Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-07-05
MERELY HUMAN AFTER ALL

HNHE myth OF German invincibility In
trade and war has been seduously in
culcated in all the peoples of the world.
Never was there a nation, we are told,
like this German nation, whose industrial
giants have brushed their pigmy adver-
saries to one side and laughed at com
petition. And who could measure swords
with them or hope to meet in equal COM
bat the super-legions Of the super-scien-
tifc war lords, who had nodded from raw
human material the machinery of inevi-
table triumph? Aye, the Almighty had
been conjured by Prussian incantations to
breathe omnipotence into the serfs OF
Hohenzolern and deliver 10 them the
dominion Of the earth.
Where were these Prussian giants
when the Standard Oil Company reached
its long arm into Berlin itself and drove
German oil interests to pitiable supplica-
tion for Government relief from uncon-
Querable Yankee competition? How mis-.
erably weak were Prussian agrarians
when American.manufactut meat was
driving their products out Of the markets
of Berlin, Hamburg and the Frankforts!
Were these super-scientlsts asleep that
American agricultural machinery titled
the fields Of all Europe, that American
typewriters and American sewing ma
chimes brooked no rivals. and that even
the economic doctrines on which modern
Germany rose 10 wealth and power were
imported from the United States? The
Germans have driven no great Amer
lean firms from any field where they have
met US in free competition, and seldom
have we failed to get the better of them;
they have wrecked no carrying trade of
which we boasted. and we have sold our
locomotives under their very noses even
in countries which they politically domi.
mated.
But what Of this German fighting ma
chine? The world has nothing to match
that! Maybe not; but is this worth con-
sidering? Since that great horde Of
trained soldiers butchered its way
through Belgium and Northern France
II has TO its credit not one single military
victory of major Importance when OPP
posed by trained and disciplined troops
of anything like corresponding numbers
Joffre broke it at the Marne with an army
inferior in numbers and in artillery. Dur
ing that first winter less than 100000
British held their lines against 100000
Teutons and never yielded. The flower
of all Germany massed at Verdun, her
best and most experienced troops, her
finest guns, the supreme product Of her
munition factories, her tried genius and
they battered at a weak line, but 1t held
until re-enforcements arrived, and into
yerdun no German flag could come In
vincibility was not on the German side.
She won, indeed, in the butchery OF the
Masurian Lakes after her money had
bought Russian generals to Detray their
troops to slaughter but Brussiloff drove
them back so long as he had ammunition,
Germans rode through little Serbia with
their mighty guns and dug their heels
into Rumania, but sarrail has held them
fast above Salonica and Bagdad has
fallen. The vaunted efficiency OF the
vast military machine has shrunk into a
desperate defense that turns its eyes in
supplication TO the assassins Of the sea
and begs Of them deliverance from the
threatening pit.
No, Prussian efficiency and Prussisr
superism have challenged comparison
with Gaul, Italian, Britain and American
ana the challenge has been met In nj
respect has Prussianism proved superior
except in assassination, and assassination
never yet saved man or nation.