AFTER THE WAR, WHAT?
No one but a fortune teller or professional seer dares to predict
the condition of the world after this war. Only mere suggestions
can be thrown out, shadows of prophecy as to what may come.
Will the tide of emigration turn from Europe and the United
States to other countries or will people of German birth and
descent leave America to return to the Fatherland after the war?
I made it my business after I had learned German to talk to many
of the plain people in Berlin and elsewhere, to get their views.
I found that the common soldiers, especially those representing
the class of skilled workingmen in the industrial centres were
almost unanimous in saying that after the war and at the first
opportunity they intended to leave Germany, to turn from a
country capable of perpetrating this calamity on the world, a
country where they have been subject not alone to military
service but to a cruel and oppressive caste system of discipline.
I believe that Germany will enact laws against emigration and
that there will be zones of espionage on all German frontiers
designed to watch and keep back such Germans as may seek to
escape to other countries.
In Austria even more stringent laws will be necessary to keep the
unmarried males from leaving.
I know that experts of the United States Government believe at
least three millions of Slovaks, Greeks, etc., will leave America
after the war, taking with them the money they have earned, for
investment in new opportunities in the Old Country.
With this view I cannot agree. The soil of the European continent
is too poor, wages too small, hours too long, and distaste for
the military and caste systems too great, to tempt those who have
tasted the equality and the freedom of America. Why to-day an
ordinary coal miner in Pennsylvania can earn $5,000 a year--a sum
greater than the pay of a Prussian or Austrian general! Why
should this miner go back to insult and slavery?
The greatest problem of Germany comes after the war--when these
millions of men, trained for four years or more to murder, shall
return. It will be hard for them to settle down to regular work,
impossible for them to submit again to the iron discipline of
German civil life. Will they not, as Bloch predicts, possibly,
re-enact the horrors of the French Commune, or even those of the
French Revolution?
It is hard to understand why Prussian autocracy does not freely
offer what it will be compelled to give after the war--equal
suffrage in Prussia, fair representation in the Reichstag--a
government responsible to the Reichstag. Is it not better for the
Emperor to offer this--following Bismarck's saying that "in
Prussia the revolutions are made by the rulers."
And who of all rulers in history seemed to sit more securely on
his throne than Nicholas who is now learning from his keepers
what a Czar really is?
The Emperor said to me once, "Is it not wonderful how the German
people bear their sufferings in this war?" I said I thought it
was wonderful. It is that and more,--it is almost a miracle--that
a whole nation can so nearly approach this delirium.
The autocratic idea survives in Germany--on November 22, 1917,
the Conservative Union of the Province of Brandenburg unanimously
adopted the following resolution.
"The Prussian State, fundamentally a people of its Princes, is
the foundation on which the German Empire rests.
"Not sovereignty of the people but Kingship by Divine Right is
its corner stone.
"We implore our deputies to do their best to prevent the Kingship
being debased into a sham Kingship and being replaced by that
sovereignty of the people by means of the alteration of the
Prussian franchise."
After reading this can any one wonder that the Kaiser believes he
is called by God to rule the Germans?
"Kingship by Divine Right"--is quite a development of a Kingship
that originated in foreclosure proceedings, when Prussia was
taken for a debt by the crafty, rich Hohenzollern Burgraf of
Nuremberg.
Is it any wonder that the Kaiser once said to me during the war,
"Everything seems to be going my way--don't you think God is
helping me?"
* * * * *
The efforts of those in charge of the German propaganda to sow
dissensions among the Allies are more than awkward.
For some time after the landing in force of the British troops in
France, the newspapers of Germany were filled with cartoons
representing the British refusing to leave Calais; and now that
America has entered the war even so intelligent a philosopher as
Chancellor Hertling speaks as follows:
"If those who hold power in France forcibly
repress every suggestion of peace, and try to
rouse fresh will for war by a show of assurance of
victory, in spite of the frightful sacrifices the
war has cost the country, and must cost still
further, it is because they are sustained by the
hope of help from America. In this hope they
patiently tolerate the Americans also making
themselves at home in France, turning Bordeaux
into a great American harbour with immense loading
and unloading wharves, and cutting down the
forests of the Gironde in order to build a camp in
the neighbourhood of Bordeaux for the expected
army. French workmen tolerate in their factories
the competition of American workmen, with whom
they are not in sympathy, and the owners allow
them to look into the secrets of their business,
all so that the new Ally may help to take the
revenge on the hated Germans."
Misguided old Philosopher!
The most stupid peasant of the Bordeaux country does not believe
that the Americans have come to France in order to occupy
permanently a section of that sandy, barren scrub pine desert
which stretches to the south of Bordeaux.
