The subjoined article, appearing as a letter to THE NEW YORK
TIMES, was provoked by the appearance on hundreds of
billboards in New York of flaring appeals to American women
that they use their influence to prevent the further
exportation of arms and munitions to the enemies of Germany.
New York, July 5, 1915.
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
As I do not belong to any of the suffrage or other woman's
organizations in New York, may I say in your columns that for the
honor of my sex, if for no other reason, I hope the Mayor will consent
to the obliteration of those disingenuous posters addressing "American
citizens," and so cunningly worded and signed as to produce an
impression of representing the women of the United States? If the
people that are spending their thousands so freely had come out
frankly and stated that they were pro-German, and that the success of
their propaganda would mean defeat for the Allies, short of
ammunition, and victory for a nation that has nine-tenths of all the
ammunition in Europe, then at least we should have the sheep separated
from the goats; we could put it down to masculine influence over the
weaker female vessel, which at least was trying to be honest, and let
it go at that.
But I hold that such a poster, flaring from every billboard, is a
defamation of patriotic American women, and a distinct blow to the
cause of suffrage. It will not only antagonize men, who alone have the
power to grant the franchise in those States still obdurate, but
disgust thousands of women not yet won over to the cause, and far too
intelligent not to know the precise meaning behind those lying and
hypocritical words. For if that poster were really representative of
American women it would mean that American women were traitors to
their country, just as all pro-German American men, whatever their
descent, are traitors, whether they realize it or not. What was the
cause of the roar of indignation that went up all over the United
States on Aug. 1? Anti-Germanism? Not a bit of it. If Russia had made
the declaration of war the roar would have been as immediate and as
loud. It was the spontaneous protest of the spirit of democracy
against an arrogant autocracy that dared to plunge Europe into war and
the world into panic, without the consent of the people; the manifest
of a mediaeval power by an ambitious and unscrupulous group over
millions of industrious, peace-loving men who had nothing to gain and
all to lose.
It has been pointed out over and over again how diametrically opposed
are the German and American ideals; therefore, it seems incredible
that every American who champions the cause of a powerful and
sublimely egotistic nation does not realize that what he hopes to see
is not only the victory of the German arms in Europe, but the eventual
destruction of democracy, the annihilation of the spirit of America as
epitomized in the Declaration of Independence. I have not the least
apprehension of immediate war with Germany, any more than of physical
defeat at her hands did she, with the rest of Europe prostrate, make a
raid on our shores; but it seems hardly open to question that with
Europe Prussianized, we, the one heterogeneous race, and always ready
to absorb and imbibe from the parent countries, should lose, in the
course of half a century, our tremendous individual hustle, and
gratefully permit a benevolent (and cast iron) despotism (not
unnecessarily of our own make) to do our thinking, perhaps to select
our jobs and apportion our daily tasks.
For that is what it almost amounts to now in Germany, and it is for
this reason, no less than to escape military service, that so many
millions of Germans have immigrated to this country. Unlike the vast
majority of the bourgeois and lower classes, a kindly but stupid
people, they were born with an alertness of mind and an energy of
character which gave them the impetus to transfer themselves to a land
where life might be harder but where soul and body could attain to a
complete independence. Their present attitude is, however
unconsciously, hypocritical, but it is not altogether as traitorous as
that of the American born, who has not the excuse of that peculiar
form of sentimentality which has fermented in Germans at home and
abroad during this period of their Fatherland's peril. It is this
curious and wholly German brand of sentimentality which is the
cohering force in the various and extraordinarily clever devices by
which modern Germany has been solidified. It is a sentimentality
capable of rising to real exaltation that no other nation is capable
of, and that alone should make the American pro-German pause and
meditate upon a future United States where native individualism was
less and less reluctantly heading for the iron jaws of the
Prussianized American machine; and, furthermore, upon the weird
spectacle of the real gladiatorial contest--German sentimentality
wrestling in a death grapple with American downright unpicturesque
common sense.
During the seven years that I lived in Munich I learned to like
Germany better than any state in Europe. I liked and admired the
German people; I never suffered from an act of rudeness, and I never
was cheated out of a penny. I was not even taxed until the year before
I left, because I made no money out of the country and turned in a
considerable amount in the course of a year. When my maid went to the
Rathaus to pay my taxes, (moderate enough,) the official apologized,
saying that he had disliked to send me a bill, but the increased cost
of the army compelled the country to raise money in every way
possible. This was in 1908. The only disagreeable German I met during
all those years was my landlord, and as we always dodged each other in
the house or turned an abrupt corner to avoid encounter on the street,
we steered clear of friction. And he was the only landlord I had.
I left Munich with the greatest regret, and up to the moment of the
declaration of war I continued to like Germany better than any country
in the world except my own.
The reason I left was significant. I spent, as a rule, seven or eight
months in Munich, then a similar period in the United States, unless I
traveled. I always returned to my apartment with such joy that if I
arrived at night I did not go to bed lest I forget in sleep how
overjoyed I was to get back to that stately and picturesque city, so
prodigal with every form of artistic and aesthetic gratification. But
that was just the trouble. For as long a time after my return as it
took to write the book I had in mind I worked with the stored American
energy I had within me; then for months and in spite of good
resolutions and some self-anathema I did nothing. What was the use?
The beautiful German city so full of artistic delight was made to live
in, not to work in. The entire absence of poverty in that city of half
a million inhabitants alone gave it an air of illusion, gave one the
sense of being the guest of a hospitable monarch who only asked to
provide a banquet for all that could appreciate. I look back upon
Munich as the romance of my life, the only place on this globe that
came near to satisfying every want of my nature. And that is the
reason why, in a sort of panic, I abruptly pulled up stakes and left
it for good and all. It is not in the true American idea to be too
content; it means running to seed, a weakening of the will and the
vital force. If I remained too long in that lovely land--so admirably
governed that I could not have lost myself, or my cat, had I possessed
one--I should in no long course yield utterly to a certain resentfully
admitted tendency to dream and drift and live for pure beauty;
finally desert my own country with the comfortable reflection: Why all
this bustle, this desire to excel, to keep in the front rank, to find
pleasure in individual work, when so many artistic achievements are
ready-made for all to enjoy without effort? For--here is the point--an
American, the American of today--accustomed to high speed, constant
energy, nervous tenseness, the uncertainty, and the fight, cannot
cultivate the leisurely German method, the almost scientific and
impersonal spirit that informs every profession and branch of art. It
is our own way or none for us Americans.
Therefore, if loving Germany as I did, and with only the most
enchanting memories of her, I had not immediately permitted the
American spirit to assert itself last August and taken a hostile and
definite stand against the German idea (which includes, by the way,
the permanent subjection of woman) I should have been a traitor, for I
knew out of the menace I had felt to my own future, as bound up with
an assured development under insidious influences, what the future of
my country, which stands for the only true progress in the world
today, and a far higher ideal of mortal happiness than the most
benevolent paternalism can bestow, had in store for it, with Germany
victorious, and America (always profoundly moved by success owing to
her very practicality) disturbed, but compelled to admire.
The Germans living here, destitute as their race seems to be of
psychology when it comes to judging other races, must know all this;
so I say that they are traitors if they have taken the oath of
allegiance to the United States. If they have not, and dream of
returning one day to the fatherland, then I have nothing to say, for
there is no better motto for any man than: "My country, right or
wrong."
"Gott Mit Uns"