The German and the German-American

I.

IT is a more or less popular belief in Germany, among the well-to-do classes, that only those Germans come to our country who are incompetent to succeed at home. These classes have a happy faculty of thinking, or rather of making themselves think, that the Fatherland is in the best condition possible, and those who do not agree with them, and leave it, they consider, if not exactly Taugenichtse, at any rate inconsiderate grumblers. In German novels it is always the ne’er-do-well and villain who emigrate to “ Amerika,” and the impression they leave on the reader is that we are a nation of vagabonds and criminals. In actual life, if a man has done anything dishonorable, it is said that the only thing for him to do is to put two pistols to his head, or smuggle himself into some ship bound for our shores. A little while ago a very eminent instance of this way of looking at disgrace came up for comment. One of the main leaders in the Conservative party got himself into very serious trouble, and when the facts were made public it was discovered that, long before his arrest, at least one of his party friends had advised him to commit suicide or run away to the United States. In other words, death and exile to this country mean pretty much the same thing to the well-situated German ; and in the press and in daily conversation so much is made of those who choose the latter alternative that, among people who pay no attention to what goes on in the world of the peasant and the workingman, it has become customary to look upon America as the dumpingground of Europe’s refuse population. It is useless to deny that some of our German immigrants belong to this class of people, perhaps more than we know anything about; but the great majority of them — and they constitute the largest single foreign element we have — are not ne’er-do-wells, and they have not come to us because they were failures through their own fault at home.

A few years ago I took a steerage berth in the steamer Lahn, and crossed from Bremerhaven to New York with about seven hundred fellow steerage passengers. Excepting a few Russians and Poles they were all Germans, and they came from various parts of the empire. We were more than eight days at sea, and I had a very fair opportunity to get acquainted with them.

About a third of these people were without any specific occupation or trade, and called themselves Arbeiter, simple workmen. A few had their families with them, but the majority were strong young fellows between twenty and thirty years of age. They were leaving Germany because they believed there was a better outlook for them on this side of the water. When I asked them how much better they expected to do here than at home, they said they were looking forward to a dollar and a dollar and a half a day if they worked as common laborers, and to something like fifteen dollars and eighteen dollars a month if they went on farms, which not a few of them intended to do. They assured me that out of these wages they could save and eventually become independent, which had been impossible in the Fatherland. There they had worked for wages ranging from eighty pfennigs to a mark and three pfennigs a day, and only a few had been able to save much more than a hundred marks (twenty-five dollars) to begin life with in the New World.

More than a hundred were peasants and their families. They all had relatives and friends in this country, and were coming to them. Each family had money enough and to spare to pay all railway expenses as well as to buy the necessary farm tools. They had left Germany because where they had farmed, mainly in the provinces of east and west Prussia, it did not pay so well as they thought it should, and they hoped to secure better farms, which their children might inherit. They were sorry that they had felt forced to leave das liebe Vaterland, but they were sure that it was the best thing both for them and for their children.

About a hundred and fifty were artisans and skilled laborers, such as bakers, butchers, brewers, tailors, carpenters, bookbinders, drivers, miners, locksmiths, barbers, and the like. They also were leaving Germany to better their financial condition. This was probably the main reason, but some of them were obviously too liberal minded for home institutions, and I fancy that this had something to do with their emigration. Indeed, several were loud mouthed with rebellion, calling Germany a Polizeistaut. and showing plainly that they were looking forward to America as a place where the police could not regulate everything they did. The most of them came from large towns; and since it is in these towns that Social Democracy is strongest, I take it that some of them had already come under its influence. I do not report this as anything to their disgrace, — for a great many so-called Social Democrats are no more Socialists, in the strict sense of the word, than the Liberals are, — but merely to show that it is not exclusively the economic cause which impels them to leave the Fatherland.

