"Pigs Is Pigs"

Mentally, Morally and Otherwise

O. K. DAVIS

A WAR correspondent whose telegrams and letters from France during the later months of the fighting gave us such vivid, convincing descriptions of the rage-andhatred-evoking practices of the Germans that we were ready to swear eternal refusal of all intercourse with such savages hereafter, now furnishes us with a moving account of the Christmas day spirit at Coblenz, the American bridge-head on the Rhine, in which the story of American fighting men, some of them wounded by German fire, playing with German children, and giving toys to them, occupies the chief place. According to this chronicle the comrade of one youngster wore three wound stripes on the right sleeve of his blouse. If we may believe this story invitations to American soldiers to take Christmas dinners in German homes were not infrequent, and the correspondent takes pains to indicate his opinion that on the part of the German children, at least, this new fondness for Americans is sincere. Also he implies, quite positively, a general receptiveness of American soldiers toward such German advances.

THERE is a rule of logic, upon which teachers of that science delight to dwell, to the effect that one must not reason from an insufficient number of particulars to a general. It will be interesting to observe whether this war correspondent was or was not mindful of that rule when writing his dispatch. It may be, of course, that he knows the name of the soldier he saw giving toys to German children. There are many men of German descent, or parentage, or even birth, in the American army, and German names are common on the muster rolls. But if it had happened that the first half dozen men the correspondent saw in Coblenz were negroes would he have telegraphed that the city was inhabited only by blacks?

This is not an idle scoff at the earnest work of a conscientious correspondent. His news has a peculiar interest and significance, and it is of importance to know whether he has reported an isolated incident or a general tendency. Are American troops really fraternizing with Germans in Coblenz? If so, is it in Coblenz alone, or is it the rule in all the German territory occupied by our soldiers? And, most important of all, does it mean any real change of German heart?

There's the rub. For most of us have a pretty well settled opinion of German character, and it is supported by the testimony of so large a cloud of witnesses that we are not troubled in the least about the possibility of reasoning to a general conclusion from an insufficient number of particular cases. An Irish Canadian lieutenant who had been through a long period of it about Ypres and the Somme was telling some of his experiences to a little group of men the other evening. At first he was extraordinarily and picturesquely profane in all his references to Germans, but when he was well into the swing of his story his habitual name for them was "dirty swine." And if you notice, that is the phrase commonly used by most of the men who have come back, no matter what their nationality,' when it is desired to express real feeling.

THERE is, and can be, no doubt that the. policy of "frightfulness" was deliberately adopted by the German rulers, and that they induced or compelled practically all their people to believe in it. Hence it was easy for officers to order it and for men to practice it, and for the non-military portion of the population to defend it. No other theory can explain the action of women, Red Cross nurses and others, toward wounded enemies who were so unfortunate as to come within their reach.

This being the case there can be no doubt that just as long as this policy continues to be believed in and supported by the German people there is no chance whatever of enduring peace with them, except while they are held under the domination of a power which they know can do to them what they would like to do to others, and do it first. Consequently, it is not mere curiosity which asks whether the Christmas spirit reported at Coblenz is incidental or typical. It is important to know.

Naturally, we have . our doubts about the motive and the sincerity of anything German. Our experience with their propaganda, diplomatic, scientific or trade, gives us the right to be suspicious, despite Viscount Grey's citation of the old warning that "you should not spend too much time in looking at the dark cupboard for the black cat that is not there." We know a lot of reasons why we should be particularly watchful of any reports of change of heart among the German people. The chief characteristic of the news reports from Germany these days is confusion. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berne, Zurich, Basle, all are unexcelled centers of authority for unblushing invention and authentic rumor. They compete with Berlin, Cologne, Coblenz and Mayence.

NOW it happens that confusion, such as this, as to just exactly what is actually going on in the real centers of German authority, is eminently suited to further the plans of any scheming royalists who may yet cling to the belief that monarchy is the best system of government and the Hohenzollerns are the best monarchs. It is an extremely difficult role that the Germans in authority to-day have to play. They must make enough of a demonstration to convince the Allies and their altruistic associate from the new world that royalism is definitely overthrown, and the "rule of the people" securely established. But the revolution must not go to the point where it will become impossible to recall royalty whenever the people, in the exercise of their newly established sovereignty, shall so decree. The simon-pure, thorough-going revolutionists in Germany are very few, if indeed there are any capable of leadership that would inspire a half respectable following. The LiebknechtLuxemburg combination would be much less ferocious and bloodthirsty if it should come suddenly and unexpectedly into possession of power to shape the program and put it into execution.

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The old crowd, that is now either reposing more or less hopefully in Holland or some other place of retirement, not concealment, or ostentatiously continuing to exercise its authority under the banner of the revolution, were the master missers of the world when it came to guessing the psychology of other peoples; but they knew their own all right. And that isn't so remarkable, for they contributed such a lot to making their own. The system which they contrived, and which has been celebrated all over the world as the next thing to state socialism, is now called upon to do the work for which it was built, and it is making good very substantially. It is the strongest bulwark of Hohenzollern royalism that could be devised. It consisted in giving to each man, or rather in compelling him to make, a stake for himself. He had no volition about it. The law of the realm took part of his earnings regularly to provide insurance against sickness, accident, old age, and unemployment. Whether he liked it or not, made no difference. He was told it was for his benefit, but under this guise the old system very cunningly enslaved the German people for its own perpetuation.

For now that the test has come what force is there in Germany making so strongly and effectively for the maintenance of order and of the semblance of stable government as this vested interest of every man in the various insurance funds to which he has been contributing for years?

GERMAN officialdom has been a ready, but stupid liar. It has been a very willing practitioner of deceit, but unsuccessful, dull, prolix and heavy. The volume of output has been prodigious, but its worth negligible. Now it has met its supreme test. It has suffered military defeat. Can it make the Allies and their associate believe that that defeat is complete, and thus secure peace terms which will permit it to make another try for world dominion, after repairing the mistakes of this effort, and making sure of ample supplies?

That is the real question in Germany to-day. And you can make sure that they are working at it in Berlin with all the intensive concentration and scientific application of which they are capable, and they have shown a good deal of both on some of their war problems.

IT may be that I have looked too long into the dark cupboard, and there really is no black cat there. But I remember a curious fact of street nomenclature in Berlin, which has always seemed to me to be peculiarly illuminative of German national character. The most famous street of Berlin no doubt is Unter den Linden, but it is hardly a mile from the Schloss at one end to the Brandenburger Thor at the other, and the way is lined with shops and restaurants that match the Pennsylvania Avenue of days gone by. But from the Platz in front of the Reichstag buildings up into the great Thiergarten there stretches the most magnificent street in all Germany. It is a broad boulevard, with ample walks and roadways on each side of a beautiful parkway, and in all things except the execrable Hohenzollern statuary which infests its borders it is a noble avenue. It is named the Sieges Allee—or Avenue of Victory.

Leading from the Reichstag over to the Brandenburger Thor there is a little narrow, dingy alleyway, about as wide as one of the roadways of the Avenue of Victory, and only three or four blocks long. It has an air of decay and disuse, and compares with the Sieges Allee about as Thames Street does to Fifth Avenue in New York, or as Congress Street compares to Michigan Boulevard in Chicago. It is called the Friedens Allee, or Avenue of Peace.

It seems to me that those two streets typify the relative value of victory and peace in the aVeirage German mind. It will be interesting to see whether the Christmas spirit reported from Coblenz suggests any readjustment of names.