suppose that Messrs. Muller and Schultze and Fischer +and Kruger, the small shop-keepers and others of their ilk, and their +friends thought? Even forty years later Friedrich Hebbel, in 1844, +paid a visit to the Industrial Exposition in Paris. He writes in his +diary: "Alle diese Dinge sind mir nicht allein gleichgueltig; sic sind +mir widerwaertig." Germany had not awakened even then to any wide +popular interest in the world that was doing things. As Voltaire +phrased it, France ruled the land, England the sea, and Germany the +clouds, even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. This is +the more worth noting, as giving a peg upon which to hang Germany's +astounding progress since that time. Even as late as Bismarck's day he +complained of the German: "It is as a Prussian, a Hanoverian, a +Wuertemberger, a Bavarian, or a Hessian, rather than as a German, that +he is disposed to give unequivocal proof of patriotism." The present +ambitious German Emperor said, in 1899, at Hamburg: "The sluggishness +shown by the German people in interesting themselves in the great +questions moving the world, and in arriving at a political +understanding of those questions, has caused me deep anxiety." What +kind of material had the nation-makers to work with! What a long, +disappointing task it must have been to light these people into a +blaze of patriotism! In those days America, though the population of +the American colonies was only eleven hundred and sixty thousand in +1750, talked, wrote, and fought politics. The outstanding +personalities of the time were patriots, soldiers, politicians, not a +dreamer among them. + +England was so nonchalantly free already, that the betting-book at +White's Club records that, "Lord Glengall bets Lord Yarmouth one +hundred guineas to five that Buonaparte returns to Paris before Beau +Brummel returns to London!" Burke and Pitt, and Fox and North, and +Canning might look after politics; Hargreaves and Crompton would take +care to keep English industries to the fore, and Watt, and the great +canal-builder Brindley, would solve the problem of distributing coal; +their lordships cracked their plovers' eggs, unable to pronounce even +the name of a single German town or philosopher, and showed their +impartial interest, much as now they do, in contemporary history, by +backing their opinions with guineas, with the odds on Caesar against +the "Beau." + +Weimar was a sunny little corner where poetry and philosophy and +literature were hatched, well out of reach of the political storms of +the time. The Grand Duke of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach with his tiny +court, his Falstaffian army, his mint and his customs-houses, with his +well-conducted theatre and his suite of litterateurs, was one of three +hundred rulers in the Germany of that time. + +The Holy Roman Empire, consisting, in Napoleon's time, of Austria, +Prussia, and a mass of minor states, these last grouped together under +the name of the Confederation of the Rhine, and wholly under French +influence, lasted one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight years, or +from Caesar's victory of Pharsalia down to August the 1st, 1806, when +Napoleon announced to the Diet that he no longer recognized it. + +This institution had no political power, was merely a theoretical +political ring for the theoretical political conflicts of German +agitators and dreamers, and was composed of the representatives of +this tangle of powerless, but vain and self-conscious little states. +This Holy Roman Empire, with an Austrian at its head, and aided by +France, strove to prevent the development of a strong German state +under the leadership of Prussia. After Napoleon's day it became a +struggle between Prussia and Austria. Austria had only eight out of +thirty-six million German population, while Prussia was practically +entirely German, and Prussia used her army, politics, and commerce to +gain control in Germany. Even to-day Austria-Hungary contains the most +varied conglomeration of races of any nation in the world. Austria has +26,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 9,000,000 are Germans, 1,000,000 +Italians and Rumanians, 6,000,000 Bohemians and Slovacs, 8,000,000 +Poles and Ruthenians, 2,000,000 Slovenes and Croatians. Of the +19,000,000 of Hungary there are 9,000,000 Magyars, 2,000,000 Germans, +2,500,000 Slovacs and Ruthenians, 3,000,000 Rumanians, and nearly +3,000,000 Southern Slays. + +Weimar was one of the three hundred capitals of this limp empire, with +tariffs, stamps, coins, uniforms, customs, gossip, interests, and a +sovereign of its own. When Bismarck undertook the unifying of the +customs tariffs of Germany, there were even then fifteen hundred +different tariffs in existence! + +Weimar had its salon, its notables: Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Frau +von Stein, Dr. Zimmermann as a valued correspondent; its Grand Duke +Karl August and his consort; Herder, who jealous of the renown of +Goethe, and piqued at the insufficient consideration he received, soon +departed, to return only when the Grand Duchess took him under her +wing and thus satisfied his morbid pride; its love affair, for did not +the beautiful Frau von Werthern leave her husband, carry out a mock +funeral, and, heralded as dead, elope to Africa with Herr von +Einsiedel? But Weimar was as far away from what we now agree to look +upon as the great events of the day, as were Lords Glengall and +Yarmouth at White's, in Saint James's. + +It requires imagination to put Goethe and Schiller and Wieland in the +bow window at White's, and to place Lords Glengall and Yarmouth in +Frau von Stein's drawing-room in Weimar; but the discerning eye which +can see this picture, knows at a glance why England misunderstands +Germany and Germany misunderstands England. For White's is White's and +Weimar is Weimar, and one is British and one is German as much now as +then! In the one the winner of the Derby is of more importance than +any philosopher; in the other, philosophers, poets, professors, and +playwrights are almost as well known, as the pedigrees of the +yearlings to be sold at Newmarket, are known at White's. They still +have plover's eggs early in the season at White's, and they still +recognize the subtle distinction there between "port wine" and "port"; +while in Weimar nobody, unless it be the duke, even boils his +sauerkraut in white wine! + +One could easily write a chapter on Weimar and its self-satisfied +social and literary activities. There were three hundred or more +capitals of like complexion and isolation: some larger, some smaller, +none perhaps with such a splendid literary setting, but all +indifferent with the indifference of distant relatives who seldom see +one another, when the French Revolution exploded its bomb at the gates +of the world's habits of thought. + +No intelligent man ever objected to the French Revolution because it +stood for human rights, but because it led straight to human wrongs. +The dream was angelic, but the nightmare in which it ended was +devilish. The French Revolution was the most colossal disappointment +that humanity has ever had to bear. + +More than the demagogue gives us credit for, are the great majority of +us eager to help our neighbors. The trouble is that the demagogue +thinks this, the most difficult of all things, an easy task. God and +Nature are harsh when they are training men, and we, alas, are soft, +hence most of our failures. Correction must be given with a rod, not +with a sop. There lies all the trouble. + +The political and philanthropic wise men were setting out for the +manger and the babe, their eyes on the star, laden with gifts, when +they were met by a whiff of grape-shot from the guns commanded by a +young Corsican genius. The French Revolution found us all sympathetic, +but making men of equal height by lopping off their heads; making them +free by giving no one a chance to be free; making them fraternal by +insisting that all should be addressed by the same title of, +"citizen," was soon seen to be the method of a political nursery. + +It was no fault of the French Revolution that it was no revolution at +all, in any political sense. Men maddened by oppression hit, kick, +bite, and burn. They are satisfied to shake the burden of the moment +off their backs, even though the burden they take on be of much the +same character. "It is perfectly possible, to revive even in our own +day the fiscal tyranny which once left even European populations in +doubt whether it was worth while preserving life by thrift and toil. +You have only to tempt a portion of the population into temporary +idleness, by promising them a share in a fictitious hoard lying in an +imaginary strong-box which is supposed to contain all human wealth. +You have only to take the heart out of those who would willingly labor +and save, by taxing them ad misericordiam for the most laudable +philanthropic objects. For it makes not the smallest difference to the +motives of the thrifty and industrious part of mankind whether their +fiscal oppressor be an Eastern despot, or a feudal baron, or a +democratic legislature, and whether they are taxed for the benefit of +a corporation called Society or for the advantage of an individual +styled King or Lord," writes Sir Henry Maine. In short it matters not +in the least what you baptize oppression, so long as it is oppression, +or whether you call your tyrant "Jim" or "My Lord," so long as he is a +tyrant. Many people are slowly awakening to the fact in England and in +America, that plain citizen "Jim" can be a most merciless tyrant in +spite of his unpretentious name and title. No royal tyrant ever dared +to attempt to gain his ends by dynamiting innocent people, as did the +trades-unionists at Los Angeles, or to starve a whole population as +did the trades-unionists in London. We have not escaped tyranny by +changing its name. The idea of the Contrat Social and of all its +dilutions since, has been that individuals go to make up society, and +that society under the name of the state must take charge of those +individuals. The French Revolution was a failure because it fell back +upon that tiresome and futile philosophy of government which had been +that of Louis XIV. Louis XIV took care of the individual units of the +state by exploiting them. He was a sound enough Socialist in theory. +France gained nothing of much value along the lines of political +philosophy. + +Whether it is Louis XIV who says "l'etat c'est moi" or the citizens +banded together in a state, who claim that the functions of the state +are to meddle with the business of every man, matters little. It is +the same socialistic philosophy at bottom, and it has produced to-day +a France of thirty-eight millions of people pledged to sterility, one +million of whom are state officials superintending the affairs of the +others at a cost, in salaries alone, of upward of five hundred million +dollars a year. + +In no political or philosophical sense was the French Revolution a +revolution at all. It was a change of administration and leaders, but +not a change of political theory. The French Revolution put the state +in impartial supremacy over all classes by destroying exemptions +claimed by the nobility and the clergy, and thus extended the power of +the state. The English Revolution without bloodshed reduced the power +of the state, not for the advantage of any class, but for individual +liberty and local self-government. We Americans are the political +heirs of the latter, not of the former, revolution. + +Germany was stirred slightly to hope for freedom, but stirred mightily +to protest against anarchy later. These were the two influences from +the French Revolution that affected Germany, and they were so +contradictory that Germany herself was for nearly a hundred years in a +mixed mood. One influence enlivened the theoretical democrat, and the +other sent the armies of all Europe post-haste to save what was left +of orderly government in France. + +But Prussia was not what she had been under Frederick the Great. +Frederick was more Louis XIV than Louis XIV himself. The economic and +political errors of the French Revolution found their best practical +exponent in Frederick the Great. In the introduction to his code of +laws we have already mentioned are the words: "The head of the state, +to whom is intrusted the duty of securing public welfare, which is the +whole aim of society, is authorized to direct and control all the +actions of individuals toward this end." Further on the same code +reads: "It is incumbent upon the state to see to the feeding, +employment, and payment of all those who cannot support themselves, +and who have no claim to the help of the lord of the manor, or to the +help of the commune: it is necessary to provide such persons with work +which is suitable to their strength and their capacity." + +When Frederick died he left Prussia in the grip of this enervating +pontifical socialism, which always everywhere ends by palsying the +individual, and through the individual the state, with the blight of +demagogical and theoretical legislation. The fine army grew pallid and +without spirit, the citizens lost their individual pride, the nation +as a whole lost its vigor, and when Napoleon marched into Berlin, he +remarked that the country hardly seemed worth conquering. + +The century from the death of Frederick the Great, in 1786, to the +death of William the First, in 1888, includes, in a convenient period +to remember: the downfall of Frederick's patriotic edifice; the apathy +and impotency that followed upon the breaking up of the bureaucracy he +had welded into efficiency; the shuffling of the German states by +Napoleon as though they were the pack of cards in a great political +game; a revival of patriotism in Prussia after floggings and insults +that were past bearing; the jealousies and enmities of the various +states, the betrayal of one by the other, and finally the struggle +between Austria and Prussia to decide upon a leader for all Germany; +and at last the war against France, 1870-71, which was to make it +clear to the world that Germany had been Prussianized into an empire. + +Frederick William II, the nephew of Frederick the Great, who succeeded +him, was King of Prussia from 1786 to 1797. Frederick William III, his +son, and the husband of the beautiful and patriotic Queen Louisa, was +King of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. Frederick William IV, a loquacious, +indiscreet, loose-lipped sovereign, of moist intellect and mythical +delusions, was King of Prussia from 1840 to 1857, when his mental +condition made his retirement necessary, and he was succeeded by his +brother, Frederick William Ludwig, first as regent, then as king in +1861, known to us as that admirable King and Emperor, William I, who +died in 1888. + +Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of these sovereigns, to +those of us who look upon Germany to-day as autocratically governed in +fact and by tradition, is their willing surrender to the people, on +every occasion when the demand has been, even as little insistent as +the German demand has been. In the case of Frederick William IV, his +claim, at least in words, upon his divine rights as a sovereign was +the mark of a wavering confidence in himself. He was not satisfied +with a rational sanction for his authority, but was forever assuring +his subjects that God had pronounced for him; much as men of low +intelligence attempt to add vigor to their statements by an oath. "I +hold my crown," he said, "by the favor of God, and I am responsible to +Him for every hour of my government." Much under the influence of the +two scholars Niebuhr and Ranke, he hated the ideas of the French +Revolution, and dreamed of an ideal Christian state like that of the +Middle Ages. He was caricatured by the journals of the day, and +laughed at by the wits, including Heine, and pictured as a king with +"Order" on one hand, "Counter-order" on the other, and "Disorder" on +his forehead. + +Though Frederick William II marched into France in 1792, to support +the French monarchy, neither his army nor his people were prepared or +fit for this enterprise, and he soon retired. In 1793, Prussia joined +Russia in a second partition of Poland, but in 1795, angry with what +was considered the double dealing of Austria and Russia, Prussia +concluded a peace with France, the treaty of Basle was signed in 1795, +and for ten years Prussia practically took no part in the Napoleonic +wars. + +Napoleon took over the lands on the left bank of the Rhine, took away +the freedom of forty-eight towns, leaving only Hamburg, Bremen, +Frankfort, Augsburg, and Nuremberg, and in 1803 he took Hanover. +Later, in 1805, Bavaria, Wuertemberg, and Baden aided Napoleon to fight +the alliance against him of Austria, England, Russia, and Sweden. In +that same year the Electors of Wuertemberg and Bavaria were made kings +by Napoleon. In 1806 Bavaria, Baden, Wuertemberg, and Hessen seceded +from the German Empire, formed themselves into the Confederation of +the Rhine, and acknowledged Napoleon as their protector. In 1806 +Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, resigned, and there was +neither an empire nor an emperor of Germany, nor was there a Germany +of united interests. + +In 1806 Frederick William III, driven by the grossest insults to his +country and to his wife, finally declared war against France; there +followed the battle of Jena, in which the Germans were routed, and in +that same year Napoleon marched into Berlin unopposed. In 1807 the +Russian Emperor was persuaded to make peace, and Prussia without her +ally was helpless. The Peace of Tilsit, in July, 1807, deprived +Prussia of the whole of the territory between the Elbe and the Rhine, +and this with Brunswick, Hessen-Cassel, and part of Hanover was dubbed +the Kingdom of Westphalia, and Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome was +made king. The Polish territory of Prussia was given to the Elector of +Saxony, who was also rewarded for having deserted Prussia after the +battle of Jena by being made a king. Prussia was further required to +reduce her army to forty-two thousand men. + +It is neither a pretty nor an inspiriting story, this of the mangling +of Germany by Napoleon; of the German princes bribed by kingly crowns +from the hands of an ancestorless Corsican; but it all goes to show +how far from any sense of common aims and duties, how far from the +united Vaterland of to-day, was the Germany of a hundred years ago. It +adds, too, immeasurably to the laurels of the man who produced the +present German Empire out of his own pocket, and stood as chief +sponsor at its christening at Versailles in 1871. + +This Prussia that sent twenty thousand troops to aid Napoleon against +Russia, and which during the retreat from Moscow went over bodily to +the enemy; this Prussia whose vacillating king simpered with delight +at a kind word from Napoleon, and shivered with dismay at a harsh one; +this army with its officers as haughty as they were incapable, and its +men only prevented from wholesale desertion by severe punishment, an +army rotten at the core, with a coat of varnish over its worm-eaten +fabric; this Prussia humiliated and disgraced after the battle of +Jena, in 1806, in seven years' time came into its own again. Vom +Stein, Scharnhorst, the son of a Hanoverian peasant, and Hardenberg +put new life into the state. At Waterloo the pummelled squares of red-coats +were relieved by these Prussians, and Bluecher, or "Old Marschall +Vorwaerts" as he was called, redeemed his countrymen's years of +effeminate lassitude and vacillation. + +"Such was Vorwaerts, such a fighter, +Such a lunging, plunging smiter, +Always stanch and always straight, +Strong as death for love or hate, +Always first in foulest weather, +Neck or nothing, hell for leather, +Through or over, sink or swim, +Such was Vorwaerts--here's to him!" + +Napoleon goes to Saint Helena and dies in 1821. What he did for +Germany was to prove to her how impossible was a cluster of jealous, +malicious provincial little state governments in the heart of Europe, +protecting themselves from falling apart by the ancient legislative +scaffolding of the Holy Roman Empire. He squeezed three hundred states +into thirty-eight, and the very year of Waterloo, on April the 1st, a +German Napoleon was born who was to further squeeze these states into +what is known to-day as the German Empire. + +The Congress of Vienna was a meeting of the European powers to +redistribute the possessions, that Napoleon had scattered as bribes +and rewards among his friends, relatives, and enemies, so far as +possible, among their rightful owners. + +From the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, Napoleon looked on +while the allies quarrelled at this Congress of Vienna. Prussia +claimed the right to annex Saxony; Russia demanded Poland, and against +them were leagued England, Austria, and France, France represented by +the Mephistophelian Talleyrand, who strove merely to stir the discord +into another war. In the midst of their deliberations word came that +the wolf was in the fold again. Napoleon was riding to Paris, through +hysterical crowds of French men and women, eager for another throw +against the world, if their Little Corporal were there to shake the +dice for them. He had another throw and lost. The French Revolution in +1789, followed by the insurrection of all Europe against that strange +gypsy child of the Revolution, Napoleon, from 1807-1815, ended at last +at Waterloo. This lover, who won whole nations as other men win a maid +or two; this ruler, who had popes for handmaidens and gave kingdoms as +tips, who dictated to kings preferably from the palaces of their own +capitals; this fortunate demon of a man, who had escaped even Mlle. +Montausier, was safely disposed of at Saint Helena, and the ordinary +ways of mortals had their place in the world again. + +The Congress of Vienna reassembled, and the readjustment of the map of +Europe began over again. Prussia is given back what had been taken +away from her. A German confederation was formed in 1815 to resist +encroachments, but with no definite political idea, and its diet, to +which Prussia, Austria, and the other smaller states sent +representatives, became the laughing-stock of Europe. Jealous +bickerings and insistence upon silly formalities paralyzed +legislation. Lawyers and others who presented their claims before this +assembly from 1806-1816 were paid in 1843! The liquidation of the +debts of the Thirty Years' War was made after two hundred years, in +1850! The laws for the military forces were finally agreed upon in +1821, and put in force in 1840! + +There were three principal forms of government among these states: +first, Absolutist, where the ruler and his officials governed without +reference to the people, as in Prussia and Austria; second, those who +organized assemblies (Landslaende), where no promises were made to the +people, but where the nobles and notables were called together for +consultation; and third, a sort of constitutional monarchy with a +written constitution and elected representatives, but with the ruler +none the less supreme. One of the first rulers to grant such a +constitution to his people was the Grand Duke who presided over the +little court at Weimar. + +The mass of the people were wholly indifferent. The intellectuals were +divided among themselves. The schools and universities after 1818 form +associations and societies, the Burschenschaft, for example, and in a +hazy professorial fashion talk and shout of freedom. They were of +those passionate lovers of liberty, more intent on the dower than on +the bride; willing to talk and sing and to tell the world of their own +deserts, but with little iron in their blood. + +When a real man wants to be free he fights, he does not talk; he takes +what he wants and asks for it afterward; he spends himself first and +affords it afterward. These dreamy gentlemen could never make the +connection between their assertions and their actions. They were as +inconsistent, as a man who sees nothing unreasonable in circulating +ascetic opinions and a perambulator at the same time. They were dreary +and technical advocates of liberty. + +At a great festival at the Wartburg, in 1817, the students got out of +hand, burned the works of those conservatives, Haller and Kotzebue, +and the Code Napoleon. This youthful folly was purposely exaggerated +throughout Germany, and was used by the party of autocracy to frighten +the people, and also as a reason for passing even severer laws against +the ebullitions of liberty. At a conference at Carlsbad in 1819 the +representatives of the states there assembled passed severe laws +against the student societies, the press, the universities, and the +liberal professors. + +From 1815-1830 the opinions of the more enlightened changed. The fear +of Napoleon was gradually forgotten, and the hatred of the absolutism +of Prussia and Austria grew. + +In 1830 constitutions were demanded and were guardedly granted in +Brunswick, Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse-Cassel. In 1832 things had gone +so far that at a great student festival the black, red, and gold flag +of the Burschenschaft was hoisted, toasts were drunk to the +sovereignty of the people, to the United States of Germany, and to +Europe Republican! This was followed by further prosecutions. Prussia +condemned thirty-nine students to death, but confined them in a +fortress. The prison-cell of the famous Fritz Reuter may be seen in +Berlin to-day. In Hesse, the chief of the liberal party, Jordan, was +condemned to six years in prison; in Bavaria a journalist was +imprisoned for four years, and other like punishments followed +elsewhere. It was in 1857, when Queen Victoria came to the throne, +that Hanover was cut off from the succession, as Hanover could not +descend to a woman. The Duke of Cumberland became the ruler of +Hanover, and England ceased to hold any territory in Europe. + +From 1839-1847 there was comparative quiet in the political world. The +rulers of the various states succeeded in keeping the liberal +professorial rhetoric too damp to be valuable as an explosive. + +Interwoven with this party in Germany, demanding for the people +something more of representation in the government, was a movement for +the binding together of the various states in a closer union. In 1842 +when the first stone was laid for the completion of the Cologne +Cathedral, at a banquet of the German princes presided over by the +King of Prussia, the King of Wuertemberg proposed a toast to "Our +common country!" That toast probably marks the first tangible proof of +the existence of any important feeling upon the subject of German +unity. + +At a congress of Germanists at Frankfort, in 1846, professors and +students, jurists and historians, talked and discussed the questions +of a German parliament and of national unity more perhaps than matters +of scholarship. + +In 1847 Professor Gervinus founded at Heidelberg the Deutsche Zeitung, +which was to be liberal, national, and for all Germany. + +I should be sorry to give the impression that I have not given proper +value to the work of the German professor and student in bringing +about a more liberal constitution for the states of Germany. Liebig of +Munich, Ranke of Berlin, Sybel of Bonn, Ewald of Goettingen, Mommsen in +Berlin, Doellinger in Munich, and such men as Schiemann in Berlin to-day, +were and are, not only scholars, but they have been and are +political teachers; some of them violently reactionary, if you please, +but all of them stirring men to think. + +No such feeling existed then, or exists now, in Germany, as animated +Oxford some fifty years ago when the greatest Sanscrit scholar then +living was rejected by a vote of that body, one voter declaring: "I +have always voted against damned intellect, and I trust I always may!" +A state of mind that has not altogether disappeared in England even +now. Indeed I am not sure, that the most notable feature of political +life in England to-day, is not a growing revolt against legislation by +tired lawyers, and an increasing demand for common-sense governing +again, even if the governing be done by those with small respect for +"damned intellect." + +The third French revolution of 1848 set fire to all this, not only in +Germany but in Austria, Hungary, Roumania, and elsewhere. We must go +rapidly through this period of seething and of political teething. The +parliament at Frankfort with nothing but moral authority discussed and +declaimed, and finally elected Archduke John of Austria as +"administrator" of the empire. There followed discussions as to +whether Austria should even become a member of the new confederation. +Two parties, the "Little Germanists" and the "Pan Germanists," those +in favor of including, and those opposed to the inclusion of Austria, +fought one another, with Prussia leading the one and Austria, with the +prestige of having been head of the former Holy Roman Empire, the +other. + +In 1849 Austria withdrew altogether and the King of Prussia was +elected Emperor of Germany, but refused the honor on the ground that +he could not accept the title from the people, but only from his +equals. There followed riots and uprisings of the people in Prussia, +Saxony, Baden, and elsewhere throughout Germany. The Prussian guards +were sent to Dresden to quell the rioting there and took the city +after two days' fighting. The parliament itself was dispersed and +moved to Stuttgart, but there again they were dispersed, and the end +was a flight of the liberals to Switzerland, France, and the United +States. We in America profited by the coming of such valuable citizens +as Carl Schurz and many others. There were driven from Germany, they +and their descendants, many among our most valuable citizens. The +descendant of one of the worthiest of them, Admiral Osterhaus, is one +of the most respected officers in our navy, and will one day command +it, and we could not be in safer hands. In 1849 the German Federal +fleet was sold at auction as useless; Austria was again in the +ascendant and German subjects in Schleswig were handed over to the +Danes. + +In 1850 both the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria called +congresses, but Prussia finally gave up hers, and the ancient +confederation as of before 1848 met as a diet at Frankfort and from +1851-1858 Bismarck was the Prussian delegate and Austria presided over +the deliberations. + +A factor that made for unity among the German states was the +Zollverein. From 1818-1853 under the leadership of Prussia the various +states were persuaded to join in equalizing their tariffs. Between +1834-5 Prussia, Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Nassau, +Thuringia, and Frankfort agreed upon a common standard for customs +duties, and a few years later they were joined by Brunswick, Hanover, +and the Mecklenburgs. German industry and commerce had their +beginnings in these agreements. The hundreds of different customs +duties became so exasperating that even jealous little governments +agreed to conform to simpler laws, and probably this commercial +necessity did more to bring about the unity of Germany than the King, +or politics, or the army. + +With the struggles of the various states to obtain constitutions we +cannot deal, nor would it add to the understanding of the present +political condition of the German Empire. + +Prussia, after riots in Berlin, after promises and delays from the +vacillating King, who one day orders his own troops out of the capital +and his brother, later William I, to England to appease the anger of +the mob, and parades the streets with the colors of the citizens in +revolt wrapped about him; and the next day, surly, obstinate, but ever +orating, holds back from his pledges, finally accepts a constitution +which is probably as little democratic as any in the world. + +Of the sixty-five million inhabitants of the German Empire, Prussia +has over forty millions. The Landtag of Prussia is composed of two +chambers, the first called the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, and the +second the Abgeordnetenhaus, or Chamber of Deputies. This upper house +is made up of the princes of the royal family who are of age; the +descendants of the formerly sovereign families of Hohenzollern- +Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; chiefs of the princely houses +recognized by the Congress of Vienna; heads of the territorial +nobility formed by the King; representatives of the universities; +burgomasters of towns with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, and +an unlimited number of persons nominated by the King for life or for a +limited period. This upper chamber is a mere drawing-room of the +sovereign's courtiers, though there may be, and as a matter of fact +there are at the present time, representatives even of labor in this +chamber, but in a minority so complete that their actual influence +upon legislation, except in a feeble advisory capacity, amounts to +nothing. In this Herrenhaus, or upper chamber, of Prussia there are at +this writing among the 327 members 3 bankers, 8 representatives of the +industrial and merchant class, and 1 mechanic; 12 in all, or not even +four per cent., to represent the industrial, financial, commercial, +and working classes. Even in the lower chamber, or Abgeordnetenhaus, +there are only 10 merchants, 19 manufacturers, 7 labor +representatives, and 1 bank director, or 37 members who represent the +commercial, manufacturing, and industrial interests in a total +membership of 443. + +In the other states of Germany much the same conditions exist. In +Bavaria, in the upper house, or Kammer der Reichsraete, there is no +representative, and in the lower house of 163 members only 29 +representatives of the industrial world. + +In Saxony, the most socialistic state in Germany, the upper chamber +with 49 members has 5 industrials; the lower chamber with 82 members +has 40 representatives of commercial, industrial, and financial +affairs. + +In Wuertemberg, in the upper chamber with 51 members there are 3 +industrials; and in the second chamber with 63 members there are 17 +industrials. + +In Baden, of the 37 members of the upper house there are 6 +industrials; of the 73 members of the lower house there are 23 +representatives of commerce and industry. + +This condition of political inequality is the result of the +maintenance of the old political divisions, despite the fact that in +the last thirty years the whole complexion of the country has changed +radically, due to the rapid increase of the city populations +representing the industrial and commercial progress of a nation that +is now the rival of both the United States and Great Britain. In more +than one instance a town with over 300,000 inhabitants will be +represented in the legislature in the same proportion as a country +population of 30,000. Stettin, for example, with a population of +245,000, which is a seventh of the total population of Pomerania, has +only 6 of the 89 provincial representatives. Further, the three-class +system of voting in Prussia and in the German cities, is a unique +arrangement for giving men the suffrage without either power or +privilege. According to this system every male inhabitant of Prussia +aged twenty-five is entitled to vote in the election of members of the +lower house. The voters, however, are divided into three classes. This +division is made by taking the total amount of the state taxes paid in +each electoral district and dividing it into three equal amounts. The +first third is paid by the highest tax-payers; the second third by the +next highest tax-payers, and the last third by the rest. The first +class consists of a comparatively few wealthy people; it may even +happen that a single individual pays a third of the taxes in a given +district. These three classes then elect the members of an electoral +college, who then elect the member of the house. In Prussia it may be +said roughly that 260,000 wealthy tax-payers elect one-third; 870,000 +tax-payers elect one-third, and the other 6,500,000 voters elect one-third +of the members of the electoral college, with the consequence +that the 6,500,000 are not represented at all in the lower house of +Prussia. In order to make this three-class system of voting quite +clear, let us take the case of a city where the same principle may be +seen at work on a smaller scale. In 1910, in the city of Berlin, there +were: + +931 voters of the first class paying 27,914,593 +marks of the total tax. + +32,131 voters of the second class paying +27,908,776 marks of the total tax. + +357,345 voters of the third class paying +16,165,501 marks of the total tax. + +Roughly the voters in the first class each paid $7,500; those in the +second class $218; those in the third class $11. The 931 voters +elected one-third, 32,131 voters elected one-third, and 357,345 +elected one-third of the town councillors. In this same year in Berlin +there were: + +521 persons with incomes between $25,000 and $62,500. + +139 persons with incomes between $62,500 and $125,000. + +22 persons with incomes between $125,000 and $187,500. + +19 persons with incomes between $187,000 and $250,000. + +19 persons with incomes of $250,000 or more. +Or 720 persons in Berlin in 1912 with incomes +of over $25,000 a year, and they are +practically the governors of the city. + +As a result of these divisions according to taxes paid, of the 144 +town councillors elected, only 38 were Social-Democrats, though Berlin +is overwhelmingly Social-Democratic, and consequently the affairs of +this city of more than 2,000,000 inhabitants are in the hands of +33,062 persons who elect two-thirds of the town councillors. + +In the city of Duesseldorf there were, excluding the suburbs, 62,443 +voters at the election for town councillors in 1910. The first class +was composed of 797 voters paying from 1,940 to 264,252 marks of +taxes; 6,645 voters paying from 222 to 1,939 marks; and 55,001 voters +paying 221 marks or less. These 7,442 voters of the first and second +classes were in complete control of the city government by a clear +majority of two-thirds. + +It is this three-class system of voting that makes Prussia, and the +Prussian cities as well, impregnable against any assault from the +democratically inclined. In addition to this system, the old electoral +divisions of forty years ago remain unchanged, and consequently the +agricultural east of Prussia, including east and west Prussia, +Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, and Silesia, with their large +landholders, return more members to the Prussian lower house than the +much greater population of western industrial Prussia, which includes +Sachsen, Hanover, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hohenzollern, +Hessen-Nassau, and the Rhine. Further, the executive government of +Prussia is conducted by a ministry of state, the members of which are +appointed by the King, and hold office at his pleasure, without +control from the Landtag. + +How little the people succeeded in extorting from King Frederick +William IV in the way of a constitution may be gathered from this +glimpse of the present political conditions of Prussia. + +The local government of Prussia is practically as centralized in a few +hands as the executive government of the state itself. The largest +areas are the provinces, whose chiefs or presidents also are appointed +by the sovereign, and who represent the central government. There are +twelve such provinces in Prussia, ranging in size from the Rhineland +and Brandenburg, with 7,120,519 and 4,093,007 inhabitants +respectively, to Schleswig-Holstein, with 1,619,673. + +Each province is divided into two or more government districts, of +which there are thirty-five in all. At the head of each of these +districts is the district president, also appointed by the crown. + +In addition there is the Kreis, or Circle, of which there are some +490, with populations varying from 20,000 to 801,000. These circles +are, for all practical purposes, governed by the Landrath, who is +appointed for life by the crown, and who is so fully recognized as the +agent of the central government and not as the servant of the locality +in which he rules, that on one occasion several Landraethe were +summarily dismissed for voting against the government and in +conformity to the wishes of the inhabitants of the circle in which +they lived! Though the Landrath is nominated by the circle assembly +for appointment by the crown, he can be dismissed by his superiors of +the central hierarchy. As his promotion, and his career in fact, is +dependent upon these superiors, he naturally sides with the central +government in all cases of dispute or friction. + +Further, and this is important, all officials in Germany are legally +privileged persons. All disputes between individuals and public +authorities in Germany are decided by tribunals quite distinct from +the ordinary courts. These courts are specially constituted, and they +aim at protecting the officials from any personal responsibility for +acts done by them in their official capacity. + +In America, and I presume in Great Britain also, any disputes between +public authorities and private individuals are settled in the ordinary +courts of justice, under the rules of the ordinary law of the land. +This super-common-law position of the Prussian official is a fatal +incentive to the aggravating exaggeration of his importance, and to +the indifference of his behavior to the private citizen. There may be +officials who are uninfluenced by this sheltered position, indeed I +know personally many who are, but there is equally no doubt that many +succumb to arrogance and lethargy as a consequence. + +How thoroughly Prussia is covered by a network of officialdom, is +further discovered when it is known, that the entire area of Prussia +is some twenty thousand square miles less than that of the State of +California. The whole Prussian doctrine of local self-government, too, +is entirely different from ours. Their idea is that self-government is +the performance by locally elected bodies of the will of the state, +not necessarily of the locality which elects them. Local authorities, +whether elected or not, are supposed to be primarily the agents of the +state, and only secondarily the agents of the particular locality they +serve. In Prussia, all provincial and circle assemblies and communal +councils, may be dissolved by royal decree, hence even these elected +assemblies may only serve their constituencies at the will and +pleasure of the central authority. + +It would avail little to go into minute details in describing the +government of Prussia; this slight sketch of the electoral system, and +of the centralization of the government, suffices to show two things +that it is particularly my purpose to make clear. One is the +preponderating influence of Prussia in the empire, due to the +maintenance of power in a single person; and the other is to show how +ridiculously futile it is to refer to Prussia as an example of the +success of social legislation. The state ownership of railroads, old-age +pensions, accident and sickness insurance, and the like are one +thing in Prussia which is a close corporation, and quite another in +any community or country under democratic government. What takes place +in Prussia would certainly not take place in America or in England. To +draw inferences from a state governed as is Prussia, for application +to such democratic communities as America or England, is as valuable +as to argue from the habits of birds, that such and such a treatment +would succeed with fish. + +It was with this autocratic Prussia at his back, that the greatest man +Germany has produced, succeeded in bringing about German unity and the +foundation of the German Empire. As the representative of Prussia in +the Diet, as her ambassador to Russia, and to France, he gained the +insight into the European situation which led him to hold as his +political creed, that only by blood and iron, and not by declamations +and resolutions, could Germany be united. + +"During the time I was in office," he writes, "I advised three wars, +the Danish, the Bohemian, and the French; but every time I have first +made clear to myself whether the war, if successful, would bring a +prize of victory worth the sacrifices which every war requires, and +which now are so much greater than in the last century. ... I have +never looked at international quarrels which can only be settled by a +national war from the point of view of the Goettingen student code; ... +but I have always considered simply their reaction on the claim of +the German people, in equality with the other great states and powers +of Europe, to lead an autonomous political life, so far as is possible +on the basis of our peculiar national capacity." In 1863 he writes to +von der Goltz, then German ambassador in Paris: "The question is +whether we are a great power or a state in the German federation, and +whether we are conformably to the former quality to be governed by a +monarch, or, as in the latter case would be at any rate admissible, by +professors, district judges, and the gossips of the small towns. The +pursuit of the phantom of popularity in Germany which we have been +carrying on for the last forty years has cost us our position in +Germany and in Europe; and we shall not win this back again by +allowing ourselves to be carried away by the stream in the persuasion +that we are directing its course, but only by standing firmly on our +legs and being, first of all, a great power and a German federal state +afterward." + +After Napoleon and the interminable elocutionary squabbles of the +German states, first, for constitutional rights, and, second, for some +basis of unity among themselves, which were the two main streams of +political activity, there were three main steps in the formation of +the now existing empire: first, in 1866, the North German +Confederation under the presidency of Prussia and excluding Austria; +second, the conclusion of treaties, 1866-1867, between the North +German Confederation and the south German states; third, the formal +union of the north and south German states as an empire in 1871. + +Although the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist legally in 1806, it is +to be remembered that as a fiction weighing still upon the imagination +of German politicians, it did not wholly disappear until the war +between Prussia and Austria, for then Prussia fought not only Austria +but Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Nassau, Baden, and the two +Hesse states, and at Sadowa in Bohemia the war was settled by the +defeat of the Austrians before they could be joined by these allies, +who were disposed of in detail. Frankfort was so harshly treated that +the mayor hanged himself, and the Prussianizing of Hanover has never +been entirely forgiven, and the claimants to the throne in exile are +still the centre of a political party antagonistic to Prussia. The +taking over of north Schleswig, of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and Nassau +by Prussia after the Austrian war was according to the rough +arbitrament of conquest. "Our right," replied Bismarck to the just +criticism of this spoliation, "is the right of the German nation to +exist, to breathe, to be united; it is the right and the duty of +Prussia to give the German nation the foundation necessary for its +existence." In taking Alsace-Lorraine from France, Bismarck insisted +that this was a necessary barrier against France and that Germany's +possession of Metz and Strassburg were necessities of the situation +also. + +The history of German unity is the biography of Bismarck. Otto Eduard +Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schoenhausen, in that Mark of +Brandenburg which was the cradle of the Prussian monarchy, on the +first of April, 1815. His grandfather fought at Rossbach under the +great Frederick. He was confirmed in Berlin in 1831 by the famous +pastor and theologian, Schleiermacher, and maintained all his life +that without his belief in God he would have found no reason for his +patriotism or for any serious work in life. + +He matriculated as a student of law and science at Goettingen in May, +1832, and later at Berlin in 1834. He was a tall, large-limbed, blue-eyed +young giant, the boldest rider, the best swordsman, and the +heartiest drinker of his day. He is still looked upon in Germany as +the typical hero of corps student life, and his pipe, or his Schlaeger, +or his cap, or his Kneipe jacket is preserved as the relic of a saint. +His was not the tepid virtue born of lack of vitality. One has but to +remember Augustine and Origen and Ignatius Loyola, to recall the fact +that the preachers of salvation, the best of them, have generally had +themselves to tame before they mastered the world. + +This youth Bismarck must have had some vigorous battles with Bismarck +before he married Johanna Friederika Charlotte Dorothea Eleanore von +Puttkamer, July 28, 1847, much against the wishes of her parents, and +settled down to his life-work. As was said of John Pym, "he thought it +part of a man's religion to see that his country was well governed," +and his country became his passion. Like most men of intense feeling, +he loved few people and loyally hated many. More men feared and envied +him than liked him. His wife, his sister, his king, a student friend, +Keyserling, and the American, Motley, shared with his country his +affection. Germany might well take it to heart that it was Motley the +American who was of all men dearest to her giant creator. The same +type of American would serve her better to-day than any other, did she +only know it! In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber. In 1852 +a whiff of the old dare-devil got loose, and he fought a duel with +Freiherr von Vincke. + +In 1852 he is sent on his first responsible mission to Vienna, and +found there the traditions of the Metternich diplomacy still ruling. +What Napoleon had said of Metternich he no doubt remembered: "Il ment +trop. Il faut mentir quelquefois, mais mentir tout le temps c'est +trop!" for he adopted quite the opposite policy in his own diplomatic +dealings. + +In 1855 he became a member of the upper house of Prussia, and in 1859 +is sent as minister to St. Petersburg. In May, 1862, he is sent as +minister to Paris, and learns to know, and not greatly to admire, the +third Napoleon and his court. + +On the 23d of September, 1862, he is appointed Staats-minister, and a +week later thunders out his famous blood-and-iron speech. On October +the 8th, 1862, he is definitely named Minister President and Minister +for Foreign Affairs. + +William I had succeeded his brother as king. He was a soldier and a +believer in the army, and wished to spend more on it, and to lengthen +the time of service with the colors to three years. The legislature +opposed these measures. A minister was needed who could bully the +legislature, and Bismarck was chosen for the task. He spent the +necessary money despite the legislative opposition, pleading that a +legislature that refused to vote necessary supplies had ipso facto +laid down its proper functions, and the king must take over the +responsibilities of government that they declined to exercise. The +cavalry boots were beginning to trample their way to Paris, and to the +crowning of an emperor. + +In February, 1864, Prussia and Austria together declare war upon +Denmark over the Schleswig-Holstein succession. They agree to govern +the spoils between them, but fall out over the question of their +respective jurisdiction, and the Prussian army being ready, and the +Moltke plan of campaign worked out, war is declared, and in seven +weeks the Treaty of Prague is signed, in 1866, by which Austria gives +up all her rights in Schleswig-Holstein, and abandons her claim to +take part in the reorganization of Germany. The North German +Confederation is formed to include all lands north of the Main; +Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, the Hesse states, Nassau, and Frankfurt-am- +Main become part of Prussia; and the south German states agree to remain +neutral, but allies of Prussia in war. + +On the 11th of March, 1867, a month after the formation of the +Confederation of the North German States, Bismarck proclaims with +pride in the new Reichstag: "Setzen win Deutschland, so zu sagen, in +den Sattel! Reiten wird es schon koennen!" + +October 13th, 1868, Leopold von Sigmaringen, a German prince of the +House of Hohenzollern, is named for the first time as a candidate for +the Spanish throne. Nobody in Germany, or anywhere else, was much more +interested in this candidature, than we are now interested in the +woman's suffrage or the prohibition candidate at home. But France had +looked on with jealous eyes at the vigorous growth and martial +successes of Prussia. It was thought well to attack her and humiliate +her before she became stronger. All France was convinced, too, that +the southern German states would revert to their old love in case of +actual war, and side with the nephew of their former friend, the great +Napoleon. The French ambassador is instructed to force the pace. Not +only must the Prussian King disavow all intention to support the +candidacy of the German prince, but he must be asked to humiliate +himself by binding himself never in the future to push such claims. + +William I is at Ems, and Benedetti, the French ambassador, reluctantly +presses the insulting demand of his country upon the royal gentleman +as he is walking. The King declines to see Benedetti again, and +telegraphs to Bismarck the gist of the interview. Lord Acton writes: +"He [Bismarck] drew his long pencil and altered the text, showing only +that Benedetti had presented an offensive demand, and that the King +had refused to see him. That there might be no mistake he made this +official by sending it to all the embassies and legations. Moltke +exclaimed, 'You have converted surrender into defiance.'" The altered +telegram was also sent to the Norddeutscher Allgemeine Zeitung and to +officials. It is not perhaps generally known that General Lebrun went +to Vienna in June, 1870, to discuss an alliance with Austria for an +attack on the North German Confederation in the following spring. +Bismarck knew this. This was on the 13th of July, 1870; on the 16th +the order was given to mobilize the army, on the 31st followed the +proclamation of the King to his people: "Zur Errettung des +Vaterlandes." On August the 2d, King William took command of the +German armies, and on September 1st, Napoleon handed over his sword, +and on January the 18th, 1871, King William of Prussia was proclaimed +German Emperor in the Hall of the Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles. + +"It sounds so lovely what our fathers did, +And what we do is, as it was to them, +Toilsome and incomplete." + +It is easy to forget in such a rapid survey of events that Bismarck +could have had any serious opposition to face as he tramped through +those eight years, from 1862 to 1870, with a kingdom on his back. It +is easy to forget that King William himself wished to abdicate in +those dark hours, when his people refused him their confidence, and +called a halt upon his endeavors to strengthen the absolutely +essential instrument for Prussia's development, the army; it is easy +to forget that even the silent and seemingly imperturbable Moltke +hesitated and wavered a little at the audacity of his comrade; it is +easy to forget the conspiracy of opposition of the three women of the +court, the Crown Princess, Frau von Blumenthal, and Frau von Gottberg, +all of English birth, and all using needles against this man +accustomed to the Schlaeger and the sword; it is easy to forget that +even Queen Victoria's influence was used against him to prevent the +reaping of the justifiable fruits of victory in 1871; it is easy to +forget what a bold throw it was to go to war with Austria, and to +array Prussia against the very German states she must later bind to +herself; it is easy to forget the dour patience of this irascible +giant with the petulant and often petty legislature with which he had +to deal. + +I cannot understand how any German can criticise Bismarck, but there +are official prigs who do; little decorated bureaucrats who live their +lives out poring over papers, with an eye out for a "von" before their +bourgeois names, and as void of audacity as a sheep; men who creep up +the stairway to promotion and recognition, clinging with cautious grip +to the banisters. One sees them, their coats covered with the ceramic +insignia of their placid servitude, decorations tossed to them by the +careless hand of a master who is satisfied if they but sign his +decrees, with the i's properly dotted, and the t's unexceptionably +crossed. They are the crumply officials who melted into +defencelessness and moral decrepitude after Frederick the Great, and +again at the glance of Napoleon, and who owe the little stiffness they +have to the fact that Bismarck lived. It is one of the things a +full-blooded man is least able to bear in Germany, to hear the querulous +questioning of the great deeds of this man, whose boot-legs were +stiffer than the backbones of those who decry him. + +What a splendid fellow he was! + +"Give me the spirit that, on this life's rough sea, +Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind, +Even till his sail-yards tremble and his masts do crack, +And his rapt ship run on her side so low +That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air. +There is no danger to a man that knows +What life and death is -- there's not any law +Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful +That he should stoop to any other law." + +He was no worshipper of that flimsy culture which is, and has been for +a hundred years, an obsession of the German. He knew, none knew better +indeed, that the choicest knowledge is only mitigated ignorance. He +surprised Disraeli with his mastery of English, and Napoleon with his +fluency in French, both of which he had learned from his Huguenot +professors. The popular man, the popular book, the popular music, +picture, or play, were none of them a golden calf to him. He mastered +what he needed for his work, and pretended to no enthusiasm for +intellectualism as such. He knew that there is no real culture without +character, and that the mere aptitude for knowing and doing without +character is merely the simian cleverness that often dazzles but never +does anything of importance. "Culture!" writes Henry Morley, "the aim +of culture is to bring forth in their due season the fruits of the +earth." Any learning, any accomplishments, that do not serve a man to +bring forth the fruits of the earth in their due season are merely +mental gimcracks, flimsy toys, to admire perhaps, to play with, and to +be thrown aside as useless when duty makes its sovereign demands. + +Much as Germany has done for the development of the intellectual life +of the world, she has suffered not a little from the superficial +belief still widely held that instruction, that learning, are culture. +Their Great Elector, their Frederick the Great, and their Bismarck, +should have taught them the contrary by now. + +The newly crowned German Emperor left Versailles on March 7th for +Berlin, and on March 21st the first Diet of the new empire was opened, +and began the task of adapting the constitution to the altered +circumstances of the new empire. + +The German Empire now consists of four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, +Saxony, and Wuertemberg; of six grand duchies: Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, +Saxe-Weimar, Oldenburg, Meeklenburg-Strelitz, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin; +of five duchies: Saxe-Meinigen, Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, +Brunswick, and Anhalt; of seven principalities: Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, +Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Waldeck, Reuss (older line), +Reuss (younger line), Lippe, and Schaumburg-Lippe; of three free +towns: Hamburg, Bremen, and Luebeck; and of one imperial province: +Alsace Lorraine. + +The new empire is in a sense a continuation of the North German +Confederation. There are 25 states, the largest, Prussia, with a +population of over 40,000,000; the smallest, Schaumburg-Lippe, with a +population of a little more than 46,000 and an area of 131 square +miles. + +The central or federal authority controls the army, navy, foreign +relations, railways, main roads, canals, post and telegraph, coinage, +weights and measures, copyrights, patents, and legislation over nearly +the whole field of civil and criminal law, regulation of press and +associations, imperial finance and customs tariffs, which are now the +same throughout Germany. + +Bavaria still manages her own railways, and Saxony and Wuertemberg have +certain privileges and exemptions. Administration is still almost +entirely in the hands of the separate states. + +The law is imperial, but the judges are appointed by the states, and +are under its authority. The supreme court of appeal (Reichsgericht) +sits at Leipsic. + +The head of the executive government is the Emperor, no longer +elective but hereditary, and attached to the office of the King of +Prussia. Outside of Prussia he has little power in civil matters and +no veto on legislation. He is commander-in-chief of the army and of +the navy; foreign affairs are in his hands, and in the federal +council, or Bundesrath, he exercises a mighty influence due to +Prussia's preponderating influence and voting power. There is no +cabinet, just as there is no cabinet in Great Britain, that modern +institution being merely a legislative fiction down to this day. The +chancellor of the empire, who is also prime minister of Prussia, with +several secretaries of state, is chief minister for all imperial +affairs. The chancellor presides in the Bundesrath, and has the right +to speak in the Reichstag, and frequently does speak there. Indeed, +all his more important pronouncements are made there. The chancellor +is responsible to the Emperor alone, by whom he is nominated, and not +to the representatives of the people. + +The federal council, or Bundesrath, or upper chamber of the empire, +consists of delegates appointed by and representing the rulers of the +various states. There are 58 members. Prussia has 17, Bavaria 6, +Saxony 4, Wuertemberg 4, Baden 3, Hessen 3, Mecklenburg-Schwerin 2, +Brunswick 2, and each of the other states 1. + +This body meets in Berlin, sits in secret, and the delegates have no +discretion, but vote as directed by their state governments. Here it +is that Prussia, and through Prussia the Emperor, dominates. This +Bundesrath is the most powerful upper chamber in the world. With +respect to all laws concerning the army and navy, and taxation for +imperial purposes, the vote of Prussia shall decide disputes, if such +vote be cast in favor of maintaining existing arrangements. In other +words, Prussia is armed in the Bundesrath with a conservative veto! In +declaring war and making treaties, the consent of the Bundesrath is +required. The following articles also give the Bundesrath a very +complete control of the Reichstag. Article 7 reads: "The Bundesrath +shall take action upon (1) the measures to be proposed to the +Reichstag and the resolutions passed by the same; (2) the general +administrative provisions and arrangements necessary for the execution +of the imperial laws, so far as no other provision is made by law; (3) +the defects which may be discovered in the execution of the imperial +laws or of the provisions and arrangements heretofore mentioned." + +The Reichstag, or lower house, is elected by universal suffrage in +electoral districts which were originally equal, but as we have noted +are far from equal now. This house has three hundred and ninety-seven +members, of whom two hundred and thirty-five are from Prussia. It sits +for five years, but may be dissolved by the Bundesrath with the +consent of the Emperor. All members of the Bundesrath, as well as the +chancellor, may speak in the Reichstag. Nor the chancellor, nor any +other executive officer, is responsible to the Reichstag, nor can be +removed by its vote, and the ministers of the Emperor are seldom or +never chosen from this body. This Reichstag is really only nominally a +portion of the governing body. It has the right to refuse to pass a +bill presented by the government, but if it does so it may be +summarily dismissed, as has happened several times, and another +election usually provides a more amenable body. + +Of the various political parties in the Reichstag we have written +elsewhere. It is, perhaps, fair to say that such powerful parties as +the Socialists and the Centrum must be reckoned with by the +chancellor. He cannot actually trample upon them, nor can he disregard +wholly their wishes in framing and in carrying through legislation. It +would be going much too far in characterizing the weakness of the +Reichstag to leave that impression upon the reader. None the less it +remains true that it is the executive who rules and has the whip-hand, +and who in a grave crisis can override the representatives of the +people assembled in the Reichstag, and on more than one occasion this +has been done. + +It seems highly unnecessary to announce after this description of the +imperial constitution that there is no such thing in Germany as +democratic or representative government. But this fact cannot be +proclaimed too often since in other countries it is continually +assumed that this is the case. All sorts of deductions are made, all +sorts of illustrations used, all sorts of legislative and social +lessons taught from the example of Germany, without the smallest +knowledge apparently on the part of those who make them, that Germany +to-day is no more democratic than was Turkey twenty years ago. + +What can be done and what is done in Germany has no possible bearing +upon what can be done in America or in England. All analogies are +false, all illustrations futile, all examples valueless, for the one +reason that the empire of Germany is governed by one man, who declaims +his independence of the people and admits his responsibility to God +alone. This may be either a good or a bad thing. Certainly in many +matters of economical and comfortable government for the people-- +witness more particularly the development and wise control of their +municipalities--they are a century ahead of us, but this is not the +question under discussion. The point is, that a compact nation under +strict centralized control, served by a trained horde of officials +with no wish for a change, and backed by a standing army of over seven +hundred thousand men, who are not only a defence against the +foreigner, but a powerful police against internal revolution, cannot +serve as a model in either its successes or failures for a democratic +country like ours. Where in Germany legislative schemes succeed easily +when this huge bureaucratic machine is behind them, they would fail +ignominiously in a country lacking this machinery, and lacking these +pitiably tame people accustomed to submission. + +In France, for example, that thrifty and individualistic folk made a +complete failure of the attempt to foist contributory old-age pensions +upon them, and I doubt whether such sumptuary legislation can succeed +with us. That, however, is neither here nor there. The gist of the +matter is, that because such things succeed in Germany, gives not the +slightest reason for supposing that they will succeed with us. If this +outline of their history and this sketch of their government have done +nothing else, it must have made this clear. It may also help to show +how vapid is the talk about what the German people will or will not +do; whether they will or will not have war, for example. We shall have +war when the German Kaiser touches a button and gives an order, and +the German people will have no more to say in the matter than you and I. + + + +III THE INDISCREET + + +The casual observer of life in England would find himself forced to +write of sport, even as in India he would write of caste, as in +America he would note the undue emphasis laid upon politics. In +Germany, wherever he turns, whether it be to look at the army, to +inquire about the navy, to study the constitution, or to disentangle +the web of present-day political strife; to read the figures of +commercial and industrial progress, or the results of social +legislation; to look on at the Germans at play during their yachting +week at Kiel, or their rowing contests at Frankfort, he finds himself +face to face with the Emperor. + +The student visits Berlin, or Potsdam, or Wilhelmshoehe; or with a long +stride finds himself on the docks at Hamburg or Bremen, or beside the +Kiel Canal, or in Kiel harbor facing a fleet of war-ships; or he lifts +his eyes into the air to see a dirigible balloon returning from a +voyage of two hundred and fifty miles toward London over the North +Sea, and the Emperor is there. Is it the palace hidden in its +shrubbery in the country; is it the clean, broad streets and +decorations of the capital; is it a discussion of domestic politics, +or a question of foreign politics, the Emperor's hand is there. His +opinion, his influence, what he has said or has not said, are +inextricably interwoven with the woof and web of German life. + +We may like him or dislike him, approve or disapprove, rejoice in +autocracy or abominate it, admire the far-reaching discipline, or +regret the iron mould in which much of German life is encased, but for +the moment all this is beside the mark. Here is a man who in a quarter +of a century has so grown into the life of a nation, the most powerful +on the continent, and one of the three most powerful in the world, +that when you touch it anywhere you touch him, and when you think of +it from any angle of thought, or describe it from any point of view, +you find yourself including him. + +Personally, I should have been glad to leave this chapter unwritten. I +have no taste for the discussion and analysis of living persons, even +when they are of such historic and social importance, and of such +magnitude, that I am thus given the proverbial license of the cat. But +to write about Germany without writing about the Emperor is as +impossible as to jump away from one's own shadow. When the sun is +behind any phase or department of German life, the shadow cast is that +of Germany's Emperor. + +This is not said because it is pleasing to whomsoever it may be, for +in Germany, and in much of the world outside Germany, this situation +is looked upon as unfavorable, and even deplorable; and certainly no +American can look upon it with equanimity, for it is of the essence of +his Americanism to distrust it. It is, however, so much a fact that to +neglect a discussion of this personality would be to leave even so +slight a sketch of Germany as this, hopelessly lop-sided. He so +pervades German life that to write of the Germany of the last twenty-five +years without attempting to describe William the Second, German +Emperor, would be to leave every question, institution, and problem of +the country without its master-key. + +In other chapters dealing more particularly with the political +development of Germany, and with the salient characteristics, mental +and moral, of the people, we shall see how it has come about, that one +man can thus impregnate a whole nation of sixty-five millions with his +own aims and ambitions, to such an extent, that they may be said, so +to speak, to live their political, social, martial, religious, and +even their industrial, life in him. It is a phenomenon of personality +that exists nowhere else in the world to-day, and on so large a scale +and among so enlightened a people, perhaps never before in history. + +Nothing has made scientific accuracy in dealing with the most +interesting and most important factors in the world, so utterly +inaccurate and misleading, as those infallibly accurate and impersonal +agents, electricity and the sun. If one were to judge a man by his +photographs, and the gossip of the press, one would be sure to know +nothing more valuable about him than that his mustache is brushed up, +and that his brows are permanently lowering. Personality is so evasive +that one may count upon it that when a machine says "There it is!" +then there it is not! You will have everything that is patent and +nothing that is pertinent. + +We are forever talking and writing about the smallness of the world, +of how much better we know one another, and of how much more we should +love one another, now that we flash photographs and messages to and +fro, at a speed of leagues a second. Nothing could be more futile and +foolish. These things have emphasized our differences, they have done +nothing to realize our likeness to one another. We are as far from one +another as in the days, late in the tenth century, when they +complained in England that men learned fierceness from the Saxon of +Germany, effeminacy from the Fleming, and drunkenness from the Dane. + +As probably the outstanding figure and best-known, superficially +known, man in the world, the German Emperor has escaped the notice of +very few people who notice anything. His likeness is everywhere, and +gossip about him is on every tongue. He is as familiar to the American +as Roosevelt, to the Englishman as Lloyd-George, to the Frenchman as +Dreyfus, to the Russian as his Czar, and to the Chinese and Japanese +as their most prominent political figure. And yet I should say that he +is comparatively little known, either externally or internally, as he +is. + +It is perhaps the fate of those of most influence to be misunderstood. +Of this, I fancy, the Emperor does not complain. Indeed, those feeble +folk who complain of being misunderstood, ought to console themselves +with the thought that practically all our imperishable monuments, are +erected to the glory of those whom we condemned and criticised; +starved and stoned; burned and crucified, when we had them with us. + +William II, German Emperor and King of Prussia, was born January 27, +1859, and became German Emperor June 15, 1888. He is, therefore, in +the prime of life, and looks it. His complexion and eyes are as clear +as those of an athlete, and his eyes, and his movements, and his talk +are vibrating with energy. He stands, I should guess, about five feet +eight or nine, has the figure and activity of an athletic youth of +thirty, and in his hours of friendliness is as careless in speech, as +unaffected in manner, as lacking in any suspicion of self- +consciousness, or of any desire to impress you with his importance, as +the simplest gentleman in the land. + +Alas, how often this courageous and gentlemanly attitude has been +taken advantage of! I have headed this chapter The Indiscreet, and I +propose to examine these so-called indiscretions in some detail, but +for the moment I must ask: Is there any excuse for, or any social +punishment too severe for, the man who, introduced into a gentleman's +house in the guise of a gentleman, often by his own ambassador, leaves +it, to blab every detail of the conversation of his host, with the +gesticulations and exclamation points added by himself? To add a +little to his own importance, he will steal out with the +conversational forks and spoons in his pockets, and rush to a +newspaper office to tell the world that he has kept his soiled napkin +as a souvenir. The only indiscretion in such a case is when the host, +or his advisers, or gentlemen anywhere, heed the lunatic laughter of +such a social jackal. + +To count one's words, to tie up one's phrases in caution, to dip each +sentence in a diplomatic antiseptic, in the company of those to whom +one has conceded hospitality, what a feeble policy! Better be brayed +to the world every day as indiscreet than that! + +It is a fine quality in a man to be in love with his job. Even though +you have little sympathy with Savonarola's fierceness or Wesley's +hardness, they were burning up all the time with their allegiance to +their ideals of salvation. They served their Lord as lovers. Many men, +even kings and princes and other potentates, give the impression that +they would enjoy a holiday from their task. They seem to be harnessed +to their duties rather than possessed by them; they appear like +disillusioned husbands rather than as radiant lovers. + +The German Emperor is not of that class. He loves his job. In his +first proclamation to his people he declared that he had taken over +the government "in the presence of the King of kings, promising God to +be a just and merciful prince, cultivating piety and the fear of God." +He has proclaimed himself to be, as did Frederick the Great and his +grandfather before him, the servant of his people. Certainly no one in +the German Empire works harder, and what is far more difficult and far +more self-denying, no one keeps himself fitter for his duties than he. +He eats no red meat, drinks almost no alcohol, smokes very little, +takes a very light meal at night, goes to bed early and gets up early. +He rides, walks, shoots, plays tennis, and is as much in the open air +as his duties permit. + +It is not easy for the American to put side by side the attitudes of a +man, who is the autocratic master and at the same time declares +himself to be the first servant of his people. Perhaps if it is +phrased differently it will not seem so contradictory. What this +Emperor means, and what all princes who have believed in their right +to rule meant, was not that they were the servants of their people, +but the servants of their own obligations to their people, and of the +duties that followed therefrom. If in addition to this the claim is +made by the sovereign, that his right to rule is of divine origin, +then his service to his obligations becomes of the highest and most +sacred importance. + +We should not allow our democratic prejudices to stifle our +understanding in such matters. We are trying to get clearly in +perspective a ruler, who claims to rule in obedience to no mandates +from the people, but in obedience to God. We could not be ruled by +such a one in America; and in England such a ruler would be deemed +unconstitutional. It is elementary, but necessary to repeat, that we +are writing of Germany and the Germans, and of their history, +traditions, and political methods. We are making no defence of either +the German Emperor or the German people; neither are we occupying an +American pulpit to preach to them the superiority of other methods +than their own. My sole task is to make clear the German situation, +and not by any means to set up my own or my countrymen's standards for +their adoption. I am not searching for that paltry and ephemeral +profit that comes from finding opportunities to laugh or to sneer. I +am seeking for the German successes, and they are many, and for the +reasons for them, and for the lessons that we may learn from them. Any +other aim in writing of another people is ignoble. + +This attitude of the ruler will be as incomprehensible to the +democratic citizen as alchemy, but, in order to draw anything like +true inferences or useful deductions, in order to understand the +situation and to get a true likeness of the ruler, one must take this +utterly unfamiliar and to us incomprehensible claim into +consideration, and acknowledge its existence whether we admit the +claim as justifiable or not. The relation of such a ruler to his +people is like that of a Catholic bishop to his flock. The contract is +not one made with hands, but is an inalienable right on the one hand, +and an undisseverable tie upon the other. Bismarck wrote on this +subject: "Fuer mich sind die Worte, 'von Gottes Gnaden,' welche +christliche Herrscher ihrem Namen beifuegen, kein leerer Schall, +sondern ich sehe darin das Bekenntniss, des Fuersten das Scepter was +ihnen Gott verliehen hat, nur nach Gottes Willen auf Erden fuehren +wollen." + +On several occasions the German Emperor has made it unmistakably clear +that this is his view of the origin and sanctity of his +responsibilities. "If we have been able to accomplish what has been +accomplished, it is due above all things to the fact that our house +possesses a tradition by virtue of which we consider that we have been +appointed by God to preserve and direct, for their own welfare, the +people over whom he has given us power." These words are from a speech +made in 1897 at Bremen. In 1910, at Koenigsberg, he declares: "It was +in this spot that my grandfather in his own right placed the royal +crown of Prussia upon his head, insisting once again that it was +bestowed upon him by the grace of God alone, and not by parliaments +and meetings and decisions of the people. He thus regarded himself as +the chosen instrument of heaven, and as such carried out his duties as +a ruler and lord. I consider myself such an instrument of heaven, and +shall go my way without regard to the views and opinions of the day." + +Prince Henry of Prussia, the popular, and deservedly popular, sailor +brother of the Emperor, has signified his entire allegiance to this +doctrine by saying that he was actuated by one single motive: "a +desire to proclaim to the nations the gospel of your Majesty's sacred +person, and to preach that gospel alike to those who will listen and +to those who will not." + +This language has a strange and far-away sound to us. It is as though +one should come into the market-place with the bannered pomp of +Milton's prose upon his lips. The vicious would think it a trick, the +idle would look upon it as a heavy form of joking, the intelligent +would see in it a superstition, or a dream of knighthood that has +faded into unrecognizable dimness. Some men, on the other hand, might +wish that all rulers and governors whatsoever were equally touched +with the sanctity of their obligations. + +It is somewhat strange in this connection to remember, that we all +wish to have our wives and daughters believers; that we all wish to +bind to us those whom we love with more sacred bonds than those which +we ourselves can supply. We are none of us loath to have those who +keep our treasures, believe in some code higher than that of "honesty +is the best policy." As Archbishop Whately said: "Honesty is the best +policy, but he who is honest for that reason is not an honest man." + +Far be it from me to appear as an advocate of the divine right of +kings; but I am no fit person for this particular task if I have only +a sniff, or a guffaw, as an explanation of another's beliefs. History +sparkles with the lives of men and women, who proclaimed themselves +messengers and servants of God, obedient to him first, and utterly and +courageously negligent of that feline commodity, public opinion. Every +man, even to-day, + +"Who each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star, +Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are," +has a grain of this salt of divine independence in him. To-day, even +as in the days of Pericles: "It is ever from the greatest hazards that +the greatest honors are gained," and the greatest hazard of all is to +shut your visor and couch your lance and have at your task with a +whispered: God and my Right! It is well to remember that under no +government, whether democratic or aristocratic, has the individual +ever been given any rights. He has always everywhere been pointed to +his duties; his rights he must conquer for himself. + +The liberal in theology, as the liberal in politics, has perhaps +leaned too far toward softness. The democratization of religion has +gone on with the rest, and in our rebound from Calvin, and John Knox, +and Jonathan Edwards, we have left all discipline and authority out of +account. We have preached so persistently of the fatherhood of God, of +his nearness to us, of his profound pity for us, that we have lost +sight of his justice and his power. This nearness has become a sort of +innocuous neighborliness, and God is looked upon not as a ruler, but +as a vaporish good fellow whose chief business it is to forgive. We +have substituted a feverish-handed charity for a sinewy faith, and are +excusing our divorce from divinely imposed duties, by a cheerful but +illicit intercourse with chance acquaintances, all of whom are dubbed +social service. + +This Cashmere-shawl theology is as idle an interpretation of man's +relation to the universe, and far more debilitating, than any that has +gone before. When we come to measure rulers who make divine claims for +their duties, from any such coign of flabbiness as this, no wonder we +stand dumb. I am willing to concede that perhaps even an emperor has +been baptized with the blood of the martyrs, and feels himself to be +in all sincerity the instrument of God; if we are to understand this +one, we must admit so much. + +In certain departments of life, we not only grant, but we demand, that +our wives and mothers should look upon their special duties and +peculiar functions as divinely imparted, and as beyond argument, and +as above coercion. This assumption, therefore, of inalienable rights +is not so strange to us; on the contrary, it is an every-day affair in +most of our lives. This particular manifestation of it is all that is +new or surprising. We Americans and English look upon it as dangerous, +but the Germans, more mystical and far more lethargic about liberty +than are we, are not greatly disturbed by it. The secular press, +largely in Jewish hands, and the new socialist members of the +Reichstag, jealous of their prerogatives but unable to assert them, +criticise and even scream their abhorrence and unbelief; but I am much +mistaken, if the mass of the Germans are at heart much disturbed by +their Emperor's assertions of his divine right to rule. A conservative +member of the Reichstag speaks of, "a parliament which will maintain +the monarch in his strong position as the wearer of the German +imperial crown, not the semblance of a monarch but one that is +dependent upon something higher than party and parliament -- one +dependent upon the King of all kings." + +To a thoroughbred American, with two and more centuries of the +traditions of independence behind him, this question of the divine +right of kings is a commonplace. He is a king himself, he holds his +own rights to be divine, and his influence and his power to be limited +only by his character and his abilities, like that of any other +sovereign. He may rule over few or many, he may control the destiny of +only one or of many subjects, he may be well known or little known, +but that he is a sovereign individual by the grace of God, it never +occurs to him to doubt. It is perhaps for this reason that the real +American is placid and unself-conscious before this claim. It is those +who admit and suffer from the exactions and tyrannies of such a claim +that he pities, not the man who makes it, whom he distrusts. I carry +my sovereignty under my hat, says the American; if any man or men can +knock off the hat and take away the sovereignty, there is a fair field +and no favor; for those who whimper and complain of tyranny he has +long since ceased to have a high regard. + +That William the Second is the chief figure of interest in the world +to-day is due, not alone to this assumption of a divine relation to +the state, or to his own vigorous and electric personality, but to the +freedom to develop and to express that personality. Men in