Part 5

The case has some bearing on the subject discussed here, and for that reason I will refer to it briefly.

At the American embassy at Berlin they had put my passport into proper shape, as they thought. A Mr. Harvey was positive that such was the case. But at the border it was found that somebody was mistaken. The Tenth Army, in whose bailiwick I found myself, had changed the passport regulations, and the American embassy at Berlin seemed not to have heard of the change.

A very snappy sergeant of the border survey service wanted to know how I had dared to travel with an imperfectly viséd passport. There was nothing else to say but that I thought the passport was in order.

"Sie haben kein Recht zu denken" ("You have no right to think"), snarled the man.

That remark stunned me. Here was a human being audacious enough to deny another human being the right to think. What next?

The result of some suitable remarks of mine were that presently I was under arrest and off for an interview with the Landrat--the county president at Bentheim.

The Landrat was away, however--hunting, as I remember it. In his stead I found a so-called assessor. I can say for the man that he was the most offensive government official or employee I have ever met. He had not said ten words when that was plain to me.

"Ah! You thought the passport was in order," he mocked. "You thought so! Don't you know that it is dangerous to think?"

There and then my patience took leave of me. I made a few remarks that left no doubt in the mind of the official that I reserved for myself the right to think, whether that was in Germany or in Hades.

Within a fortnight I was back in Berlin. I am not given to making a mountain out of every little molehill I come across, but I deemed it necessary to bring the incident at Bentheim to the attention of the proper authorities.

What I wanted to know was this: Had the race which in the past produced some of the best of thinkers been coerced into having thinking prohibited by an erstwhile sergeant or a mensur-marked assessor?

Of course, that was not the case, I was told. The two men had been overzealous. They would be disciplined. I was not to feel that I had been insulted. An eager official might use that sort of language. After all, what special harm was there in being told not to think? Both the sergeant and the assessor had probably meant that I was not to surmise, conclude, or take things for granted.

But I had made up my mind to make myself clear. In the end I succeeded, though recourse to diagrams and the like seemed necessary before the great light dawned. That the German authorities had the right to watch their borders closely I was the last to gainsay. Nor could fault be found with officials who discharged this important duty with all the thoroughness at their command. If these officials felt inclined to warn travelers against surmise and conjecture, thanks were due them, but these officials were guilty of the grossest indecency in denying a rational adult the right to think.

Those who for years have been hunting for a definition of militarism may consider that in the above they have the best explanation of it. The phrase, "You have no right to think," is the very backbone of militarism. In times of war men may not think, because militarism is absolute. For those that are anti-militarist enough to continue thinking there is the censorship and sedition laws, both of which worked smoothly enough in Germany and the countries of her allies.

The question may be asked, What does this have to do with food and such? Very much, is my answer.

The class of small officials was to become the machine by which the production, distribution, and consumption of food and necessities were to be modified according to the needs of the day. This class was to stimulate production, simplify distribution, and restrict consumption. No small task for any set of men, whether they believed in the God-given right of thinking or not.

It was simple enough to restrict consumption--issue the necessary decrees with that in view, and later adopt measures of enforcement. The axiom, You have no right to think, fitted that case well enough. But it was different with distribution. To this sphere of economy belongs that ultra-modern class of Germans, the trust and Syndikat member--the industrial and commercial kings. These men had outgrown the inhibitions of the barrack-yard. The Feldwebel was a joke to them now, and, unfortunately, their newly won freedom sat so awkwardly upon their minds that often it would slip off. The class as a whole would then attend to the case, and generally win out.

A similar state of affairs prevailed in production. To order the farmer what he was to raise was easy, but nature takes orders from nobody, a mighty official included.

WHEN LORD MARS HAD RULED THREE MONTHS

Germany had reared a magnificent economic structure. Her prosperity was great--too great, in fact.

The country had a nouveau-riche aspect, as will happen when upon a people that has been content with little in the past is suddenly thrust more than it can assimilate gracefully. The Germany I was familiar with from travel and literature was a country in which men and women managed to get along comfortably by the application of thoroughness and industry--a country in which much time was given to the cultivation of the mind and the enjoyment of the fruits that come from this praiseworthy habit.

Those were the things which I had grouped under the heading, Kultur. Those also were the things, as I was soon to learn from the earnest men and women of the country, for which the word still stood with most. But the spirit of the parvenu--Protzentum--was become rampant. The industrial classes reeked with it.

From the villages and small towns, still the very embodiment of thrift and orderliness, I saw rise the large brick barracks of industry, topped off with huge chimneys belching forth black clouds of smoke. The outskirts of the larger towns and cities were veritable forests of smoke-stacks--palisades that surrounded the interests of the thousands of captains of industry that dwelt within the city when not frequenting the international summer and winter resorts and making themselves loathed by their extremely bad manners--the trade-mark of all parvenus.

I soon found that there were two separate and distinct Germanys.

It was not a question of classes, but one of having within the same borders two worlds. One of them reminded me of Goethe and Schiller, of Kant and Hegel, and the other of all that is ultra-modern, and cynical. The older of these worlds was still tilling the fields on the principle that where one takes one must give. It was still manufacturing with that honesty that is better than advertising, and selling for cost of raw material and labor, plus a reasonable profit.

In the new world it was different. Greed was the key-note of all and everything. The kings of industry and commerce had forgotten that in order to live ourselves we must let others live. These men had been wise enough to compete as little as possible with one another. Every manufacturer belonged to some Syndikat--trust--whose craze was to capture by means fair or foul every foreign field that could be saturated.

I have used the word "saturated" on purpose. Germany's industrials do not seem to have been content with merely entering a foreign market and then supplying it with that good tact which makes the article and its manufacturer respected. Instead of that they began to dump their wares into the new field in such masses that soon there was attached to really good merchandise the stigma of cheapness in price and quality. A proper sense of proportions would have prevented this. There is no doubt that German manufacturers and exporters had to undersell foreign competitors, nor can any reasonable human being find fault with this, but that, for the sake of "hogging" markets, they should turn to cheap peddling was nothing short of being criminally stupid--a national calamity.

I have yet to be convinced that Germany would not have been equally prosperous--and that in a better sense--had its industry been less subservient to the desire to capture as many of the world's markets as possible. That policy would have led to getting better prices, so that the national income from this source would have been just as great, if not greater, when raw material and labor are given their proper socio-economic value.