Germany fast to bureaucratic
government and to a policy of no change. They represent, even in
educated Germany, a complacent mediocrity; indignant at rebuke,
indifferent to progress, heedless of experience, impatient of
criticism, haters of haste, and jealous of superiority. Even Bismarck,
the creator of this bureaucracy, lamented the insolence and bad
manners of the state servants.

The essential and ever-present quality of the real aristocrat and of a
real aristocracy is, of course, courage. It may dislike change, but it
is not afraid of it. The real gentleman, of course, does not care
whether he is a gentleman or not. The characteristic of an artificial,
tailor-made aristocracy is timidity and a shrinking from change. This
new nobility, created because it is carefully charitable, or
serviceable, or long in office, is not only in possession of the civil
service, but occupies high posts in the army and navy. While not
minimizing its value, it is everywhere maintained in Germany that it
acts as a bulwark against progress. They are a nobility of office-holders,
and they partake of the qualities and characteristics of the
office-holder everywhere. They sometimes forget the country in the
office; while the older nobility, which made Germany, despises the
office except as an instrument or weapon to be used for the welfare of
the country. The political pessimism in Germany to-day is caused by,
and comes from, this army of the new nobility.

Americans and English both write of Germany, and speak of it, as being
in the grip of a small group of aristocrats. Not at all; it is in the
shaky and self-conscious control of men whose patents of nobility were
given them with their office, a titled bureaucracy, in short. Let us
prove this statement by running through the list of the chief officers
of the state. Of the officials of the German Empire: the chancellor's
grandfather, Bethmann-Hollweg, was a professor, and afterward minister
of education; the secretary of state's father was plain Herr
Kiderlein-Waechter; the under-secretary of state is Herr Zimmermann;
the secretary of the interior is Herr Delbrueck; of finance, Herr
Wermuth; of justice, Herr Lisco; of the navy, von Tirpitz, who was
recently ennobled; the postmaster is Herr Kraetke. Not one of these
officials of the empire is of the old nobility!

Of the 11 ministers of the kingdom of Prussia, the minister for
agriculture, von Schorlemer; for war, von Heeringen; for educa