politics +have dwindled in importance and in power, as the voters have increased +in numbers and in influence. Genius must be true to itself to bloom +luxuriantly. It is impossible to be seeking the suffrage of a +constituency and at the same time to be wholly one's self. The German +Emperor is unhampered, as is no other ruler, by considerations of +popular favor; and at the same time he directs and influences not +Russian peasants, nor Turkish slaves, but an instructed, enlightened, +and ambitious people. This environment is unique in the world to-day, +and the Germans as a whole seem to consider their ruler a valuable +asset, despite occasional vagaries that bring down their own and +foreign criticism upon him. + +Here we have a versatile and vigorous personality with no shadow of a +stain upon his character, and with no question upon the part of his +bitterest enemy of the honesty of his intentions, or of his devotion +to his country's interests. So far as he has been assailed abroad, it +is on the score that he has made his country so powerful in the last +twenty-five years that Germany is a menace to other powers; so far as +he has been criticised at home it is on the score of his +indiscretions. + +It is of prime importance, therefore, both to glance at the progress +of Germany and to examine these so-called indiscretions. Throughout +these chapters will be found facts and figures dealing with the fairy-like +change which has taken place in Germany since my own student +days. I can remember when a chimney was a rare sight. Now there are +almost as many manufacturing towns as then there were chimneys. +Leipzig was a big country town, Pforzheim, Chemnitz, Oschatz, +Elberfeld, Riessa, Kiel, Essen, Rheinhausen, and their armies of +laborers, and their millions of output, were mere shadows of what they +are now. + +In 1873, when Bismarck began his attempts at railway legislation, +Germany was divided into sixty-three "railway provinces," and there +were fifteen hundred different tariffs, and it is to be remembered +that it was only as late as 1882 that the state system of railways at +last triumphed in Prussia. In only ten years the railway trackage has +increased from 49,041 to 52,216 miles; the number of locomotives from +18,291 to 26,612; freight-cars from 398,000 to 558,000; the passengers +carried from 804,000,000 to 1,457,000,000; and the tons of freight +carried from 341,000,000 tons to 519,000,000 tons. In Prussia alone +there are 1,000,000 more horses, 1,000,000 more beef cattle, and +10,000,000 more pigs. The total production of beet sugar in the world +approximates 7,000,000 tons; of this amount Germany produces 2,500,000 +tons. Great Britain consumes more sugar per head of the population +than any other country, and of her consumption of 1,460,000 tons of +beet sugar all of it is produced from beets grown on the continent. +Between 1885 and 1912 the population increased from 46,000,000 to +66,000,000. The expenditure on the navy has increased in the last ten +years from $47,500,000 to $110,000,000, and the number of men from +31,157 to 60,805, with another increase in both money and men, voted +at the moment of this writing in the summer of 1912. + +The debt of Germany, exclusive of paper money, in 1887 was 486,201,000 +marks; in 1903 it stood at 2,733,500,000. In 1911 the funded debt of +the empire was 4,524,000,000 marks, and the funded debt of the states +14,880,000,000; and the floating debt amounts to 991,000,000, of which +Prussia alone bears 610,000,000 and the empire 300,000,000. Between +the years 1871 and 1897 a debt of $500,000,000 was incurred, bearing +an average interest charge of 3 3/4 per cent. In the year 1908 the +combined expenditures of the states and of the empire reached the +enormous total of $1,775,000,000. The debt of the city of Berlin alone +in 1910 had reached $110,750,000 and has increased in the last two +years. + +For purposes of comparison one may note that our own later national +budgets run roughly to $1,000,000,000. The British budget for 1911 was +$906,420,000. After the French war, speculation on a large scale +ensued. The payment of the $1,000,000,000 indemnity had a bad effect. +As has often happened in America, money, or the mere means of +exchange, was taken for wealth. The earth will be as cold as the moon +before men learn that the only real wealth is health. Many schemes and +companies were floated and after 1873 there was a prolonged financial +crisis in Germany. It is said that bankruptcy and the liquidation of +bubble companies entailed a loss of a round $90,000,000. It was in +1876-7, when Germany was thus suffering, that the policy of protection +was mooted and finally put into operation by Bismarck in 1879. Ten +years later the laws for accident, old age, and sickness insurance +were passed, at the instigation and under the direct influence of the +present Emperor. + +The tonnage of steam vessels under 4,000 tons in Great Britain (net +tons) was, some five years ago, 8,165,527; in Germany (gross tons), +977,410; but the tonnage of steam vessels of 4,000 tons and over was +in Great Britain 1,446,486, in Germany 1,119,537! It should be added +that no small part of Great Britain's big ships belong to the American +Shipping Trust, sailing under the British flag. Albert Ballin became a +director of the Hamburg-American line in 1886, and was made general +director in 1900. During his directorship the capital of the line has +been increased from 15,000,000 to 125,000,000 of marks, and the number +of steamers from 26 to 170. + +Germany's combined export and import trade in 1880 was $1,429,025,000; +in 1890, $1,875,050,000; and in 1905 it was $3,324,018,000; in 1910, +$4,019,072,250. The German production of coal and coal products in +1910 was the highest in its history, amounting to 265,148,232 metric +tons. It would be easy enough to chronicle the commercial and +industrial strides of Germany during the last quarter of a century by +the compilation of a catalogue of figures. It is not my intention to +persuade the reader to believe in any such fantastic theory as that +the present Kaiser is entirely responsible for this progress. I am no +Pygmalion that I can make an Emperor by breathing prayers before pages +of statistics. + +It is only fair, however, in any sketch of the Emperor to give this +skeleton outline of what has taken place in the empire over which he +rules, and which, in certain quarters, it is said, he menaces by his +predilection for war. These few figures spell peace, they do not spell +war, and the ruler who has some 700,000 armed men at his back, and a +navy the second in strength in the world guarding his shores, and a +mercantile marine carrying his trade which is hard on the heels of +Great Britain as a rival, but who has none the less kept his country +at peace with the world for twenty-five years, may be credited at +least with good intentions. + +It may be said in answer to this same argument that this building and +training and enriching of a nation are a threat in themselves. True, a +strong man is more dangerous than a weak one; but it is equally true +that a strong man is a greater safeguard than a weak one where the +question of peace is at stake. It is also true that a rich and +powerful man must needs take more precautions against attack and +robbery than a tramp. A tramp seldom carries even a bunch of keys, and +pays no premium on fire, accident, or burglary insurance. + +William the Second knows his history as well as any of his people, and +incomparably better than his English, French, or American critics. He +knows that only twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great, +the Prussian power went down before Napoleon like a house of cards, +and that the country's humiliation was stamped in bold outlines when +Napoleon was received in Berlin with the ringing of bells, the firing +of cannons, and he himself greeted as a savior and a benefactor. That +was only a hundred years ago. Is it an indiscretion, then, when the +present ruler, speaking at Brandenburg the 5th of March, 1890, says: +"I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a responsibility +conferred upon me by God, and that it is, as is written in the Bible, +my duty to increase this heritage, for which one day I shall be called +upon to give an account; those who try to interfere with my task, I +shall crush"? + +On his accession to the throne his first two proclamations were to the +army and the navy, his third to the people. On the 14th of July, 1888, +he reviewed the fleet at Kiel, and for the first time an Emperor of +Germany and King of Prussia appeared there in the uniform of an +admiral. In April, 1897, Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth year +of her reign, and Prince Henry represented Germany, appearing as +admiral of the fleet in an old battle-ship, the King William. On the +24th of April the Emperor telegraphed to his brother: "I regret +exceedingly that I cannot put at your disposition for this celebration +a better ship, especially when all other countries are appearing with +their finest ships of war. It is a sad consequence of the manoeuvring +of those unpatriotic persons who have obstructed the construction of +even the most necessary war-ships. But I shall know no rest till I +have placed our navy on a par for strength with our army." From that +day to this he has gone steadily forward demanding of his people a +strong army and a powerful fleet. He now has both. He has pulled +Germany out of danger and beyond the reach, for the moment at least, +of any repetition of the catastrophe and humiliation of a hundred +years ago. This is a solid fact, and for this situation the Emperor is +largely, one might almost say wholly, responsible. + +One hears and one reads criticisms of the Emperor's habit of speaking +and writing of "my navy." It is said that the other states of Germany +have borne taxation to build the fleet, and that it is no more the +Emperor's than that of the King of Bavaria, or of Wuertemberg, or of +Saxony. This is the petty, pin-pricking babble of boarding-school +girls, or of those official supernumeraries who have turned sour in +their retirement. Even the honest democrat is made indignant. If the +German navy is not the work of William the Second, then its parentage +is far to seek; and if the German navy is not proud to be called "my +navy," it is wofully lacking in gratitude to its creator. + +No man who looks back over his own career, say of twenty-five years, +but is both chastened and amused. He is chastened by the unforeseen +dangers that he has escaped; he is amused by the certificates of +failure, and the prophecies of disaster, that always everywhere +accompany the man who takes part in the game in preference to sitting +in the reserved seats, or peeking through a hole in the fence. I have +not been honored with any such intimate association with the German +Emperor as would enable me to say whether he has a highly developed +sense of humor or not. I can only say for myself, that if I had lived +through his Majesty's last twenty-five years, I should need no other +fillip to digestion than my chuckles over the prophecies of my +enemies. + +It has been said of him that he is volatile; that he flies from one +task to another, finishing nothing; that his artistic tastes are the +extravagant dreams of a Nero; that he loves publicity as a worn and +obese soprano loves the centre of the stage; that his indiscretions +would bring about the discharge of the most inconspicuous petty +official. Others speak and write of him as a hero of mythology, as a +mystic and a dreamer, looking for guidance to the traditions of +mediaeval knighthood; while others, again, dub him a modernist, insist +that he is a commercial traveller, hawking the wares of his country +wherever he goes, and with an eye ever to the interests of Bremen and +Hamburg and Essen and Pforzheim. Again, you hear that he is a Prussian +junker, or that he is a cavalry officer, with all the prejudices and +limitations of such a one; while, on the other hand, he is chided for +enlisting the financial help of rich Jews and industrials. He is +versatile, but versatility is a virtue so long as it does not extend +to one's principles. Every man who has profoundly influenced the life +of the world, from Moses to Lincoln, has been versatile. Carlyle goes +so far as to say: "I confess, I have no notion of a truly great man +that could not be all sorts of men." He speaks French well enough to +address the Academie; he speaks English as well as a cultivated +American, and no one speaks it more distinctly, more crisply, more +trippingly upon the tongue, these days; he preaches a capital sermon; +he is an accomplished binder of books; he is a successful and +enthusiastic farmer, and he is frankly audacious in his loves and +hatreds, his ambitions and his beliefs. He has, in short, no vermin +blood in him at any rate. If you do not like him, you know why; and if +you do, you know why as easily. He even knows what he believes about +woman's suffrage and about God, a rare conciseness of thinking in +these troublous times. + +There stands before you a man apparently as sound in mind and in body +as any man who treads German soil; a man of great vivacity of mind and +manner, and of wholesome delight in living; who bears huge +responsibilities with good humor, and that most unwholesome of all +things, undisputed power, with humility. At a banquet in Brandenburg +the 5th of March, 1890, speaking of his many voyages, he said: "He +who, alone at sea, standing on the bridge, with nothing over him but +God's heaven, has communed with himself will not mistake the value of +such voyages. I could wish for many of my countrymen that they might +live through similar hours of self-contemplation, where a man takes +stock of what he has tried to do, and of what he has accomplished. +Then it is that a man is cured of vanity, and we have all of us need +of that." + +It is obvious that a man cannot be modest, as the above quotation +would indicate, and at the same time preening with vanity; a Sir +Philip Sidney and a Jew peddler; a careless, dashing cavalry officer +or proud Prussian squire, and at the same time a wary and astute +insurance agent for the empire; a preacher of duty and honor, and +belief in God, and at the same time a political comedian deceiving his +rivals abroad, and hoodwinking his subjects at home. + +Not a few men, even of slight powers of observation and of meagre +experience, have noted the strange fact that a blank and direct +statement of the truth is very apt to be put down as a lie; and that a +man who frankly expresses his beliefs and ambitions, and openly goes +about his business and his pleasures with no thought of concealment, +is often regarded as Machiavellian and deceitful, because a timid and +cautious world finds it hard to believe that he is really as audacious +as he appears. + +Even those with the most limited list, of the great names of history +at their disposal, cannot fail to remember that simplicity and +directness have in the persons of their highest exemplars been +misunderstood; hunted down like wild beasts, burned, crucified, and +then, when they were well out of the way, crowned and held up to +humanity as the saviors of the race. We will have none of them when +authority, faith, truth, courage, show us our distorted images in the +mirror of their lives. Crucify him, crucify him! has always been the +cry when such a one asserts his moral kingship, or his sonship to God, +or his audacious intention to live his own life; and in less tragic +fashion, but none the less along the same lines, the world tends to +pick at, and to fray the moral garments of, its leaders still to-day. +When such a one succeeds through sheer simplicity, then that last +feeble epitaph of mediocrity is applied to him: "He is lucky," because +so few people realize that "luck," is merely not to be dependent upon +luck. + +It is apparent from the quotations I have given, and many more of the +same tenor are at our disposal, that the personality we are studying +has a very definite image of his place in the world, of the duties he +is called upon to perform, of his rights according to his own +conception of his authority and responsibilities, and of his +intentions. + +It is equally apparent that he looks upon history in quite another way +than that usually accepted by the modern scientific historian. Taine +and Green may explain everything, even kings and emperors, by the +forces of climate, environment, and the slow-heaving influence of the +people. This school of historians will tell you how Charlemagne, and +Luther, and Cromwell, and Napoleon are to be accounted for by purely +material explanations. + +The German Emperor apparently believes that the history of the world +and the development of mankind are due to a series of mighty factors, +mysteriously endowed from on high and bearing the names of men, and +not infrequently the names of emperors and kings. He is continually +recalling his ancestors, the Great Elector, Frederick the Great, and +William I, his grandfather. These men made Prussia and Prussia made +the German Empire, he declares. To the Brandenburg Parliament he says: +"It is the great merit of my ancestors that they have always stood +aloof from and above all parties, and that they have always succeeded +in making political parties combine for the welfare of the whole +people." + +Due to a quality in the German character that need not be discussed +here, it is true that they have been led, and driven, and welded by +powerful individuals. No Magna Charta, no Cromwell, no Declaration of +Independence is to be found in German history. No vigorous demand from +the people themselves marks their progress. You can read all there is +of German history in the biographies of the Great Elector, of +Frederick William the First, of Frederick the Great, of York, of von +Stein, Hardenberg, Sharnhorst, and Bluecher, of Bismarck, William I, +and the present Emperor. + +What the Kaiser believes of history is true of German history. If he +asserts himself as he does in Germany, it is because two hundred and +fifty years of German history put him wholly and entirely in the +right. It is to be presumed that what every student of German history +may see for himself, has not escaped the flexible intelligence of the +present Emperor, and that is, that only the autocratic kings of +Prussia succeeded, and that only an autocratic statesman succeeded, in +bringing the whole country into line, by the acknowledgment of the +King of Prussia, and his heirs forever, as German emperors. + +The first so-called indiscretion of the present Emperor was +magnificent. He dismissed Bismarck two years after he came to the +throne. If you have ever been the owner of a yacht and your sailing-master +has grown to be a tyrant, and you have taken your courage in +your hand and bundled him over the side, you have had in a microcosmic +way the sensations of such an experience. + +It is said that Bismarck, then seventy-five years old, and since 1862 +accustomed to undisputed power, demurred to the wish of the Emperor +that the other ministers should have access to him directly, and not +as heretofore only through the chancellor. It is said too that the +matter-of-fact and somewhat cynical Bismarck, had but scanty respect +for the mystical view of his grandfather as a saint, that the Emperor +everywhere proclaimed. In 1896, the 20th of February, in speaking of +his grandfather, he refers to him as: "The Emperor William, that +personality which has become for us in some sort that of a saint." + +Bismarck, too, objected to the Emperor's policy as regards the +treatment of, and the legislation for, the workingmen. On February the +5th, 1890, he writes to Bismarck: "It is the duty of the state to +regulate the duration and conditions of work in such manner that the +health and the morality of the workingman may be preserved, and that +his needs may be satisfied and his desire for equality before the law +assured." + +"Now this is the tale of the Council the German +Kaiser decreed, + +"And the young king said:--'I have found it, +the road to the rest ye seek: + +The strong shall wait for the weary, and the +hale shall halt for the weak; + +With the even tramp of an army where no man +breaks from the line, + +Ye shall march to peace and plenty, in the +bond of brotherhood--sign!'" + +Whatever the reasons, the criticisms, or the causes, the man whom we +have been describing was as certain to dismiss Bismarck from office, +as a bird is certain to fly and not to swim. The ruler who at a +banquet May the 4th, 1891, proclaimed: "There is only one master of +the nation: and that is I, and I will not abide any other"; and later, +on the 16th of November, in an address to recruits said: "I need +Christian soldiers, soldiers who say their Pater Noster. The soldier +should not have a will of his own, but you should all have but one +will and that is my will; there is but one law for you and that is +mine." Again, in addressing the recruits for the navy on the 5th of +March, 1895, he said to them: "Just as I, as Emperor and ruler, +consecrate my life and my strength to the service of the nation, so +you are pledged to give your lives to me." Such a man could not share +his rule with Bismarck. + +Bismarck left Berlin amid groans and tears. A prop had been rudely +pushed from beneath the empire. The young Emperor would stumble and +sway, and fall without this strong guide beside him. Men said this was +the first sign of an imperious will and temper. + +There is an Arab proverb which runs: "When God wishes to destroy an +ant he gives it wings." The Kaiser was to be given power for his own +destruction. But what has happened? Absolutely nothing of these evil +prophecies. In 1884 Bismarck was saying to Gerhard Rohlfs, the African +explorer: "The main thing is, we neither can nor really want to +colonize. We shall never have a fleet like France. Our artisans and +lawyers and time-expired soldiers are no good as colonists." If the +ideas of William the Second were to prevail, it was time that Bismarck +went over the side as pilot of the ship of state. The Kaiser in +appropriate terms regretted the loss of this tried public servant and +said: "However, the course remains the same-- full steam ahead!" + +Three days after the Jameson raid, on the 3d of January, 1896, the +Kaiser telegraphed to President Krueger: "I beg to express to you my +sincere congratulations that, without help from foreign powers, you +have succeeded with your own people and by your own strength in +driving out the armed bands which attempted to disturb the peace of +your country, and in reestablishing order and in defending the +independence of your people from attacks from outside." + +On the 28th of October, 1908, The Daily Telegraph of London published +a long interview with the Emperor, the gist of which was that the +British press and people continued to distrust him, while all the time +he was and had been the friend of Great Britain. The Emperor cited +instances of his friendship, declared the English were as mad as March +hares not to believe in him; insisted that by reason of Germany's +increasing foreign commerce, and on account of the growing menace to +peace in the Pacific Ocean, Germany was determined to have an adequate +fleet, which perhaps one day even England might be glad to have +alongside of her own. + +In addition to these two incidents, the Emperor had written a letter +to Lord Tweedmouth, who was already then a sick man, and probably not +wholly responsible, in which it was said he had offered advice as to +the increase of the British navy. + +I have described these furious indiscretions, as they were called at +the time, together, though they were years apart; for these +utterances, and the constant repetition of his sense of responsibility +to God, and not to the people he governs, are the heart of this whole +contention that the German Emperor is indiscreet, is indiscreet even +to the point of damaging his own prestige, and injuring his country's +interests abroad. + +Of all these so-called indiscretions there is the question to ask: +Should these things have been said? Should these things have been +written? There are several things to be said in answer to these +questions. I shall treat each one in turn, but all these statements +told the truth and cleared the air. The Krueger telegram was not +written by the Emperor, and when the worst construction is put upon +it, it expressed what? It was merely the condemnation of freebooting +methods, a condemnation, be it said, that it received from many right- +minded and sincerely patriotic Englishmen, a condemnation too that was +re-echoed from America. Only the honorable and winning personality of +one of the most patriotic and charming men in England, Sir Starr +Jameson, saved the raid from looking like piracy. A brave man spoke +his mind about it, and he happened to be in a position so conspicuous +that the rumble of his words was heard afar. + +So far as The Daily Telegraph interview is concerned, the secret +history of the incident has never been fully divulged. One may say, +however, without fear of contradiction that the importance of the +matter was unduly magnified, by those, both at home and abroad, who +had something to gain by exaggeration. It is admitted on all sides by +those best informed that at any rate the Emperor was neither +responsible for the publication, a point to be kept in mind, nor for +the choice of expressions used in the interview. + +The letter to Lord Tweedmouth was a friendly communication dealing +with the conditions of the British and German fleets in the past and +present, and without a word in it that might not have been published +in The Times. It was quite innocent of the sinister significance +placed upon it by those who had not seen it; and the British Ministry +declined to publish it for entirely different reasons, reasons in no +way connected with the German Emperor. + +As we read The Daily Telegraph interview to-day, it is a plain +document. Every word of it is true. The moment one looks at it from +the point of view, that the Emperor of Germany is sincerely desirous +of an amiable understanding with England, and that he is, for the +peace and quiet of the world, working toward that end, there is no +adverse criticism to be passed upon it. The English are thoroughly and +completely mistaken about the attitude of the German Emperor toward +them. He is far and away the best and most powerful friend they have +in Europe, and I, for one, would be willing to forgive him were he +irritated at their misunderstanding of him. Personally, I have not the +shadow of a doubt that had France or Russia treated the German Emperor +with the cool distrust shown him by the British, the German army and +fleet would have moved ere this. + +To those who know the Britisher he is forgiven for those luxuries of +insular stupidity which punctuate his history. I know what a fine +fellow he is, and I pass them by. Mr. Churchill speaks of the German +fleet as a "luxury"; but this is only one of those cold-storage +impromptus that a reputation for cleverness must keep on hand, and +when Lord Haldane in a clumsy attempt to praise the German Emperor +speaks of him as "half English" I laugh, as one laughs at the story of +fat Gibbon kneeling to propose to a lady and requiring a servant to +get him on his legs again. British courting often needs a lackey to +keep it on its legs. + +Could anything be more burningly irritable to the Germans than those +two unnecessary statements? For the moment I am dealing with the +attitude of the Emperor alone. Of the tirades of Chamberlain and +Woltmann, Schmoller, Treitschke, Delbrueck, Zorn, and other +under-exercised professors, one may speak elsewhere. They are as +unpardonable as the yokel rhetoric of our British friends. Of the +Emperor's insistence upon his friendliness, of his outspoken betrayal +of his real feelings, of his audacious policy of telling the blunt +truth, I am, alas, no fair judge, for I am too entirely the advocate +of keeping as few cats in the bag as possible. If these things had not +been said and written, it is true that there would have been no +tumult; having been said and written, I fail to see the slightest +indication in the political life of either Germany or England to-day +that they did harm. Certainly, from his own point of view of what his +position entails, they can hardly, as the radicals in Germany claim, +be considered as unconstitutional or beyond his prerogative. + +When the German Emperor says: "I," he refers to the authority and +responsibility and dignity of the German imperial crown. He is not +magnifying his personal importance; he is emphasizing the dignity and +importance of every German citizen. Let us try to understand the +situation before we pass judgment! Both German radicalism and German +socialism are peculiar to Germany, and everywhere misunderstood +abroad. They both demand things of the government for the easement of +their position, they both demand certain privileges, but they do not +seek or want either authority or responsibility. Look at the figures +of their proportionate increase and compare this with their actual +influence in the Reichstag to-day. From 1881 to 1911, here is the +percentage of votes cast by the five representative political parties: + + 1881 1893 1911 + +The National Liberals........... 14.6 12.9 14.0 + +The Freisinnige and south German +Volkspartei..................... 23.2 14.2 13.1 + +The Conservatives, including the +Deutsche and Freikonservative... 23.7 20.4 12.4 + +The Centrum (Catholic party).... 23.2 19.0 16.3 + +The social Democrats............ 6.1 23.2 34.8 + +If it were thought for a moment in Germany that the Socialists could +come into real power, their vote and the number of their +representatives in the Reichstag would dwindle away in one single +election. + +The average German is no leader of men, no lover of an emergency, no +social or political colonist, and he would shrink from the initiative +and daring and endurance demanded by a real political revolution and a +real change of authority, as a hen from water. The very quality in his +ruler that we take for granted he must dislike is the quality that at +the bottom of his heart he adores, and he reposes upon it as the very +foundation of his sense of security, and as the very bulwark behind +which he makes grimaces and shakes his fist at his enemies. Such men +as the present chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, a very calm spectator +of his country's doings, and the Emperor himself, both know this. + +As he looks at history and at life, it follows that he must be +interested in everything that concerns his people, and not +infrequently take a hand in settling questions, or in pushing +enterprises, that seem too widely apart to be dealt with by one man, +and too far afield for his constitutional obligations to profit by his +interference. Certainly German progress shows that the Germans can +have no ground to quote: "Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi," +of their Emperor. + +In the discussion of this question, I may remind my American readers, +although the German constitution is dealt with elsewhere, that there +is one difference between Germany and America politically, that must +never be left out of our calculations. Such constitution and such +rights as the German citizens have, were granted them by their rulers. +The people of Prussia, or of Bavaria, or of Wuertemberg, have not given +certain powers to, and placed certain limitations upon, their rulers; +on the contrary, their rulers have given the people certain of their +own prerogatives and political privileges, and granted to the people +as a favor, a certain share in government and certain powers, that +only so long as seventy years ago belonged to the sovereign alone. It +is not what the people have won and then shared with the ruler, but it +is what the ruler has inherited or won and shared with the people, +that makes the groundwork of the constitutions of the various states, +and of the empire of Germany. Nothing has been taken away from the +people of Prussia or from any other state in Germany that they once +had; but certain rights and privileges have been granted by the rulers +that were once wholly theirs. Bear this in mind, that it is William II +and his ancestors who made Prussia Prussia, and voluntarily gave +Prussians certain political rights, and not the citizens of Prussia +who stormed the battlements of equal rights and made a treaty with +their sovereign. + +The King of Prussia is the largest landholder and the richest citizen +of Prussia. We have seen what he expects of his navy and of his army. +Speaking on the 6th of September, 1894, he says: "Gentlemen, +opposition on the part of the Prussian nobility to their King is a +monstrosity." + +But arid details are not history, and in this connection let us have +done with them. I have documented this chapter with dates and +quotations because the situation politically, is so far away from the +experience or knowledge of the American, that he must be given certain +facts to assist his imagination in making a true picture. I have done +this, too, that the Kaiser may have his real background when we +undertake to place him understandingly in the modern world. Here we +have patriarchal rule still strong and still undoubting, coupled with +the most successful social legislation, the most successful state +control of railways, mines, and other enterprises; and a progress +commercial and industrial during the last quarter of a century, second +to none. + +This ruler believes it to be essentially a part of his business to be +a Lorenzo de Medici to his people in art; their high priest in +religion; their envoy extraordinary to foreign peoples; their watchful +father and friend in legislation dealing with their daily lives; their +war-lord, and their best example in all that concerns domestic +happiness and patriotic citizenship. He fulfils the words of the old +German chronicle which reads: "Merito a nobis nostrisque posteris +pater patriae appelatur quia erat egregius defensor et fortissimus +propugnator nihili pendens vitam suam contra omnia adversa propter +justitiam opponere." + +If history is not altogether valueless in its description of symptoms, +the Germans are of a softer mould than some of us, more malleable, +rather tempted to imitate than led by self-confidence to trust to +their own ideals, and less hard in confronting the demands of other +peoples, that they should accept absorption by them. + +Spurned and disdained by Louis XIV, they fawned upon him, built +palaces like his, dressed like his courtiers, wrote and spoke his +language, copied his literary models, and even bored themselves with +mistresses because this was the fashion at Versailles. He stole from +them, only to be thrown the kisses of flattery in return. He sneered +at them, only to be begged for his favors in return. He took their +cities in time of peace, and they acknowledged the theft by a smirking +adulation that he allowed one of their number to be crowned a king. + +As for Napoleon, he performed a prolonged autopsy upon the Germans. +They were dismembered or joined together as suited his plans. At his +beck they fought against one another, or against Russia, or against +England. He tossed them crowns, that they still wear proudly, as a +master tosses biscuits to obedient spaniels. He put his poor relatives +to rule over them, here and there, and they were grateful. He marched +into their present capital, took away their monuments, and the sword +of Frederick the Great, and they hailed him with tears and rejoicing +as their benefactor, while their wittiest poet and sweetest singer, +lauded him to the skies. + +It is unpleasant to recall, but quite unfair to forget, these +happenings of the last two hundred years in the history of the German +people. What would any man say, after this, was their greatest need, +if not self-confidence; if not twenty-five years of peace to enable +them to recover from their beatings and humiliation; if not a powerful +army and navy to give them the sense of security, by which alone +prosperity and pride in their accomplishments and in themselves can be +fostered; if not a ruler who holds ever before their eyes their ideals +and the unfaltering energy required of them to attain them! + +What nation would not be self-conscious after such dire experiences? +What nation would not be tenderly sensitive as to its treatment by +neighboring powers? What nation would not be even unduly keen to +resent any appearance of an attempt to jostle it from its hard-won +place in the sun? Their self-consciousness and sensitiveness and +vanity are patent, but they are pardonable. As the leader of the +Conservative party in the Reichstag, Doctor von Heydebrandt, speaking +at Breslau in October, 1911, anent the Morocco controversy, said, +after, alluding to the "bellicose impudence" of Lloyd-George: "The +[British] ministry thrusts its fist under our nose, and declares, I +alone command the world. It is bitterly hard for us who have 1870 +behind us." They feel that they should no longer be treated to such +bumptiousness. + +I trust that I am no swashbuckler, but I have the greatest sympathy +with the present Emperor in his capacity as war-lord, and in his +insistent stiffening of Germany's martial backbone. + +When shall we all recover from a certain international sickliness that +keeps us all feverish? The continual talk and writing about +international friendships, being of the same family, or the same race, +the cousin propagandism in short, is irritating, not helpful. I do not +go to Germany to discover how American is Germany, nor to England to +discover how American is England; but to Germany to discover how +German is Germany, to England to see how English is England. I much +prefer Americans to either Germans or Englishmen, and they prefer +Germans or Englishmen, as the case may be, to Americans. What spurious +and milksoppy puppets we should be if it were not so. So long as there +are praters going about insisting that Germany, with a flaxen pig-tail +down her back, and England, in pumps instead of boots, and a poodle +instead of a bulldog, shall sit forever in the moonlight hand in hand; +or that America shall become a dandy, shave the chin-whisker, wear a +Latin Quarter butterfly tie of red, white, and blue, and thrum a banjo +to a little brown lady with oblique eyes and a fan, all day long; just +so long will the bulldog snarl, the flaxen-haired maiden look sulky, +the chin-whisker become stiffer and more provocative, and the +fluttering fan seem to threaten blows. + +We have been surfeited with peace talk till we are all irritable. One +hundredth part of an ounce of the same quality of peace powders that +we are using internationally would, if prescribed to a happy family in +this or any other land, lead to dissensions, disobedience, domestic +disaster, and divorce. Mr. Carnegie will have lived long enough to see +more wars and international disturbances, and more discontent born of +superficial reading, than any man in history who was at the same time +so closely connected with their origin. Perhaps it were better after +all if our millionaires were educated! + +The peace party need war just as the atheists need God, otherwise they +have nothing to deny, nothing to attack. Peace is a negative thing +that no one really wants, certainly not the kind of peace of which +there is so much talking to-day, which is a kind of castrated +patriotism. Peace is not that. Peace can never be born of such +impotency. When German statesmen declare roundly that they will not +discuss the question of disarmament, they are merely saying that they +will not be traitors to their country. If the Emperor rattles the +sabre occasionally, it is because the time has not come yet, when this +German people can be allowed to forget what they have suffered from +foreign conquerors, and what they must do to protect themselves from +such a repetition of history. + +When the final judgment is passed upon the Emperor, we must recall his +deep religious feeling that he is inevitably an instrument of God; his +ingrained and ineradicable method of reading history as though it were +a series of the ipse dixits of kings; his complacent neglect of how +the work of the world is done by patient labor; of how works of art +are only born of travail and tears: his obsession by that curious +psychology of kings that leads them to believe that they are somehow +different, and under other laws, as though they lived in another +dimension of space. In addition, he is a man of unusually rapid mental +machinery, of overpowering self-confidence, of great versatility, of +many advantages of training and experience, and, above all, he is +unhampered. He is answerable directly to no one, to no parliament, to +no minister, to no people. He is father, guardian, guide, school- +master, and priest, but in no sense a servant responsible to any +master save one of his own choosing. + +The only wonder is that he is not insupportable. Those who have come +under the spell of his personality declare him to be the most +delightful of companions; what Germany has grown to be under his reign +of twenty-five years all the world knows, much of the world envies, +some of the world fears; what his own people think of him can best be +expressed by the statement that his supremacy was never more assured +than to-day. + +I agree that no one man can be credited with the astonishing expansion +of Germany in all directions in the last thirty years; but so +interwoven are the advice and influence, the ambitions and plans, of +the German Emperor with the progress of the German people, that this +one personality shares his country's successes as no single individual +in any other country can be said to do. + +Whether he likes Americans or not one can hardly know. No doubt he has +made many of them think so; and, alas, we suffer from a national +hallucination that we are liked abroad, when as a matter of fact we +are no more liked than others; and in cultured centres we are in +addition, laughed at by the careless and sneered at by the sour. + +That the Kaiser is liked by Americans, both by those who have met him +and by those who have not, is, I think, indisputable. He is of the +stuff that would have made a first-rate American. He would have been a +sovereign there as he is a sovereign here. He would have enjoyed the +risks, and turmoil, and competition; he would have enjoyed the fine, +free field of endeavor, and he would have jousted with the best of us +in our tournament of life, which has trained as many knights sans peur +et sans reproche as any country in the world. + +I believe in a man who takes what he thinks belongs to him, and holds +it against the world; in the man who so loves life that he keeps a +hearty appetite for it and takes long draughts of it; who is ever +ready to come back smiling for another round with the world, no matter +how hard he has been punished. I believe that God believes in the man +who believes in Him, and therefore in himself. Why should I debar a +man from my sympathy because he is a king or an emperor? I admire your +courage, Sir; I love your indiscretions; I applaud your faith in your +God, and your confidence in yourself, and your splendid service to +your country. Without you Germany would have remained a second-rate +power. Had you been what your critics pretend that they would like you +to be, Germany would have been still ruling the clouds. + +Here's long life to your power, Sir, and to your possessions, and to +you! And as an Anglo-Saxon, I thank God, that all your countrymen are +not like you! + + + +IV GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS + + +In the days when Bismarck was welding the German states into a federal +organization and finally into an empire, he used the press to spray +his opinions, wishes, and suspicions over those he wished to instruct +or to influence. He used it, too, to threaten or to mislead his +enemies at home and abroad. The Hamburger Nachrichten was the +newspaper for which he wrote at one time, and which remained his +confidential organ, though as his power grew he used other journals +and journalists as well. + +As Germany has few traditions of freedom, having rarely won liberty as +a united people, but having been beaten into national unity by her +political giants, or her robuster sovereigns, so the press before and +during Bismarck's long reign, from 1862 to 1890, was kept well in hand +by those who ruled. It is only lately that caricature, criticism, and +opposition have had freer play. That a journalist like Maximilian +Harden (a friend and confidant of Bismarck, by the way) should be +permitted to write without rebuke and without punishment that the +present Kaiser "has all the gifts except one, that of politics," marks +a new license in journalistic debate. That this same person was able, +single-handed, to bring about the exposure and downfall of a cabal of +decadent courtiers whose influence with the Emperor was deplored, +proves again how completely the German press has escaped from certain +leading-strings. A sharp criticism of the Emperor in die Post, even as +lately as 1911, excited great interest, and was looked upon as a very +daring performance. + +There are some four thousand daily and more than three thousand weekly +and monthly publications in Germany to-day; but neither the press as a +whole, nor the journalists, with a few exceptions, exert the influence +in either society or politics of the press in America and in England. +As compared with Germany, one is at once impressed with the greater +number of journals and their more effective distribution at home. In +America there are 2,472 daily papers; 16,269 weeklies; and 2,769 +monthlies. Tri-weekly and quarterly publications added bring the total +to 22,806. One group of 200 daily papers claim a circulation of +10,000,000, while five magazines have a total circulation of +5,000,000. It is calculated that there is a daily, a weekly, and a +monthly magazine circulated for every single family in America. Not an +unmixed blessing, by any means, when one remembers that thousands, +untrained to think and uninterested, are thus dusted with the widely +blown comments of undigested news. Editorial comment of any serious +value is, of course, impossible, and the readers are given a strange +variety of unwholesome intellectual food to gulp down, with mental +dyspepsia sure to follow, a disease which is already the curse of the +times in America, where superficiality and insincerity are leading the +social and political dance. + +To carry the comparison further, there are 22,806 newspapers published +in America; 9,500 in England; 8,049 in Germany; and 6,681 in France: +or 1 for every 4,100 of the population in America; 1 for every 4,700 +in Great Britain; 1 for every 7,800 in Germany, and 1 for every 5,900 +in France. + +That a prime minister should have been a contributor to the press, as +was Lord Salisbury; that a correspondent or editorial writer of a +newspaper should find his way into cabinet circles, into diplomacy, or +into high office in the colonies; that the editor and owner of a great +newspaper should become an ambassador to England, as in the case of +Mr. Reid, is impossible in Germany. The character of the men who take +up the profession of journalism suffers from the lack of distinction +and influence of their task. Raymond, Greeley, Dana, Laffan, Godkin, +in America, and Delane, Hutton, Lawson, and their successors, Garvin, +Strachey, Robinson, in England, are impossible products of the German +journalistic soil at present. + +There have been great changes, and the place of the newspaper and the +power of the journalist is increasing rapidly, but the stale +atmosphere of censordom hangs about the press even to-day. Freedom is +too new to have bred many powerful pens or personalities, and the +inconclusive results of political arguments, written for a people who +are comparatively apathetic, lessen the enthusiasm of the political +journalist. There are not three editors in Germany who receive as much +as six thousand dollars a year, and the majority are paid from twelve +hundred to three thousand a year. This does not make for independence. +I am no believer in great wealth as an incentive to activity, but +certainly solvency makes for emancipation from the more debasing forms +of tyranny. + +Several of the more popular newspapers are owned and controlled by the +Jews, and to the American, with no inborn or traditional prejudice +against the Jews as a race, it is somewhat difficult to understand the +outspoken and unconcealed suspicion and dislike of them in Germany. +There is no need to mince matters in stating that this suspicion and +dislike exist. A comedy called "The Five Frankfurters" has been given +in all the principal cities during the last year and has had a long +run in Berlin. It is a scathing caricature of certain Jewish +peculiarities of temperament and ambition. + +There is even an anti-semitic party, small though it be, in the +Reichstag, while the party of the Centre, of the Conservatives and the +Agrarians, is frankly anti-semitic as well. No Jew can become an +officer in the army, no Jew is admitted to one of the German corps in +the universities, no Jew can hold office of importance in the state, +and I presume that no unbaptized Jew is received at court. I am bound +to record my personal preference for the English and American +treatment of the Jew. In England they have made a Jew their prime +minister, and in America we offer him equal opportunities with other +men, and applaud him whole-heartedly when he succeeds, and thump him +soundly with our criticism when he misbehaves. The German fears him; +we do not. We have made Jews ambassadors, they have served in our army +and navy, and not a few of them rank among our sanest and most +generous philanthropists. + +To a certain extent society of the higher and official class shuts its +doors against him. One of the well-known restaurants in Berlin, until +the death of its founder, not long ago, refused admission to Jews. + +I venture to say that no intelligent American stops to think whether +the Speyer brothers, or Kahn, or Schiff, or the members of the house +of Rothschild, are Jews or not, in estimating their political, social, +and philanthropic worth. Even as long ago as the close of the +fourteenth century the great strife between the princes of Germany and +the free cities ceased, in order that both might unite to plunder the +Jews. + +Luther preached: "Burn their synagogues and schools; what will not +burn bury with earth that neither stone nor rubbish remain." "In like +manner break into and burn their houses." "Forbid their rabbis to +teach on pain of life and limb." "Take away all their prayer-books and +Talmuds, in which are nothing but godlessness, lies, cursing, and +swearing." In the chronicles of the time occurs frequently "Judaei +occisi, combusti." + +The German comes by his dislike of the Jew through centuries of +traditional conflict, plunder, and hatred, and the very moulder of the +present German speech, Luther, was a furious offender. The Jews have +been materialists through all ages, claim the Germans: "The Jews +require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ +crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks +foolishness." It is to be in our day the battle of battles, they +claim, whether we are to be socially, morally, and politically +orientalized by this advance guard of the Orient, the Jews, or whether +we are to preserve our occidental ideals and traditions. Many more men +see the conflict, they maintain, than care to take part in it. The +money-markets of the world are ramparts that few men care to storm, +but, if the independent and the intelligent do not withstand this +semitization of our institutions, the ignorant and the degraded will +one day take the matter into their own hands, as they have done +before, and as they do to this day in some parts of Russia. + +There are 600,000 Jews in Germany, 400,000 of them in Prussia and +100,000 of these in Berlin. In New York City alone there are more than +900,000. They are always strangers in our midst. They are of another +race. They have other standards and other allegiances. Perhaps we are +all of us, the most enlightened of us, provincial at bottom, we like +to know who and what our neighbors are, and whence they came; and we +dislike those who are outside our racial and social experiences, and +our moral and religious habits, and the Jew is always, everywhere, a +foreigner. At any rate, so the German maintains. + +Strange as it may sound in these days, the Germans are not at heart +business men. There are more eyes with dreams in them in Germany than +in all the world besides. They work hard, they increase their +factories, their commerce, but their hearts are not in it. The Jew has +amassed an enormous part of the wealth of Germany, considering his +small proportion of the total population. The German, because he is +not at heart a trader, is an easy prey for him. + +These things trouble us in America very little, and we smile cynically +at the not altogether untruthful portraits of "Potash and +Pearlmutter," and their vermin-like business methods. There is an +undercurrent of feeling in America, that the virile blood is still +there which will stop at nothing to throw off oppression, whether from +the Jew or from any one else. If we are pinched too hard financially, +if confiscation by the government or by individuals goes too far, no +laws even will restrain the violence which will break out for liberty. +So we are at peace with ourselves and with others, trusting in that +quiet might which will take governing into its own hands, at all +hazards, if the state of affairs demands it. + +With the Germans it is different. No people of modern times has been +so harried and harrowed as these Germans. The Thirty Years' war left +them in such fear and poverty that even cannibalism existed, and this +was years after Massachusetts and Maryland were settled. But nothing +has tarnished their idealism. Whether as followers of Charlemagne, or +as hordes of dreamers seeking to save Christ's tomb and cradle in the +Crusades, or as intoxicated barbarians insisting that their emperor +must be crowned at Rome, or as the real torch-bearers of the +Reformation, or even now as dreamers, philosophers, musicians, and +only industrial and commercial by force of circumstances, they are, +least of all the peoples, materialists. + +They have given the world lyric poetry, music, mythology, philosophy, +and these are still their souls' darlings. They entered the modern +world just as science began to marry with commerce and industry, and +so their unworn, fresh, and youthful intellectual vigor found +expression in industry. Renan writes that he owes his pleasure in +intellectual things to a long ancestry of non-thinkers, and he claims +to have inherited their stored-up mental forces. Germany is not unlike +that. Her recent industrial and intellectual activity may be the +release from bondage, of the centuries of stored-up intellectual +energy from the ''Woods of Germany.'' + +It is true that they are easily governed and amenable, but this is due +not wholly to the fact that they have been so long under the yoke of +rulers, or because they are of cow-like disposition, but because their +ideals are spiritual, not material. The American seeks wealth, the +Englishman power, the Frenchman notoriety, the German is satisfied +with peaceful enjoyment of music, poetry, art, and friendly and very +simple intercourse with his fellows. + +Certainly I am not the man to say he is wrong, when I see how +spiritual things in my own country are cut out of the social body as +though they were annoying and dangerous appendices. + +The German of this type looks down upon the spiritual and intellectual +development of other countries as far inferior to his own. Such an one +in talking to an Englishman feels that he is conversing with a +high-spirited, thoroughbred horse; to a Frenchman, as though he were a +cynical monkey; to an American, as though he were a bright youth of +sixteen. + +The German considers his dealings with the intangible things of life +to be a higher form, indeed the highest form, of intellectual +employment. He is therefore racially, historically, and by temperament +jealous or contemptuous, according to his station in life, of the +cosmopolitan exchanger of the world, the Jew. He denies to him either +patriotism or originality, and looks upon him as merely a distributer, +whether in art, literature, or commerce, as an exchanger who amasses +wealth by taking toll of other men's labor, industry, and intellect. +It has not escaped the German of this temper, that the whirling gossip +and innuendoes that have lately annoyed the present party in power in +England, have had to do with three names: Isaacs, Samuels, and +Montagu, all Jews and members of the government. + +German politics, German social life, and the German press cannot be +understood without this explanation. The German sees a danger to his +hardly won national life in the cosmopolitanism of the Jew; he sees a +danger to his duty-doing, simple-living, and hard-working governing +aristocracy in the tempting luxury of the recently rich Jew; and +besides these objective reasons, he is instinctively antagonistic, as +though he were born of the clouds of heaven and the Jew of the clods +of earth. This does not mean that the German is a believer, in the +orthodox sense of the word, for that he is not. He loves the things of +the mind not because he thinks of them as of divine creation, and as +showing an allegiance to a divine Creator, but because they are the +playthings of his own manufacture that amuse him most. His superiority +to other nations is that he claims to enjoy maturer toys. Not even +France is so entirely unencumbered by orthodox restraints in matters +of belief. + +So far, therefore, as the German press is Jew-controlled, it is +suspected as being not German politically, domestically, or +spiritually; as not being representative, in short. It should be added +that, though this is the attitude of the great majority in Germany, +there is a small class who recognize the pioneer work that the Jew has +done. Few men are more respected there, and few have more influence +than such men as Ballin and Rathenau and others. For the very reason +that the German is an idealist the Jew has been of incomparable value +to him in the development of his industrial, commercial, and financial +affairs. Not only as a scientific financier has he helped, not only +has he provided ammunition when German industrial undertakings were +weak and stumbling, but along the lines of scientific research, as +chemists, physicists, artists -- perhaps no one stands higher than the +Jew Liebermann as a painter -- the Jew has done yeoman service to the +country in return for the high wages that he has taken. There are +Germans who recognize this, and there are in the Jewish world not a +few men to whom the doors of enlightened society are always open. + +Whatever one may feel of instinctive dislike, the open-minded +observers of the historical progress of Germany, all recognize that +Germany would not be in the foremost place she now occupies in the +competitive markets of the world, if she had not had the patriotic, +intelligent, and skilful backing of her better-class Jewish citizens. + +Printing was born in Germany, and the town of Augsburg had a newspaper +as early as 1505, while Berlin had a newspaper in 1617 and Hamburg in +1628. Every foreigner who knows Germany at all, knows the names of the +Koelnische Zeitung, the Lokal Anzeiger and Der Tag, Hamburger +Nachrichten, Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, and the +Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, this last the official organ of the +foreign office. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, better known by its +briefer title of Kreuz Zeitung, is a stanch conservative organ, and +for years has published the scholarly comments once a week of +Professor Shiemann, who is a political historian of distinction, and a +trusted friend of the Emperor. The Deutsche Tageszeitung is the organ +of the Agrarian League. The Reichsbote is a conservative journal and +the organ of the orthodox party in the state church. Vorwaerts is the +organ of the socialists and, whatever one may think of its politics, +one of the best-edited, as it is one of the best-written, newspapers +in Germany. The Zukunft, a weekly publication, is the personal organ +of Harden, is Harden, in fact. The Zukunft in normal years sells some +22,000 copies at 20 marks, giving an income of 440,000 marks; this +with the advertisements gives an income of say 500,000 marks. The +expenses are about 350,000 marks, leaving a net income to this daring +and accomplished journalist of 150,000 marks a year. In Germany such +an income is great wealth. The Zukunft and its success is a commentary +of value upon the appreciation of, as well as the rarity of, +independent journalism in Germany. + +The Vossische Zeitung, or "Aunty Voss" as it is nicknamed, is a solid, +bourgeois sheet and moderately radical in tone. It is proper, wipes +its feet before entering the house, and may be safely left in the +servants' hall or in the school-room. Die Post represents the +conservative party politically, is welcome in rich industrial circles, +and is rather liberal in religious matters, though hostile to the +government in matters of foreign politics, and of less influence at +home than the frequent quotations from it in the British press would +lead one to suppose. The two official organs of the Catholics are the +Germania and the Volks Zeitung, of Cologne, whose editor is the +well-known Julius Bachern. The Lokal Anzeiger and the Tageblatt of +Berlin attempt, with no small degree of success, American methods, and +give out several editions a day with particular reference to the latest +news. + +Leipsic, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Strasburg, Dresden, Koenigsberg, +Breslau, with its Schlessische Zeitung, and the Rhine provinces and +the steel and iron industries represented by the Rheinisch- +Westfaelischer Zeitung, and other cities and towns have local +newspapers. A good example of such little-known provincial newspapers +is the Augsburger Abendzeitung, with its first-rate reports of the +parliamentary proceedings in Bavaria and its well-edited columns. The +circulation of these journals is, from our point of view, small. The +Berliner Tageblatt in a recent issue declares its paid circulation to +have been 73,000 in 1901; 106,000 in 1905; 190,000 in 1910; and +208,000 in 1911. + +The custom in Germany of eating in restaurants, of taking coffee in +the cafes, of writing one's letters and reading the newspapers there, +no doubt has much to do with the small subscription lists of German +journals of all kinds, whether daily, weekly, or monthly. The German +economizes even in these small matters. A German family, or small cafe +or restaurant, may, for a small sum, have half a dozen or more weekly +and monthly journals left, and changed each week; thus they are +circulated in a dozen places at the expense of only one copy. Where a +family of similar standing in America takes in regularly two morning +papers and an evening paper, several weekly and monthly, and perhaps +one or two foreign journals, the German family may take one morning +paper. The custom of having half a dozen newspapers served with the +morning meal, as is done in the larger houses in America and in +England, is practically unknown. Economy is one reason, indifference +is another, provincial and circumscribed interests are others. + +The German has not our keen appetite for what we call news, which is +often merely surmises in bigger type. Only the very small number who +have travelled and made interests and friends for themselves out of +their own country, have any feeling of curiosity even, about the +political and social tides and currents elsewhere. + +An astounding number of Germans know Sophocles, Aeschylus, and +Shakespeare better than we do, but they know nothing, and care +nothing, for the sizzling, crackling stream of purposeless incident, +and sterile comment, that pours in upon the readers of American +newspapers, and which has had its part in making us the largest +consumers of nerve-quieting drugs in the world. All too many of the +pens that supply our press are without education, without experience, +without responsibility or restraint. What Mommsen writes of Cicero +applies to them: "Cicero was a journalist in the worst sense of the +term, over-rich in words as he himself confesses, and beyond all +imagination poor in thought." + +No one of these journals pretends to such power or such influence as +certain great dailies in America and in England. They have not the +means at their command to buy much cable or telegraphic news, and +lacking a press tariff for telegrams, they are the more hampered. The +German temperament, and the civil-service and political close-corporation +methods, make it difficult for the journalist to go far, +either socially or politically. The German has been trained in a +severe school to seek knowledge, not to look for news, and he does not +make the same demands, therefore, upon his newspaper. + +German relations with the outside world are of an industrial and +commercial kind, and until very lately the German has not been a +traveller, and is not now an explorer, and their colonies are +unimportant; consequently there is no very keen interest on the part +of the bulk of the people in foreign affairs. Even Sir Edward Grey's +answering speech on the Morocco question did not appear in full in +Berlin until the following day, though Germany had roused itself to an +unusual pitch of excitement and expectancy. + +As the Germans are not yet political animals, so their newspapers +reflect an artificial political enthusiasm. Society, too, is as little +organized as politics. There are no great figures in their social +world. A Beau Brummel, a d'Orsay, a Lady Palmerston, a Lady +Londonderry, a Duke of Devonshire, a Gladstone, a Disraeli, a +Rosebery, would be impossible in Germany, especially if they were in +opposition to the party in power. When a chancellor or other minister +is dismissed by the Kaiser, he simply disappears. He does not add to +the weight of the opposition, but ceases to exist politically. This +has two bad results: it does not strengthen the criticism of the +administration, and it makes the office-holder very loath to leave +office, and to surrender his power. An ex-cabinet officer in America +or in England remains a valuable critic, but an ex-chancellor in +Germany becomes a social recluse, a political Trappist. Even the +leading political figures are after all merely shadowy servants of the +Emperor. They represent neither themselves nor the people, and such +subserviency kills independence and leaves us with mediocrities +gesticulating in the dark, and making phrases in a vacuum. + +There are, it is true, charming hostesses in Berlin, and ladies who +gather in their drawing-rooms all that is most interesting in the +intellectual and political life of the day; but they are almost +without exception obedient to the traditional officialdom, leaning +upon a favor that is at times erratic, and without the daring of +independence which is the salt of all real personality. + +There are, too, country-houses. One castle in Bavaria, how well I +remember it, and the accomplished charm of its owner, who had made its +grandeur cosey, a feat, indeed! But all this is detached from the real +life of the nation, which is forever taking its cue from the court, +leaving any independent or imposing social and political life benumbed +and without vitality. There is no free and stalwart opposition, no +centres of power; and much as one tires of the incessant and feverish +strife political and social at home, one returns to it taking a long +breath of the free air after this hot-house atmosphere, where the +thermometer is regulated by the wishes of an autocrat. + +The press necessarily reflects these conditions. The Social Democrats, +divided into many small parties, and the Agrarians and Ultramontanes, +divided as well, give the press no single point of leverage. These +political parties wrangle among themselves over the dish of votes, but +what is put into the dish comes from a master over whom they have no +control. If they upset the dish they are turned out as they were in +1878, 1887, 1893, and 1907, and when they return they are better +behaved. + +The parties themselves are not real, since thousands of voters lean to +the left merely to express their discontent; but they would desert the +Social Democrats at once did they think there was a chance of real +governing power for them. A small industrial was warned of the awful +things that would happen did the Socialists come into power. "Ah," he +replied, "but the government would not permit that!" What has the +press to chronicle with insistence and with dignity of such flabby +political and social conditions? + +The press may be, and often is, annoying, as mosquitoes are annoying, +but its campaigns are dangerous to nobody. As I write, it is hard to +believe that within a few days the members of a new Reichstag are to +be elected. There are political meetings, it is true, there are +articles and editorials in the newspapers, there is some languid +discussion at dinner-tables and in society, but there is a sense of +unreality about it all, as though men were thinking: Nothing of grave +importance can happen in any case! We shall have something to say +farther on of political Germany; here it suffices to say that the +press of Germany betrays in its political writing that it is dealing +with shadows, not with realities. "They have been at a great feast of +language, and stolen the scraps," that's all. + +The snarling Panther that was sent to Agadir, teeth and claws showing, +came back looking like an adventurous tomcat that wished only to hide +itself meekly in its accustomed haunts; and its unobtrusive bearing +seemed to say, the less said about the matter the better. What a storm +of obloquy would have burst upon such inept diplomacy in America, or +in England, or even in France. Not so here. Everybody was sore and +sorry, but the newspapers and the journalists could raise no protest +that counted. It is all explained by the fact that the people do not +govern, have nothing to do with the whip or the reins, nor have they +any constitutional way of changing coachmen, or of getting possession +of whip and reins; and hooting at the driver, and jeering at the +tangled whip-lash and awkwardly held reins, is poor-spirited business. +Only one political writer, Harden, does it with any effect, and his +pen is said to have upset the Caprivi government. + +As one reads the newspapers day by day, and the weekly and monthly +journals, it becomes apparent that the German imagines he has done +something when he has had an idea; just as the Frenchman imagines he +has done something when he has made an epigram. We are less given +either to thinking or phrasing, and far less gifted in these +directions than either Germans or Frenchmen, and perhaps that is the +reason we have actually done so much more politically. We do things +for lack of something better to do, while our neighbors find real +pleasure in their dreams, and take great pride in their epigrams. + +As all great writing, from that of Xenophon and Caesar till now, is +born of action or the love of it, or as a spiritual incitement to +action, so a people with little opportunity for political action, and +no centres of social life with a real sway or sovereignty, cannot +create or offer substance for the making of a powerful and independent +press. + +There is no New York, no Paris, no London, no Vienna even, in Germany. +Berlin is the capital, but it is not a capital by political or social +evolution, but by force of circumstances. Germany has many centres +which are not only not interested in Berlin, but even antagonistic. +Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Leipsic, Frankfort, Dresden, Breslau, and +besides these, twenty-six separate states with their capitals, their +rulers, courts, and parliaments, go to make up Germany, and perhaps +you are least of all in Germany when you are in Berlin. It is true +that we have many States, many capitals, and many governors in +America, but they have all grown from one, and not, as in Germany, +been beaten into one, and held together more from a sense of danger +from the outside than from any interest, sympathy, and liking for one +another. + +With us each State, too, has a powerful representation both in the +Senate and in the House of Representatives, which keeps the interest +alive, while in Germany Prussia is overwhelmingly preponderant. In the +upper house, or Bundesrat, Prussia has 17 representatives; next comes +Bavaria with 6; and the other states with 4 or less, out of a total of +58 members. In the Reichstag, out of a total of 397 representatives, +Prussia has 236. + +Political society is not all centred in Berlin, as it is in London, +Paris, or Washington, nor is social life there representative of all +Germany. Berlin's stamp of approval is not necessary to play, or +opera, or book, or picture, or statue, or personality. Indeed, Berlin +often takes a lead in such matters from other cities in Germany where +the artistic life and history are more fully developed, as, for +instance, in other days, Weimar, and now Munich, Dresden, and, in +literary matters, Leipsic. A recent example of this, though of small +consequence in itself, is the case of the opera, the "Rosen Kavalier," +which was given repeatedly in Dresden and Leipsic, whither many Berlin +people went to hear it, before the authorities in Berlin could be +persuaded to produce it. + +The nobility, the society heavy artillery, come to Berlin only for +three or four weeks, from the middle of January to the middle of +February, to pay their respects to their sovereign at the various +court functions given during that time. They live in the country and +only visit in Berlin. It is complained, that the double taxation +incident to the up-keep of an establishment both in town and in the +country, makes it impossible for them to be much in Berlin. They stay +in hotels and in apartments, and are mere passing visitors in their +own capital. They have, therefore, practically no influence upon +social life, and Berlin is merely the centre of the industrial, +military, official, and political society of Prussia. It is the +clearing-house of Germany, but by no means the literary, artistic, +social, or even the political capital of Germany, as London is the +English, or Paris the French, or as Washington is fast growing to be +the American, capital. + +There is no training-ground for an accomplished or man-of-the-world +journalist, and the views and opinions of a journalist who is more or +less of a social pariah, and he still is that with less than half a +dozen exceptions, and of a man who begs for crumbs from the press +officials at the foreign or other government offices, are neither +written with the grip of the independent and dignified chronicler, nor +received with confidence and respect by the reader. + +It may be a reaction from this negligence with which they are treated +that produces a quality, both in the writing and in the illustrations +of the German newspapers, which is unknown in America. Many of the +illustrated papers indulge in pictorial flings which may be compared +only to the scribbling and coarse drawings, in out-of-the-way places, +of dirty-minded boys. With the exception of the well-known Fliegende +Blaetter, Kladderadatsch, and one or two less representative, there is +nothing to compare with the artistic excellence and restrained good +taste of Life or Punch, for example. + +There is one illustrated paper published in Munich, Simplicissimus, +which deserves more than negligent and passing comment. It has two +artists of whom I know nothing except what I have learned from their +work, Th. Th. Heine and Gulbransson. These men are Aristophanic in +their ability as draughtsmen and as censors, in striking at the +weaknesses, political, military, and official, of their countrymen. +Their work is something quite new in Germany, and worthy of comparison +with the best in any country. It is not elegant, it is Rabelaisian; +and though I have nothing to retract in regard to coarseness, and no +wish to commend the attitude taken toward German political and social +life, in fairness one is bound to call attention to the pictorial work +in this particular paper as of a very high order, and to recognize its +power. If Heine could have turned his wit into the drawings of +Hogarth, we should have had something not unlike Simplicissimus, and +any German annoyed at the criticisms of his national life from the pen +of a foreigner, may well turn to his own Simplicissimus, and be humbly +grateful that no foreign pen-point can possibly pierce more deeply, +than this domestic pencil, at work in his own country. + +The danger for the critic and the wit, which few avoid, is that with +incomparable advantages over his opponent he will not play fair. In +spite of the awful reputation of our so-called "yellow press," which +is often boisterously impudent, and sometimes inclined to indulge in +comments and revelations of the private affairs of individuals which +can only be dubbed coarse and cowardly, there is seldom a descent to +the indescribably indecent caricatures which one finds every week in +the illustrated papers in Germany. As we have noted elsewhere, just as +the citizens of Berlin, as one sees them in the streets and in public +places, give one the impression that they are not house-trained, so +many of the pens and pencils which serve the German press, leave one +with the feeling that their possessors would not know how to behave in +a cultivated and well-regulated household. + +Every gentleman in Germany must have been ashamed of the writing in +the German press after the sinking of the Titanic. There was a blaze +of brutal pharisaism that put a bar-sinister across any claim to +gentlemanliness on the part of the majority. When every brave man in +the world was lamenting the death of Scott, the English Arctic +explorer, one German paper intimated that he had committed suicide to +avoid the bankruptcy forced upon him by England's lack of generosity +toward his expedition. It is almost unbelievable that such a cur +should have escaped unthrashed, even among the German journalists. +These two examples of lack of fine feeling mark them for what they +are. Among gentlemen no comment is necessary. The mark of breeding is +more often discovered in what one does not say, does not write, does +not do, than in positive action. There was much, at that time, when +fifteen hundred people had been buried in icy water, and scores of +American and English gentlemen had gone down to death, just in answer +to: "Ladies first, gentlemen!" that should have been left unsaid and +unwritten. The quality of the German journalist, with half a dozen +exceptions, was betrayed to the full in those few days, and many a +German cheek mantled with shame. + +However, a man may eat with his knife and still be an authority on +bridge-building; he may tuck his napkin under his chin preparatory to, +and as an armor against, the well-known vagaries of liquids, before he +takes his soup or his soft-boiled eggs, and still be an authority on +soap-making; he may wear a knitted waistcoat with a frock-coat to +luncheon, and be deeply versed in Russian history. He may have no +inkling of the traditions of fair play, or of the reticences of +courtesy, no shred of knightliness, and yet be a scholar in his way. +Indeed, in none of the other cultured countries does one find so many +men of trained minds, but with such untrained manners and morals. In +their hack of sensation-mongering, in their indifference to social +gossip, in their trustworthy and learned comments upon things +scientific, musical, theatrical, literary, and historical, they are as +men to school-boys compared to the American press. They have the utter +contempt for mere smartness that only comes with severe educational +training. They have the scholar's impatience with trivialities. They +skate, not to cut their names on the ice, but to get somewhere, and +the whole industrial and scientific world knows how quickly they have +arrived. + +Our newspapers make a business of training their readers in that worst +of all habits, mental dissipation. The German press is not thus +guilty. Despite all I have written, I am quite sure that if I were +banished from the active world and could see only half a dozen +journals on my lonely island, one of them would be a German newspaper. +It may be that I have a perverted literary taste, for I can get more +humor, more keen enjoyment, out of a census report or an etymological +dictionary than from a novel. My favorite literary dissipation is to +read the works of that distinguished statistician at Washington, Mr. +O. P. Austin, the poet-laureate of industrial America, or the toilsome +and exciting verbal journeys of the Rev. Mr. Skeat. The classic +humorists do not compare with them, in my humble opinion, as sources +of fantastic surprises. This, perhaps, accounts for my sincere +admiration for that quality of scholarship, learning, and accuracy in +the German press. Nor does the possession of these qualities in the +least controvert the impression given by the German press of political +powerlessness, of social ignorance and incompetence, and of boorish +ignorance of the laws of common decency in international comment and +controversy. A great scholar may be a booby in a drawing-room, and a +lamentable failure as an adviser in matters political and social. "As +a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from +his place." Germany has put some astonishing failures to her credit +through her belief that learning can take the place of common-sense, +and scholarship do the tasks of that intelligent and experienced +observation to which the abused word, worldliness, is given. Perhaps +it is as well that the German press declines to keep a social diary; +well, too, that it has no candidates for the office of society +Haruspex, whose ghoulish business it is to find omens and prophecies +in the entrails of his victims. In that respect, at any rate, both +society and the press in Germany are as is the salon to the scullery, +compared with ours. As for that little knot of illustrated weekly +papers in England, with their nauseating letter-press for snobs +inside, and their advertisements of patent complexion remedies and +corsets outside, there is nothing like them in Germany or anywhere +else, so far as I know. You may advertise your shooting-party, your +dance, or your dinner-party, and thus keep yourself before the world +as though you were a whiskey, a soap, or a superfluous-hair-destroyer, +if you please, and, alas, many there are who do so. At least Germany +knows nothing of this weekly auction of privacy, this nauseating +snobbery which is a fungus-growth seen at its strongest in British +soil. + +I am bound, both by tradition and experience as an American, to +discover the reason for such conditions in the lack of fluidity in +social and political life in Germany. The industrials, the military, +the nobility, the civil servants, and to some extent the Jews, are all +in separate social compartments; and the political parties as well +keep much to themselves and without the personal give and take outside +of their purely official life which obtains in America and in England. + +It is an impossible suggestion, I know, but if the upper and lower +houses of the empire, or of Prussia, could meet in a match at base-ball, +or golf, or cricket; if the army could play the civil service; +if the newspaper correspondents could play the under-secretaries; if +they could all be induced occasionally, to throw off their mental and +moral uniforms, and to meet merely as men, a current of fresh air +would blow through Germany, that she would never after permit to be +shut out. + +Personal dignity is refreshed, not lost, by a romp. Who has not seen +distinguished Americans and distinguished Englishmen, in their own or +in their friends' houses, or at one or another of our innumerable +games, behaving like boys out of school, crawling about beneath +improvised skins and growling and roaring in charades; indulging in +flying chaff of one another; in the skirts of their wives and sisters +playing cricket, or base-ball, or tennis with the one hand only; +caricaturing good-humoredly some of their own official business, or +arranging a match of some kind where their own servants join in to +make up a side; or, and well I remember it, half a dozen youths of +about fifty playing cricket with one stump and a broom-handle for an +hour one hot afternoon, amid tumbles and shouts of laughter, and a +shower of impromptu nicknames, and one or two of them bore names known +all over the English-speaking world. Nobody loses any dignity, any +importance; but there is an unconquerable stiffness in Germany that +makes me laugh almost as I make this suggestion. We have only a +certain reserve of serious work in us. To attempt to be serious all +the time is never to be at rest. This worried busyness, which is a +characteristic of the more mediocre of my own countrymen also, is +really a symptom of deficient vitality. Things are in the saddle and +you are the mule and not the man, if you are such an one. The +stiffness and self-consciousness of the Germans is really a sign of +their lack of confidence in themselves. Youth is always more serious +than middle age, for the same reason. A man who is at home in the +world laughs and is gay; he who is shy and doubtful scowls. It is the +God-fearing who are not afraid, it is the man-fearing who are awkward +and uncomfortable. + +The first thing to be afraid of is oneself, but after oneself is +conquered why be afraid to let him loose! + +It would be quite untrue to give the impression that there is no fun, +no harking, no chaff, in Germany, although I am bound to say that +there is little of this last. I can bear witness to a healthy love of +fun, and to an exuberant exploitation of youthful vitality in many +directions among the students and younger officers, for example. +Better companions for a romp exist nowhere. Having been blessed with +an undue surplus of vitality, which for many years kept me fully +occupied in directing its expenditure, alas, not always with success, +I can only add that I found as many youthful companions in a similar +predicament in Germany, as anywhere else. + +But with the Englishman and the American, both temperament and +environment permit youthfulness to last longer. The German must soon +get into the mill and grind and be ground, and he is by temperament +more easily caught and put into the uniform of a constantly correct +behavior. As for us, we are all boys still at thirty, many of us at +fifty, and some of us die ere the school-boy exuberance has all been +squeezed or dried out of us. Not so in Germany. One sees more men in +Germany who give the impression that they could not by any possibility +ever have been boys than with us. They begin to look cramped at +thirty, and they are stiff at fifty, as though they had been fed on a +diet of circumspection, caution, and obedience. They are drilled early +and they soon become amenable, and then even indulgent, toward the +drill-master. + +This German people have not developed into a nation, they have been +squeezed into the mould of a nation. The nation is not for the people, +the people are for the nation. "By the word Constitution," writes Lord +Bolingbroke, "we mean, whenever we speak with propriety and exactness, +the assemblage of laws, institutions, and customs derived from certain +fixed principles of reason, directed to certain fixed objects of +public good, that compose the general system by which the community +hath agreed to be governed." The Germans have no such constitution, +for the community was scarcely consulted, much less hath it agreed to +the general system by which it is governed. + +Of course, in every nation its affairs are, and must be, conducted by +officials. That is as true of America as of Germany. The fundamental +difference is that with us these official persons are executive +officers only, the real captain is the people; while in Germany these +official persons are the real governors of the people, subject to the +commands of one who repeatedly and publicly asserts that his +commission is from God and not from the people. This puts whole +classes of the community permanently into uniform, and the wearers of +these uniforms are almost afraid to laugh, and would consider it +sacrilege to romp. + +Caution is a very puny form of morality. "He that observeth the wind +shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." It is +as true politically as of other spheres of life that "he or she who +lets the world or his own portion of it choose his plan of life for +him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of +imitation." Thus writes John Stuart Mill, and what else can be said of +the political activities of the Germans? What journalist or what +patriot indeed can take seriously a majority that has no power? What +people can call itself free to whom its rulers are not responsible? +The Social Democrats, at the moment of writing, have won one hundred +and ten seats in the Reichstag, but the army and navy estimates are +beyond their reach, the taxes are fixtures, a constitution is a dream, +and if they are cantankerous or truculent the Reichstag will be +dismissed by a wave of the hand. Say what one will, they are a +mammillary people politically, and the strongest party in the +Reichstag is merely an energetic political mangonel. Their leaders +moult opinions, they do not mould them, and could not translate them +into action if they did. + +Not since 1874 has there been a Reichstag so strongly radical, but +nothing will come of it. The Reichskanzler, Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, +did not hesitate to take an early opportunity, after the +opening of the new Reichstag, to state boldly that the issue was +Authority versus Democratization, and that he had no fear of the +result. It is customary for the newly elected Praesidium, the +president and two vice-presidents of the Reichstag, to be received in +audience by the Emperor. On this occasion the Socialists forbade their +representative to go, and the Emperor, therefore, refused to receive +any of them. As usual, they played into his hands. Hans bleibt immer +Hans, and on this occasion his vulgar hack of good manners only +brought contumely upon the whole Reichstag, and left the Emperor as +the outstanding dignified figure in the controversy. Such behavior is +not calculated to invite confidence, and not likely to induce this +enemy-surrounded nation to put its destinies in such hands, not at any +rate for some time to come. "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a +mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart +from him." + +Intellectually Germany is a republic, and we Americans perhaps beyond +all other peoples have profited by her literature, her philosophy, her +music, her scientific and economic teaching. We have kneaded these +things into our political as well as into our intellectual life. +"Intellectual emancipation, if it does not give us at the same time +control over ourselves, is poisonous." And who writes thus? Goethe! +But the intellectual freedom of Germany has done next to nothing to +bring about political or, in the realm of journalism, personal +self-control. + +It is a strange state of affairs. Intelligent men and women in Germany +do not realize it. Not once, but many times, I have been told: "You +foreigners are forever commenting upon our bureaucracy, our +officialdom, but it is not as all-powerful as you think. We have +plenty of freedom!" These people are often themselves officials, +nearly always related to, or of the society, of the ruling class. The +rulers and the ruling class have naturally no sense of oppression, no +feeling that they are unduly subject to others, since the others are +themselves. I am quite willing to believe of my own and of other +people's personal opinions that they are not dogmas merely because +they are baptized in intolerance. I must leave it to the reader to +judge from the facts, whether or no the Germans have a political +autonomy, which permits the exercise and development of political +power. A glance at the political parties themselves will make this +perhaps the more clear. + +The official organization of the conservative party, may be said to +date back to the founding of the Neue Preussische Zeitung in 1848, and +the organization of the party in many parts of Germany. Earlier still, +Burke was the hero of the pioneers of this party, whose first +newspaper had for editor, no less a person than Heinrich von Kleist, +and whose first endeavors were to support God and the King, and to +throw off the yoke of foreign domination. + +In 1876 was formed the Deutsch-Konservativ party supporting Bismarck. +"Koenigthum von Gottes Gnaden" is still their watchword, with +opposition to Social Democracy, support of imperialism, agrarian and +industrial protection, and Christian teaching in the schools, as the +planks of their platform. They also combat Jewish influence +everywhere, particularly in the schools. Allied to this party is the +Bund der Landwirte and the Deutscher Bauernbund. In the election of +1912 they elected forty-five representatives to the Reichstag, a +serious falling off from the sixty-three seats held previous to that +election. The Free Conservative portion of the Conservative party, is +composed of the less autocratic members of the landed nobility, but +there is little difference in their point of view. + +The Centrum, or Catholic party, is in theory not a religious party; in +practice it is, though it does not bar out Protestant members who hold +similar views to their own. Its political activity began in 1870, and +the first call for the formation of the party came from Reichensperger +in the Koelnischer Volkszeitung. The famous leader of the party, and a +politician who even held his own against Bismarck, was the Hanoverian +Justizminister, Doctor Ludwig Windthorst. The stormy time of the party +was from 1873 to 1878, when Bismarck attempted to oppose the growing +power of the Catholic Church, and more particularly of the Jesuits. +The so-called May laws of that year forbade Roman Catholic +intervention in civil affairs; obliged all ministers of religion to +pass the higher-schools examinations and to study theology three years +at a university; made all seminaries subject to state inspection; and +gave fuller protection to those of other creeds. In 1878 Bismarck +needed the support of the Centrum party to carry through the new +tariff, and the May laws, except that regarding civil marriage, were +repealed. The party stands for religious teaching in the primary +schools, Christian marriage, federal character of empire, protection, +and independence of the state. More than any other party it has kept +its representation in the Reichstag at about the same number. In 1903 +they cast 1,875,300 votes and had 100 members. In 1907 they had 103 +members, and in the last election of 1912 they won 93 seats. Even this +Catholic party is now divided. Count Oppersdorff leads the +"Only-Catholic" party, against the more liberal section which has its +head-quarters at Cologne, where the late Cardinal Fisher was the leader. +At the session of the Reichstag in 1913, when the question of the +readmission of the Jesuits was raised, the Centrum party even sided with +the Socialists in the matter of the expropriation law for Posen, in +order to annoy the chancellor for his opposition to themselves. Such +political miscegenation as this does not show a high level of faith or +of policy. + +It may be of interest to the reader to know that in 1903 the +population of Germany was 58,629,000, and the number qualified to vote +12,531,000; in 1907 the population was 61,983,000, and the number +qualified to vote, 13,353,000; in 1912 the population was 65,407,000, +and the qualified voters numbered over 14,000,000, of whom 12,124,503 +voted. In 1903 there were 9,496,000 votes cast; in 1907, 11,304,000. +The German Reichstag has 397 members, or 1 representative to every +156,000 inhabitants; the United States House of Representatives has +433 members, or 1 for every 212,000 inhabitants; England, 670 members, +or 1 for every 62,000; France, 584, or 1 for every 67,000; Italy, 508, +or 1 for every 64,000; Austria, 516, or 1 for every 51,000. + +Despite the fact that the Conservative and the Catholic parties have +much in common, and are the parties of the Right and Centre: these +names are given the political parties in the Reichstag according to +their grouping on the right, centre, and left of the house, looking +from the tribune or speaker's platform, from which all set speeches +are delivered, they are often at odds among themselves, and Bismarck +and Buelow brought about tactical differences among them for their own +purposes. Their programme may be summed up as "As you were," which is +not inspiring either as an incentive or as a command. + +The Liberal parties are the National liberale; Fortschrittspartei, or +Progressives; and the Freisinnige Volkspartei, or Liberal Democratic +party. + +The National Liberal party was strongest during the days when +Prussia's efforts were directed mainly toward a federation and a +strengthening of the bonds which hold the states together; "unter dem +Donner der Kanonen von Koeniggratz ist der nationalliberale Gedanke +geboren." Loyalty to emperor and empire, country above party, a fleet +competent to protect the country and its overseas interests, are +watchwords of the party. The party is protectionist, and in matters of +school and church administration in accord with the Free +Conservatives. + +The Liberal Democratic party demands electoral reform, no duties on +foodstuffs, and imperial insurance laws for the workingmen. + +The Fortschrittspartei finds its intellectual beginnings, in the +condensing of the hazy clouds of revolution in 1848, in the persons of +Wilhelm von Humboldt and Freiherr von Stein. Politically, the party +came into being in 1861, and Waldeck, von Hoverbeck, and Virchow are +familiar names to students of German political history; later Eugen +Richter was the leader of the party in the Reichstag. This party is +still for free-trade, in opposition to military and bureaucratic +government, favorable to parliamentary government. Of the grouping and +regrouping of these parties; of their divisions for and against +Bismarck's policies; of their splits on the questions of free-trade +and protection; of their leanings now to the right, now to the left; +of their differences over details of taxation for purposes of defence; +of their attitudes toward a powerful fleet, and toward the Jesuits, it +would require a volume, and a large one, to describe. Though it is +dangerous to characterize them, they may be said without inaccuracy to +represent the democratic movement in Germany both in thought and +political action, and to hold a wavering place between the +Conservatives and the Social Democrats. + +The Social Democratic party, the party of the wage-earners only +assumed recognizable outlines after the appeal of Ferdinand Lassalle +for a workingman's congress at Leipsic in 1863. In 1877 they mustered +493,000 voters. Bismarck and the monarchy looked askance at their +growing power. It was attempted to pass a law, punishing with fine and +imprisonment: "wer in einer den oeffentlichen Frieden gefaehrdenden +Weise verschiedene Klassen der Bevoelkerung gegeneinander oeffentlich +aufreizt oder wer in gleicher Weise die Institute der Ehe, der Familie +und des Eigentums oeffentlich durch Rede oder Schrift angreift." This +was a direct attack upon the Socialists, but the Reichstag refused to +pass the law. In May, 1878, and shortly after in June, two attempts +were made upon the life of the Kaiser. Bismarck then easily and +quickly forced through the new law against the Socialists. + +Under this law newspapers were suppressed, organizations dissolved, +meetings forbidden, and certain leaders banished. For twelve years the +party was kept under the watchful restraint of the police, and their +propaganda made difficult and in many places impossible. After the +repeal of this law, and for the last twenty years, the party has +increased with surprising rapidity. In 1893 the Social Democrats cast +1,787,000 votes; in 1898, 2,107,000; in 1903, more than 3,000,000; and +in the last election, 1912, 4,238,919; and they have just returned 110 +delegates to the Reichstag out of a total of 397 members. + +It is noteworthy that in America there is one Socialist member of the +House of Representatives; while in Germany, which combines autocratic +methods of government, with something more nearly approaching state +ownership and control, than any other country in the world, the most +numerous party in the present Reichstag is that of the Social +Democrats. + +Freedom is the only medicine for discontent. There is no rope for the +hanging of a demagogue like free speech; no such disastrous gift for +the socialist as freedom of action. Imagine what would have happened +in America if we had attempted to suppress Bryan! The result of giving +him free play and a fair hearing, the result of allowing the people to +judge for themselves, has been a prolonged spectacle of political +hari-kiri which has had a wholesome though negative educational +influence. The most accomplished oratorical Pierrot of our day, who +changes his political philosophy as easily as he changes his costume, +has seen one hundred and sixty cities and towns in America turn to +government by commission, and has kept the heraldic donkey always just +out of reach of the political carrots, until the Republican party +itself fairly pushed the donkey into the carrot-field, but even then +with another leader. No autocrat could have done so much. + +As early as 1887 Auer, Bebel, and Liebknecht outlined the programme of +the party, and this programme, again revised at Erfurt in 1891, stands +as the expression of their demands. They claim that: "Die +Arbeiterklasse kann ihre oekonomischen Kaempfe nicht fuehren und ihre +oekonomische Organisation nicht entwickeln ohne politisehe Rechte." +Roughly they demand: the right to form unions and to hold public +meetings; separation of church and state; education free and secular, +and the feeding of school-children; state expenditure to be met +exclusively by taxes on incomes, property, and inheritance; people to +decide on peace and war; direct system of voting, one adult one vote; +citizen army for defence; referendum; international court of +arbitration. Their leader in the Reichstag to-day is Bebel, and from +what I have heard of the debates in that assembly I should judge that +they have not only a majority over any other party in numbers, but +also in speaking ability. The members of the Socialist party always +leave the house in a body, at the end of each session, just before the +cheers are called for, for the Emperor. They have become more and more +daring of late in their outspoken criticism of both the Emperor and +his ministers. In consequence, they are replied to with +ever-increasing dislike and bitterness by their opponents. At a recent +banquet of old university students in Berlin, Freiherr von Zedlitz, +presiding, quoted Barth and Richter: "The victory of Social Democracy +means the destruction of German civilization, and a Social Democratic +state would be nothing more than a gigantic house of correction." + +In addition to the four important political divisions in the +Reichstag, the Conservative, Liberal, Clerical, and Socialist, there +are many subdivisions of these. Since 1871 there have been some forty +different parties represented, eleven conservative, fourteen liberal, +two clerical, nine national-particularist, and five socialist. To-day, +besides four small groups and certain representatives acknowledging no +party, there are some eleven different factions. + + 1871 1881 1893 1907 1912 + +Right, or Conservative. 895,000 1,210,000 1,806,000 2,141,000 1,149,916 +Liberal................ 1,884,000 1,948,000 2,102,000 3,078,000 3,227,846 +Clerical............... 973,000 1,618,000 1,920,000 2,779,000 2,012,990 +Social Democrats....... 124,000 312,000 1,787,000 3,259,000 4,238,919 + +So far as one may so divide them, the voters have aligned themselves +as follows: In the last elections, in 1912, the Conservatives and +their allies elected 75 members; the Clericals, 93; the Poles, 18; and +the Guelphs, 5; and these come roughly under the heading of the party +of the Right. Under the heading Left, the National Liberals and +Progressive party elected 88, and the Social Democrats 110 members to +the Reichstag. The parties stand therefore roughly divided at the +moment of writing as 191 Conservative, and 200 Radical, with 6 members +unaccounted for. The Poles with 18 seats, the Alsatians with 5, the +Guelphs and Lorrainers and Danes with 8 seats, and the no-party with 2 +seats, are also represented, but are here placed with the party of the +Right. To divide the parties into two camps gives the result that, +roughly, four and a half millions voted that they were satisfied, and +seven and a half millions that they were not. + +No doubt any chancellor, including Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, would +be glad to divide the Reichstag as definitely and easily as I have +done. Theoretically these divisions may be useful to the reader, but +practically to the leader they are useless. Bebel, the leader of the +Social Democrats, declares himself ready to shoulder a musket to +defend the country; Heydebrandt, the leader of the Conservatives, and +possibly the most effective speaker in the Reichstag, has spoken +warmly in favor of social reform laws; the Clericals are for peace, +almost at any price; the Agrarians or Junkers for a tariff on +foodstuffs and cattle, and one might continue analyzing the parties +until one would be left bewildered at their refining of the political +issues at stake. Back to God and the Emperor; and forward to a +constitutional monarchy with the chancellor responsible to the +Reichstag, and perhaps later a republic, represent the two extremes. +Between the two everything and anything. It is hard to put together a +team out of these diverse elements that a chancellor can drive with +safety, and with the confidence that he will finally arrive with his +load at his destination. In addition to these parties there are the +frankly disaffected representatives of conquered Poland, of conquered +Holstein, of conquered Alsace-Lorraine, and of conquered Hanover, this +last known as the Guelph party; all of them anti-Prussian. + +It is not to be wondered at that the comments, deductions, and +prophecies of foreigners are wildly astray when dealing with German +politics. In America, religious differences and racial differences +play a small role at Washington; but the 220 Protestants, the 141 +Catholics, the 3 Jews, the 5 free-thinkers, and so on, in the last +Reichstag are in a way parties as well. In that same assembly 2 +members were over 80, 78 over 60, 271 between 40 and 60, 42 under 40, +and 3 under 30 years of age. One hundred and six members were landed +proprietors; 220 were of the liberal professions, including 37 +authors, 35 judges or magistrates, 21 clericals, 7 doctors, and 1 +artist; 13 merchants; 21 manufacturers; and 20 shopkeepers and +laborers. Seventy-two members were of the nobility, a decided falling +off from 1878, when they numbered 162. Two hundred and fifty members +were educated at a university, and practically all may be said to have +had an education equal if not superior to that given in our smaller +colleges. + +In the American Congress, in the House of Representatives, we have 212 +lawyers, though there are only 135,000 lawyers in our population of +90,000,000. We have in that same assembly 50 business men, +representing the 15,000,000 of our people engaged in trade and +industry. Perhaps the German Reichstag is as fairly representative as +our own House of Representatives, though both assemblies show the +babyhood of civilization which still votes for flashing eyes, thumping +fists, hollering patriotism, and smooth phrases. The surprising +feature of elective assemblies is that here and there Messrs. Self-Control, +Ability, Dignity, and Independence find seats at all. The +members are paid, since 1906, a salary of 3,000 marks, with a +deduction of 20 marks for each day's absence. They have free passes +over German railways during the session. The Reichstag is elected +every five years. + +The appearance of the Reichstag to the stranger is notable for the +presence of military, naval, and clerical uniforms. It is, as one +looks down upon them, an assembly where at least one-fourth are bald +or thin-haired, and together they give the impression of being big in +the waist, careless in costume, slovenly in carriage, and lacking +proper feeding, grooming, and exercise. It is clearly an assemblage, +not of men of action, but of men of theories. Not only their +appearance betrays this, but their debates as well, and what one knows +of their individual training and preferences goes to substantiate this +judgment of them. There are no soldiers, sailors, explorers, governors +of alien people; no men, in short, who have solved practical problems +dealing with men, but only theorists. Such men as Goetzen, Solf, and +others, who have had actual experience of dealing with men, are rare +exceptions. Probably the best men in Germany wish, and wish heartily, +that there were more such men; indeed, I betray no secret when I +declare that the most intelligent and patriotic criticism in Germany +coincides with my own. + +The electoral divisions of Germany, as we have noted elsewhere, have +not been changed for forty years, with a consequent disproportionate +representation from the rural, as over against the enormously +increased population, of the urban and industrial districts. The +Conservatives, for example, in 1907 gained 1 seat for every 18,232 +votes; the Clericals or Centrum, 1 seat for every 20,626 votes; the +National Liberals, 1 for every 30,635 votes; and the Social Democrats, +1 for every 75,781 votes. It may be seen from this, how overwhelming +must be the majority of votes cast by the Social Democrats, in order +to gain a majority representation in the Reichstag itself. In 1912 +they cast more than one-third of the votes, and are represented by 110 +members out of the total of 397. + +For the student of German politics it is important to remember, that +the Social Democrats are not all representatives of socialism or of +democracy. Their demands at this present time are far from the radical +theory that all sources of production should be in the hands of the +people. Only a small number of very red radicals demand that. Their +successes have been, and they are real successes, along the lines of +greater protection and more political liberty for the workingman. The +number of their votes is swelled by thousands of voters who express +their general discontent in that way. The state in Germany owns +railroads, telegraph and telephone lines; operates mines and certain +industries, and both controls and directly helps certain large +manufactories which are either of benefit to the state, or which, if +they were entirely independent, might prove a danger to the state. The +state enforces insurance against sickness, accident, and old age, and +the three million office-holders are dependent upon the state for +their livelihood and their pensions. + +It is a striking thing in Germany to see human nature cropping out, +even under these ideal conditions; for it is difficult to see how the +state could be more grandmotherly in her officious care of her own. +But this is not enough. Physical safety is not enough, the demand is +for political freedom, and for a government answerable to the people +and the people's representatives. Rich men, powerful men, +representative men by the thousands, men whom one meets of all sorts +and conditions, and who are neither radical nor socialistic, vote the +Social Democrat ticket. The Social Democrats are by no means all +democrats nor all socialists. As a body of voters they are united only +in the expression of their discontent with a government of officials, +practically chosen and kept in power over their heads, and with whose +tenure of office they have nothing to do. + +The fact that the members of the Reichstag are not in the saddle, but +are used unwillingly and often contemptuously as a necessary and often +stubborn and unruly pack-animal by the Kaiser-appointed ministers; the +fact that they are pricked forward, or induced to move by a tempting +feed held just beyond the nose, has something to do, no doubt, with +the lack of unanimity which exists. The diverse elements debate with +one another, and waste their energy in rebukes and recriminations +which lead nowhere and result in nothing. I have listened to many +debates in the Reichstag where the one aim of the speeches seemed to +be merely to unburden the soul of the speaker. He had no plan, no +proposal, no solution, merely a confession to make. After forty-odd +years the Germans, in many ways the most cultivated nation in the +world, are still without real representative government. + +Why should the press or society take this assembly very seriously, +when, as the most important measure of which they are capable, they +can vote to have themselves dismissed by declining to pass supply +bills; and when, as has happened four times in their history, they +return chastened, tamed, and amenable to the wishes of their master? + +No wonder the political writing in the press seems to us vaporish and +without definite aims. It is perhaps due to this weakness that the +writing in the German journals upon other subjects is very good +indeed. The best energies of the writers are devoted to what may be +called educational and literary expositions. In the field of foreign +politics the German press is less well-informed, less instructive, and +consequently irritating. The poverty of material resources makes such +writing as that of Sir Valentine Chirrol, and in former days that of +Mr. G. W. Smalley, beyond the reach of the German journalist, and +their press is painfully narrow, frequently unfair, and often +purposely insulting to foreign countries. They are not only anti- +English, but anti-French, anti-American, and at times bitter. If the +American people read the German newspapers there would be little love +lost between us. + + + +V BERLIN + + +He is a fortunate traveller who enters Berlin from the west, and +toward the end of his journey rolls along over the twelve or fifteen +miles of new streets, glides under the Brandenburger Tor, and finds +himself in Unter den Linden. The Kaiserdamm, Bismarck Strasse, +Berliner Strasse, Charlottenburgerchaussee, Unter den Linden, give the +most splendid street entrance into a city in the world. The pavement +is without a hole, without a crack, and as clear of rubbish of any +kind as a well-kept kitchen floor. The cleanliness is so noticeable +that one looks searchingly for even a scrap of paper, for some trace +of negligence, to modify this superiority over the streets of our +American cities. But there is no consolation; the superiority is so +incontestable that no comparison is possible. For the whole twelve or +fifteen miles the streets are lined with trees, or shrubs, or flowers, +with well-kept grass, and with separate roads on each side for +horsemen or foot-passengers. In the spring and summer the streets are +a veritable garden. + +Broadway is 80 feet wide; Fifth Avenue is 100 feet wide; the Champs +Elysees is 233 feet wide; and Unter den Linden is 196 feet wide, and +has 70 feet of roadway. + +For every square yard of wood pavement in Berlin there are 24 square +yards of asphalt and 37 square yards of stone. The total length of +streets cleaned in Berlin, which has an area of 25 square miles, +according to a report of some few years ago, was 316 miles; there are +700 streets and some 70 open places, and the area cleaned daily was +8,160,000 square yards. The cost of the care of the Berlin streets has +risen with the growth of the city from 1,670,847 marks, [1] in 1880, +to 6,068,557 marks, in 1910. The total cost of the street-cleaning in +New York, in 1907, was $9,758,922, and in Manhattan, The Bronx, and +Brooklyn 5,129 men were employed; while the working force in Berlin, +in 1911, was 2,150. It should be said also that in New York an +enormous amount of scavenging is paid for privately besides. In New +York the street-sweepers are paid $2.19 a day; in Berlin the foremen +receive 4.75 marks the first three years, and thereafter 5 marks; the +men 3.75 marks the first three years, then 4 marks, and after nine +years' service 4.50 marks. The boy assistants receive 2 marks, after two +years 2.25 marks, and after four years service 3 marks. The whole force +is paid every fourteen days. The street-cleaning department is divided +into thirty-three districts, these districts into four groups, each with +an inspector, and all under a head-inspector. Attached to each district +are depots with yards for storage of vehicles, apparatus, brooms, +shovels, uniforms, with machine shops, where on more than one occasion I +have seen enthusiastic workmen trying experiments with new machinery to +facilitate their work. + +[1] The mark is equal to a little less than twenty-five cents. + +Over this whole force presides, a politician? Far from it; a +technically educated man of wide experience, and, of the official of +my visit I may add, of great courtesy and singular enthusiasm both for +his task and for the men under him. What his politics are concerns +nobody, what the politics of the party in power are concerns him not +at all. That an individual, or a group of individuals, powerful +financially or politically, should influence him in his choice or in +his placing of the men under him is unthinkable. That a political boss +in this or in that district, should dictate who should and who should +not, be employed in the street-cleaning department, even down to the +meanest remover of dung with a dust-pan, as was done for years in New +York and every other city in America, would be looked upon here as a +farce of Topsy-Turvydom, with Alice in Wonderland in the title-role. + +The streets are cleaned for the benefit of the people, and not for the +benefit of the pockets of a political aristocracy. The public service +is a guardian, not a predatory organization. In our country when a man +can do nothing else he becomes a public servant; in Germany he can +only become a public servant after severe examinations and ample +proofs of fitness. The superiority of one service over the other is +moral, not merely mechanical. + +The street-cleaning department is recruited from soldiers who have +served their time, not over thirty-five years of age, and who must +pass a doctor's examination, and be passed also by the police. The +rules as to their conduct, their uniforms, their rights, and their +duties, down to such minute carefulness as that they may not smoke on +duty "except when engaged in peculiarly dirty and offensive labor," +are here, as in all official matters in Germany, outlined in +labyrinthine detail. Sickness, death, accident, are all provided for +with a pension, and there are also certain gifts of money for long +service. The police and the street-cleaning department co-operate to +enforce the law, where private companies or the city-owned street-railways +are negligent in making repairs, or in replacing pavement +that has been disturbed or destroyed. There is no escape. If the work +is not done promptly and satisfactorily, it is done by the city, +charged against the delinquent, and collected! + +One need go into no further details as to why and wherefore Berlin, +Hamburg, even Cologne in these days, Leipsic, Duesseldorf, Dresden, +Munich, keep their streets in such fashion, that they are as corridors +to the outside of Irish hovels, as compared to the city streets of +America; for the definite and all-including answer and explanation are +contained in the two words: no politics. + +Berlin is governed by a town council, under a chief burgomaster and a +burgomaster, and the civic magistracy, and the police, these last, +however, under state control. The chief burgomaster and the +burgomaster are chosen from trained and experienced candidates, and +are always men of wide experience and severe technical training, who +have won a reputation in other towns as successful municipal +administrators. + +In May, 1912, Wermuth, the son of the blind King of Hanover's +right-hand man, and he himself the recently resigned imperial secretary of +the treasury, was elected Oberburgomaster of Berlin. Such is the +standing of the men named to govern the German cities. It is as though +Elihu Root should be elected mayor of New York, with Colonel John +Biddle as police commissioner, and Colonel Goethals as commissioner of +street-cleaning. May the day come when we can avail ourselves of the +services of such men to govern our cities! + +The magistracy numbers 34, of whom 18 receive salaries. The town +council consists of 144 members, half of whom must be householders. +They are elected for six years, and one-third of them retire every two +years, but are eligible for re-election. They are elected by the +three-class system of voting, which is described in another chapter. +This three-class system of voting results in certain inequalities. In +Prussia, for example, fifteen per cent. of the voters have two-thirds +of the electoral power, and relatively the same may be said of Berlin. + +Unlike the municipal elections in American cities, the voters have +only a simple ballot to put in the ballot-box. National and state +politics play no part, and the voter is not confused by issues that +have nothing to do with his city government. The government of their +cities is arranged for on the basis that officials will be honest, and +work for the city and not for themselves. Our city organizations often +give the air of living under laws framed to prevent thievery, bribery, +blackmailing, and surreptitious murder. We make our municipal laws as +though we were in the stone age. + +These German cities are also, unlike American cities, autonomous. They +have no state-made charters to interpret and to obey; they are not +restricted as to debt or expenditure; and they are not in the grip of +corporations that have bought or leased water, gas, electricity, or +street-railway franchises, and these, represented by the wealthiest +and most intelligent citizens, become, through the financial +undertakings and interests of these very same citizens, often the +worst enemies of their own city. The German cities are spared also the +confusion, which is injected into our politics by a fortunately small +class of reformers, with the prudish peculiarities of morbid vestals; +men who cannot work with other men, and who bring the virile virtues, +the sound charities, and wholesome morality into contempt. + +We all know him, the smug snob of virtue. You may find him a professor +at the university; you may find him leading prayer-meetings and +preaching pure politics; you may find him the bloodless +philanthropist; you may find him a rank atheist, with his patents for +the bringing in of his own kingdom of heaven. These are the men above +all others who make the Tammanyizing of our politics possible. Honest +men cannot abide the hot-house atmosphere of their self-conscious +virtue. Nothing is more discouraging to robust virtue than the +criticisms of teachers of ethics, who live in coddled comfort, upon +private means, and other people's ideas. + +Germany is just now suffering from the spasms of moral colic, due to +overeating. All luxury is in one form or another overeating. Berlin +itself has grown too rapidly into the vicious ways of a metropolis, +where spenders and wasters congregate. In 1911 the betting-machines at +the Berlin race-tracks took in $7,546,000, of which the state took for +its license, 16 2/3 per cent. There were 128 days of racing, while in +England they have 540 days' racing in the year! + +In 1911, 1,300,000 strangers visited Berlin, of whom 1,046,162 were +Germans, 97,683 Russians, 39,555 Austrians, 30,550 Americans, and +16,600 English. Berlin killed 2,000,000 beasts for food, including +10,500 horses; she takes care of 3,000 nightly in her night-shelters, +puts away $17,500,000 in savings-banks, and has deposits therein of +$90,500,000. On the other hand, she has built a palace of vice costing +$1,625,000, in which on many nights between 11 P. M. and 2 A. M. they +sell $8,000 worth of champagne. No one knows his Berlin, who has not +partaken of a "Kalte Ente," or a "Landwehrtopp," a "Schlummerpunsch," +or "Eine Weisse mit einer Strippe." There is still a boyish notion +about dissipation, and they have their own great classic to quote +from, who in "Faust" pours forth this rather raw advice for gayety: + +"Greift nur hinein ins volle Menschenleben! +Ein jeder lebt's, nicht vielen ist's bekannt, +Und wo Ihr's packt, da ist es interessant!" + +Berlin is still in the throes of that sophomorical philosophy of life +which believes that it is, from the point of view of sophistication, +of age, when it is free to be befuddled with wine and befooled by +women. But the German mind has no sympathy with hypocrisy. They may be +brutal in their rather material views of morals, but they are frank. +There may be mental prigs among them, but there are no moral prigs. In +both England and America we suffer from a certain morbid ethical +daintiness. There is a ripeness of moral fastidiousness that is often +difficult to distinguish from rottenness. It is part of the feminism +of America, born of our prosperity, for not one of these fastidious +moralists is not a rich man, and Germany escapes this difficulty. + +The government of a German city is so simple in its machinery that +every voter can easily understand it. No doubt Seth Low and George L. +Rives could explain to an intelligent man the charter under which New +York City is governed, but they are very, very rare exceptions. + +Our city government is bad, not because democracy is a failure, not +because Americans are inherently dishonest, but because we are a +superficially educated people, untrained to think, and, therefore, +still worshipping the Jeffersonian fetich of divided responsibility +between the three branches of the government. The judicial, the +legislative, and the executive are, with minute care, forced to check +and to impede one another, and we even carry this antiquated +superstition, born of a suspicious and timid republicanism, into the +government of our cities. With the exception of those cities in +America which are governed by commissions, our cities are slaves as +compared with the German cities. They are slaves of the predatory +politicians, and they, on the other hand, are the bribed taskmasters +of the rich corporations. The German asks in bewilderment why our men +of wealth, of leisure, and of intelligence are not devoting themselves +to the service of the state and the city. Alas, the answer is the +pitiable one that the electoral machinery is so complicated that the +voters can be and are, continually humbugged; and worse, many of the +wealthy and intelligent, through their stake in valuable city +franchises, are incompetent to deal fairly with the municipal affairs +of their own city. Both in England and in America, the man in the +street is quite sound in his judgment, when he declines to trust those +who dabble in securities with which their own department has dealings. +The British Caesar's wife official, caught with a handkerchief on her +person, woven on the looms of a company whose directors are dealing +with the British government, can hardly claim exemption from +suspicion, because she bought the handkerchief in America. We all know +that when London sniffles the value of handkerchiefs goes up in New +York. Caesar's wife finds it difficult to persuade honorable men that +she merely had a financial cold, but not the smallest interest in a +corner in handkerchiefs. + +In the great majority of German cities public-utility services, gas, +water, electricity, street-railways, slaughter-houses, and even +canals, docks, and pawn-shops are owned and controlled by the cities +themselves. There is no loop-hole for private plunder, and there is, +on the contrary, every incentive to all citizens, and to the rich in +particular, to enforce the strictest economy and the most expert +efficiency. + +What theatres, opera-houses, orchestras, museums, what well-paved and +clean streets, what parks Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and San +Francisco might have, had these cities only a part of the money, of +which in the last twenty-five years they have been robbed! It is true +that the older cities of Germany have traditions behind them that we +lack. Art treasures, old buildings, and an intelligent population +demanding the best in music and the drama we cannot hope to supply, +but good house-keeping is another matter. Berlin, for example, is a +new city as compared with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit, +and its growth has been very rapid. + +It cannot be said for us alone that we have grown so fast that we have +had no time to keep pace with the needs of our population. Berlin, all +Germany indeed, has been growing at a prodigious rate. The population +of Berlin in 1800 was 100,000; in 1832 only 250,000; hardly half a +million in 1870; while the population now is over 2,000,000, and over +3,000,000 if one includes the suburbs, which are for all practical +purposes part and parcel of Berlin. Charlottenburg, for example, with +a population of 19,517 in 1871, now has a population of 305,976, and +the vicinage of Berlin has grown in every direction in like +proportions. + +There were no towns in Germany till the eighth century, except those +of the Romans on the Rhine and the Danube. In 1850 there were only 5 +towns in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and in 1870 only +8; in 1890, 26; in 1900, 33; in 1905, 41; in 1910, 47; and nearly the +whole increase of population is now massed in the middle-sized and +large cities. The same may be said of the drift of population in +America. "A thrifty but rather unprogressive provincial town of 60,000 +inhabitants," writes Mr. J. H. Harper, of New York, in 1810. + +Between 1860 and 1900 the proportion of urban to rural population in +the United States more than doubled. In the last ten years the +percentage of people living in cities, or other incorporated places of +more than 2,500 inhabitants, increased from 40.5 to 46.3 per cent. of +the total; while twenty years ago only 36.1 per cent. of the +population lived in such incorporated places. + +As late as the thirteenth century the Christian chivalry of the time +was spending itself in the task of converting the heathen of what is +now Prussia; and it was well on into the nineteenth century before +serfdom was entirely abolished in this region. It is the newness and +rawness of the population, in the streets of the great German and +Prussian capital which surprise and puzzle the American, almost more +than the cleanliness and orderliness of the streets themselves. It is +as though a powerful monarch had built a fine palace and then, for +lack of company, had invited the people from the fields and farm-yards +to be his companions therein. + +"Jamais un lourdaud, quoi qu'il fasse +Ne saurait passer pour galaud." + +One should read Hazlitt's "Essay on the Cockney" to find phrases for +these Berliners. It is a gazing, gaping crowd that straggles along +over the broad sidewalks. Half a dozen to a dozen will stop and stare +at people entering or leaving vehicles, at a shop, or hotel door. I +have seen a knot of men stop and stare at the ladies entering a motor-car, +and on one occasion one of them wiped off the glass with his hand +that he might see the better. It is not impertinence, it is merely +bucolic naivete. The city in the evening is like a country fair, with +its awkward gallantries, its brute curiosity, its unabashed +expressions of affection by hands and lips, its ogling, coughing, and +other peasant forms of flirtation. It should be remembered that this +people as a race show somewhat less of reticence in matters amatory +than we are accustomed to. In the foyer of the theatre you may see a +young officer walking round and round, his arm under that of his +fiancee or bride, and her hand fondly clasped in his. It is a +commentary, not a criticism, on international manners that the German +royal princess, a particularly sweet and simple maiden, just engaged +to marry the heir of the house of Cumberland, is photographed walking +in the streets of Berlin, her hand clasped in that of her betrothed, +and both he, and her brother who accompanies them, smoking! Gentlemen +do not smoke when walking or driving with ladies, with us, though I am +not claiming that it is a moral disaster to do so. It is a difference +in the gradations of respect worth noting, but nothing more. I have +even seen kissing, as a couple walked up the stairs from one part of +the theatre to another. In the spring and summer the paths of the +Tiergarten of a morning are strewn with hair-pins, a curious, but none +the less accurate, indication of the rather fumbling affection of the +night before. + +To live in a fashionable hotel, in a land whose people you wish to +study, is as valueless an experience as to go to a zooelogical garden +to learn to track a mountain sheep or to ride down a wild boar. You +must go about among the people themselves, to their restaurants, to +their houses, if they are good enough to ask you, and to the resorts +of all kinds that they frequent. + +The manners are better than in my student days, but there is still a +deal of improvised eating and drinking. There is much tucking of +napkins under chins that the person may be shielded from misdirected +food-offerings. There is not a little use of the knife where the fork +or spoon is called for; but this last I always look upon as a remnant +of courage, of the virility remaining in the race from a not distant +time when the knife served to clear the forest, to build the hut, to +kill the deer, and to defend the family from the wolf; and the +traditions of such a weapon still give it predominance over the more +epicene fork, as a link with a stirring past. Mere daintiness in +feeding is characteristic of the lapdog and other over-protected +animals. Unthinking courage in the matter of victuals is rather a +relief from the strained and anxious hygienic watchfulness of the +overcivilized and the overrich. The body should be, and is, regarded +by wholesome-minded people, not as an idol, but as an instrument. The +German no doubt sees something ignominious in counting as one chews a +chop, in the careful measuring of one's liquids, in the restricting of +oneself to the diet of the squirrel and the cow. He would perhaps +prefer to lose a year or two of life rather than to nut and spinach +himself to longevity. The wholesome body ought of course to be +unerring and automatic in its choice of the quantity and quality of +its fuel. + +A well-dressed man in Berlin is almost as conspicuous as a dancing +bear. This comparison may lead the stranger to infer, in spite of what +has been said of the orderliness of Berlin, that dancing bears are +permitted in the streets. It is only fair to Berlin's admirable police +president, von Jagow, to say that they are not. + +If one leaves the officers, who are a fine, upstanding, well-groomed +lot, out of the account, the inhabitants of Berlin are almost +grotesque in their dowdiness. This is the more remarkable for the +reason that the citizens of Berlin, wherever you see them, not only in +the West-end, but in the tenement districts, in the public markets, +going to or coming from the suburban trains, in the trains and +underground railway, in the cheaper restaurants and pleasure resorts, +taking their Sunday outing, or in the fourth-class carriages of the +railway trains, or their children in the schools, show a high level of +comfort in their clothing. There is poverty and wretchedness in +Berlin, of which later, but in no great city even in America, does the +mass of the people give such an air of being comfortably clothed and +fed. + +We have been deluged of late years with figures in regard to the cost +of living in this country and in that, and never are statistics such +"damned lies" as in this connection. There is better and cheaper food +in Berlin, and in the other cities of Germany, than anywhere else in +our white man's world. Having for the moment no free-trade, or +protectionist, or tariff-reform axe to grind, and having tested the +pudding not by my prejudices but my palate, and having eaten a +fifteen-pfennig luncheon in the street, and climbed step by step the +gastronomical stairway in Germany all the way up to a supper at the +court, where eight hundred odd people were served with a care and +celerity, and with hot viands and irreproachable potables, that made +one think of the "Arabian Nights," I offer my experience and my +opinion with some confidence. You can get enough to stave off hunger +for a few pfennigs, you can get a meal for something under twenty-five +cents, and the whole twenty-five cents will include a glass of the +best beer in the world outside of Munich. If you care to spend fifty +cents there are countless restaurants where you can have a square meal +and a glass of beer for that price; and for a dollar I will give you +as good a luncheon with wine as any man with undamaged taste and +unspoiled digestion ought to have. + +There is one restaurant in Berlin which feeds as many as five thousand +people on a Sunday, where you can dine or sup, and listen to good +music, and enjoy your beer and tobacco for an hour afterward, and all +for something under fifty cents if you are careful in your ordering. +During my walks in the country around Berlin, I have often had an +omelette followed by meat and vegetables, and cheese, and compote, and +Rhine wine, with all the bread I wanted, and paid a bill for two +persons of a little over a dollar. The Broedchen, or rolls, seem to be +everywhere of uniform size and quality, and the butter always good. + +Paris is fast losing its place as the home of good all-round eating as +compared with Berlin. Of course, New York for geographical reasons, +and also because the modern Maecenas lives there, is nowadays the +place where Lucullus would invite his emperor to dine if he came back +to earth; but I am not discussing the nectar and ambrosia classes, but +the beer, bread, and pork classes, and certainly Berlin has no rival +as a provider for them. + +After all our study of statistics, of figures, of contrasts, I am not +sure that we arrive at any very valuable conclusions. American +working-classes work ever shorter hours, gain higher wages, but they +are indubitably less happy, less rich in experience, less serene than +the Germans. This measuring things by dollars, by hours, by pounds and +yard-sticks, measures everything accurately enough except the one +thing we wish to measure, which is a man's soul. We are producing the +material things of life faster, more cheaply, more shoddily, but it is +open to question whether we are producing happier men and women, and +that is what we are striving to do as the end of it all. Nothing is of +any value in the world that cannot be translated into the terms of +man-making, or its value measured by what it does to produce a man, a +woman, and children living happily together. Wealth does not do this; +indeed, wealth beyond a certain limit is almost certain to destroy the +foundation of all peace, a contented family. + +A shady beer-garden, capital music, and happy fathers and mothers and +children, what arithmetic, or algebra, or census tells you anything of +that? The infallible recipe for making a child unhappy, is to give it +everything it cries for of material things, and never to thwart its +will. We throw wages and shorter hours of work at people, but that is +only turning them out of prison into a desert. No statistics can deal +competently with the comparative well-being of nations, and nothing is +more ludicrous than the results arrived at where Germany is discussed +by the British or American politician. Whatever figures say, and +whatever else they may lack, they are better clothed, better fed and +cared for, and have far more opportunities for rational enjoyment, and +a thousand-fold more for aesthetic enjoyment, than either the English +or the Americans. That they lack freedom, in our sense, is true, but +freedom is for the few. The worldwide complaint of the hardship of +constant work is rather silly, for most of us would die of monotony if +we were not forced to work to keep alive, and to make a living. + +The city, with its broad, clean streets, its beautiful race-course, +shaded walks, its forests and lakes, toward Potsdam, or at Tegel, or +Werder, when the blossoms are out, with its well-kept gardens, its +profusion of flowers and shrubs and trees, is physically the most +wholesome great city in the world; but Hans bleibt immer Hans! Goethe, +after a visit to Berlin, wrote: "There are no more ungodly communities +than in Berlin." [1] + +[1] "Est giebt keine gottlosere Voelker als in Berlin." + +No one knows his Berlin better than that prince of German literary +Bohemians, Paul Lindau, and he makes a character in one of his novels +say of it: "untidy and orderly, so boisterous and so regulated, so +boorish and so kindly, so indescribable--so Berlinish--just that!" [1] + +[1] "Staubig und ordentlich, so Taut und geregelt, so grob und +gemuetlich, so unbeschreiblich, so berlinerisch, gerade so!" + +In another place the same author writes: "Berlin as the Capital of the +German Empire! There are many respects in which it nevertheless hasn't +yet succeeded in taking on the character of a cosmopolitan city." [2] +Not even literature finds material for a city novel. There is no +Balzac, no Thackeray. Germany is still dominated by the village and +the town. Goethe, Auerbach, Spielhagen, Heyse, Gottfried Keller, +Freytag, my unread favorite "Fritz" Reuter, deal not with the life of +cities. There is as yet no drama, no novel, no art, no politics born +of the city. There is no domineering Paris or London or New York as +yet. + +[2] "Berlin als Haupstadt des deutchen Reiches: in mancher Beziehung +hatte es sich dem weltstaedtischen Charakter doch noch nicht aneignen +koennen." + +After some years of acquaintance with Germany as school-boy, as +student at the universities, and lately as a most hospitably received +guest by all sorts and conditions of men, I do not remember meeting a +fop. A German Beau Brummel is as impossible as a French Luther, an +American Goethe, or an English Wagner. We have had attempts at foppery +in America, but no real fops. A genuine fop, whether in art, in +literature, or in costumes, must have brains, ours have been merely +effigies, foppery taking the dull commercial form of a great variety +of raiment. It is a strange contradiction in German life that while +they are as a people governed minutely and in detail, forbidden +personal freedom along certain lines to which we should find it hard +to submit, they are freer morally, freer in their literature, their +art, their music, their social life, and in their unself-conscious +expression of them than other people. There is a curious combination +of legal and governmental slavery, and of spiritual and intellectual +freedom; of innumerable restrictions, and great liberty of personal +enjoyment, and that enjoyment of the most naif kind. They seem to have +done less to destroy life's palate with the condiments of +civilization, and therefore, still find plain things savorous. + +I am not sure that the ecumenical sophistication, known as +world-etiquette, marks a very high degree of knowledge or usefulness +anywhere. To know which hat goes with which boots, and what collar and +tie with what coat and waistcoat, and what costume is appropriate at +10 A. M., and what at 10 P. M., and to know the names of the head-waiters +of the principal restaurants, are minor matters. These are the +conveniences of the gentleman, but the characteristic burdens of the +ass. Such a mental equipment is not the stuff of which soldiers, +sailors, statesmen, explorers, or governors are made. + +We must not overrate the value of this feminine worldliness in judging +the Germans. This effeminate categorical imperative of etiquette has +not influenced them greatly as yet. But on the other hand, one must +claim for the amenities of life that they have their value, that they +are, after all, the external decorations of an inward discipline. It +is not necessarily a fine disdain of material things, but rather a +keen sense of moral and physical efficiency, which pays due heed to +wherewithal ye shall be clothed, at any rate outside of Palestine. +Those who dream and discuss may wear anything or nothing. It mattered +not what Socrates wore. But men of action must wear the easy armor +that fits them best for their particular task. Men who toil either at +their pleasure or at their work must change their raiment, if only for +the sake of rest and health. Now that government is in the hands of +the vociferators rather than the meditaters, even politicians must +look to their costumes, merely out of regard to cleanliness. Evening +clothes with a knitted tie dribbling down the shirt front; a frock-coat +as a frame for a colored waistcoat, such as at shooting, or +riding, or golf, we permit ourselves to break forth in, as a weak +surrender to the tailor, or to the ingenuity of our womenfolk who are +not "unbred to spinning, in the loom unskilled"; the extraordinary +indulgence in personal fancies in the choice of colored ties, as +though the male citizens of Berlin had been to an auction of the +bastards of a rainbow; the little melon-shaped hats with a band of +thick velvet around them; the awkward slouching gait, as of men +physically untrained; the enormous proportion of men over forty, who +follow behind their stomachs and turn their toes out at an angle of +more than forty-five degrees, whose necks lie in folds over their +collars, and whose whole appearance denotes an uncared-for person and +a negligence of domestic hygiene: these things are significant. No man +who walks with his toes pointing southwest by south, and southeast by +south, when he is going south, will ever get into France on his own +feet, carrying a knapsack and a rifle. Cranach's painting of Duke +Henry the Pious, in the Dresden Gallery, gives an accurate picture of +the way many Germans still stand and walk; while every athlete knows +that runners and walkers put their feet down straight, or with a +tendency to turn them in rather than out. The Indians of northwest +India, and the Indians of our own West are good examples of this. + +It is evident that the orderliness of Berlin is enforced orderliness +and not voluntary orderliness. Both pedestrians and drivers of all +sorts of vehicles, take all that is theirs and as much more as +possible. There is none of the give and take, and innate love of fair +play and instinctive wish to give the other fellow a chance, so +noticeable in London streets, whether on the sidewalks or in the +roadway. There is a general chip-on-the-shoulder attitude in Prussia, +which may be said, I think not unfairly, to be evident in all ranks, +from their recent foreign diplomacy, down to the pedestrians and +drivers. + +Many people whom I have met, not only foreigners but Germans from +other parts of Germany, are loud in their denunciations of the +Berliners. "Frech" and "roh" are words often used about them. There is +a surly malice of speech and manner among the working classes, that +seems to indicate a wish to atone for political impotence, by braggart +impudence to those whom they regard as superior. When we played horse +as children, we champed the wooden bit, shied, and balked and kicked, +and the worse we behaved the more spirited horses we thought +ourselves. There is a certain social and political radicalism verging +upon anarchy, which plays at life in much the same way, with no better +reason, and with little better result. Shying, balking, and kicking, +and champing the political bit, are only spirited to the childish. + +Their awkward and annoying attentions to women alone on the streets; +their staring and gaping; their rudeness in pushing and shoving; the +general underbred look, the slouching gait, the country-store clothes, +hats, and boots; the fearful and wonderful combinations of raiment; +the sweetbread complexions, as of men under-exercised and not +sufficiently aired and scrubbed; their stiff courtesy to one another +when they recognize acquaintances with hat-sweeping bows; their fierce +gobbling in the restaurants; their lack of small services and +attentions to their own women when they go about in public with them; +their selfish disregard of others in public places, their giving and +taking of hats, coats, sticks, and umbrellas at the garde-robes of the +theatres, for example; their habit of straggling about in the middle +of the streets, like the chickens and geese on a country road: all +these things I have noted too, but I must admit the surprising +personal conclusion that I have grown to like the people. A good pair +of shoulders and an engaging smile go far to mitigate these nuisances. +It makes for good sense in this matter of criticism always to bear in +mind that delicious piece of humor of the psalmist: "Let the righteous +rather smite me friendly; and reprove me. But let not their precious +balms break my head." The "precious balms" of the lofty and righteous +critic are not of much value when they merely break heads. + +I have been all over Berlin, and in all sorts of places, by day and by +night. I have found myself seated beside all sorts of people in +restaurants and public places, and I have yet to chronicle any +rudeness to me or mine. I like their innocent curiosity, their +unsophisticated ways, their bumpkin love-making in public; and many a +time I have found entertainment from odd companions who seated +themselves near me, when I have strayed into the cheaper restaurants, +to hear and to see something of the Berliner in his native wilds. +Their malice and rudeness and apparent impertinences are due to lack +of experience, to the fact that their manners are still untilled, I +believe, rather than to intentional insult. They are not house-broken +to their new capital, that is all, and that will come in time. Their +malicious jealousy peeps out in all sorts of ways. In the lower house +of the Prussian Diet, recently, a member protested vigorously against +the employment of an American singer in the Opera House! Chauvinism +carried to this extreme becomes comic, and is noted here only to +indicate to what depths of farm-yard provinciality some of the +citizens of this great city can descend. + +They are dreamers and sentimentalists too. There are more kissing, +more fondling, more exuberance of affection, more displays of +friendliness in Germany in a week than in England and America in six +months. I confess without shame that I like to see it, and when it +comes my way, as beyond my deserts it has, I like to feel it. How +lasting is this friendliness I have no means of knowing till the years +to come tell me, but that it is a pleasant atmosphere to live in there +can be no doubt. + +The driving is of the very worst. A man behind a horse, or horses, who +knows even the elements of handling the reins and the whip and the +brake, would be a curiosity indeed. I have not seen a dozen coachmen, +private or public, to whom my youngest child could not have given +invaluable suggestions as to the bitting, harnessing, and handling of +his cattle. On the other hand, I one day saw a street sign twisted out +of its place. I was fascinated by this unexampled mark of negligence. +I determined to watch that sign; alas, within forty-eight hours it was +put right again. + +Let it not be understood that there are no fine horses to be seen in +Berlin. You will go far to find a better lot of horse-flesh, or +better-looking men on the horses, than you will see when the Kaiser +rides by to the castle after his morning exercise; and he sits his +horse and manages him with the easy skill of the real horseman, and +looks every inch a king besides. It is told of Daniel Webster, walking +in London, that a navvy turned to his companion and remarked: "That +bloke must be a king!" You would say the same of the Kaiser if you saw +him on horseback. + +At horse shows and in the Tiergarten, and in riding-places in other +cities, I have looked at hundreds of horses, and, if I mistake not, +Germany is both buying and breeding the very best in the way of +mounts, though their civilian riders are often of the scissors +variety. There are comparatively few harness horses, and in Berlin +scarcely a dozen well-turned-out private carriages, outside the +imperial equipages, which are always superbly horsed and beautifully +turned out; so my eyes tell me at least, and I have watched the +streets carefully for months. The minor details of a properly turned-out +carriage (bits, chains, liveries, saddle-cloths, and so on) are +still unknown here. I have had the privilege of driving and riding +some of the horses in the imperial stables; and I have seen all of +them at one time or another being exercised in harness and under the +saddle. I have never driven a better-mannered four, or ridden more +perfectly broken saddle-horses. There are three hundred and twenty-six +horses in his Majesty's stables, and for a private stable of its size +it has no equal in the world. I may add, too, that there is probably +no better "whip" in the world to-day, whether with two horses, four +horses, or six horses, than the gentleman who trains the harness +horses in the imperial stables. This German coachman would be a +revelation at a horse show in either New York or London. If the +citizens of Berlin were as well-mannered as the horses in the imperial +stables, this would be the most elegant capital in the world. It is to +be regretted that his Majesty's very accomplished master of the horse +cannot also hold the position of censor morum to the citizens of +Berlin. Individual prowess in the details of cosmopolitan etiquette +has not reached a high level, but in all matters of mere house-keeping +there are no better municipal housewives than these German cities and +towns. + +As a further example, the statues of Berlin are carefully cleaned in +the spring, but what statues! With the exception of the Lessing, the +Goethe, and the Great Elector statues, the statue of Frederick the +Great, and the reclining statues of the late emperor and empress, by +Begas, and one or two others, one sees at once that these citizens are +no more capable of ornamenting their city than of dressing themselves. + +Poor Bismarck! Grotesque figures (men, women, animals) surround the +base of his statue in Berlin, in Leipsic; and in Hamburg, clad in a +corrugated golf costume, with a colossal two-handed sword in front of +him, he is a melancholy figure, gazing out over a tumble-down beer-garden. +At Wannsee, near Berlin, there is, I must admit, a really fine +bust of Bismarck. On a solid square pedestal of granite, covered with +ivy and surrounded by the whispering, or sighing, or creaking and +cracking trees that he loved, and facing the setting sun, and alone in +a secluded corner, just the place he would have chosen, there are the +head and shoulders of the real Bismarck. Here for once he has escaped +the fussy attentions of the artistry that he detested. Lehnbach, who +painted Bismarck so many scores of times, never gave him the color +that his face kept all through life, and with the exception of this +bust, of the scores of Bismarck memorials one sees all commiserate the +lack of artist ability; they do not commemorate Bismarck. If this is +what they do to the greatest man in their history, what is to be +expected elsewhere? What has poor Joachim Friedrich done that he +should pose forever in the Sieges Allee as an intoxicated hitching-post? +What, indeed, have his companions done that they should stand in +two rows there, studies in contortion, with a gilded Russian dancer +with wings at one end of their line, and a woodeny Roland at the +other? But there they are, simpering a paltry patriotism, insipid as +history and ridiculous as art. What has become of Lessing, and +Winckelmann, and Goethe, and their teachings? Is this the price that a +nation must pay for its industrial progress? + +The German, with all his boasting about the "centre of culture," has +not discovered that the beauty of antiquity is the expression of those +virtues which were useful at the time of Theseus, as Stendhal rightly +tells us. Individual force, which was everything of old, amounts to +almost nothing in our modern civilization. The monk who invented +gunpowder modified sculpture; strength is only necessary now among +subalterns. No one thinks of asking whether Frederick the Great and +Napoleon were good swordsmen. The strength we admire, is the strength +of Napoleon advancing alone upon the First Battalion of the royal +troops near Lake Loffrey in March, 1815; that is strength of soul. The +moral qualities with which we are concerned are no longer the same as +in the days of the Greeks. Before this cockney sculpture was planned, +there should have been a closer study of the history and philosophy of +art in Berlin. + +It is true that we in America are living in a glass house to some +extent in these matters, but where in all Germany is there any modern +sculpture to compare with our Nathan Hale, our Minute Man, and that +most spirited bit of modern plastic art in all the world, the Shaw +Monument in Boston? You cannot stand in front of it without keeping +time, and here lips of bronze sing the song of patriotism till your +heart thumps, and you are ready to throw up your hat as the splendid +young figure and his negro soldiers march by -- and they do march by! +It is almost a consolation for what Boston has done to that gallant +soldier and humble servant of God, that modest gentleman, Phillips +Brooks. In a statue to him they have travestied the virtues he +expounded, slain the ideal of the Christ he preached, theatricalized +the least theatrical of men, and placed this piece of mortifying +misunderstanding in bronze under the very eaves of the house that grew +out of his simple eloquence. There is in Leipsic a similar misdemeanor +in a statue of Beethoven. He sits, naked to the waist, in a bronze +chair, with a sort of bath-towel drapery of colored marble about his +legs, and an eagle in front of him. He has a chauffeurish expression +of anxious futility, as though he were about to run over the eagle. + +Men are without great dreams in these days, and art is elaborate and +fussy and self-conscious. The technical part of the work is +predominant. One sees the artist holding up a mirror to himself as he +works. Pygmalion congratulates the statue upon the fact that he carved +it, instead of being lost in the love of creating. It is as though a +lover should sing of himself instead of singing of his lady. The +subtle poison of self-advertisement has crept in, and peers like a +satyr from the picture and from the statue. Even the most prominent +name in German music at this writing is that of a man who is notorious +as an expert salesman of symphonic sensationalism. + +Though the streets are so well kept, the buildings in these miles of +new streets are flimsy-looking, and evidently the work of the +speculative builder. The more pretentious buildings ape a kind of +Nuremberg Renaissance style, and are as effective as a castle made of +cardboard. This does not imply that there are not simple and solid +buildings in Berlin and, in the case of the new library and a score of +other buildings, worthy architecture; but the general impression is +one of haste multiplied by plaster. + +The whole city blossoms with statuary, like a cosmopolitan 'Arriet who +cannot get enough flowers and feathers on her Sunday hat. A certain +comic anthropomorphism is to be seen, even on the balustrades of the +castle, where the good Emperor William is posed as Jupiter, the +Empress Augusta as Juno, Emperor Frederick as Mars, and his wife as +Minerva! On the facades of houses, on the bridges, on the roofs of +apartment houses, on the hotels even, and scattered throughout the +public gardens, are scores of statues, and they are for the most part +what hastily ordered, swiftly completed art, born of the dollar +instead of the pain and travail of love and imagination, must always +be. + +A certain literary snob taken to task by Doctor Parr for pronouncing +the one-time capital of Egypt "Alexandria," with the accent on the +long i, quoted the authority of Doctor Bentley. "Doctor Bentley and +I," replied Doctor Parr, "may call it 'Alexandria,' but I should +advise you to call it 'Alexandria.'" It was all very well for the +Medici, to ornament their cities and their homes with the fruit of the +great artistic springtime of the world, but I should strongly advise +the Berliners to pronounce it "Alexandria" for some years to come. No +matter how fervid the lover, nor how possessed he may be by his +mistress, he cannot turn out every day, even, + +"A halting sonnet of his own poor brain, +Fashion'd to Beatrice." + +All this pretentious over-ornamentation is cosmeticism, the powder and +paint of the vulgarian striving to conceal by a futile advertisement +her lack of refinement. Paris was teaching the world when there was no +capital in Germany; London has been a commercial centre for a thousand +years, and Oxford was a hundred years old before even the University +of Prague, the first in Germany, was founded by Charles IV in 1348. +You may like or dislike these cities, but, at any rate, they have a +bouquet; Berlin has none. + +When Germany deals with the inanimate and amenable factors of life, +she brings the machinery of modern civilization well-nigh to the point +of perfection. As a municipal and national housewife she has no equal, +none. But art has nothing to do with brooms and dust-pans, and human +nature is woven of surprises and emergencies, and what then? An +interesting example in the streets of Berlin is the difference between +the perfection of the street-cleaning, which deals with the inanimate +and with accurately calculable factors, and the governing of the +street traffic. Horses and men and motor-driven vehicles are not as +dependable as blocks of pavement. When the traffic in the Berlin +streets grows to the proportions of London, Paris, and New York, one +wonders what will happen. Nowhere are there such broad, well-kept +streets in which the traffic is so awkwardly handled. + +The police are all, and must be, indeed, noncommissioned officers of +the army, of nine years service, and not over thirty-five years of +age. They are armed with swords and pistols by night, and in the +rougher parts of the town with the same weapons by day as well. After +ten years service they are entitled to a pension of twenty-sixtieths +of their pay, with an increase of one-sixtieth for each further year +of service. They are not under the city, but under state control, and +the chief of police is a man of distinction, nearly always a nobleman, +and nominated by, and in every case approved by, the Emperor. In +Berlin he is appointed by the King of Prussia. He is a man of such +standing that he may be promoted to cabinet rank. The men are well-turned +out, of heavy build, very courteous to strangers, so far as my +experience can speak for them, and quiet and self-controlled. Under +the police president are one colonel of police, receiving from 6,000 +to 8,500 marks, according to his length of service; 3 majors, +receiving from 5,400 to 6,600 marks; 20 captains, receiving from 4,200 +to 5,400 marks; 156 lieutenants, receiving from 3,000 to 4,500 marks; +450 sergeants, receiving from 1,650 to 2,300 marks; and 5,382 +patrolmen, receiving from 1,400 to 2,100 marks. There are also some +300 mounted police, receiving from 1,400 to 2,600 marks. The colonel, +majors, and captains receive 1,300 marks additional, and the +lieutenants 800 marks additional, for house rent. The mounted police +are well-horsed, but it is no slight to them to say, however, that +their horses are not so well trained and well mannered, nor the men +such skilful horsemen, as those of our mounted squad in New York, who, +man for man and horse for horse, are probably unequalled anywhere else +in the world. + +The demand for these non-commissioned officers of nine years of army +discipline, who cannot be called upon to serve in the army again, has +grown with the growth of the great city, with its need of porters, +watchmen, and the like, and so valuable are their services deemed that +the present police force of Berlin is short of its proper number by +some seven hundred men. + +The examination of those about to become policemen extends over four +weeks, and includes every detail of the multiplicity of duties, which +ranges from the protection of the public from crime, down to tracking +down truants from school, and the regulation of the books of the +maid-servant class. The policeman who aspires to the rank of sergeant +undergoes a still more rigorous examination, extending over twenty +weeks of preparation, during which time he studies -- note this list, +ye "young barbarians all at play," German, rhetoric, writing, +arithmetic, common fractions, geography, history, especially the +history of the House of Hohenzollern from the time of the margraves to +the present time (!), political divisions of the earth, especially of +Prussia and Germany, the essential features of the constitution of the +Prussian Kingdom and German Empire, the organization and working of +the various state authorities in Prussia and Germany, elementary +methods of disinfection, common veterinary remedies, the police law as +applicable to innumerable matters from the treatment of the drunk, +blind, and lame, to evidences of murder, and the press law. The man +who passes such an examination would be more than qualified to take a +degree, at one of our minor colleges, if he knew English and the +classics were not required, and could well afford to sniff +disdainfully at the pelting shower of honorary degrees of Doctor of +Divinity, which descend from the commencement platforms of our more +girlish intellectual factories of orthodoxy. + +The cost of the police in Berlin in 1880 was 2,494,722 marks; in 1890, +3,007,879 marks; in 1900, 6,065,975 marks; and in 1910, 8,708,165 +marks. + +I fancy that after an accident has taken place the literary, legal, +and hygienic details are cared for by the Berlin police as nowhere +else. In their management of the traffic they are distinctly lacking +in decision and watchfulness. On the western side of the Brandenburger +Tor there is seldom an hour, without a tangle of traffic which is +entirely unnecessary if the police knew their business. On the +Tiergarten Strasse, a rather narrow and much used thoroughfare in the +fashionable part of the town, trucks, cabs, and other vehicles are not +kept close to the curbs, often they drive along in pairs, slowing up +all the traffic, and at the east end of the street is a corner which +could easily be remedied by the building of a "refuge," and an +authoritative policeman to guard the three approaches. Not once, but +scores of times, at the very important corner of Unter den Linden and +Wilhelm Strasse I have seen the policeman talking to friends on the +curb, quite oblivious to a scramble of cabs, wagons, and motors at +cross purposes in the street. Potsdamer Platz presents a difficult +problem at all times of the day, especially when the crowds are coming +from or going toward home, but a few ropes and iron standards, and +four alert Irish policemen, would make it far plainer sailing than now +it is. It is to be remembered, too, that the traffic is a mere dribble +as compared to a torrent, when one remembers Paris, New York, and +London. In 1909 the street accidents in Paris numbered 65,870, and +there was one summons for every 77 motor taxicabs, but Paris is now +without a rival as the dirtiest, worst-paved capital in Europe, and +the home of social anarchy; a place where adventurous spirits will go +soon rather than to Africa, or to the Rocky Mountains, for excitement +in affrays with revolvers, vitriol, and chloroform. + +In London, in 1909, there were 13,388 accidents. In Berlin there was a +total of 4,895 accidents in 1900; 4,797 in 1905; and 4,233 in 1910. +One hundred persons were killed in 1900; 115 in 1905; and 136 in 1910. +In this connection it is to be said, that Berlin has fewer and much +less adventurous inhabitants, very much less complicated traffic, much +broader and better streets, and far fewer problems than the older +cities. If the citizens of Berlin were anything like as capable of +taking care of themselves in the streets, as they should be, there +would be hardly any accidents at all. The new police regulation of the +traffic has been only some four or five years in existence in its more +rigid form, and perhaps neither people nor police are accustomed to +it. Even then, out of the total of 4,233 accidents in 1910, 1,876 of +them were caused by the street-railway cars. This shows of itself how +light the traffic must be, for worse driving and more awkward +pedestrians one would go far to find. + +The cost of Berlin housekeeping increases by leaps and bounds. The +total city expenses were: 45,221,988 marks in 1880; 89,364,270 in +1890; 121,405,356 in 1900; and 355,424,614 in 1910. The debt of Berlin +has risen from 126,161,605 marks in 1880, and 272,912,350 in 1900, to +475,799,231 in 1910, with a very considerable addition voted for 1912. +In the ten years alone between 1897 and 1907 the debt of German cities +including only those with a population of more than 10,000, increased +by $1,050,000,000. Municipal expenditure in Paris has risen in the +last ten years from $59,200,000 to $76,000,000. The budget expenditure +of France has reached $1,040,000,000. In 1898 it was only +$600,000,000. + +It cannot be expected that the best-kept, cleanest, and most orderly +cities in the world, and there need be no hesitation in saying this of +the German cities, should not spend much money, and the states in +which they are situated much money as well. The various states of the +empire spent, according to a report of four years ago, $1,352,500,000; +and the empire itself $738,250,000, or a total of $2,090,750,000. From +the various state or empire controlled enterprises, such as railways, +forests, mines, post and telegraph, imperial printing-office, and so +on, the states and empire received a net income of $216,525,000, and +the balance was, of course, raised by direct and indirect taxation. + +One may put appropriately enough under this heading, the invaluable +and unpaid services of a host of honorary officials, who render expert +service both in the state and city governments. There are over ten +thousand honorary officials in the city of Berlin alone, more than +three thousand of whom serve under the school authorities. They are +chosen from citizens of standing, education, wealth, and ability, and +assist in all the departments with advice and expert knowledge, and +sit upon the various committees. The German citizen has not only his +pocket taxed, but his patriotism also, and a capital philosophy of +government this implies. + +A friend, a large landholder in Saxony, gives, between his services as +a reserve officer in the army and his magisterial and other duties, +something over nine weeks of his time to the state every year, and he +is by no means an exception, he tells me. A certain amount of this is +required of him by the state, with a heavy fine for nonperformance of +these duties. The same is true of the many members of the various +standing committees in the cities. Each citizen is compelled to +contribute a certain proportion of his mental and moral prowess to the +service of his state and city, but he receives a return for it in his +beautifully kept city, in the educational advantages, in the theatres, +concerts, opera, and in the peaceful orderliness, the value of which +only the foreigner can fully appreciate. + +Almost all the court theatres, for example, throughout Germany are +under a director who works in harmony with the reigning prince. The +King of Prussia gives for his theatres in Berlin, Wiesbaden, Hanover, +and Cassel, more than $625,000 a year from his private purse; the Duke +of Anhalt, $75,000 a year to the Dessauer theatre. The players have a +sure position under responsible and intelligent government, and feel +themselves to be not mere puppets, but educational factors with a +certain pride and dignity in their work. + +There are more Shakespeare plays given in Germany in a week than in +all the English-speaking countries together in a year. This is by no +means an exaggeration. The theatre is looked upon as a school. Fathers +and mothers arrange that their older children as well as themselves +shall attend the theatre all through the winter, and subscribe for +seats as we would subscribe to a lending library. During the last year +in Germany, the plays of Schiller were given 1,584 times, of +Shakespeare 1,042 times, the music-dramas of Wagner 1,815 times, the +plays of Goethe 700 times, and of Hauptmann 600 times. There is no +spectacular gorgeousness, as when an Irving, a Booth, or a Beerbohm +Tree sugarcoats Shakespeare to induce us barbarians to go, in the +belief that we are after all not wasting our time, since the +performance tastes a little of the more gorgeous music halls. The +scenery and costumes are sufficient, and the performance always worth +intelligent attention, for the reason that both the director and his +players have given time and scholarship to its interpretation. The +acting is often indifferent as compared to the French stage, but it is +at least always in earnest and intelligent. The theatre prices in +Berlin are high, even as compared with New York prices, but in other +cities and towns of Germany cheaper than in England, France, or +America. + +Pericles passed a law in Athens by which each citizen was granted two +oboli, one to pay for his seat at the theatre, the other to provide +himself with refreshment. In Athens the play began at 6 or 7 A. M., +and during the morning three tragedies and a satirical drama were +played, followed in the afternoon by a comedy. The theatre of +Dionysius seated 30,000 people, who brought their cushions, food, and +drink, and occasionally used them to express their dislike of the +performance or the performers. At one of the larger