“You will desire to know,” said the Kaiser to his council at Potsdam in
June, 1908, after the successful testing of the first Zeppelin, “how the
hostilities will be brought about. My army of spies scattered over Great
Britain and France, as it is over North and South America, will take good
care of that. Even now I rule supreme in the United States, where three
million voters do my bidding at the Presidential elections.”
Yes, they did his bidding; there, and elsewhere too. They did it at other
elections as well. Do you remember the mayor they tried to elect in
Chicago? and certain members of Congress? and certain manufacturers and
bankers? They did his bidding in our newspapers, our public schools, and
from the pulpit. Certain localities in one of the river counties of Iowa
(for instance) were spots of German treason to the United States. The
“exchange professors” that came from Berlin to Harvard and other
universities were so many camouflaged spies. Certain prominent American
citizens, dined and wined and flattered by the Kaiser for his purpose,
women as well as men, came back here mere Kaiser-puppets, hypnotized by
royalty. His bidding was done in as many ways as would fill a book.
Shopkeepers did it, servants did it, Americans among us were decorated by
him for doing it. Even after the Armistice, a school textbook “got by” the
Board of Education in a western state, wherein our boys and girls were to
be taught a German version—a Kaiser version—of Germany.
Somebody protested, and the board explained that it “hadn’t noticed,” and
the book was held up.
We cannot, I fear, order the school histories in Germany to be edited by
the Allies. German school children will grow up believing, in all
prob-ability, that bombs were dropped near Nurnberg in July, 1914, that
German soil was invaded, that the Fatherland fought a war of defense; they
will certainly be nourished by lies in the future as they were nourished
by lies in the past. But we can prevent Germans or pro-Germans writing our
own school histories; we can prevent that “army of spies” of which the
Kaiser boasted to his council at Potsdam in June, 1908, from continuing
its activities among us now and henceforth; and we can prevent our school
textbooks from playing into Germany’s hand by teaching hate of England to
our boys and girls. Beside the sickening silliness which still asks, “What
has England done in the war?” is a silliness still more sickening which
says, “Germany is beaten. Let us forgive and forget.” That is not
Christianity. There is nothing Christian about it. It is merely
sentimental slush, sloppy shirking of anything that compels national
alertness, or effort, or self-discipline, or self-denial; a moral
cowardice that pushes away any fact which disturbs a shallow, torpid,
irresponsible, self-indulgent optimism.
Our golden age of isolation is over. To attempt to return to it would be a
mere pernicious day-dream. To hark back to Washington’s warning against
entangling alliances is as sensible as to go by a map of the world made in
1796. We are coupled to the company of nations like a car in the middle of
a train, only more inevitably and permanently, for we cannot uncouple; and
if we tried to do so, we might not wreck the train, but we should
assuredly wreck ourselves. I think the war has brought us one benefit
certainly: that many young men return from Europe knowing this, who had no
idea of it before they went, and who know also that Germany is at heart an
untamed, unchanged wild beast, never to be trusted again. We must not, and
shall not, boycott her in trade; but let us not go to sleep at the switch!
Just as busily as she is baking pottery opposite Coblenz, labelled “made
in St. Louis,” “made in Kansas City,” her “army of spies” is at work here
and everywhere to undermine those nations who have for the moment delayed
her plans for world dominion. I think the number of Americans who know
this has increased; but no American, wherever he lives, need travel far
from home to meet fellow Americans who sing the song of slush about
forgiving and forgetting.
Perhaps the man I heard talking in front of the bulletin board was one of
the “army of spies,” as I like to infer from his absence of “come-back.”
But perhaps he was merely an innocent American who at school had studied,
for instance, Eggleston’s history; thoughtless—but by no means
harmless; for his school-taught “slant” against England, in the days we
were living through then, amounted to a “slant” for Germany. He would be
sorry if Germany beat France, but not if she beat England—when
France and England were joined in keeping the wolf not only from their
door but from ours! It matters not in the least that they were fighting
our battle, not because they wanted to, but because they couldn’t help it:
they were fighting it just the same. That they were compelled doesn’t
matter, any more than it matters that in going to war when Belgium was
invaded, England’s duty and England’s self-interest happened to coincide.
Our duty and our interest also coincided when we entered the war and
joined England and France. Have we seemed to think that this diminished
our glory? Have they seemed to think that it absolved them from gratitude?
