be
proclaimed too often since in other countries it is continually
assumed that this is the case. All sorts of deductions are made, all
sorts of illustrations used, all sorts of legislative and social
lessons taught from the example of Germany, without the smallest
knowledge apparently on the part of those who make them, that Germany
to-day is no more democratic than was Turkey twenty years ago.

What can be done and what is done in Germany has no possible bearing
upon what can be done in America or in England. All analogies are
false, all illustrations futile, all examples valueless, for the one
reason that the empire of Germany is governed by one man, who declaims
his independence of the people and admits his responsibility to God
alone. This may be either a good or a bad thing. Certainly in many
matters of economical and comfortable government for the people--
witness more particularly the development and wise control of their
municipalities--they are a century ahead of us, but this is not the
question under discussion. The point is, that a compact nation under
strict centralized control, served by a trained horde of officials
with no wish for a change, and backed by a standing army of over seven
hundred thousand men, who are not only a defence against the
foreigner, but a powerful police against internal revolution, cannot
serve as a model in either its successes or failures for a democratic
country like ours. Where in Germany legislative schemes succeed easily
when this huge bureaucratic machine is behind them, they would fail
ignominiously in a country lacking this machinery, and lacking these
pitiably tame people accustomed to submission.

In France, for example, that thrifty and individualistic folk made a
complete failure of the attempt to foist contributory old-age pensions
upon them, and I doubt whether such sumptuary legislation can succeed
with us. That, however, is neither here nor there. The gist of the
matter is, that because such things succeed in Germany, gives not the
slightest reason for supposing that they will succeed with us. If this
outline of their history and this sketch of their government have done
nothing else, it must have made this clear. It may also help to show
how vapid is the talk about what the German people will or will not
do; whether they will or will not have war, for example. We shall have
war when the German Kaiser touches a button and gives an order, and
the German people wi