industrial towns +in Germany, during a Sunday of my visit, there were three +performances; one at 11 A. M., of a patriotic melodrama, "Glaube und +Heimat"; another, at 3.30 P. M., of "Der Freischuetz"; and another, at +7.30 P. M., of Sudermann's play, "Die Ehre." The prices of seats for +the morning performance ranged from eight cents to forty-five cents; a +little more in the afternoon; and from seventeen cents to $1.15 in the +evening. At the performance I attended the house was crowded and +attentive. I was not enough of an Athenian to attend all three. Even +at the Music Hall in Berlin, where, as in other cities, the thinly +covered salacious is ladled out to the animal man, there was a capital +stage caricature of Oedipus, which atoned for the customary ewig +Legliche, which now rules in these resorts. If for some untoward +reason women ceased to have legs, what would the British and American +theatrical trust managers do! + +The German takes his theatre and his music, as from the beginnings of +these it was intended we all should do. They are not a distraction +merely, but an education, an education of the senses, and through the +senses of the whole man. There are music-lovers and serious playgoers +in America; but for the most part our theatres cater to, and are +filled by, a public seeking a soothing and condimented mental +atmosphere, in which to finish digestion. Theatrical salmagundi is +served everywhere, and seems to be the dish best suited to the +American aesthetic palate as thus far educated. We cannot complain, +since other wares would be quickly provided did we but ask for them. + +America has suffered because she was overtaken by a great material +prosperity before she had a sufficient spiritual and intellectual +development, and up to now the material side of life has had the upper +hand. We buy the best pictures, the rare books and manuscripts, armor +and silver and porcelain, and it must be said that there is a fine +idealism here, because they are bought almost without exception by +uncultured, often almost unlettered, rich men, who know nothing and +care very little for these things, but who are providing rare +educational opportunities for another generation. In 1910 objects of +art to the value of $22,000,000 were imported, in 1911 $36,000,000 +worth, and in 1912 sixty per cent. more than in 1911. In the same way +we hire the best musicians and singers, but our surroundings and the +powerful circumambient ambitions, have not tempted us as yet to live +contentedly and understandingly in any such atmosphere as the Germans +do. It is a striking contrast, perhaps of all the contrasts the most +interesting to the student, this of America growing from industrialism +toward idealism, of Germany growing out of idealism into +industrialism. + +Germany floats in music; in America a few, a very few, float on it. In +Germany everybody sings, almost everybody plays some instrument, and +from the youngest to the oldest everybody understands music; at least +that is the impression you carry away with you from the land of Bach, +Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Brahms, and Beethoven, and Wagner, and I +might fill the page with the others. + +You are at least on the ramparts of Paradise, in the Thomas Kirche in +Leipsic at the weekly Saturday concert of the scholars of the Thomas +Schule. The worldliness is melted out of you, as you sit in the cool, +quiet church with the sunlight slanting in upon you, and the +atmosphere alive with sweet sounds. And this is only one of hundreds +of such experiences all over Germany. At the Kreuz Kirche in Dresden, +at the great Dom church in Berlin at Easter time, for the asking you +may have the oil and wine of music's Good Samaritan poured upon the +wounds of those sore-pressed travellers, your hopes and ideals, your +dreams and ambitions, that have fallen among thieves, on the long, +long way from Jericho to Jerusalem. + +It is, I must admit, a drab and dreary crowd to look at, these Germans +at the theatre, at the opera, in the concert halls. They do not dress, +or if they are women undress, for their music as do we; their music +dresses for them. They come, most of them, in the clothes that they +have worn all day, each quidlibet induitus. They have many of them a +meal of meat, bread, and beer during the long pause between two of the +acts, always provided for this purpose. Some of them bring little bags +with their own provisions, and only buy a glass of beer. They are +solemnly attentive, an educated and experienced audience there for a +purpose, and not to be trifled with, the most competently critical +audience in the world. I wonder as I look at them whether the fact +that they have no backs to their heads, emphasized nowadays by the +fact that many men wear their hair clipped close to the head, and no +chins (the lack of chins in Germany is almost a national peculiarity) +has any physiological or psychological relation to their prowess in, +and love of, and critical appreciation of, the more nebulous arts: +music, poetry, philosophy, and the serious drama. + +They are as adamant in their observance of the rules in such matters. +More than once I arrived at the opera a few minutes late, once four +minutes late, the doors are closed and guarded, and I listen to the +overture from the outside. At a concert led by the famous von Buelow +half a dozen women come in after the music has begun, rustling, +sibilant, and excited. The music stops, the great conductor turns to +glare at them, and, referring to the geese which are said to have +saved Rome by their hissing, thunders: "Hier ist kein Capitol zu +retten!" + +There are some forty thousand professional musicians in Germany. The +town council of Berlin is now discussing gravely the sum to be +allotted to the support of the Symphony Orchestra, and Charlottenburg +is building an opera house of its own, and Spandau a theatre; and +there has just been formed in Berlin a "Society of the German +Artistes' Theatre," with a capital of $200,000, which is a project +along the general lines of the Comedie Francaise. The discussions and +arguments relating to these municipal expenditures, as I read them in +the newspapers, are all based upon the assumption that the people have +a right to good and cheap music, just as they have a right to good and +cheap beer and bread. + +At Duesseldorf one of the theatres, managed by a woman, and supported +by the best people in the town, is not only a playhouse, but a school +for actors, and a proving-ground for the drama. It is a treat indeed +to attend the performances there. We have tried similar things in +America, but with sad results. Fifty millionaires, no one of whom had +ever read the text of a serious play in his life, build a temple for +the drama, but there are no plays, no actors, no audience, nothing is +accomplished. There is no critical body of real lovers of the drama, +and there are no cheap seats, and there is still that fatuous notion +that exclusiveness, except in the trifling matter of physical +propinquity, can be bought with dollars. + +The only impenetrably exclusive thing in the world is intellect, he is +the only aristocrat left in these democratic days, and we are not +devoting much attention as yet to his breeding. We do not realize that +the only valuable democrat must be an aristocrat. "Culture seeks to do +away with classes and sects; to make the best that has been thought +and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an +atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it +uses them itself, freely; nourished and not bound by them. This is the +social idea; and the men of culture are the true apostles of +equality." + +In Germany there are more men of culture per thousand of the +population than in any other land, but they rule the country not by +"sweetness and light," but by force. This seems at first a +contradiction. It is not. Religion, life, and love are all savage +things. Because we have known men who preach but do not believe; men +who breathe and walk who have not lived; men who protest but who have +not loved, we are prone to think of religion, life, and love as soft. +We have conquered and chastened so much of nature: the air, the water, +the bowels of the earth that we fool ourselves with thinking that +culture also is tame, that religion, life, and love are tame too. +Savage things they are! You may know them by that! If you find them +nice, vivacious, amusing, amenable, be sure that they are forgeries. + +This is the profound fallacy underlying the present-day economic peace +propagandism, whose heaviest underwriter, Mr. Carnegie, is, by the +way, an agnostic. While there is faith there will be fighting. Do away +with either and society would crumble. What the Puritans did for us, +the Prussians have done for Germany. They have fought, are fighting, +and will fight for their faith. Though they have many unpleasant +characteristics, this is their most admirable quality. They believe in +an aristocracy of culture with a right to rule. Goethe said of Luther +that he threw back the intellectual progress of mankind by centuries, +by calling in the passions of the multitude to decide on subjects that +ought to have been left to the learned. This is a good example of +imitation culture. This is very much the view that Mr. Balfour holds +in regard to Cromwell. But Luther and Bismarck made Germany. The one +taught Germany to bark, the other taught Germany to bite. The great +deliverers of the world came, not to bring peace, but a sword. + +When you leave the drab crowd in the streets, and enter the houses of +the real rulers of Germany, the contrast between the aristocrat and +the plebeian is nowhere so outstanding. I have seen no finer-looking +specimens of mankind in face and figure and manner than the best of +these men. If you stroll though the halls of the Krieges Academie, +where the pick of the young officers of the German army, are preparing +themselves for the examinations which admit a very small proportion of +them, to appointments on the general staff, you will be delighted with +the faces and figures, and the air of alertness and intelligence +there. And you will find as fine a type of gentlemen, in face, +manners, and figure, at their head as exists anywhere. + +There are complaints that this Prussian aristocracy is socially +exclusive, is given office both in the army and in civil life too +readily; but what an aristocracy it is! These are the men whose +families gave, often their all, to make Prussia, and then to make +Germany. Service of king and country is in their blood. They get small +remuneration for their service. There is no luxury. They spurn the +temptations of money. Hundreds and hundreds of them have never been +inside the house of a rich parvenu, nor have their women. They work as +no other servants work, they live on little, they and their women and +children; and you may count yourself happily privileged if they permit +you the intimacy of their home life. + +Officers and gentlemen there are, living on two thousand five hundred +dollars a year, and most of them on much less, and their wives, as +well born as themselves, darning their socks and counting the pfennigs +with scrupulous care. These are the women whose ancestors flung +themselves against the Roman foe, beside their husbands and brothers; +these are the women who gave their jewels to save Prussia; these are +the women, with the glint of steel and the light of summer skies +braided in their eyes, who have taken their hard, self-denying part in +making Prussia, and the German Empire. No wonder they despise the mere +money-maker, no wonder they will have none of his softness for +themselves, and hate what Milton calls "lewdly pampered luxury," as a +danger to their children. They know well the moral weapons that won +for this starved, and tormented, and poverty-stricken land its present +place in the world as a great power. + +"And as the fervent smith of yore + Beat out the glowing blade, +Nor wielded in the front of war + The weapons that he made, +But in the tower at home still plied + His ringing trade; + +"So like a sword the son shall roam + On nobler missions sent; +And as the smith remained at home + In peaceful turret pent, +So sits the while at home the mother + Well content." + +I, convinced democrat that I am, know very well that there are, and +always have been, and always will be aristocrats, for there is no +national salvation without them anywhere in the world. The aristocrats +are the same everywhere, no matter what their distinctions of title, +or whether they have none. They are those who believe that they owe +their best to God and to men, and they serve. Likewise the plebeians +are the same all over the world; whatever their presumptions or +denials, they believe that they are here to get what they can out of +God and men, and they take far more than they give. + +Perhaps no feature of German life is so little known, so little +understood, as this simple-living, proud, and exclusive caste, who +have made, and still protect and guard, Prussia and Germany. They say: +"We made Prussia and Germany, and we intend to guard them, both from +enemies at home and from enemies abroad!" My admiration for these men +and women is so unbounded, that I would no more carry criticism with +me into their homes, than I would carry mud into a sanctuary. + +They have done much for Germany, but the best, perhaps, of all is that +they have made economy and simple living feasible and even +fashionable; they have made talent aristocratic; they have insisted +that social life shall be founded on service and breeding and ability. +They will have no dealings with Herr Muller, the rich shopkeeper, but +whatever name the distinguished artist, or public servant, or man of +science, or young giant in any field of intellectual prowess may bear, +he is welcomed. In general this welcome given by German society to +talent holds good. There is, however, a society composed of the great +landed proprietors, who live in the country, who come to Berlin +rarely, and whose horizon is limited severely to their own small +interests, their restricted circle, and by their provincial pride. +They recognize nobody but themselves, for the reason that they know +nobody and nothing else. There is an exclusiveness born of stupidity, +just as there is an exclusiveness born of a sense of duty to one's +position and traditions in the world. One must recognize that this +side of social life exists in Germany just as it exists in England, +and France, and Austria, but it is fast losing its importance and its +power. + +One hears it lamented that society is changing, that the rich Jew and +the rich gentile are received where twenty-five years ago the social +portals were shut against them, and that many go to their houses who +would not have gone not many years ago. My experience is too slender +to weigh these matters in years; my contention is only that, from an +American or English stand-point, their social life is notably simple, +and still largely founded on merit and service, rather than upon the +means to provide luxury. + +Though there are thousands of people received at court each year, this +does not mean that they are invited to the more intimate parties of +those in court control. They are tolerated, not welcomed. Such people +are invited to the court ball, but never thought of, even, as guests +at the small supper party of, say, a court official later in the +evening. Prussia and Germany are still ruled socially and politically +by a small group of, roughly, fifty thousand men, eight thousand of +them in the frock-coat of the civilian official, and the rest in +military uniforms. Added to this must be named a few great financiers, +shipping and mining and industrial magnates, and great land-owners, +and less than half a dozen journalists, and as many professors. + +According to the census there are in all only 720 persons in Berlin +with incomes of more than $25,000 a year, and 521 of these have +between $25,000 and $60,000 a year, leaving a very small number, indeed, +with incomes adequate, from an American point of view, for extravagant +social expenditure. Of these 200, probably not 50 are figures in the +social life of the capital. It may be seen at once, therefore, that +entertaining cannot be on a lavish or spectacular scale. + +The minister of foreign affairs and the imperial minister of the +interior receive salaries of 36,000 marks, with 14,000 marks +additional for expenses. The Prussian ministers have the same. Other +ministers receive 30,000 marks and 14,000 additional for expenses. The +chancellor of the empire receives 36,000 marks and 64,000 additional +for expenses. The highest receivable pension is three-fourths of the +salary--not counting the additional sum for expenses, or, as it is +named, Repraesentationsaufwand -- after forty years of service. The +foreign ambassadors to the more expensive capitals, London, Paris, +Washington, Saint Petersburg, receive 150,000 marks a year. Where one +has seen something of the innumerable demands upon the income of a +foreign ambassador, one is the more amazed that a great democracy like +ours should so restrict the salaries of its representatives abroad +that only rich men dare undertake the duty. What could be more +undemocratic! + +Germany is a rich, very rich, country in the sense that it has the +most intelligent, hardest-working, most fiercely economical, and the +most rationally and most easily contented population of any of the +great powers. But Germany is not rich in surplus and liquid capital as +compared with England, France, or America. It is the more to her +credit that her capital is all hard at work. There is just so much +less for luxury. The people in the streets; the shop-windows; the +scale of charges at places of public resort and amusement; the very +small number of well-turned-out private vehicles; the comparatively +few people who live in houses and not in apartments; the simplicity of +the gowns of the women, and their inexpensive jewelry and other +ornaments; the fewer servants; the salaries and wages of all classes, +point decisively to plain living on the part of practically everybody. +Let me say very emphatically, however, that this economy means no lack +of generosity. I doubt if there are people anywhere so restricted as +to means, and so delightfully hospitable at the same time. Berlin is +not as yet under that cloud that covers the new, uncultivated, and +rich society in America, that tyranny of money which makes men and +women fearful of being without it. Such people shiver at the bare +thought of losing what money will buy, for the shameful reason that +then there would be nothing left to them; and they are driven, many of +them, both in London and in New York, to any humiliation, often to any +degradation, to avoid it. They grossly overrate the value of money, +and they exaggerate the terrors of being without it. + +Professor William James, who succeeded in analyzing what is at the +back of men's brains as well as anybody, writes: "We have grown +literally afraid to be poor. We despise any one who elects to be poor +in order to simplify and save his inner life. We have lost the power +of even imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have +meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, +the manlier indifference, the paying our way by what we are or do, and +not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment +irresponsibly -- the more athletic trim, in short, the moral fighting +shape. ... It is certain that the prevalent fear of poverty among the +educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our +civilization suffers." They suffer from this malady less in Germany +than in America or in England. I should like to introduce such people +into dozens of households in Berlin; alas, they could not speak or +understand the moral or mental language there, where there is +everything that makes a home's heart beat proudly and peaceably, +except money. "La prosperite decouvre les vices, et l'adversite les +vertus." + +These people need no tribute from me, and for their hospitality and +friendliness I can make no adequate return. I sigh to think that we in +America know so little of them. Germany would not be where she is +without them; and I offer them as an example to my countrymen, and to +my countrywomen especially, as showing what self-sacrifice and +simplicity, and loyal service can do for a nation in times of stress; +and what high ideals and sturdy independence and contempt for luxury +can do in the dangerous days of prosperity. Unadvertised, unheralded, +keeping without murmuring or envy to their own traditions, they are +here, as everywhere, the saviors of the world. + +In this great city of Berlin it may seem that I have over-emphasized +their part in the drama of the city's life. Not so! They are the +backbone of the municipal as of the national body corporate. It is no +easy industrial progress, no increasing wealth and population, no +military prowess, no isolated great leader that makes a nation or a +city. It is the men and women giving the high and unpurchasable gift +of service to the state; giving the fine example of self-sacrificing +and simple living; giving the prowess won by years of hard mental and +moral training; giving the gentle courtesy and kindly welcome of the +patrician to the stranger, who lift a nation or a city to a worthy +place in the world. Seek not for Germany's strength first in her +fleet, her army, her hordes of workers, nay, not even in her +philosophers, teachers, and musicians, though they glisten in the eyes +of all the world, for you will not find it there. It is in these quiet +and simple homes, that so few Americans and Englishmen ever enter, +that you will find the sweetness and the sternness, the indomitable +pride of service, and the self-sacrificing loyalty that won, and that +keep for Germany her place in the world. + + + +VI "A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS" + + +It can hardly be doubted that could Lord Palmerston have seen what I +have seen of the changes in Germany, he would at least have placed the +"damned," in another part of his famous sentence. These professors +have turned their prowess into channels which have given Germany, in +this scientific industrial age, a mighty grip upon something more than +theories. It may be dull reading to tell the tale of damned +professordom, but it is to Germany that we must all go to school in +these matters. + +The American chooses his university or college because it is in the +neighborhood; because his father or other relatives went there; +because his school friends are going there; on account of the prestige +of the place; sometimes, too, because one is considered more +democratic than another; sometimes, and perhaps more often than we +think, on account of the athletics; because it is large or small; or +on account of the cost. + +The German youth, owing to widely different customs and ideals, +chooses his university for other reasons. If he be of the well-to-do +classes, and his father before him was a corps student, he is likely +to go first to the university, where his father's corps will receive +him and discipline him in the ways of a corps student's life, and +rigorous ways they are, as we shall see. Young men of small means, and +who can afford to waste little time in the amusements of university +life, go at once where the more celebrated professors in their +particular line of work are lecturing. + +Few students in Germany reside +during their whole course of study at one university. The student year +is divided into two so-called semesters. The student remains, say, in +Heidelberg two years or perhaps less, and then moves on, let us say, +to Berlin, or Goettingen, or Leipsic, or Kiel, to hear lectures by +other professors, and to get and to see something of the best work in +law, theology, medicine, history, or belles-lettres, along the lines +of his chosen work. + +One can hardly say too much in praise of this +system. Many a medical, or law, or theological, or philosophical +student, or one who is going in for a scientific course in engineering +or mining, would profit enormously could he go from Harvard to Yale, +or to Johns Hopkins, or to Princeton, or to Columbia, and attend the +lectures of the best men at these and other universities. Many a man +would have gone eagerly to Harvard to hear James in philosophy, Peirce +in mathematics, Abbot in exegesis, or to read Greek with Palmer; or to +Yale to have heard Whitney in philology in my day; or now, to name but +a few, Van Dyke at Princeton, Sloane at Columbia, Wheeler at the +University of California, Paul Shorey at Chicago, and many others are +men whom not to know and to hear in one's student days is a loss. + +The German student is at a distinct advantage in this privilege of hearing +the best men at whatever university they may be. The number of +students, indeed, at particular German universities rises and falls in +a large measure according to the fame and ability of the professors +who may be lecturing there. One can readily imagine how such men as +Hegel, or Ranke, or Mommsen, who lectured at Berlin; or Liebig or +Doellinger, at Munich; or Ewald, at Goettingen; or Sybel, at Bonn; or +Leibnitz or Schlegel, in their day, or Kuno Fischer, in my day, at +Heidelberg, must have drawn students from all parts of Germany; just +as do Harnack, and Schmidt, and Lamprecht, and Adolph Wagner, +Schmoller, or Gierke, or Schiemann, or Wach, Haeckel, List, Deitsch, +Hering, or Verworm, in these days. Though the German professors are +somewhat hampered by the fact that they are servants of the state, and +their opinions therefore on theological, political, and economic +matters restricted to the state's views, they are free as no other +teachers in the world to exploit their intellectual prowess for the +benefit of their purses. Each student pays each professor whose +lectures he attends, and as a result there are certain professors in +Germany whose incomes are as high as $50,000 a year. + +Even in intellectual matters state control produces the inevitable state +laziness and indifference. One could tell many a tale of professors +who arrive late at their lecture-rooms, who read slowly, who give just +as little matter as they can, in order to make their prepared work go +as far as possible. Some of them, too, read the same lectures over and +over again, year after year, quite content that they have made a +reputation, gained a fixed tenure of their positions, and are sure of +a pension. + +There are twenty-one universities in Germany, with another +already provided for this year in Frankfort, and practically the +equivalent of a university in Hamburg. The total number of students is +66,358, an increase since 1895 of 37,791. Geographically speaking, one +has the choice between Kiel, Koenigsberg, and Berlin in the north, +Munich in the south, Strassburg on the boundaries of France, or +Breslau in Silesia. At the present writing Berlin has 9,686 students, +and some 5,000 more authorized to attend lectures, over half of them +grouped under the general heading "Philosophy"; next comes Munich with +7,000, nearly 5,000 of them grouped under the headings "Jurisprudence" +and "Philosophy"; then Leipsic with 5,000; then Bonn with 4,000; and +last in point of numbers Rostock with 800 students. There are now some +1,500 women students at the German universities, but a total of 4,500 +who attend lectures, and Doctor Marie Linden at the beginning of 1911 +was appointed one of the professors of the medical faculty at Bonn, +but the appointment was vetoed by the Prussian ministry. + +In addition to the universities is the modern development of the technical +high-schools, of which there are now eleven, one each in Berlin, Dresden, +Braunschweig, Darmstadt, Hanover, Karlsruhe, Munich, Stuttgart, +Danzig, Aix, and Breslau. These schools have faculties of +architecture, building construction, mechanical engineering, +chemistry, and general science, including mathematics and natural +science. They confer the degree of Doctor of Engineering, and admit +those students holding the certificate of the Gymnasium, +Realgymnasium, and Oberrealschule. They rank now with the +universities, and their 17,000 students may fairly be added to the +grand total number of German students, making 83,000 in all, and if to +this be added the 4,000 unmatriculated students, we have 87,000. + +While the population of Germany has increased 1.4 per cent. in the last +year, the number of students has increased 4.6 per cent. and of the +total number 4.4 per cent. are women. Since the founding of the empire +the population has increased from 40,000,000 to 65,000,000, but the +number of students has increased from 18,000 to 60,000. The teaching +staffs in the universities number 3,400, and in the technical +high-schools 753, or, roughly, there are, in the higher-education +department of Germany, nearly 90,000 persons engaged; as these figures +do not include officials and many unattached teachers and students +indirectly connected with the universities. There are in addition +agricultural high-schools, agricultural institutes, and technical +schools such as veterinary high-schools, schools of mining, forestry, +architecture and building, commercial schools, schools of art and +industry; a naval school at Kiel; a colonial institute at Hamburg, +with sixty professors and tutors, where men are trained for colonial +careers, and which serves also the purpose of distributing information +of all kinds regarding the colonies; there are 400 schools which +prepare for a business career, with 50,000 pupils, and the Socialists +in Berlin maintain an academy for the instruction of their paid +secretaries and organizers in the rudiments and controversial points +of socialism, military academies at Berlin and Munich, besides some 50 +schools of navigation, and 20 military and cadet institutions. There +are also courses of lectures, given under the auspices of the German +foreign office, to instruct candidates for the consular service in the +commercial and industrial affairs of Germany. + +At several of the +universities evening extension lectures are given, an innovation first +tried at Leipsic, where more than seven thousand persons paid small +fees to attend the lectures in a recent year. + +If one considers the +range of instruction from the Volkschulen and Fortbildungsschulen up +through the skeleton list I have mentioned to the universities, and +then on beyond that to the thousands still engaged as students in the +commerce and industry of Germany, as, for example, the technically +employed men in the Krupp Works at Essen, or the Color Works at +Elberfeld, to mention two of hundreds, it is seen that Germany is gone +over with a veritable fine-tooth comb of education. There is not only +nothing like it, there is nothing comparable to it in the world. If +training the minds of a population were the solution of the problems +of civilization, they are on the way to such solution in Germany. +Unfortunately there is no such easy way out of our troubles for +Germany or for any other nation. Some of us will live to see this +fetich of regimental instruction of everybody disappear as astrology +has disappeared. There is a Japanese proverb which runs, "The bottom +of lighthouses is very dark." + +As early as 1717 Frederick William I in +an edict commanded parents to send their children to school, daily in +summer, twice a week in winter. Frederick the Great at the close of +the Seven Years' War, 1764, insisted again upon compulsory school +attendance, and prescribed books, studies, and discipline. At the +beginning of the nineteenth century began a great change in the +primary schools due to the influence of Pestalozzi, and in the +secondary schools owing to the efforts of Herder, Frederic August +Wolf, William Humboldt, and Suenern. Humboldt was the Prussian minister +of education for sixteen months. In 1809 he sent a memorial to the +King, urging the establishment and endowment of a university in +Berlin. He used his authority and his great influence to further +higher and secondary education, and fixed the main lines of action +which were followed for a century. He hoped that a liberal education +of his countrymen would make for both an intellectual and moral +regeneration, and emancipate the people from their sluggish obedience +to conventionality. The schools then were part of the ecclesiastical +organization and have never ceased to be so wholly, and until recently +the title of the Prussian minister has been: "Minister of +Ecclesiastical Affairs, Instruction, and Medical Affairs." That part +of the minister's title, "Medical Affairs," has within the last few +months been eliminated. + +The French Revolution, and the dismemberment +of Prussia at Tilsit, put a stop to orderly progress. Stein and his +colleagues, however, started anew; students were sent to Switzerland +to study pedagogical methods; provincial school-boards were +established, and about 1850 all public-school teachers were declared +to be civil servants; and later, in 1872, during Bismarck's campaign +against the Jesuits, all private schools were made subject to state +inspection. In Prussia to-day no man or woman may give instruction +even as a governess or private tutor, without the certificate of the +state. + +This control of education and teaching by a central authority +is an unmixed blessing. In Prussia, at any rate, the officials are +hard-working, conscientious, and enthusiastic, and the system, whether +one gives one's full allegiance to it or not, is admirably worked out. +Above all, it completely does away with sham physicians, sham doctors +of divinity, sham engineers, and mining and chemical experts, sham +dentists and veterinary surgeons, who abound in our country, where +shoddy schools do a business of selling degrees and certificates of +proficiency in everything from exegesis to obstetrics. These fakir +academies are not only a disgrace but a danger in America, and here, +as in other matters, Germany has a right to smile grimly at certain of +our hobbledehoy methods of government. + +The elementary schools, or +Volkschulen, are free, and attendance is compulsory from six to +fourteen; in addition, the Fortbildungsschulen, or continuation +schools, can also be made compulsory up to eighteen years of age. +There are some 61,000 free public elementary schools with over +10,000,000 pupils, and over 600 private elementary schools with 42,000 +pupils who pay fees. + +Under a regulation of the Department of Trade and +Industry, towns with more than twenty thousand inhabitants are +empowered to make their own rules compelling commercial employees +under eighteen to attend the continuation schools a certain number of +hours monthly, and fining employers who interfere with such +attendance. It has even been suggested that this law be extended to +include girls. + +In Berlin this has already been put into operation, and +this year some 30,000 girls will be compelled to attend continuation +schools, where they will be taught cooking, dress-making, laundry +work, house-keeping economy, and for those who wish it, office work. +It will require some training even to pronounce the name of this new +institution, which requires something more than the number of letters +in the alphabet to spell it, for it has this terrifying title: +Maedchenpflicht-fortbildungsschule. + +The work in these Pflichtfortbildungsschulen, or compulsory +continuation schools, is practical and thorough. The boys are from +fourteen to eighteen years of age, and are obliged to attend three +hours twice a week. Shopkeepers and others, employing lads coming +under the provisions of the law, are obliged by threat of heavy fines +to send them. The boys pay nothing. There are some 34,000 of such +pupils under one jurisdiction in Berlin, and the cost to the city is +$300,000 annually. The curriculum includes letter-writing, book- +keeping, exchange, bank-credits, checks and bills, the duty of the +business man to his home, to the city, and to his fellow business men, +his legal rights and duties, and, in great detail, all questions of +citizenship. Methods of the banks, stock exchange, and insurance +companies are explained. The business man's relations in detail to the +post-office, the railways, the customs, canals, shipping agencies are +dealt with. The investigation of credits and the general management +from cellar to attic of what we call a "store" are taught, and +lectures are given upon business ethics and family relations and +morals. + +In towns where factories are more common than shops there are +schools similar in kind, as at Dortmund, for example, where you may +begin with horse-shoeing in the cellar, and go up through the work of +carpenter, mason, plumber, sign-painter, poster-designer, to the +designing of stained-glass windows and the modelling of animals and +men. + +In the strictly agricultural districts of Prussia the number of +courses open to those who work upon the land has steadily increased. +In 1882 there were 559 courses of instruction and 9,228 pupils; in +1902, 1,421 such courses and 20,666 pupils; and in 1908, 3,781 courses +and 55,889 pupils. About five per cent. of the cost of such +instruction, which cost the state 566,599 marks in 1908, is paid by +the fees of the pupils themselves. + +To those interested in ways and +means it may serve a purpose to say that the total cost of these +elementary schools amounts to $130,715,250 a year, of which the +various state governments pay $37,500,000 and local authorities the +rest. In 1910 the city of Berlin spent $9,881,987 on its schools. The +average cost per pupil is $13.50. In some of the towns of different +classes of population that I have visited the number of pupils per 100 +inhabitants stands as follows: Berlin, 11.1; Essen, 16.5; Dortmund, +16; Duesseldorf, 13.2; Charlottenburg, 9; Duisburg, 16.7; Oberhausen, +17.7; Bielefeld, 14.7; Bonn, 11.1; Cologne, 13.1. + +There are 170,000 +teachers in these elementary schools, of whom 30,000 are women. They +begin with $250 a year, which is raised to $300 when they are given a +fixed position. By a graduated scale of increase a teacher at the age +of forty-eight (when he may retire) may receive a maximum of $725. A +woman teacher's salary would vary from $300 to $600 as the maximum. +These figures are for Prussia. In other states of the empire, in +Bavaria and Saxony, for example, the scale of salaries is somewhat +higher. + +The secondary schools are the well-known Gymnasien and +Progymnasien, the Realgymnasien, and the Realschulen. Roughly the +Gymnasien prepare for the universities, and the Realschulen for the +technical schools. Admission to the universities and to any form of +employment under the civil service demands a certificate from one or +another of these secondary schools. + +In 1890, two years after the +present Emperor came to the throne, he called together a conference of +teachers and in an able speech suggested that these secondary schools +devote more time and attention to technical training. As a result of +this, the certificates of the Realgymnasien and Realschulen are now +received as equivalent to those conferred by the Gymnasien, where +Latin and Greek are, as they were then, still paramount. + +Of these +secondary schools some are state schools; others are municipal or +trade-supported schools; some are private institutions; but all are +amenable to the rules, organization, and curricula approved by the +state. All secondary and elementary teachers must meet the +examinational requirements of the state, which fixes a minimum salary +and contributes thereto. In the universities and technical high- +schools all professors are appointed by the state, and largely paid by +the state as well. In the year 1910 the German Empire expended under +the general heading of elementary instruction $130,715,250. Prussia +alone spent $60,424,325; Bavaria, $8,955,825 (though nearly $750,000 +of this total went for building and repairs for both churches and +schools); Baden, $4,176,075; Saxony, $4,573,250; the free city of +Hamburg, $5,561,900. The total expenditures of the empire and of the +states of the empire combined in 1910 amounted to $2,225,225,000; of +this, as we have seen, more than $130,000,000 went for instruction and +allied uses; $198,748,775 was the cost of the army; and $82,362,650 +the cost of the navy, not counting the extraordinary expenditures for +these two arms of the service, which amounted to $5,624,775 for the +army, and $28,183,125 for the navy. The total expenditure of the +Fatherland for schools, army, and navy amounted, therefore, to one- +fifth of the total, or $416,108,225. + +I have grouped these expenditures +together for the reason, that I am still one of those who remain +distrustful and disdainful of the Carnegie holy water, and a firm +believer that the two best schools in Germany, or anywhere else where +they are as well conducted as there, are the army and the navy. Even +if they were not schools of war, they would be an inestimable loss to +the country were they no longer in existence as manhood-training +schools. This is the more clear when it is remembered that, according +to the army standard, both the German peasant and the urban dweller +are steadily deteriorating. In ten years the percentage of physically +efficient men in the rural districts decreased from 60.5 to 58.2 per +cent., and this decrease is even more marked in particular provinces. +Infant mortality, despite better hygienic conditions and more +education, has not decreased, and in some districts has increased; +while the birth-rate, especially in Prussia and Thuringia, has fallen +off as well. For the whole of Germany, the births to every thousand of +the inhabitants were, in 1876, 42.63; in 1891, 38.25; in 1905, 34; and +in 1909, 31.91. In Berlin the births per thousand in 1907 were 24.63 +and in 1911 only 20.84. + +The observer who cares nothing for statistics, +who rambles about in the district of Leipsic, Chemnitz, Riesa, +Oschatz, and in the mountainous district of southeast Saxony, may see +for himself a population lacking in size, vigor, and health, +noticeably so indeed. Education at one end turning out an unwholesome, +"white-collared, black-coated proletariat," as the Socialists call +them; and industry and commerce, which even tempt the farmer to sell +what he should keep to eat, at the other, are making serious inroads +upon the health and well-being of the population. + +The Chancellor, von +Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking in the Reichstag February 11, 1911, said: +"The fear that we may not be working along the right lines in the +education of our youth is a cause of great anxiety to many people in +Germany. We shall not solve this problem by shunning it!" + +Many social +economists hold that higher education is unfitting numbers of young +men from following the humbler pursuits, while at the same time it is +not making them as efficient as are their ambitions; and such men are +recognized as the most potent chemical in making the milk of human +kindness to turn sour. At a meeting of the Goethebund this year, +advocating school reform, it was evident that many intelligent men in +Germany were not satisfied with present methods of education, which +were characterized as wasting energy in mechanical methods of +teaching, and so robbing youth of its youth. It is beginning to be +understood in Germany, as it has been understood by wise men in all +ages, that "to spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them +too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their +rules is the humour of the scholar." This commentary of Bacon should +be on the walls of every school and university in Germany. An +education can do nothing more for a man than to make him less fearful +of what he does not know, and to save him from the vulgarity of being +pre-empted wholly by the present, because he knows something of the +past. You cannot educate a man to be a poet or a preacher or a +pianist; that we know. We are only just discovering that the much-lauded +technical education will not make him an engineer or a +shipbuilder or an architect. You may give him the tools and the +elementary rules, but the rest he must do himself. Nine-tenths of the +technically educated men to-day are working for men who were liberally +educated, or who educated themselves. Germany is producing a race of +first-rate clerks and skilled mechanics, who are working hard to +enrich the Jews. + +In America, it is true, we have gone ahead along +educational lines. In 1800, it is said, the average adult American had +82 days of school attendance; in 1900, 146 days. In the last quarter +of a century our secondary schools have increased in number from 1,400 +to 12,000; and during the last eighteen years the proportion of our +youth receiving high-school instruction has doubled, and attendance at +American colleges has increased 400 per cent. while the population +increased by 100 per cent. But education is by no means so strenuous +as in Germany. The hours are shorter, holidays longer, standards +lower, and the emphasis far less insistent. A boy who has not the +mental energy to pass the entrance examinations at Harvard, for +instance, and proceed to a degree there, ought to be drowned, or to +drown himself. I would not say as much of the requirements in Germany, +for they are far more severe. Prince von Hohenlohe in his memoirs +gives an account of a conversation between the Emperor, the Emperor's +tutor, and himself. The Emperor was regretting the severity of the +examinations in the secondary schools, and it was replied to him that +this was the only way to prevent a flood of candidates for the civil +service! + +There is another all-important factor in Germany bearing upon +this point. A boy must have passed into the upper section of the class +before the last, "Secunda," as it is called, or have passed an +equivalent examination, in order to serve one year instead of three in +the army. To be an Einjaehriger is, therefore, in a way the mark of an +educated gentleman. The tales of suicide and despair of school-boys in +Germany are, alas, too many of them true; and it is to be remembered +that not to reach a certain standard here means that a man's way is +barred from the army and navy, civil service, diplomatic or consular +service, from social life, in short. The uneducated man of position in +Germany does not exist, cannot exist. This is, therefore, no phantom, +but a real terror. The man of twenty-five who has not won an education +and a degree faces a blank wall barring his entrance anywhere; and +even when, weaponed with the necessary academic passport, he is +permitted to enter, he meets with an appalling competition, which has +peopled Germany with educated inefficients who must work for next to +nothing, and who keep down the level of the earnings of the rest +because there is an army of candidates for every vacant position. On +the other hand, the industries of Germany have bounded ahead, because +the army of chemists and physicists of patience, training, and +ability, who work for small salaries provide them with new and better +weapons than their rivals. + +There are two sides to this question of +fine-tooth-comb education. Its advantages both America and England are +seeing every day in these stout rivals of ours; but its disadvantages +are not to be concealed, and are perhaps doing an undermining work +that will be more apparent in the future than now it is. The very fact +that an alien, an oriental race, the Jews, have taken so +disproportionate a share of the cream of German prosperity, and have +turned this technical prowess to purposes of their own, is, in and of +itself, a sure sign that there may be an educated proletariat working +slavishly for masters whom, with all their learning and all their +mental discipline, they cannot force to abdicate. + +Strange to say, the +federal constitution of 1871, which gave Germany its emperor, did not +include the schools, and each state has its own school system, but in +1875 an imperial school commission was formed which has done much to +make the system of all the states uniform. + +The three classes of +schools recognized as leading later to a university career are the +Gymnasium, in which Latin and Greek are still the fundamental +requirements; the Realgymnasium, in which Latin but no Greek is +required; the Oberrealschule, in which the classics are not taught at +all, but emphasis is laid upon modern languages and natural science. +In addition to these there are the so-called Reformschulen, of very +recent growth, which are an attempt to put less emphasis upon the +classics, but without excluding them entirely from the course, and to +pay more attention proportionately to modern languages, French in +particular. There are in addition some four hundred public and one +thousand or more private higher girls' schools, with an attendance of +a quarter of a million, all subject to state supervision. + +If one were to make a genealogical tree of the German schools which +educate the children from the age of six up to the age of entrance to +the university, it might be described as follows: First are the +Volkschulen, which every child must attend from six to fourteen. In +the smaller country schools the children of all ages may be in one +school-room and under one teacher; in another, divided into two +classes; in another, into three or four classes; up to the large city +schools, in which they are divided on account of their number into as +many as eight classes. Next would come the Mittelschulen, where the +pupils are carried on a year farther, and where the last year +corresponds to the first year of the so-called Lehrerbildungsanstalten, +or training schools for teachers. These again are divided into two, one +called Praeparanda, the other Seminar, the former carrying the pupil on +to his sixteenth year, the latter to the nineteenth year and turning him +out a full-fledged Volkschule teacher, and giving him the right to serve +only one year in the army. + +If boy or girl goes on from the fourteenth year, the hoehere +Knabenschulen and the hoehere Maedchenschulen take them on to the +eighteenth or nineteenth year. Many boys go on till they have passed +from the lower Secunda, next to the last class, which is divided into +upper and lower Secunda, into the upper Secunda, when their certificate +entitles them to serve one year only in the army, when they quit school. +Many boys, too, intending to become officers, leave school at sixteen or +seventeen and go to regular cramming institutions, where they do their +work more quickly and devote themselves to the special subjects +required. For boys intending to go on through the higher schools, there +are schools taking them on from the age of nine, with a curriculum +better adapted than that of the Volkschulen to that end. + +In all these higher schools there is less attention paid to mere +examinations, and more attention paid to the general grip the pupils +have on the work in hand; and of the teaching, as mentioned elsewhere, +too much cannot be said in its praise. + +For those boys who finish their public schooling at the age of +fourteen and then turn to earning their living, there are the +continuation schools, which are in many parts of the country +compulsory, and which are nicely adapted, according to their situation +in shopkeeping cities, in factory towns, or in the country, to give +the pupils the drilling and instruction necessary for their particular +employment. The average amount of expenditure for these continuation +schools is $6,250,000. In Prussia there are some 1,500 of these +schools, with an average attendance of 300,000 pupils. + +According to the last census the proportion of illiterates among the +recruits for the army was 0.02 per cent. The number of those who could +neither read nor write in Germany was, in 1836, 41.44 per cent.; in +1909, 0.01 per cent. If one were to name all the agricultural schools; +technical schools; schools of architecture and building; commercial +schools, for textile, wood, metal, and ceramic industries; art +schools; schools for naval architecture and engineering and +navigation; and the public music schools, it would be seen that it is +no exaggeration to speak of fine-tooth-comb education. + +I have visited +scores of all sorts of schools all over Germany, from a peasant common +school in Posen up to that last touch in education, the schools in +Charlottenburg, the Schulpforta Academy, and such a private boys' +school as Die Schuelerheim-Kolonie des Arndt-Gymnasiums in the +Gruenewald near Berlin, and the training schools for the military +cadets. Through the courtesy of the authorities I was permitted, when +I wished it, to sit in the class-rooms, and even to put questions to +the boys and girls in the classes. From the small boys and girls +making their first efforts at spelling to the young woman of seventeen +who translated a paragraph of the "Germania" of Tacitus, not into +German but into French, for me (a problem I offered as a good test of +whether I was merely assisting at a prepared exhibition of the prowess +of the class or whether the minds had been trained to independence), I +have looked over a wide field of teaching and learning in Germany. If +that young person was typical of the pupils of this upper girls' +school, there is no doubt of their ability to meet an intellectual +emergency of that kind. + +Of one feature of German education one can write without reservation, +and that is the teaching. Everywhere it is good, often superlatively +good, and half a dozen times I have listened to the teaching of a +class in history, in Latin, in German literature, in French +literature, where it was a treat to be a listener. I remember in +particular a class in physical geography, another reading Ovid, +another reading Shakespeare, and another reading Goethe's "Hermann and +Dorothea," where I enjoyed my half-hour, as though I had been +listening to a distinguished lecturer on his darling subject. + +We know how little these men and women teachers are paid, but there is +such a flood of intellectual output in Germany that the competition is +ferocious in these callings, and the schools can pick and choose only +from those who have borne the severest tests with the greatest +success. The teaching is so good that it explains in part the amount +of work these poor children are enabled to get through. School begins +at seven in summer, at eight in winter. The course for those intending +to go to the university is nine years; the recitation hours alone +range from twenty-five to thirty-two hours a week; to which must be +added two hours a week of singing and three hours a week of +gymnastics, and this for forty-two weeks in the year. The preparation +for class-work requires from two and a half to four hours more. It +foots up to something like fifty hours a week! + +At Eton, in England, +the boys grumble because they only have a half-holiday every other +day, and four months of the year vacation. It will be interesting to +see which educational method is to produce the men who are to win the +next Waterloo. No wonder that nearly seventy per cent. of those who +reach the standard required of those who need serve only one year +instead of three in the army are near-sighted, and that more than +forty-five per cent. are put on one side as physically unfit. The +increase in population in Germany is so great, however, and the +candidates for the army so numerous, that the authorities are far more +strict in those they accept than in France, for example. There is more +manhood material for the German army and navy every year than is +needed. + +In the first year of the nine-years' course in a Gymnasium the +25 hours a week are divided: religion, 3 hours; German, 4 hours; +Latin, 8 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; natural +science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year: religion, 2 +hours; German, 3 hours; Latin, 7 hours; Greek, 6 hours -- Greek is +begun in the fourth year; French, 3 hours -- French is begun in the +third year; history, 3 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; natural science, 2 +hours. + +In the first year in a Realgymnasium: religion, 3 hours; German, 4 +hours; Latin, 8 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 4 hours; +natural science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year of the +course: religion, 2 hours; German, 3 hours; Latin, 4 hours; French -- +begun in third year -- 4 hours; English -- begun in fourth year -- 3 +hours; mathematics, 5 hours; natural science, 5 hours; drawing, 2 +hours. + +In the first year in an Oberrealschule: religion, 3 hours; German, 5 +hours; French, 6 hours; geography, 2 hours; mathematics, 5 hours; +natural science, 2 hours; writing, 2 hours. In the last year: +religion, 2 hours; German, 4 hours; French, 4 hours; English -- begun +in the fourth year -- 4 hours; history, 3 hours; geography, 1 hour; +mathematics, 5 hours; natural science, 6 hours; free-hand drawing -- +begun in the second year -- 2 hours. + +It may be seen from these schedules where the emphasis is laid in each +of these schools. So far as results are concerned, the pupils about to +leave for the universities seemed to me to know their Latin, Greek, +French, German, and English, and their local and European history +well. Their knowledge of Latin and of either French or English, +sometimes of both, is far superior to anything required of a student +entering any college or university in America. I have asked many +pupils to read passages at sight in Latin, French and English in +schools in various parts of Germany and there is no question of the +grip they have upon what they have been taught. I am, alas, not a +scholar, and can only judge of the requirements and of the training +and its results in subjects where I am at home; and I must take it for +granted that these boys and girls are as well trained in other +subjects where I am incapable of passing judgment. It is improbable, +however, that the same thoroughness does not characterize their work +throughout the whole curriculum. The examination at the end of the +secondary-school period, called Abiturienten-examen, is more thorough +and covers a wider range than any similar examination in America. It +is a test of intellectual maturity. It permits no gaps, covers a wide +ground, leaves no subject dropped on the way, and sends a man or woman +to the university, with an equipment entirely adequate for such +special work as the individual proposes to undertake. + +It seemed to me that in many class-rooms the ventilation was +distinctly bad, but here too I must admit an exaggerated love for +fresh air, born of my own love of out-door exercise. + +There are practically no schools in Germany like the public schools +for boys in England, and our own private schools for boys, like Saint +Paul's, Groton, Saint Mark's, and others, where the training of +character and physique are emphasized. Here again I admit my prejudice +in favor of such education. I should be made pulp, indeed, did I try +to run through the boys of a fifth or sixth form at home, but, from +the look of them, I would have undertaken it for a wager in Germany. + +It is not their fault, poor boys. Practically the whole emphasis is +laid upon drilling the mind. Moral and physical matters are left to +the home, and in the home there are no fathers and brothers interested +in games or sport, and in this busy, competitive strife, and with the +small means at the disposal of the majority, there is no time and no +opportunity. Boys and girls seldom leave home for distant boarding-schools. +They go from home to school and from school home every day, +and have none of the advantages to be gained from intercourse with men +outside their own circles. It shows itself in a deplorable lack of +orientation as compared with our lads of the same relative standing. +In dress and bearing, in at-homeness in the world, in ability to take +care of themselves under strange conditions or in an emergency, and in +domestic hygiene they are inferior, and yet they are so competent to +push the national military, industrial, and commercial ball along as +men, that one wonders whether Bagehot's gibe at certain well-to-do +classes of the Saxons, that "they spend half their time washing their +whole persons," may not have a grain of truth in it. + +Another feature +of the school life which is prominent, especially in Prussia, is the +incessant and insistent emphasis laid upon patriotism. In every +school, almost in every class-room, is a picture of the Emperor; in +many, pictures also of his father and grandfather. Even in a municipal +lodging-house, where I found some tiny waifs and strays being taught, +there were pictures of the sovereign, and brightly colored pictures of +the war of 1870-71, generally with German personalities on horseback, +and the French as prisoners with bandages and dishevelled clothing. +This war, which began with the first movement of the German army on +August 4, and on the 2d of September next Napoleon was a prisoner; +this war, in which the German army at the beginning of operations +consisted of 384,000 officers and men and which had grown during the +truce to 630,000 on March 1; lost in killed and those who died from +wounds 28,278, of whom 1,871 were officers; this war is flaunted at +the population of Germany continually, and from every possible angle. +We hear very little of our war of 1861-1865, that cost us +$8,000,000,000 with killed and wounded numbering some 700,000. We do +not find it necessary to feed our patriotism with a nursing-bottle. + +At a kindergarten two tots, a boy and a girl, stood at the top of some +steps while the rest marched by and saluted; they later descended and +went through the motions of reviewing the others. They were playing +they were Kaiser and Kaiserin! + +Two small boys in a school-yard discussing their relative prowess as +jumpers end the discussion when one says as a final word: "Oh, I can +jump as high as the Kaiser!" + +We have noted in another article how even police sergeants must be +familiar with the history of the House of Hohenzollern. + +I am an admirer of Germany and her Emperor, with a distinct love of +discipline and a bias in favor of military training, and with an +experience of actual warfare such as only a score or so of German +officers of my generation have had; but I am bound to say I found this +pounding in of patriotism on every side distinctly nauseating. Boys +and girls, and men and women, ought not to need to be pestered with +patriotism. We had a controversy in America some ten years before the +Franco-German War, where in one battle more men were killed and +wounded than in all the battles Prussia, and later Germany, has fought +since 1860. + +In the South, at any rate, we bear the scars and the +mourning of those days still, but nobody would be thanked for +pummelling us with patriotism. In the skirmish with Spain our military +authorities were pestered with candidates for the front. Germany +itself is not more a nation in arms than America would be at the +smallest threat of insult or aggression. But we take those things for +granted. If we have the honor to possess a medal or a decoration, the +gentlemen among us wear it only when asked to do so, or perhaps on the +Fourth of July. + +Germany is even now somewhat loosely cemented together. Their leaders +may feel that it is necessary to keep ever in the minds even of the +children, that Germany is a nation with an Emperor and a victory over +France, France in political rags and patches at the time, behind them. + +They even carry this teaching of patriotism beyond the boundaries of +Germany. The Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein zur Erhaltung des +Deutschtums im Auslande, is a society with headquarters in Berlin +devoting itself to the advancement of German education all over the +world. The society was started privately in 1886, and is now partly +supported by the state. It controls some sixteen hundred centres for +the teaching of German and German patriotism, and German learning. +There are such centres in China, South America, the United States, +Spain, and elsewhere. They number 90 in Europe, 25 in Asia, 20 in +Africa, 70 in Brazil, 40 in Argentina, and 100 in Australia and +Canada. The society is instrumental in having German taught in 5,000 +schools and academies in the United States to 600,000 pupils. The work +is not advertised, rather it is concealed so far as possible, but it +is looked upon as a valuable force for the advancement of German +interests throughout the world. + +In the schools, too, there is an enemy +of which we know nothing, and that is the active propagandism of +socialism, which is anti-military, anti-monarchical, and anti-status +quo. Leaflets and books and pamphlets are widely distributed among the +school children; many of the teachers are in sympathy with these +obstructionist methods; and the authorities may feel that they must do +what they can to combat this teaching. In Prussia, on every side, and +in the industrial towns of Saxony, one sees the evidence of this +impotent discontent expressing itself either openly or in surly malice +of speech and manner. The streets of Berlin, and of the industrial +towns, show this condition at every turn, and when the Reichstag +closes with cheers for the Emperor, the Socialist members leave in a +body before that loyal ceremony takes place. + +We in America are brought up to believe that the best cure for such +maladies is to open the wound, to give freedom of speech, to let every +boy and girl and man and woman find out for himself his citizen's path +to walk in. We have no policemen on our public platforms, no gags in +the mouths of our professors or preachers, no lurid pictures of +battles, no plastering of the walls of our schools and seminaries with +pictures of our rulers, and withal our German immigrants are perhaps +our best and most patriotic citizens. In America they think less and +do more, and for most men this is the better way. It makes life very +complicated to think too much about it. + +Self-consciousness is the prince of mental and social diseases, as +vanity is the princess, and even self-conscious patriotism seems a +little unwholesome, not quite manly, and often even grotesque. It is +easy to say: "Dic mihi si fueris tu leo, qualis eris?" and if one is a +person of no great importance, it is an embarrassing question to +answer. In this connection I can only say that I should assume that my +lionhood was taken for granted without so much roaring, bristling of +the mane, and switching of the tail. It irritates those who are +discontented, it positively infuriates the redder democrats, and it +bores the children, and, worst of all, proclaims to everybody that the +lion is not quite comfortable and at his ease. The German lion is a +fine, big fellow now, with fangs, and teeth, and claws as serviceable +as need be, and it only makes him appear undignified to be forever +looking at himself in the looking-glass. + +Whatever may be the right or wrong of these comparative methods of +training, Germans trained in the investigation of such matters agree +in telling me that the boys who come up to the universities, +especially in the large cities and towns, are somewhat lax in their +moral standards as regards matters upon which the puritan still lays +great stress. + +In Berlin particularly, where there are some thirty-five hundred +registered and nearly fifty thousand unregistered women devoting +themselves to the seemingly incompatible ends of rapidly accumulating +gold while frantically pursuing pleasure, there is an amount of +immorality unequalled in any capital in Europe. In the whole German +Empire the average of illegitimacy is ten per cent. but in Berlin the +average for the last few years is twenty per cent. Out of every five +children born in Berlin each year one is illegitimate! It is +questionable whether the increasing demands of the army and navy +require such laxity of moral methods in providing therefor. + +There is, +however, a state church in Germany with its head in Berlin, and no +doubt we may safely leave this matter in these better hands than ours. +I beg to say that in mentioning this subject I am quoting unprejudiced +scientific investigators, who, I may say, agree, without a dissenting +voice of importance, that Berlin has become the classical problem +along such lines. In the endeavor to compete with the gayeties +elsewhere, a laxity has been encouraged and permitted that has won for +Berlin in the last ten years, an unrivalled position as a purveyor of +after-dark pleasures. Berlin not only produces a disproportionate +number of such people as Diotrephes, in manners, but also a veritable +horde of those who are like unto the son of Bosor. + +After the sheltered home life and the severe discipline of the higher +schools, a German youth is permitted a freedom unknown to us at the +university. There is no record kept of how or where he spends his +time. He matriculates at one or another of the universities, and for +three, four, or, in the case of medical students, five years, he is +free to work or not to work, as he pleases. + +There are, however, three +factors that serve as bit and reins to keep him in order. The final +examination is severe, thorough, and cannot be passed successfully by +mere cramming; very few of the students have incomes which permit of a +great range of dissipation; and not to pass the examination is a +terrible defeat in life, which cuts a man off from further progress +and leaves him disgraced. + +These are forces that count, and which prevail to keep all but the +least serious within bounds. German life as a whole is so disciplined, +so fitted together, so impossible to break into except through the +recognized channels, that few men have the optimistic elasticity of +mind and spirits, the demonic confidence in themselves, that overrides +such considerations. + +We in America suffer from a superabundance of men +of aleatory dispositions, men who love to play cards with the devil, +who rejoice to wager their future, their reputation, their lives, +against the world. I admit a sneaking fondness for them. They are a +great asset, and a new country needs them, but if we have too many, +Germany has too few. They are forever crying out in Germany for +another Bismarck. Whenever in political matters, in foreign affairs, +even in their religious controversies, things go wrong, men lift their +hands and eyes to heaven and say, "How different if Bismarck were +here!" Bismarck and two of his predecessors as nation-builders were +not afraid to throw dice with the world, and what "the land of damned +professors" could not do, they did. + +When the young men from the +Gymnasium come into the freedom of university life, they toss their +heads a bit, kick up their heels, laugh long and loud at the +Philistine, but just as every German climax is incomplete without +tears, so they too are soon singing: "Ich weiss nicht was soll es +bedeuten dass ich so traurig bin!" the gloom of the Teutoburger Wald +settles down on them, and they buckle to and work with an enduring +patience such as few other men in the world display, and join the +great army here who, bitted and harnessed, are pulling the Vaterland +to the front. + +The British Empire between 1800 and 1910 grew from 1,500,000 square +miles to 11,450,000 square miles, and its trade from $400,000,000 to +$11,020,000,000; not to mention the United States of America, now +considered to be of noticeable importance, though we are universally +sneered at by the Germans, to an extent that no American dreams of who +has not lived among them, as a land of dollars, and, from the point of +view of book-learning, dullards. But it is this, none the less, that +Germany envies, and has set out to rival and if possible to surpass. +No wonder the training must be severe for the athletes who propose to +themselves such a task. + +For a semester or two, perhaps for three, the German student gives +himself up to the rollicking freedom of the corps student's life. That +life is so completely misunderstood by the foreigner that it deserves +a few words of explanation. + +I am not yet old enough to envy youth, nor sourly sophisticated enough +to deal sarcastically or even lightly with their worship and their +creeds, that once I shared, and with which lately I have been, under +the most hospitable circumstances, invited to renew my acquaintance at +the Commers and the Mensur. + +One may be no longer a constant worshipper at the shrine of blue eyes, +pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and the enshrouding mystery of skirts, which +make for curiosity and reverence in youth; one may have learned, +however, the far more valuable lesson that the best women are so much +nobler than the best men, that the best men may still kneel to the +best women; just as the worst women surpass the worst men in +consciencelessness, brutal selfishness, disloyalty, and degradation. +The female bandit in society, or frankly on the war-path outside, +takes her weapons from an armory of foulness and cruelty unknown to +men; just as the heroines and angels among women fortify themselves in +sanctuaries to which few, if any, men have the key. + +One returns, therefore, to the playground of one's youth with not less +but with more sympathy and understanding. Far from being "brutalizing +guilds," far from being mere unions for swilling and slashing, the +German corps, by their codes, and discipline, and standards of manners +and honor, are, from the chivalrous point of view, the leaven of +German student life. In these days many of them have club-houses of +their own, where they take their meals in some cases and where they +meet for their beer-drinking ceremonies. + +There is of course a wide range of expenditure by students at the +German universities, whether they are members of the corps or not. At +one of the smaller universities in a country town like Marburg, for +example, a poor student, with a little tutoring and the system of frei +Tisch -- money left for the purpose of giving a free midday meal to +poor students -- may scrape along with an expenditure of as little as +twenty dollars a month. A member of a good corps at this same +university is well content with, and can do himself well on, seventy +dollars a month. I have seen numbers of students' rooms, with bed, +writing-table, and simple furniture, perhaps with a balcony where for +many months in the year one may write and read, which rent for sixty +dollars a year. One may say roughly that at the universities outside +the large towns, and not including the fashionable universities, such +as Bonn or Heidelberg, the student gets on comfortably with fifty +dollars a month. They have their coffee and rolls in the morning, +their midday meal which they take together at a restaurant, and their +supper of cold meats, preserves, cheese, and beer where they will. For +seventy-five cents a day a student can feed himself. + +The hours are Aristotelian, for it was Aristotle in his "Economics," +and not a nursery rhymer, who wrote: "It is likewise well to rise +before daybreak, for this contributes to health, wealth, and wisdom." +"Early to bed and early to rise" is a classic. + +At Bonn, a member of one of the three more fashionable corps spends +far more than these sums, and his habits may be less Spartan. The +ridiculous expenditure of some of our mamma-bred undergraduates, who +go to college primarily to cultivate social relations, are unknown +anywhere in Germany, for a student would make himself unpopularly +conspicuous by extravagance. Two to three thousand dollars a year, +even at Bonn, as a member of the best corps, would be amply sufficient +and is considered an extravagant expenditure. + +When the Earl of Essex was sent to Cambridge in Queen Elizabeth's +time, he was provided with a deal table covered with baize, a truckle-bed, +half a dozen chairs, and a wash-hand basin. The cost of all this +was about $25. When students from all over Europe tramped to Paris to +hear Abelard lecture, they begged their way. They were given special +licenses as scholars to beg. Learning then, as it is still in Germany, +alone of all the nations, was considered to be a pious profession +deserving well of the world. We do not even know the names of our +scholars in America. How many Americans have heard of Gibbs, the +authority on the fundamental laws regulating the trend of +transformation in chemical and physical processes, or of Hill and his +theory of the moon, or of Hale who explains the mystery of sun spots +and measures the magnetic forces that play around the sun? How many +Frenchmen know Pierron's translation of Aeschylus, or Patin's studies +in Greek tragedies, or Charles Maguin, or Maurice Croiset, or Paul +Magou or Leconte de Lisle? while in England the mass of the people not +only do not know the names of their scholars, but distrust all mental +processes that are super-canine. + +The origin of the Landmannschaften, Burschenschaften, and the Corps +among the students dates back to the days when the students aligned +themselves with more rigidity than now, according to the various +German states from which they came. The names of the corps still bear +this suggestion, though nowadays the alignment is rather social than +geographical. The Burschenschaften societies of students had their +origin in political opposition to this separation of the students into +communities from the various states. The originators of the +Burschenschaften movement, for example, were eleven students at Jena. +Sobriety and chastity were conditions of entrance, and "Honor, +Liberty, Fatherland" were their watchwords. It was deemed a point of +honor that a member breaking his vows should confess and retire from +the society. + +The societies of the Burschenschaften are still considered to have a +political complexion and the corps proper have no dealings with them. + +In any given semester the number of students in one of these corps +varies from as few as ten, to as many as twenty-five, depending, much +as do our Greek-letter societies and college clubs, upon the number of +available men coming up to the university. Certain corps are composed +almost exclusively of noblemen, but none is distinctly a rich man's +club. + +An active member of a corps during his first two semesters may do a +certain amount of serious work, but as a rule it is looked upon as a +time "to loaf and invite one's soul," and little attempt is made to do +more. Not a few men whom I have known, have not even entered a class-room +during the two or three semesters of this blossoming period. + +I have spent many days and nights with these young gentlemen, at +Heidelberg, at Leipsic, at Marburg, at Bonn, and been made one of them +in their jollity and good-fellowship, and I have agreed, and still +agree, that "Wir sind die Koenige der Welt, wir sind's durch unsere +Freude." + +They are by no means the swashbuckling, bullying, dissolute companions +painted by those who know nothing about them. They may drink more beer +than we deem necessary for health, or even for comfort; and they may +take their exercise with a form of sword practice that we do not +esteem, they may be proud of the scars of these imitation duels, but +these are all matters of tradition and taste. + +When one writes of eating and drinking, it is hardly fair to make +comparisons from a personal stand-point. An adult of average weight +requires each day 125 grams of proteid or building material, 500 grams +of carbohydrates, 50 grams of fat. This equals, in common parlance, +one pound of bread, one-half pound of meat, one-quarter pound of fat, +one pound of potatoes, one-half pint of milk, one-quarter pound of +eggs, assuming that one egg equals two ounces, and one-eighth pound of +cheese. Divided into three meals, this means: for breakfast, two +slices of bread and butter and two eggs; for dinner: one plateful +potato soup, large helping of meat with fat, four moderate-sized +potatoes, one slice bread and butter; for tea: one glass of milk and +two slices of bread and butter; for supper: two slices of bread and +butter and two ounces of cheese. + +Plain white bread supplies more caloric, or energy, for the price than +any other one food, and, with one or two exceptions, more proteid, or +building material, than any other one food. + +One to one and a half fluid ounces of alcohol is about the amount +which can be completely oxidized in the body in a day. This quantity +is contained in two fluid ounces of brandy or whiskey, five fluid +ounces of port or sherry, ten of claret or champagne or other light +wines, and twenty of bottled beer. All this means that a pint of +claret, or two glasses of champagne, or a bottle of beer, or a glass +of whiskey with some aerated water during the day will not hurt a man, +and adds perhaps to the "agreeableness of life," as Matthew Arnold +phrases it. At any rate, this table of contents is a much safer +standard of comparison, in judging the eating and drinking habits of +other people, than either your habits or mine. + +The German student probably drinks too much, and it is said by safe +authorities in Germany that his heart, liver, and kidneys suffer; but +he has been at it a long time, and in certain fields of intellectual +prowess he is still supreme, and as we only drink with him now +occasionally when he is our host, perhaps he had best be left to +settle these questions without our criticism. + +In general terms, I have always considered, as a test of myself and +others, that a healthy man is one who lies down at night without fear, +rises in the morning cheerfully, goes to a day's serious work of some +kind rejoicing in the prospect, meets his friends gayly, and loves his +loves better than himself. + +It is folly to maintain, that it does not require pluck and courage to +stand up to a swinging Schlaeger, and take your punishment without +flinching, and then to sit without a murmur while your wounds are sewn +up and bandaged. I cannot help my preference for foot-ball, or +baseball, or rowing, or a cross-country run with the hounds, or grouse +or pheasant shooting, or the shooting of bigger game, or the driving of +four horses, or the handling of a boat in a breeze of wind, but the +"world is so full of a number of things" that he has more audacity than +I who proposes to weigh them all in the scales of his personal +experience, and then to mark them with their relative values. + +First of all, it is to be remembered that these Schlaeger contests +between students are in no sense duels; a duel being the setting by +one man of his chance of life against another's chance, both with +deadly weapons in their hands. These contests with the Schlaeger at the +German universities, wrongly called duels, are so conducted that there +is no possibility of permanent or even very serious injury to the +combatants. The attendants who put them into their fighting harness, +the doctors who look after them during the contest and who care for +them afterward, are old hands at the game, and no mistakes are made. + +There is no feeling of animosity between the swordsmen as a rule. They +are merely candidates for promotion in their own corps who meet +candidates from other corps, and prove their skill and courage auf die +Mensur, or fighting-ground. + +When a youth joins a corps he chooses a counsellor and friend, a +Leibbursch, as he is called, from among the older men, whose special +care it is, to see to it that he behaves himself properly in his new +environment; he pledges himself to respect the traditions and +standards of the corps, and to keep himself worthy of respect among +his fellows, and among those whom he meets outside. A companionship +and guardianship not unlike this, used to exist in the Greek-letter +society to which I once belonged. He of course abides by the rules and +regulations of the order. It is a time of freedom in one sense, but it +is a freedom closely guarded, and there is rigid discipline here as in +practically all other departments of life in Germany. + +The young students, or Fuechse, as they are called, are instructed in +the way they should go by the older students, or Burschen, whose +authority is absolute. This authority extends even to the people whom +they may know and consort with, either in the university or in the +town, and to all questions of personal behavior, debts, dissipation, +manners, and general bearing. In many of the corps there are high +standards and old traditions as regards these matters, and every +member must abide by them. Every corps student is a patriot, ready to +sing or fight for Kaiser and Vaterland, and socialism, even criticism +of his country or its rulers, are as out of place among them as in the +army or navy. They are particular as to the men whom they admit, and a +man's lineage and bearing and relations with older members of the +corps are carefully canvassed before he is admitted to membership. +Both the present Emperor and one of his sons have been members of a +corps. + +Let us spend a day with them. It is Saturday. We get up rather late, +having turned in late after the Commers of Friday, when the men who +are to fight the next day were drunk to, sung to, and wished good +fortune on the morrow, and sent home early. The trees are turning +green at Bonn, the shrubs are feeling the air with hesitating +blossoms, you walk out into the sunshine as gay as a lark, for the +champagne and the beer of the night before were good, and you sang +away the fumes of alcohol before you went to bed. There was much +laughter, and a speech or two of welcome for the guest, responded to +at 1 A. M. in German, French, English, and gestures with a beer-mug, +and punctuated with the appreciative comments of the company. + +It was a time to slough off twenty years or so and let Adam have his +chance, and the company was of gentlemen who sympathize with and +understand the "Alter Herr," and are only too delighted if he will let +the springs of youth bubble and sparkle for them, and glad to +encourage him to return to reminiscences of his prowess in love and +war, and ready to pledge him in bumper after bumper success in the +days to come. You might think it a carouse. Far from it. + +The ceremony is presided over by a stern young gentleman, who never +for a moment allows any member of the company to get out of hand, and +who, when a speech is to be made, makes it with grace and complete +ease of manner. Indeed, these young fellows surprise one with their +easy mastery of the art of speech-making. Even the spokesman for the +Fuechse, or younger students, at the lower end of the table, rises and +pledges himself and his companions in a few graceful words, with +certain sly references to the possibility that the guest may not have +lost his appreciation of the charms of German womankind, which the +guest in question here and now, and frankly admits; but not a word of +coarseness, not a hint that totters on the brink of an indiscretion, +and what higher praise can one give to speech-making on such an +occasion! + +My particular host and introducer to his old corps is youngest of all, +and though seemingly as lavish in his potations as any one, sings his +way home with me, head as clear, legs as steady, eyes as bright, as +though it were 10 A. M. and not 2 A. M., and as though I had not +seemed to see his face during most of the evening through the bottom +of a beer-mug. + +That was the night before. The next morning we stroll over to the room +where the Schlaeger contests are to take place. It is packed with +students in their different-colored caps. Beer there is, of