Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-11-14
WITH CLINCHED FISTS

In his monumentally reactionary work, Politics
Treitschke refers derisively to what is generally called
the soul of the people:
ITO mention the soul of the people is the error of
the scientist" he says; lit has become the fashion, but
it will vanish like last years snow, for how is it possible
to say that some decision has, at some given moment
been arrived at by the soul of the people?"
Which reminds one Of the fact that some decades
earlier Buckle had written: N :
I'm Germany, the highest intellects have so OUT
stripped the general progress Of the nation that there is
no sympathy between the two parties g. e., the intellec-
tuals and the common people. }" And events have shown
the untruth OF Treitschke's words as well as the truth of
Buckles, for there is such a thing as the soul of a ma
ton. and there has been, and probably still is, to some
extent, a deep gulf between the intellectual leaders Of
Germany and the mere" citizens.
The class whose ambitions were represented bv men
of Treitschke's type, has apparently been overturned,
and is being trampled in the dust, by exactly those who
are the living and active opponents of the peoples soul
that soul which princes, mobiles and junkers of a
medieval turn of mind have been trying hard to obliter-
ate for generations.
What is going on in Germany today-and we know
at present very few accurate. details of the happenings
lis that the soul of the people is asserting itself. 1t is
beginning to awaken and to feaize that it has been en-
shaved and despised, and that it has been misled and mis-
treated. Now when the giant is aroused from his SUM
Der. the chains of unjustly imprisoned men burst
asunder and crowns are rolling all the way from Berlin
to Lppe-Detmold while throne after throne collapses.
The powers that were, have too late foupd out that a
population which, once blinded, suddenly regains the
faculty of sight. is not to be trihed with, and that its
anger is terrible to behold.
In his play, "Es Lebe das Leben," Hermann suder-
mann has drawn a picture Of the German people as 1t
was. Prince Usingen is saying to Countess Beate Won
Kelinghausen:
Pardon me, countess, but the revolution is really a
thing that belongs to the enjoyments of modern man.
To say harsh words about parliamentarism is our way OF
making a revolution, and you ought to leave that harm
less pleasure to us. You see the attitude of the state of
today toward its citizens looks like this: The index
pocket: the attitude of the citizen is that Of the man who
the moment when the clinched fist lis opened to receive
the pennies which the man with his fingers in thieves
pocket is ready to give, is the necessary balance estab-
|Iished."
sudermann's drama was written seventeen years aso
typical princelins. he gives a striking and pretty accur-
as they were then.
The picture has the value Of "Reminiscences, and no
other. for today the clinchcd nst is NOT abjett1y held In
the pockets or outstretched to receive whatever gracious
|gifts the index finger and the thumb Of the junkers may
to bestow upon it.
The fstl ts clinched; It striker and there are indica-
lions that when It has struck hard enough Il viii ret
about the gigantic task Of building up q worthy temple
for the soul Of 9 people----aSsou nnisled. deceived, but by
no means dead.