_PUCK, March 19th, 1890._
“‘German Michel’ is a typical figure of which the most remarkable
characteristic is that it has made itself absolutely inappropriate
to its original purposes. It is a figure created by the German
caricaturists--a loutish, sleepy, heavy peasant, gazing on the world
with dull, uninterested eyes. It stood for the political spirit of
the German people--the spirit that existed in the years between ’48
and ’70--the spirit of indifferentism, of hopeless submission to
superior power, of acceptance of whatever state of affairs it might
please the rulers of the land to establish. It was aptly chosen. Even
the possibilities of brute force suggested by the bumpkin’s sturdy
build had a deeply significant application.... But 1870 and the war
changed the spiritual state of Germany, or rather, began a process of
change of which we have not yet seen the end. And now for twenty years
the German government has been educating Michel, and Michel has been
educating himself. While the government has been teaching him to read,
and he has been teaching himself various things that are useful and
interesting to any good citizen and patriot, there have been plenty of
people who have devoted themselves to giving him what might be called
an underground education. Recent events in Germany show that this part
of Michel’s education has certainly not been neglected--at least, so
far as the inculcation of the beauties of socialism is concerned....
Now it is to this Michel, not to the old Michel, to the public spirit
of Germany of 1850 or 1860, that the young Emperor Wilhelm is issuing
his extraordinary ‘rescripts,’ in which he describes himself as the
emissary of God, sent to take charge of the future of the German nation
(without specifying any qualifications for the task with which the
Almighty may have been pleased to endow him); announces his intention
of solving at once the everlasting problem of poverty and ignorance,
and offers to ‘shatter’ or ‘dash in pieces,’ all who oppose him in
his plans. Surely, this young man, this inexperienced youth, the son
of an Emperor who reigned only on his death-bed, the grandson of an
Emperor whose best work was done before that grandson had got well used
to long breeches; this immature martinet; this quaint despot with the
narrow forehead and the eager, intolerant face--surely he is ill-fitted
to meet the subtle, secret-minded men, conscious of their growing
strength, who have taken the place of the submissive ‘Michels’ of his
grandfather’s time.”--PUCK, _March 19th, 1890_.
[Illustration]