course, +but no smoking allowed till the bouts are over. + +I go down to see the men dressing for the fray. They strip to the +waist, put on a loose half-shirt half-jacket of cotton stuff, then a +heavily padded half-jerkin that covers them completely from chin to +knee. The throat is wrapped round and round with heavy silk bandages. +The right arm and hand are guarded with a glove and a heavily padded +leather sleeve; all these impervious to any sword blow. The eyes are +guarded with steel spectacle frames fitted with thick glass. Nothing +is exposed but the face and the top of the head. The exposed parts are +washed with antiseptics, as are also the swords, repeatedly during the +bout. The sword, hilt and blade together, measures one hundred and +five centimetres. There is a heavy, well-guarded hilt, and a pliable +blade with a square end, sharp as a razor on both edges for some six +inches from the end. + +The position in the sword-play is to face squarely one's opponent, the +sword hand well over the head with the blade held down over the left +shoulder. The distance between the combatants is measured by placing +the swords between them lengthwise, each one with his chest against +the hilt of his own weapon, and this marks the proper distance between +them. When they are brought in and face one another, the umpire, with +a bow, explains the situation. The two seconds with swords crouch each +beside his man, ready to throw up the swords and stop the fighting +between each bout. Two other men stand ready to hold the rather +heavily weighted sword arm of their comrade on the shoulder during the +pauses. Two others with cotton dipped in an antiseptic preparation +keep the points of the swords clean. Still another official keeps a +record in a book, of each cut or scratch, the length of time, the +number of bouts, and the result. The doctor decides when a wound is +bad enough to close the contest. + +At the word "Los!" the blades sing and whistle in the air, the work +being done almost wholly with the wrist, some four blows are +exchanged, there is a pause, then at it again, till the allotted +number of bouts are over, or one or the other has been cut to the +point where the doctor decides that there shall be no more. We follow +them downstairs again, where, after being carefully washed, the +combatants are seated in a chair one after the other, their friends +crowd around and count the stitches as the surgeon works, and comment +upon what particular twist of the wrist produced such and such a gash. + +I have seen scores of these contests, and during the last year as many +as a dozen or more. There is no record of any one ever having been +seriously injured; indeed, I doubt if there are not more men injured +by too much beer than too much sword-play. + +It is perhaps expected that the foot-ball player should sneer at bull- +fighting; the boxer at fencing; the rider to hounds at these Schlaeger +bouts; and that we game-players should say contemptuous things of the +contests of our neighbors. Personally, if one could eliminate the horse +from the contest, I go so far as to believe that even bull-fighting is +better than no game at all. As for these Schlaeger contests, they seem to +me no more brutal than our own foot-ball, which is only brutal to the +shivering crowd of the too tender who have never played it, and not so +dangerous as polo or pig-sticking, and a thousand times better than no +contest at all. + +I am not of those who believe that the human body and that human life +are the most precious and valuable things in the world. They are only +servants of the courageous hearts and pure souls that ought to be +their masters. Without training, without obedience, without the +instant willingness to sacrifice themselves for their masters, the +human body and human life are contemptible and unworthy. I claim that +it braces the mind to expose the body; that an education in the +prepared emergencies of games and sport, is the best training for the +unprepared emergencies with which life is strewn. + +The most cruel people I have ever known were gentle enough physically, +but they were hard and sour in their social relations, and often +enough called "good" by their fellows. The disappointments, losses, +sorrows, defeats, of each one of us, trouble, even though +imperceptibly, the waters of life that we all must drink of; and to +ignore or to rejoice at these misfortunes is only muddying what we +ourselves must drink. I believe the hardening of the body goes some +way toward softening the heart and cleansing the soul, and toward +fitting a man with that cheerful charity that supplies the oil of +intercourse in a creaking world of rival interests. + +To see a youth swinging a sword at his fellow's face with delighted +energy; to see a man riding off vigorously at polo; to see a man hard +at it with the gloves on; to see another flinging himself and his +horse over a wall or across a ditch; to see a man taking his nerves in +hand, to make a two-yard put for a half, when he is one down and two +to play; to see these things without seeing that -- perhaps often +enough in a muddy sort of way -- the soul is making a slave of the +body, that courage is mastering cowardice, that in an elementary way +the youth is learning how to give himself generously when some great +emergency calls upon him to give his life for an ideal, a tradition, a +duty, is to see nothing but brutality, I admit. Who does not know that +the Carthaginians at Cannae were one thing, the Carthaginians at Capua +another! I have therefore no acidulous effeminacy to pour upon these +German Schlaeger bouts. I prefer other forms of exercise, but I am a +hardened believer in the manhood bred of contests, and though their +ways are not my ways, I prefer a world of slashed faces to a world of +soft ones. + +Prosit, gentlemen! Better your world than the world of +Semitic haggling and exchange; of caution and smoothness; of the +disasters born of daintiness; of sliding over the ship's side in +women's clothes to live, when it was a moral duty to be drowned. +Better your world than any such worlds as those, for + +"If one should dream that such a world began +In some slow devil's heart that hated man, +Who should deny it?" + +Milton held that "a complete and generous education fits a man to +perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both +private and public, of peace and war." It is my opinion that the +Schlaeger has its part to play in this matter of education. A mind +trained to the keenness of a razor's edge, but without a sound body +controlled by a steel will, is of small account in the world. The +whole aim of education is, after all, to make a man independent, to +make the intelligence reach out in keen quest of its object, and at +its own and not at another's bidding. An education is intended to make +a man his own master, and so far as any man is not his own master, in +just so far is he uneducated. What he knows, or does not know, of +books does not alter the fact. + +Much of the pharisaism and priggishness +on the subject of education arises from the fact that the world is +divided into two camps as regards knowledge: those who believe that +the astronomer alone knows the stars, and those who believe that he +knows them best who sleeps in the open beneath them. In reality, +neither type of mind is complete without the other. + +To turn from any +theoretical discussion of the subject, it remains to be said that +Germany has trained her whole population into the best working team in +the world. Without the natural advantages of either England or America +she has become the rival of both. Her superior mental training has +enabled her to wrest wealth from by-products, and she saves and grows +rich on what America wastes. Whether Germany has succeeded in giving +the ply of character to her youth, as she folds them in her +educational factories, I sometimes doubt. That she has not made them +independent and ready to grapple with new situations, and strange +peoples, and swift emergencies, their own past and present history +shows. + +It is a very strenuous and economical existence, however, for +everybody, and it requires a politically tame population to be thus +driven. The dangerous geographical situation of Germany, ringed round +by enemies, has made submission to hard work, and to an iron +autocratic government necessary. To be a nation at all it was +necessary to obey and to submit, to sacrifice and to save. These +things they have been taught as have no other European people. Greater +wealth, increased power, a larger role in the world, are bringing new +problems. Education thus far has been in the direction of fitting each +one into his place in a great machine, and less attention has been +paid to the development of that elasticity of mind which makes for +independence; but men educate themselves into independence, and that +time is coming swiftly for Germany. + +"Also he hath set the world in their heart," and one wonders what this +population, hitherto so amenable, so economical, and so little +worldly, will do with this new world. The temptations of wealth, the +sirens of luxury, the opportunities for amusement and dissipation, are +all to the fore in the Germany of to-day as they were certainly not +twenty-five years ago. Ulysses, alas, does not bind himself to the +mast very tightly as he passes these enchanted isles of modern luxury. +"The land of damned professors" has learned its lessons from those +same professors so well, that it is now ready to take a postgraduate +course in world politics; and as I said in the beginning, some of our +friends are putting the word "damned" in other parts of this, and +other sentences, when they describe the rival prowess and progress of +the Germans. + + + +VII THE DISTAFF SIDE + + +Madame Necker writes of women: "Les femmes tiennent la place de ces +lagers duvets qu'on introduit dans les caisses de porcelaine; on n'y +fait point d'attention, mais si on les retire, tout se brise." + +When one sees women and dogs harnessed together dragging carts about +the streets; when one sees women doing the lighter work of sweeping up +leaves and collecting rubbish in the forests and on the larger +estates; doing the gardening work in Saxony and other places; when one +sees them by the hundreds working bare-legged in the beet-fields in +Silesia and elsewhere throughout Germany; when one reads "Viele Weiber +sind gut weil sie nicht wissen wie man es machen muss um boese zu +sein," and "Der Mann nach Freiheit strebt, das Weib nach Sitte," two +phrases from the German classics, Lessing and Goethe; when one recalls +the shameless carelessness of Goethe's treatment of all women; of how +his love-poems were sometimes sent by the same mail to the lady and to +the press; and the unrestrained worship of Goethe by the German women +of his day; when one sees time and time again all over Germany the +women shouldered into the street while the men keep to the sidewalk; +when one sees in the streets, railway carriages, and other public +conveyances, the insulting staring to which every woman is subjected +if she have a trace of good looks, one realizes that at any rate +Madame Necker was not writing of German women. Let me add that so far +as the great Goethe is concerned, it is by no Puritan yard-stick that +I am measuring him, but by the German's own high standard which +despises any mating of true sentiment with commercialism. "Beatus ille +qui procul negotiis," certainly applies to one's affairs of the heart. + +In the gallery at Dresden, where the loveliest mother's face in all +the world shines down upon you from Raphael's canvas like a +benediction, there is a small picture by Rubens, "The Judgment of +Paris." The three goddesses--induitur formosa est; exuitur ipsa forma +est --have taken literally the compliment paid to a certain beautiful +customer by a renowned French dressmaker: "Un rien et madame est +habillee!" They are coquettishly revealing their claims to the +Eve-bitten fruit which Paris holds in his hand. Paris and his friend are +in the most nonchalant of attitudes. They could not be more +indifferent, or more superior in appearance, were they dandies judging +the class for costermonger's donkeys at a provincial horse-show. The +three most beautiful women in the world are squirming and posturing +for praise, and a decision, before two as sophisticated and self-satisfied +men as one will ever see on canvas or off it. + +The same subject is treated by a man of the same breed, but of a later +day, named Feuerbach, and his picture hangs, I think, in Breslau. Here +again the supersuperiority of the male is portrayed. + +In the Church of Saint Sebaldus at Nuremberg, there is a delightful +mural painting which makes one merry even to recall it. The subject is +the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are being lectured by an elderly man +in flowing robes with a long white beard. His beard alone would more +than supply Adam and Eve with the covering they lack. In an easy +attitude, with neither haste nor anxiety, he is pointing out to them +the error of their ways. He is as detached in manner as though he were +Professor Wundt, lecturing to us at Leipsic on the fourth dimension of +space. Adam is somewhat dejected and reclines upon the ground. Eve, +unabashed, with nothing on but the apple which she is munching, is +evidently in a reckless mood. She looks like a child of fifteen, with +her hair down her back; the defiance of her attitude is that of a +naughty little girl. The world-old problem is under discussion, but +with an air of good humor and cheerfulness on the part of the +lecturer, as though there were still time in the world, as though +hurry were an undiscovered human attribute, as though possibly the +world would still go on even if the problem were left unsolved, and +this first leafy parliament adjourned sine die. + +They were so much wiser than are we! They knew then that there would +be other sessions of congress, and that it was not necessary to decide +everything on that spring day of the year One. But here again in this +picture it is the male attitude toward the woman that is of chief +interest. Adam is plainly bored. What if the woman has broken into the +sanctuary of knowledge, she will only be the bigger fool, he seems to +say. As for the professor in the red robes, his easy, patronizing +manner is indicative enough of his mental top-loftiness toward the +woman question. You can almost hear him say as he strokes his beard: +"Kueche, Kinder, Kirche!" + +From the fields of Silesia, where the beet industry is possible only +because there are hundreds of bare-legged girls and women to single +the beets, a process not possible by machinery, at a wage of from +twenty-five to thirty cents a day, to these German paintings with +their illustrations of the spiritual and moral attitude of the German +man toward the German woman, one sees everywhere and among practically +all classes an attitude of condescension toward women among the polite +and polished; an attitude of carelessness bordering on contempt among +the rude. Their attitude is like that of the Jews who cry in their +synagogues, "Thank God for not having made me a woman!" + +One can judge, not incorrectly, of the status of women in a country by +the manners and habits of the men, entirely dissociated from their +relations to women. When one sees men equipped with small mirrors and +small brushes and combs, which they use in all sorts of public places, +even in the streets, in the street-cars, in omnibuses, and in the +theatres; when one opens the door to a knock to find a gentleman, a +small mirror in one hand and a tiny brush in the other, preparing +himself for his entrance into your hotel sitting-room; you are bound +to think that these persons are in the childhood days of personal +hygiene, as it cannot be denied that they are, but also that their +women folk must be still in the Eryops age of social sophistication, +not to put a stop to such bucolic methods of grooming. Even though the +Eryops is a gigantic tadpole, a hundred times older than the oldest +remains of man, this is hardly an exaggeration. + +In no other country in +the cultured group of nations is the animal man so naively vain, so +deliciously self-conscious, so untrained in the ways of the polite +world, so serenely oblivious, not merely of the rights of women but of +the simple courtesy of the strong to the weak. It is the only country +I have visited where the hands of the men are better cared for than +the hands of the women; and this is not a pleasant commentary upon the +question of who does the rough work, and who has the vanity and who +the leisure for a meticulous toilet. One must not forget that regular +and systematic cleansing of the person is a very modern fashion. As +late as the early part of the nineteenth century, tooth-brushes were +not allowed in certain French convents, being looked upon as a luxury. +Cleanliness was not very common a century and a half ago in any +country. In 1770 the publication of Monsieur Perrel's "Pogonotomie, ou +1'Art d'apprendre a se raser soi-meme," created a sensation among +fashionable people, and enthusiasts studied self-shaving. The author +of "Lois de la Galanterie" in 1640 writes: "Every day one should take +pains to wash one's hands, and one should also wash one's face almost +as often!" + +The copious streams of hot and cold water, turned into a porcelain tub +at any time of the day or night; the brushes, and soaps, and towels, +and toilet waters, and powders of our day were quite unknown to our +not far-off ancestors. The oft-repeated and minute ablutions of our +day are almost as modern as bicycles, and not as ancient as the +railways. The Germans are only a little behind the rest of us in this +soap and water cult, that is all. + +In the streets and public conveyances of the cities, in the beer-gardens +and restaurants in the country, in the summer and winter +resorts from the Baltic to the Black Forest, from the Rhine to +Bohemia, it is ever the same. They seat themselves at table first, and +have their napkins hanging below their Adam's apples before their +women are in their chairs; hundreds of times have I seen their women +arrive at table after they were seated, not a dozen times have I seen +their masters rise to receive them; their preference for the inside of +the sidewalk is practically universal; even officers in uniform, but +this is of rare occurrence, will take their places in a railway +carriage, all of them smoking, where two ladies are sitting, and wait +till requested before throwing their cigars away, and what cigars! and +then by smiles and innuendoes make the ladies so uncomfortable that +they are driven from the carriage. Even eleven hundred years ago the +German woman had rather a rough time of it. Charlemagne had nine +wives, but he seems to have been unduly uxorious or unwearying in his +infatuations. He made the wife travel with him, and all nine of them +died, worn out by travel and hardship. There is a constancy of +companionship which is deadly. + +The inconveniences and discomfort of going about alone, for ladies in +Germany, I have heard not from a dozen, but in a chorus from German +ladies themselves. I am reciting no grievances of my compatriots, for +I have seen next to nothing of Americans for a year or more, and I +have no personal complaints, for these soft adventurers scent danger +quickly, and give the masters of the world, whether male or female, a +wide berth. + +These gross manners are the result of two factors in German life that +it is well to keep in mind. They are a poor people, only just emerging +from poverty, slavery, and disaster; poor not only in possessions, but +poor in the experience of how to use them. They do not know how to use +their new freedom. They are as awkward in this new world of theirs, of +greater wealth and opportunity, as unyoked oxen that have strayed into +city streets. The abject deference of the women, who know nothing +better than these parochial masters, adds to their sense of their own +importance. It is largely the women themselves who make their men +insupportable. + +The other factor is the rigid caste system of their social habits. +There is no association between the officers, the nobility, the +officials, the cultured classes, and the middle and lower classes. The +public schools and universities are learning shops; they do not train +youths in character, manners, or in the ways of the world. They do not +play together, or work together, or amuse themselves together. The +creeds and codes, habits and manners of the better classes are, +therefore, not allowed to percolate and permeate those less +experienced. There is no word for gentleman in German. The words +gebildeter and anstaendiger are used, and it is significant to notice +that the stress is thus laid on mental development or upon obedience +to formal rules. A man may be a very great gentleman and a true +gentleman and not be a scholar. The late Duke of Devonshire cared more +for horses than for books and pictures, and Abraham Lincoln was one of +the greatest gentlemen of all time. + +In Homburg one day I saw a tall, fine-looking, elderly man step aside +and off the sidewalk to let two ladies pass. It was for Germany a +noticeable act. He turned out to be a famous general then in waiting +upon the Emperor. There are not a few such courtly gentlemen in +Germany, not a few whose knightliness compares with that of any +gentleman in the world. Alas for the great bulk of the Germans, they +never come into contact with them, their example is lost, their leaven +of high breeding and courtesy does not lighten the bourgeois loaf! In +America and in England we are all threading our way in and out among +all classes. We are much more democratic. Men of every class are in +contact with men of every other, we play together and work together, +and consequently the level of manners and habits is higher. This state +of things is less marked in south Germany than in Prussia, but is more +or less true everywhere. + +But how can this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where +every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an +exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebrae, and then +bends to kiss the lady's hand; and where every civilian of any +standing does the same? I am not writing of the nobility and of the +corps of officers in this connection. No doubt there are black sheep +among them, though I have not met them. Of the many scores of them +whom I have met, whom I have ridden with, dined with, romped with, +drunk with, travelled with, I have only to say that they are as +courteous, as unwilling to offend or to take advantage, as are brave +men in other countries I know. I am writing of the average man and +woman, of those who make up the bulk of every population, of those +upon whom it depends whether a national life is healthy or otherwise. + +The very stiffness of these mannerisms, the clacking of heels, the +ducking of heads, the kissing of hands, the countless grave +formalities among the men themselves, are all indicative of social +weakness. They are afraid to walk without the crutches of certain +formulae, of certain hard-and-fast rules, of certain laws that they +worship and fall down before. Slavery is still upon them. Escaped from +a bodily master they fly to the refuge of a moral and spiritual one. +These formalities are prescribed forms which they wear as they wear +uniforms; they are not the result of innate consideration. + +Uniform-wearing is a passion among the Germans, and may be included as +still another indication of the universal desire to take refuge behind +forms, and laws, and fixed customs, the universal desire to shrink +from depending upon their own judgment and initiative. They will not +even bow or kiss a lady's hand, without a prescription from a social +physician whom they trust. + +The German officials are always officials, always addressed and +addressing others punctiliously by their titles. They do not throw off +officialdom outside their duties and their offices as we do, but they +glory in it. We throw off our uniforms as soon as may be; we feel +hampered by them. This leads to a feeling on the part of the Germans +that we are too free and easy, and not respectful enough toward our +own dignity or toward theirs. We feel, on the other hand, that it is a +farce to go to the every-day markets of life, whether for daily food +or for daily social intercourse, with the bullion and certified checks +of our official dignity; we go rather with the small change that +jingles in all pockets alike, and is ready to be handed out for the +frequent and unimportant buying and selling of the day and hour. We +look upon this grallatory attitude toward life as artificial and +hampering, and prefer to walk among our neighbors as much as possible +upon our own feet. + +I am not pretending to fix standards of etiquette. I can quite +understand that when we grab the hand of the German's wife and shake +it like a pump-handle instead of bowing over it; that when we nod +cheerfully to him in the street with a wave of the hand or a lifting +of a cane or umbrella instead of taking off our hat; that when we fail +to address both him and his lady with the title belonging to them, no +matter how commonplace that title, we shock his prejudices and his +code of good manners. + +If there is a stranger, a lady, in the drawing-room before dinner the +German men line up in single file and ask to be presented to her. If +the lady is tall and handsome and the party a large one, it looks +almost like an ovation. If you go to dine at an officers' mess the men +think it their duty to come up and ask to be presented to you. They +wear their mourning bands on the forearm instead of the upperarm; they +wear their wedding-rings on the fourth finger of the right hand; many +of them wear rather more conspicuous jewelry than we consider to be in +good taste. + +The sofa, too, plays a role in German households and offices for which +I have sought in vain for an explanation. Not even German archaeology +supplies a historical ancestry for this sofa cult. It is the place of +honor. If you go to tea you are enthroned on the sofa. Even if you go +to an office, say of the police, or of the manager of the city +slaughter-house, or of the hospital superintendent, you are manoeuvred +about till they get you on the sofa, generally behind a table. I soon +discovered that this was the seat of honor. Sofas have their place in +life, I admit. There are sofas that we all remember with tears, with +tenderness, with reverence. They have been the boards upon which we +first appeared in the role of lover perhaps; or where we have fondled +and comforted a discouraged child; or where we have pumped new +ambitions and larger life into a weaker brother; or where we have +tossed in the agony of grief or disappointment; or where we have +waited drearily and alone the result of a consultation of moral or +physical life and death in the next room. Indeed, this all reminds me +that I could write an essay on sofas that would be poignant, touching, +autobiographical, luminous, as could most other men, but this would +not explain the position of the sofa in Germany in the least. "Travels +on a Sofa"--I must do it one day, and perhaps, with more serious study +of the subject, light may be thrown upon this question of the sofa in +Germany. + +Even at large and rather formal dinner-parties the host bows and +drinks to his guests, first one and then another. At the end of the +meal, in many households, it is the custom to bow and kiss your +hostess's hand and say "Mahlzeit," a shortened form of "May the meal +be blessed to you." You also shake hands with the other guests and say +"Mahlzeit." In some smarter houses this is looked upon as old- +fashioned and is not done. I look upon it as a charming custom, and +think it a pity that it should be done away with. + +Young unmarried girls and women courtesy to the elder women and kiss +their hands, also a custom I approve. On the other hand, where a +stalwart officer appears in a small drawing-room and seats himself at +the slender tea-table for a cup of afternoon tea, holding his sword by +his side or between his legs, that seems to me an unnecessary +precaution, even when Americans are present, for many of us nowadays +go about unarmed. + +Except on official or formal occasions it seems a matter of +questionable good taste to appear, say in a hotel restaurant, with +one's breast hung with medals or with orders on one's coat or in the +button-hole. Let 'em find out what a big boy am I without help from +self-imposed placards seems to me to be perhaps the more modest way. +The method in vogue in Japanese temples, where the worshippers jangle +a bell to call the attention of the gods to their prayers or +offerings, seems out of place where the god is merely the casual man +in the street, in a Berlin restaurant. + +At more than one dinner the soup is followed by a meat course, after +which comes the fish. This does not mean that the dinners are not +good. I fondly recall a dish of sauerkraut boiled in white wine and +served in a pineapple. I may not give names, but the dinners of Mr. +and Mrs. Fourth of December, of Mrs. Twenty-first of January, of Mr. +and Mrs. Thirtieth of January, and of Mr. and Mrs. February First, and +others rank very high in my gastronomic calendar. Do not imagine from +what I have written that Lucullus has left no disciples in Germany. I +could easily add a page to the list I have mentioned, and because we +look upon some of these customs of the German as absurd is no reason +for forgetting that he often, and from his stand-point rightly, looks +upon us as boors. I like the Germans and I pretend to have learned +very much from them. To sneer at superficial differences is to lose +all profit from intercourse with other peoples. Goethe is right, +"Uberall lernt man nur von dem, den man liebt!" The argument is only +all on our side when we are impervious to impressions and to other +standards of manners and morals than our own. + +"Am Ende hangen wir doch ab +Von Kreaturen die wir machten" + +are two lines at least from the second part of "Faust" that we can all +understand. + +It is sometimes thrown at us Americans that we love a title, and that +we are not averse to the ornamentation of our names with pseudo and +attenuated "Honorables" and "Colonels" and "Judge" and so on; and I am +bound to admit the impeachment, for I blush at some of my +be-colonelled and becaptained friends, and wonder at their rejoicing over +such effeminate honorifics, especially those colonelcies born of +clattering behind a civilian governor, on a badly ridden horse, a +title which may be compared with that most attenuated title of all, +that of a Texan, who when asked why he was called "colonel" replied, +that he had married the widow of a colonel! + +I prefer "Esqr." to "Mr." merely because it makes it easier to assort +the daily mail; "Mr.," "Mrs.," and "Miss" are so easily taken for one +another on an envelope, and particularly at Christmas time this more +distinctly legible title avoids, the deplorable misdirection of the +secrets of Santa Claus; aside from that I am happy to be addressed +merely by my name, like any other sovereign. + +We are, too, somewhat overexcited when foreign royalties appear among +us. "What wud ye do if ye were a king an' come to this counthry?" +asked Mr. Hennessy. + +"Well," said Mr. Dooley, "there's wan thing I wuddent do. I wuddent r-read +th' Declaration iv Independence. I'd be afraid I'd die laughin'." + +In Germany not only are titles showered upon the populace, but it is +distinctly and officially stated by what title the office-holder shall +be addressed. + +In a case I know, a certain lady failed to sign herself to one of the +small officials working upon her estate as, let us say, "I remain very +sincerely yours," or its German equivalent; whereupon the person +addressed wrote and demanded that communications addressed to him +should be signed in the regulation manner. A lawyer was consulted, and +it was found that a similar case had been taken to the courts and +decided in favor of the recipient of wounded vanity. + +In hearty and manly opposition to this attitude toward life is the +example of Admiral X. He had served long and gallantly, and just +before he retired a friend said to him: "I hear that they're going to +knight you." "By God, sir, not without a court-martial!" was the +prompt reply. Indeed, things have come to such a pass in England that +the offer of a knighthood to a gentleman of lineage, breeding, and +real distinction, has been for years looked upon as either a joke or +an insult. + +Not so among my German friends; they have a ravenous appetite for +these flimsy tickets of passing commendation. At many, many hospitable +boards in Berlin I have been present where no left breast was barren +of a medal, and where the only medal won by participation in actual +warfare, belonging to one of the guests, was safely packed away in his +house. And as for the titles, there is no room in a small volume like +this to enumerate them all; and the women folk all carry the titles of +the husband, from Frau Ober-Postassistent, Frau Regierungs Assessor, +up to the Chancellor's lady, who, by the way, wears a title in her +mere face and bearing. Not long ago I saw in a provincial sheet the +notice of the death of a woman of eighty, who was gravely dignified by +her bereaved relatives with the title, and as the relict of, a +veterinary. + +Upon a certain funicular at a mountain resort, where the cars pass one +another up and down every twenty minutes, the conductors salute one +another stiffly each time they pass. + +Of the army of people with titles of Ober-Regierungsrat, Geheimer +Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer +Ober-Regierungsrat, Wirklicher Geheimerat, who also carries the +additional title of "Excellenz" with his title; Referendar, Assessor, +Justizrat, Geheimer Justizrat, Gerichts-Assessor, Amtsrichter, +Amtsgerichtrat, Oberamtsrichter, Landgerichtsdirector, +Amtsgerichtspraesident, Geheimer Finanzrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Ober +Finanzrat, Legationsrat, Wirklicher Geheimer Legationsrat, Vice Konsul, +Konsul, General Konsul, Commercienrat, Wirklichercommercienrat, +Staatsanwalt, Staatsanwaltschaftsrat, Herr Erster Staatsanwalt, where +the "Herr" is a legal part of the title; of those who must be addressed +as "Excellenz," and in addition military and naval titles, and the horde +of handles to names of those in the railway, postal, telegraph, street- +cleaning, forestry, and other departments, one must merely throw up +one's hands in despair, and bow to the inevitable disgrace of being +quite unable to name this Noah's-ark procession of petty dignitaries. + +In the department of post and telegraph a new order has gone forth, +issued during the last few months, by which, after passing certain +examinations, the employees may take the title of Ober-Postschaffner +and Ober-Leitungsaufseher. After thirty years' service the postman is +dignified with the title of Ober-Brieftraeger. It is difficult to +understand the type of mind which is flattered by such infantile +honors. At any rate, it is a cheap system of rewards, and so long as +men will work for such trumpery ends the state profits by playing upon +their childish vanity. During the year 1912 more than 7,000 +decorations were distributed, and some 1,500 of these were of the +three classes of the Order of the Red Eagle. On the twenty-fifth +anniversary of the reign of the present Emperor, in 1913, still +another medal is to be struck, to be given to worthy officials and +officers. + +All the professions and all the trades, too, have their pharmacopoeia +of tags and titles, and you will go far afield to find a German woman +who is not Frau Something-or-other Schmidt, or Fischer, +or Miller. Every day one hears women greeting one another as Frau +Oberforstmeister, Frau Superintendent, Frau Medicinalrat, Frau +Oberbergrat, Frau Apothekar, Frau Stadt-Musikdirektor, Frau Doktor +Rechtsanwalt, Frau Geschaeftsfuehrer, and the like. All these titles, +too, appear in the hotel registers and in all announcements in the +newspapers. Even when a man dies, his title follows him to the grave, +and even beyond it, in the speech of those left behind. + +These uniforms and titles and small formalities do make, I admit, for +orderliness and rigidity, and perhaps for contentment; since every man +and woman feels that though they are below some one else on the ladder +they are above others; and every day and in every company their vanity +is lightly tickled by hearing their importance, small though it be, +proclaimed by the mention of their titles. + +It pleases the foreigners to laugh and sometimes to jeer at the +universal sign of "Verboten" (Forbidden) seen all over Germany. They +look upon it as the seal of an autocratic and bureaucratic government. +It is nothing of the kind. The army, the bureaucracy, the autocratic +Kaiser at the helm, and the landscape bestrewn with "Verboten" and +"Nicht gestattet" (Not allowed), these are necessities in the case of +these people. They do not know instinctively, or by training or +experience, where to expectorate and where not to; where to smoke and +where not to; what to put their feet on and what not to; where to walk +and where not to; when to stare and when not to; when to be dignified +and when to laugh; and, least of all, how to take a joke; how, when, +or how much to eat, drink, or bathe, or how to dress properly or +appropriately. The Emperor is almost the only man in Germany who knows +what chaff is and when to use it. + +The more you know them, the longer you live among them, the less you +laugh at "Verboten." The trouble is not that there are too many of +these warnings, but that there are not enough! When you see in flaring +letters in the street-cars, "In alighting the left hand on the left-hand +rail," when you read on the bill of fare in the dining-car brief +instructions underlined, as to how to pour out your wine so that you +will not spill it on the table-cloth; when you see the list of from +ten to fifteen rules for passengers in railway carriages; when you see +everywhere where crowds go and come, "Keep to the right"; when you see +hanging on the railings of the canals that flow through Berlin a life-buoy, +and hanging over it full instructions with diagrams for the +rescue of the drowning; when you see over a post-box, "Aufschrift und +Marke nicht vergessen" (Do not forget to stamp and address your +envelope); when you see in the church entrances a tray with water and +sal volatile, and the countless other directions and remedies and +preventives on every hand, you shrug your Saxon shoulders and smile +pityingly, if you do not stand and stare and then laugh outright, as I +was fool enough to do at first. But you soon recover from this +superficial view of matters Teutonic. In one cab I rode in I was +cautioned not to expectorate, not to put my feet on the cushions, not +to tap on the glass with stick or umbrella, not to open the windows, +but to ask the driver to do it, and not to open the door till the +auto-taxi stopped; one hardly has time to learn the rules before the +journey is over. + +In April, 1913, more laws are to come into effect for the street +traffic. People may not walk more than three abreast; they may not +swing their canes and umbrellas as they walk; they may not drag their +garments in the street; they may not sing, whistle, or talk loudly in +the street, nor congregate for conversation; there will follow, of +course, a regulation as to the length of women's dresses to be worn in +the street, and no doubt the police commissioner, an amiable bachelor, +will decree that the shorter the better. All these fussy regulations +are ridiculous to us, but in reality they are horrible and give one a +feeling of suffocation when living in Germany. In the days when +everybody rode a bicycle, each rider was obliged to pass an +examination in proficiency, paid a small tax, and was given a number +and a license. Women who persisted in wearing dangerous hat-pins have +been ejected from public vehicles. + +After April 1, 1913, no shop in Berlin can advertise or hold a bargain +sale without permission of the police. The changed prices must be +affixed to the goods four days before the sale for inspection by the +police, and only two such sales are permitted a year, and these must +take place either before February 15, or between June 15 and August +1st. All particulars of the sale must be handed to the police a week +in advance. In a carriage on the Bavarian railroad, a husband who +kissed and petted his tired wife was complained of by a fellow- +passenger. The husband was tried, judged guilty, and fined. There was +no question but that the woman was his wife; thus there is no loop-hole +left for the legally curious, and thousands of male Germans hug +and kiss one another on railway-station platforms who surely ought to +be fined and imprisoned or deported or hanged! All this may be a relic +of Roman law. Cato dismissed Marilius from the Senate because he +kissed his own wife by daylight in the presence of their own daughter. + +Shortly after leaving Germany, I returned from a few weeks' shooting +in Scotland. We bundled out of the train onto the station platform in +London. Dogs, gun-cases, cartridge-boxes, men and maid servants, +trunks, bags, baskets, bunches of grouse, and the passengers seemed in +a chaotic huddle of confusion. In Germany at least twenty policemen +would have been needed to disentangle us. I was so torpid from having +been long Teutonically cared for, that I looked on momentarily +paralyzed. There was no shouting, not a harsh word that I heard; and +as I was almost the last to get away, I can vouch for it that in ten +minutes each had his own and was off. I had forgotten that such things +could be done. I had been so long steeped in enforced orderliness, +that I had forgotten that real orderliness is only born of individual +self-control. I forgot that I was back among the free spirits who +govern a quarter of the habitable globe and whose descendants are +making America; and even if here and there one or more, and they are +often recently arrived immigrants, are intoxicated by freedom and +shoot or steal like drunken men; I realized that I am still an +Occidental barbarian, thank God, preferring liberty, even though it is +punctuated now and then with shots and screams and thefts, to official +guardianship, even though I am thus saved the shooting, the screaming, +and the thieving. + +In the nine years ending 1910, our Fourth of July +celebrations cost America in killed, 18,000; in wounded, 35,000; but +even that is better than the civic throttling of the German method. It +seems to be forgotten that the men who keep the world fresh with their +saline vigor, love risks as they love fresh air. They should be +curbed, but not strangled! + +You read their history, you watch closely +their manners, you prowl about among them, in their streets, their +shops, their houses, their theatres; you accompany the crowds on a +holiday in the trains, in the forests, in the summer resorts, at their +concerts or their picnics, in their beer-gardens and restaurants, and +you soon see that the orderliness is all forced upon them from +without, and not due to their own knowledge of how to take care of +themselves. + +In a recent volume by a distinguished German prison +official he writes that, after a careful study of the figures from +1882 to 1910, he has discovered that one person now living in every +twelve in Germany has been convicted of some offence. Doctor +Finkelnburg shows that the number of "criminals" in Germany is +3,869,000, of whom 3,060,000 are males, and 809,000 females. Every 43d +boy and every 213th girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen has +been punished by fine or imprisonment. This does not mean that the +Germans are criminal or disorderly, but, on the contrary, it shows how +absurdly petty are the violations of the law punished by fine or +imprisonment. + +Their whole history, from Charlemagne down until the last fifty years, +is a series of going to pieces the moment the strong hand of authority +is taken away from them. The German, and especially the Prussian +policeman, has become the greatest official busybody in the world. No +German's house is his castle. The policeman enters at will and, backed +by the authorities, questions the householder about his religion, his +servants, the attendance of his children at school, the status of the +guests staying in his house, and about many other matters besides. If +one of his children by reason of ill health is taught at home, the +authorities demand the right to send an inspector every six months to +examine him or her, to be sure that the child is properly taught. The +policeman is in attendance on the platform at every public meeting, +armed with authority to close the meeting if either speeches or +discussion seem to him unpatriotic, unlawful, or strife-breeding. +Professors, pastors, teachers are all muzzled by the state, and must +preach and teach the state orthodoxy or go! A young professor of +political economy in Berlin only lately was warned, and has become +strangely silent since. + +The de-Germanizing of the German abroad is in line with this, and a +constant source of annoyance to the powers that be. Buda-Pesth was +founded by Germans in 1241, and now not one-tenth of the population is +German. As the Franks became French, as the Long Beards became +Italians, so the Germans become Americans in America, English in +England, Austrian and Bohemian in Austria and Bohemia. It has been a +problem to prevent their becoming Poles where the state has settled +Germans for the distinct purpose of ousting the Poles. + +In China, in South America, and even in Sumatra I have heard German +officials tell with indignation of how their compatriots rapidly take +the local color, and lose their German habits and customs and point of +view. + +One of the half dozen best-known bankers in Berlin has lamented to me +that he must change his people in South America every few years, as +they soon go to pieces there. Army officers came home from China +indignant to find their compatriots there speaking English and +unwilling even to speak German. Even as long ago as the time of the +Thirty Years' War a forgotten chronicler, Adam Junghaus von der +Ohritz, writes: "Further, it is a misfortune to the Germans that they +take to imitating like monkeys and fools. As soon as they come among +other soldiers, they must have Spanish or other outlandish clothes. If +they could babble foreign languages a little, they would associate +themselves with Spaniards and Italians." Wilhelm von Polentz, in his +"das Land der Zukunft," writes: "die Deutsch-Amerikaner sind fuer die +alte Heimat dauernd verloren, politisch ganz und kulturell beinahe +vollstaendig." + +Bismarck knew these people and the present Emperor knows these people, +better than do you and I! Bismarck even insisted upon using the German +text, and once returned a letter of congratulation from an official +body because it was written in the Latin text. Even the Great Elector +must have recognized this weakness when he said: "Gedenke dass du bist +em Deutscher!" The present Kaiser lends his whole social influence to +keep the Germans German. He will have the bill of fare in German, he +prefers the dreadful word Mundtuch to napkin. His officers very often +demand that the bill of fare in a German hotel shall be presented to +them in German and not in French. And they are quite right to do so, +and quite right to hang the German world with the sign "Verboten"; +quite right to distribute titles and medals and orders, for the more +they are uniformed and decorated and ticketed and drilled, and taken +care of, the better they like it, and the more contented these people +are. Overorganization has brought this about. Their theories have +hardened into a veritable imprisonment of the will. They have drifted +away from Goethe's wise saying: "That man alone attains to life and +freedom who daily has to conquer them anew." + +Let me refer again just here to the socialist propaganda, which seems +to the outsider so strong here in Germany. Even this is far flabbier +than it looks, as I have attempted to explain elsewhere. In such +strong and out-and-out industrial centres as Essen, Duisburg-Muehlheim, +Saarbruecken, and Bochum, where a vigorous fight has been made against +socialism, the following are the figures of the last election in 1912 +when the socialists largely increased their vote throughout other +parts of Germany: + + NATIONALLIBERAL ZENTRUM SOCIALDEMOKRAT + +Essen............ 25,937 42,832 40,503 +Duisburg-Muehlheim 33,934 31,559 34,187 +Saarbruecken...... 25,108 24,228 4,157 +Bochum........... 42,257 37,650 64,833 + +I cite this example because it seems as though the growth of socialism +in Germany were in direct contradiction to my argument that they are a +soft, an impressionable, an amenable, and easily led and governed +people. + +State socialism as thus far put into practice in Germany is, in a +nutshell, the decision on the part of the state or the rulers that the +individual is not competent to spend his own money, to choose his own +calling, to use his own time as he will, or to provide himself for his +own future and for the various emergencies of life. And by the minute +state control, they are rapidly bringing the whole population to an +enfeebled social and political condition, where they can do nothing +for themselves. + +They have been knocked about and dragooned by their own rulers and, be +it said and emphasized, they have received certain compensations and +gained certain advantages, if nothing else an orderliness, safety, and +care for the people by the state unequalled elsewhere in the world. +But there is no gainsaying, on the other hand, that they have lost the +fruits that are plucked by the nations of more individualistic +training. + +They have clean streets, cheap music and drama, and a veritable mesh +of national education with interstices so small that no one can +escape, and they are coddled in every direction; but they have no +stuff for colonizers, and they have been not infrequently wofully +lacking in stalwart statesmen, and leaders. + +To deprive the worker of his choice of expenditure, by taking all but +a pittance of it in taxation, is a dangerous deprivation of moral +exercise. To be able to choose for oneself is a vitally necessary +appliance in the moral gymnasium, even if here and there one chooses +wrong. It is a curious trend of thought of the day, which proposes to +cure social evils always by weakening, rather than by strengthening +the individual. + +Socialism is merely a moral form of putting a sharper bit in +humanity's mouth; when of course the highest aim, the optimistic view, +is to train people to go as fast and straight and far as possible, +with the least possible hampering of their natural powers by +legislation. "Some men are by nature free, others slaves," writes +Aristotle, but whether this axiom can be accepted fully or not, it is +undoubtedly true that you can first dragoon and then coddle a whole +people, into a lack of independence and a shrinking from the +responsibilities of freedom. + +We are drugging the people ourselves just now with legislation as a +cure for the evils of industrialism, but such legislation will only do +what soporifics can do, they numb the pain, but they never bring +health. What a forlorn philosophy it is! Men take advantage, rob and +steal, we say, and to do away with this we give up the fight for fair +play and orderliness and propose sweeping away all the prizes of life, +hoping thus to do away with the highwaymen of commerce and finance. If +there is no booty, there will be no bandit, we say, forgetting +altogether the corollary that if there are no prizes there will be no +prizemen! Neither God nor Nature gives anything to those who do not +struggle, and both God and Nature appoint the stern task-master, +Necessity, to see to it that we do struggle. Now come the ignorant and +the socialists, demanding that the state step in and roll back the +very laws of creation by supplying what is not earned from the surplus +of the strong. Who cannot see anarchy looming ahead of this programme, +for it is surely a lunatic negation of all the laws of God and Nature? +They do not seem to see either in America or in England that state +supervision carried too far leads straight to the sanction of all the +demands of socialism and syndicalism. Legislation was never intended +to be the father of a people, but their policeman. Overlegislation, +whether by an autocrat or a democratic state, leads straight to +revolution, to Caesarism, or to slavery. + +In Germany the state by giving much has gained an appalling control +over the minute details of human intercourse. I am no philosophic +adviser to the rich; it is as the champion of the poor man that I +detest socialism and all its works, for in the end it only leads +backward to slavery. Every vote the workingman gives to a policy of +wider state control is another link for the chains that are meant for +his ankles, his wrists, and his neck. If the state is to take care of +me when I am sick or old or unemployed, it must necessarily deprive me +of my liberty when I am well and young and busy, and thus make my very +health a kind of sickness. A year in Germany ought to cure any +sensible workingman of the notion that the state is a better guardian +of his purse and his powers than he is himself. A distinguished German +publicist, criticising this overpowering interference of the state, +writes: "Mir ist wohl bewusst dass diese Gedanken einst weilen fromme +Wuensche bleiben werden: die Schatten laehmender Muedigkeit die fiber +unserer Politik lagern, lassen wenig Hoffnung auf froehliche +Initiative. Allein immer kann und wird es nicht so bleiben." And he +ends with the ominous words: "Reform oder Revolution!" + +One often hears the apostles of a certain kittenish humanitarianism, +talking of the great good that would result if we in America would +provide light wines and beer and music, and parks and gardens, for our +people. They see the crowds of men and women and children flocking by +thousands to such resorts in Germany, where they eat tons of cakes and +Broedchens and jam, and where they drink gallons of beer and wine, and +where they sit hour after hour apparently quite content. Why, Lord +love you, ladies and gentlemen, our populace would never be content +with such mild amusements! Fancy "Silver Dollar" Sullivan or "Bath-house" +John attempting to cajole their cohorts in such fashion! + +It may be a pity that our people are not thus easily amused, but, on +the other hand, it means simply that our energy, our vitality, our +national nervousness if you like, will not be so easily satisfied. Our +disorderly nervousness, or nervous disorderliness, though it has been +a tremendous asset in keeping us bounding along industrially and +commercially, and though it gives an exhilarating, champagne-like +flavor to our atmosphere, has cost us dear. If you will have freedom, +you will have those who are ruined by it; just as, if you will have +social and political servitude, you will have a stodgy, unindependent +populace. + +Only one out of sixty perpetrators of homicidal crime suffers the +extreme penalty attaching to such crimes in America, and these +figures, I admit, are a shocking revelation of supine justice and +sentimental executive, as when politics can even bend our President to +grant silly pardons, with baleful results upon the doings of other +wealthy criminals. We use as large an amount of habit-forming drugs +per capita as is used in the Chinese empire, so says Dr. Wright, who +was commissioned by the State Department to gather facts on this +subject. We import and consume 500,000 pounds of opium yearly, when +70,000 pounds, including its derivatives and preparations, should +suffice for our medical needs. In the year 1910 no less than 185,000 +ounces of cocaine were imported, manufactured, and consumed, although +15,000 ounces would supply every legitimate need. America collected +$340,000,000 from tariff taxes in 1911, and $40,000,000 of this from +tobacco and alcoholics. + +My readers may look back to the title of this chapter and ask: What +has all this to do with the status of women in Germany? I have told +you in these few pages the whole secret. The men are not independent; +what can you expect of the women! The men have, until very lately, had +no surplus wealth or leisure, and have now, to all appearance, little +surplus vitality or energy. Germany is getting to be a very tired-looking +nation. One hears almost as little laughter in Germany as in +India. Gayety and laughter are the bubbles and foam on the glass of +life, proving that it is charged with energy. Do not believe me, +although I have carefully watched many thousands of Germans in all +parts of Germany taking their pleasure and their ease; come over and +see for yourself! These thousands at their simple recreations are not +gay. I grant the dangers we run by the opposite policy, but these are +the results we have to fear from the German methods. + +It is the men who +must supply the leisure, the independence, the setting, the background +for the women. All Europe says that our women are spoiled, that they +are tyrants, that they treat us men badly, that they flout us, do not +do their duty by us, and finally divorce us. We can afford to let them +say it! We have given our women an independence that many of them +abuse, it is true. We perhaps give them more than their share to +spend, and more of luxury than is good for them; and all too many of +the underbred among them paint and bejewel and begown themselves to +imitate the lecherous barbarism of the too free. But one of the +greatest ladies in Germany tells me, "I am never so flattered as when +I am taken for an American!" I can pay her no handsomer compliment +than to reply that she is worthy of the mistake. Our women revive the +drooping dukedoms of England, and few will maintain that some of them +at least are unsuited to the position. I have seen them in Germany as +Frau Graefin this or that, and not only their appearance but their +house-keeping machinery, running noiselessly and accurately, proves +that there is something more than dollars behind them. + +One of the rare human beings whom I have known, who has at the same +time the characteristics of the generous comrade, the good fellow, and +the fine gentleman; who in moral courage in time of terrible strain, +or in physical courage when one's back is to the wall, never quailed, +is an American woman; and thousands of my countrymen will say the +same. + +You cannot produce this type without freedom, without giving them +opportunity, and taking the risks that are inherent in giving free +scope to personal prowess. But they are not the women whom our blatant +newspapers exploit, nor the women who buy the British aristocracy to +launch them socially, nor the women who pervade the continental hotels +and restaurants, nor the women whom as a rule the foreigner has the +opportunity to meet. They are the women who have helped us to absorb +the 21,000,000 aliens who have entered America since the Civil War; +the women who stood behind us when we fought out that war for four +years, leaving a million men on the fields of battle; the women who in +the realm of housekeeping, to come down to practical levels, have +revolutionized these duties and turned a drudgery into an art as have +no other women in the world. The best answer the American can make to +the luxurious lawlessness of some of our women, is to point to the +house-keeping and home-making of his compatriots, not only at home but +right here in Germany. Fifty years ago it could not have been said, +but to-day there is no doubt in my mind that American house-keeping is +the best in the world. In comfort, in the smooth running of the +household machinery, in good food and drink, perhaps in too lavish and +too luxurious hospitality, we are nowadays almost in a class by +ourselves in matters of housewifery. + +The English attitude of women toward men is somewhat that of +comradeship, and once married the man's comfort is looked after with +some care; the American attitude of women toward men, in the more +luxurious circles, is often, I admit, that of a spoiled child toward a +gift-bringing uncle, and she permits him to worship her along the +lines of a restricted rubric; but in Germany the subordination, the +unquestioning and unthinking adulation, the blind acceptance of +inferiority have not only softened the men but robbed the women of +even sufficient independence to make them the helpmates that they try +to be. There have been women of social and even political influence: +Bettina von Arnim, Caroline Schlegel, Charlotte Stieglitz, Rahel +Varnhagen, and lately Frau Lebin, who seems to have been a soothing +adjunct of the Foreign Office. It is rather as admirers than as +executives that they shine. Their attitude toward the great Goethe, +and his nonchalant polygamy toward them, is difficult for us to +understand and approve. + +"The gentle Henrietta then, +And a third Mary next did reign, +And Joan and Jane and Andria; +And then a pretty Thomasine, +And then another Katherine, +And then a long et cetera." + +No real man is a misogynist, for not to like women is not to be a man. +There are, however, many men, both in Germany and out of it, who +greatly dislike sham women; that is, women who shirk their functional +responsibilities. This form of dislike is a healthy instinct. Women +are given the greatest and most inspiring of all tasks: to make men; +and a woman who cannot make a man, by giving birth to one, or by +developing one as son or husband, has failed more deplorably even than +a man who cannot make a living. This task of theirs constitutes a +superiority impossible to deny or to overcome. A woman, therefore, who +craves man's activities and standards is as foolish as though a wheat-field +should long to be a bakery. Most healthy-minded men hold this +view, though some of us may think that German men overemphasize it. + +The coarse sentimentality of the lower classes has been noted, but it +is not confined to them. The premarital relations of all but the most +cultured and experienced, are marked by a mawkish sweetness which is +all the more noticeable in contrast with the dull routine of saving +and slaving which follows. She begins by being photographed sitting in +her hero's lap, and ends by sitting on the less comfortable chair to +darn his socks and to tend his babies. There are women enthroned, and +who deserve to be, in Germany as in other countries; but taken in the +mass, speaking in hundreds of thousands, it is not an inaccurate +picture to say that the women are not taken seriously in Germany +except as mothers and servants. + +The census of 1910 shows that there are 32,040,166 men in Germany and +32,885,827 women, or 845,661 more women than men. The number of men in +proportion to the number of women is steadily increasing in Germany, +showing that the habits of the men are more and more feminine, that +the state provides for them and protects them, and that the women take +good care of them. + +In a virile state, where the men take risks, where they play hazardous +games, where they travel and seek adventure, where they emigrate to +seek new opportunities, the women will greatly outnumber the men. The +excess of females in England and Wales in 1871 was 594,000; in 1881, +694,000; in 1891, 896,000; in 1911, 1,178,000. The United Kingdom has +the largest surplus of women of leisure in the world, and just now +they are taking advantage of their numerical superiority in the most +delightful and comical feminine fashion. They are proving their right +to assist in coercing others to obey the laws, by disobeying the laws +themselves. By pouring vitriol on golf-greens, by pinning their +defiance to these dishevelled greens with hair-pins, they propose to +provoke the recalcitrant to recognition of their right to pin their +names to seats in the House of Commons. It is all so sweetly feminine, +that the stranger is astonished to hear such women dubbed unwomanly. +Pray, what could be more womanly in England, than to pin a protest to +a golf-green with a hair-pin! + +The German army, which is in itself a school of hygiene for the man, +where the death-rate is the lowest of any army in Europe, and the many +provisions for the state care of the population, all go to coddle the +men and protect them. The various forms of labor insurance alone in +Germany cost the state over $250,000 a day, and if we include the +amount expended in compensation in all its forms, the yearly bill of +the state for the care of its sick, injured and aged, amounts to +nearly $170,000,000. No wonder that between the care of a +grandmotherly state, and the attentions of a subservient womankind, +the male population increases. I sometimes question whether there is +not something of the hot-house culture about this male crop. Certainly +consumption and other diseases are very wide-spread. A very detailed +and careful investigation of certain forms of weakness is being made +by our Rockefeller Institute at this time, and if I am not mistaken in +the results of what these investigations have thus far disclosed, it +will be found that Germany has her full share of rottenness to deal +with. To those who care to corroborate these hints with facts I +recommend the reading of certain recent numbers of the hygienic +Rundschau, a German technical magazine of repute. + +There is a lack of vitality and elasticity, a stodgy, plodding way of +working, much indulgence in gregarious eating and drinking, and very +mild forms of exercise and holiday-making, comparatively little sport, +almost no game-playing where boys and men hustle one another about as +in foot-ball and polo, and very long hours of application, from the +school-boy to the ministers of state, all of which tend to and do +produce a physical lack of alertness, vivacity, and audacity in the +men of practically all classes. + +The way to see the people of a country is to stand by the hour in the +large industrial towns and watch them as they go to and from their +work; to watch them flocking in and out of railway stations, and at +work in large numbers in the fields of Saxony, Silesia, and other +parts of Prussia; to spend hours, and I admit that they are tedious +hours, strolling through factories, ship-yards, mines, and offices, +paying no attention to the talk of your guide, but studying the faces +and physique of the men and women. Having done this, an impartial +observer is bound to remark that industrial and commercial Germany is +taking a tremendous toll for the rapid progress she has made. It may +be no worse here than elsewhere, but neither has the problem of a +healthy, happy, toiling population been satisfactorily solved here, +though perhaps better here than elsewhere. I have heard the women and +girls in factories singing at their work, but the bird is no less +caged because it sings. + +Men who ought to know better set an example of long hours of +confinement at their work which is quite unnecessary. They tell you +with pride that they are at it from eight or nine in the morning till +seven and often till later at night. That is something that no sane +man ought to be proud of. On investigation you find that in industrial +and commercial circles, and in the offices of the state, men take two +hours for luncheon and then return to work till nightfall. Two hours +in the open air at the end of the day could be managed easily, but +they do not want it. There is no vitality left for a game, for +exercise, for a bath, and a change. + +They drug themselves with work, and slip away to the theatre, to a +concert, to a Verein or circle, unwashed, ungroomed, and physically +torpid, and the great mass of the population, high and low alike, +outside the army officers, look it. + +The army officer's career is dependent upon his mental and physical +vigor. The cylinder is quickly handed him and the helmet taken away if +he grows too fat and too slow physically and mentally. There is no +nepotism, no favoritism, and on reaching a certain rank he goes, if he +falls below the standard required, and consequently he keeps himself +fit. But a huge bureaucracy, with its stupid promotions by years and +not by ability, with its government stroke, and its dangling pensions, +positively breeds lassitude, laziness, and dulness. You may see it on +every hand in government offices, in the railway and postal services, +where men are evidently kept on not for their fitness but by the +tyranny of the system. High officials admit as much. + +In the little state of Prussia the railways pay well and are well +managed, but they are clogged to a certain extent by inefficient and +unnecessary employees, and were the system spread over the United +States the chaos in a dozen years would be almost irreparable, and +even here the complaints are many and vigorous. Probably one male over +twenty-five years of age out of every four is in government employ. +This alone would account for the general air of lassitude which is one +of the most noticeable features of German life. The Germans as a whole +are beginning to look tired. It is a German, not an Italian or a +Frenchman, the philosopher Nietzsche, who writes: "Seit es Menschen +giebt, hat der Mensch sich zu wenig gefreut; das allein ist unsere +Erbsuende." + +There has been a great change in the status of women in the +last twenty-five years. The apophthegm of Pericles, or rather of +Thucydides, "that woman is best who is least spoken of among men, +either for good or evil," is not so rigidly enforced. Increased wealth +throughout Germany has left the German woman more leisure from the +drudgery of the home. She is not so wholly absorbed by the duties of +nurse, cook, and house-maid as she once was. But even to-day her +economies and her ability to keep her house with little outside +assistance are amazing. Some of the most delightful meals I have +taken, have been in professional households, where small incomes made +it necessary that wife and daughters should do most of the work. + +The German professor has his faults, but in his own simple home, the +work of the day behind him, his family about him at his well-filled +but not luxurious board, with some member of the family not unlikely +to be an accomplished musician and with his own unrivalled store of +learning at your service, when he raises his glass to you, filled with +his best, with a smile and a hearty "Prosit," he is hard to beat as a +host, to my thinking. Perhaps there is nothing like overindulgence to +make one crave simplicity, and no doubt this accounts for the fact +that the really great ones of earth are satisfied and happy with +enough, and abhor too much. + +They tell me that the Dienstmaedchen is no longer what she used to be, +but to my untutored eye her duties still seem to be as comprehensive +as those of a Sioux squaw, and her performances unrivalled. As is to +be expected, Germany is not blessed with trained servants. They are +helpers rather than professional servants. In the scores of houses, +public and private, where I have been a guest, only in one or two had +the servants more than an alphabetical knowledge of what was due to +one's clothes and shoes. The servants are rigidly protected by the +state: they must have so much time off, they cannot be dismissed +without weeks of warning, and they themselves carry books with their +moral and professional biographies therein, which are always open to +the inspection of the police; and they must all be insured. + +In many towns, and cities too, there are hospitals and bands of nurses +who for a small annual payment undertake to take over and care for a +sick servant. If the doctor prescribes a "cure" for your servant, away +she goes at the expense of the state to be taken care of. Wages are +very small as compared with ours. Ten dollars a month for a cook, five +for a house-maid, ten for a man-servant, forty to fifty for a +chauffeur, and of course more in the larger and more luxurious +establishments; though a chef who serves dinners for forty and fifty +in an official household I know is content with twenty dollars a +month. A nursery governess can be had for twelve, and a well-educated +English governess for twenty dollars a month. Even these wages are +higher than ten years ago. To be more explicit, in a small household +where three servants are kept the cook receives 30 marks, the maid-servant +25 marks, and the nursery governess 35 marks a month. In the +household of an official of some means the man-servant receives 45 +marks, the cook 30 marks, and the maid-servant 30 marks a month. When +dinners or other entertainments are given, outside help is called in. +In the household of a rich industrial, whose family consists of +himself, wife, and four children, the man-servant receives 80 marks, +the chauffeur 200, the cook 45, the lady's maid 35, the house-maid 25, +kitchen-maid 12, and the governess 30 marks a month. + +I carry away with me delightful pictures of German households, big, +little, and medium; and though it does not fit in nicely with my main +argument, households whose mistresses were patterns of what a +chatelaine should be. But I must leave that loop-hole for the critics, +for I am trying only to tell the truth and to be fair, and not to be +scientific or to bolster up a thesis. + +I can see the big castle, centuries old, with its rambling buildings +winging away from it on every side, and in the court-yard its regal-looking +mistress positively garlanded with her dozen children. There +is no sign of the decadence of the aristocracy here. We sit down +twenty or more every day at the family luncheon. Tutors and +governesses are at every turn. A French abbe, as silken in manner and +speech as his own soutane, bowls over all my prejudices of creed and +custom, as I watch him rule with the lightest of hands and the softest +of voices a brood of termagant small boys; to turn from this to a game +of billiards, and from that to the Merry Widow waltz on the piano, +that we may dance. An aide-de-camp trained in India and a French abbe, +I am convinced that these are the apotheosis of luxury in a large +household. My Protestant brethren would, I am sure, throw their +prejudices to the winds could they spend an evening with my friend, +Monsieur l'Abbe! Nor Erasmus, nor Luther, nor Calvin would have had +the heart to burn him. He is just as good a fellow as we are, knows +far more, can turn his hand to anything from photography to the +driving of a stubborn pony, knows his world as few know it, and yet is +inviolably not of it. I have chatted with Jesuit priests teaching our +Western Indians; I have travelled with a preaching friar in Italy on +his round of sermonizing; I have seen them in South America, in India, +China, and Japan, and I recognize and acclaim their self-denying +prowess, but no one of them was a more dangerous missionary than my +last-named friend among them, Monsieur l'Abbe! + +"For ever through life the Cure goes + With a smile on his kind old face-- +With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, + And his green umbrella-case." + +There was a profusion at this castle, a heartiness of welcome, a +patriarchal attitude toward the countless servants and satellites, an +acreage of roaming space in the buildings, that smacked of the +feudalism back to which both the castle and the family dated. How many +Englishmen or Americans who sniff at German civilization ever see +anything of the inside of German homes? Very few, I should judge, from +the lame talk and writing on the subject. Let us go from this +mediaeval setting for modern comfort to a smaller establishment. Here +a miniature Germania, with blue eyes and golden hair, presides, +looking like a shaft of sunlight in front of you as she leads the way +about the paths of her gloomy forest. In these, and in not a few other +houses, there is little luxury, no waste, a certain Spartan air of +training, but abundance of what is necessary and a cheery and frank +welcome. + +I sometimes think the Germans themselves lose much by their rather +overdeveloped tendency to meet not so often in one another's homes as +in a neutral place: a restaurant, a garden, a Verein or circle, of +which there is an interminable number. You certainly get to know a man +best and at his best in his own home, and you never get to know a wife +and a mother out of that environment; for a woman is even more +dependent than a man upon the sympathetic atmosphere that frames her. +I should be, after my experience, and I am, the last person in the +world to say that the Germans are not hospitable; but there is much +less visiting even among themselves, and much less of constant +reception of strangers in their homes, than with us. Habit, lack of +wealth, lack of trained servants, and a certain proud shyness, and in +some cases indifference and a lack of vitality which welcomes the +trouble of being host, account for this. No doubt, too, the old habit +of economy remains even when there is no longer the same necessity for +it, and saving and gayety do not go well together. In Geldsachen hurt +die Gemuethlichkeit auf. + +I should be sorry to spoil my picture by the overemphasis of details. +The reader will not see what I have intended to paint, if he gets only +an impression of caution, of economy, of sordidness and fatigue. No +nation that gives birth to an untranslatable word like Gemuethlichkeit +can be without that characteristic. The English words "home" and +"comfort," the French word "esprit," and the German word +Gemuethlichkeit have no exact equivalents in other languages. This in +itself is a sure sign of a quality in the nation which bred the word. +The difficulty lies in the fact that another language is another life. + +The Germans are not cheerful as we are cheerful; they are not happy as +we are happy; they are not free as we are free; they are not polite as +we are polite; they are not contented as we are contented; and no one +for a moment who is even an amateur observer and an amateur +philologist combined would claim that the three words, love and amour +and Liebe mean the same thing. No word in the English language is used +so often from the pulpit as the word love, but this cannot be said of +the use of amour in France or of Liebe in Germany. Nations pour +themselves into the tiny moulds of words and give us statuettes of +themselves. The Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, and the Teuton have filled +these three words with a certain vague philosophy of themselves, a +hazy composite photograph of themselves. No one writer or painter, no +one incident, no one tragedy, no one day or year of history has done +this. To us, love is the coldest, cleanest, as it is perhaps the most +loyal of the three. L'amour sounds to us seductive, enticing, often +indeed little more than lust embroidered to make a cloak for ennui. +Liebe is to us friendly, soft, childlike. + +The nations of the earth, close as they are together in these days, +are worlds apart in thought. Each builds its life in words, and the +words are as little alike as in the days of Babel; and thus it comes +about that we misunderstand one another. We translate one another only +into our own language, and understand one another as little as before, +because we only know one another in translations, and the best of the +life of each nation remains and always will remain untranslatable. No +one has ever really translated the Greek lyrics or the choruses of +Aeschylus, or the incomparable songs of Heine. Who could dream of +putting the best of Robert Louis Stevenson into German, or Kipling's +rollicking ballads of soldier life into Spanish, or Walter Pater into +Dutch, or Edgar Allan Poe into Russian! The one language common to us +all, music, tells as many tales as there are men to hear. Each melody +melts into the blackness or the brightness of the listener's soul and +becomes a thousand melodies instead of one. What does the moaning +monotony of a Korean love-song mean to the westerner, or what does the +Swan song mean to the Korean? Only God knows. We can never translate +one nation into the language of another; our best is only an +interpretation, and we must always meet the criticism that we have +failed with the reply that we had never hoped to succeed. We are +forever explaining ourselves even in our own small circles; how can we +dare to suggest even, that we have made one people to speak clearly in +the language of another? The best we can do is to give a kindly, a +good-humored, and, at all times and above all things, a charitable +interpretation. Information, facts, are merely the raw material of +culture; sympathy is its subtlest essence. + +There is a world of good humor, of cheerfulness, of contentment, of +domestic peace and happiness in Germany. There are courtesy, +politeness, even grand manners here and there. But these words mean +one thing to them, another thing to us, and it is that I am striving, +feebly enough to be sure, to make clear. May I beg the reader and the +student to follow me with this point clearly in mind? While I am +outlining with these painful details that their ways are not as our +ways, I am not denouncing their ways, but merely offering matter for +consideration and comparison. + +A nation is most often punished for its faults by the exaggeration of +its qualities, and if, as it seems to me, Germany suffers like the +rest of us in this respect, it is none of my doing. It will be my +failure and the reader's failure, if we do not profit by watching +these qualities in ourselves, and in others festering into faults. +Woman's position and ambitions, the home, the amusements, and the +satisfactions of life, are very different in Germany from ours. I note +these as facts, not as inferiorities. I note, too, that in Germany, as +elsewhere, Hegel was profoundly right in his dictum, that everything +earned to its extreme becomes its contrary. Too much caution may +become a positive menace to safety; too much orderliness may result in +individual incapacity for sell-control; just as liberty rots into +license, and demos descends to a crown and sceptre and tyranny. I am +merely calling attention to this great law of national development, +that the exaggeration of even fine qualities is the road to the +punishment of our faults, in Germany, as in every other nation under +the sun. + +It is only when you have had a peep into a small farmer's house in +Saxony, into the artisans' houses in the busy Rhine and Westphalia +country; spent a night in a peasant's house and stable, for they are +under the same roof, in the mountains of the South; and visited the +greater establishments of the large land-holder and the less +pretentious houses of the gentleman farmer, and the country houses, +big and little, in all parts of Germany, that you get anything of the +real flavor of Germany. + +If, as Burke says, it is impossible to indict a whole nation, it is +even more difficult to fit a people with a few discriminating and +really enlightening adjectives. One word I dare to apply to them all, +though I know well how different they are in the north and south and +east and west, as diversified indeed as any nation in the world, and +that is the word patient. They can stand longer, sit longer, eat +longer, drink longer, work longer hours, and dream longer, and dawdle +longer than any people except the Orientals. This custom may date back +to far distant times. Sitting, in the Greek view, was a posture of +supplication (Odyssey, XIV, 29--31). The Emperor himself sets the +example. He is an indefatigable stander, if I may coin the word, and +on horseback he can apparently spend the day and night without +inconvenience. Their patient quarry work in archeology and in +comparative philology laid the foundations for the new history-writing +of Heeren and Mommsen; and their scholarship to-day is still of the +digging kind. They seldom produce a Jebb, a Jowett, a Verrall, and +never that type of scholar, wit and poet combined, a Lowell or an +Arthur Hugh Clough. Indeed, with a suspicious self-consciousness the +German professional mind inclines to be contemptuous of any learning +that is not unpalatably dry. What men can read with enjoyment cannot +be learning, they maintain. + +I have visited half a dozen hospitals, and on one or two occasions +been present at an operation by a famous surgeon. It is evident from +the bearing of patients, nurses, and students that they are dealing +with a less highly strung population than ours. Indeed, the surgeons +who know both countries tell me that here in Germany they have more +endurance of this phlegmatic kind. They suffer more like animals. +Their patience reaches down to the very roots of their being. + +On that delightful big fountain, in that paradise of fountains, +Nuremberg, the statues of the electors and citizens picture men who +were untroubled and cheerful, slow-moving, contented, patient; while +the little figures on the guns are positively jolly. The only mournful +figure on the whole fountain is a man with a book on his knees +teaching a child. He is pallid, even in bronze, and his face is lined +as he muses over the problem that has stumped the wisest of us: how to +make a man by stuffing a child with books! It cannot be done, but we +follow this will-o'-the wisp through the swamps of experience with the +pitiable enthusiasm of despair. + +Only liberty can make a man, and she is such a costly mistress that +with our increasing hordes of candidates for independence we cannot +afford her; so we go on fooling the people with mechanical education. +But even this figure is patient! + +The Germans are patient even with their food. What would become of +them without the goose, the pig, the calf, and the duck, that meagre +alimentary quartette? The country is white with home-raised geese, and +yet they imported 8,337,708 in 1910, and 7,236,581 in 1911. + +One of their most charming bits of classic art is the famous miniature +statue of the Gooseman; and the real name of the great Gutenberg, who, +by his invention of printing, did more than any other mortal to make +it easy for the human race to acquire the anserine mental habits, and +the anserine moral characteristics, was Gaensfleisch! + +The goose is really the national bird of the German people. You eat +tons of goose, and then you sleep beneath the feathers. The goose +first nourishes you and then protects your digestion. The +extraordinary make-up of the German bed must be laid to the door of +the guilty goose. The pillows are so soft that your head is ever +sinking, never at rest. Instead of easily applied blankets, that you +can adapt to the temperature, you are given a great cloud of feathers, +sewn in a balloon-like bag, which floats upon you according to your +degree of restlessness, and leaves you for the floor, when in stupid +sleepiness you endeavor to protect your whole person at once with its +flimsy and wanton formlessness. As a rule the bed is built up at the +head so that you are continually sliding down, down under the goose +feathers, your nose and mouth are soon covered, and who can breathe +with his toes! + +They accumulate comfort very slowly. The wages are small and the +satisfactions are small. On the street-cars the conductor is grateful +for a tip of five pfennigs, and his daily customers are handed from +the car-steps and respectfully saluted in return for this tiny +douceur. When you dine or lunch at a friend's house