Part 1

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GERMANY AND THE GERMANS

FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW

GERMANY AND THE GERMANS FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW

BY PRICE COLLIER

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK 1913

Copyright, 1913, by Charles Scribner's Sons

Published May, 1913

To MY WIFE KATHARINE whose deserving far outstrips my giving

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION

I. THE CRADLE OF MODERN GERMANY

II. FREDERICK THE GREAT TO BISMARCK

III. THE INDISCREET

IV. GERMAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE PRESS

V. BERLIN

VI. "A LAND OF DAMNED PROFESSORS"

VII. THE DISTAFF SIDE

VIII. "OHNE ARMEE KEIN DEUTSCHLAND"

IX. GERMAN PROBLEMS

X. "FROM ENVY, HATRED, AND MALICE"

XI. CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

The first printed suggestion that America should be called America came from a German. Martin Waldseemueller, of Freiburg, in his Cosmographiae Introductio, published in 1507, wrote: "I do not see why any one may justly forbid it to be named after Americus, its discoverer, a man of sagacious mind, Amerige, that is the land of Americus or America, since both Europe and Asia derived their names from women."

The first complete ship-load of Germans left Gravesend July the 24th, 1683, and arrived in Philadelphia October the 6th, 1683. They settled in Germantown, or, as it was then called, on account of the poverty of the settlers, Armentown.

Up to within the last few years the majority of our settlers have been Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. The English, Dutch, Swedes, Germans, Scotch-Irish, who settled in America, were all, less than two thousand years ago, one Germanic race from the country surrounding the North Sea.

Since 1820 more than 5,200,000 Germans have settled in America. This immigration of Germans has practically ceased, and it is a serious loss to America, for it has been replaced by a much less desirable type of settler. In 1882 western Europe sent us 563,174 settlers, or 87 per cent., while southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey sent 83,637, or 13 per cent. In 1905 western Europe sent 215,863, or 21.7 per cent., and southern and eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey, 808,856, or 78.9 per cent. of our new population. In 1910 there were 8,282,618 white persons of German origin in the United States; 2,501,181 were born in Germany; 3,911,847 were born in the United States, both of whose parents were born in Germany; 1,869,590 were born in the United States, one parent born in the United States and one in Germany.