The rest of my fellow passengers were small tradespeople, servants, and a few young fellows who were runaways from the army and adventurers making their first trip into the world at large. Except the last they were all desirable immigrants, and were planning to cast in their lot for better or worse with the people they found here. The tradespeople intended to set up shop in German communities, and the servants, mainly women and girls, were going “ to work out ” wherever the opportunity presented itself. The deserters and adventurers numbered only about twenty, and they had just enough money to land and live for a few days, until something turned up. The former hoped that they could get into our army, but they were determined “ not to let any one bluff them ; ” the latter intended to look about a bit, and then go somewhere else. All they wanted was to get out into die Ferne, and as long as it attracted them they expected to keep moving.

The Socialist leader, Herr Bebel, remarked to me lately that our country was filling up so rapidly there would soon be no inducement for a man to come over simply to benefit his material welfare; but I feel sure that so long as Germany labors under the burdens, military and monarchical, that it does to-day, the United States can but be attractive to the poor man, and he is likely to keep on coming to us so long as we will receive him.

It is often asked, Why do we not get more educated Germans ? There is a learned proletariat in Germany as well as a proletariat of common people, and one wonders at times why more of its members do not emigrate. A number of reasons account for this, and probably the main one is the greater attachment of the educated man to home institutions, but I think the risk involved in such a change keeps a great many away. There is an immense bureaucracy in the Fatherland, and if a man can once get into it he is pretty sure of at least his bread and butter for the rest of his life. I know, for instance, a school-teacher who is working in a most forlorn community in Germany for $250 a year. Some time ago he was offered by a German community in Ohio $750 a year and six months’ notice before dismissal, if he would come over; but he did not dare to accept, because there was no chance of a pension. If he remained at home, he was sure, he said, of an annuity after he had served a certain number of years, and he preferred this certainty to the uncertainty in Ohio, although the latter might have brought him in a short time all that he would ever receive from his pension. The same thing is true in all professions in any way connected with the government. Every man looks forward to a pension, and if in the mean time he can save a little money his old age is likely to be more or less comfortable. The common workingman lacks this incentive to stay at home. Since the Bismarck insurance laws of 1890, he has, to be sure, the chance to insure himself, — indeed, he is compelled to do so; but the pension he receives is too paltry to keep him from emigrating, and that for old age is paid only after he has passed his seventieth year.

II.

To appreciate what the Germans do for our life, and we for them, it is necessary first to take note of the characteristics which are common to them in their own country. The minute they set foot on the steamer, bound for our shores, and realize that they are cut loose from all home restraints and customs, some of these characteristics are modified, and to secure a trustworthy standard of comparison one must know what they were before this change set in.

Perhaps, to an American, the most striking feature in the character of the Germans at home is their respect for law and authority. For a naturally liberal-minded people, — and their history certainly proves them to be this, — they bow down before government with a resignation that will hardly be found in any other country governed by constitutional principles, and they grant the police a power over them which to the Anglo-Saxon would be slavery. There is hardly anything that a man can do in Germany which does not bring him in contact with the Polizei, and from birth to death his life is practically under their supervision and direction. This has been the custom so long that to-day it comes as easy to the Germans, while still at home, to conform to police surveillance as it does to us to fight shy of it, and only the direst provocation can array them against the powers that be. In the little revolution which took place in Berlin in 1893, for instance, when some unemployed workmen and boys went parading through the town crying for bread, their first thought was not, as it would have been with us, to take the bread where it could be found. No ; they must first go to their Kaiser and tell him their woes, and so off they started for his palace. On arriving there, they cried up to his window : “ 0 Kaiser, we are starving ! Give us bread.” There is something pitiful in thus crouching down before a oneman power, and it does not appeal to people on this side of the water; but I venture to say that Germany is what it is to-day, probably the least politically corrupt country in all Europe, very much because of this veneration for government and its representatives. This is what keeps the army together, the bureaucracy clean and pure, and the people governable.

