CHAPTER XIII

THE GERMAN

THE Germans who came to America prior to 1860 escaped the influences which changed the Germans who, remaining at home, were swept into the vortex of industrial prosperity, based on conquest, aggrandizement by war, and state exploitation. When Bismarck welded the German states into one, subdued Austria and then France, extorting territory and treasure, an era of wealth dawned in Germany that dazzled the plain people and led them to think that the Prussian aristocracy could conquer the world. The lust of conquest took possession of all and all were equally to blame. The ferocity and brutality of primitive man and races came to the front. Millions marched to battle, quarreling among themselves, but united in the common aim of booty and confiscation. The hordes of their predecessors, Attila and Alaric, were no worse. They burned, sacked, destroyed, and left in their wake ruin and desolation. They had well-nigh succeeded when two million American troops, with unlimited munitions, money, and supplies, swept them from the field.

The Germans in America had a different career. They began coming in the 17th century. In Pennsylvania they were misnamed and are still misnamed as "Pennsylvania Dutch." They were and are Germans and not Dutch. In other states also they were often called "Dutch." Their qualities were essentially German - a simple, laborious, inoffensive, saving class of people, mild in their manners and not particularly refined in their customs, but the best farmers in America. Benjamin Franklin declared that the German immigrants pouring into Pennsylvania "are generally the most stupid of their own nation.

Not being used to liberty they know not how to make modest use of it." They gave little aid in the French War from 1756 to 1763 and very little in the Revolutionary War. They made good servants, farmers, and laborers. They had large families and to a large extent kept by themselves and did not mingle with other races. They still loved their groves, beer, and music, like their ancestors in Germany. Stocky in build, heavy and generally fleshy, they have had by intermarriage a decided effect in some parts of the country on the physique of the old-time typical American, tall, spare, and athletic. Of the 2,600,000 people in the thirteen colonies in 1775 it is estimated that 225,000 were Germans; they and the Scotch-Irish making nearly one-fifth of the entire population, although the census of 1890 makes them less. Most of the Germans who came to America prior to 1850 were undoubtedly looked upon and treated as an inferior race. They cut but little figure in the nation's affairs and were noted in the cities chiefly as brewers. The Civil War changed this. The Germans rallied to the support of the Union and showed that they had mettle in them. And even in the recent "World War" the Germans in America as a rule were loyal to America as against Germany itself. Nor is it to be forgotten that when the German government and Prussian Junkers drove out liberal Germans, such as Carl Schurz (who came with a price on his head), these liberal, liberty-loving, intelligent Germans came to America and have always favored good government. Commons, on “Races and Immigrants in America," says: "From the time of the Napoleonic wars to the revolution of 1848, the governments of Germany were despotic in character, supporting an established church, while at the same time the marvelous growth of the universities produced a class of educated liberals. In the revolution of 1848 these took a leading part, and although constitutional governments were then established, yet those who had been prominent in the popular uprisings found their position intolerable under the reactionary governments that followed. The

political exiles sought America, bringing their liberalism in politics and religion, and forming with their descendants in American cities an intellectual aristocracy. They sprang from the middle classes of Germany, and latterly, when the wars with Austria and France had provoked the spirit of militarism, thousands of peasants looked to emigration for escape from military service. The severe industrial depression of 1873-79 added a powerful contributing cause. Thus there were two periods when German migration culminated: first, in 1854, on political grounds; second, in 1882, on military and economic grounds."1 Ross, on the "Old World in the New," says: "The political exiles famous as the 'Forty-eighters' included many men of unusual attainments and character, who almost at once became leaders of the GermanAmericans, exercising an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers. These university professors, physicians, journalists, and even aristocrats, aroused many of their fellowcountrymen to feel a pride in German culture, and they left a stamp of political idealism, social radicalism, and religious skepticism which is slow to be effaced." 2

The Germans have not sought public office; they have not, like the Irish and Jews, clubbed together to get "recognition"; they have gone about their business in a quiet way; they have intermarried with Americans, so much so that their identity has been largely merged; they have cultivated and extended the love of the best music.

Many of their present literary men and agitators in America are different; these are more or less communistic, neither appreciating nor accepting American principles of constitutional government; they are largely communists and have been found under the Red Flag. Force and fear are the only things they respect, and force and fear they will get.

During the eighty years from 1840 to 1920, 5,374,278 Germans came to America. In 1914 foreign-born Germans and their children in the United States numbered about seven millions,

besides those whose more remote ancestors were German. In 1920 German was the mother tongue of 8,164,111 in this country, a little less than in 1910.

1

Orth, after pointing out the organized effort of Germans in America after the outbreak of the World War to render America subservient to German interests, says: "But the German element . . . had become incorporated into the national bone and sinew, contributing its thoroughness, stolidity, and solidity to the American stock. The power of liberal political institutions in America has been revealed, and thousands upon thousands of the sons and grandsons of German immigrants crossed the seas in 1917 and 1918 to bear aloft the starry standard upon the fields of Flanders against the arrogance and brutality of the neo-Prussians." The fact is that when Germans emigrate, they do not remain Germans, especially when they emigrate to America. Waldstein says: "In former days the German settler in the United States, in South America, and in all other countries, in most cases, if not in all, left his own country and chose a foreign home in which to found a new life for his family, because he was clearly dissatisfied with the political, social, and economic conditions of his own country. He left it with the clear and set purpose of thus denationalizing himself. Furthermore, there was no active and positive influence emanating from the country which he had left to feed and to strengthen his national allegiance to the country of his birth and to encourage in him the national pride which, to some extent, must underlie national patriotism." 2

The Germans in America can be relied upon to sustain American institutions. They differ from the New England, the New York, and the Southern types, and their influence has not been profound on the Western type, but their instincts, principles, and habits are good, and widely diffused they help American character.

CHAPTER XIV

THE JEW

A STRANGE race of the Orient, where famine and governmental terrorism for centuries have implanted fear and wile in the human mind! Hostile to physical labor they are world-wide traders, especially in money. In fact they originated the draft to transfer money secretly and avoid the robbery and tortures of the Middle Ages. For hundreds of years they were subjected to thumb screws and the rack to reach their hidden wealth. No wonder that fear is in their nature. Henry III of England mortgaged all the Jews in his Kingdom as security for money which he borrowed. From 1290 until Cromwell's time Jews could not legally live in England, and although they were there, the general sentiment about them is shown in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and Marlowe's "Jew of Malta." Without a country or a flag that they care for, they are always an alien race abiding in an alien land. They preserve their separate identity and intermarry little with Christians. For a thousand years they have sought social recognition, but their customs, habits, manners, conversation, and ideas of life forbid. Until they do get social recognition they will remain a separate race, because marriage involves social equality. They are the oldest extant civilized race in Europe or America and stick to their race, creed, and separate identity through persecution, dislike, temptation, and migration. They are the quicksilver of all nations.

The Jews repudiated Christ and Spinoza and were repudiated by Heine. With extraordinary vitality and persistence, even when persecuted and despised, they are submissive rather than conciliatory; they have no wide-extending sympathy which recognizes the brotherhood of man; they never tear down the