The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-06-12
THE DEcADENcE OF GERMANY.
4ts-June 5, IL, 10, &c.

THE DECADENCE OF GERMANY.
There is perhaps no nation that has
altered within a single generation in
so many essential qualities as Ger
many. Material prosperity suddenly
descending upon country devoted to
plain living ana high thinking has
brought the spirli of materiaism in
its train. The idealism and the love OF
science and knowledge for their own
sakes that distinguished the ante-bel-
lum generation, and constituted Ger
many's high, austere, and distinctive
claim to honor, have been replaced by
bald and repellent utilitarianism.
The Germans are no longer the great
est readers in the world. They seem,
indeed, to be in some danger of devel-
oping for books and book-learning an
almost English contempt That intel
lectual cosmopolitanism which used to
| be one of the most admirable and Sc
ductive of German traits has vanished
along with the dazzling succession Of
authors, scientists, and philosophers
who were it's embodiment, and the I'M
worldly professors who fostered and
perpetuated it. A new luxury, rest
lessness, discomfort, and chauvinism
have invaded all classes. The Germany
of today, pursuing wealth with more
than American ardor, has cultivated
with assiduity, and not without sue
cess, the amenities and what Burke
called the solemn plausibilities'' OF
life, has become more polished, more
lceremonious, more preoccupied with
the small niceties and embellishments
of social intercourse; but has lost, or
is rapidly losing, the old simplicity and
purity of manners.
Crimes against property and moral
ity have multiplied in Germany in the
last thirty years with an appalling
rapidly Financial iuggleries have
kept pace with them. Berlin is the
most cosmopolitan and the most cor
rupt of European cities, and flaunts a
coarseness of depravlty that is not,
think, equalled anywhere. The Ger
mans have rushed into city life just al
a time when they are losing thei1
spiritual faith in theories of moral re-
straint The influence of the Socialist
temper is not to be sought in politics
alone; it has indoctrinated at least a
third part of the German nation with
the religion of the crudest material
ism. The great city on the Spree which
a generation ago was little more than
a placid village shows in its style of
life, it's rents, it's eXuberant architec-
| ture, it's restaurants and hotels, its
strident round of gaiety, the vastness
of the distance which Germany has
travelled in the last generation. Unity,
prosperity, and Imperialism have
wrought a deep and visible change in
the character and social outlook of the
German people. Photographic litera-
ture of the most revolving and debas-
ing quality is becoming a greater evil
IN Germany than it ever was in France
The marriage age among the higher
classes grows later and later. The
number of unmarried women of mar
iageable age-estimated at consider
| NY ONSI IWO NIL lOhS anu INC SlSd'
Increase in divorces emphasize a grow
ng social and moral unsoundness; and
he many scandals of recent years
lmong the aristocracy, which is al
Ways and in all countries the first
lass to show the faint of corruption
oint to an unmistakable lowering OF
he standards of national MORALS
,ydney Brooks, in Harper's Weekly.