Patience and perseverance are the next prominent characteristics. Germans stick to a thing that they have begun, if it is in the least practicable, until it is done, and the necessary waiting for results seems merely to confirm their resolution. The story of the philogian, who regretted on his death-bed that he had not devoted his life to the dative case, applies to the entire race. In this particular they are very different from the Irish. I have in mind an Irishman, who, after he had tried various things for about thirty - five years, suddenly made up his mind that he would be a lawyer. His education had been very meagre, and I asked him whether he thought he was fitted for such a profession. “ Oh, I guess so,” he said ; “ my friends tell me that I ’ve got a sarcastic tongue, and I suppose that’s the main thing.” He went West, and the next thing I knew he was practicing law. For a German to take up law merely because he has a sharp tongue is almost unthinkable. He does not always use good judgment in choosing a calling, nor does he often have the chance to choose it for himself, his parents managing all that in his earliest years ; but when the choice is made, he sits down and grinds until he has mastered at least a specialty in his profession. It is the same among the common people. Every artisan must go through a long and tiresome apprenticeship before he can set up for himself, and even the waiter has three years to serve before he dares to take a Quartier of his own in the café. I remember once telling a waiter how, with us, poor lads often earn their way through college by waiting on table at summer resorts. He was dumfounded. “ Why, I should think they would break everything they got hold of,” he said. “ I should, I know.”

The Germans are also an industrious people. They work at something, men, women, and children, the whole day long; and although it is often mere puttering, they have the satisfaction of knowing that they are not idle. Even in fairly well-to-do families, if the daughter cannot marry, she goes out as governess, ladies’ companion, Kindergärtn er inn, or the like ; and the day laborer simply will not marry at all unless he can rely on his wife to bring her share of money into the family exchequer. Of the laborer it is often said that he lacks intelligence to direct his industry, and much has been written about the great gulf which separates his class from those above him ; but the gulf is not so much one of intelligence as of artificial class arrangement. He is wanting, it is true, in much of the general knowledge which comes so easily to the American workingman, and lie is by no means so quick and acute as the latter, but liis class is certainly an intelligent one. Indeed, I believe that the German is one of the very best educated workingmen that we receive from Europe, and I have still to meet one unable to read and write. There are, I know, some illiterates in Germany, but they are steadily becoming fewer, and must ultimately disappear ; for German law requires that every boy and girl shall attend school from the sixth to the fourteenth year, and the officials see to it that this law is rigorously enforced.

The Germans are, furthermore, an honest people. They tell, to be sure, the same conventional little lies that are told in every European country, but at heart they mean to do the right thing : and I can say this after nearly ten years’ intimate experience with them in their own country. During the late unpleasantness between our country and Germany in regard to certain insurance companies, a great deal was written in the German press about the comparative honesty of German and American business men, and a German-American, who claimed to know both very well, said publicly that the simple word of the former was worth as much in every-day life as was a written contract of the latter ; but this is an exaggeration. It is true that, officially, a man’s word does not go so far as it does with us, but this is because the Germans have become accustomed to have everything put down in black and white. The government sets them this example, and it is the fashion to require a lawyer’s affidavit in the most trivial matters. If one rents a house, for instance, a most laborious contract is drawn up, and the lessee must promise not even to introduce a dog into the house without the landlord’s permission ; and pretty much the same strictness prevails in all other dealings. The contract settled, however, German law punishes very severely any deviation from it, and the foreigner is as thoroughly protected as the native.

Finally, the Germans are a healthy people. The men are well built and strong, and the women vigorous and energetic. Taking them as a race, I think they are better fitted for life, physically, than we are, and they seldom have to rely so much on nervous power to do their work. They are not pugilists, it is true, and they abhor our summary way of settling serious quarrels, but they are great athletes, and we are indebted to them for many of our gymnastic theories and applications. As students they endure more than we can. It is the fashion to laugh at the German student, and the Fliegende Blatter has made his bad points notorious ; but when it comes to sitting down and grinding, as it does even to him, he has more staying power than our students can boast of; not, however, because his will or intentions are any better, but because he has a physique that permits him almost incredible concentration of mind.