you are expected +to leave something in the expectant palm of his servant who sees you +out. + +Women carry small parcels of food to the theatre, to the tea and beer +gardens, and thus save the small additional expense. Many a time have +I seen these thrifty housewives pocket the sugar and the zwiebacks and +Broedchen left over. In the hotels, soap, paper, and common +conveniences of the kind are taken, so I am told, not, I maintain, as +a theft, but as an economy. We are in the habit of carrying our small +change loose in a trousers pocket, but the German almost without +exception carries even his ten and five pfennig pieces carefully in a +purse. Outside many of the big shops is placed a row of niches where +you may leave your unfinished cigar till you return. The economy thus +illustrated shows a certain disregard, of a not altogether agreeable +chance of interchangeability, that might even be dangerous to health. +On the other hand, it is a wise precaution that marks beer-glasses and +beer-jugs with a line, to show just how much beer you are entitled to. +This puts the foam-stealing vendor at your mercy. + +The entertainments, dinners, luncheons, teas, except among the small +cosmopolitan companies who do not count as examples of German manners +and customs, are very prolonged affairs. There is much standing about. +At ten o'clock, having dined at half-past seven, beer, tea, coffee, +sandwiches are brought in, and you begin the gastronomics over again +on a smaller scale. There is no occasion when eating and drinking are +not part of the programme. If you go to the play or the opera you may +eat and drink there; if you go for a walk the goal is not a bath and a +rub-down, but beer or chocolate and cakes. + +I am not sure that there is +not something in the theory that their soil has less iron in it, being +so intensively cultivated, and that our food is consequently stronger +than theirs; at all events, they eat more frequently and more +copiously than we do. It seems to me that both the men and the women +show it in their faces and figures. They are a heavy, puffy, tumbling +lot after forty; and with my prepossessions on the subject I am +inclined to put it down to irregular eating, to too much eating of +soft and sweet food, too much drinking of fattening beverages, and +much, much too little regular exercise, and to the fact that they are +still infants in the matter of personal hygiene. Dressing-gowns, +slippers, proper care of the teeth and hair, regular ablutions, +changing of clothes, all these dozens of helps to health are patiently +neglected. It is just as troublesome to take care of yourself, to +groom your person, to be regular in your habits, and restrained and +careful in your diet as to take proper care of a horse or a dog. It +shows a rather high grade of persistent prowess in a man just to keep +himself fit, to keep himself in working or playing health. Without the +drilling they receive in the army in these matters, one wonders where +this population would be. + +The doggedness, the patience of the German is notable, but the +alertness, vivacity, the energy easily on tap, these are lacking both +among the men and the women, and, as it seems to me, for these easily +apparent reasons. There are more rest-cures, rheumatism, heart, liver, +kidney, anaemic cures in Germany, and to suit all purses, than in all +Anglo-Saxondom combined, even if subject territories are included. In +Saxony alone, which is not renowned for its cures, the number of +visitors at Augustus Bad, Bad Elester, Hermanus Bad, Schandau, and +some seven others has increased from 13,000 ten years ago to 30,000 in +1910. + +Between 1900 and 1909, while the population of Germany increased 15 +per cent., the days of sickness in the insurance funds increased 59 +per cent. and the expenditure 95 per cent. Some alterations were made +in the law between those years permitting a certain extension of the +days of sickness, but an accurate percentage may be taken between the +years 1905 and 1909. During those years the population increased by 7 +per cent., the days of sickness by 17 per cent., and the expenditure +out of the sick-funds by 32 per cent. The total cost of sickness +insurance in 1900 was $42,895,000 and in 1909 $83,640,000. What will +happen in Great Britain when sickness insurance comes into thorough +working order is worthy of caricature. The way my Irish friends will +play that game fills me with joy. It is an abominable harness to put +on the Anglo-Saxon, and he has my very best wishes if he refuses to +wear it tamely. It is only another piece of tired legislation that +solves nothing. Even Germany would be a thousand times better off +without it. This attempting to make pills and powders take the place +of love one another, is merely the politician sneaking away from his +problem. Of course, it is impossible to tell how many people are sick +by being paid for it, probably not a small number. We all have +mornings when we would turn over and stick to our pillows if we were +sure of payment for doing so. The German apparently is the only person +in the world who is happy, aegrescit medendo. The Germans keep going, +we must all admit that, but at a slower pace, with less energy to +spare, and with far less robust love of life. + +If the men are patient, the women must be more so, and they are. The +marriage service still reads: "He shall be your ruler, and you shall +be his vassal." The women are not only patient with all that requires +patience of the men, but they are patient with the men besides, a +heavy additional burden from the American point of view. Beethoven +writes: "Resignation! Welch' elendes Huelfsmittel! Und doch bleibt es +mir das einzige uebrige." They take resignation for granted as we never +do. + +Some ten years ago only, was formed the Women's Suffrage League in +Germany. It was necessary to organize in the free city of Hamburg, +because women were not allowed either to form or to join political +unions in Prussia! It is only within a very few years that the girls' +higher schools have been increased and cared for in due proportion to +the schools provided for the higher education of the boys. The first +girls' rowing club was organized at Cassel in 1911. Even now as I +write there are protests and petitions from the male masters against +women teachers in the higher positions of even these schools. In the +discussions as to the proper subjects to be taught to the girls, who +in 1912 began attending the newly constituted continuation schools for +girls in Berlin, there is a strong party who argue that all of them +should be taught only house-keeping and the duties pertaining thereto. +To the great majority of German men, children and the kitchen are and +ought to be the sole preoccupations of women, with occasional church +attendance thrown in. + +There have been enormous changes in the place women hold in the German +world in the last thirty years. The Red Cross organization of the +women throughout Germany is admirable and as complete and efficient as +the army that it is intended to help; one can hardly say more. There +are many private charities in Berlin and other cities, managed +entirely by women, and doing excellent and sensible work; such as the +kindergartens, the Pestalozzi-Froebelhaus for example, where four +hundred children are taken care of daily and fifteen thousand ten-pfennig +meals provided, besides classes for the young women students +under the supervision of the Berliner Verein fuer Volkserziehung, with +courses in the elements of law and politics and other matters likely +to concern them in their activities as teachers, nurses, or charity +helpers; the invalid-kitchens; the societies for looking after young +girls; the work in the Temperance League; the Lette-Verein, one of the +most sane and sensible institutions in the world for the training of +girls and young women, where they turn out some two thousand girls a +year trained in house-wifely economy; the wonderful and pitiful colony +at Bielefeld, founded by one of Germany's greatest organizers and +saints, Pastor Bodelschwing, and now carried on by his equally able +son, and aided largely by the sympathy and resources of women. Only +another Saint Francis could have imagined, and produced, and loved +into usefulness such an institution. + +The summer colonies, called gartenlauben colonies, where the outlying +and unused land on the outskirts of the cities is divided up into +small parcels and rented for a nominal sum to the poorer working +people of the city, constitute a most sensible form of philanthropy. +You see them, each named by its proprietor, with a flag flying, with +the light barriers dividing them, and with the small huts erected as a +shelter, where flowers and fruits and vegetables are grown, often +adding no small amount to income, and in every case offering the +soundest kind of work and recreation. These colonies were started by a +woman in France, and the idea worked its way through Belgium to +Germany, and they are now supported and helped by the direct interest +of the Empress. The woman who put this scheme into operation ought to +have a monument! At Charlottenburg, a suburb of Berlin, on a plot lent +by the city, there are thirteen of these colonies divided into over a +thousand plots. + +There are three-quarters of a million women in Germany who are +independent owners and heads of establishments of different kinds, and +some ten million who are bread-winners. Of the increase in the number +of women students I have written in another chapter, and of their +increasing participation in the political, economical, literary, and +scholarly life of the nation there are many examples. Once or twice I +have even heard them speak in public, and speak well, while if my +memory serves me, this was practically unknown in my university days +here. The problem of domestic apprenticeship is also being worked out +by the women of Germany. In Munich, in Frankfurt-am-Main and elsewhere +this most difficult and delicate question is being partially answered +at least. Girls are apprenticed to families needing them, under the +supervision of a committee of women. The girls and their families +agree to certain terms, and the families agree also to teach them +household duties, give them proper food, eight hours' sleep, their +Sunday out, and so on. The German women's societies who have thus +boldly tackled this problem are plucky indeed, and prove easily enough +that there is a large and growing body of women in Germany, who have +minds and wills of their own and great executive ability. + +Let me suggest to some of our idle women that they pay a visit to the +Hausfrauenbund at Frankfort and the Frauenverein-Arbeitererinnenheim +at Munich, before they pass judgment upon this chapter. For I should +be sorry to leave the impression that all the women of Germany are +listless, oppressed, and without any feeling of civic responsibility. + +All these things have been accomplished by women in Germany with far +less sympathy from the men than they receive in America or in England. +Cato wrote of women's suffrage: "Pray what will they not assail, if +they carry their point? Call to mind all the principles governing them +by which your ancestors have held the presumption of women in check, +and made them subject to their husbands. ... As soon as they have begun +to be your equals they will be your superiors." It is an older story +than the unread realize, this of the rights of women. The bulk of +Germany's male population still hold to Cato's view. It is not so much +that they are antagonistic, except in the case of the teachers, where +the women have become active competitors; they are in their patient +way impervious. Nor can it be said that any very large number of the +women themselves are eager for more rights; rather are they becoming +restless because they receive so little consideration. + +Their pleasures are simple and restricted, regular attendance at the +theatre, at concerts, an occasional dinner at a restaurant to +celebrate an anniversary, excursions with the whole family to a beer +restaurant of a Sunday, and the endless meeting together for reading, +sewing, and gossip -- no German woman apparently but what belongs to a +verein or circle, meeting, say, once a week. + +The women and the men are gregarious. Vae soli is the motto of the +race. They love to take their pleasures in crowds, and I am not sure +that this does not dull the enthusiasm for personal rights and +gratifications, and for individual supremacy and dignity. It is rare +to find a German who would subscribe to Andrew Marvell's misogynist +lines: + +"Two paradises are in one +To live in Paradise alone." + +It is typical of this love of being together that an independent +member of the Reichstag, owing allegiance to no party, is called a +Wilde, and this same word Wilde, or wild man, is applied to the +student at the university who belongs to no corps or association of +students. This love of being together, of touching elbows on all +occasions, makes them more easily led and ruled. They hate the +isolation necessary for independence and revolt. + +Of the relations between men and women I long ago came to the +conclusion that this is a subject best left to the scientific +explorer. It is, however, open to the casual observer to comment upon +the monstrous percentage of illegitimacy in Berlin, 20 per cent. or +one child out of every five, born out of wedlock; 14 per cent. in +Bavaria; and 10 per cent. for the whole empire. This alone tells a sad +tale of the attitude of the men and women toward one another. There is +a long journey ahead of the women who propose to lift their sisters on +to a plane above the animals in this respect. In the matter of divorce +Prussia comes fourth in the list of European nations. Norway, with the +cheapest and easiest, and at the same time the wisest, divorce law in +the world, has almost the lowest percentage of divorce. In 1910 there +were 390 divorces out of 400,000 existing marriages, of which 14,600 +had taken place that year. The percentage is thus only about 2 1/2 per +year. The total per 100,000 of the population in Switzerland is 43; in +France 33; in Denmark 27; and in Prussia 21. In industrial Saxony +there are 32 and in Catholic Bavaria 13. The number of married people +in Germany according to the last census shows an increase, the number +of bachelors and widowed persons a decrease. Since 1871 the number of +married persons has increased by 2 per cent. The birth rate shows a +proportional decline. The problem that bothers all social economists +is to the fore in Germany as elsewhere, for the people between sixty +and seventy years of age number 14.65 per cent. of the population, +while the young people under ten number only 11.12, and those between +twenty and thirty 10.93 per cent. The birth rate therefore shows the +same tendency as in France, England, and America. A recent +investigation on a small scale seems to show that bureaucracy has a +certain influence here. Of 300 officials questioned, only 10, or 312 +per thousand, had more than two children. It is not an impossible, but +certainly a laughable, outcome of state interference carried too far, +should it result, in the state's becoming an incubator for the unfit, +in a country where the pensions for officers and employees of the +state have risen from 50,000,000 marks in 1900 to 111,000,000 marks in +1911. + +Even in higher circles in Germany there is a gushing idealism about +the relations of the sexes. In their songs and sayings, as well as in +their mythology, there is a laudation of love that is overstimulating. +The lines of that inconsequential philosopher, that irresponsible +moralist, that dreamy Puritan, Emerson, + +"Give all to love; +Obey thy heart; +Friends, kindred, days, +Estate, good fame, +Plans, credit and the Muse-- +Nothing refuse" + +would be warmly praised in Germany. + +"I could not love thee, dear, so much +Loved I not honour more" + +are lines more to our taste. Even love should have a deal of toughness +of fibre in it to be worth much. + +I must leave it to my readers to guess what I think of the German +woman; indeed, it is of little consequence what any individual opinion +is, if matter is given for the formation of an opinion by others. +Truth cannot afford to be either gallant or merciless. There are women +in Germany whom no man can know without respect, without admiration, +without affection. There are the blue eyes, sunny hair, peach-bloom +complexions of the north; there are the dark-eyed, black-haired, +heavy-browed women of the Black Forest; there is often a Quakerish +elegance of figure and apparel to be seen on the streets of the +cities, and from time to time one sees a real Germania, big of frame, +bold of brow, fearless of glance -- patet dea! + +But we can none of us be quite sure of the impartiality of our taste +in such matters. Our baby fingers and our baby lips were taught to +love a certain type of beauty. Our mothers wove a web of admiration +and devotion from which no real man ever escapes; our maturer passions +lashed themselves to an image from which we can never wholly break +away; our sins and sorrows and adventures have been drenched in the +tears of eyes that are like no other eyes; and consequently the man +who could pretend to cold neutrality would be a reprobate. + +The German looks to Germany, the Englishman to England, the Frenchman +to France, as do you and I to America, for + +"The face that launched a thousand ships +And burnt the topless towers +of Ilium." + + + +VIII "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND" + + +Of every one hundred inhabitants of Germany, including men, women, and +children, one is a soldier. There are, roughly, 65,000,000 inhabitants +and 650,000 soldiers. + +The American army is about equal in numbers to the corps of officers +of Germany's army and navy. To the American, as to almost every other +foreigner, the German army means only one thing: war. We all hear one +thing: + +"And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far +Ancestral voices prophesying war." + +I believe this is a half-truth, and dangerous accordingly. This army +has been in existence for over forty years, and has done far more to +keep the peace than any other one factor in Europe, except, perhaps, +the British navy. + +The German army protects the German people not only from external +foes, but from internal diseases. It is the greatest school of hygiene +in the world, on account of its sound teaching, the devotion, skill, +and industry of its officers, the number of its pupils, and its widely +distributed lessons and influence. + +Culture taken by itself is livery business, and when combined with +much beer and wine drinking, irregular eating and a disinclination for +regular exercise, culture becomes a positive menace to health. Of this +danger to the German, their own great man Bismarck spoke in the +Abgeordnetenhaus in 1881: "Bei uns Deutschen wird mit wenigem so viel +Zeit totgeschlagen wie mit Biertrinken. Wer beim Fruehschoppen sitzt +oder beim Abendschoppen und gar noch dazu raucht und Zeitungen liest, +haelt sich voll ausreichend beschaeftigt und geht mit gutem Gewissen +nach Haus in dem Bewusstsein, das Seinige geleistet zu haben." + +("The Germans waste more time drinking beer than in any other way. The +man who sits with his morning or his afternoon glass of beer beside +him, and who, in addition, smokes and reads the newspapers, considers +that he is much occupied, and goes home with a good conscience, +feeling that he has fully done his duty.") + +"Jeden Feind besiegt der Deutsche: +Nur den Durst besiegt er nicht." + +Which I permit myself to translate into these two lines: + +"The German conquers every foe, +Except his thirst, that lays him low." + +Even if the German army were not necessary as a policeman, it could +not be spared as a physician by the German people. It is to be forever +kept in mind that the German is brought up on rules; the American and +the Englishman on emergencies. Emergencies provide a certain +discipline of themselves, and our philosophy of civilization leaves it +to the individual to get his own discipline from his own emergencies. +We call it the formation of character. The German thinks this method a +hap-hazard method, and burdens men with rules, and the army is +Germany's greatest school-master along those lines. We are inclined to +think that it results in a machine-made citizen. + +There are three classes of men who pick up the bill of fare of life +and look it over: Civilization's paralyzed ones, with no appetite, who +can choose what they will without regard to the prices; the cautious, +those with appetite but who are hampered in their choice by the +prices; the bold, those with appetite and audacity, who rely upon +their courage to satisfy the landlord. The Germans are only just +beginning to look over the world's bill of fare in this last lordly +fashion, to which some of us have long been accustomed. I see no +reason why they should not do so, though I see clearly enough the +suspicion and jealousy it creates. + +They have been swathed in "Forbidden" so long that their taste for +daring was late in coming. Our colonies, small wars, punitive +expeditions, and control over neighboring territories are not planned +for far ahead; but the exigencies of the situations are met by the +remedies and solutions of men fitted by their training in school, in +sport, in social and political life for just such work, and who are +the more efficient the more they do of it. We are inclined to do +things, and to think them out the day after; while the German thinks +them out the week before, and then sometimes hesitates to do them at +all. + +The German goes more slowly, perhaps more successfully, in commercial +and industrial undertakings, but always with a chart in front of him, +a pair of spectacles on his nose, and with no desire to take chances. + +In the rough-and-tumble world, the American and the Englishman went +ahead the faster; in a more orderly world, and commerce, industry, and +war are all far more scientific or orderly than of yore, the German +has come into his own and goes ahead very fast. He has not made +friends and supporters as have the other two: first, because he is a +new-comer; and also, I believe, because human nature, even when it is +not adventurous itself, loves adventure, and has a liking for the man +who is a law unto himself. Indeed, the Germans themselves have a +sneaking fondness for such a one. At any rate there is far more +imitation of American and English ways in Germany, than of German +manners, customs, and methods in America or in England. + +"Experiment is not sufficient," writes Theophrastus von Hohenheim, +called Paracelsus; "experience must verify what can be accepted or not +accepted; knowledge is experience." For the moment, but it is probably +not for long, we have the advantage in the knowledge bred of +experience. + +The German comes from the forest, loves the forest. "Kein Yolk ist so +innig mit seinem Wald erwachsen wie das Deutsche, keines liebt den +Wald so sehr." ("No nation has grown up so at one with its forests as +have the Germans; no other nation loves its forests as do they.") He +walks, and meditates, and sings in the forest, and nowadays goes to +the forest with his skis, his snow-shoes, and his sled. Our great +games are, many of them, personal conflicts, and attended by some +personal risk, and demanding both discipline in preparing for them and +severe discipline in the playing. Our love of the aleatory, of betting +our belongings, our powers, our persons even, against life, is not +commonly alive in Germany. The Germans are only just emerging into +safety and confidence in themselves, and beginning cautiously to agree +with us that + +"He either fears his fate too much, + Or his deserts are small, +That dares not put it to the touch + To gain or lose it all." + +From these sombre forests came a race who still find it lonely to be +alone, and they herd together still for safety as of old, and have no +love of physical speculation. They are daring in thought and theory, +but cautious in physical and personal matters. An office stool +followed by a pension contents all too many men in Germany. + +"Reden, Handeln, Tun und Wandeln +Zeigt der Menschen Wesen nicht. +Was im Herzen sie im Stillen +Fest verschliessen, stumm verhuellen, +Ist ihr richtigs Angesicht." + +An overwhelming majority of Germans believe that this is man's real +portrait; an overwhelming majority of Americans would not even +understand it. + +The German army is the antidote to this lack of +physical discipline, this lack of strenuous physical life. The army +takes the place of our West, of our games, of our sports; just as it +takes the place of England's colonies and public schools and games and +sports. When looked at in this way, when its double duty is +recognized, the enormous cost of it is not so material. The expense of +the German army is not greater than our armies, plus what we spend for +games and sport and colonial adventure. + +Germany has 4,570 miles of frontier to guard, to begin with, and her +total area is 208,780 square miles, or an area one fourth less than +that of our State of Texas, with a population per square mile of +310.4. Of this population 1,000,000, roughly, are subjects of foreign +powers. Five hundred thousand are from Austria-Hungary, 100,000 each +from Finland and Russia, nearly 100,000 from Italy, some 17,000 +Americans, and so on. In 1900 the population speaking German numbered +51,000,000. + +This compact little country is the very heart of Europe, surrounded by +Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, +Denmark, and, across the North Sea, England. In the case of trouble in +Europe, Germany is the centre. Nothing can happen that does not +concern her, that must not indeed concern her vitally. She has fought at +one time or another in the last hundred years with Russia, Austria- +Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and +England, and the various German states among themselves; or her soldiers +have fought against their soldiers, whether or not the various countries +named were geographically and politically then what they are now. + +Russia's population in 1910 was 160,748,000, and including the Finnish +provinces, 163,778,800. Since 1897 the population of Russia has +increased at the annual rate of 2,732,000. The boundaries between +Russia and Germany are mere sand dunes, and by rail the Russian +outposts are only a few hours from Berlin. France is only across the +Rhine, and it is no secret that some months ago Great Britain had +worked out a plan by which she could put 150,000 troops on the +frontiers of Germany, at the service of France, in thirteen days. +Germany's ocean commerce must pass through the Straits of Dover, down +the English Channel, within striking distance of Plymouth, Portsmouth, +Dover, Brest, and Cherbourg. France, which has been looked upon as a +somewhat negligible quantity, has taken on a new lease of life. When +Napoleon died, in 1821, he left France swept clean of her fighting +men, whose bones were bleaching all the way from Madrid to Moscow. +France has recuperated and is almost another nation to-day from the +stand-point of virility. She far surpasses Germany in literature, art, +and science, and is taking her old place in the world. She led the way +in motor construction, in field-artillery, in aviation, and now she is +producing a champion middle-weight sparrer, and, marvel of marvels, +has actually beaten Scotland at foot-ball! She has always had brains, +and now her stability and virility are reviving. This has not passed +unnoticed in Germany. No wonder Germany looks upon her navy as +something more than a Winstonchurchillian luxury! + +One may understand at once from this situation, and from her past +history, that Germany has the sound good sense not to be influenced by +the latest school of sentimentalists, who pretend to believe that the +world is a polyglot Sunday-school, with converted millionaires as +teachers therein; or, if not that, a counting-house, where all +questions of honor, race, religion, love, pride, all the questions +which bubble their answers in our blood, are to be settled by weighing +their comparative cost in dollars. We do not realize how new is this +word sentimental. John Wesley, writing of this word "sentimental" as +used in Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," says: "Sentimental, what is +that? It is not English, it is not sense, it conveys no determinate +idea. Yet one fool makes many, and this nonsensical word (who would +believe it) is become a fashionable one." + +Germany has been taught by bitter experiences, and harsh masters, that +the ultimate power to command must rest with that authority which, if +necessary, can compel people to obey. They recognize, too, the mawkish +mental foolery of any plan of living together which ignores the part +which physical force must necessarily play in any political or social +life which is complete. They agree, too, as does every intelligent man +in Christendom, that the appeal to reason is far preferable to an +appeal to war. But, pray, what is to be done where there is no reason +to appeal to? Are reasonable men to strip themselves of all armor, and +suffer unreason to prevail? + +An army or a fleet is no more an incitement to war among reasonable +men, than a policeman is an incentive to burglary or homicide. An army +is not a contemptuous protest against Christianity; it is a sad +commentary on Christianity's failure and inefficiency. An army and a +fleet are merely a reasonable precaution which every nation must take, +while awaiting the conversion of mankind from the predatory to the +polite. + +As yet the Germans have not been overtaken by the tepid wave of +feminism, which for the moment is bathing the prosperity-softened +culture of America and England. It is a harsh remedy, but both America +and England would gain something of virility if they were shot over. +We are all apt enough to become womanish, agitated, or acidulous, +according to age and condition, when we are reaping in security the +fields cleared, enriched, and planted by a hardy ancestry of pioneers. +There were no self-conscious peace-makers; no worshippers of those two +epicene idols: a God too much man, and a man too much God; no devotees +of third-sexism, in the days of Waterloo and Gettysburg, when we had +men's tasks to occupy us. + +We are playing with our dolls just now, driving our coaches over the +roads, sailing our yachts in the waters, eating the fruits of the +fields that have been won for us by the sweat and blood of those gone +before. Germany has no leisure for that, no doll's house as yet to +play in, and she is perhaps more fortunate than she knows. + +One can understand, too, that Germany has little patience with the +confused thinking which maintains that military training only makes +soldiers and only incites to martial ambitions; when, on the contrary, +she sees every day that it makes youths better and stronger citizens, +and produces that self-respect, self-control, and cosmopolitan +sympathy which more than aught else lessen the chances of conflict. + +I can vouch for it that there are fewer personal jealousies, +bickerings, quarrels in the mess-room or below decks of a war-ship, or +in a soldiers' camp or barracks, than in many church and Sunday-school +assemblies, in many club smoking-rooms, in many ladies' sewing or +reading circles. Nothing does away more surely with quarrelsomeness +than the training of men to get on together comfortably, each giving +way a little in the narrow lanes of life, so that each may pass +without moral shoving. There are no such successful schools for the +teaching of this fundamental diplomacy as the sister services, the +army and the navy. + +My latest visit to Germany has converted me completely to the wisdom +of compulsory service. Nor am I merely an academic disciple. I have +had a course in it myself, and were it possible in America I should +give any boy of mine the benefit of the same training. In Germany, at +any rate, no student of the situation there would deny that, barring +Bismarck, the army has done more for the nation than any other one +factor that can be named. Soldiers and sailors train themselves, and +train others, first of all to self-control, not to war. It is a pity +that "compulsory service" has come to mean merely training to fight. In +Germany, at any rate, it means far more than that. Two generations of +Germans have been taught to take care of themselves physically without +drawing a sword. + +It is rather a puzzling commentary upon the growth of democracy, that +in America and in England, where most has been conceded to the +majority, there is least inclination on their part to accept the +necessary personal burden of keeping themselves fit, not necessarily +for war, but for peace, by accepting universal and compulsory +training. The only fair law would be one demanding that no one should +be admitted to look on at a game of cricket, foot-ball, or base-ball +who could not pass a mild examination in these games, or give proof of +an equivalent training. That would be honorable democracy in the realm +of sport. + +There formerly existed in Bavaria a supplementary tax on estates left +by persons who had not served in the active army. It was done away +with at the formation of the empire. There is a proposal now to vote +such an additional tax for all Germany, and a very fair tax it would +be. + +I am not discussing here the question of compulsory service in +England. It is not difficult to see that part of England's army must +of necessity be a professional army, which can be sent here and there +and everywhere, and that conscription would not answer the purpose, +for compulsory conscription could hardly demand of its recruits that +they should serve in India, in Canada, or in Bermuda or Egypt, for the +length of time necessary to make their service of value. Conscription, +too, on a scale to make an army serviceable against the trained troops +of the Continent is out of the question. Therefore, so far as +compulsory service for military duty only is concerned, I see no hope +for it in England. But in a land of free men such as is, or used to +be, England, and in America, compulsory service ought to be undertaken +with pride and with pleasure, as a moral, not as a military, duty for +the salvation of the country from internal foes, and as a nucleus +around which could rally the nation as a whole in case of attack from +external foes. Patriotism among us has come to a pretty pass indeed +when the nation is divided into two classes: those growling against +the taxation of their surplus; and those with their tongues hanging +out in anticipation of, and their hands clutching for, unearned doles. +And now, the more shame to us, must be added a third class who use +public office for private profit. What if we all turned to and gave +something without being forced to do so? Where would the "Yellow +peril" and the "German menace" be then? We should have much less +exciting and inciting talk and writing if our nerves and digestions +were in better order. Nothing calms the nerves, increases confidence, +and lessens the chance of promiscuous quarrelling better than hard +work. + +Even if what the German army has accomplished along these lines were +not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or +experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation, +when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies. +Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and +autocratic government, or she is lost. "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland." +She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her +safety as a nation. If Germany were governed as is France, where they +have had nine new governments since the beginning of the twentieth +century, and forty-four since the republic replaced the empire forty-one +years ago -- not counting six dismissals of the cabinet when the +prime minister remained -- or fifty changes of government in less than +that number of years, Germany would have lost her place on the map. +France remains only because, so far as defence is concerned, France is +France plus the British fleet. + +Political geography is the sufficient reason for Germany's army and +navy. Let us be fair in these judgments and admit at once, that if +Japan were where Mexico is, and Russia where Canada is, and Germany +separated from us by a few hours' steaming, certain peace-mongers +would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would +have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb +runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in +not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the +world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no +such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared +at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why +Germany offers little resistance to the ruling of an autocratic +militarism. The sailors and the stokers would rather obey captain and +officers, however they may have been chosen for them, than to be sunk +at sea; and nowadays Germany is ever on the high seas, battling hard +to protect and to increase her commerce abroad, and to protect her +huge industrial population at home. Germany can take no chances for +the moment, for only "Wer sich regiert, der ist mit Zufall fertig." + +One wishes often that one's lips were not sealed, one's pen not stayed +by the imperious demands of honor, to abstain from all mention of +discoveries or conversations made under the roof of hospitality, for +nothing could well be more enlightening than a description of a chat +between the great war-lord of Germany and a leading pacifist: the one +completely equipped with knowledge of the history, temper, and +temperament of his people; the other obsessed by a fantastic +exaggeration of the power and influence of money, even in the world of +culture and international politics, and preaching his panacea in the +land, of all others, where even now mere money has the least +influence, all honor to that land! + +Spinoza, the greatest of modern Jews, and the father of modern +philosophy, writes: "It is not enough to point out what ought to be; +we must also point out what can be, so that every one may receive his +due without depriving others of what is due to them." And in another +place: "Things should not be the subject of ridicule or complaint, but +should be understood." Those who know little of the history of the +development of Germany, and particularly of Prussia, cannot possibly +understand another reason for the political apathy of the Germans and +their pleased support of their army. It is this: they have been +trained in everything except self-government, in everything except +politics. Perhaps their governors know them better than we do. Their +progress has come from direction from above, not from assertion from +below. The art or arts of self-government, throughout their +development as a nation, have been forcibly omitted from their +curriculum. Every step in our national progress, on the contrary, has +been taken by the people, shoulder to shoulder, breaking their way up +and out into light and freedom. There is little or no trace of any +such movement of the people in Germany, and there is little taste for +it, and no experience to make such effort successful. We, who have +profited by the teaching of this political experience, do not realize +in the least how handicapped are the people who have not had it. + +One hundred years ago half the inhabitants of Prussia were practically +in the toils of serfdom. It was only by an edict of 1807, to take +effect in 1810, that personal serfdom with its consequences, +especially the oppressive obligation of menial service, was abolished +in the Prussian monarchy. Caste extended actually to land. All land +had a certain status, from which the owners and their retainers took +their political position and rights. The edict of 1807 was in reality +a land reform bill, and gave for the first time free trade in land in +Prussia. It was vom Stein, a Bismarck born too soon, who induced +Frederick William II, King of Prussia, and grandson of the Great +Elector, to abolish serfdom, to open the civil service to all classes, +and to concede certain municipal rights to the towns. But vom Stein +was dismissed from the service of his weak-kneed sovereign on the +ground that he was an enemy of France, and was obliged to take refuge +in Russia. Like other martyrs, his efforts watered the political earth +for a fruitful harvest. + +It is well to know where we are in the world's culture and striving +when we speak of other nations. What were we doing, what was the rest +of the world doing, in those days when the Hanoverian peasant's son, +Scharnhorst, and Clausewitz were about to lay the foundations of this +German army, now the most perfect machine of its kind in the world? +These were the days prepared for by Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin +Franklin, Voltaire, Rousseau; by Pitt and Louis XV, and George III; +the days of near memories of Wolfe, Montcalm, and Clive; days when +Hogarth was caricaturing London; days when the petticoats of the +Pompadour swept both India and Canada into the possession of England. +These names and the atmosphere they produce, show by comparison how +rough a fellow was this Prussia of only a hundred years ago. He had +not come into the circle of the polite or of the political world. He +was tumbling about, un-licked, untaught, inexperienced, already +forgetful of the training of the greatest school-master of the +previous century, Frederick the Great, who had made a man of him. + +We were already politicians to a man in those days, and the Englishman +Pitt was map-maker, by special warrant, to all Europe. + +When the Prussians were serfs politically, our House of +Representatives, in 1796, debated whether to insert in their reply to +the President's speech the remark that "this nation is the freest and +most enlightened in the world." It is true that this was at the time +when Europe was producing Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Hegel, +Fichte, Mozart, Haydn, Herschel, and about ready to introduce Walter +Scott, Wordsworth, Shelley, Heine, Balzac, Beethoven, and Cuvier; when +Turner was painting, Watt building the steam-engine, Napoleon in +command of the French armies, and Nelson of the British fleet; but +this bombastic babble of ours harmed nobody then, and only serves to +show what a number of intellectual serfs must have been members of +that particular House of Representatives. + +We have not overcome this habit of slapdash comparative criticism, for +only the other day a distinguished American inventor left Berlin with +these words as his final message: "We have nothing to learn from +Germany." But in the nineteenth century, where does the American of +sober intelligence, if Lincoln be omitted, find a match for Bismarck +as a statesman, Heine as a wit and song-writer, Wagner, Brahms, and +Beethoven as musicians, Goethe as a man of letters and poet, the still +living influence of Lessing and Winckelmann as critics, Fichte as a +scholarly patriot, Hegel and Kant as philosophers, von Humboldt, +Liebig, Helmholtz, Bunsen, and Haeckel as scientists, Moltke and Roon +as soldiers, Ranke and Mommsen as historians, Auerbach, Spielhagen, +Sudermann, Freytag, "Fritz" Reuter, and Hauptmann as novelists and +dramatists, Krupp and Borsig as manufacturers, and the Rothschilds as +bankers? Lincoln, Lee, Sherman, Jackson, and Grant may equal these men +in their own departments, but aside from them our only superiority, and +a very questionable superiority it is, lies in our trust-and-tariff- +incubated millionaires. Let us try to see straight, if only that we may +learn and profit by the superiority of others. + +These explanations that I have given, historical, political, external, +and internal, offer reasons worth pondering both why we do not +understand Germany's huge armament and why Germany looks upon it as a +necessity. + +However much the expenditure on fleet and army may be disguised, the +burden is colossal. In the year 1878 the net expenditure, ordinary and +extraordinary, for purposes of defence, for army and navy and all +other military purposes whatsoever including pensions, amounted to +452,000,000 marks; in 1888, to 660,000,000 marks; in 1898, to +882,000,000 marks; and in 1908, to 1,481,000,000 marks. + +The total expenses, net, of the empire in 1908 were 1,735,000,000 +marks, showing that only 254,000,000 marks out of the grand total of +1,735,000,000 were spent for other than military purposes. As the army +and navy now stand at a peace strength of some 700,000 men, and as +these men are all in the prime of their working power, the loss in +wages and in productive work may be put very conservatively at +600,000,000 marks, which brings the cost of the support of the +military establishment of Germany up to 2,000,000,000 marks and more +per annum, or $500,000,000. + +Many Americans were dismayed when our total national expenditure +reached the $1,000,000,000 point, and the Congress voting this +expenditure was nicknamed the "Billion-dollar Congress." What would we +say of an expenditure of half a billion dollars for defence alone! +With what admiration, too, must we regard 65,000,000 people, living in +an area one quarter smaller than Texas, on a by-no-means rich or +fertile soil, who can bear cheerfully the burden, each year, of half +our total national expenditure, merely on the military and naval +barricade which enables them to toil in peace and security. + +Humanity has, indeed, made but a poor zigzag progress from the +gorilla; Christianity, just now engaged in blessing the rival banners +of warriors setting out for one another's throats, has failed +ignominiously to bring the wolf in man to baptism, when the central +state of Christian Europe must arm to the teeth one in every eighteen +of her adult male inhabitants, and spend half a billion dollars a +year, to protect herself from assault and plunder. + +If the hairy, skin-clad cave-dwellers, or the man who left us the +Neanderthal skull, could have a look at us now, here in Berlin, in +many ways the centre of the most enlightened people in the world, they +would undoubtedly go mad trying to understand what we mean by the word +''progress.'' And yet we smile indulgently at the poor farmers in +Afghanistan who till their fields with a rifle slung across their +shoulders. What is Germany doing but that! And an enormously heavy +rifle it is, costing just seven times as much as all other national +expenditures together; in short, it costs seven marks of soldier to +protect every one mark of plough. I admit frankly the horror and the +absurdity of all this; but as an argument for disarmament, "it does +not lie," as the lawyers phrase it. It is a criticism, and an +unanswerable one, of our failure as human beings to enthrone reason +and to tame our passions; but it is a veritable call to arms to +protect ourselves, not a reason for not doing so. Let the +international gluttons overeat themselves till they are seriously ill; +but it would be madness to starve ourselves in the meantime, and yet +that is the grotesque logic of certain of our preachers of +disarmament. + +At the moment of writing there are 1,000,000 men at each other's +throats in the Balkans, there is a revolution in Mexico, and incipient +anarchy in Central America; as an emollient to this, Great Britain is +about to present a bust of the late King Edward to the Peace Palace at +the Hague! I can imagine myself saying "Pretty pussy, nice pussy," to +the wild-cats I have shot in Nebraska and Dakota, but I should not be +here if I had; and however small my value to the world I live in, I +estimate it as worth at least a ton of wild-cats. + +I am bound, however, in fairness to call the attention of the unwary +dabbler in statistics to a point of grave importance in dealing with +German finances. The German Empire, so far as expenditure and income +are concerned, is merely an office, a clearing-house so to speak, for +the states which together make up the empire. The expenses of the +empire, for example, in 1910 were $757,900,000 and of the army and +navy, including extraordinary expenditures, $314,919,325; this does +not include pensions, clerical expenses, interest, sinking-fund, and +loss of productive labor, as did the figures on a preceding page. To +the ignorant or to the malicious, who quote these figures to bolster +up a socialist or pacifist preachment, this looks as though Germany +had spent one half of her grand total on the army and navy. But this +is quite wrong. In addition to the expenditures of this imperial +clearing-house called the German Empire, there was spent by the states +$1,467,325,000: the so-called clearinghouse bearing the whole burden +of expenses for army and navy, the separate states nothing except the +per capita tax, called the matriculation tax, of some 80 pfennigs. To +make this matter still more clear, as it is a constant source of error +not only to the foreigner but to the Germans themselves, the income of +the empire for 1910 was $757,900,000, the income of all the states +$1,463,150,000, or of the empire and the states combined +$2,221,050,000. In the same way the debt of the empire in 1910 stood +at $1,224,150,000, and the debt of the states of the empire at +$3,856,325,000, or a grand total outstanding indebtedness of all +Germany of $5,080,475,000. + +Of late years the imperial expenditure of Great Britain, for example, +has amounted to some $935,000,000 a year; but various local bodies +spend also some $900,000,000 a year. Some of this is cross-spending, +but the grand total amounts to some $1,500,000,000 a year. + +Before writing or speaking of Germany it is well to know at least what +Germany is. To pick up a hand-book and to quote therefrom the figures +relating to the German Empire, as though these covered Germany, as is +often done, is as accurate and helpful to the inquirer, as though one +should take the figures of the New York clearing-house as accurate +descriptions of the total and detailed business of all the New York +banks and trust companies. A clearing-house is merely a piece of +machinery for the adjustment of differences between a host of debtors +and creditors. The comparative cost of the German army and navy can +only be figured properly against the income and expenditure of the +total wealth of all Germany. And all Germany is something more than +the German Empire, which in certain respects is only a book-keeper, an +adjuster of differences. + +"Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland? +Ist's Preussenland? Ist's Schwabenland? +Ist's wo am Rhein die Rebe blueht? +Ist's wo am Belt die Moeve zieht? +O nein! O nein! O nein! +Sein Vaterland muss groesser sein. + +"Des ganze Deutschland soil es sein! +O Gott vom Himmel, sieh' darein, +Und gib uns rechten deutschen Muth; +Dass wir es lieben treu und gut! +Des soil es sein! des soil es sein! +Des ganze Deutschland soll es sein!" + +The official title of the sovereign is not Emperor of Germany, or +Emperor of the Germans, but German Emperor. Thus the territorial +rights of other heads of states are safeguarded. Even the popularity +of the first Emperor, who wished to be named Emperor of Germany and +who disputed with Bismarck for hours over the question, could not +bring this about, and he was proclaimed at Versailles merely German +Emperor. + +However heavy the burden of armament may be, we must be careful to put +such expenditure in its proper perspective and in its proper +relations, not only to the German Empire, which for official, +clerical, and statistical matters is quite a different entity, but to +"das ganze Deutschland." The German Empire is the clearinghouse, the +adjutant, the executive officer, the official clerk, the +representative in many social, financial, military, and diplomatic +capacities of Germany; but it is not, and never for a moment should be +confused with, what all Germans love, and what it has cost them blood +and tears and great sacrifices to bring into the circle of the +nations, the German Fatherland! + +In 1910 the total funded debt of the empire amounted to 4,896,600,000 +marks, and the debt in 1912 had risen to 5,396,887,801 marks. In the +six years ending March, 1911, Germany's debt increased by +$415,000,000. + +In 1910 the funded debt of Germany (empire and states) was +$4,896,600,000; of France $6,905,000,000; of England $3,894,500,000, +and of Russia $4,880,750,000. It is a curious psychical and social +phenomenon that, though we are as suspicious as criminals of one +another's good faith in keeping the peace, we are veritable angels of +innocence in trusting one another financially, for back of these huge +debts we keep in ready money, that is, gold, to pay them: Germany at +the present writing $275,000,000 in the Reichsbank; France +$640,000,000 in the Bank of France; England a paltry $175,000,000 in +the Bank of England; and Russia $625,000,000 in the Bank of Russia. We +all live upon credit, an elastic moral tie which seems to be +illimitably stretchable, and both a nation's and an individual's +wealth is measured not by what he has, but by what he is, that is to +say, by his character or credit. It is startling to find how we +distrust one another along certain lines and how we trust one another +along others. The total amount of gold in these four countries would +just about pay the interest at four per cent. for two years on their +total indebtedness! + +From what we have seen of the proportion of expenditure that goes to +military purposes, it cannot be denied that Germany is increasing her +liabilities at an extraordinary rate, and largely for purposes of +protection. In the last two years the interest on her increased debt +alone, at four per cent., amounts to $5,000,000; while the interest at +four per cent. upon military expenditures of all kinds amounts to the +tidy sum of $20,000,000 per annum. The German, however, faces these +facts and figures, not as a matter of choice, not as a matter of +insurance wholly, but as a hard necessity. It is what the delayed +conversion of the world is costing him, not to speak of what it costs +the rest of us. He is surrounded by enemies; he is not by nature a +fighting man; his whole industrial and commercial progress and his +amassed wealth have come from training, training, training; and he +sees no alternative, and I am bound to say that I see none either, but +a nation trained also to defence, cost what it may. + +The last German estimates (1912) balance with a revenue and +expenditure of $671,222,605. The naval expenditure is put at +$114,306,575; the army expenditure is put at $192,627,080. Both the +army and navy are being largely increased. In the year 1916 the +strength of the navy is expected to be about 79,000 men, and of the +army and navy combined 767,000. In the last ten years two nations have +almost doubled their naval personnel: Germany has increased hers from +31,157 to 60,805, and Austria-Hungary from 9,069 to 17,277. In Great +Britain the increase has been about one seventh, and this one seventh +is about equal to the present strength of Austria. + +The gross naval expenditure, estimated, of the United States for 1912 +amounts to $132,848,030, and the number of men 63,468. The gross naval +expenditure of Great Britain, estimated, for the same year is put at +$224,410,235, and the number of men 134,000. The gross naval +expenditure of Germany is put at $114,306,575, which includes $489,235 +for air-ships and experiments therewith, the number of men 66,783. +France proposes to spend, plus an addition due to operations in +Morocco, $90,000,000, number of men 58,404; and Japan $44,309,145, +number of men 49,389. Two new corps have been voted for the German +army, to be numbered 24 and 25; one is for the Russian frontier, with +head-quarters at Allenstein, and the other for the French frontier, +with head-quarters at Sarrebourg or Mulhouse. A German army corps on a +war footing comprises about 52,000 men, with 150 guns and 16,000 +horses. The reader should notice, as a reminder of the still latent +jealousies of the different states of the German Empire, that the +three army corps raised in Bavaria are not numbered consecutively, +twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three, but one, two, and three! + +To the American the pay of the German troops, officers and men, is +ludicrously small. It is evident that men do not undertake to fit +themselves to be officers, and to struggle through frequent and severe +examinations to remain officers, for the pay they receive. A +lieutenant receives for the first three years $300 a year, from the +fourth to the sixth year $425, from the seventh to the ninth year +$495, from the tenth to the twelfth year $550, and after the twelfth +year $600 a year. A captain receives from the first to the fourth year +$850, from the fifth to the eighth year $1,150, and the ninth year and +after $1,275 a year. Of one hundred officers who join, only an average +of eight ever attain to the command of a regiment. In Bavaria and +Wuertemberg, promotion is quicker by from one to three years than in +Prussia. In Prussia promotion to Oberleutnant averages 10 years, to +captain or Rittmeister 15 years, to major 25 years, to colonel 33 +years, and to general 37 years. It would not be altogether inhuman if +these gentlemen occasionally drank a toast to war and pestilence! + +A commanding general, or general inspector of cavalry or field +artillery, receives $3,495; a division commander, or inspector of +cavalry, field and heavy artillery, $3,388; a brigade commander, +$2,565; commander of a regiment, or officer of the general staff of +the same rank, $2,193. There are various additions to these sums for +travelling, keep of horses, house-rent, and the like. All soldiers and +officers travel at reduced rates on the railways, and are allowed a +certain amount of luggage free. It is a commentary upon the three +nations, that in Germany the soldier receives a reduced rate when +travelling, in England the golfer pays a reduced rate, and in America, +until lately, the politicians were given free passes. One could almost +produce the three countries from that limited knowledge. + +At the cadet school at Gross Lichterfelde there are a thousand pupils. +They are taught riding, swimming, dancing, French, English, +mathematics, and of course receive technical military instruction. The +fee is $200, but for the sons of officers, and according to their +means, the fees are reduced to $112, $75, and even as low as $22, and +in some deserving cases no fee at all is charged. + +There is no professional army in Germany, as in England and in +America. Every German who is physically fit must serve practically +from the age of seventeen to forty-five. Those in the infantry serve +two years; those in the cavalry and horse artillery and mounted +rifles, three years. About forty-eight per cent. who are examined are +rejected as unfit, not necessarily because they are incapable of +service, but because the expense of training all is too great. These +men receive 40 pfennigs a day, 27 pfennigs being deducted for their +food. + +There are some 40,000 men who join the army voluntarily for a term of +two or three years, and who re-enlist and become non-commissioned +officers, and if they remain twelve years they are entitled to $200 on +leaving the service, and head the lists of candidates for the railway, +postal, police, street-cleaning, and other civil services. Some 10,000 +men who have passed a certain examination serve only one year and are +entitled to certain privileges. + +Each man in the infantry serves 2 years in the active army, 5 years in +the active reserve, 5 years in the first division of the Landwehr, 6 +years in the second division of the Landwehr, and 6 years in the +Landsturm. Colonel Gaedke calculates that Germany has now under arms +not less than 714,000 soldiers and sailors, and that 4,800,000 can be +put into the field if wanted out of the 6,000,000 who have done +service with the colors. Out of this enormous total, practically none, +according to the last census, is illiterate. Our American census of +1910 gives the number of men of militia age in New England as +1,458,900, and in the whole country 20,473,684. + +Promotion from the ranks, as we understand it, is practically unknown. +The German officers pass through the ranks, it is true, as part of +their education at the beginning of their military career, but those +who do so join in the beginning as candidates for commissions, and +have been provisionally accepted by the commander and officers of the +regiment they propose to join, as must every candidate for a +commission in the German army. If the candidate is not wanted, it is +hinted to him that this is the case, and he must go elsewhere, as this +decision is final. Every German regiment's officers' mess is thus in +some sort a club. + +Officers are supplied from the cadet corps, and from those who join +the ranks as candidates for commissions. All cadets must pass through +a war-school before obtaining a commission. Of these there are 10 in +Prussia, Wuertemberg, and Saxony, and 1 at Munich in Bavaria. They +there receive their commissions as second lieutenants. There are 9 +Prussian schools, the Hauptkadettenanstalt at Gross Lichterfelde, and +8 Kadetten-Haeuser; and 1 at Dresden and 1 at Munich. Some of these I +have visited, and been made at home with the greatest courtesy and +hospitality. These German cadet schools are to a great extent +charitable institutions for the sons of officers and civilian +officials. The charges range, as I have indicated above, from $200 a +year to nothing at all. + +There are in addition schools of musketry, a school for instruction in +machine-gun practice, instruction in infantry battalion practice, a +school of military gymnastics, of military equitation, officers' +riding-schools, a military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where +officers may study the technical engineering and communication +services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery +school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a +cavalry telegraph school, and the staff colleges. + +Of technical military matters I know nothing. I have some experience +in handling horses in harness and under saddle, and on subjects with +which I am familiar I venture to pass judgments in the class-room. I +have visited many of these class-rooms, and listened to the teaching +and lectures in French, English, strategy, and political geography, +and kindred topics, and if the rest of the instruction is on a par +with what I heard there is no criticism to be made. I may not say +where, but one of the instructors in French was a real pleasure to +listen to. + +The courses and examinations which lead up, in the Kriegesakademie, or +staff college, to the grade of fitness for the general staff, or the +technical division of the general staff, or administrative staff work, +or employment as instructors, are of the very stiffest. An officer who +succeeds in reaching such proficiency, that he is sent up to the +general staff must be a very blue ribbon of a scholar in his own +field. + +The quarters, the food, the training, are Spartan indeed at the cadet +schools, but how valuable that is, is shown in the faces, manners, +physique, and general bearing of the picked youths one sees at the +Kriegesakademie in Berlin. No one after seeing these fellows would +deny for a moment the value of a sound, hard discipline. The same may +be seen at our own West Point, where the transformation of many a +country bumpkin, into an officer and a gentleman, in four years is +almost unbelievable. + +The truth is that most of us suffer from lack of discipline, and the +intelligent men of every nation will one day insist that, if the state +is to meddle in insurance and other matters, it must logically, and +for its own salvation, demand compulsory service; not necessarily for +war, but for social and economic peace within its own boundaries. It +is a political absurdity that you may tax individuals to provide +against accident and sickness to themselves, but that you may not tax +individuals by compulsory service to provide against accident and +sickness to the state. There can be nothing but ultimate confusion +where the state pays a man if he is ill, pays him if he is hurt, pays +him when he is old, and yet does not force him to keep well, and thus +avoid accident and a pauper's old age by obliging him to submit to two +or three years' sound physical training. Whether the training is done +with a gun or without it matters little. Most men of our breed like to +know how to kill things, so that a gun would probably be an +inducement. + +The more one knows of the severe demands upon the officers of the +German army and of their small pay, the more one realizes that if they +are not angels there must be some further explanation of their +willingness to undertake the profession. First of all, the Emperor is +a soldier and wears at all times the soldier's uniform. Further, he +gives from his private purse a small allowance monthly to the poorer +officers of the guard regiments. A German officer receives +consideration on all sides, whether it be in a shop, a railway-carriage, +a drawing-room, or at court. + +To a certain extent his uniform is a dowry; he expects and often gets +a good marriage portion in return for his shoulder-straps and brass +buttons; and in every case it gives him a recognized social position, +in a country where the social lines are drawn far more strictly than +in any other country outside of Austria and India. This constant +wearing of the sword is no new thing. Tacitus, who would have been an +uncompromising advocate of compulsory service had he lived in our +time, writes: "A German transacts no business, public or private, +without being completely armed. The right of carrying arms is assumed +by no person whatever till the state has declared him duly qualified." +It is the recognized occupation of the nobility, and, in very many +families, a tradition. In the army of Saxony, on January 1, 1911, out +of every hundred officers of the war ministry, of the general +commands, and of the higher staff, 44.33 per cent. were noblemen; of +the officers of the infantry, 26.19 were noblemen; of the cavalry, +60.92 were noblemen; and of the officers of the entire army, all arms, +24.98 were noblemen. + +It is worth chronicling in this connection, for the benefit of those +who wish a real insight into German social life, that few people +discriminate between the old nobility, or men who take their titles +from the possession of land and their descendants, and the new and +morbidly disliked nobility, who have bought or gained their patents of +nobility, as is done often enough in England, by profuse contributions +to charity or to semi-political and cultural undertakings favored by +the court, or by direct contributions to party funds, by valuable +services rendered, or by mere length of service. This new nobility, +anxious about their status, satisfied to have arrived, jealous of +rivals, are the dead weight which ties Germany fast to bureaucratic +government and to a policy of no change. They represent, even in +educated Germany, a complacent mediocrity; indignant at rebuke, +indifferent to progress, heedless of experience, impatient of +criticism, haters of haste, and jealous of superiority. Even Bismarck, +the creator of this bureaucracy, lamented the insolence and bad +manners of the state servants. + +The essential and ever-present quality of the real aristocrat and of a +real aristocracy is, of course, courage. It may dislike change, but it +is not afraid of it. The real gentleman, of course, does not care +whether he is a gentleman or not. The characteristic of an artificial, +tailor-made aristocracy is timidity and a shrinking from change. This +new nobility, created because it is carefully charitable, or +serviceable, or long in office, is not only in possession of the civil +service, but occupies high posts in the army and navy. While not +minimizing its value, it is everywhere maintained in Germany that it +acts as a bulwark against progress. They are a nobility of office-holders, +and they partake of the qualities and characteristics of the +office-holder everywhere. They sometimes forget the country in the +office; while the older nobility, which made Germany, despises the +office except as an instrument or weapon to be used for the welfare of +the country. The political pessimism in Germany to-day is caused by, +and comes from, this army of the new nobility. + +Americans and English both write of Germany, and speak of it, as being +in the grip of a small group of aristocrats. Not at all; it is in the +shaky and self-conscious control of men whose patents of nobility were +given them with their office, a titled bureaucracy, in short. Let us +prove this statement by running through the list of the chief officers +of the state. Of the officials of the German Empire: the chancellor's +grandfather, Bethmann-Hollweg, was a professor, and afterward minister +of education; the secretary of state's father was plain Herr +Kiderlein-Waechter; the under-secretary of state is Herr Zimmermann; +the secretary of the interior is Herr Delbrueck; of finance, Herr +Wermuth; of justice, Herr Lisco; of the navy, von Tirpitz, who was +recently ennobled; the postmaster is Herr Kraetke. Not one of these +officials of the empire is of the old nobility! + +Of the 11 ministers of the kingdom of Prussia, the minister for +agriculture, von Schorlemer; for war, von Heeringen; for education, +von Trott zu Solz; and for the interior, von Dallwitz, are of the old +nobility; but the other 7 ministers are not. Of the 12 +Oberpraesidenten, men who rule the provinces, 6 are noblemen; of the 37 +Regierungspraesidenten, 14 are of the nobility, 23 are not. This should +dispose finally of the frequently heard assertion that Germany and +Prussia are ruled by a small group of the landed nobility and that +there is no way open to the talents. It is fair to say that a very +small and intimate court group do have a certain influence in naming +the candidates for these posts, but they are too wily to keep these +positions for themselves. + +I suppose we all like, in a childish way, to wear placards of our +prowess in the form of orders and decorations, but the evening attire +of this bureaucratic nobility often looks as though there had been a +ceramic eruption, a sort of measles of decorations. Men's breasts are +covered with medals, stars, porcelain plaques, and their necks are +hung with ribbons with a dangling medallion, all distributed from the +patriarchal imperial Christmas-tree for every conceivable service from +cleaning the streets to preaching properly on the imperial yacht. Men +collect them as they would stamps or butterflies, and some of them +must be very expert. + +The officers and the officials who are recognized as giving their +services as a family tradition, as a patriotic service, or out of +sheer love of the profession of arms, are rather liked than disliked, +and give a tone and set a standard for all the rest. Both these +officers and their men are respected. Of no German soldier could it be +written: + +"I went into a theatre as sober as could be, +They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; +They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, +But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the + stalls." + +On the contrary, every effort is made to keep the army pleased with +itself and proud of itself. The chancellor of the empire is always +given military rank; officers are not allowed to marry unless they +have, or acquire by marriage, a suitable income; the dignity of the +officer is upheld and his pride catered to; officers are made to feel +that they are the darlings of the Fatherland by everybody from the +Emperor down. + +This artificial stimulant goes far to keep them contented, and the +fact that the scale of comfortable living in Germany was twenty years +ago far below, and is even now not equal to, that of the equivalent +classes with us makes the task easier. They have not been taught to +want the things we want, and are still satisfied with less. And back +of and behind it all is the feeling among the leaders, that the army +furnishes no small amount of the patriotic cement necessary to hold +Germany together. Ulysses lashed himself to the mast as he passed the +sirens of luxury and leisure, and for the German Ulysses the army +supplies the cords. It is not the foreign student of German life alone +who notices that the Germans, even now, seem to be tribal rather than +national. The best friends of Germany in Germany also recognize this +weakness, comment upon it, and favor every possible expedient to +overcome it. + +I admit frankly my admiration for this Spartan three quarters of a +million of soldiers and sailors, and their officers. It offers a +splendid example of patriotism, of disregard for the weakening +comforts, luxuries, and fussy pleasures that absorb too much of our +vitality; and of disdain for the material successes, which in their +selfish rivalry, breed the very industrial distresses which are now +our problems. At least here is a large professional body whose aims, +whose way of living, and whose earnings prove that there can be a +social hierarchy not dependent upon money. It is one of the finest +lessons Germany has to teach, and long may she teach it. + +That is distinctly the side of the army that I know and approve +without reserve. Of its value as a fighting force it would be +ridiculous, in my case, to write. I have read and heard scores of +criticisms and comments from many sources, and they range from those +who claim that the German army is unbeatable, even if attacked from +all sides, to those who maintain that it is already stale and +mechanical. + +The war of 1866, when Prussia represented Germany, lasted thirty-five +days; the war against Denmark lasted six months and twelve days; the +war against France lasted six months and nine days. Thirty-six German +cavalry regiments did not lose a man during the whole campaign of +1870-1871; and the Sixth Army Corps was hardly under fire. There has +been no long, practical, and therefore decisive test of the army. Of +the transport and commissary services during the French war, when +Germany toward the end of it had 630,000 men in the field, certainly +we, with the deplorable mismanagement and scandal of our Spanish war, +and the British with the investigations after the Egyptian campaign +fresh in memory, have nothing to say, except that it was wholly +admirable and beyond the breath of suspicion of greed, thievery, or +political chicanery. There was no rotten leather, and no poisoned +beef. + +Officers, too, in the French war, were called upon to do their duty +and to obey, and no individual brilliancy which interfered with the +general plan was condoned or pardoned, no matter how highly placed the +relatives or how influential the connections of the offender. A +distinguished general, after a successful and heroic victory, who had +been tempted into a bloody battle against orders, was called before +his superiors, told that the first lesson the soldier had to learn was +obedience, and sent home! A brother of the chief of staff went into +the war a captain and came back a captain! + +I am wondering what our underpaid, unnoticed regulars in the army and +navy would have to say, were they free to speak, of the conduct of our +last martial escapade with Spain, by our press and by our politicians. +There would be no stories of the German kind, I am sure, and no single +record of an influential civilian who did not get all the glory that +he deserved. My impulsive countrymen are always manufacturing heroes +and saviors, but fortunately the crosses upon which they crucify them +are erected almost as fast as the crowns are nicely fitted and +comfortable, so that there is little danger of permanent tyranny. What +Richelieu said of the French applies to some extent to ourselves: "Le +propre du caractere francais c'est que, ne se tenant pas fermement au +bien, il ne s'attache non plus longtemps au mal." + +During and after the Franco-German war there was no cheap heroism, no +feminine excitability producing litters of heroes; no slobbering, +osculatory advertising; no press undertaking the duties of a general +staff, which in our Spanish war almost completely clouded the real +heroism and patriotism that were in evidence. There were no newspaper-made +heroes, hastening back to exchange cheap military glory for votes +and delicious notoriety. For all of which, gentlemen, let us thank +God, and give praise where it is due. + +The army, too, is an interesting commentary upon the changes that are +so rapidly taking place in Germany, from an agricultural to a +manufacturing nation. Of every 100 recruits that presented themselves +there were passed as fit, in 1902, for the First Army Corps, of those +from the country 72.76; of those from the towns 63.88; in 1910 these +figures had fallen to 67.24 and 53.66. In the Second Army Corps the +recruits passed as fit, from the towns, had fallen from 60.74 in 1902 +to 50.42 in 1910. In the Fifth Army Corps, of recruits from the towns +the percentage of those passed fell from 60.07 to 46.13. In the Sixth +Army Corps the percentage fell from 50.14 to 43.83. In the Sixteenth +Army Corps from 67.50 to 58.80. In the Eighteenth Army Corps the +recruits from the towns passed as fit had fallen from 60.46 in 1902 to +46.58 in 1910. The average for the whole empire, of those from the +towns passed as fit, had fallen from 53.52 in 1902 to 47.87 in 1910. +The First Army Corps has its head-quarters at Koenigsberg, and recruits +from that neighborhood; the Second Army Corps has its head-quarters at +Stettin, and recruits from Pomerania; the Fifth Army Corps has its +headquarters at Posen, and recruits from Posen and Lower Silesia; the +Sixth Army Corps has its head-quarters at Breslau, and recruits from +Silesia; the Sixteenth Army Corps has its headquarters at Metz, and +recruits from Lorraine; the Eighteenth Army Corps has its head-quarters +at Frankfurt-am-Main, and recruits from that neighborhood. +These figures are enough to make my point, without giving the +statistics for all the twenty-three corps, which is, that in spite of +the precautions taken, the German recruit, especially from the towns, +in whatever part of the country, is losing vigor and stamina. + +Even this hard-and-fast arrangement of a bureaucratic government with +a military backbone does not solve all the problems. When one sees, +however, the German school-boy, and the German recruit during the +first weeks of his training, in the barracks and out, and I have +watched thousands of them, and then looks over this same material +after two or three years of training, it is hard to believe that they +are the same, and that even these hard-working officers have been able +to bring about such a change. + +Of the charges of brutality and severity I only know what the +statistics tell me, that in an army of over 600,000 men there were +some 500 cases brought to the notice of the superior officers last +year. In 1911 there were 12,919 convictions for crimes and +misdemeanors and 578 desertions. Of the 32,711 common soldiers in the +Saxon army in 1911, 30 committed suicide; in 1909, 29; in 1905, 24; in +1901, 36; that is to say, roughly, one man per thousand. Of the why +and wherefore I cannot say, but Saxony is a peculiarly overpopulated +section of Germany, and the population is overdriven; and the German +everywhere is a dreamy creature compared with us, of less toughness of +fibre either morally or physically, and no doubt, here and there, +under-exercising and over-thinking make the world seem to be a mad +place and impossible to live in. Indeed, it is no place to live in for +the best of us if we take it, or ourselves, too seriously. The German +army is an educated army, as is no other army in the world, and there +are the diseases peculiar to education to combat. A mediocre ability +to think, and a limited intellectual experience, coupled with a +craving for miscellaneous reading, breed new microbes almost as fast +as science discovers remedies for the old ones. + +Bismarck's words, "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland," meant to him, and +mean to-day, far more than that the army is necessary for defence. It +is the best all-round democratic university in the world; it is a +necessary antidote for the physical lethargy of the German race; it is +essential to discipline; it is a cement for holding Germany together; +it gives a much-worried and many-times-beaten people confidence; the +poverty of the great bulk of its officers keeps the level of social +expenditure on a sensible scale; it offers a brilliant example, in a +material age, of men scorning ease for the service of their country; +it keeps the peace in Europe; and until there is a second coming, of a +Christ of pity, and patience, and peace, it is as good a substitute +for that far-off divine event as puzzled man has to offer. + +It is silly and superficial to look upon the German army only as a +menace, only as a cloud of provocations in glittering uniforms, only +as a helmeted frown with a turned-up moustache. It is not, and I make +no such claim for it, an army or an officers' corps of Puritans or of +self-sacrificing saints, but it does partake of the dreamy, idealistic +German nature, as does every other institution in Germany. Though, as +a whole, it is a fighting machine, the various parts of it are not +imbued with that spirit alone. The uneasy pessimism of the dreamer, +which distrusts the comfortable solutions of the business-like +politicians, and leaders, in their own and in other countries, is as +noticeable in the army as in all other departments of German life. + +"And all through life I see a cross, +Where sons of God yield up their breath; +There is no gain except by loss, +There is no life except by death, +There is no vision but by faith; +Nor glory but by bearing shame, +Nor justice but by taking blame." + +There have been many, and there are still, soldiers who hold that +creed. There are not a few of them in Germany. + + + +IX GERMAN PROBLEMS + + +A great nation like Germany must have characteristics, anxieties, +problems, and responsibilities, some of which are peculiar to itself. +The individual must be of small importance who has not problems and +burdens of his own arising from his environment, position, work, and +his personal relations with other men; as well as problems of temper, +temperament, health, education, and traditions peculiar to himself. + +Wise men recognize two things about every other man: that he has his +own problems, and that no one else thoroughly understands either +another man's handicaps or his advantages; and that the only way to +judge him is not to go behind the returns, but to note how he lives +with these same problems. They are there, there is no doubt about +that; the question is, does he smile or scowl? does he work away +toward a solution, or allow himself to be swamped by them? do they +dominate him, or he them? has he that sun of life, vitality, +sufficient to burn away the fog, or does he live and die in a moist, +semi-impenetrable fog, in which he flounders timidly and rather +aimlessly about, always rather discouraged, rather in the dark, and +lamentably damp in person and in spirits? The only fair test of a +man's life is his living of it, and the same is true of a nation. + +Of Germany's history, traditions, and temperament I have written. No +one can fail to note the chief characteristics: their gregariousness, +their melancholic and subjective way of looking at life, their passion +for music. It is more what they think, than what they do or see, that +gives them pleasure. They agree with Erasmus, that "it is a foolish +error to believe that happiness is dependent upon things; it is +dependent entirely upon one's opinion of them." The indefinite has no +terrors for them, they delight indeed in the indefinable. They have +done little in great sculpture and architecture, or the founding and +ruling of colonies, as compared with their supreme achievements in +music, in philosophy, in lyric poetry. + +The art of music, which moves one greatly toward nothing in +particular; which supplies sounds but not a language for the mysteries +of feeling; which easily carries a sensitive soul away from its +sorrows or drowns it in tears, and all without offering a semblance of +a practical solution; which orchestrates a greater fury, a more +poignant jealousy, a sweeter note of bird, a harsher clang of weapons, +than any human energy can even imagine to exist; this art with which +marching soldiers sing away their fatigue, but not really; with which +disconsolate lovers wing their hopes, but not really; with which the +pious pipe themselves to heaven, but not really; with which, by +strings and beaten skins, organ-pipes and blowing brass, an +anaesthesia of ecstasy is produced, leaving one only the weaker +against the dourness and doggedness of the devil; with which men and +women hymn themselves home to God, only to lose Him when they leave +the threshold of His house; which choruses from a thousand throats +patriotism, defiance, self-confidence, but arms none of them with any +useful weapon; which with drums and brass can send any lout to heroism +without his knowing why; this art which burns up the manhood of its +devotees -- who ever heard of a great tenor who was a great man, or +even of a great musician for more than half of whose life one must +needs not apologize? -- this art flourishes in Germany not without +reason, and not for nothing. + +In a ragged school in the neighborhood of Posen where the children +could hardly speak German they could sing; in a public school in +Charlottenburg fifty boys, aged between eight and fifteen, sang the +part-song known to every college man in America, "On a Bank Two Roses +Grew," as well as a college glee club; those who know Bayreuth, or +have attended a musical festival, or listened to one of the great +clubs of male voices, or heard the orchestras and military bands, will +not deny the delights of music in Germany. In Berlin there is not a +hall suitable for a musical recital that is not engaged a year, +sometimes more, in advance. + +In the beautiful Golden Hall of the castle of the Grand Duke of +Mecklenburg-Schwerin, at Schwerin, I have attended a concert given by +the Grand Duke's own orchestra, where the selections were all +compositions of former leaders or members of the orchestra, dating +back over a period of two hundred years. For centuries in this +particular grand duchy music and the theatre, supported and guided by +the sovereign, have offered a school of entertainment and instruction +to the people. At this present writing, special trains are run to +Schwerin from the surrounding country districts, and the people for +miles around subscribe for their seats for the whole winter, and +attend the theatre and certain concerts as regularly as children go to +school. It sounds oddly to the ears of an American to hear criticism +to the effect, that there are more high-class music and more classical +plays than the people have either time or money for. Here is a +population which is actually overindulging in culture. We complain of +too little; here they complain of too much. It makes one wonder +whether any of the problems of social life are satisfactorily soluble; +whether indeed it be not true that even the virtues carried to an +extreme do not become vices. Philanthropy in more than one city in +America is spending time, money, and energy to bring about this very +enthusiasm for music and the more intellectual arts which, it is +maintained, here in Schwerin at least, has gone too far. + +These problems are not so easy of solution as the ignorant and the +inexperienced think. Imagine the inhabitants of Hoboken, New Jersey; +of Lynn, Massachusetts; of Kalamazoo, Michigan; of Bloody Gulch, +Idaho, spending too much time and money listening to the music of +Palestrina and Bach, or to the plays of Shakespeare; and yet what +money and energy would not be spent by certain enthusiasts for the +arts did they think such a result possible! And, after all, it might +prove not a blessing, but a danger. + +Whenever or wherever you are in the company of Germans you notice +their pleasure and their keen interest in the subjective, rather than +in the objective side of life. It is from within out that they are +stirred, not as we are, by outside things working upon us. They are +still the dreaming, drinking, singing, impulsive Germans of Tacitus. +Titus Livius, Plutarch, and Machiavelli, all maintained that the +successive invasions of the Germans into Italy were for the sake of +the wine to be found there. Plutarch writes that "the Gauls were +introduced to the Italian wine by a Tuscan named Arron, and so excited +were they by the desire for more that, taking their wives and children +with them, they journeyed across the Alps to conquer the land of such +good vintages, looking upon other countries as sterile and savage by +comparison. Even if this be not history, it is an impression; and at +any rate, from that day to this the Germans have agreed with the +dictum of Aulus Gellius: "Prandium autem abstemium, in quo nihil vini +potatur, canium dicitur: quoniam canis vino caret." When the Roman +historian first came into contact with them he notes, that their bread +was lighter than other bread, because "they use the foam from their +beer as yeast." + +Tacitus writes of them: "The Germans abound with rude strains of +verse, the reciters of which, in the language of the country, are +called 'Bards.'" + +I visited a private stable in Bavaria, as well ordered and as well +kept as any private stable in America or in England, and the head +coachman was a reader of poetry; and though he had received numerous +offers of higher wages in the city, declined them, giving as one +reason that the view from the window of his room could not be equalled +elsewhere! Where can one find a stable-man in our country who reads +Shelley or Edgar Allan Poe, or who ever heard of William James and +Pragmatism? I may be doing an injustice to the stable-men of Boston, +but I doubt it. + +There are scores of pages of notes to my hand, recounting similar if +not such startling examples of the German temperament among high and +low. Musical, melancholic, gregarious, subjective, these are their +true characteristics, but the superficial among us do not see these +things because they are hidden behind the great army, the new navy and +mercantile marine, the factories, the increased commercial values, the +strenuous agricultural and industrial pushing ahead of the last thirty +years. But they are there, they represent the German temperament, they +are the internal character of Germania, always to be taken into +account in judging her, or in wondering why she does this or that, or +why she does it in this or that way. + +"As imagination bodies forth +The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen +Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing +A local habitation and a name." + +This is what the purely subjective mind is ever doing, and when it is +carried too far it is insanity. The individual no longer sees things +as they are, but he sees others and himself in strange, horrible, or +ludicrous shapes. + +Barring Japan, I suppose Germany yields more easily +to the temptation of the subjective malady of suicide than any other +country. In Saxony, for example, the rate was lately 39.2 per 100,000 +of the population, in England and Wales 7.5. During the five years +ending with 1908 there were for every 100 suicides among males in the +United States 136 in Germany, and for every 100 suicides of females +125 in Germany. In Vienna, and for racial purposes this is Germany, +1,558 persons killed themselves in 1912. Children committing suicide +because they have failed in their examinations is not uncommon in +Germany; in America and in England the teachers are more likely to +succumb than the children. We do not commit suicide in America from +any sense of shame at our intellectual shortcomings -- what a +decimating of the population there would be if we did! -- it is more +apt to be caused by ill health consequent upon a straining chase for +dollars. In Prussia during the five years, 1902-1907, divorce +increased from 17.7 to 20.