Such talk as that man’s in front of the bulletin board helped Germany
then, whether he meant to or not, just as much as if a spy had said it—just
as much as similar talk against England to-day, whether by spies or
unheeding Americans, helps the Germany of to-morrow. The Germany of
yesterday had her spies all over France and Italy, busily suggesting to
rustic uninformed peasants that we had gone to France for conquest of
France, and intended to keep some of her land. What is she telling them
now? I don’t know. Something to her advantage and their disadvantage, you
may be sure, just as she is busy suggesting to us things to her advantage
and our disadvantage—jealousy and fear of the British navy, or
pro-German school histories for our children, or that we can’t make dyes,
or whatever you please: the only sure thing is, that the Germany of
yesterday is the Germany of to-morrow. She is not changed. She will not
change. The steady stream of her propaganda all over the world proves it.
No matter how often her masquerading government changes costumes, that
costume is merely her device to conceal the same cunning, treacherous wild
beast that in 1914, after forty years of preparation, sprang at the throat
of the world. Of all the nations in the late war, she alone is pulling
herself together. She is hard at work. She means to spring again just as
soon as she can.
Did you read the letter written in April of 1919 by her Vice-Chancellor,
Mathias Erzberger, also her minister of finance? A very able, compact
masterpiece of malignant voracity, good enough to do credit to Satan.
Through that lucky flaw of stupidity which runs through apparently every
German brain, and to which we chiefly owe our victory and temporary
respite from the fangs of the wolf, Mathias Erzberger posted his letter.
It went wrong in the mails. If you desire to read the whole of it, the
International News Bureau can either furnish it or put you on the track of
it. One sentence from it shall be quoted here:
“We will undertake the restoration of Russia, and in possession of such
support will be ready, within ten or fifteen years, to bring France,
without any difficulty, into our power. The march towards Paris will be
easier than in 1914. The last step but one towards the world dominion will
then be reached. The continent is ours. Afterwards will follow the last
stage, the closing struggle, between the continent and the over-seas.”
Who is meant by “overseas”? Is there left any honest American brain so
fond and so feeble as to suppose that we are not included in that highly
suggestive and significant term? I fear that some such brains are left.
Germans remain German. I was talking with an American officer just
returned from Coblenz. He described the surprise of the Germans when they
saw our troops march in to occupy that region of their country. They said
to him: “But this is extraordinary. Where do these soldiers of yours come
from? You have only 150,000 troops in Europe. All the other transports
were sunk by our submarines.” “We have two million troops in Europe,”
replied the officer, “and lost by explosion a very few hundred. No
transport was sunk.” “But that is impossible,” returned the burgher, “we
know from our Government at Berlin that you have only 150,000 troops in
Europe.”
Germans remain German. At Coblenz they were servile, cringing, fawning,
ready to lick the boots of the Americans, loading them with offers of
every food and drink and joy they had. Thus they began. Soon, finding that
the Americans did not cut their throats, burn their houses, rape their
daughters, or bayonet their babies, but were quiet, civil, disciplined,
and apparently harmless, they changed. Their fawning faded away, they
scowled and muttered. One day the Burgomaster at a certain place replied
to some ordinary requisitions with an arrogant refusal. It was quite out
of the question, he said, to comply with any such ridiculous demands. Then
the Americans ceased to seem harmless. Certain steps were taken by the
commanding officer, some leading citizens were collected and enlightened
through the only channel whereby light penetrates a German skull. Thus, by
a very slight taste of the methods by which they thought they would cow
the rest of the world, these burghers were cowed instantly. They had
thought the Americans afraid of them. They had taken civility for fear.
Suddenly they encountered what we call the swift kick. It educated them.
It always will. Nothing else will.
Mathias Erzberger will, of course, disclaim his letter. He will say it is
a forgery. He will point to the protestations of German repentance and
reform with which he sweated during April, 1919, and throughout the weeks
preceding the delivery of the Treaty at Versailles. Perhaps he has done
this already. All Germans will believe him—and some Americans.
The German method, the German madness—what a mixture! The method
just grazed making Germany owner of the earth, the madness saved the
earth. With perfect recognition of Belgium’s share, of Russia’s share, of
France’s, Italy’s, England’s, our own, in winning the war, I believe that
the greatest and mast efficient Ally of all who contributed to Germany’s
defeat was her own constant blundering madness. Americans must never
forget either the one or the other, and too many are trying to forget
both.
Germans remain German. An American lady of my acquaintance was about to
climb from Amalfi to Ravello in company with a German lady of her
acquaintance. The German lady had a German Baedeker, the American a
Baedeker in English, published several years apart. The Baedeker in German
recommended a path that went straight up the ascent, the Baedeker in
English a path that went up more gradually around it. “Mine says this is
the best way,” said the American. “Mine says straight up is the best,”
said the German. “But mine is a later edition,” said the American. “That
is not it,” explained the German. “It is that we Germans are so much more
clever and agile, that to us is recommended the more dangerous way while
Americans are shown the safe path.”
That happened in 1910. That is Kultur. This too is Kultur:
Germany remains German; but when next she springs, she will make no
blunders.
