"What is the greatest city in the world?"
"Berlin!"
"Who is the greatest man in the world?"
"The Kaiser!"
"Should there ever be, children, a vacancy in the Trinity, who is best
fitted to fill the position?"
"The Crown Prince!"
"Who are the chosen people of the good old German God?"
"The German people!"
Never was there a finer bit of sarcasm and yet the Germans were never
able to understand the play. The Kaiser, the War Staff, the Cabinet,
down to the last wretched creature working in the stables and the
sewers, reading the play, exclaimed:
"What is the man driving at? Why, of course the Germans are the greatest
people in the world--we admit it!"
Now, during the last few years the Germans have spent untold millions in
propagating this myth of superiority, and yet the German intellect has
never even had a second-rate position. Call the roll of all the tools
that have redeemed men from drudgery and you will find that Germany's
contributions are hopelessly inferior to the other nations.
The new industrial era began with the locomotive and steamship; James
Watt invented the one and Stevenson the other.
The new era of physical comfort began with the loom; a Frenchman named
Jacquard and an Englishman named Arkwright made men warm for their work
in winter. Garments within the reach of the poor man in forest and
factory, field and mine, means the cotton gin, and that gin is the gift
of an American. The sewing machine changed woman's position, but the
world owes that to our own Elias Howe.
We owe the telegraph to an English inventor and, in part, to Morse. We
owe the cable in part to Lord Kelvin and, in part, to Cyrus Field. We
owe the telephone to Bell and the wireless to Marconi.
Holland invented the submarine, Wright the airplane, McCormick the
reaper and Edison the phonograph.
An American invented the German submarine; an American invented the
German torpedo; an American invented the German machine-gun; an American
invented the Murphy button, the yellow fever antitoxin, the Dakin
solution.
An English physician discovered the circulation of the blood, Jenner
gave us vaccination, Lister antiseptics, France the Pasteur serums and
the Curie radio discoveries, while a Bulgarian, Dr. Metchnikoff,
discovered the enemies of the blood.
It was from France, England and the United States that Germany stole the
typewriter, the steel building, the use of rubber, the aniline dyes,
reenforced concrete bridges, air-brakes, the use of electricity.
One of the most amazing volumes in the world is the "History of Tools
and Machinery." We have all known for a long time that there is not one
single German name among the eight great masters of painting that begins
with Rembrandt and includes men like Velasquez and Giotto. We have long
known that there is no German sculptor of the first class nor a German
sculptor that is within ten thousand leagues of Rodin, Michael Angelo or
Phidias. We have long known that Schubert and Schumann and Rubinstein
and Haydn and Chopin were all Jews, and that three-fourths of the other
so-called German musicians were Jews whose ancestors suffered such
frightful political disabilities in Germany and were so regularly looted
of all their property that they gave up their Hebrew names and took
German, just as now thousands upon thousands of Germans in this
country, ashamed of their names, are Americanizing their family title.
The simple fact is that if a Jew will only write the creative music,
like that of Beethoven, a German whose gift is detail will conduct the
orchestra.
The German can standardize a machine, providing an Englishman, a
Frenchman or an American will first invent it. The German will gather up
the remnants and scraps and odds and ends in a clothing factory--but,
oh, think of an American gentleman having to wear the coat that was cut
by a tailor in Berlin or Munich! Having during ten different summers
looked at their garments, all one can say is that the German men and
women are covered up but not clothed.
For thirty years the Germans have paid their representatives to stand on
the corner of the street and bawl out to every passer-by: "Great is the
Kaiser! Great are we Germans! Let all people with cymbals, sackbut,
shawms and psaltery cry aloud, saying 'Great is the Kaiser and all his
people!'"
And now suddenly the myth has burst like a bubble. The delusion is
exploded. The Kaiser has found out that it is dangerous to blow too
much hot air into a German bladder.
Measured around the stomach in the Hofbraus in the presence of a barrel
of beer, the Prussian and the Bavarian are great; but the hat band
requires the least material of any made in four countries.
For the time has come to confess this simple fact that for any one great
tool, or art, or contribution to science created by a German there are
four invented by either an American, an Englishman or a Frenchman.