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, and suicide from +20 to 30.7. + +If the observer does not take this difference of temperament into +account, he does not realize how new and strange it is to find Germany +these days, making its first and strongest impression upon the +outsider by its industrial progress. The more intelligent men in +Germany are beginning to see the dangers to real progress in such +feverish devotion to industry, and to recognize that the life of the +population is absorbed too largely by science, finance, and commerce. +To see so much of the intelligence of the nation exercising itself in +material researches, to see such undue fervor in calculations of self- +interest, does not leave an enlivening impression. Such an ideal of +life is paltry in itself and involves grave dangers in the future. It +is a long stride in the wrong direction since Hegel wrote of Germany +as "the guardian of the sacred fire of intellect." + +Out of this temperament has grown the self-consciousness, the uneasy +vanity, the "touchiness" which has made Germany of late years the +despair of the diplomats all over the world. She has become a +chameleon-like menace to peace everywhere in the world. What she +wants, what will offend her dignity, when she will feel hurt, what +amount of consideration will suffice, when she will change color to +match a changed situation, and in what color she will choose to hide +her plans or to make manifest her demands, no man knows. She will not +see things as they are, but always as an exhalation from her own mind. +As one of her own poets has written: "Deutschland ist Hamlet." + +At this present moment she does not see either England or America as +they are, quite peaceably disposed toward her but she sees them, and +persists in seeing them, as they would be were Germany in their place. +She is forever looking into a mirror instead of through the open +window. "The mailed fist," "the rattling of the sabre," "the friend in +shining armor," "querelle allemande," are all phrases born in Germany +in the last thirty years. + +She even sees herself a little out of focus, and though I admit her +precarious position in the heart of Europe, she exaggerates the +necessity for her autocratic military government to meet the +situation. That philosophical and literary radical Lord Morley, now +wearing a coronet, in the land where logic is a foundling and +compromise a darling, writes: "A weak government throws power to +something which usurps the name of public opinion, and public opinion +as expressed by the ventriloquists of the newspapers is at once more +capricious and more vociferous than it ever was." This, strange to +say, is exactly the opinion of the German autocrats, who maintain that +no democracy can be a strong military power. It remains for England, +and perhaps later America, to prove her wrong. + +The sovereign lady +Germania, being of this temper and disposition, of this psychological +make-up, let us look at her dealings with certain embarrassing +problems in her own household. The over-stimulation of ill-regulated +mental activity as the result of regimental education is one of the +minor problems. Some fourteen million dollars worth of cheap and nasty +literature is peddled by the agents of certain publishing houses, and +sold all over Germany to those recently taught to read but not trained +to think; and this, it is to be remembered, is still a land of low +wages, of strict economies, and of small expenditures on books. For +Germany that is an enormous sum and represents a very wide-spread +evil. I recognize that it is not only in Germany, but in France, +England, and America, that the ethically hysterical have assumed that +modesty and health and common-sense are characteristics of the +intellectually mediocre. That the neglect of all, and the breaking of +some, of the Ten Commandments is essential to the creation of art or +literature, or necessary to a courageous freedom of living, is a +contention with which I agree less and less the more I know of art, +literature, and life. But, as I have remarked elsewhere in this +volume, the Strindbergs and Wildes and Gorkis are having their day in +Germany just now, and beneath this again is this large distribution of +the lawless and sooty literature, frankly intended as a debauch for +the gutter-snipe and his consort. Even the coarse, and in no line +squeamish, Rabelais wrote that, "Science sans conscience n'est que +ruine de l'ame." + +There is but a puny barrier against this, for the statistical year-book +of German cities gives the number of public libraries in forty-two +cities as 179. Twenty-seven of these cities gave an annual support +to 114 of these libraries of only $64,847! According to the figures of +Herr Ernest Schultze, in 1907 the forty largest German cities, with a +population of 11,380,000, had public libraries containing a sum total +of 807,000 volumes. In the year 1906-1907, 5,437,000 volumes were +taken out and 1,607,476 persons frequented the public reading-rooms, +and in these forty-two cities $280,095 were contributed from private +sources for such library purposes. In 1910 Germany had in some 400 +cities, each of more than 10,000 inhabitants, about 650 public +libraries and reading-rooms, with together about 3,250,000 volumes. + +Berlin has thirty public libraries with 231,300 volumes; the number of +books taken out in 1910 was 1,655,000. Hamburg has one public library +with 100,000 volumes, of which 1,364,000 were taken out. Breslau has 7 +libraries and 4 reading-rooms, with 75,578 volumes. Leipzig has 7 +libraries and 3 reading-rooms, with 42,100 volumes. Munich has 6 +libraries and 26,671 volumes. Cologne has 7 libraries and 6 reading- +rooms, with 24,898 volumes. + +The smallest library is in the village +community of Dudweiler, in the Rhine province, which contains 132 +volumes for the 22,000 inhabitants. + +There were 14,941 books published +in Germany in 1880, 18,875 in 1890, 24,792 in 1900, and 31,281 in +1910. + +There were 13,470 books published in America in 1910, 9,209 of +them by American authors. + +There were 10,914 books published in England in 1911, of which 2,384 +were new editions. Of this number 2,215, which includes 933 new +editions and 40 translations, were fiction; religion, 930; sociology, +725; science, 650; geography, 601; biography, 476; history, 429; +technology, 525. In 1820, there were only 26 novels published in +England. + +Of the 31,281 books published in Germany in 1910, 4,852 dealt with +education and juvenile literature; 4,134, belles-lettres; 3,215, law +and political economy; 2,510, theology; 2,082, commerce and industry; +1,981, medicine; 1,884, philology and literary history; 1,480, +geography, including maps; 667, military science and equestry; 1,030, +agriculture and forestry; 1,750, natural science and mathematics; +1,108, engineering and construction; 1,254, history and biography; +981, art; and 668 on philosophy and theosophy. + +There were some 9,000 writers of books in America in 1910, or one +author in 10,000 of the population, already more than enough; there +were some 8,000 in Great Britain, or one author in about 5,500 of the +population; while in Germany there are over 31,000 writers, or one +author in every 2,097 of the population, including men, women, and +children of all ages, an unreasonable and disastrous proportion. If we +estimate the number of adult males of Germany at 14,000,000, the +number who voted at the last election, then there was one author to +every 450, a most unhealthy proportion, and bearing out exactly what +has been said of the German temperament and constitutional bias. +Furthermore, this accounts for the fact that Germany imports some +700,000 agricultural laborers each year to garner the food harvests, +for which she has not sufficient recruits, and who, by the way, take +out of the country each year some $35,000,000 in wages. Twenty per +cent. of the miners in Westphalia are foreigners, eight per cent. of +them Italians, and there are nearly half a million foreigners employed +as common laborers in the various industries of Germany. + +Wherever one travels now in the world, he finds that most courageous +and self-sacrificing of all the pioneers, the missionary: American, +British, French, Italian. The best of them, on the plains of North +America, in the destructive climate of India, in China, in all the +islands of all the seas, are, whatever their creed, soldiers of whom +we are all proud; for they fight not only against the overwhelming +prejudice of those whom they seek to save, but against the widespread +prejudice of their own people, and against the well-founded suspicion +and contempt aroused by their own black sheep. I have found them, here +a Jesuit, there a Presbyterian, winning my friendship and my +admiration, despite fundamental differences of belief about many +things. There are few Germans among them! Even in this field Germany +produces theological controversialists whom we have all studied, +orthodox and destructive, but few pioneers, and practically no +Augustines or Loyolas, Wesleys or Booths, Livingstones or Stanleys. +Columba, an Irish refugee, founded on the island of Iona, off the west +coast of Scotland, a mission station, whence went missionaries and +preachers to the conversion not only of England, but of the tribes of +Germany. It was only in the sixth century that the Franks, only in the +ninth century that the Saxons, and only in the tenth century that the +Danes became Christians. + +Neither at home nor abroad are her successes +those which deal with men by winning their allegiance, their +submission, their loyalty, or their respectful regard. She is pre-eminent +in the things of the mind, in subjective matters, and in her +regimental dealings with, and arrangements for, the inanimate side of +life. + +As an example on the credit side of her governing is the very +complete and successful system of land-banks, introduced by Frederick +the Great and since modelled somewhat upon the French methods, which +have protected the farmer from usury, insured him money at low rates +for improvements, for the purchase of tools, cattle, and fertilizers, +and enabled him to do, by sensible co-operation, what would have been +impossible for him as an individual. So successful has been this +co-operation between the banks and the united farming communities that it +were well worth a chapter of description were it not that, through the +initiative of President Taft and the able and industrious assistance +of our officials in Europe, among whom our ambassador in Paris, Mr. +Herrick, may be mentioned as untiring, there will shortly appear a +complete exposition and explanation of the scheme, available for those +of my countrymen interested in the matter. Or if they will journey to +Ireland they may see there what Sir Horace Plunkett has done to +revolutionize, and against tremendous odds, agriculture. And, be it +noted, it has been done, with emphatic warnings against the modern +fallacy of leaning upon state aid. It is estimated that our farmers +would be saved between $20,000,000 and $40,000,000 a year in interest +alone were we to adopt similar methods of loaning to the land-owners. +The Preussische Centralgenossenschaftskasse, or Central Bank of +Co-operative Associations, has revolutionized, one may here use the word +without exaggeration, agricultural methods, throughout Prussia and +Germany. + +In Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa there are 5,000,000 acres of land in +wheat, which is practically the size of Germany's wheat acreage, but +Germany produces 140,000,000 bushels of wheat off her parcel of land; +while the wheat raised on the same area in these three States is only +55,000,000 bushels. + +France and Minnesota each plant 16,000,000 acres in wheat, but France +produces 324,000,000 bushels and Minnesota 188,000,000 bushels. In +round numbers we support 90,000,000 people on 3,000,000 square miles +of land, and we could support 150 per square mile just as easily as +30, and even then there would be not even a fraction of the density of +population of Denmark, 178; the Netherlands, 470; France, 189; Saxony, +830; England and Wales, 405.6. The average wheat yield of our country +is about 14 bushels per acre in good years, it might just as well be +25; the average cotton yield is about four-tenths of a bale per acre, +and four times that amount could be raised as easily. + +In 1900, 10,500,000 people were engaged in agriculture in America, or +35.7 per cent. of the population; as over against 37.7 in 1890 and +44.3 in 1880. Of these 10,500,000, 5,700,000 were owners, renters, or +overseers, or 56 per cent., and only 4,500,000 were actual farm +laborers; and more than half of these, or 2,350,000, were members of +the family, leaving only some 2,000,000 actual agricultural wage-earners, +or employable agricultural laborers. Five-eighths of these +were under twenty-five years of age, and of the white regular workers +only one-tenth were over thirty-five years of age. This shows how +unstable is the foundation of our agricultural prosperity, the chief +asset of plenty and contentment of our country. Mr. Get-Rich-Quick has +moved on to the shifting and more exciting opportunities of the +cities, where poor human nature, aided and abetted by weak +philanthropy, and demagogic fishing for votes by eleemosynary +legislation, provides him with a mild form of riotous living, and a +fatted calf of doles in case of accident, sickness, penury, or old +age. + +In our American cities of over 8,000 inhabitants the increase in +population from 1790 to 1900 has been from 3.4 per cent. to 33 per +cent. In cities of 2,500 and over the increase from 1880 to 1900 has +been from 29.3 per cent. to 40.2 per cent. In the State of New York +the farming population is smaller than ever before, and in parts of +New England it is smaller than one hundred years ago. In 1909 there +were 15,000 deserted farms with a total of 1,130,000 acres. The +average size of farms in the United States in 1850 was 212 acres; in +1890, 121 acres. Wages in the reaping season on fruit, grain, and +cotton farms are enormous, running to four and five dollars a day. We +are behind every country in Europe except Russia, in our agricultural +methods. Some day the American people will discover, may it not be too +late, that the tall talk and highfalutin boastings of the politicians +and alien journalists in their midst do nothing to make two blades of +grass grow where one grew before. + +Germany may not have solved this problem, indeed no nation which +offers undue legislative alleviation for human frailty will ever solve +it, but at least she has not shirked the problem, and presents for our +enlightenment a scheme in full and smooth working order. + +In dealing with German problems it is fair to give examples where her +methods have been wholly and entirely successful. The man who does not +know one tree or shrub from another cannot travel in trains, motor-cars, +or afoot without remarking the neatness, symmetry, and the +flourishing condition of the forests. In these matters Germany so far +surpasses us that we may be said to be merely in a kindergarten stage +of development. As early as 1783 a German traveller, Johann David +Schoepf, was distressed to see the waste of valuable wood in America. +He tells of a furnace in New Jersey which exhausted a forest of nearly +20,000 acres in twelve to fifteen years, and goes on to prophesy the +grave danger to America unless coal is discovered and used instead of +wood. + +The public forests in America contain about nine per cent. of +the total land area and about twenty-five per cent. of the forest area +of the country. In Germany the state owns about 40 per cent. of the +forests, and nearly 70 per cent. of the forest area is under state +control. The total forest area of the empire is 34,569,800 acres, and +two-thirds bear pine, larch, and red and white fir. In a recent year +the Federal States made a net profit of $38,250,000 from public lands +and forests, and the entire profit from the German forests was +estimated at $110,000,000. When one remembers that Germany is less +than the size of Texas, and that from her forests alone, in one year, +she received an income equal to more than one-tenth of our total +national expenditure for that same year, the fact of our childish +wastefulness is brought home to us, and makes a patriot feel that a +Gifford Pinchot should be given a free hand. I can only write of the +subject as one technically entirely ignorant, but that Germany is a +university of forestry is not only attested by the demand for her +teachers in India, and in America, and elsewhere in the world, but by +the condition of the forests themselves all over Germany, which no +traveller, from America at any rate, can fail to notice without +surprise and delight. + +Germany, like the rest of us, has been obliged +to face the various social problems that arise from original sin, but +which vote-getters are pleased to ascribe to industrial progress. In +our country, with a population of some thirty to the square mile, +while in the kingdom of Saxony the density of the population is 830.6 +to the square mile, it is hard to believe that we suffer from +overcrowding so much as from overindulgence, wastefulness, and fussy +legislation. None the less, we have 42 institutions for the feeble-minded, +115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, 350 hospitals +for the insane, 1,200 refuge houses, 1,300 prisons, 1,500 hospitals, +and 2,500 almshouses. We have 2,000,000 annually who are cared for in +homes and hospitals, 300,000 insane and feeble-minded, 160,000 blind +or deaf, 80,000 prisoners, and 100,000 paupers in almshouses and out, +and we spend each year about $100,000,000 in taking care of them. We +are as wasteful and careless in these matters as we have been until +very lately in our forestry methods. + +In the early days of the empire Germany undertook to deal with these +social problems. The German Empire took over some of the principles of +socialism, but retained, and retains absolutely, the power of applying +those principles. Bismarck himself admitted that his advocacy of the +industrial insurance laws was selfish. "My idea was to bribe the +working classes, or shall I say to win them over, to regard the state +as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in +their welfare." Whatever else may have resulted, discontent, whether +well-founded or not, is not now under discussion, has not been +lessened. In 1912 more than one-half of the electors voted +"discontented" as over against the less than one-half who voted +"contented." The mass of the people may be better clothed, better fed, +better housed, better cared for in sickness and in old age, than +formerly, but they are not satisfied. No state can go much further +than Germany has gone along the lines of state interference, guidance, +and control of the personal affairs of its people, and nothing is more +surprising about the whole matter than the general acceptance in +America and in England of such legislation as having proved altogether +successful. I doubt if any intelligent German considers these various +pension schemes as altogether successful. I can vouch for it that many +German statesmen make no such claims in private, whatever they may say +in public. + +Some of the barren figures, needing no comment, are of +interest in this connection. The cost of insurance in Germany has +risen to over $500,000 a day, the total cost of state insurance +exceeding $250,000,000 a year at the present time, a fairly heavy tax +upon small employers. In 1909, of 422,076 decisions by the industrial +unions, 76,352 were appealed against, and of the 100,000 arbitration +judgments, 22,794 were appealed against. So difficult is it to settle +to the claimant's satisfaction the amount of salve necessary for his +particular wound when, as is true in these cases, the salve is a grant +of money for a longer or shorter period! + +In 1886 there were, roughly, +100,000 accidents reported and 10,000 compensated, but as they became +more thoroughly acquainted with the game, the figures rose in 1908 to +662,321 accidents and 142,965 compensations. + +The vast increase of the +claims for trifling injuries is shown by the fact that in twenty years +from 1888 to 1908, despite the increase of the total compensation from +$1,475,000 to $38,715,000, the average compensation per accident fell +from $58.50 to $38.83. In the two years 1907 to 1909 the number of +members of those state-insured increased by 380,819, while the days of +sickness increased by 26,219,632! The cost of sickness insurance alone +rose from $42,895,000 in 1900 to $83,640,000 in 1909. The Workmen's +Compensation Act in England costs, for management, commission, legal +and medical fees, $20,000,000 a year, while the compensation paid out +was $13,500,000. The insurance companies calculate that for every $500 +of compensation, the employers have paid $750! + +It is becoming increasingly evident that the logical result of state +charity, or call it state insurance to avoid controversy, over a large +field, and including millions of beneficiaries and claimants, is that +the army of officials, the expenses of administration, and the +payments themselves must sooner or later break the back of the state +morally, politically, and financially. It rapidly increases parasitism +among the receivers; makes a powerful though indifferent army of state +servants of the distributers; and loses financially to the state far +more in expense of administration, and loss of useful labor of the +army of civil servants, than it gains by the loss to the state of +individual incapacity resulting in pauperism and invalidism, which +must be cared for. To put it briefly, it is far more dangerous to the +state to tell the individual that he shall be taken care of than to +tell him that he must shift for himself. As for the effect upon the +individual, it is a lowering medicine, making the patient gradually +dependent upon the drug, and bringing him finally to the incurable +invalidism of surly apathy. To change Patrick Henry's fiery peroration +slightly: Give me liberty or in the end you give me moral and +political death. + +Students of the various forms of this modern +political nostrum, of getting rid of the fools who are rich by +deceiving the fools who are poor, will remember the decree of the +Provisional Government of the French Republic in 1848: "This +Government undertakes to guarantee the existence of the workman by +work. It undertakes to guarantee work to every citizen." On March 9 +public works were started and 3,000 men employed. March 15 saw 14,000 +on the pay-rolls, most of them unoccupied because there was no +suitable work. Those not working received "inactivity pay" of a franc +a day. The end of April saw 100,000 on the pay-rolls. In May a +minister ventured to suggest that it was the workman's duty to work! +There were murmurs of disapproval, but the public treasury was nearing +bankruptcy, and on June 22 an order was promulgated, that all of these +workmen between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five were to enlist +in the army. An insurrection followed this order that workmen should +work, and 3,000 citizens were shot down in the streets, and another +3,000 were sent to penal colonies in Algeria. The French are a logical +people. The state promised suitable work; that always means, from the +point of view of the worker, agreeable work, and not too fatiguing at +that. Of course, no such thing is possible, and the end was riot, +murder, and penal servitude. The state can no more provide suitable +and agreeable methods of livelihood for its citizens, than it can +provide them with a duty-loving, unenvious, and honest disposition. As +I have remarked elsewhere, the only thing that stands between state +socialism and the instant solution of all our social problems is human +nature! This mongrel demand for an artificial equality, is worse, +because more degrading than any tyranny of church or state even. Every +man wants superiority and distinction for himself, he only wants +equality, invisibility, and inarticulateness for others. + +When some +such system as this is put to work in Ireland, I shall envy every +physician in Ireland, for he will live in a joyous round of farces +such as the world has never provided before for the lovers of the +humorous. Already Ireland, with only 701,620 electors, out of a total +of 8,058,025 in the United Kingdom, is represented in the House of +Commons by 103 members out of the total of 670; and out of the 935,000 +old-age pensioners on the lists at the beginning of 1912, Ireland had +202,810, and was drawing $12,943,000 out of the total paid of +$59,445,500, while the total population of Ireland was 4,368,599, and +of the rest of the United Kingdom 40,533,557! Further, as an example +of the slight value of education in the game of politics, out of the +41,710 illiterate voters in the United Kingdom, Ireland has 22,515. +Long life to Ireland for her gallant attack upon humbuggery with +humbuggery! And this is, too, the little island that sent the +Wellesleys, the Pallisers, the Moores, the Eyres, the Cootes, the +Napiers, the Wolseleys, and Roberts to fight England's battles, and +half the officers and privates who conquered India; which in the Seven +Years' War furnished Austria with her best generals (Brown, Lacy, +O'Donnell), and whose exiles, called the "Wild Geese," flocked to the +standard of Washington in 1776. This is proof positive that they are +not naturally a parasitic race. + +Even in Germany, where there is not a +tithe of the impish humour that exists in Ireland, the Socialists have +so misused the immense bureaucracy that must carry on the mere +clerical work of insurance, that a new law passed the Reichstag in +June, 1911, containing several hundred amendments. Employers must now +pay one-half instead of one-third of the sickness insurance premiums, +which gives them one-half instead of one-third of the management +authority. + +The management had degenerated into a mere game of politics, with the +Socialists in such disproportionate control that they were rapidly +turning the insurance machinery into a well-organized body for the +exploitation of their own political doctrines; and the employer and +the state were helpless. It is, therefore, amusing to the man on the +spot to find certain English writers offering as proof of the success +of the insurance laws the fact that the Socialists, who once opposed, +are now satisfied with them. Of course they are satisfied with them. +They have had a war-chest and weapons put into their hands such as +they have never had before. Nor have these detailed parchment +solutions of social questions done away with all the tramps, poor, +sick, and destitute. Over a million persons passed through the +municipal night shelters in Berlin during the last year; and there are +still admittedly some 5,000 tramps in Germany. The vicious circle is +in evidence in Germany as elsewhere. It might be possible to regulate +men's earning power by legislation, but even when this colossal task +is done, there must follow the regulation of the spending power to +make it complete. What conceivable legislative regulation can efface +the difference between what A, B, and C will get out of five dollars +once they have them! That is the real problem, but no one proposes a +solution of it. A will use his five dollars to make him more powerful, +B will use his in dissipation, and C will lose his. How is that to be +regulated? And without that regulation you will have rich men and +tramps all over again. + +In urban and rural districts containing over 10,000 inhabitants, some +$40,000,000 was expended for sick and poor relief, and this does not +include the hundreds of districts with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants +for which there are no figures. Even the wholly admirable Elberfeld +system of charity, known all over the world to charity-workers, which +is, briefly, investigation of cases by voluntary workers personally +and privately, and each dealing with a small number, has not solved +the problem. There were 1,537 strikes in Germany in 1909, and 2,109 in +1910. In 1910, 8,269 industrial plants were affected, in which 372,119 +persons were employed, and 2,209 plants were obliged to shut down +entirely. There were as many as 154,093 persons on strike at the same +time. In 1910 there were also 1,121 lock-outs, affecting 10,381 plants +and 314,988 persons. + +Here again, as in the case of the temperament of the German people, +one must look deeper than the average traveller has the time or the +necessary experience back of him to do, in order to see and to sift +the facts. Scores of travellers have told me: "I have never seen a +tramp, a beggar, a drunken man in Germany." I can only reply that I +have seen tramps at large, and colonies of them besides; that I have +seen hundreds of the poverty-stricken and diseased; that there are +more than thirty drunkards' homes in Germany; and that between 1879 +and 1901 the number of persons under treatment for alcoholism had +increased from 12,000 to 65,000, an increase of 500 per cent.; the +cases of heart disease and rheumatism increased by 600 per cent.; +while the total population had increased 33 per cent. There are +125,000 patients admitted to the public and private lunatic asylums of +Germany, and there are accommodations in public and private hospitals +for 1,300,000 in-patients passing through them in the year; in 1909, +544,183 persons were tried before the courts of first instance and +convicted, of whom 49,697 were between twelve and eighteen years of +age; and in the same year there were 183,700 illegitimate births and +14,225 suicides, or 22.3 per 100,000 of the population. The poor law +authorities state that the cost to the empire of alcoholism in all its +forms of poverty, crime, and disease amounts to some $13,000,000 a +year. In 1910 Germany consumed 1,704 million gallons of malt liquors, +the United States, 1,851 million gallons; of beer we consumed 20.09 +gallons and Germany 26.47 gallons per capita. Germany's drink bill +even ten years ago was $560,000,000 for beer, $140,000,000 for +spirits, and $125,000,000 for wine. There is a wine, beer, or spirit +dealer in Berlin for every 157 of the inhabitants, men, women, and +children. It has always been the avowed policy of autocracies to atone +for the lack of political freedom by lax regulations in regard to +moral matters. The citizen is imprisoned for insulting the state, but +he may insult his own person by dissipation up to any limit, this side +of disorderliness in public. Drinking, gambling, and other forms of +vice are provided for the citizens of Berlin comfortably and, +comparatively speaking, cheaply. Lotteries are sanctioned by all the +states, and they use this incentive to the worst form of gambling for +all sorts of purposes, from repairing churches to building patriotic +monuments, and replenishing the treasury. + +This is by no means an attack upon Germany or upon German methods in +these matters; probably both in America and in England we are worse +off in these respects than are they, but unprejudiced people will +agree that it is high time to learn that not even German methods have +solved these complicated and heatedly argued questions of social +reform. Germany, due to its compactness and well-drilled and +subservient population, should succeed if any nation can, for social +legislation has never been in stronger or wiser hands or more +admirably and honestly administered. In America such opportunities +offered to the on-politics-living big and little bosses would lead +swiftly to anarchy. We have laws enough now, but the baser politicians +protect our city tramps, our gunmen, our decadents, our incendiaries +against our elected magistrates, in order that they may keep ready to +hand, and increase, the raw material of a purchasable vote, by the +domination and protection of which they keep themselves in power. That +is the whole secret of our municipal misgovernment wherever it exists, +and also the reason for our barbarous crimes. We have a cowed +magistracy seeking re-election from the manipulators of the +purchasable voters. + +The truth is that the Sacculina method of social reform is nowhere a +success, certainly not in Germany. The Sacculina is a crustacean. It +attaches itself in the form of a simple sac to the crab, into which +its blood-vessels extend. It loses its power of locomotion and its +limbs disappear. It lives at the expense of the crab; activity is not +necessary, and it becomes the highest type of parasite, with no organs +except ovaries and blood-vessels. It can propagate, but has lost all +power or desire to do anything else. We have succeeded in producing no +small number of people of the Sacculina type by playing social and +political crab for them, and we are on the way to produce more, until +the crab is exhausted and the Sacculina is shaken into the water to +sink or swim for himself. "Charity causes half the suffering she +relieves, but she can never relieve half the suffering she causes." + +Compulsory insurance was tried in the practical and economical Swiss +city of Basle and given up, because it was found that each year it was +the same small class who reaped the benefit of the insurance. The crab +gained nothing and the Sacculina became rapidly impotent. Basle, if I +mistake not, will have imitators, inclined to the philosophy of +Frederick the Great, who was surely no enemy to rational progress, but +who once said: "Depuis bien longtemps je suis convaincu qu'un mal qui +reste vaut mieux qu'un bien qui change." + +A good deal of modern legislation is due to fatigue, and some of the +rest to ill-founded apprehension, that unless there is a change of +some kind the masters of the legislators will discharge them, because +they do not furnish enough novelties. In the meantime nobody is bold +enough to proclaim to the restless ones, seeking ever some new thing, +that there is nothing original except what has been forgotten. The +originality of such students of history, and panderers to majorities, +as the leaders of the discontented in England, Germany and in America, +dates back to about the time of the fall of Pericles and the Athenian +republic. + +The cry of "discontent" has become a fetich among unthinking +politicians. We are all, thank God, discontented, and a poor lot we +should be if we were not. The workingman's discontent has been +over-emphasized, for the reason that what he demands is material, +ponderable, for sale, easy to see, and not far out of the reach of +one's hand. He wants more rooms, more meat, more tobacco, more beer, +more leisure. I am glad he does want them, and let me say just once, +in answer to my detractors along these lines, that the workingman has +no heartier champion than am I. I applaud his discontent just as I +cherish my own, for "it is precisely this that keeps us all alive!" It +is just because I wish him well that every ounce of my influence and +experience are his, to open his eyes to the demagogues who fatten upon +him, fool him, rope him, throw him and brand him, as they have done in +Germany, as they are attempting to do in England, and as they will +shortly begin to do in America. State socialism means slavery for him, +with an army of officials living on him. He will be given so much +bread, and beer, and meat, and tobacco; so much music, theatre, and +literature; and there will grow up an army whose business it will be +to keep him in order, and to cut him down if he revolts, as was done +by the police in one of the suburbs of Berlin not long ago. The German +workman is already so entangled in the ropes of insurance, so harried +by petty officials, so branded by the police, and he has permitted to +increase such a host of guardians, that revolt or revolution is +practically impossible. Counting the army, navy, and officials, there +are said to be three million officials, great and small in Germany; +and there are fourteen million electors, or, roughly, one policeman to +every five adults. And those three million policemen, armed with +lethal and legal weapons, are inflexibly and unalterably for no +change. Does the workingman ever stop to think that those officials +draw salaries amounting to something like $1,200,000,000 a year, and +is he still fool enough to think that he does not pay those salaries +to these slave-drivers! I have said that the population is well fed, +well clothed, and well looked after. Of course they are. No slave-owner +so maltreats his slaves that they cannot work for him! But is +man fed by bread alone, even in the sugared form of music and +theatricals? + +If the socialist Pygmalion ever succeeds in bringing his statue to +life, how she will scorn him, hate his suffocating environment, wish +for the wealth and softness he cannot give, desert him, begging to +return to her marble tomb again. + +Long life to discontent, say I; but +is the workingman such a fool that his eyes are not opened when a man +of Bismarck's way of thinking, when an autocrat like the Emperor have +favored state socialism! Does he not see that socialism is the neatest +hangman of them all to strangle his discontent! Does he not see the +demagogue gradually assuming the features and the powers of the +tyrant! Tyranny is not alone the prerogative of an aristocracy. "It is +the place of a court to make its servants insignificant. If the people +should fall into the same humor, and should choose their servants on +the same principles of mere obsequiousness and flexibility, and total +vacancy and indifference of opinion in all public matters, then no +party of the state will be sound, and it will be vain to think of +saving it." Thus writes Burke, the champion of our American revolt +against his own country. The electors, now so flattered by the smooth +phrases of their tyrants disguised as liberators, will one day be +aghast to find themselves in a veritable house of correction paid for +from their own savings. They will have learnt then, at last, that you +cannot get rid of the fools who are rich by deceiving the fools who +are poor; and corporalism will be found to be a harsher, fussier, a +more meddlesome and a more indifferent tyrant than even feudalism. + +Even at the Krupp works at Essen, and the various branches elsewhere, +where there is the most elaborate combination of Lady Bountiful and +successful business anywhere in the world, men are not satisfied. If +they are not contented there, then nowhere in this world will the +workingman be contented. The Krupp business employs some 70,000 +persons. In the particular Essen works, for a hundred years, there has +never been a strike, though others of their employees elsewhere have +used the strike. Though the Cadburys and Levers and Taylors, in +England, the Armours, the United States Steel Corporation, the +National Cash Register Company, the Procter and Gamble Company, the +General Electric Company, and others in America, and the famous and +successful adoption of co-operation in Monsieur Godin's iron foundry +at Guise, in France, have worked along the lines of recognition of +their workmen's right to participate in the profits, there is nothing +on such an elaborate scale as at Essen, under the regime of the +Krupps. + +From 1904 to 1910 the Krupps spent, for beneficial institutions of all +kinds, $14,250,000, or 56 per cent. of the dividends during that time. +I have passed many hours at Essen, and seen thoroughly, from cellar to +attic, this truly noble institution for the comfortable and safe +guardianship of men, women, and children who are at the same time +factors in a huge and successful industrial enterprise. There are +schools, technical schools, hospitals, convalescent homes, a library +with 71,000 volumes, theatre, orchestra, band, lectures, concerts, +pension and insurance funds, lodgings for bachelors, tenements and +dwellings for married people, separate cottages for widows and +widowers too old for work, and every opportunity, with a high rate of +interest, for saving. There is in existence a co-operative store, as +well managed as the co-operative stores at Tuxedo Park, and with much +the same system of rebates. There are bathing facilities, gymnasium, a +boat club, a system of providing hot meals from a central kitchen, +reading-rooms and smoking-rooms. There is invested, not including the +value of the land, which has risen enormously in value, over +$12,500,000 in houses for the working-people, the return on the money +being about 2 3/4 per cent. It would require volumes -- indeed, two +bulky volumes were issued last year by the company to celebrate the +hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Krupp works -- to +describe merely the machinery for making the people comfortable. + +In 1851 the Krupps exhibited at the exposition in London the first +cannon made of cast steel; now they turn out more shells and shrapnel +in a week than were used at the whole battle of Koeniggraetz (Sadowa), +which lasted from eight o'clock in the morning till four o'clock in +the afternoon on July 3, 1866. The queen of this, the greatest factory +of destructive agencies in the world, is a gentle Madonna-faced lady +who might well pose for a statue of peace, and whose loveliness is a +mirror of the countless and untiring benefactions with which the +people who work here are surrounded. Both the powers and the people of +Germany may well be proud of the Krupps, for if sane beneficence were +to be raised to the rank of statehood this great colony would well +deserve the honor. The gross profits for the last year were +$9,000,000, half of which was written off and the rest devoted to the +reserve, to dividends, and to contributions to the invalid and pension +funds of the employees, which now amount to $9,500,000. The employees +also have on deposit with the management $8,700,000. The contribution +of the Krupps to the workmen's state-insurance fund amounted, in 1910, +to $1,320,000. The Krupp family is rich, but what would their wealth +have been had they practised the gobbling and juggling financial +methods of ----; but I will not pillory my own countrymen by name, for, +after all, our political methods have made them, and not they +themselves. + +The German manufacturer has been at a disadvantage, too, +for several reasons, and this may well be noted as one of Germany's +problems. She has not the deposits of coal that have made England +rich, nor the wonderful soil of America, from which alone we take +$9,000,000,000 every year, nor France's population, now at a +standstill, and which can feed itself off its own soil. She has been a +large borrower of capital to finance her enormous expansion of +industry and commerce, and, above all, the gold supply of the world, +which in the last resort is the foundation of credit, is not in her +hands, nor can it be so long as British and American fleets keep the +ocean highways over which that gold travels. + +The world's gold output in 1911 was $493,100,000; of this $177,600,000 +came from the Transvaal; $100,350,000 from the United States; +$63,600,000 from Australia; $42,300,000 from Russia; $23,300,000 from +Mexico; $35,600,000 from Rhodesia, India, and Canada; and $15,650,000 +from Central and South America, or $458,000,000, of the total output +of $493,100,000, from countries which in time of war would be unlikely +to ship gold to Germany. More than one half the output comes from the +British Empire alone. To those who are satisfied with the easy answer +to the reason for the increased cost of living, that the output of +gold has increased, it must be puzzling to learn that of the total +output, in round numbers, of $500,000,000, $150,000,000 is used in the +arts and manufactures and $150,000,000 goes to India, where it is +buried and hoarded, and $100,000,000 is retained in the United States +for currency and other purposes. In spite of the fact that the gold +output of the world doubled between 1890 and 1897, and nearly doubled +again between 1897 and 1911, money is dear, and is likely to be so +long as present conditions last. + +The reason for the higher cost of living is to be found in the +movement of the population, from the dulness of the plough to the +sprightliness of the cinematograph. This choice every freeman has a +right to make for himself, but the trouble arises when the politician +comes forward and pays his admission to the cinematograph +entertainment, out of the public funds, in order to get his vote. The +man who does not leave the plough under those conditions is either a +fool or a saint, and the percentage of the growth of cities is a fair +measure of their relative numbers. The increased cost of living is the +result, not of too much gold, but of too little labor on the land, and +this is due, in turn, to the voluptuous rhetoric of the political +street-walkers, whose promises of pleasure are as illegitimate as they +are impossible of fulfilment. A debtor nation like Germany is highly +sensitive to these conditions, and just as she is overcoming, by her +splendid success as a manufacturing nation this problem, she is met by +increased and ever-increasing rivalry. America, in 1901, exported +$466,000,000 of manufactures; in 1891 only $188,000,000; but in 1911, +$910,000,000; and in 1912, $1,021,753,918. We now have in America +225,000 manufacturing plants employing 6,000,000 people, with an +annual pay-roll of $3,500,000,000 and producing every twelve months +$15,000,000,000 worth of goods. The total value of exports and imports +of Japan thirty years ago was $30,000,000, or 87 cents per capita; in +1911 the figures were $480,000,000, or $10 per capita. England during +the years 1911 and 1912 surpassed all previous figures both for +exports and imports. Germany's rivals, it is thus seen, have not been +idle. + +The agricultural population of Germany in 1850 was 65 in the 100; it +is now less than one third. In 1911, after a bad year for the farmers, +Germany was obliged to pay out some $200,000,000 more than usual for +food. The total loans of the German banks on industrial securities +rose from $107,000,000 in 1890 to $632,000,000 in 1910, and bankers +themselves admit that Germany has fallen into the error of seeking and +accepting credit far beyond the value of the capital that they have to +work with. Still more dangerous is the fact that 55 per cent. of the +savings-bank moneys of Germany is locked up in mortgages. In 1907, 217 +new companies were formed in Germany, issuing $62,050,900 in +securities; in 1909, 179 new companies issued $54,929,450 of +securities; in 1910, 186 new companies issued $57,437,700 of +securities. In 1910, 340 companies increased their capital by +$142,657,200. In 1910 there were 5,295 companies in Germany with a +nominal capital of $3,680,979,400. It is estimated that since 1895 +there has been invested in industrial companies in Germany +$1,200,000,000. It is to be said also that since 1897 German +agricultural production has doubled, German industrial production +increased sevenfold, and Germany is said to have $4,750,000,000 in her +savings-banks. The value of imports for home consumption, exclusive of +the precious metals, in 1911 was $2,386,200,000; the value of the +exports of home produce, exclusive of the precious metals, was +$2,025,450,000. It is a quaint result of her temperament and her good +forestry, that Germany sells $25,000,000 worth of toys a year; she is +veritably the workshop of Santa Claus, and many more than 25,000,000 +children would bless her did they know. + +German financiers affirm that she can stand alone financially, while +others assert that one sixth of her capital, I have heard it placed at +one third, is borrowed from France and England. It is certain at least +that the American panic of 1907, and the recent war in the Near East, +have seriously embarrassed Germany financially. + +As Germany can only feed, even in good harvest years, forty-eight or +forty-nine millions of her people, a large proportion of her profits +from industry must necessarily go to the purchase of food for the +other sixteen or seventeen millions. The consumption of meat has +increased among all classes in Germany, and both the demands of the +individual and of the state have increased with the increased wealth +of the country. In Prussia alone the number of those subject to income +tax has increased from 2,400,000 in 1892 to 6,200,000 in 1912; but the +taxes have increased as well, or from $800,000,000 to $1,675,000,000. + +In the endeavor to increase the manufacturing output and to find new +markets German credit has been stretched to a dangerous tenuity. While +the war feeling was at its height the Koelnische Zeitung, a +conservative and able journal, wrote: "In case of war both France and +Germany will be obliged to borrow; but it is certain that the credit +of Germany cannot as yet be compared with the credit of France: this +is a strong guarantee of peace." + +Wermuth, said by impartial judges to be the ablest secretary of the +treasury the German Empire has had in a quarter of a century, resigned +in 1912, on the general ground that he would not be responsible for +the finances of the empire, if it was proposed to continue the +constant increase of national expenditure, by a constant increase of +borrowing, and an ever-increasing amount of interest-bearing +liabilities. He must have smiled to himself when an Imperial issue at +four per cent. put out in February, 1913, was not only not over-subscribed +but not even all taken. + +Unlike the French, who invest their +savings small and large in national loans, the Germans neglect even +their own national loans, preferring the higher returns for their +investments from the innumerable industries launched in modern +Germany; so pronounced is this form of investment, that a director of +the Deutsche Bank has warned his countrymen, that every month's +profits are no sooner gained than they are put out again in new +enterprises, either by the individuals themselves, or by the banks in +which they are deposited. As a result, the liquid capital at the +disposal of Germany is dangerously out of proportion to her borrowings +and her working capital. It shows a fine confidence in the future, and +it proves what needs no proof: the immense industrial and commercial +progress, and the immense sea-carrying trade of Germany. Germany is +like a man with $1,000 in the bank to check upon, but doing business +with $100,000 of borrowed capital, upon which he must pay interest, +and out of which he must take his running expenses. Such a one has no +provision for a bad year, and must depend upon more credit in case of +trouble; and in the case of Germany, it may be added, his personal and +family expenses have largely increased. The German imperial debt had +increased during the first twenty-two years of the present Emperor's +reign, or from 1888 to 1910, by $1,040,000,000, and of that sum some +$650,000,000 were added in the ten years from 1900 to 1910, when +Germany was building her fleet. + +Between the years 1905 and 1910 the total export trade of Germany +increased by $408,225,000, but the whole of the increase was due to +the heavier forms of manufactures: machinery, iron ware, coal-tar +dyes, iron wire, steel rails, and raw iron. The increasing competition +is shown by the fact that during those same years her exports of the +finer manufactures, such as cotton and woollen goods, clothing, gold +and silver ware, porcelain, maps, prints, and the like, actually +decreased by $66,975,000! + +I am not maintaining for a moment that these problems are peculiar to +Germany, but merely that, owing to the rapid progress, they are +aggravated, and that to point out Germany as a model of successful +achievement, along these and other lines, in order to bolster up +political cure-alls at home, is a betrayal of crass ignorance of the +general internal situation of the country, and once such prejudiced +pleaders are found out, the rebound will go too far the other way. +That were a pity, too, for we have much to learn from Germany. + +The $30,000,000 in gold in the Julius Tower at Spandau, called the +war-chest, and the income from railroads, forests, and mines, are to be +put down on the other side of the ledger, but as a year's war, it is +calculated, would cost France, England, or Germany some $2,300,000,000 +each, these sums are of negligible importance. + +The Prussian railways +cost $2,250,000,000, and are now valued at twice that sum, and pay an +average of seven per cent. on the invested capital. Maintenance costs +are included in the total annual expenses, and there is no, so it is +claimed, actual depreciation. Of the net revenue of $157,330,417 in +1909, about $55,000,000 are transferred to the state revenue, out of +which all charges of the state, including interest on bonds, are paid. +The rest is used for new construction, sinking funds, reserve funds, +and so on. + +The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1909-1910 +states that there are nearly $19,000,000,000 of railway capital +outstanding in America. There are 240,438 miles of single track in the +United States; 59,000 locomotives, 35,000 for freight, and a total of +2,290,000 cars of all kinds; and the railways carried in one year +971,683,000 passengers and 1,850,000,000 tons of freight. In 1910, 386 +persons were killed, but, what is often forgotten, more than one half +the total accidents were due to stealing rides and trespassing on the +tracks. The railways in the United States are our largest purchasers +by far, and for every dollar they earn 42 cents is spent in wages, 26 +cents for material, raw or manufactured, before anything is given out +for interest on loans or dividends. + +A first-class ticket in Germany is taxed 16 per cent. on the price of +the ticket; a second-class ticket, 8 per cent.; a third-class ticket, +4 per cent.; the fourth-class ticket, nothing. Crowded and +uncomfortable travelling in Germany is cheap; comfortable travelling +in Germany is very dear indeed. The herding of people in the fourth- +class carriages in Germany resembles our cattle-cars rather than +transportation for human beings. Such conditions would not be +tolerated in America, but against these state-owned railways there is +no redress. No luggage, except hand luggage, is carried free. Not +once, but many times in Germany, my first-class ticket found me no +accommodation, and often in changing from the main line to a branch +line not even a first-class compartment. Shippers in the coal and iron +districts, when I was there, complained bitterly that there were not +enough freight-cars, that their complaints were smothered in +bureaucratic portfolios, and that private enterprise in the shape of +proposals to build new lines was disregarded. The tyranny of Prussia +extends even into the railway field. The Oderberg-Wien line was built +to avoid using the Saxon state railway lines, was a spite railway in +fact. Here again there was no redress, no one to appeal to against the +autocrat. + +In a debate in the Reichstag, in January, 1913, there was much +complaint that the Prussian government was conducting the railways +with the least possible outlay, thus saving money for the state, but +hampering the industrial interests of the country. It was stated that +there were not enough engines or freight-cars, there was an inadequate +staff, and that as a consequence, the loss to the coal industry had +been $11,500,000 and to the coal-miners $3,375,000. + +On the state-owned +railways of the west of France the break-down is ludicrously complete, +and the people are staggered by the official estimates that it will +require at least $100,000,000 to put them in decent running order. + +In twenty years the American railways have practically been rebuilt, +with heavier rails, better bridges, more permanent stations, and so +on; while twenty years ago it cost a passenger 2.165 cents to travel a +mile, to-day it costs him 1.916 cents. We need a lot of bustling about +abroad before we realize how much we have to be grateful for at home! + +Probably the most costly and the most troublesome of Germany's +problems is her conquered provinces: Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, +Alsace-Lorraine, and Poland. Hanover, which was taken by Prussia and +her king deposed, is nowadays a minor matter of the relations between +courts, individuals, and families, which may be said to be settled by +the arranged marriage between the Kaiser's charming daughter and the +heir to the Duke of Cumberland, whose ancestors were kings of Hanover. + +The Danes, on the other hand, in the northern part of these provinces, +still resist Prussianization. They keep to themselves and their +language, send their children to school in Denmark, and resist all +attempts at social and racial incorporation. They are troublesome, as +an independent and surly daughter-in-law might be troublesome. +Alsace-Lorraine and Posen, on the contrary, are outspoken and +potentially dangerous foes in Germany's own household. + +In 1872 Bismarck said: "Alsace-Lorraine will be placed on an equality +with the other German states, ... so that the people may be induced to +forget, in a comparatively short time, the trouble and distress of the +war and of annexation." In 1912, a loyal Alsatian German writes: "Das +Elsass, dies jungstgeborene Kind der deutschen Voelkerfamilie, braucht +etwas mehr Liebe." Forty years of Prussian rule have not fulfilled the +promise of Bismarck. This same Alsatian writer continues: "In short, +we are approaching ever nearer to the condition of the citizens of all +the other German States, as Baden, Saxony, Bavaria, where they are +also not always of one mind with the higher ruling powers." + +It is difficult for the American, who, no matter what particular State +he lives in, is first of all a citizen of the United States, to +understand this jealousy and, in some quarters, bitter dislike of +Prussia. If the State of New York had sixty million of our ninety +million population, and if the governor of New York were also +perpetual President of the United States, commanded the army and navy, +controlled the foreign policy, and appointed the cabinet ministers, +who were responsible to him alone, we could get an approximate idea of +how the people of Virginia, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California +would feel toward New York. This is a rough-drawn comparison with the +situation in Germany. If, in addition, we had the Philippine Islands +where Maine is, and Cuba where Texas is, it is easy to recognize the +consequent complications. + +We should remember this picture in dealing with this German problem, +which, at any rate, from the point of view of kindly feeling and +successful adoption of these foreign peoples into the German family, +has been a dire failure. The miserable failure of the Germans in +Southwest Africa, their inconclusive war with the Herreros, and the +absolute break-down of Prussian methods with the natives, is scarcely +more typical than the failure in Alsace-Lorraine and Poland. The +Prussian belief in sand-paper as an emollient must be by now rudely +shaken. + +At last a constitution has been given the two conquered provinces. The +governor is to be advised by a parliament, but the government is not +responsible to the parliament, which is composed of two houses. The +upper house has thirty-six members, eighteen of whom are nominees of +the Emperor and eighteen from the churches, universities, and +principal cities. The lower house is to be elected by popular +franchise. Three years' residence in the same place entitles a man to +a vote, but every voter over thirty-five years of age has two votes, +and every voter over forty-five has three votes. + +This, as an American can appreciate, has not been received with +enthusiasm, and their conduct has been so provoking that the Emperor, +during a recent visit, scolded the people, in an interview with the +mayor of a certain town, and, what caused great amusement among the +enemies of Prussia, threatened to incorporate them into Prussia, as +had been done with Hanover, if they were not better behaved. This, of +course, was seized upon as an admission that to be taken into the +Prussian family was of all the hardships the most dreadful. The +socialist journal Vorwaerts spoke of Prussia as "that brutal country +which thus openly confesses its dishonor to all the world." Herr +Scheidemann asked in the Reichstag, if Prussia then acknowledged +herself to be a sort of house of correction, and "has Prussia, then, +become the German Siberia?" In 1911 the Reichstag gave the provinces +three votes in the Federal Council. + +Metz, it is said, is more French than ever, and thousands troop across +the boundaries on the anniversary of the French national holiday, to +celebrate it on French soil. The conquered provinces are kept in +order, but the French language, French customs, French culture, are +still to the fore, and so far as loyalty, affection, or a change of +mind and heart is concerned the conversion is still incomplete. The +inhabitants have been baptized Germans, but very few of them have +taken voluntarily, their first communion of nationalization. + +"On changerait plutot le coeur de place, +Que de changer la vieille Alsace." + +The German, Karl Lamprecht, in his valuable history of contemporary +Germany, is more hopeful of the situation than are other writers and +observers. Professor Werner Wittich maintains that the best of the +intellectual side of life in Alsace is impregnated with French culture +and traditions; and even German officers long stationed in the two +conquered provinces admit the stubborn allegiance of the people to +French customs, habits, beliefs, and traditions. But however that may +be, and it is admittedly a question that different prejudices and +hopes will answer differently, there is no denial on the part of any +one, high or low, that the Prussian bureaucratic mandarins have made +no progress in winning the affection or the voluntary loyalty of the +people. The Prussian has had recourse to the advice given by Prince +Billow, "if you cannot be loved, then you must be feared." A friend +who is only a friend, an ally who is only an ally, a servant who only +serves you because he is afraid of you, is not only an uncomfortable +but a dangerous factor in any establishment, whether domestic or +national. Corporalism, begun by Frederick the Great and fastened upon +Germany by Bismarck, has had its successes. I recognized them, indeed, +on returning to Germany after twenty-five years, as astounding +successes, but they have their weak side too. A barracks can never be +the ideal of a home, nor a corporal the ideal of a guide, philosopher, +and friend. Their own philosopher Nietzsche writes: "the state is the +coldest of all cold monsters." + +Joseph de Maistre, writing of the Slav temperament, says: "Si on +enterrait un desir Slave sous une forteresse, il la ferait sauter." +Germany has some reason to believe that this is true. + +In the northeast of Germany live some 3,000,000 Poles under Prussian +supervision and laws, and ruled by a Prussian governor. There are some +7,000,000 or 8,000,000 Poles divided between Russia, Austria-Hungary, +and Prussia, and behind these are 165,000,000 Russians. The boundary +between this mass and Germany is one of sand; and the railway journey +from Posen to Berlin, is a matter of only four hours. If we were in +Germany's shoes, we should probably take some pains to be well guarded +in that quarter. We should, however, do it in quite another fashion. +We should, if possible, turn over the inhabitants to their own +governing, as England has done in South Africa, as we have tried to do +in Cuba, and as we would do gladly in the Philippines, if every +intelligent man who knows the situation there, were not assured that +robbery, murder, and license would follow on the heels of our +departure; and that instead of doing a magnanimous thing we should be +shirking our responsibilities in the most cowardly fashion. It is bad +enough to know, that we have such cynical political sophists in +Congress, that they would even suffer that catastrophe to innocent +people in the Philippines, if they thought it would make them votes at +home. + +Prussia does not recognize such methods of ruling. Corporalism is +their only way, and, where the people are fit to govern themselves, a +very bad and humiliating way, for the Eden of the bureaucrat is the +hell of the governed. If the Germans approve it for themselves, it is +not our business to comment; but where these methods are applied to +foreign peoples, we both anticipate and applaud their failure. + +The insurrections in Russian and Austrian Poland, had their echoes in +Posen, and since 1849 Prussia has tried in every way to substitute +Germans for Poles, in the country, and to make the German language +predominant in the churches, schools, and in the administration. The +Poles have resisted, emphasizing their resistance in 1867, when they +were included in the North German Federation, and again in 1871, when +they were included in the new German Empire. + +The Emperor William I, in 1886, said: "The increasing predominance of +the Polish over the German element in certain provinces of the east +makes it a duty of the government to guarantee the existence and the +development of the German population." Since 1871 the Poles have +increased so much faster than the Germans that there is danger of +complete extermination of the German population. In 1902 the grandson +of William I, the present Emperor, said at Marienburg: "Polish +arrogance is unbearable, and I am obliged to appeal to my people to +defend themselves against it, for the preservation of their national +well-being. It is a question of the defence of the civilization and +the culture of Germany. To-day and to-morrow, as in the past, we must +fight against the common enemy." This speech of the Emperor was made +at Marienburg, a fine old town, once very prosperous, and in the days +of the Wars of the Roses playing a conspicuous part with the other +Hanseatic towns. This town was also the head and seat of the Teutonic +Order, and it was this Teutonic Order which, in 1230, began the work +of converting the then heathen Prussians, along lines not unlike those +of the Prussian Ansiedlungskommission of to-day. + +Prussia has attempted to solve this question by establishing a +government in the province, pledged to the introduction of the German +language, and so far as possible of German manners and customs. This +has been met with fierce opposition, and never have I heard in the +colonies of other countries, except in Korea, under the present +Japanese administration, such fanatical hatred, expressed in words, as +I have heard in Posen. If you dislike Prussia, do not attempt to +revile her yourself; rather go to Posen and hear it done in a far more +satisfying way. + +The religious question enters largely into the matter, and the +ignorant Poles are even taught that the Virgin Mary, or the "Polish +Queen," will not understand their intercessions if they are not made +in the Polish language. In 1870 there was one Polish newspaper in +Germany, to-day there are 138. + +From 1886 to 1910 the Ansiedlungskommission or committee of +colonization, have spent $170,896,325, and have received $51,863,175, +leaving a net expenditure of $119,033,150. This large expenditure has +resulted in the settlement upon the land of 18,507 families, or about +111,000 persons. The total number settled is now 131,000 persons. Each +male adult German settler has cost the state something over $32,000! +This is probably the most extravagant colonization scheme ever +attempted in the world. + +But even this expenditure has not brought success, and for a very +interesting reason. Again the Germans have been remarkably successful +in their dealings with the inanimate, but the Arcana imperii are still +hidden from them. They have redeemed the land, taught the Poles, as +well as the German settlers, how to farm successfully; largely +increased the output of grain, fruit, pigs, calves, chickens, geese, +and eggs, for which Germany spends several hundred millions a year +abroad; and seen to it that the breed of cows, pigs, horses, chickens, +and geese is kept at a high standard. But now the Poles will sell no +more land. They have profited, not been ruined, by what has come out +of the belly of the Trojan horse! The commission is at a standstill, +and it is now proposed to enforce the Prussian law of 1908 for the +expropriation of Polish estates. This law was overwhelmingly defeated +in the Reichstag in February, 1913, but the Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg +declared that it was an affair of Prussia, with which the +Reichstag has nothing to do, and the sand-paper of the Prussian +bureaucracy will probably be rubbed upon the Polish wound anew. + +This attempt to build a line of moral and intellectual forts, +supplemented by German settlers, on the land between Russia and +Prussia, and to stop the inrush of the Slavic population, has ample +excuse behind it. It is undoubtedly in case of war a serious danger to +Germany to leave herself unguarded there. As to what will come of the +social and racial questions, prophecy alone can answer, and I have far +too much imagination to venture upon prophecy. The care and +thoroughness with which the work is done is beyond all praise, but it +is as difficult to make your brother love you by taking thought +thereon, as it is to add a cubit to one's stature by the same method. + +Professor Ludwig Bernhard, while regretting that this attempt at +Germanization has not succeeded, admits that Prussian methods are +hopeless in such matters. They have, on the contrary, awakened +national feeling, encouraged the forming of agricultural societies, +and strengthened the Bank of Posen, which has become the financial +citadel of opposition. Professor Bernhard goes so far as to say that +he doubts if even the putting into force of the expropriation law of +1908 will bring about any better results. To an American this lack of +unity seems to be perhaps of exaggerated importance. Wir brauchen +nicht diese Nordlichter (We do not need these northern luminaries), is +a phrase of a certain Bavarian official, and in lower or louder tones +one hears the phrase all over Germany outside of Prussia, and loudest +of all in these conquered provinces. + +To legislate men into mechanical relations with one another may keep +the peace temporarily, but it is not a final solution of the intricate +problem of living together in our huddled civilization. The day has +gone by when we could rule men without gaining at least their respect, +and if possible their affection. Prussia's stiffness and newness as a +governing power; her lack of a high moral or religious tone, for there +is a rapidly increasing tendency there to agree with the writer during +the French Revolution: la question de dieu man que d'actualite; her +hard and inflexible methods, make her a churlish neighbor and an +arrogant master. In forty years Prussia has accomplished great things +despite these disadvantages of temperament, of tradition, and despite +these external dangers and problems. She is learning now that there +are not only individuals but whole peoples who say, as William the +Conqueror said to the Pope: "Never have I taken an oath of fealty, nor +shall I ever do so." + + + +X "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE" + + +It has always been considered sound doctrine among Christians that +they should love one another. Vigorous exponents of the doctrine, +however, have ever been few in numbers. As the world gets more +crowded, and we find it more and more difficult to make room for +ourselves, and to get a living, we find antagonisms and defensive +tactics, occupying so much of our time and energy that loving one +another is almost lost sight of. It has been found necessary even +among those of the same nation to legislate for love. We call such +laws, with dull contempt for irony, social legislation. In Germany, +and now in England, the modern sacrament of loving one another +consists in licking stamps; these stamps are then stuck on cards, +which bind the brethren together in mutual and adhesive helpfulness. + +With nations the problem is not so easily and superficially solved; +because no one body of legislators and police has jurisdiction over +all the parties concerned. As a result of this just now in Europe, +wisdom is not the arbiter; on the contrary, prejudices, passions, +indiscretions, and follies on the part of all the antagonists preserve +a certain dangerous equipoise. + +After you have seen something and heard a great deal of these +antagonisms between nations; read their newspapers; talked with the +protagonists and with their rulers, and with the responsible servants +of the State; discussed with professors and legislators these +questions; and listened to the warriors on both sides, you are +somewhat bewildered. There are so many reasons why this one should +distrust that one, so many rather unnatural alliances for protection +against one another, so much friendship of the sort expressed by the +phrase, "on aime toujours quelqu'un contre quelqu'un," so much +suspicious watching the movements of one another, that one is reminded +of the jingle of one's youth: + +"There's a cat in the garden laying for a rat, +There's a boy with a catapult a-laying for the cat, +The cat's name is Susan, the boy's name is Jim. +And his father round the corner is a-laying for him." + +Even to the youngest of us, and to the most inexperienced, this +betokens a strained situation. The first and most natural result is +that each nation's "watchmen who sit above in an high tower," whether +they be the professionals selected by the people or merely amateur +patriots, are forever crying out for greater armaments. + +At the time of the Boxer troubles in China, when Germany sent some +ships to demand reparation for the murder of her ambassador in Peking, +she had only two ships left at home to guard her own shores. When all +England was exasperated by the Boer telegram sent by the Kaiser, or, +if the truth is to be told, by his advisers, the late Baron Marshal +von Bieberstein and Prince Hohenlohe, to President Kruger, official +Germany lamented publicly that she lacked a powerful navy. Only a week +after the Boers declared war the Kaiser is reported to have said: +"Bitter is our need of a strong navy." Germany has noticed, too, not +without suspicion, that-- + +In 1904 England had 202,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +none in the North Sea. + +In 1907 England had 135,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +166,000 tons in the North Sea. + +In 1909 England had 123,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +427,000 tons in the North Sea. + +In 1912 England had 126,000 tons of warships in the Mediterranean and +481,000 tons in the North Sea. + +At last accounts England had 50,000 tons of war-ships in the +Mediterranean and 500,000 tons in the North Sea. + +There has been a steady increase of the navy in Germany. In 1900 the +tonnage of war-ships and large cruisers over 5,000 tons was 152,000; +in 1911 it was 823,000. The number of heavy guns in 1900 was 52; in +1911 it was 330. The horse-power of engines in 1900 was 160,000; in +1911 it was 1,051,000. The naval crews in 1900 numbered 28,326; in +1911, 57,353; and in 1913 the German naval personnel will consist of +3,394 officers and 69,495 men. Between 1900 and 1911 the tonnage of +the British fleet increased from 215,000 to 1,716,000; of the German +fleet from 152,000 to 829,000. + +In ten years British naval expenditure has increased from $172,500,000 +to $222,500,000; in Germany the expenditure has jumped from +$47,500,000 to $110,000,000; in America the increase is from +$80,000,000 to $132,500,000. Out of these total sums Great Britain +spends one third, America one fifth, and Germany one half on new +construction. + +Germany has a navy league numbering over one million active and +honorary members; a periodical, Die Flotte, published by the league +with a circulation of over 400,000. This league not only educates but +excites the whole nation by a vigorous campaign which never ceases. It +takes its members on excursions to seaports to see the ships; it holds +exhibitions throughout the country with pictures and lecturers; it +supports seamen's homes, and helps to equip boys wishing to enter the +navy; it lends its encouragement to the two school-ships which are +partly supported from public funds; it sees to it that war-ships are +named after provinces and cities, creating a friendly rivalry among +them; and lately, out of its surplus funds, it has presented a gun-boat +to the nation. + +The leading spirit of this organization is Admiral von Tirpitz, at +present the German secretary of the navy and probably the most +dangerous mischief-maker in Europe. In addition to this work a +campaign is waged in the press for the increase of the navy, in which +a number of experts are engaged. I have been told by Germans who ought +to know, but who deprecate this exciting campaigning, that the press +is so largely influenced by Admiral von Tirpitz and his corps of +press-agents and writers, that it is even difficult to procure the +publication of a protest or a reply. Indeed, were it my habit to go +into personal matters, I could offer ample proof of this contention, +that the opponents of naval expansion are cleverly shut out of the +press altogether. + +Wilhelmshafen, the naval station on the North Sea, has been fortified +till it is said to be impregnable; the same has been done for +Heligoland, and the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser have also been +strongly fortified. At Kiel are the naval technical school, an +arsenal, and dry and floating docks, and the canal itself is being +widened and deepened to meet the needs of the largest ships of war. + +When it is remembered that the beginnings of all this date back only +to 1898, when the first navy bill was passed through the Reichstag +with much difficulty, and only after the Emperor and his ministers had +brought every influence to bear upon the members, Germany is certainly +to be congratulated upon her success. Nor is she to be blamed for +remembering, and regretting, that the two most important harbors used +by her trade are Antwerp and Rotterdam, the one in Belgium, the other +in Holland. + +The Kielerwoche, or Kiel Regatta, has grown from the sailing-matches +of a few small yachts into one of the best-managed, most picturesque, +and gayest yachting weeks in the world. Indeed, from the stand-point +of hospitality, orderliness, imposing array of shipping, and good +racing and friendliness to the stranger, I am not sure that it is +equalled at either Newport or Cowes. Were I writing merely from my +personal experience, I should declare unhesitatingly that it is the +most splendid and best-managed picnic on the water that one can +attend, and lovers of yachts and yachting should not fail to see it. +This Kielerwoche, too, has, and is intended to have, an influence in +teaching the Germans to aid and abet their Emperor and his ministers +in making Germany a great sea power. + +When a nation for more than a hundred years has been quite comfortably +safe from any fear of attack because she has been easily first in +commerce, wealth, industry, and in sea power, it comes as a shock, +even to a phlegmatic people, to learn that they are being rapidly +overhauled commercially, financially, industrially, and as a fighting +force on the sea; and all this within a few years. + +England with her money subsidies, with her troops, and with her navy +has heretofore provided against Continental aggression by the +diplomatic philosophy of a balance of power. She has arranged her +alliances with Continental powers so that no one of them could become +a menace to herself. She did so against the Spain of Charles V, the +France of Louis XIV, the France of Napoleon, the Russia of the late +Czar, and now against the Germany of William II. The France of the +great Napoleon, in attempting to complete the commercial isolation of +England by compelling Russia to close her ports to her, buried herself +in snow and ice on the way back from Moscow, and delivered herself up +completely a little later at Waterloo. That was the nearest to success +of any attempt to break through the doctrine of the balance of power. + +In the year 800 A. D. the Catholic Church, which took over the Roman +supremacy to translate it into a spiritual empire, accepted a German +Emperor, Charlemagne, as her man-at-arms. One hundred and fifty years +later she accepted still another, Otto I. This partnership was called +the Holy Roman Empire. It has been noted, but is still misunderstood, +that the difference between the Catholic Church before and after the +Reformation was very marked. The Catholic Church claimed to be not +only a system of belief but a system of government. Infallibility was +to include secular as well as religious matters, and the church strove +to rule as a secular emperor and as a spiritual tyrant. To-day Roman +Catholicism is a sect, one among many; Roman Catholics themselves +would be the last to consent to any temporal universal power. + +The Protestants, too, were at first inclined to the methods of Rome. +Luther teaches intolerance, and Calvin burns a heretic and writes in +favor of the doctrine: Jure gladii coercendos esse hereticos. The real +reformation only came when we had reformed the reformers, but it was +that spiritual and political legacy from Rome that the Teuton world, +including ourselves, fought to nullify. + +There was no successful revolt against this curious spiritual +Caesarism until the son of a Saxon miner named Luther married out of +monkdom, burnt the Pope's commands on a bonfire, and plunged all +Europe first into a peasants' war, followed by a dividing of Europe +between a Protestant union and a Catholic league, and then a thirty +years' war, which destroyed two thirds of the population of what is +now Germany. After three hundred years of disunion and hatreds, +Prussia united their country by a cement of blood and iron, and in the +last forty years has made out of her the most powerful nation on the +continent of Europe. + +It is only very lately that any of us have realized what has happened. +So little attention has been paid to the matter that there is no +sufficient and worthy history of Germany in English. More than we +realize, Germany is a new factor in politics, a new rival in commerce, +a new knight in the tournament lists. This accounts, in no small +degree, for the uneasiness Germany causes in the world. + +Forty years ago Germany was known to a few students as