Thus much for the good qualities of the Germans. If I have read them aright, the most striking are, respect for law and order, intelligence, thoroughness, perseverance, industry, honesty, and general good health. Theoretically, the German immigrants whom we get ought to have these characteristics, and in so far as they are intelligently retained here they help to make our life better. With these, however, they bring others which are not so desirable, and I must note them too.

The first characteristic, and it is the worst of all, is their view of women and the treatment they apply to them. It is said that a great many years ago, probably in the proverbial “ golden age,” German women enjoyed all the respect and privileges that any woman could possibly demand, and there are a number of passages in German literature which commemorate this ideal period ; but no such conditions exist to-day. As I write these words, the women throughout the Fatherland are petitioning the Reichstag, just now busied with the revision of the civil laws, to grant them privileges which American women have long enjoyed as a matter of course, hut which in Germany are looked upon as dangerous innovations. The trouble is that Germany is so much a military state, and so dependent upon the maintenance of the martial spirit, that man has come to be the all-important factor in its affairs. He goes to war, and, if necessary, gives up his life for the country, and consequently, so the argument runs, must remain supi-eme in home and state. The woman exists merely to bear his children and keep his home in order. To think of her as the equal half in the human unit, as she is likely to become with us, is beyond his ability, and he sneers at our country as the place where men are “ under the slippers” of their wives. Among the common workingmen the situation is even worse. They look upon their wives as beasts of burden, which they are entitled to work and punish at discretion ; and it is not so very long ago that German law actually prescribed what punishment a man should inflict on his wife for certain offenses. An entire chapter might be written on the consequences of this low valuation of woman, but suffice it to say here that in the higher classes it makes her but little better than the dull wife that Ibsen’s Nora represents before her revolt, and in the lower classes but little better than a woman of the street. An illegitimate child in the so-called proletariat of Germany is regarded in as commonplace a manner as a legitimate one.

It is probably also the military spirit which makes the Germans such a rough people. Taking them as a whole, there is no nation in western Europe with so little grace and gentleness, and so much clamor and boisterousness. The aristocracy has, to be sure, a certain veneer and finish, and all the world knows how the German officer bows and scrapes, and kisses the hand of his whilom hostess ; but das Volk — the people — are to-day what they have ever been, “ shouters in battle.” I can write from a full experience on this point, for I have worked and tramped with the German workingman on his own heath, and he takes the palm for unnecessary and blatant noise. At heart he is a good fellow and capable of sentiments which his outward manners belie, but he talks so loud and handles one so roughly that until one knows him well it is almost impossible to have to do with him.

The Germans are also somewhat inclined to be petty and small. They are so crowded together, and so afraid that some one will trample on their rights, that it is fairly impossible for them to overlook little things. Even to - day, with their empire united, they snap and bite at one another nearly as badly as in the days of their disintegration ; and it is no hazardous prophecy to say that unless they stop it, their mighty organization will again be divided. It is in business and social life that one sees the most of this failing. When one asks them why they press small points so closely, they look indignant, and say, “ Would you have me give up my rights ? ” It ill becomes the Germans to start a movement against the Jews, as some of them are now trying to do. There is no Gentile who possesses a greater talent for dealing with the Jews as one of them than the German.

Finally, the German is a Gemüthsmensch ; he lives pretty much for and by his feelings. This is both a good trait and a bad one, and the German people show both sides. When it comes to a matter of justice, the German generally acts according to his feelings rather than his sense of practicality, whereas the Anglo-Saxon is more inclined to let cool judgment settle things. This is one of the main differences between these two nationalities, — the German is impulsive, and the Anglo-Saxon practical. Where the German’s impulsiveness does harm is where he allows it to govern his prejudices. He has a great many of these, and once formed they become an integral part of his feelings. To let one go is like parting with one of his senses.

