New-York tribune., 1918-07-28

NOydl IlISSOZ
ments." And, besides, the new
movements were then scarcely get
ting themselves invented. On this
later occasion they were in full
swing. Having taken pains to find
out in advance when the great ex-
hibitions would be open, I resolved
that would see every one of them,
explore the larger cities, pay care
full attention to buildings and public
monuments, and, in a word, identify
the leading characteristics of con-
temporary German painting, sculpt-
ure and architecture. did this, in
cidentally acquiring a good many
impressions of German taste and
manners generally. If refer to the
experience now it is because it has
helped me to understand the Ger
man in the war.
From my journal I take these
first notes, written in Berlin, not
long after landing:
queer place, Germany. 1t SO struck
me the moment | saw the shores of
the Weser. The landscape is fat and
tame. Red roofs and windmills give a
hint of picturesqueness to the very
green meadows and woods, but there
is nothing of the romance of the South,
and | felt nothing of the gentle, sweet
charm that halnnOc N tho sim q ri U
simple landscape of England. Some
thing vaguely impressed me in those
first glimpses, something that snug,
tidy Bremen made clearer, and that
Berlin has finally explained to the full.
It is all expressed in the old phrase,
Made in Germany" We know how
skilful they are in making solid, dura-
bic, tasteless and cheap a-icle of com
merce. l see now that they take the
same material-which l figure as q
kind of cement or powder, prepara-
tion of some kind-and make every
thing in the world out of it. They use
it in their buildings and in their flower
beds, they paint their pictures with it
and they put it in the soup; it comes
out in their monuments and in their
manners, for what they have left Of
this disgusting composition they use in
the manufacture of Germans.
One likes the comfortable pavements
made by some cheap process, until all
of a sudden you feel that you would
give anything for New York flag
stone, cracked in six places, but, at any
rate, human, or some Italian cobbles-
anything that would break the appall-
ing monotony, as of a city and CIV
lizatlon made to order. Everything is
so hopelessly new. It's splendid, in d
way. to see everything so we'll made
everybody so well disciplined, but you
get to hunger for atmosphere and for
the sense of beauty. l feel that the
Germans have immense strength, that
they know what they are about, that
there is an atom of artistic instinct
in their blood. They come out pretty
we'll in big official buildings; that is
in sheer bgness But, then, as in the
huge Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial here
they will set colossal bronze groups OF
shiny red granite, so that you want tt
weep for the horror of it.
wrote that at the end of E
week or ten days in Germany. Ano
steadily thereafter. for weeks anc
weeks, my journal received similar
observations, only deepening in feel
ing as the inquest" went on. Ir
Dresden, even in Dresden, which
has some charming aspects, I. fine
myself saying: "That idea Of every
thing being made out of some chear
composition keeps growing in inten
sity in my head. What world!"
Degradation Of
Taste and Morals
If it had only been an idea Of
cheap manufacture I would still
have been puzzled when the HUI,
broke loose in August, 1914. Blu
this was the mildest of the evil
which seemed to me to be atf1ictina
Germany in the summer of 1906
What soon was apparent, and be
came more and more obvious as &C
companying the current degraaatio,
of taste, was deadlier deg{, AAt;ol
of morals. This stared ycu g ~
face in every exhibition, it was rum
pant in the theatres, it was held u,
to view in all the bookshops, and b,
and by I came to feel it in the gross
cverfed faces of the people abou
me. The nudes" as we call them i,
our exhibitions, were not "nudes" il
the exhibitions of Munich or Berlil
they were naked indecencies. Ire
member one popular picture in tn,
Berlin "Secession," immensely pop
lar if one could judge from the at
tention it received. 1t Represented
lumpy Bacchante in the forest, lur
ing mob of men to her feet. Tn