The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1915-01-31
BY ISRAEL zANGwnL

| he loves To live a-basl<ing in the sun.
| But the German burglar never ba SKIS. H,
reads Bernhard on burgling, attend.
scientific courses on crib-cracking, proves
philosophically that larceny is the law OF
the universe, and sings Alsatia ueber
Allies.
Why, Professor Won Mach need only
consult our marching songs to see with
what gay aloofness the Briton marches
to war. From Armageddon 1t is long,
long way to Tipperary; yet "Tipperary'
IS only typical of all our marching songs
In a list of nearly 80, additionally at
tached to different regiments, Rule
Britannia" occurs only once, and the ma
iority of our warriors advance on the
enemy to the irrevelant strains of Come
Lasses and Lads, THE Lincolnshire
Poacher' and such like rustic melodies.
The sef-conscious anti-German war songs
provided by a Times correspondent fell
still-born. Rule Britannia" itself dates
only from 1740, occurring In a Masque of
Alfred by poet whose real achievement
was his rustic description of THE Sea-
sons and whose most famous line.
ITO teach the young idea how to shoot"
has nothing to do with rifles And even
Rule Britannia is more concerned that
sea power shall save the islanders from
enslavement than that they shall build
UP an empire by it,
1t was not till 1889 that Parliament con-
scented to legalize standing army at
all, and to this day the army created
by the bill of rights has-like the meas
ure of autonomy conceded to 1t in 1851
to be re-legalized annually in the House
of Commons. If that is not a sufficient
refutation of the Harvard professor, let
it be recalled that while the Prussian
principle of universal consumption has
been adopted all over the continent, not
even the impassoned crusade of the vet
eran Lord Roberts, foretelling the war,
could WOO England to even the semblance
of CONSUMPTION.
The political genius of England has al
ways understood that civilization is-as
its name implies-an affair of civilians
and hence even the war office must be
run by civilian. If it is now run by
Lord Kitchener, that is the exception
which proves not only the rule but the
utter unpreparedness of England. At the
greatest crisis in her history Mr. Asquith
was doubling the parts of prime minister
and war minister, and our two greatest
naval experts-Lord Fisher and Sir Percy
Scott-were lying on the shelf as too old
for the burdens of peace. And despite
the crisis, Lord Kitchener is far from be-
Ing military dictator. Even the mill
tarist Times resents the efforts of the
to take shelter under his name,
and points out sternly that the respon-
sibility of the cabinet remains one and
indivisible
And while the Prussian officer is sat
urated with the Treitschke philosophy of
force, and while, as Heine SO wonder
fully prophesied in 1884, the ideas of the
German philosophers find issue in Berser-
ker blood RACES, staggering Christian hui
nanity, the British officer Is an amiable
gentleman. only too occupied
with Jerusalem and the mysteries of the
beast.
Who can imagine a German General
Gordon? A British Bernhard Is equally
Kitchener himself spent
five years in the Palestine survey and
exvacations for trenches probably interest
him less than excavations for holy arch
aeology. Even that grim sea dog Lord
Fisher would not subscribe to the creed