These are the main characteristics of the Germans which, in my opinion, do not make for good in the people of our country, and in so far as they are brought over and perpetuated they have a baneful influence upon our life. Both the good traits and the bad, however, undergo a change in our civilization. It would be interesting to consider this change with a view to age and place of settlement, for these are two very important factors; but the most that I will do here is to indicate roughly some of the more noticeable general variations in character.

III.

Perhaps the most striking change of all, and one that may be observed in its beginnings, while the immigrants are still huddled together in the steerage of the ships that brought them here, is the different feeling they have about government. They have all heard that there are no legally recognized class distinctions in our country, that all men are equal before the law ; and for the educated among them this change means freedom, for the laborer release and escape. In Germany they were subjects ; here they hope to become citizens.

Fortunately for us, for it is not easy to manage people so suddenly transplanted from a monarchical to a republican country, they retain for a long time some of the submissiveness which was common to them in the Fatherland. They themselves express this trait by a more euphemistic term, — Gutmüthigkeit, goodnaturedness, — but it does not meet the case. They are by training a submissive people, and the first generation of them in a new country cannot overcome this characteristic. They try to conform to our laws, and I have failed to find among them, as a class, the vulgarly leveling democracy that is so prominent among the Irish. Although the Germans accept with eagerness our dictum that “ one man is as good as another,”they, more than any other of our immigrants, believe in an aristocracy of feeling; and it is this which saves them from the impertinence and self-assumption of so many who make their home with us. I have yet to meet the German-American who, because he is a free citizen, believes that no one is above him, in any sense of the word. He does not to be sure, retain the slavish respect for Herrschaften that he had in his own land, and when he votes he is glad, if possible, to carry his point; but position well earned and government liberally executed impress him as much as they did in the Fatherland. Indeed, I should say that they impress him more, for he appreciates them from an entirely different point of view. At home he was compelled to bow down to them ; with us he is free to reason and compromise. As a result, I think he is more of a man in our country than he was at home ; he acts more on his own responsibility and intelligence, and is consequently more independent.

There are many Germans in Germany who say that their countrymen here have degenerated politically, that they have become wild and disrespectful; but I cannot agree with them. It is true that they do not kneel before Kaiser and Kaiserinn, as they did in the Fatherland, and that a great many of them would like to see these decorative figures abolished ; but this is a natural consequence of contact with our institutions. Paternal governments are not desired on this side of the water, and I can see no degeneration of our German citizens in their acceptance of the general opinion.

German women are also more independent in this country than they were at home. The man is not the almighty creature to them that he was formerly, and they think and act more on their own initiative. Indeed, I have seen them call their husbands to order in a way that in Teutonic homes would be considered treason. They also take a great deal more interest in public questions. They are still Hausfrauen, and consider the home their distinct field of activity, hut they appreciate as they did not before the value of keeping track of things which influence it both directly and indirectly.

Physically, however, — and now I am thinking particularly of the second generation. — they are not what they were in the Fatherland. A great many of them are much handsomer, and their intelligence is often keener, but they are not so well built and vigorous. In Mr. Havelock Ellis’s book on Man and Woman there is a good illustration of the change that comes over them. He gives a picture of a German peasant woman alongside that of an American, and the difference observable approaches what I would call attention to in the case of GermanAmerican women born and brought up in this country. As a class they continue more energetic than American women and can do more work, but compared with their counterparts in Germany they seem to me to have degenerated physically. The same, in a way, can be said of the men of the second generation. They lack the carriage and strength of their countrymen trained in the German army, and frequently find it necessary to rely on mere nervous energy to accomplish their work. I ought to say however, that, as a rule, they accomplish more in a given time than men do in Germany ; they are quicker and less clumsy.

