y organizing and
keeping at work that vast majority of incurable mediocrities--mere
plodders--who are found in every race and who often weigh down its
destiny to the point of sinking hopelessness.

Kirtley had since observed that one conspicuous German method was
largely to employ this empty talent in small Government jobs. In
general, these tasks seemed to be expressly for the swarming and
uninspired nonentities, and meant most trivial duties for trivial
pay. But such tasks kept this population occupied, orderly and more
than self-respecting. In America incurable mediocrity is left to
shift for itself in huge masses.

The natural ambition of a Teuton was to be in the national service.
Rare was the German family who had not one member in "Government
circles." Or if not, it was building expectations toward such a
future. One in every eight wage-earning men a bureaucrat! It was not
only a question of the salary, assured if small, but the honor. Any
Government clerk or roustabout, not to speak of functionaries in
higher duties, was looked up to in a way unfamiliar in America, for
under that continuous regime his position remained fixed for life.
Government officials and employees in the United States are quite
freely thrown out under the frequent election upheavals and may
to-morrow be ordinary citizens bereft of any sort of authority over
their fellows. So they enjoy only a passing deference.

In Germany, owing to the use of plodders who made up extensively its
ubiquitous and commanding official class, this bureaucratic scheme
proved useful in more ways than one. It put faith and expectation
into these stolid, menial lives and took them out of the ranks of
the idle and discontented dullards who, in other countries, are a
source of danger or decay. It attached Fritz firmly and loyally to
the Nation. It held the links between the ruling caste and the
people hard and tight. At the same time it tied his family and
friends to the Hohenzollern, uniting them in a bond almost servile.
The ever-swelling ranks of bureaucrats, in such a large measure
imbecile and applying themselves to imbecile occupations,
strengthened the incomparable solidarity of the race. And it was
this army of State employees who were actively helping diffuse
through Germany in 1913 the frothy ideas of a national triumph that
intoxicated the populace.

But Kirtley, admiring this manifestation of practical and
administrative wisdom, felt that there must