“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:
“If Silesia become Polish
Then, oh God, may children perish, like beasts, in their mothers’ womb.
Then lame their Polish feet and their hands, oh God!
Let them be crippled and blind their eyes.
Smite them with dumbness and madness,both men and women.”
From a Hymn of German hate for the Poles.
Germany remains German; but when next she springs, she will make no
blunders.