The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-08-05
Showing Up Certain "supermen.'

While the Rainbows we're beating the
invlnclble Prussian Guards last week
the Department Of Justice was pre-
pairing to take into custody a German
thief whose speciality was the alb
straction of airplane stabilizer plans
from his employers workshop. The
biography of this Individual, pre-
pared by our prosecuting officers,
shows that
He came here in 1910 as the repre-
sentative Of his father. q manufactures
OF sewing machines.
He found that there was no hope
for building a market in this country
for German machines despite their
cheapness, because they were slow and
otherwise inferior to the American
product.
| After a few months here CorRAS1
took back to his father some ideas for
improving their machines.
"The improvements were made and
| CoURANr returned here in 1912.
He found that the machines he hoped
to put on the American market were
still hopelessly inferior"
Thus the supermen Of the Prus.
sian Guard and the supermen of the
sewing machine failed before the
merely ordinary American soldiers
and the merely ordinary American
makers of sewing machines. And
between these supermen in widely
separated fields Of endeavor whole
armies of other supermen have fallen
before the representatives of other
nations who make no pretence to
anything except industry, brains and
good training.
The last four years have been hard
on supermen. The carefully cult
waited myth Of German superiority
which gained adherents easily wher
nobody was particularly interested
in examining and exposing It, has
| been blown sky high through the eff
| forts of men who were compelled by
necessity to exert all their power. II
can never be restored.
This product Of overblown egotisn
and unmensured arrogance received
its first blow when the German plar
| to capture Paris in three weeks wen
wrong. The miracle Of this war Is
not that Germany is still In the field
but that France is still free. The
stroke carefully planned for years
with forces superior to those of any
other nation, which was to have re
1uced the capital Of France and lait
England open to invasion, exhibited
German confidence at its highest, a'
1t displayed German perfidy at 1T
worst. The day that recorded 1T
failure showed up the supermen wht
planned 1t for the vain pretenders
they are.
Their mask Of superiority has beer
torn from them again and again sinc'
that day. Their boosted supremac!
In the manufacture and use Of chemi
Gals was revealed rs fraud as sooI
as 1t became necessary for other PEG
pies to depend on themselves for thu
compounds they had bought from
Germany. The ruthless U-boat cam
paign, powerful at the beginning be
cause no civilized nation had con
ceived 1t to be necessary to provide
protection against weapons used a
Germany used the submarine, ha
been overcome by the application o
diligence that Is human and geniu
whose possessors would scorn to la!
claim to supernormality. Whereve
the German has been encountered. oil
the battlefield or in the occupation
OF peace. on anything even remotel.
approaching terms Of equality by dc
tcrmined men of the free nations h
, has been beaten, and those beating
have been administered without re
sort to trlckery and chicane.
In one great enterprise the Ger
! mans were frequently described &
the United States as superior TO Ou
own people. We were told befor