The review. [volume] (High Point, N.C.) 1908-19??, 1919-01-23
WILL THE KAISER TRY
SUICIDE AGAIN?

Quite Likely, Says Science; It's Ger
man Trait-Germans More Prone
Than People OF Other Nations to
Sef-Destrruction.
New York, Jan. 20.-It's quite likely
| the kaiser did, as reported, try sui
eide; and it's quite likely he'll try
| again.
Such is the scientific view.
Psychologists and alienists say an
epidemic of suicide in Germany is not
| unlikely.
Germans are more prone than
people of other nations to selfde-
| struction. -.t
The suicide rates for Prussia and
! Saxony are the highest in the world.
| The average rate of sef-murders in
Berlin for the past five years is 35.6,
compared with 16.9 for New York
and 11.0 for London. Germany has
| the most appalling child suicide rate
| in the world.
! Profe scr Enrico MorSelIi, distin-
guished Itllian authority, in his work
. on Suicide" expressed this conclu-
sion:
ssassFhe highest suicide rates are
given by countries Of German race,
! and the two stocks. German and
| Scandinavian, divide this supremacy.
The center of the purest German
stocks is Saxony, the old and powerful
land OF the Teutons, and it presents
a very high average. Equally great
| is the proportion in lower Austria
| and Salisbury, which are almest pure
German; in the Saxon circles and in
| those OF Liegnitz, Potsdam, Merseburg
| and Madgenburg of Prussia; in the
German cantons of Switzerland and
other places in which the German
element pravails. = The suicidal
tendency is much smaller in the An
glO-Saxon stock"
M. L. Jacobson of the u. S. bureau
Of statistics, agrees that the Germans
rank first in suicide; the Scandina-
vians second: the English and the
Latins tied for third, and the Slavs
last.
George Kennan, the American au-
thority, says: "The extremely high
suicide rate of the German peoples
long ago attracted the attention of
European sociologists. Suicide in
Germany is almost as common among
children ais among grown people. Be-
| tween 1883 and 1903 there we're LIPS
| suicides among the pupils of the
public schools in Prussia alone, and
most of them were of boys and girls
under Is years of age. An investi:
cation made by the ministry of public
| instruction showed that this preva-
: lence of suicide among children was
due to- an Inherent suicidal tendency
in the race"
The German school boy kills him.
self when his lessons go wrong, when
he is punish ed-in other words, when
| he doesn't win. In an analysis of sui.
| cides OF 1 100 German school children,
| Prof Gutenberg of Berlin found that
nearly 400 were due either to fear OF
punishment or of humiliation, or in
ability to keep up with the school
work.
| "Suicides," says Kennon. "are part
of the manifestations of national char
acter. The Germans who came here
| 40 or so years ago brought high
suicide rate with them and their de-
scendants maintain. The Irish. on the
contrary, brought a low suicide rate
to this country and their children have
it still"
| In Prussia, 80 years ago, the aver
age number of suicides of children
under 15 years was 35! Now it is be-
| tween 81 and 30: The total for 1911
| {the latest available statisticsl was 81
and in the same year nearly 100 young
Prussians between 15 and 20 years
killed themselves.
eur SeIbstmordfrage" seems to be
the German way OF meeting crisis.