* * * * *
And President Wilson and his cabinet, Lloyd George and the
statesmen of France and Italy, Portugal and Russia must be on
their guard--Wolff's agency is at work, spreading poisonous
propaganda. Here is an excerpt that speaks for itself:
"The Imperial and Royal Propaganda Department, Section of Foreign
Affairs, calls the editor's attention to the practice of the
enemy press in caricaturing the Kaiser, the Crown Prince,
Hindenburg and alleged German militarism, with the evident
intention of an odius anti-German propaganda. It would,
therefore, be important from the patriotic point of view for the
daily newspapers also to occupy themselves by means of caricatures
with the principal events of the day.
"The idea of such propaganda has been conceived by the supreme
military command. And it is therefore desirable that all should
conform to it. The official cinema has been ordered by the
supreme command to enter into direct communication with the daily
press, and many leading newspapers have hastened to express
their readiness to insert these patriotic caricatures, for the
drawing of which the service of the best artists in Munich and
Berlin have been secured. These caricatures will regard chiefly
the heads of state of the Entente powers, their political leaders
and those who make no mystery of their hatred for Germany. The
blocks will be supplied free of expense."
* * * * *
German employers will never be able to grind down their workmen
as before the war. The men who have fought in the trenches will
return with a new feeling of independence, a new spirit of revolt
against the caste prejudices, a disinclination to do the same
work in the same hours and for the same wages.
My tailor in Berlin told me that several of his men who had
returned after being discharged from the army because of some
physical disability or wounds took an entirely different attitude
and that one of them, for example, had said to him: "Do not think
that I have come back to work as before. I have the Iron Cross, I
have helped to save Germany. I am a hero and I do not propose
again to be your industrial slave."
That is the new spirit which after the war will animate the
deceived, hitherto down-trodden lower classes of Germany.
In our own country, the balance of political power may be held by
the soldiers who are enlisted in the war and who, like the G. A. R.'s
after our Civil War, may doubtless organise not only for protection
but for political purposes. And this great restless body of returned
troops, veterans of wars beyond the seas, may change our whole
foreign policy in ways of which we do not dream. We shall be a
more warlike nation, less patient to bear insult, more ready for
war, unless this war ends all wars.
* * * * *
The war after the war, in trade and commerce, may be long and
bitter. The rivers of Germany are lined with ships of seven or
eight thousand tons, many of them built or completed since the
war, and Germany designs as her first play in this commercial war
to seize the carrying trade of the world. The German exporter has
lost his trade for years. Alliances have already been made in
great industries, such as the dyestuff industry, in preparation
for a sudden and sustained attack upon that new industry in
America. Prices will be cut to far below the cost of production
in order that the new industry of America fighting single handed
against the single head German trust may be driven from the
field. The German Government will take a practical hand in this
contest and only the combination of American manufacturers and
the erection of a tariff wall of defence can prevent the
Americans, if each fights single handed and for his own end, from
falling before the united, efficient and bitter assault of German
trade rivals.
The war has brought new power and new responsibility to women.
Armed with the franchise they will demand not only equal rights
but equal pay. In Great Britain alone, before the war, there
were less than five hundred thousand women workers where now
over five million carry the burden even of the war industries of
the country.
Unless the war ends with a victory so decisive for the Allies
that an era of universal peace shall dawn for the world, each
nation will constitute itself an armed camp fearing always that
the German, with his lust for war and conquest, will again
terrorise the world by a sudden assault.
And a necessary sequence of this preparation for war will be the
desire of each nation to be self-sufficient--to produce within
itself those materials indispensable for the waging of war.
Capital will be wasted because each nation will store up
quantities of these materials necessary to war which it is
compelled to import from other countries.
For instance, Germany will always carry great stocks of grain and
of fats, of copper and cotton and wool, all of the materials for
the lack of which she suffered during the present war.
In my first book, I touched on the change in the industrial
system that will be brought about by the socialised buying and
selling introduced first by Germany and which must be copied by
the other nations if they desire to compete on equal terms with
that country. In Germany for several years after the war at
least, and perhaps as a permanent regulation, the purchase of all
luxuries outside of Germany will be forbidden because of the
desire to keep German gold and credits at home.
Germans have even stated to me that they do not fear in a trade
way any prejudice created against them in other countries by
their actions during this war. They say that a man always will
buy where he can buy the cheapest, and that however much a
merchant may hate the Germans after the war, if he can buy the
goods he wants for his use from Germany at a cheaper rate than
anywhere else, he will forget his prejudices in the interest of
his pocketbook.
