The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1919-06-06

A. Because he did not understand
the situation.
@. Was America the sole cause of
Germany's defeat?
A. No. We might have stood
the world save for internal dissension.
@. What caused that?
A. Bolshevism, taught by Lenine
and Trotzky in Russia.
@. Were they not German agents
at one time?
A. Not at all. And I tell you fur
ther that apart from any individual
factor the real cause of our defeat
was our own stupid good nature. We
were to generous, and our enemies
took advantage of our good-hearted-
ness!
This is the climax-German char
ity! I have really set down faith
fully up to now typical talk with
German except that I have omitted
the explosive punctuations-on both
sides. 1 might go on, but it is point
less to analyze the thought or search
the soul of a person who eulogizes the
affectionate heart of a Hun at war.
When rape and rapine are gentle,
when murder is charity and lust a
virtue, when a heart is found in a
Hun-then may we reason with the
German!
There is no common ground of thot
or sentiment on which to meet the
German. His logic and affection are
unique; they begin and end in self
sufficiency. His fundamental fault is
his lack of perspective. He takes
himself too seriously, and distorts his
view with such preponderance of
self in the foreground that all else is
obscured. This makes him unscrupu-
lous in thot; this let's him justify his
crimes. He is the supreme egotist,
with no saving sense of humor, no
perspective. His superlative COM
placency would be amusing if it were
not mixed with a brutality and
strength that menaced the world.
l know that it is too soon to expect
the German to grow out of himself.
The work of generations can not be
uprooted in a day. Frederick the
Great and Bismark sowed their seeds
too deeply; Nietzsche, Treitschke and
Bernhard fostered the plant too stu
diously, and the soil was rich. There
may yet be hope; we have no sign of
it.
The political situation promises lit
tie. The majority socialists polled a
large vote, but the combined citizens
parties outnumbered them. There is
little to choose between them. The
reactionaries touch monarchism, and
the socialists are not far from the
border of bolshevism. 1t is true that
the Spartacus radicals have been sup
pressed for time, but no enduring
stability can be expected of these
other disciples of Marx and Bebel.
But, socialists or monarchist, the
outstanding feature of the German
today is his deep-rooted adherence to
the policies of the war. The Hohen-
zollern government was overthrown
because the victors demanded it-not
because the people resented Prussian
barbarism. Prussia sinned only in
that it failed to win the war.
German "Stolz" is no petty thing.
The German cherishes the memories
of the war. He receives his returning
soldiers as unbeaten heroes who kept
the Vaterland inviolate. And last
night he lifted his glass high to the
Kaiser, and sighed for the order and
productivity of a Prussian prince.
Perhaps the American army of oc-
cupation has come too quickly from
the ruin of eastern France for us to
be impartial. Certainly our uniforms
are not judicial robes. Yet it is a cold
conviction as clear as consciousness
itself that the outlaws conversion is
not yet; that there is no difference
between prince and people, and that
all is one at heart with Hohenzollern
and his Huns.
Just before the war spent two
summers in the Rhineland, and made
two tours of Germany. I admired ex-
travagantly German energy and in
dustry; I loved their music; I enjoyed
their friendship. hated their pater-
nalism, and deplored the blank faces
of the automatons 7 saw in the ranks
during Kaiser maneuvers. I thot that
detected then the fundamental fal-
lacy of training that made them mar,
vels of efficiency, but crushed all in
dividuality and initiative in them, anC
that has now left them blind cogs ir
wrecked machine. But I blamed
Prussia for it and thot that the sim
pie souls of the people I had knowT
on the Rhine were different.
The war and this latest visit to Ger
many have changed all that. What
have said is now commonplace. Eng