Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-12-03
roR three years the world has

TOR three years the world has
n heard the word Kultur used
= with frequency which has
caused it to accept 1t almost as d
matter of course. Yet it is doubtful
If even yet it attaches to it the
meaning with which 1t is weighted
in Bonn or Jena. In the English
language culture means simply the
cultivation of the human mind SO
as to produce a certain intellectual
refinement. And this is the mean
ing the ordinary speaker of English
is apt mentally to read into the word
kultur. But the meaning of kultur
TO the German mind is something
entirely different. 1t may be
summed up almost as the law of the
hive. In other words it is the the
ory that the state is the manifesto
ton of the divine idea.
No man ever put this more clear
ly than Heinrich Won Treitschke, the
very high priest of kultur. The es-
sence of the state, he insists, is pow
er. AS a result, it follows that the
ideal of self-sacritice ends with the
individual, and does not apply to the
state, since there is nothing higher
can sacrifice itself. Thus the highest
duty of the state, like that of the
hive, is one of self-conservation.
Out of this, then, inevitably grows
the distinction. Treitschke himself
insists upon, between private and
public morality. The moral law in
cumbent on the individual is abro-
gated in the person of the state, for
the state, being power, has no law
save that of self-preservation or self
assertion. Owing to this the arch
political crime is weakness. Weak
ness in the name of the state is the
sin against the Holy Ghost.
Mystery of ErightfulneSS Unveiled
Anybody who grasps what this
means will have no difficulty what
ever in unveiling the mystery of the
German exhibition of frightfulness
during the present war.
The individual must not repudiate
his signature to a lease or u bond,
but the state may regard n treaty,
as in the case of the Belgian guar
antee, as "a scrap of paper"
The individual must not ignore the
law of property or trespass, but the
state may invade a country, as in
the case of Belgium, which it is
pledged to defend, and seize the
property of the nation for it's own
purposes.
The individual must not commit
murder but the state is entirely cX-
empt from such restrictions, and
may take life individually, as in the
case of Miss Cavell, or in the mass
as in the case of the passengers or
the Lusitania, without compunction
This does not, of course. mean
that the people of Germany are Pc
culiarly cruel, or that they are
troubled with a double dose of what
the world terms original sin. But II
does mean thay they have delivered
themselves over to political philos-
ophy which is immoral in it's theory
and inhuman in its practice.
The apostle of Kultur, however
does not view it from this stand
point at all. He has worked out
his theory with the eXactness of a
quadratic equation. In time of war
the one mind is the General Staff
III the General Staff says, "Sink with
out trace" sink without trace ii
must be, just as, If the General Staff
decides on deportations, deportations
there must be. The idea must be
right and must be obeyed, even 1t
the world perishes under the demon
stration of it, because the. General
Staff. has so decided.
German Theory of Survival
Now, in practice, Kultur is the ap-
plicat1on OF the neo-DarWlnlsm TO
politics. 1t was the apostle of Kul-
tur who first dreamed of applying
the law of natural selection to the
state. Natural selection is the the
ory that nature eventually chooses
and preserves the types best adapted
to her purpose. Mankind. to the be-
lever in Kultur, is entirely subject
to the law of evolution. 1t is divided
up into races and organizations all
committed to the law of struggle.
Since, however. both the types and
orSa ..is-ns are irreconcilable, the re-
morseless and pitiless struggle must
continue until nature selects
through victory over the others, the
lttest type and the most perfect Ax-
ganization.