Their better financial condition, furthermore, makes them less inclined to petty and small devices. This applies to men, women, and children. They are still close at times, and the Pennsylvania Dutch are notorious for this characteristic ; but as a race they press small points less vigorously than they did a generation or two ago. The ease with which they earn money here probably makes them also less industrious. I have not found them as keen, in America, to use every minute as they were at home, yet our greatest temptation, I think, is to rest too little. The Germans eventually ought to have a good influence on our life in this respect. There is much incentive for them to take life more easily and less seriously here than they did in the older country. Temporary failure to young men of German parentage in the United States does not mean at all what it means to the same class in Germany, where, during certain examination seasons, there is a regular epidemic of suicides simply because of failure to pass. Climate doubtless has Something to do with this, but the main cause is fear that a single failure means everlasting failure. Not many Germans commit suicide in this country merely because they are plucked in a school contest. They acquire too quickly the Yankee’s easy-going nature, and often to their harm. They are not so thorough and painstaking as formerly, and there is often a slouchiness in their manner which is deterioration not to be excused on the ground of Yankee simplicity. It is probably the reaction against the stiff and stereotyped deportment which was demanded of them in their own land. With all their roughness in Germany, they nevertheless must observe certain set rules of etiquette which in this country are not of first necessity, and the most of them are so anxious to become a part of us that they often overdo our freedom and joviality of manner. In Germany, for example, it is the custom among all classes for men to take off their hats to one another in the street; here this is not generally the case; and I am sorry to say that even before our German immigrants have landed they are taught manners which no country ought to allow, least of all on the part of its officials.

Morally our Germans are a distinct improvement on those in Germany. Perhaps they are not more honest, but they are just as honest, and they are decidedly more virtuous. I have already said that the position of the women is higher, but the men are likewise purer and more respectful of sex relations. The Germans are still inferior to the Irish in this particular, and the native Americans also, I believe,but they have improved on their past to a remarkable degree. In large cities, like New York and Chicago, where they are herded together by the thousands, one may still find the laxness that is characteristic of them at home; but in the country and in all places where local influences rule they are more respectful of women and marriage than they were before they came to us. This point ought to he emphasized, for one frequently hears the remark that Germans degenerate in every way on this side of the water. Perhaps they do physically, but morally and intellectually they gain more than they lose. One notices this advance most among those who come here as children and in those who are born here. A German boy born and brought up in this country has more general ability than his prototype in the Fatherland ; and although he may not learn as much as the latter, he knows better how to manipulate and turn to profit the knowledge that he does acquire. He is also more ingenious, — equal to a trying situation. In Germany the boy is always at a loss what to do when his given rules and maxims fail to meet a particular case, and he has but little talent for acting freely and independently. In this respect the German-Amorican boy acquires superior ability to his cousins at home, and he is consequently quicker, sharper, and more versatile.

The striking thing, however, in German children born in this country is the ease and almost eagerness with which they throw off their nationality. Except possibly the Irish, there is no other race which so quickly becomes American and anti-European. In a way the Pennsylvania Dutch are an exception to this rule, but their case is unique. Outside of Pennsylvania and in all communities where American influences predominate, the second generation of Germans give up their nationality ; and in a great many instances it is impossible, try as the parents will, to have them learn their mother tongue. Indeed, there are large towns where they are ashamed, provided they have learned it, to speak German in public. It is the latest German immigrants who make up our so-called “German quarters” and wards, and it is they also whom we hear speaking German in the street.

German writers in the Fatherland complain that their countrymen thus “ go back on their nationality,” and claim that Germans on other soil become mere fertilizers of other races ; but America gives them a better chance than this. The Pennsylvania Dutch afford pitiful evidence of what they all might have become had they refused to adapt themselves to local institutions and customs, and it is to their credit that they have made the best of the situation in which they find themselves. There is little likelihood that this situation will change; the Anglo - Saxon is supreme in America. Now and then one reads that the Germans are trying to introduce their language into schools, and it is taught even now, in certain German communities, almost on a par with English ; but this effort can never lastingly influence our civilization. The time for the Germans to carry the day has passed forever, and while politicians may talk about “ the German vote ” or any other foreign vote, the native Americans can and will vote it down whenever they combine interests and overlook petty jealousies.

