aking English and
unwilling even to speak German. Even as long ago as the time of the
Thirty Years' War a forgotten chronicler, Adam Junghaus von der
Ohritz, writes: "Further, it is a misfortune to the Germans that they
take to imitating like monkeys and fools. As soon as they come among
other soldiers, they must have Spanish or other outlandish clothes. If
they could babble foreign languages a little, they would associate
themselves with Spaniards and Italians." Wilhelm von Polentz, in his
"das Land der Zukunft," writes: "die Deutsch-Amerikaner sind fuer die
alte Heimat dauernd verloren, politisch ganz und kulturell beinahe
vollstaendig."

Bismarck knew these people and the present Emperor knows these people,
better than do you and I! Bismarck even insisted upon using the German
text, and once returned a letter of congratulation from an official
body because it was written in the Latin text. Even the Great Elector
must have recognized this weakness when he said: "Gedenke dass du bist
em Deutscher!" The present Kaiser lends his whole social influence to
keep the Germans German. He will have the bill of fare in German, he
prefers the dreadful word Mundtuch to napkin. His officers very often
demand that the bill of fare in a German hotel shall be presented to
them in German and not in French. And they are quite right to do so,
and quite right to hang the German world with the sign "Verboten";
quite right to distribute titles and medals and orders, for the more
they are uniformed and decorated and ticketed and drilled, and taken
care of, the better they like it, and the more contented these people
are. Overorganization has brought this about. Their theories have
hardened into a veritable imprisonment of the will. They have drifted
away from Goethe's wise saying: "That man alone attains to life and
freedom who daily has to conquer them anew."

Let me refer again just here to the socialist propaganda, which seems
to the outsider so strong here in Germany. Even this is far flabbier
than it looks, as I have attempted to explain elsewhere. In such
strong and out-and-out industrial centres as Essen, Duisburg-Muehlheim,
Saarbruecken, and Bochum, where a vigorous fight has been made against
socialism, the following are the figures of the last election in 1912
when the socialists largely increased their vote throughout other
parts of Germany:

NATIONALLIBERAL ZENTRUM SOCIALDEMOKRAT

Essen.........