The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1874-08-06
CEUSADING FROM 4 GERMAN
POINT OF VIDW.
BY Christopher FLIEDNER.

Now that the Crusade Of the wom-
en- is passing into history, it may be
permitted German to speak. You
Americans condemn our ways, and
wish US to learn yours. Perhaps We
can be of mutual service to one an
other. will not defend all our Gus
toms. Many Of us believe with you
that beer-drinking, as carried on in
this country, is not the good thing it
might be. If our notions of Sunday
keeping were more like yours, no
harm would come Of it, perhaps. We
90 not think so much Of the Bible as
you do, but many Of us have faith in
it nevertheless. But it may be that
you men who lump us into one mass
OF lntidelity and dram-drinking, and
you women who deem US and the
1faathsR pra1ei1. equally fit subjects for your
that such preac6i553gg 6ni553ggether ct the saints
seem to imply. I do not doubT'qld
that the efforts Of your women have
been sincere in the main. But /
may be permitted to suggest that if
there is any surplus of strength left
after this endeavor to reform US, it may
be we'll to employ it against certain
abuses among yourselves. I will al
lude to only one. And as you do not
hesitate to say harsh things of us, you
cannot find fault if I speak a few
plain things to you.
Our wives 60 to the saloons, now
and then, to take a social glass Of
beer with US, and they sometimes
stand up against your wives in these
things, but they do not destroy their
unborn children, as the doctors and
the preachers say the American wom-
en- do. Here is a reform which I
may perhaps be forgiven if intimate
you need not go away from your own
homes to institute. OF course you
are holding up your hands in horror
at such an insinuation. But the facts
and the statistics are altogether
against you. Look around among
your .neighbors and account otherwise
for the state of things if you can. In
a large number Of American families
there are no children at all. This al
most never happens in German fam
lily, with all their beer-drinking. In
many other Of your households, one or
at most two children are the net re-
suit Of the command to "multiply up
on the earth;' and these are often so
puny as to preclude the hope that
they will ever reproduce their kind.
In our families from six to ten sturdy
children is the common number. It
is asserted by your own wise men that
the native American population is
actually decreasing, and that the
foreigners, as you call them, are TAX
ing the land by the simple law Of nat
ural increase.
do not say that there is direct
guilt in all this. But the indirect
causes Of sterility are scarcely less
vicious. You ridicule the style of
our women's dress. You say with
contempt that their "waists are as big
as a barrel" You point with aristo-
cratic pride to the sylphlike forms,
and the delicately cast faces Of your
high-born ladies. You say that our
women are dull, while yours are in
stinct with nervous life to their fin
gers ends. Allow me to say, with all
Difference, that if your ladies had
more substance in their waists and
fewer notions in their heads, there
would be gain, at least, on the cen
sus score. If our women have not
the intense vivacity Of yours, they are
faithful wives and careful mothers.
You will pardon me, but to our eyes
the substantial forms, the sturdy health
the quiet nerves, the sterling con-
science as to child-bearing, the indus
trious habits and the frugal tastes of
our good wives are much more beau
tiful than any Of those intense attrac-
tions of yours. You are quite well
come to the beauty and the style of
life which burns up the vitality that
should be given to an offspring and
leave an abundant reserve for health
and good looks in later years. In
those ample waists, which you laugh
at, is the future life of the nation.
Strive against it as you will, through
the women the kingdom is steadily
passing over into our hands. 1t is
all very fine for your wives to be gen
teel invalids and have our women
come to them as servants and do their
work. But your boys and ours must
stand together in the next generation
and in the tug of business and politics
the weaker is sure to 60 to the wall.
We revere, as you do, the men who
founded this government. We re-
gret that we cannot have the same re-
gard for their children. A people
must stand in it's virtue and not in its
ancestry. When race becomes SC
sublimate or degenerate-you may
choose the adjective-that it cannot
or will not reproduce its kind, nature
or, as you call it, Providence, evident.
| ly has no farther use for them. BY
an inevitable law, they must disappear
and let a stronger people take their
place.
If these practices were confined to
the dissolute the result would be diff
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