HUGO MUSTERBERG pronounces upon Russia and Germany in 1914: "The German culture is active and productive; the Russian is at its best passive and uncreative. The German soul is full of sunshine; there is something gloomy and oppressive about the Russian soul." As psychologist he finds in "this inner deadness, this lack of productive energy in Russia," the mark of its backwardness in culture, and proof of a danger to European civilization. But Madame de Stael was also a psychologist who did not hesitate to generalize about races. Just one hundred years ago she wrote of the people from whom Prof. Münsterberg comes: "An indescribable silence in nature and in the people at first oppresses the heart. It seems as if time moved more slowly there than elsewhere, as if vegetation made not a more rapid progress in the earth than ideas in the heads of men.… The Germans have too much respect for foreigners and too few national prejudices.… In leaving France, it is difficult to grow accustomed to the slowness and inertness of the German people.… When action is necessary, the Germans know not how to struggle with difficulties.… The Germans with some exceptions are hardly capable of succeeding in anything which requires address and dexterity.… They have as much need of method in action as of independence in ideas."
ON Tuesday came the latest of all reports upon the demolition of Louvain. It is the work of a commission appointed by the Kaiser. It says there is little hope that any of the books in the library are unharmed. It places the blame for the loss of the books upon the library attendants, "who could have drawn attention to the rescue of the endangered treasures," but who "were not on the spot at the time of the burning of the houses on either side of the hall." This sounds like a reproach well deserved. It was very wrong of the attendants not to be where they could remind the burners of the library that there were books inside.
IT is a queer state of affairs when workingmen have to implore the Federal government to protect them from the state militia. Yet that is just where the Colorado situation has brought us, for the miners say that there will be another Ludlow massacre if the President withdraws the troops. This cannot mean that the strikers are looking for a chance to start a riot. It does mean that the state of Colorado has completely destroyed all faith in its good intentions. For it is clear that the strikers are convinced that law and order will not be preserved by the militia, and so they, the "anarchistic" workingmen, have come to rely on Federal troops. To anyone who knows the views of labor this is a complete reversal of the usual attitude toward the employment of soldiers during strikes. It suggests that men like Mr. Rockefeller may have pursued the "principle" of anti-unionism to a point where every other principle, including the sovereignty of the state, is wrecked. This is, to say the least, a stupid piece of fanaticism, an extravagant indulgence of what these absentee capitalists regard as righteousness. But to the American people it may soon present itself that the mine operators are not so absolutely essential to the mining of coal that they can act on the notion that our only choice is between their rule and our ruin.
GENERAL VON BERNHARDI, in a cheap paper edition, is to be found at every railway newsstand and in every hotel. He will soon appear in the anterooms of eminent dentists. Before long you will have a chance to study him while you wait at the barber's. For many an American reader Bernhardi is the only expositor of German thought. And of the extreme left wing of Pan-German thought he does give a fairly accurate likeness. But not all Germans are extreme pan-Germans. The American reader gets from Bernhardi about an adequate an idea of Germany as—well, as a German, intent upon studying American thought, would get of us by reading Mr. William Randolph Hearst.
BOSTON has been snatched form the abyss. In the name of decency, modesty, propriety and dignity, Mayor Curley has ordered classic Greek dancers to clothe themselves in stockings or tights. Harry Lauder may still disport himself in kilts before the demure maidens of Massachusetts, not even mosquito netting wrapt about those red and naked knees; but the classic dancers must cease "offending the sensibilities of fair-minded individuals." It is a perilous age. We praise a mayor who hates to see his citizenry grovel in classic dancing like pigs in a flower garden. But we hope for the day when some public official will cease to apologize for the nude.
