South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-07-06

horses get stuck fast in boys and wolves prowl
about in the woods, their imagination plays
the traitor, and even Russia's technical short
comings serve to our advantage while 10 the
German Imagination, owing to their incapacity
to transfer themselves mentally into circum-
stances foreign to them, the very deficiencies
of our technical equipment presents itself as an
eXcellencei They are amazed at the skill or
the Russian engineers in so rapidly and thor
oughly destroying the roads!
1t will not be difficult TO reply to the
question: What has happened to them?
which we posed at the commencement of our
discussion. The war has made plain the fatal
and heretofore unnOticed disease which is
gnawing at the roots of the spiritual life OF
Germany to-day; il has made the limit of its
spiritual life apparent. Therein lies the solu-
ton of those. at first sight ineXplicable pine
nomena which We have observed.
For the ordinary German, everything-in-
Guiding his morality and his mental life-ha5
been concentrated in the service of the Ger
man State, and in that cult Of the Empire
which had become for him almost a religion;
a definite horizon beyond which he neither I'M
derStOOd, nor acknowledged, nor felt anything.
And suddenly the war has dubbed him on the
head. Il has set MIN face TO face with another
world which in relation TO the German Empire
is beyond the pale, and which does not ac-
knowledge the authority Of the German God on
Earth. TheTeupOn followed hat immediate
transformation of the German mentality which
has evoked the wonder and horror OF al
nations.
Up TO the commencement of the war the at
ttude of Germans toward foreigners and
especially 10 the Russians, the French and the
English. was one OF condescending patronage.
They were convinced Of the impOssibility OF
nOn-submissOn on our part TO Germany; they
we're sure that t1,O or three battles would SUI
fee TO crush any resistance, and that the fear
Of Germany. necessary to subdue the world 20
her, is sufficiently insured thereby. That con-
yictiOn was supported b. an absolute misun.
derstanding OF the living soul of other nations
Russia, France and England appeared to the
Germans like pUtrefying cOrpses, abandoned to
the sway Of revolutionary pertuTbatOus. and
therefore incapable of offering resistance.
And suddenly II turns out that beyond the
frontiers of Germany the hypnOtsm of the Ser.
man Empire fails to act ThereupOn instead
Of being understanding, the Germans sudden.
~ become fierce. And as devotion 10 their
God-On-earth had become for them the synonym
OF all morality. they felt themselves free from
all moral Obltga tions toward people who did
not obey that God. German fidelity honor,
chastity, and all such virtues. act only within
the limits covered by the benevolent protec-
its everything is allowable: the enemies of the
German Empire may be robbed, killed cheated
and tortured ard their wives and daughters
may be subjected 10 any kind Of violence. All
that may be not only permissible. but should
be so, in order 10 create the hypnOtism OF dread
among nations not duly submissive to the Ger
man GOd-onearth.
From the point Of view Of the German the
orists, the more there is OF such dread
the more humane viii the war be; for