THE GERMAN SPIRIT

In a little town of Northern France, recently retaken by the French, there is a cemetery filled with German dead. Above the entrance stands a placard bearing the almost incomprehensible title, "Died for their Kaiser."

These few words fully express the whole spirit of Prussianism. The training of years has done its work. The German has been led to pour out his blood to as full measure as any of his opponents, but he knows not why. As he pays tribute to his comrades who have fallen, the most glorious thing he can say is that they "died for their Kaiser." What free men will offer their lives to the ambitions of a single leader? It passes the imagination of us who are fighting for great ideals that such a thought could be widely accepted today. It indicates a condition of the German mind which unites the nation in a dogged support of the Kaiser. Such an utterance bespeaks a unity which we must face with difficulty.

It is indeed tragic that a great race should have passed under the control of such a spirit, so utterly repugnant to human ideals of manhood, so utterly hopeless to the very future of mankind.