Edward VII, Fallieres and the Czar Prussianism Finland, and this visit was followed almost immediately by a rendezvous of the Czar and President Fallieres at the same place. Edward VII and his advisers were the first engineers of the brutal plan to dismember Germany. When Britain thus allied herself with Germany's neighbors, war became inevitablethe peace of Europe was broken by that act. Britain is a thoroughly commercial nation, with the ethics of an unscrupulous trader. Innately hypocritical, she cleverly concealed her real motives, and announced to the world that her only aim was to destroy Prussianism; and this has become the slogan of an unthinking multitude. The campaign of lying and hypocritical stage-play, that Britain has waged in this war, to convert the feeble-minded to her cause, will stand as a permanent disgrace to her and is a mark of British decadence. It is not amiss right here for me to explain to you what Prussianism really is. Prussianism is efficiency and justice. It is honest, sincere, earnest, loyal, stern, organic. It is the highest and noblest condition that exists in the world today. True, Prussianism is oligarchic and aristocratic; but why should not the wise and able rule, rather than the foolish and inefficient? Is not the Money Power an oligarchy also? Does it not rule our democracies in spite of our suffrage? Prussianism is a Christian aristocracy-a Spartanism. Prussia inherited the Spartan spirit from the Order of the Teutonic Knights, and the Prussian princes became grand masters of the order. Thus Junkertum is the backbone of Deutschtum. Prussianism has been a great blessing to the German nation by making it wonderfully efficient and united. The Germans are fighting valiantly to conserve their government and their brand of civilization. It would be well for us, if we would examine Anglo-Saxonism and Americanism. Perhaps we might see their close relation to Mammonism! What has be- Mammonism come of the American spirit of fair-play? Has the Almighty Dollar broken the sword of Jus tice and bound the feet of Liberty with chains of gold? We hear so much of German militarism that Militarism we need to remind ourselves that militarism is by no means peculiarly German. Neither in the size of its army nor in the presence of a warlike spirit does the German nation enjoy any pre-eminence over other European nations. Indeed, it would be more just to maintain that the opposite is the case. The German army does not compare in size with that of Russia, and, for forty-four years after the foundation of the Empire, this army has shown itself to be a very peaceful force. France has an army approximately equal to that of Germany, although her population is less than two-thirds as great. Her geographical position is a more fortunate one, for she can be effectively attacked by land on one side only. About British militarism we can only say that no nation is as militaristic as Britain is "navalistic." There is no nation on earth that deliberately holds before itself the ideal of a German Army navy or an army larger than the navies or armies of any two other Powers. The principal reason for calling militarism German is the admirable organization and great efficiency of the German army. The size of the force has little to do with it. As mentioned before, the Russian army is vastly larger, but it is, like most things in Russia, sadly inefficient, so we hear little of Russian militarism, and nobody expresses a wish to have it wiped out. But if German efficiency in military matters makes militarism German, it ought to make all sorts of other things German too, for the same efficiency shows itself everywhere in Germany. The soldiers we see in Germany are not soldiers by profession, they are citizen guards, who, after two years' daily drill, go back to their homes and take up the peaceful occupations which are to fill their lives. The tens of thousands of soldiers, whom the American tourist sees as he travels about, would be found, could he trace them a year later, or the year after that, tilling the fields, mining coal and iron, standing behind counters, collecting fares on street cars, acting as engineers, brakemen or porters on railways, and working as mechanics, bookkeepers, draftsmen, laborers, architects, preachers, surveyors, journalists, school teachers and in all other lines of business. The man whom he sees in soldiers' uniform today will sit beside him tomorrow on the benches of the medical school, with no other thoughts than of his future career as a physician. When he goes to a restaurant for his luncheon, he will be waited on by a man who marched in the |