merica at any rate, can fail to notice without
surprise and delight.

Germany, like the rest of us, has been obliged
to face the various social problems that arise from original sin, but
which vote-getters are pleased to ascribe to industrial progress. In
our country, with a population of some thirty to the square mile,
while in the kingdom of Saxony the density of the population is 830.6
to the square mile, it is hard to believe that we suffer from
overcrowding so much as from overindulgence, wastefulness, and fussy
legislation. None the less, we have 42 institutions for the feeble-minded,
115 schools and homes for the deaf and blind, 350 hospitals
for the insane, 1,200 refuge houses, 1,300 prisons, 1,500 hospitals,
and 2,500 almshouses. We have 2,000,000 annually who are cared for in
homes and hospitals, 300,000 insane and feeble-minded, 160,000 blind
or deaf, 80,000 prisoners, and 100,000 paupers in almshouses and out,
and we spend each year about $100,000,000 in taking care of them. We
are as wasteful and careless in these matters as we have been until
very lately in our forestry methods.

In the early days of the empire Germany undertook to deal with these
social problems. The German Empire took over some of the principles of
socialism, but retained, and retains absolutely, the power of applying
those principles. Bismarck himself admitted that his advocacy of the
industrial insurance laws was selfish. "My idea was to bribe the
working classes, or shall I say to win them over, to regard the state
as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in
their welfare." Whatever else may have resulted, discontent, whether
well-founded or not, is not now under discussion, has not been
lessened. In 1912 more than one-half of the electors voted
"discontented" as over against the less than one-half who voted
"contented." The mass of the people may be better clothed, better fed,
better housed, better cared for in sickness and in old age, than
formerly, but they are not satisfied. No state can go much further
than Germany has gone along the lines of state interference, guidance,
and control of the personal affairs of its people, and nothing is more
surprising about the whole matter than the general acceptance in
America and in England of such legislation as having proved altogether
successful. I doubt if any intelligent German considers these various
pension schemes as altogether successful. I can vouch for it th