New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-10-20
The Parable of the TROUGH

| remember coming across a revealing
parable years ago in one of George Eliot's
essays, a survey and digest of Riehl's "Die
Burgerliche Gesellschaft," in which that
scholar of the ffties sought to codify the
traits of German peasant life. This para
BILE, which has stuck in my memory ever
since as possessing a deep significance, is
the one about the ungrateful children who
made their gray-headed father eat at
wooden trough, because he shook the food
out of his trembling hands Those same
ungrateful children observed one day that
their own little boy was making tiny
wooden trough. They asked him what it
was for and nc told them. He was making
it, he said, so that his father and mother
might eat out of it when he was a man and
it was his turn to take care Of them Thus
from generation to generation the German
has carried on the callous selfshness of
the race, and the only footnote to be added
to Riehl's characterization of the peasant
taken, as it were, from the peasants own
lips-is one attributing the same spirit to
all the strata in German society. We have
heard much about the softer qualities Of
the South German, Of the superiority of the
Bavarian to the Prussian in the gentler
elements of civilization. I have been told
on good authority that some of the vilest
swaths Of destruction cut by the German
troops in France were cut by Bavarians,
and, curously, it is Bavarian artist. fat.
prosperous, bursting with good health who
remains in my own recollection as the most
coldly ruthless type of man I ever encoun-
tered in Germany. He was no criminal
then, but he was the kind of creature. if
ever | saw one in his ineffabe father
land to jump at the placard Cur Beute-
sammelstelle."
1t IS obvious enough to the open-minded
observer, this incurable egotsm of the
German. But for some queer reason it has
no influence at all among large numbers
OF commentators who are nominally pro-
Ally, but whose specious wordiness is all
the time placed in subtle, obiquc ways at
the service OF Germany pleading that she
be not punished" urging between the
lines OF what they say, if not explicitly
that, having shuffed the unpleasant as
poets Of the war out of. the wav. we shall,
proceed to take the Germans comfortable
back into the family Of nations. Over and
over again this sneaking propaganda of
the negotiated peace advocates is lightly
taken and dismissed, as if it meant nothing
more than difference of opinion. Is il not
time to examine into the credentials 80
these people, who are practising the dead
nest KIND OF sabotage, doing all they can
20 arrest justice as she seems really to be
oSer'aK.ns the Hun? We Americans have
always been fond Of labels, and disposed to
a AZ 'hem at their face value We listen
to radical, say, because, forsootb he
calls himself radical. If we paused 10
inquire into the calibre OF his mind our
tolerance might be abated. Is there q
really hrst class mind that is saturated to-
Gay with this perverse solicitude fo- the
num- win tins passion for making !. neace
Void OF punishment and reprisale
An ofhcer in the American army over
acaS was quoted the other day on the
characteristics of the men under his COM