The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-04-20
SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1918.
TIE GERMAN VIEWPOINT.

That the Germans are an efficient
people may easily be admitted. This
war has proved that if it has proved
nothing else. But that the Germans
are SO efficient as to be necessary to
the proper functioning Of nature is an
idea that the majority Of non-Germans
are probably yet in ignorance of. /
According TO the belief of the Gen
cral staff, Germany S divine mission is
to be The earthly instrument of the
Darwinian law Of the survival of the
fttcs.. Among animals, reasons the
general staff, the law of the survival
Of the Gttest works exccllently, because
animals are not civilized The law of
the animal kingdom is the law of tooth
oal nail With humankind, however,
il is different. People have become 50
charitable, and SO full of good Samari-
tanship, that the world is begetting and
preserving a lot Of people who, by all
natural rights. ought to have died.
Thus, humanity is subverting the laws
of nature Something must he done
about it. Hence, Germany comes to
the rescue.
1t is Germany mission on this earth
to kin off the unfit specimens of hui
manitv. and thus preserve the poise of
tho organic world. incidentally, after
The weak and unfit are all killed off,
Gcrmany's subsidiary mission is to re-
place them with Germans, who, as the
General staff will admit, arc the salt of
the earth.
Vernon Kellogg, in the Atlantic
Monthly, summarizes this humanitarian
aim Of the Prussian militarists as fol
lows:
n books about the war and its rela-
tions to The evolution of man, especial
llv in books written by Germans. | had
often read the sombcr declarations that
, war takes the place i'll human life that
the rigid and ruthless Darwinian strug-
gle for existence holds among the low
? ~ animals, and that the Spencerian sur
vival of the fttest. as applied to hui
man groups, was to be determined chief
;. Is. il not solely. by the outcome OF
: tho wars Of extinction.
Hence, war is natural. it is newt
!, able. and is, indeed, to be welcomed a:
! the necessary final test of the value OF
: the different lines of development ant
!. the organization by the various exist
4 ing human groups.
| had read this, | say, in German
+ books and heard it in lectures in Ger
I man universities by benevolent lookinI
elderly professors devoted, in practice
{ to most peaceful occupations in house
holds. classrooms and beer restaurants
Put il was not until had lived in am
u Travelled about all over German -occu
pied Belgium and France, seeing an
hearing many incredible things, and ha
spent days and nights and weeks an
: months of much talk and cnlightel
nj mcut at German Great Headquarters i
II French village on the banks of til
II Mcusc that | truly realized that wha
II / had read in German books and hear
II ii German classrooms was not jul
II words and play at logic, but the e
II preston Of a conviction, of belief, I'll
u reasoned acceptance of terrible an
= fatal philosophy SO widely and tho
4 ouehly spread among a whole people ;
to give this people bodily into the hanC
Of a few leaders who represented Il
technical knowledge necessary to su
cess in this great, all-deciding stru,
gle for existence 1t is philosopf
I that makes war and slaughter al
rapine desirable and iustifes in Il
N conduct of war every form of cruelt