eitschke, the deaf
professor of Heidelberg, is the one man who transmuted the soul
of Germany and incited the Empire to a cruel war.

In America you can find any brand of professor, from a professor
in a Virginia College who recently boasted that he would not
subscribe to American Liberty war bonds, but would send the money
to the Socialist, pacifist candidate for Mayor of New York, to
the Professor in the University of Chicago who based his claim to
fame on the fact that he had never been kissed. What professor of
history has had any great political influence beyond his own
college?

And it is equally absurd to think of a Prussian Junker, sitting
by the fire in the evening, deeply absorbed in the philosophy of
Nietzsche. All Germans, as a matter of fact, through pride of
conquest in 1864, 1866 and 1870 and great industrial success,
had come to believe themselves to be supermen delegated by Heaven
to win the world. Treitschke and Nietzsche were simply affected
in their writings by this universal poison of overweening vanity.
They but reflected the fashion of the day in thinking; they did
not lead the nation's thought. Nietzsche himself wrote in one of
his letters shortly before his death which occurred in 1900,
"Although I am in my forty-fifth year and have written fifteen
books, I am alone in Germany. There has not been a single
moderately respectful review of one of my books."

I never found a German of the ruling class who had read anything
written by Treitschke, Nietzsche or Bernhardi.

Tannenberg had more readers and a greater following, although he,
of course, expresses only the aspirations of the Pan-Germans. But
he presents concrete positions which any one can understand.

For instance, the German merchant looking at Tannenberg's book
and seeing the map of South America coloured with almost
universal German domination, smiles and approves, for he thinks
German trade will swallow that rich continent and clever laws and
regulations will exclude the imports of all other nations.

In some aspects Tannenberg foresaw what is happening to-day when
he says, "The Finns have been waiting a long time to detach
themselves from the Great Russians, their hereditary enemies."

But in the main, in his sketch of the war to which he looked
forward, he failed to predict accurately the attitude of the
world. His predictions represent many of the dead hopes of the
Pan-Germans, those Germans who believe it is the right and