having supplied +us with music, mythology, and a certain amount of enchanting +literature; scholarship along certain lines; and work in philosophy +that a few in America and in England were studying. As a knight in +shining armor, demanding a place at the council-board of nations, and +ready to resent any passing over of her claims to recognition in the +discussion and settlement of international politics, she is a +newcomer. + +One of the chief causes for the restlessness, particularly in England, +the heart of the greatest empire in the world, is that this new-comer +must be made room for at the table, received with courtesy, and +consulted. Another individual has married into the family, and must +gradually find her place there. Of all nations in the world, England +is the slowest to make new friends and acquaintances, and easily the +most awkward in doing so. She is a good friend when you know her, but +with the most abominable manners to strangers. + +The Englishman, for example, pops into his club to escape the world, +not to seek it there. The English club and the English home are +primarily for seclusion, not for companionship, and this +characteristic alone is wofully hard for the stranger to understand. +To the gregarious German, priding himself upon Gemuethlichkeit, loving +reunions, restaurants, his Stammtisch, formal and punctilious in his +politeness, unused to the ways of the world, but yet convinced that he +is now a great man politically and commercially, the Englishman is not +only an enigma but an insult. I am criticising neither. I have +received unbounded hospitality and friendliness from both. I have +ridden, fought, drunk, travelled, and lived with both, but for that +very reason I understand how horribly and continually they rub one +another the wrong way. + +In the fundamental matter of morals the German looks upon the +Englishman as a hypocrite, and the Englishman looks upon the German as +rather unpolished and undignified. Berlin is open all night, London +closes at half-past twelve. The British Sunday is a gloomy suppression +of vitality, touched up here and there with preaching and hymn-singing, +and fringed with surreptitious golf; the German Sunday is a +national fair, with a blossoming of all kinds of amusements, deluged +with beer, and attended by whole families as their only relaxation +during the week. + +The German licenses vice, lotteries, and gambling; the Englishman +refuses to recognize the existence of any of the three. The German +does not understand the Englishman's point of view in these matters, +which is that, though he knows these things to exist, and that he is +no better in actual practice than other men, he refuses to accept +these as his ideal. He denounces and passes judgment upon, and +punishes men and women, who go too far in their appreciation and +practice of apolausticism as a philosophy of life. He might have run +away from danger himself, but he none the less scorns the man who did +so. The shipwreck, the fire, the test of moral courage and endurance, +may have found him a coward, or weak, or a deserter, but he holds that +he must none the less measure the coward, the weakling, and the +deserter, not by his own possible weakness if put to the same tests, +but by his ideal of a courageous and straightforward Englishman. I +agree with him wholly and heartily. If our sympathy is to go out on +every occasion, to the man who failed to come up to the mark of noble +manhood, just because we feel that we might under like circumstances +have failed too, then we give up the code of honor altogether, and our +ideals droop to the level from which we fight and pray to be +preserved. + +We pass judgment upon the coward, upon the failure, upon the man who +has not mastered his life and life itself, unhesitatingly. It is hard +to do, it looks as though one were without pity and without sympathy. +Not so; it is because we have great sympathy, and I hope unending +pity, and a growing charity, and constant willingness to lend a hand; +but to condone failure is to commit the selfish and unpardonable +cowardice of not judging another that you may not be forced to judge +yourself too harshly. That is far from being hypocrisy. Indeed, in +these days it is one of the hardest things to do, so fast are we +levelling down socially and politically and even morally. It looks +like an assumption of superiority when, God knows, it is only a +timorous attempt on our part not to lose our grip on the ideals that +help to keep us out of the dust and the mud. But he who lets others +off lightly in order that he may not be thought to have too high a +standard himself, or because he fears that he may one day fail +himself, such a one is the coward of cowards, the candidate for the +lowest place in hell; and well he deserves it, for he helps to lower +the standard of manhood, and he tarnishes the shield of honor of the +whole race. Let them call us hypocrites till they strangle doing so, +for when we lower our standards because we fear that we cannot live up +to them ourselves, all will be lost. To be mild with other men, +because we distrust ourselves, is a poisonous sympathy that rots away +the life of him who receives it, and of him who gives it, and ends in +a slobbering charity which must finally protect itself by tyranny and +cruelty. Not infrequently in dealing with individuals and with subject +nations it is senseless cruelty to be over-kind. + +This sneer of Saxon hypocrisy, of "Perfide Albion," is seldom +explained to other people by men of our race, and we Americans and +Englishmen have taken little pains to make it clear. We should not be +surprised, therefore, if we are misunderstood. We have been easily +first so long that we have neglected the explanation or the defence of +ourselves to others. + +The Germans, too, have something of the same indifference. A most +sympathetic observer of German manners and customs, and a man for +whose honesty and gentleness I have the highest esteem, Pere Didon, +remarked of the Germans: "J'ai essaye maintes fois de decouvrir chez +l'Allemand une sympathie quelconque pour d'autres nations; je n'y ai +pas reussi." + +I call attention again to the important point, that it has been +difficult to manufacture an all-round German patriotism. As a +consequence patriotism in Germany is more than a sentiment, it is a +theory, a doctrine, a theme to which statesmen, philosophers and +poets, and rulers devote their energies. The German looks upon his +nation not only as a people, but as a race, almost as a formal +religion; hence perhaps his hatred of the Jew and the Slav, and his +difficulties with all foreign peoples within his borders. In order to +build up his patriotism the German has been taught systematically to +dislike first the Austrians, then the French, now the English; and let +not the American suppose that he likes him any better, for he does +not. This patriotism, once developed, was drawn on for funds for an +army, then for a navy. At the present time there must be some +explanation offered, and the explanation is fear of England, dislike +of British arrogance. In one of his latest speeches the Kaiser said: +"We need this fleet to protect ourselves from arrogance"; that, of +course, means, always means, British arrogance. + +From the moment a child goes to school, by pictures on the walls, by +an indirect teaching of history and geography, he is led on discreetly +to find England in Germany's way. At the present writing German school +children, and German students, and German recruits are imbued with the +idea that Germany's relations with England are in some sort an +armistice. This poisonous teaching of patriotism has produced wide-spread +enmity of feeling among the innocent, but this enmity has built +the navy. And now that in certain quarters it is found desirable to +soothe and calm this feeling, it proves to be more difficult to subdue +than it was to arouse. The monster that Frankenstein called up devours +its own creator. Now that England can no longer be the enemy, because +Germany's greatest present and future danger is from the Slav races, +there are evidences that the German state is teaching the dog not to +bark at England any more. + +Germany has not neglected England, but of late she has paid her the +wrong kind of attention. Erasmus, the scholar-rapier, as Luther was +the hammer, of the Reformation, visits England and writes: "Above all, +speak no evil of England to them. They are proud of their country +above all nations in the world, as they have good reason to be." + +Kant, the German philosopher, on his clock-like rounds in Koenigsberg, +knew something of England and writes of her: "Die englische Nation, +als Volk betrachtet, ist das schaetzbarste Ganze von Menschen im +Verhaeltniss unter einander; aber als Staat gegen fremde Staaten der +verderblichste, gewaltsamste, herrschsuechtigste und kriegerregendste +von allen." + +("The English, as a people, in their relations to one another are a +most estimable body of men, but as a nation in their relations with +other nations they are of all people the most pernicious, the most +violent, the most domineering, and the most strife-provoking.") + +Another German, something of a scholar, something of a philosopher, +but a wit and a singer, Heine, visited England, and, as he handed a +fee to the verger who had shown him around Westminster Abbey, said: "I +would willingly give you twice as much if the collection were +complete!" To him Napoleon defeated was a greater man than the +"starched, stiff" Wellington; and the "potatoes boiled in water and +put on the table as God made them" and the "country with three hundred +religions and only one sauce were a constant source of amused +annoyance. The German professors and students, who in the early part +of the nineteenth century lauded English constitutional liberty to the +skies and made a god of Burke, have soured toward England since. + +"What does Germany want?" asked Thiers of the German historian Ranke. +"To destroy the work of Louis XIV," was the reply. Professor +Treitschke and his successor in the chair of history at Berlin, +Professor Delbrueck, have been outspoken in their denunciation of +England. Mommsen, Schmoller, Schiemann, Zorn of Bonn, and his +colleague there, von Dirksen, Professor Dietrich Schaefer, Professor +Adolph Wagner, and many other scholars have been, and are, politicians +in Germany, and none of them friendly to England, to France, or to +America. Bismarck himself remarked of these gentlemen: "Die Politik +ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich +einbilden, sie ist eben eine Kunst" ("Politics is not a science as +many professorial gentlemen fancy; it is an art"); and again: "Die +Arbeit des Diplomaten, seine Aufgabe, besteht in dem praktischen +Verkehr mit Menschen, in der richtigen Beurtheilung von dem, was +andere Leute unter gewissen Umstaenden wahrscheinlich thun werden, in +der richtigen Erkennung der Absichten anderer; in der richtigen +Darstellung der seinigen" ("The work of the diplomat, his chief task, +indeed, consists in the practical dealing with men, in his sound +judgment of what other people would probably do under certain +circumstances, in his correct interpretation of the intentions and +purposes of other people, and in the accurate presentation of his +own"). + +He began his political life in 1862 with the phrase: "Die grossen +Fragen koennen durch Reden und Majoritaetsbeschluesse nicht entschie den +werden, sondern durch Eisen und Blut" ("The great questions cannot be +decided by speeches and the decisions of majorities, but by iron and +blood"). + +It is a well-known professor who writes: "Denn die einzige Gefahr, die +den Frieden in Europa und damit den Weltfrieden droht, liegt in den +krankhaften Uebertreibungen des englischen Imperialismus" ("The only +danger to the peace of Europe, and that includes the peace of the +world, lies in the morbid excesses of British imperialism"). Another +quotation from the same pen reads: "So far as other perils to the +British Empire are concerned, they are of much the same character, but +the empire suffers too from the selfish policy of English business, +which, in order to create big business, does not hesitate to interfere +with the declared policy of the state." Then follows the statement +that English traders have smuggled guns to the Persian Gulf. + +Professor Zorn writes: "The possibility that while our Emperor was +seeking rest and refreshment in Norwegian waters and enjoying the +beauties of the Norwegian landscape, English ships were lying in +readiness to annihilate German ships." It is hard to believe that such +lunatic lies can come from the pen of a professor in good standing. + +"Ohne zu uebertreiben kann man sagen dass heute nur der allerkleinste +Teil der deutschen Presse geneigt ist, den Englaendern Gerechtigkeit +widerfahren zu lassen, bei Behandlung allgemeiner Fragen sich auch +einmal auf den englischen Standpunkt der Betrachtung wenigstens +zeitweise zu versetzen. England ist fur viele 'der' Feind an sich, und +em Feind dem man keine Ruecksichten schuldet." + +("It is no exaggeration to say that nowadays only the tiniest minority +of the German press is inclined to do justice to the English by at +least occasionally looking at questions from the British point of +view. England is for many the enemy of enemies and an enemy to whom no +consideration is due.") Thus writes one of the cooler heads in the +Koelnische Zeitung. + +Doctor Herbert von Dirksen, of Bonn, writing of the Monroe Doctrine, +says: "By what right does America attempt to check the strongest +expansion policy of all other nations of the earth?" During the Boer +war Germany was showered with post-cards and caricatures of the +English. British soldiers with donkey heads marched past Queen +Victoria and the Prince of Wales; the venerable Queen Victoria is +pictured plucking the tail feathers from an ostrich which she holds +across her knees; the three generals, Methuen, Buller, and Gatacre, +take off their faces to discover the heads of an ass, a sheep, and a +cow; Chamberlain is depicted as the instigator of the war, with his +pockets and hands full of African shares; a parade of the stock-exchange +volunteers depicts them as all Jews, with the Prince of Wales +as a Jew reviewing them; the Prince of Wales is pictured surrounded by +vulgar women, who ask, "Say, Fatty, you are not going to South +Africa?" to which the Prince replies, "No, I must stay here to take +care of the widows and orphans!" English soldiers are depicted in the +act of hitting and kicking women and children. + +In the war with Denmark +in 1864 the Austrian navy met with a disaster at sea. A German +publicist even then wrote: "I was grieved at the demonstrations of joy +about this in the English Parliament. It was not sympathy with the +Danes but petty spite and malice at the defeat of a foreign fleet. But +at the same time it is a consolatory proof that the English are afraid +of the future German navy." This quotation is interesting as showing +how far back the quarrel dates. + +It would be merely a question of how +much time one cares to devote to scissors and paste to multiply these +examples of Germany's journalistic and professorial state of mind. It +is unfortunate that some of this writing in the press is done by those +who are often in consultation with the Emperor, and on some political +subjects his advisers. I have suggested in another chapter that +Germany suffers far more from the theoretical and book-learned +gentlemen who surround the Emperor than from his indiscretions. In +more than one instance his indiscretions were due to their blundering. +Their knowledge of books far surpasses their knowledge of men, and +nothing can be more dangerous to any nation than to be counselled and +guided by pedants rather than by men of the world. This projecting a +world from the gaseous elements of one's own cranium and dealing with +that world, instead of the world that exists, is a danger to everybody +concerned. + +"Bedauernswert sei es allerdings, dass wir in unserem politischen +Leben nicht mit gentlemen zu thun haben, dies sei aber em Begriff der +uns ueberhaupt abgehe," writes Prince Hohenlohe in his memoirs. ("It is +of all things most to be regretted that in our political life we do +not have gentlemen to deal with, but this is a conception of which we +are totally deficient.") + +A daring colonial secretary, speaking in the Reichstag of certain +scandals in the German colonies, said bluntly: "A reprehensible caste +feeling has grown up in our colonies, the conception of a gentleman +being in England different from that in Germany." + +When Lord Haldane came to Berlin, on his mission to discover if +possible a working basis for more friendly relations between the two +countries, his eyes were greeted in the windows of every book-shop +with books and pamphlets with such titles as "Krieg oder Frieden mit +England," "Das Perfide Albion," "Deutschland und der Islam," "Ist +England kriegslustig," "Deutschland sei Wach," "England's +Weltherrschaft und die deutsche Luxusflotte," "John Bull und wir," and +a long list of others, all written and advertised to keep alive in the +German people a sense of their natural antagonism to England. + +During the last year the "Letters of Bergmann" brought up again the +controversy, that should have been left to die, over the treatment of +the Emperor Friedrich by an English surgeon. + +In discussing Senator Lodge's resolution before the United States +Senate, on the Monroe Doctrine, the German press spoke of us as +"hirnverbrannte Yankees," "bornierte Yankeegehirne" ("crazy Yankees," +"provincial Yankee intellects"); and the words "Dollarika," +"Dollarei," and "Dollarman" are further malicious expressions of their +envy, frequently used. The Germans are persistently taught that there +are neither scholars nor students in America or in England. One worthy +writes: "Die Englaender lernen nichts. Der Sport laesst ihnen keine Zeit +dazu. Man ist hinterher auch zu muede." + +I am always very glad, when I happen to be in Europe, that I belong to +a nation that can afford to take these flings with the greatest good-humor. +As the burly soldier replied when questioned in court as to why +he allowed his small wife to beat him: "It pleases her and it don't +hurt I." + +This struggle for recognition as a great nation, to be received on +equal terms by the rest of us, has upset the nerves of certain classes +in Germany, and among them the untravelled and small-town-dwelling +professor. + +I am a craftsman in letters myself, in a small way, but I am no +believer that books are the only key to life, or the only way to find +a solution for its riddles and problems. Life is language, and books +only the dictionaries; men are the text, books only the commentaries. +Books are only good as a filter for actual experiences. A man must +have a rich and varied experience of men and women before he can use +books to advantage. Life is varied, men and women many, while the +individual life is short; wise men read books, therefore, to enrich +their experience, not merely as the pedant does, to garner facts. +"J'etudie les livres en attendant que J'etudie les hommes," writes +Voltaire. "Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a +mighty bloodless substitute for life," writes Stevenson. + +Montgolfier sees a woman's skirt drying and notices that the hot air +fills it and lifts it, and this gives him the idea for a balloon. + +Denis Papin sees the cover lifted from a pot by the steam, and there +follow the myriad inventions in which steam is the driving power. + +Newton, dozing under an apple-tree, is hit on the head by a falling +apple, and there follows the law of gravitation. + +Franklin flies a kite, and a shock of electricity starts him upon the +road to his discoveries. + +Archimedes in his bath notices that his body seems to grow lighter, +and there follows the great law which bears his name. + +These are the foundation-stones upon which the whole house of science +is built, and no one of them was dug out of a book. Charlemagne could +not read, and Napoleon, when he left school for Paris, carried the +recommendation from his master that he might possibly become a fair +officer of marines, but nothing more! A capital example of the ability +of the man of books to measure the abilities of the man of the world. + +Reading and writing are modern accomplishments, and we grossly +exaggerate their importance as man-makers. That, it has always been my +contention, is the fatal fallacy of modern education, and you may see +it carried to its extreme in Germany, for men who have not lived +broadly are merely hampered by books. It is as though one studied a +primer with an etymological dictionary at his side. Germans are +renowned writers of commentaries, but you cannot deal with men and +with life by the aid of commentaries. Exegesis solves no international +quarrels, and the mastery of men is not gained with dictionaries and +grammars. + +We are all prone to forget the end in the means, for the end is far +away and the means right under our noses. We all recognize, when we +are pulled up short and made to think, that, after all, the arts and +letters, religion and philosophy and statecraft, are for one ultimate +purpose, which is to develop the complete man. Everything must be +measured by its man-making power. Ideas that do not grow men are +sterile seed. Men who do not move other men to action and to growth +are not to be excused because they stir men to the merely pleasant +tickling of thinking lazily and feeling softly. Thus Lincoln was a +greater man than Emerson; Bismarck a greater than Lessing; Cromwell a +greater than Bunyan; Napoleon a greater than Corneille and Racine; +Pericles greater than Plato; and Caesar greater than Virgil. + +The man who only makes maps for the mind is only half a man, until his +thinking, his influence, his dreams and enthusiasms take on the +potency of a man and come into action. Even if men of action do evil, +as some of those I mention have done, they have translated theories +into palpable things that permit men to judge whether they be good or +bad; and the really great artists, thinkers, and saints are as fertile +as though they were female, and gave birth, to living things. Their +thinking is a form of action. The real test of successful organization +is the thoroughness of the thinking behind it; on the other hand, the +only test of thinking is the success of the thought in actual +execution, and the Germans often take this too much for granted. We +really know and hold as an inalienable intellectual possession only +what we have gained by our own effort, and with a certain degree of +actual exertion. People who have never worked out their own salvation +always join, at last, that large class in the body politic who don't +know what they want, and who will never be happy till they get it. + +When it comes to dealing with inanimate things, books of rules are +invaluable. Hence, in chemistry, physics, archaeology, philology, +exegesis, the Germans have forged ahead; their intellectual street-cleaning +is unsurpassed; but the ship of state needs not only men to +take observations and to read charts, but men to trim the sails to the +fitful breezes, the blustering winds, the tempests and the changing +currents of life. They must know, too, the methods, the manners, the +habits of other men who sail the seas of life. It is just here that +the German fails; he lacks the confidence of experience, and bursts +into bluster and bravado. He is a believer in vicarious experience, +and is as little likely to be saved by it, in this world at least, as +he is by vicarious sacrifice. + +His imagination does not make allowances for either England or +America. He does not see, for example, that the Monroe Doctrine is not +open for discussion for the simple reason that America has announced +it as American policy; just as Prussia took part three times in the +dismemberment of Poland; just as Prussia pounced upon Silesia; just as +Germany took Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein and Frankfort, and +held the ring while Austria-Hungary bagged Bosnia and Herzegovina, and +by the word of her Emperor, promised to do the same thing for Russia, +when Japan declared war against her. We have decided that we will have +no European sovereignty in South America, and this side war, that is +the end of the matter, call it the Monroe Doctrine or what you will. +It only makes for uneasiness and bad temper to discuss it. It is the +national American policy. It may be right or wrong theoretically, but +international law has nothing to do with it. The German professors who +discuss it from that stand-point, are beating the air and raising a +dust in the world's international drawing-room. + +This German mania for translating facts back into philosophy and then +dancing through a discussion of theories is not understood, much less +appreciated, by the rest of the world. We can never get on if we are +to introduce the discussion of the lines of every new battle-ship by +arguments as to the sea-worthiness of the ark. Those of us who control +a quarter of the habitable globe, and the inhabitants thereof, are +much too busy to discuss the legal aspects of the land-grabbing of the +Pharaohs. Geography is not metaphysics, but it is wofully hard for the +professorial mind to grasp this. + +"Given a mouse's tail, and he will guess +With metaphysic quickness at the mouse." + +In much the same way German statesmen and the German press do not +understand, or do not care to understand, that British statesmen when +they speak in the House of Commons, or when they go to the country +asking increased appropriations for the navy, must give some reason +for their request. There is only one reason, and that is that there is +a growing navy across the North Sea, which, whether now it is or is +not a menace, may be a menace to their ship-fed island, and they must +have ships and men and guns enough to guard the sea-lanes which their +food-laden ships must sail through. + +They may be awkward sometimes in their expression of this self-evident +fact, they may call their own fleet a necessity and the other fleet a +luxury, but that is a negligible question of verbal manners; the fact +remains that their fleet is, and all the world knows it is, and it is +laughable to discuss it, the prime necessity of their existence. + +As long as we Christians have given up any shred of belief in +Christian ethics, as applicable to international disputes, we must +live by the law of the strongest. We do not bless the poor in spirit, +but the self-confident; we do not bless the meek, but the proud; we do +not bless the peace-makers, but those who urge us to prepare for war; +we do not bless the reviled and the persecuted and the slandered, but +those who revolt against injustice and tyranny; we do not approve the +cutting off of the right hand, but admire the mailed fist; and it is +only adding to the confusion to raise millions for war ourselves, and +then to present a handsomely bound copy of the Beatitudes to our +rivals. + +I shall be wantonly misunderstood if these reflections be taken as a +criticism of Germany. This situation involves Germany in censure no +more than other nations. It is only that Germany shows herself to be +somewhat childish and peevishly provincial, in girding at an +unchangeable situation, either in South America or in the North Sea. + +This is not altogether Germany's fault. She is suffering from growing +pains, and from grave internal unrest. She is only just of age as a +nation, and her constitution is so inflexible that it is a constant +source of irritation. She is governed by an autocracy, and the two +strongest parties numerically in her Reichstag are the party of the +Catholics and the party of the Socialists. She has built up a +tremendous trade on borrowed capital, and every gust of wind in the +money market makes her fidgety. Her population increases at the rate +of some 800,000 a year, but her educational system produces such a +surplus of laborers who wish to work in uniforms, or in black coats +and stiff collars, that there is a dearth of agricultural laborers, +and she imports 700,000 Hungarians, Poles, Slays, and Italians every +year to harvest her crops. + +This same system of education has taught youths to think for +themselves before either the mental or moral muscles are tough enough, +with the result that she is the agnostic and materialistic nation of +Europe, and her capital the most licentious and immoral in Europe. + +This is the result of secular education everywhere. Freedom of +thought, yes, but not freedom of thought any more than freedom of +morals, or freedom of manners, or political freedom, in extreme youth; +that only makes for anarchy political, mental, and moral. + +There is much undigested, not to say indigestible, republicanism about +just now in China and in Portugal, for example; just as there are +materialism and agnosticism in Germany and in France, not due to +super-intellectualism but to juvenile thinking. The Chinese are just +as fit for a republic -- an actual republic is still a long way off -- +as are callow German youths, and notoriety-loving French students, for +freedom to disbelieve and to destroy. No country can long survive a +majority of women teachers in the public schools, together with no +Bible and no religious teaching there. I have no prejudices favoring +orthodoxy, but I have a fairly wide experience which has given me one +article of a creed that I would go to the stake for, and that is that +it is of all crimes the worst to give freedom political, moral, or +religious to those who are unprepared for it. + +Germany's taste in literature, once so natural and healthy, has become +morbid, and Sudermann and Gorky and Oscar Wilde, and the rest of the +unhealthy crew who swarm about the morgues, the dissecting-rooms, and +the houses of assignation of life, the internuntiata libidinum, the +leering conciliatrices of the dark streets, are her favorites now. +There is no surer sign of mental ill-health than a taste for lowering +literature, an appetite for this self-dissecting, this complacent, +self-contemplating form of intellectual exercise. + +This is no heated assault on German culture. It is a natural phase of +development. Youthful candidates for worldliness all go through this +pornocratic stage. "The impudence of the bawd is modesty, compared +with that of the convert," writes the Marquis of Halifax. The German +professor and the German bourgeois in their Rake's Progress are only a +little more awkward, a little more heavy-handed, a little coarser in +speech, than others, that is all. The period of twenty-five years +during which I have known Germany has developed before my eyes the +concomitants of vast and rapid industrial and commercial progress, and +they are: a love of luxury, a great increase in gambling, a +materialistic tone of mind, a wide-spread increase of immorality, and +a tendency to send culture to the mint, and to the market-place to be +stamped, so that it may be readily exchanged for the means of soft +living. These internal changes account to some extent for her restless +external policy. A man's digestion has a good deal to do with the +color of the world when he looks at it. There is more yellow in life +from biliousness, than from the state of the atmosphere. + +Aside from these domestic causes there is no reason why Germany should +take a sentimental or pious view of these questions of international +amity. Her own history is development by war. "Any war is a good war +when it is undertaken to increase the power of the state," said +Frederick the Great. "Nur das Volk wird eine gesicherte Stellung in +der Welt haben, das von kriegerischen Geiste erfuellt ist" ("Only that +nation will hold a safe place in the world which is imbued with a +warlike spirit") writes Germany's great military philosopher +Clausewitz. + +We took Cuba and the Philippines; England took India, Hong Kong, and +Egypt; Japan took Korea and southern Manchuria; Italy took Tripoli; +France took Fez; Russia took Finland and northern Manchuria; +Austria-Hungary took Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Prussia and Germany have +a long list, including Silesia, Poland, Hanover, and Alsace-Lorraine. +Austria-Hungary tears up the Berlin treaty; France, Germany, and Spain +tear up the Algeciras treaty; Italy tears up the treaty of Paris; and +it is part of the game that we should all hold up our hands, avert our +faces, and thank God that we are not as other men are, when these +things are done. The justifications of these actions are all of the +most pious and penitent description. We were forced to do so, we say, +in order to hasten the bringing in of our own specially patented and +exclusive style of the kingdom of heaven, but outside of perhaps India +and Egypt, and the Philippines, it would be hard to find to-day any +trace of the promised kingdom. Germany, for example, had nine per +cent. of Moroccan trade, the total of Moroccan trade with all +countries only amounted to $27,500,000 a year, and she was compelled +to interfere for the protection of her traders, forsooth! The outcome +of the business, after an exciting situation lasting for months, was +that Germany got a slice of territory from France, mostly swamps, +which reaches from the Congo to the Atlantic Ocean, and reported to +be, by her own engineers, uninhabitable. + +It is the pleasant formula of +polite statesmen and politicians to say, that it is a pity that +Germany came into the world competition a hundred years too late, when +the best colonies had been parcelled out among the other powers. This +is a superficial view of the case, and misses the real point of the +present envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. Germany does not +want colonies, and has no ability of the proper kind, and no willing +and adventurous population to settle them, if she had. Prussia's +dealing with aborigines is a subject for comic opera. + +Germany came +into the modern world as a dreamer, as a maker of melodies, as a +singer of songs, as a sort of post-graduate student in philosophy and +in theoretical, and later applied science. She introduced us to +classical philology, to modern methods of historical research, to the +comparative study of ethnic religions, to daring and scholarly +exegesis, to the study of the science of language. She discovered +Shakespeare to the English; Eduard Maetzner and Eduard Mueller, and +German scholars in the study of phonetics, have written our English +grammars and etymological dictionaries for us, and helped to lay the +foundations for knowledge of our own language. Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, +one need not mention more, attempted to pass beyond the bounds of +human experience and to formulate laws for the process; +Schleiermacher, maintaining that Christian faith is a condition of +devout feeling, a fact of inward experience, an object which may be +observed and described, had an unbounded influence in America, and +many are the ethical discourses I have listened to which owed more to +Schleiermacher than to their authors. Humboldt, Liebig, Bunsen, +Helmholtz, Johannes Mueller, Von Baer, Virchow, Koch, Diesel, even the +British and American man in the street, with little interest in such +matters, knows some of these names; while Schopenhauer and Nietzsche +are symbols of revolt, whose names are flung into an argument by many +who only know their names, but who fondly suppose that the one stands +for despair and suicide, and the other for the joy and unbridled +license of the strong man. + +Reckoning by epochs, it was only yesterday +that Germany said to the world: "No more of this!" + +"Hang up philosophy! +Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, +Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom, +It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more!" + +Of a sudden our scholar threw off his gown and cap, and said: "I +propose to play base-ball and foot-ball with you, I propose to have a +hand in the material spoils of life, I propose to have a seat at the +banquet and to propose toasts and to be toasted!" Faust of a sudden +left his gloomy, cobwebby laboratory, flung a fine cloak over his +shoulders, stuck a dandy feather in his cap, buckled on a rapier, and +began roistering with the best of us. We sneered and smiled at first, +let us be frank and admit it. We did not think much of this new buck. +We had little fear that the professor, even if he took off his +spectacles and slippers and dressing-gown, and exchanged his pipe for +a cigarette, would cut much of a figure as a lover. He was new to the +game, we were old hands at it, but the first thing we knew he had +given the world's mistress, France, a scolding, and flung her into a +corner, a cowering heap of outraged finery; and she has only been safe +ever since in the role of a sort of mistress of England on +board-wages. + +A new cock in the barn-yard is never received with great +cordiality. He must win his place and his power with his beak and his +spurs. We all of us had enough to do before this fellow came along. We +are a little jealous of him, we are all uneasier because he is about, +and he has done so well at our games, now that he has indeed hung up +philosophy, that we are not even sure that it is safe to take him on +in a serious match. We have endeavored, therefore, to keep him +occupied with his own neighbors, to whom we have extended our best +wishes and our moral backing, which is known as keeping the balance of +power in Europe. + +But a new Germany has come into the world. Germany nowadays has a +large class, as have the rest of us, who belong to that increasing +number of extraordinary people who want money without even knowing how +to get on without it. The only satisfactory test of the right to +wealth is the ability to get on without it. One of modern +civilization's most dangerous pitfalls is the subversive doctrine that +all men shall have wealth, even before they have proved their ability +to do without it. Germany is gradually arriving at this puny stage of +culture, whose beginnings may be said to date from that ominous year +for culture, 1492, when Lorenzo di Medici died and Columbus discovered +America! + +During all this time statesmen have insisted that there is no good +reason why Germany and England should not be on good terms; gentlemen +of various trades and professions from both countries, speaking +halting English or embarrassed German, as the case may be, cross each +other's boundaries, comment upon the beauties of the respective +countries, and overeat themselves in ponderous endeavors to appear +cordial and appreciative. Mayors and aldermen swap stories and +compliments over turtle and sherry, or over sauerkraut and +Johannisberger; bands of students visit Oxford or Heidelberg, and +there is a chorus of praise of Goethe from one side, of Shakespeare +from the other; and all the while there is an unceasing antiphonal of +grimaces and abuse in the press. Not even when Germany exports her +latest stage novelties to London, and pantomimic platitudes are +dandled under colored lights, does the turmoil of martial talk cease. +Not even Teutonic lechery, in the guise of Reinhartian art, dressed in +nothing but silence, and making faces at the British censor on the +boards of the music-halls, avails anything. + +Of course all this is nuts to the irresponsible journalists, to the +manufacturers of powder, guns, and ships, and to politicians and +diplomats out of employment; but it is hard on the taxpayer, who has +no dividends from manufacturers of lethal weapons and ships, nor from +newspapers, and no notoriety from the self-imposed jobs of the +unofficial diplomats. + +Perhaps of all these factors the press, in its wild gamble to make +money out of sensationalism, is most to blame. The press, for the sake +of gain, has soiled and soured the milk of human kindness by exposing +it, carelessly and unceasingly, to the pathogenic dangers of the dust +of the street and the gutter. It is wholly unfitting and always +demoralizing when the priest, the politician, and the journalist turn +their attention to private gain. Any one of these three who makes a +great fortune out of his profession is damned by that fact alone. The +only payment, beyond a living, that these three should look to is, +respect, consideration, and the honor of serving the state unselfishly +and wisely. The world will be all the happier when there are no more +Shylocks permitted in any of these professions. + +Germany is autocratic, philosophical, and continental; England is +democratic, political, and insular. It is hopeless to suppose that the +great mass of the people of one country will understand the other, +and, for this is the important point, it is wholly unnecessary. + +We get on best and with least friction with people whom we do not +understand in the least. A man may have known and liked people with +whose aims, opinions, employment, creeds he has the smallest sympathy. +One may mention such diverse personalities as John L. Sullivan, the +prize-fighter, Cardinal Rampolla, Mr. Roosevelt, Doctor Jameson, the +Kaiser, President Diaz of Mexico, numerous Jew financiers, Lord +Haldane the scholar-statesman, and a long list of professors, pious +priests, sportsmen, and idlers, not to speak of Hindus and +Mohammedans, Japanese and Chinese, and half a dozen Sioux chiefs. With +these gentlemen, a few of many with whom one may have been upon such +pleasant terms that they have even confided in him and trusted him +with their secrets, one may have passed many pleasant hours. It +probably never entered such a man's head to wonder whether they liked +him, and he never discussed with them the question of his liking for +them. We get on by keeping our own personalities, prejudices, and +creeds intact. There is no other way. + +Other men will give even a more diverse list of friends and +acquaintances, and never for a moment dream that there is any mystery +in being friends with all. Nothing is ever gained by flattery. To the +serious man flattery in the form of sincere praise makes him more +responsible and only sadder, because he knows how much he falls below +what is expected of him, and what he expects of himself. Lip-flattery +makes a real man feel as though his sex had been mistaken, he feels as +though he had been given curling-tongs instead of a razor for his +morning toilet. These pompous flatteries that pass between Germany and +England to-day, make both sides self-conscious and a little ashamed to +write and to speak them, and to hear and applaud them. + +America and England are shortly to celebrate the signing of the treaty +of Ghent, which marks a hundred years of peace between the two +nations. We have not been without opportunities to quarrel. We have +whole classes of people in America who detest England, and in England +there are not a few who do not conceal successfully their contempt for +America, but we have had peace, and since England, at the time of our +war with Spain, said "Hands off!" to the powers that wished to +interfere, there has been a great increase of friendly feeling. But +there has been little or no flattery passing back and forth. We have +sent ambassador after ambassador to England who were almost more +American than the Americans. Phelps and Lowell and Hay and Choate and +Reid were all American in name, in tradition, in their successes, and +in their way of looking at life. By their learning, their wit, and +their criticisms, by their writing and speaking, by their presentation +of the claims to greatness of our great men, by their unhesitating +avowal in public and in private of their allegiance to the ideals of +the republic they served, they have made clear the American point of +view. Above all, they have shown their pride in their own country by +acknowledging and praising the great qualities of England and the +English. There has been no fulsome flattery, no bowing the knee to +foreign idols, and what has been the result? The American ambassador +for years has been the most popular diplomatic figure in Great +Britain. An increasing number of Englishmen even, nowadays, know who +Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln were, and our understanding of +one another has grown rapidly out of this frank and manly attitude. We +were jealous and suspicious a hundred years ago, as are England and +Germany to-day, but we have changed all that by our attitude of +good-humored independence, and by eliminating altogether from our +intercourse the tainted delicacy of compliment, and the canting +endearments of the diplomatic cocotte. We have emphasized our +differences to the great benefit of the fine qualities that we have +and cherish in common. + +The individual Protestant does not dislike the individual Papist, half +so much as he dislikes his neighbor in the next pew, who refuses +Sunday after Sunday to repeat the service and the creed at the same +pace as the others, and hence to "descend into Hell" with the rest of +the congregation. The Sioux chief was far more annoyed by his neighbor +of the same tribe in the next-door reservation than he was by me. The +pugilist scorned "Tug" Wilson, a brother fisticuffs sovereign, but had +no feeling against his parish priest. Theological protagonists are +notoriously bitter against one another, but we have all found many of +them amiable companions ourselves. It is the fellow next door, who +wears purple socks, or who parts his hair in the middle, or who wears +his coat-sleeves longer than our tailor cuts ours, or who eats his +soup with a noise, or who has damp hands, or talks through his nose, +who irritates us and makes us wish occasionally for the unlimited +club-using freedom of the stone age. It is your first cousin with +incurable catarrh, and a slender income who is too much with you, and +who spoils your temper, not the anarchist orator who threatens your +property and almost your life. + +"What do these Germans want?" asked a distinguished cabinet minister +of me. "They want consideration," I replied, "which is the most +difficult thing in the world for the Englishman to offer anybody." +"But, you don't mean to say," he continued, "that they really want to +cut our throats on account of our bad manners?" I cannot phrase it +better, nor can I give a more illuminating illustration of the +misunderstanding. That is exactly the reason, and the paramount +reason, why nations and why individuals attempt to cut one another's +throats. Whatever the fundamental differences may have been that have +led to war between nations, the tiny spark that started the explosion +has always been some phase of rudeness or bad manners. + +Counting my school-days, I can remember about a dozen personal +conflicts in which I have engaged, with pardonable pleasure. Not one +of them was a question of territory, or religious difference, or of +racial hatred; indeed, the last one was due to being shouldered in the +street when my equanimity was already disturbed by a lingering +recovery from a feverish cold. + +It is, after all, the little differences that count. If politically +and socially Germany were a little more sure of herself, if she were +not ever omnia tuta timens Dido; and if England were not as ever quite +so sure of herself, I believe intercourse between them would be less +strained. + +"The little gnat-like buzzings shrill, + The hurdy-gurdies of the street. +The common curses of the will-- + These wrap the cerements round our feet." + +The smothered voice, the tepid manner, the affected and hesitating +under-statement, of a certain middlish class of English men and women, +and, alas, their American imitators, who are striving toward their +comical interpretation of the Vere de Vere manner, are the promoters +of guffaws in private, and uneasiness in public, between nations, to a +far greater extent than the bold individualist, whose voice and +manners, good or bad, are all his own. It is these small attritions +that wear us down, and produce a sub-acid dislike between nations as +between individuals. It is these that prepare the ground for a fine +crop of misunderstandings. + +But are we not to know our neighbors the English, the Germans, the +French? I for one consider that not to know German and Germany, for +example, is nowadays not to be fully educated. Most of us, however, +have had our nerves unstrung by the speeding-up process that has gone +on all over the world of late. We have lost somewhat the power to know +people and to let them alone at the same time. Goethe, one of the +coolest and wisest of men, maintains: "Certain defects are necessary +for the existence of individuality. One would not be pleased if old +friends were to lay aside certain peculiarities." + +We should at least give every man as fair a chance to receive our good +opinion as we give a picture. We should put him in a good light before +we criticise him. We should take time enough to do that to other +nations, as well as to individuals. I have always had much sympathy +for a certain Roman general. He was blind, and a painter who painted +him with two large eyes, he rebuked; another painter, who painted him +in profile, he rewarded. + +It is, after all, something of an art to know people, so that the +knowledge is serviceable, so that you can depict them to yourself and +to others, not as they are as opposed to you, but as they are as a +complement and help to you. + +"No human quality is so well wove +In warp and woof, but there's some flaw in it; +I've known a brave man fly a shepherd's cur, +A wise man so demean himself, drivelling idiocy +Had wellnigh been ashamed on't. For your crafty, +Your worldly-wise man, he, above the rest, +Weaves his own snares so fine, he's often caught in them." + +He who does not make allowances for weaknesses and differences in his +study of human affairs is still in the infant class. It is a grave +danger to every state that critics, smart or shallow, with their tu +quoque weapons, their silly ridicule, their emphasis upon differences +as though they were disasters, their constant failure to recognize the +value of certain weaknesses, their stupidity in not painting great men +who happen to be blind, in profile, and their harping upon the flaws, +and their neglect of the fine texture of human qualities that are +strange to them, that these critics are not muzzled, or, if that is +impossible, disregarded. + +They make it appear that amicable relations between nations are next +to impossible. If you escape one danger of offending, you are sure to +give offence in some other way, they seem to say. They are hysterical +in their self-consciousness, "as if a man did flee from a lion and a +bear met him, or went in the house and leaned his hand on the wall and +a serpent bit him." Sir Edward Grey writes on this subject: "I +sometimes think that half the difficulties of foreign policy arise +from the exceeding ingenuity of different countries in attributing +motives and intentions to the governments of each other. As far as I +can observe, the press of various countries is much more fertile in +inventing motives and intentions for the governments of the different +countries than the foreign ministers of these countries are +themselves. Foreign governments and our own government live from hand +to mouth and have fewer deep plans than people might suppose. There is +an old warning that you should not spend too much time in looking at +the dark cupboard for the black cat that is not there, and I think if +sometimes we were a little less suspicious of deep design or motive +that the affairs of the world would progress more smoothly." + +The trouble lies in our undertaking the impossible, to the neglect of +the obvious and the possible. The basic fact of nationality is a +preference for our own ways, customs, and habits over those of other +people. If the Chinese and Japanese, the Servians and Albanians, the +English and the Germans liked one another as well as they like their +own, there would be no nationalism to protect or to preserve. Such +racial and traditional liking of nation for nation is impossible of +achievement. No journeyings, speechifyings, banquets, or compliments +will bring it about. On the contrary, I am not sure that it is not +these very differences which cheer us and give us a new flavor in our +pleasure in living, when we cross the Atlantic, the Channel, or the +Rhine. What we should strive for is not social and racial absorption, +but social and racial difference and distinction, with that pride in +our own which makes for patience in the understanding of others. + +It is the petty, self-conscious American who hates the English, the +provincial Englishman who hates the German, the socially insecure +German who hates the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the American. +Those of us who are poised, secure, satisfied, and at bottom proud of +our race, our breeding, and our country, are neither irritable nor +irritating in the matter of international relations. We have enough to +do, and let others alone. Let us dine one another, criticise one +another in the effort to improve ourselves, praise one another where +the praise serves to establish our own ideals; but let us give up this +forced and awkward courting by banquets, deputations, and conferences. +Let us study the great art of leaving one another alone. This is a +time-hallowed doctrine. The greatest of all satirists and critics of +manners knew this secret of successful intercourse with one another. +One of the characters in the "Frogs" of Aristophanes is made to say: +"Don't come trespassing upon my mind; you have a house of your own." +Propinquity does not necessarily entail intimacy; as the world grows +smaller, more and more people think so, perhaps often enough only to +escape from themselves, a favorite form of elopement these days. Some +men are fed by solitude and starved by too much companionship, and the +same is true of nations. You cannot control others till you have +learned to control yourself, or save another till you yourself are +saved, and most of us had better be about that business. + +It is England's business to know just now, and to some extent ours, +how many ships Germany is building and how many men she has in +training to man them; but it is not in the least anybody's business to +question her motives or to attempt to dictate her policy. It is our +business to shut up, and to build ships and to train men according to +our notions of what is necessary for safety in case of an explosion. +We should be about our father's business, not about our brother's +business. + +It is shallow thinking and lack of knowledge of the men and women of +stranger countries, and above all that terrible itching to be doing +something, which lead to these futile excursions and this silly talk. + +Can anything be more maudlin than to suppose that international +sensitiveness, that commercial rivalries, that tariff discriminations, +that territorial misunderstandings, are to be soothed and smoothed +away, by dissertations upon how much we owe to one another in matters +of culture? Think what we owe to Goethe and Lessing, to Spinoza and +Kant, to Heine and Mozart and Wagner and Beethoven, reiterates the +Englishman; think what we owe to Shakespeare and Milton, to Byron and +Shelley and Scott, to Lister and Newton, answers the German! Who can +go to war with the countrymen of Racine and Moliere and Pascal and +Montesquieu and Descartes? repeats the friend of France; and by others +are trumpeted the fraternal relations that we ought to cultivate with +the countrymen of Dante, or of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. +This is phantom friendship, and we all know in our heart of hearts, +that we would fight any or all of them at the drop of a handkerchief, +if they hurt our feelings, ruffled our national pride, or maltreated +in a foreign land the meanest of our racial brothers. Straining after +such artificial bonds of union is as irritating as it is unreal. + +Germany has few heartier admirers of Bismarck than am I; England has +few franker friends of her great gentlemen in peace and war than am I; +I have read and profited by French literature far more than from +anything America has produced; if I can write so that here and there a +brother has profited therefrom, I owe it to the Frenchmen I have +studied; but these are all nothing as compared with my heart's real +allegiances. There is a gulp in my throat when I dream of that weary, +misunderstood, but patient and humble peace-maker, who held the scales +between the millions of my own countrymen, shooting and stabbing one +another to death fifty years ago. No other man can be quite like him +to me; he remains my master of men, as is Lee my ideal of the Happy +Warrior. I understand the grim humor in his sad eyes, I love that +lined face, cut from the granite of self-control, that tamed volcano +face, seamed and scarred by the lava of his trials and his tears; I +can see how the illuminating and conciliatory anecdotes were his +relief from the pain of an aching heart; my muscles harden and my +nerves tingle as I recall the puppet politicians and fancy self-advertising +warriors who crucified him slowly. The country and the +people that Lincoln believed in, I must believe in and fight for too. +Washington was an Englishman and baptized us, but Lincoln was an +American who officiated at our first communion as a united people. + +I ask no Englishman, no German, no Frenchman to agree with me, but I +ask them to leave me alone with my dead, to leave me in peace with my +living problems, to force no artificial friendships upon me, and thus +to let our respect for one another increase naturally. + +Has the Englishman, has the German, no sanctuaries to be left +undisturbed; no heart-strings that are not to be fumbled at by busy +fingers; no personal dignities to be shrouded from investigations; no +sweet silences of sorrow that are barred to foreign mourners? If he +have not, then all this clamor at the doors of national privacy is +well enough; but let them remember that when nations lose their +dignity and their racial pride, there is sure to follow the squabbling +and the jealousy, the rough speech and vulgar manners, of the domestic +circle, in the same plight of spiritual shamelessness. The best that +any of us learn is to be a little more patient, a little more +charitable, a little more careful of the dignity of others in our own +homes, or abroad, and then the light goes out! + + + +XI CONCLUSION + + +Criticism is temptingly easy when it consists, as it so often does, in +merely noting what is different, or what is not there. Helpful +criticism I take to be the discovery of what is there, and its +revelation, with an examination of its history, its truth, and its +value. That kind of criticism is close to creation itself, and few +there are sufficiently self-sacrificing to endow and to train +themselves to undertake it. + +It makes life very complicated to think too much about it, but to take +a step further, and to attempt to apply logic to life, that way +madness lies. It is of the very essence of life that things are never +as they ought to be, but only as they can be for the time being. We +may be optimistic enough to believe that this is a good world, but it +is none the less true that unbending virtue seldom receives the +temporal rewards for which most of us are striving, and with which +alone most of us are content. We are forced to doubt, therefore, the +goodness which finds life easy and comfortable, and since we must +still at all hazards be charitable in our judgments of one another, we +become, most of us, opportunists in morals. + +In dealing with the men, manners, affairs, and the soul of a stranger +people, therefore, one must use what experience, knowledge, good-humor, +and impartiality one has, without assumption of superiority, +without making high demands, and without ceasing to be at least as +opportunist as we are at home. Because things are different, they are +not necessarily better or worse, and if certain things are not there, +it is perhaps because they do not belong there. Above all, we should +refrain from applying a stern logic to the life of another country +which we never use in measuring our own. + +The whole north of Germany is a flat, barren plain, with the Elbe, the +Oder, the Weser flowing west and north. The north of Germany on a +raised map looks like a vast sea-shore, and so it is. To the south a +great river, the Rhine, pierces its way from Frankfort through a +beautiful gorge in the mountains, and has its source near that of the +Danube. Barbarossa called this river, "that royal street." This sea-shore +is cultivated and populous; this river has been made a great +commercial highway. Cologne, one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, +is now a seaport; Strasburg, three hundred miles inland, can receive +boats of six hundred tons; and the tributary river, the Main, has been +deepened so that now Frankfort receives steamers from the Rhine. Three +quarters of the through trade of Holland is German water-borne trade. +Now the Dortmund-Ems canal, which is one hundred and sixty-eight miles +long, and can be used by ships of a thousand tons, gives an outlet, +via the Rhine, at Emden. All this is the work of a patient, +persistent, and economical people working under great natural +disadvantages. + +As compared with America this is an unfruitful land, and, as I have +noted, surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies. In 1902 Traugott +Mueller estimated the value of Germany's production of wheat, potatoes, +vegetables--the products of the gardens and the fields, in short--at +$605,000,000; the production of beef, mutton, pork at $669,500,000; of +the dairies at $406,000,000; of cotton, sugar, alcohol, wine, and wood +at $322,000,000; or a total of $2,002,000,000. The United States is +seventeen times as large, but by no means seventeen times as +productive. + +Germany, again, is divided into a number of states, all, with the +exception of Prussia, with its population of 40,000,000 out of the +total of 65,000,000, comparatively small. These states are not merely +divided by legal and geographical lines, but by traditions, different +ruling families, religion, tastes, habits, and manners, and even +geologically. Bernhard Cotta, writing of Germany, says: "Geologically +there is a Spain, an England, a Sweden, a Russia, a France, but no +Germany." They are different individuals, not different members of the +same family. They have been cemented together by coercion. + +Over this whole country for three hundred years have swept all the +fighting men of Europe. Until 1870 it was a tournament ground for the +Swedes, Russians, French, Dutch, Belgians, Italians, Hungarians, +English, and the various German states. It was shot over, till it is a +wonder that there are any young birds, not to speak of old cocks and +hens left, to begin with over again. + +A feature of the political situation, which scarcely enters into +political calculations in America, is the sharp division between +Protestants and Catholics, with a political party of Catholics +numbering one fourth of the total members, in the Reichstag. In 1905 +there were 37,646,852 Protestants and 22,109,644 Catholics in Germany, +the Roman Catholics being in a majority in Baden, Bavaria, and +Alsace-Lorraine. In the past these religious differences have entailed +all the most repulsive features of war, waged to the point of +extermination. "Lieber Rom als Liberal," is still a punning war-cry +marking the dislike of Rome and the fear of Socialism. + +With us religion has become largely an organized attempt, using +charity as patronage, to reconcile piety and plenty, with the result +that with the exception of the Catholic Church dealing with the lately +arrived immigrants, and the Methodists and Baptists dealing with the +ignorant masses, black and white, in the South, religion in the sense +of an organized church has little hold upon the people, especially in +the large cities. + +In America the indifference to religion is the result of suspicion. +The congregations are too largely black-coated and white-collared, and +the lay officers of the churches much too solemnly sleek and serenely +solvent to attract the weak, the unfortunate, the sorrowing, and the +sinner. The mere appearance of the congregation in a prosperous +Protestant church in an American city is a mockery of Christianity. +Any man who preaches to men who can own a seat in God's house is a +craven opportunist. Until the doors of the churches are open all the +week, and the seats in the churches free, to claim that the Christ is +there is little short of blasphemy. It is no wonder that those who +need Him most, never dream of seeking for Him in these ecclesiastical +clubs. + +In Germany half-baked thinking, following upon, and as the result of, +the barracks and corporal methods of education, have turned the +Protestant population from the churches. The slovenly and patchy +omniscience of the partly educated, leads them to believe that they +know enough not to believe. Renan, though a doubter himself, saw the +weakness of this form of disbelief when he wrote: "There are in +reality but few people who have a right not to believe in +Christianity." + +The people living upon this ethnographical chess-board have been for +centuries rather tribal than national, and are still rather +philosophical than political, rather idealistic than practical, rather +dreamy than adventurous. To organize this population for self-support +and self-defence, to ignore differences, racial and religious, to +stamp out the jealousies of small rulers, required severe measures, +and we are all learning to-day that democracies are seldom severe with +themselves. A tyrannical autocracy, led by the Great Elector, +Frederick the Great, and Bismarck, produced from this welter of +discord the astonishing results of to-day. + +We have to-day, in an area of 208,780 square miles, 5,604 square miles +representing the lately conquered territory of Alsace-Lorraine, a +population of 64,903,423, of whom 1,028,560 are subjects of foreign +powers. To defend this area there are to be, according to figures +estimated even as this volume goes to press, a million men under arms +in the army and navy. Their enormous progress in trade, in industry, +in shipbuilding, is set out in full in every year-book, for the +curious to ponder. In so short a time, on so poor a soil, in such a +restricted space, with such a past of distress and disaster, and +dealing with such conflicting interests, a like success in nation-building +is unparalleled. + +Industrial and martial beehive though it would seem to be, there are +provided for the native and the foreigner feasts of music, of art, and +of study that cost little. There are quiet streams, lovely, lonely +walks, and quaint towns that are nests of archaeological interest. In +Weimar, in Stuttgart, in Schwerin, in Duesseldorf, in Karlsruhe, not to +mention Munich, Leipsic, Dresden, Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg, there +are centres of culture. The best that the mind of man creates is still +spread out there as of yore for whomsoever will to partake, but ever +in less abundance and with less enthusiasm. And these names are a mere +fraction of the number of such places. + +The rivalries between the states is now to a large extent an elevating +rivalry of culture, dotting the map of Germany with resting-places for +the curious, the scholarly, or the sentimental traveller. You may have +plain living and high thinking in scores of the cities and towns of +Germany, and you will be considered neither an outcast nor an +eccentric; indeed, you will find no small part of the population your +companions. + +You may stroll for miles on the banks of that tiny stream the +Zschopau, and expect to see sprites and nymphs, so hidden are its +windings; and where in all the world will a handkerchief cover an Ulm, +an Augsburg, a Rothenburg, Ansbach, Nuremberg, Wuerzburg, with their +wealth of associations? + +The Fugger family, of Augsburg, tell us again that there is nothing +new in the world. Five hundred years ago they were millionaires. One +of these Fuggers had a voice even in the election of Charles V, and we +are still hard at it trying to keep our Fuggers from meddling in +politics. Another Fugger, Marcus by name, wrote a capital book on the +horse in the sixteenth century, and at the last horse-show at Olympia, +in 1912, a Fugger came over from Germany and took away the first prize +for officers' chargers. So far flung was their fame as money-lenders +that usury was called "Fuggerei"! + +Heirs of great houses got out of hand then as now, and Duke Albert III +of Bavaria married Agnes Bernauer, the barber's daughter, and even the +Archduke Ferdinand of Austria ran off with Fraeulein Welser. One +citizen of Augsburg fitted out a squadron to take possession of +Venezuela, which had been given him by the Emperor Charles V. For some +reason the squadron did not sail; Lord Salisbury and President +Cleveland could have told this adventurous Augsburger that he was +better off at home! + +Bishop Boniface, of Wuerzburg, was an Englishman, and his father was a +wheelwright. He put cart-wheels in his coat-of-arms, and they have +remained to this day in the arms of the town, a fine reminder to +snobbery that ancestry only explains, it cannot exalt. + +"Pigmies are pigmies still, though perch'd on Alps, +And pyramids are pyramids in vales." + +The atmosphere in these towns is one of repose. They are still wise +enough to know that the miraculous improvements in speed brought about +by steam and electricity have not shortened the journey of the soul to +heaven by one second. They know that Socrates on a donkey really goes +faster than Solly Goldberg in his sixty-horse-power motor-car. They +are suspicious of the new cosmopolitan creed, that successful +advertising endows a man with eternal life. Countless political quacks +have been caricatured, advertised, and cinematographed into +familiarity, but wise men still read Plato and Aristotle. The penny +press has not convinced them that popularity is immortality; they +recognize popularity as merely glory paid in pennies. They partake to +some extent of the patience of the Oriental. They suspect, as most men +of wide intellectual experience do, that the man who cannot wait must +be a coward at bottom, afraid of himself, or of the world, or of God. + +This is wholly true of many Germans, despite the clang of arms, the +noise of steam-hammers, the shrieking locomotives, the puffing +steamers, the clinking of their gold, and the shouting of their +pedlers, now scattered all over the world. It is this combination, in +the same small area, of noise and repose; of political subserviency at +home and sabre-rattling abroad; of close organization at home and +colonizing inefficiency abroad; of moral and intellectual freedom, one +might almost call it moral and intellectual anarchy these days, and at +the same time submission to a domestic and social tyranny unknown to +us, that makes even a timid author feel that he is discovering the +Germans to his countrymen, so little do they know of this side of +German life. + +They are not at all what the Americans and the English +think they are. They want peace, and we think they want war. The huge +armaments are intended to frighten us, just as were the grotesquely +ugly masks of the Chinese warriors. They intend to frighten us all +with their 850,000 soldiers, their great fleet, their air-ships and +aeroplanes, and when they go to Agadir again they hope to be able to +stay there till their demands are granted. They are the last comers +into the society of nations and they mean to insist upon recognition. +But this demand is an artificial one so far as the great mass of +Germans is concerned. It is the Prussian conqueror, and the small +class, officer, official and royal, representing that conqueror, who +are determined upon this course. They have unified Germany, they have +made the laws and forced obedience to them; and the heavily taxed, +hard-driven, politically powerless people are helpless. + +Nowhere has socialistic legislation been so cunningly and skilfully +used for the enslavement of the people. No small part of every man's +wages is paid to him in insurance; insurance for unemployment, for +accident, sickness, and old age. There is but faint hope of saving +enough to buy one's freedom, and if the slave runs away he leaves, of +course, all the premiums he has paid in the hands of his master. A +general uprising is guarded against by a redoubtable force of +officials, officers, and soldiers, whose very existence depends upon +their defence of and upholding of the state under its present laws and +rulers. + +Our grandfathers and fathers, some of them, talked and read of Saint-Simon, +of Fourier, Robert Owen, Maurice Kingsley, and the Brook Farm +experiment, and believed, no doubt, that the dawn of the twentieth +century would have extracted at least some balm from these theories +for the healing of our social woes. They would rub their eyes in +amazement were they to awake in 1912 to find more armed men, more +ships of war, more fighting, more strikes and trade disputes, than +ever before. Above all, they would be puzzled to find the nation which +is most advanced in the application of the theory of state socialism +with the largest army, the heaviest taxation, and the second most +formidable fleet. + +The library in which, as a small boy, I was permitted to browse, where +I read those wonderful Black Forest Stories and my first serious +novel, On the Heights, contained a bust of Goethe, and on the shelves +were Fichte, Freytag, Spielhagen, Strauss, and a miscellaneous +collection of German authors grave and gay, or perhaps melancholy were +a better word, for even now I should find it hard to point to a German +author who is distinctively gay. No visitor to that library, and they +numbered many distinguished visitors, American and foreign, from +Emerson and Alcott and George Macdonald to others less well known, +dreamed that the serene marble features of Goethe would be replaced by +the granite fissures of the face of Bismarck; and that Auerbach's +Black Forest Stories would be less known than Albert Ballin's fleet of +mercantile ships. As I dream myself back to that big chair wherein I +could curl up my whole person, and still leave room for at least two +fair-sized dogs, I see as in no other way the almost unbelievable +change that has come over Germany. The Black Forest Stories, Hammer +and Anvil, The Lost Manuscript, Werther, Fichte, Kant, Hegel, +Schopenhauer, Strauss, Heine were Germany then; Bismarck, Ballin, and +Krupp are Germany now. Germany was Hamlet then; Germany is Shylock, +Shylock armed to the teeth, now. + +No nation can change in one generation, as has Germany, by the natural +development of its innate characteristics; such a change must be +forced and artificial to take place in so short a time. This is not +only the internal danger to Germany itself, but the danger to all +those superficial observers who point to Germany as having solved +certain social and economic problems. She has not solved them by +healthy growth into better ways; she has suppressed them, strangled +them, suffocated them. + +The heroes and heroines of my Black Forest Stories have been rudely +stuffed into the uniforms of officials, soldiers, factory hands, and +Red Cross nurses. The toy-shops have been developed, on borrowed +capital, into ship-building yards and factories for guns and +ammunition. The dreamer in dressing-gown and slippers has been forced +into the cap and apron of the workman. The small sovereigns have been +frightened into allegiance to the war lord, whose shadow falls upon +every corner of Germany. + +In this new scheme of things it soon became evident, that the +individual was incompetent to take care of himself along lines best +suited to the plans of his new conqueror, therefore part of his +earnings were taken from all alike to provide against accident, +sickness, unemployment, and old age, and thus bind him fast to the +chariot of his warrior lord. Germany, having given up the belief that +the salvation of her own soul was of prime importance, became +suspiciously concerned about the souls and bodies of the people. We +are all to some extent following her example. The wise among us are +sad, the capitalist and his ally the demagogue are seen everywhere all +smiles, rubbing their hands, for the more people are made to believe +that they can be, and ought to be, taken care of, the more the +machinery is put into their hands, the more plunder comes their way, +the more indispensable they are. + +The great majority of people who write or speak of Germany applaud +this situation; let me frankly say, what everybody will be saying in +twenty-five years, I deplore it. It is a purely artificial, +incompetent, and dreary solution. Even Hamlet were better than +Shylock. + +Fortunately there is also a large and increasing class in Germany who +distrust the situation. They point to the fact that technical +education is producing an army of dingy artisans, who turn out the +cheap and nasty by the million, an education which chokes idealism and +increases the growing flippancy in matters of faith and morals; they +sneer, and well they may, at the manufactured art, the carpenter's +Gothic architecture, the sickly literature, the decaying interest in +scholarship; they find fewer and fewer candidates for exploration and +colonization; they rankle under the series of diplomatic ineptitudes +since Bismarck; they see France, Russia, and England antagonized and +leagued against them, and their own allies, Austria-Hungary and Italy, +in a confused state of squabble with their neighbors; they are nervous +and disquieted by the financial and industrial conditions; they +condemn whole-heartedly the political caste system by which much of +the best material in Germany is barred from the councils and the +diplomatic and executive activities of the nation; there are not a few +who would welcome an inconclusive war that would, they think, put an +end to this system, and make the ruler and the officials responsible +to the people; they wish to open the doors of this governmental, +legislative, educational, industrial hot-house, and give the nation a +chance to grow naturally in the open air. + +The policy of making other people afraid of you must have an end, the +policy of making others respect and like you can have no end. There is +no question which is the natural law of national development. Neither +for the individual nor for a nation is it wholesome to increase +antagonisms and to lessen the conciliatory points of contact with the +world. + +Many of the weaknesses, much of the strength of Germany are +artificial. They have not grown, they have been forced. The very +barrenness of the soil, the ring of enemies, the soft moral and social +texture of the population, have, so their little knot of rulers think, +made necessary these harsh, artificial forcing methods. + +The outstanding proof of the artificiality of this civilization is its +powerlessness to propagate. Germans transplanted from their hothouse +civilization to other countries cease to be Germans; and nowhere in +the world outside Germany is German civilization imitated, liked, or +adopted. The German is nonplussed to find the Pole in the East, the +Frenchman in the West, the Dane in the North, scoffing at his alte +Kultur, as he calls it, and he is irritated beyond measure by the +German from America, who returns to the Vaterland to criticise, to +sneer, and to thank God that he is an American, not a German citizen. +Germans become English citizens, no Englishmen become Germans; +millions of Germans have become Americans, no Americans become +Germans. No other population would be amenable to the Prussian methods +that have made Germany, nor is there anywhere in the world a people +demanding Prussian methods, while there are millions under the +Prussian yoke who hate it. + +The German rhetoric to the effect that Germany is to save the world by +Teutonizing the world, is laughable. Prussia is the ventriloquist +behind this half-hearted boast. + +Werther, and Faust, and Lohengrin, are far more real than those +scarecrows autocracy, bureaucracy, and militarism, triplets of straw, +premature births, not destined to live, of which Germany boasts to-day +as the most precocious children in the world. They are just that, +precocious children, teaching the pallid religion of dependence upon +the state and enforcing the anarchical morality of man's despair of +himself. Our descendants will have Werther and Faust and Lohengrin, as +the companions of their dreams at least, when that autocracy shall +have been blown to the winds, when that bureaucracy shall have dried +up and wasted away, when that exaggerated militarism shall be but +bleaching bones and dust. + +Who has not lived in Germany as a house of dreams, seen the Valkyrie +race by, heard the swan song, wept with Werther and with Marguerite, +smiled cynically with Mephistopheles, languished with the Palm Tree +and the Pine of Heine; who has not sat at the feet of Germany as a +philosopher, and traced the very fissures of his own brain in +following thinking into thought; but who in all the world longs for +this new Germany of the barracks, the corporal and the pedler? +Germania as a malicious vestal clad in horrid armor and making +mischief in the world is a very present danger; Germania with a torch +lighting the world to salvation is a phantom, a ghost, seen by hasty +and nervous observers, who rush out to proclaim an adventure that may +excite a passing interest in themselves. Her methods to-day are +solution by suffocation; no wonder those of us who loved her in our +youth see in her a ghost to-day. I am thankful that I was her pupil +when she had other things to teach, when she wore other robes, when +she was modest, and not snatching at the trident of Neptune, nor +clutching at the casque of Mars. + +"Wir wissen zu viel, wir wollen zu wenig," became the national +complaint, and Germany has attempted to transform herself. She has +succeeded in the transformation, but the transformation is not a +success. Even that learned English friend of Germany, Lord Haldane, +does not see, or will not see, that a people thinking themselves into +action, instead of developing into action naturally, through action, +must suffer from the artificiality of the process. Lord Haldane +applauds their thought-out organization in industrial, commercial, and +military matters, but he fails to mention the squandering of +individual capacity and energy that has resulted in Germany's growing +dependence upon a wooden bureaucracy. Organization is only good as a +means; it is stupefying as an end. Germany has organized herself into +an organization, and is the most over-governed country in the world. +What every democracy of free men wants is not as much, but as little, +organization as possible compatible with economical administration of +industry, the army, the navy, and the affairs of the state. You can +think out a game of chess, but you cannot think out life ahead of the +living of it without cramping it and finally killing it. Life is to +live, not to think, after all. Neither a nation nor an individual has +ever thought out the way to power. This is where the metaphysician +invariably fails when he mistakes thinking for living, when he +mistakes organization, which can never be more than a mould for life, +for life itself. To plan an army is not to produce one, however good +the plan; even to plan a campaign, once you have an army, is to court +disaster unless there is a living man to thrust the plan aside when +the emergencies arise that make up the whole of life, but have nothing +to do with organization. + +If all men were tailors, or lawyers, or farmers, or miners, then we +could think out an organization into which they would fit, but +unfortunately for the metaphysician, all men are not categories; all +men are men! In like manner, if all men were cases, then government by +lawyers would be successful, but men and women are neither categories +nor cases. It is purely fantastic, the mere reasoned confusion of the +philosopher, to point to Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel and their successors +as the originators of Germany's progress. If Germany had developed +along those lines, she would be something quite different from what +she is. The Great Elector, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Bismarck +made Germany, and her philosophers and pedants are only responsible +for the softness that made it possible. Metaphysicians and lawyers +have their place, but they will inevitably ruin any people whom they +are permitted to govern. + +The reader will perhaps look back through these pages to discover a +contradiction. He will seem to find evidence that Germany's position +in the world called for just this present Germany, which is a factory +town with a garden attached, surrounded by an armed camp. I deny the +contradiction. I have tried to analyze and to give the reasons for +Germany's development along these meretricious and disappointing +lines, but I am the last to admit that the outcome is satisfactory, or +that the rest of the world should look to Germany to point out the way +of salvation. A steaming orchid-house is not the place to go to learn +to grow the fruits of the earth in their due season for the +nourishment of a free people. You will find some brilliantly colored +flowers there, in the gay uniforms of the artificial tropics, but they +shrink and shrivel in the open air. They have been trained to grow +luxuriantly in this stifling atmosphere, but they feed no one, please +no one, who will not consent to live in a glass house with them. + +Because a people is blindfolded, its preachers and pedagogues gagged, +its officials subservient, is all the more reason why they should be +easily led, but no reason at all for supposing that they will lead +anybody else. + +I have said here and there that I have learned much, and that we all +have much to learn from Germany. I permit myself to repeat it. She has +shown us that the short-cut to the governing of a people by +suppression and strangulation results in a dreary development of +mediocrity. She has proved again that the only safety in the world for +either an individual or a nation is to be loved and respected, and in +these days no one respects slavery or loves threats. + +From an American point of view, any sacrifice, any war, were better +than the domination of the Prussian methods of nation-making. No +nation should be by its traditions and its ideals more ready to arm +itself, and to keep itself armed if necessary for years, against the +possibility of the transference of such methods to the American +continent than the United States of North America. + +"Theuer ist mir der Freund, doch auch den Feind kann ich nuetzen, +Zeigt mir der Freund, was ich kann, lehrt mir der Feind was ich soll," + +writes Schiller. + +We Americans have much to learn from both our friends and our enemies. +We have both in Germany, and we should cultivate the temper of mind +which profits by the encouragement of our friends and the criticism of +our foes. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Germany and the Germans, by Price Collier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE GERMANS *** + +***** This file should be named 19036.txt or 19036.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/0/3/19036/ + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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