Mexico Missouri message., 1918-09-26
Kaiser's Writers Prove to Be
Very Poor Prophets.
THINK IN TRUE KULTUR VEIN
Forecast Only Short and Merry War,
at End of Which Great German
Hosts Will Be conquerors
Of the World.
BY EARL pERR BIeeERs.

Jean Alcard, has hit upon a rather
neat and happy figure of speech. In
long and eloquent poem about the war,
after he has described how the Ger
man horde, coming forward with
God" as they put it, swept down on
Paris, and has pictured them baffied
and beaten by the miracle of the
Marne, he further recalls hOw-"hav-
Ing prepared themselves in France a
terriers hole"-they
Intrenched themselves therein, defeated,
driven, hurried
Back by the sword Of France and scorned
by all the world
And then what happened? Let All
card tell 1t:
There. in their filthy holes, their natural
habitat,
As lives the hunted boar, the crouching
soldiers sat;
And. as Il putrid pool exhales an evil
SMELL
They poured their poisons forth straight
from the NAV of he'll
Dehled the blue of heaven and made the
virgin air
A party to the crime they perpetrated
there.
The choking gas that rose, mephltic. from
their holes,
Was very like the breath and odor of
their souls
The Odor of their souls! The pres
ent writer must confess that this
slmile strikes him as a remarkably
fit and appropriate one.
Today we know only too well the
odor of their souls, and we are deter
mined to send our men over to those
holes in France, to disinfect them with
the only serviceable antiseptics-the
bayonCt and the bullet. Everything
that keeps that Odor strong in our nos
trils will be of help in the salvation
of our country, since it will keep us
firm in our determination to do or die.
So one is inclined to feel that Prof.
II. c. GruElbine of Clark university,
who has recently translated into very
readable English the war poetry of
France and Germany, has done this
country patriotic service. Professor
Grumbine knows that nowhere are the
. ideals of a nation more clearly re-
vealed than in its literature, and he
adds that literature In its purest form
is poetry. So he has gone to the poets
of the two countries to discover what
was in their minds In the early days of
the war. With an ardent desire to be
fair, he has not chosen verses which
prove any particular point for him,
but has sought to confine himself to
the leading and the representative
bards. In Germany such men as Su-
dermann. Lissauer, and HerzOg; in
France, Boutrel and Aicard, the for
mer a laureate and the latter a men,
ber of the French academy. And hav-
ing translated the verses of these men
he has drawn some logical and illu-
minating conclusions regarding the
German god and the French god, the
German soul and the soul Of the
French.
Grumblne's Deductions.
Let us glance for a moment over
Professor Grumbine's shoulder at the
translatiOns he has made; then briefly
let us consider his conclusions. If the
matter strikes you, dear reader, as
academic and-dread word-literary
be assured that 1t will not be treated
here in either academic or literary
fashion. Professor Grumbine opens
the door for you, and you wander will
him through that dark hinterland-th'
German mind; he leads you on to thu
heights where the French thinker sits
When, much to the surprise o.
everybody in Germany, war was de
clared the German soldier immediate
ly rushed to his locker, where every
thing was ready for him, including
canteen filed with fresh water. Simul
taneously the German poet rushed t,
his fountain pen which-God and tn
kaiser forgot nOthing-was also filled
not with water, but with a venomou
liquid that flowed red, like blood. Thi
war has reminded us that 1t is not tn
man who fights in the field who is tn
true master of hate and bitterness;
is the highly educated and culture
thinker at home who screams loudes
and foaI1s most freely at the lips.
If the German poets had been for
moment at loss as to what view
take of the war, of course the Germa
government would have set them rlgh
(There was that naive newspaper
Munich which at the start pleade
pathetically for the government
'take charge of public opinion.") On
could fancy some such advertisement
in the Berlin papers: "German poet
Will call at the Wilhelmstrasse b
tween two and four on Thursday I
secure their points of view on th
war" However, Ii Is improbable th
German poets needed any instruction
They thought about the war just wha
the kaiser wanted them to think, wha
he and his kind had been training tn
whole German nation, poets included
for 40 years, to think. They greete
the catastrophe with mighty cry,
cry partly Of hate for Germapg's enc
mics. partly Of Joy that now at las
Germany's hour had struck. Wrot