New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-10

volt In the sense OF being recent as
well as a violent thing. 1t is something
that has risen since the rise of the great
eighteenth century republicanism; it is
revolution against the revolution. 1t is
not merely an older privilege but a yet
newer pride, newer than the pride of the
citizen This very modern thing may
be stated in many ways; one is to say
that what is the matter with the Ger
man is not merely despotism or feudal-
ism or militarism: what is the matter
with the German is Germanism.
The mightiest attack, the modern at
tack, on the egalitarian ideal was a
thing not of rank, but of race. 1t con-
fronted Man with Superman, who was
born, not made-and who was bred Of a
special breed. 1t was not an ideal prince
with a golden crown, but an ideal hero
with golden hair, whom the German
professors pitted against what some call
the drab doctrine of democracy. 1t is
scarcely too strained a phrase to say
that they set up golden-haired image,
instead of a golden image. as a rival to
the image of God. For the image of
God, though the most mystical is also
the most clear and compact description
of that dignity which the American
charter recognizes in all men. But Ger
manism gives to Germans something of
the same position which that charter
gives to men. With all the insolence and
cruelty of their caste system, it is fair
to them to say that there is philosophi
cal sense in which being a German in
fnitely outweighs being any particular
kind of German. On their highest plane
of thought they are all supposed to be
heroes; and, seen in strange visions,
they all appear to have golden hair But
while, upon proper occasion, all men,
bers Of the race can be superior, this
makes but more solid testimony to the
inferiority of the other races to whom
they are superior. The race theory is a
multitudinous multiplication of heredl-
tary monarchy. 1t is theory by which
every German, being the son of Ger
man. is a king by divine right. 1t has
always had one very practical compare
tive advantage: that it was much harder
to discredit it by comparison. The evil
dence against it lay much further afield
than the evidence Of more personal dis
tinctions. The dullest English Tory
could hardly help seeing that George Ill
was much duler than Dr.. Johnson, be-
cause they might come into the same
room. But in whole country populated
bv thousands of replicas of George Ill
il would be easier to believe that other
men were more dull, merely because
thev were more distant. Arstocracy is
always harder to dethrone than mon
archv; for human nature feels more
secure. and therefore more self-satlS'
fed. upon tableland than upon peak.
This revolt against justice appealed,
or pretended to appeal, to something
that has also arisen since the demo-
cratic revolutions to science. We all
know how evolution has been twisted
into the denial of equality; no chain Of
slavery has been so iron in all its links
as what some scientists have called 1.-The
chain of causation"; perhaps the heav-
lest link of all was the one called The
Missing Link. A half-human monster,
himself improved, became the proof of
every racial privilege. We might more
truly say that the modern slave trails