This is a question which each reader will have to solve for
himself. Personally, I believe that in England, in France, and in
America, too, if the war should last a long time, the prejudice
against German trickery and brutality in war will become so great
that many a merchant will prefer to lose a little money than deal
with German sellers. However, the appeal of the pocketbook is
always so earnest and so insistent that the Germans may be right
in the view that financial considerations will weigh down the
balance as against the prejudice engendered in this struggle. And
if there comes a change of government in Germany, if the
Hohenzollerns no longer control, or if in a liberalised Germany
the ministers are responsible to a popular parliament, while
kings sink to the political position of the kings of Great
Britain or of Spain, then the commercial prejudice certainly will
not last long. The boycott of Germany for fifty years suggested
by the American Chamber of Commerce is a most powerful weapon.
And why, if wars are to continue after this one, should we
contribute to German trade profits and consequently to German
preparations for another war? The nations of the Allies must
reckon, too, with the bitter, bitter hate felt for them by the
whole German people--and only one who has been in Germany since
the war can realise its intensity.
One great factor in forcing a change of government will be the
desire of the individual German after the war to say that the
government of his country existing then is not the government
that ordered the shooting of Edith Cavell, the enslavement of the
women and girls of northern France, the deportation of the
Belgian workingmen, the horrors of the prison camps, the burning
of Louvain and all the other countless barbarities and cruelties
ordered by the German military commanders.
Imagine after this war in some distant island, perhaps, a
Frenchman, an Englishman, an American, a Portuguese, an Italian
all seated at the dining table of a little hotel. A German comes
in and seeks to join them. Will he be treated on an equality?
Will he be taken into their society? Or will he be treated as a
leper and a pariah?
The Germans will wish to be in a position to say: "Why,
gentlemen, I was against all these cruelties. I was against the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, and the murder of its women and
children. I was against the starving of Poland and the slaughter
of the Armenians and the crucifixion of prisoners, and we Germans
have thrown out the government that was responsible for these
horrors."
Stronger than any other consideration will be the desire of the
German to repudiate these acts which have made the Germany of
to-day a Cain among the nations,--an outcast branded with the
mark of shame.
The Russian author Bloch whom I have quoted, says, referring to
the future war:
"Behind all conflicts of interest between nations
statesmen must balance the chances of success of
their nation, promised by the recourse to arms,
against the terrible miseries of the victims
caused by war as well as the social peril which
can be the consequence of war.
"They who ask themselves when it will be possible
to propose to the people of any nation after the
war a compensation for its enormous sacrifices,
forget that the conquered will be so exhausted
that there will be no question of being able to
draw from a conquered nation the least pecuniary
indemnity. All that can be imposed on the
conquered will be the abandonment of some rags of
frontier territory.
"In these conditions, up to what point can calm be
counted on to reign among the millions of men
called to the colours, when in their ranks there
is not more than a handful of old officers and
when the command will be in the hands of those
newly promoted from among the non-commissioned
officers? That is to say, men belonging to the
working classes. Will these workingmen surrender
their arms in the states of Central Europe where
the propaganda has spread already among the
masses?
"Will they allow themselves to be disarmed after
the war and could there not come events more
horrible than those which signalised the rapid
triumph of the Commune of Paris?"
Just as to-day it is not isolated armies but whole peoples in
arms that are opposed, so in the war of commerce after the war
not single producers and exporters, corporations or individuals,
but whole nations will meet in the markets of the world.
Germany has favoured trusts--controlling prices and unfair
competition--and we shall encounter in buying and in selling the
whole German nation ranked behind their Central Buying Company in
buying and their Kartels in selling.
Isolated firms and individuals cannot on our side cope with such
an offensive--but we are hampered in effectiveness by the
so-called Sherman law--a law from which England is free.
The war will produce great and sudden alterations and President
Wilson in meeting new problems has pursued a progressive course;
witness his support of the Webb law, which enables our manufacturers
to combine in export trade.
Every sign points to a new era in business--an era in which the
Government will permit--even encourage--enlightened business
combinations.
The railroads of the country in the efficient hands of McAdoo
have already bettered service, and the rights of the Savings
Banks and of other holders of the securities of each road have
been secured.
We must, on the one hand, permit the abolition of ruinous
competition and on the other safeguard the public from high
prices, and the smaller firms and corporations from the unfair
competition of a powerful rival.
Great changes are coming in the social structure of the world. We
are on the threshold of a great readjustment. Whatever else our
entrance into the war may accomplish, let us hope that it will
have made of us a nation with the throb of a single patriotism
and the steady pulse of an energetic efficiency that shall not
merely seek in honest rivalry to compete with other nations but
in an enlightened and helpful way shall strive truly to heal a
wounded civilisation in the God-given days of peace.
[Illustration: EXACT SIZE REPRODUCTION OF A PAGE OF THE FAMOUS
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EDITOR OF GERMANY]
[Illustration: COVER OF PROGRAM OF SERVICE IN PROTESTANT
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