Summing up, then, the profit and loss of the Germans in our civilization, we find the balance leans largely to substantial gains : they have greatly benefited their material welfare; they are freer and better fitted to stand alone, unpropped by paternal government; they are more practically intelligent, able, and available ; and they have a development before them which in Germany could never be realized. As to their losses, they have been compelled to give up their nationality ; they have lost sight of a certain refinement, which, say what we will against the Old World Germans, is characteristic of them ; they pay less attention to manners and etiquette than they formerly did ; and finally, they tend to value life and its winnings by a standard which, if not entirely financial, is certainly not so influenced by the ideal spirit as is noticeable in Germany.

As our country settles down more and more to a serious way of living, they will change with it. I believe, making its best qualities theirs, and reducing loss to an insignificant minimum. The benefits conferred, however, and the losses sustained have not been all on one side. We are indebted to them for good, and we have suffered from them harm, and these points deserve careful note and comment.

IV.

Our first and greatest debt to the Germans is for their help in developing our country. It is said of the common German laborer that the minute he lands he is worth to the country fully one thousand dollars. Multiply this figure by the hundreds of thousands who have come over, and it is easy to see how valuable this class alone has been to us. There are trades, such as those of the lithographer, photographer, gardener, locksmith, tailor, carpenter, and baker, in which the Germans in this country comprise fifty per cent of all who are engaged in them. As a people the Germans work more slowly than we do, and in certain branches where quickness is necessary they are not equal to the demand, but they have contributed a steadying element to our working classes which has been most salutary. They are plodding men and women as their fathers were before them, and emigration has not revolutionized them. They have a settled expectation of lines of labor, and this tempers ambition and checks the haste to be rich which does so much to spoil not only our foreigners, but our own people.

The German peasants have also helped to make our farm life more sociable. Where they are gathered together, if only by twos and threes, there is a Gemüthlichkeit in their life which other nationalities, except perhaps the Scandinavians, fail to bring with them. Right here we come upon debatable ground. This special feature of German-American social life — its Gemüthlichkeit, an utterly untranslatable word —has become responsible, in the opinion of many, for the “ beer garden ” and the “ Continental Sunday.” It is a question too large to discuss here, whether these institutions are the unmixed evils that our Puritan forefathers would have thought them. But thus much, I think, is true: they have the demerit of not being indigenous to our soil, and are still unprovided for in our system ; consequently, the beer garden in America is not in any degree the respectable place that it is in Germany, nor is the freer American Sunday of late modern times an honorable counterpart of the universal holiday of Germany. — the day when, after church, clergymen, from Luther down to the present day, and church men and women, give themselves equally with the humbler classes to the pleasures and delights of social intercourse and mutual entertainment. In so far as the Germans have transplanted among us institutions that become themselves degenerate by the transplanting, they have done us harm ; but we must remember that the period of transition is ever a difficult, and often a dangerous one. Even had they never come among us. we must inevitably have entered upon such a period in our own life ; and though their views and customs may have complicated some of its problems, they may also help us to solve them.

This brings me to consider the points where I think the Germans have been the least useful to us. I have said that we are indebted to them for developing the resources of our country, and we most assuredly are, but they have not always held fast to higher ideals than those of mere business. They lack the mixture of industry and esprit which, say what one will, is more or less characteristic of the native Americans, and are inclined to value life purely in dollars and cents. We ourselves, as a young and struggling nation, are not free from this same pernicious tendency, and it has not helped us to incorporate millions of foreigners, who, after all is said, have come here mainly and specifically to better their finances.

Even in his own land, at home in its spirit and institutions, the German is pessimistic toward everything that does not show signs of material profit and worth, and the dearth of material good, as he considers it, sends him to us. It is, consequently, very natural that, with improved prospects, he should give himself up to a materialism more or less gross according to his particular pursuit of gains.

Let us recognize all the good that German hands have wrought by honest toil among us, all that German love of freedom and independence has added to our own high thought along these lines, all that German hearts have cast into our common store of peace and good will, and still hold fast with firm and patriotic purpose to the finer, truer American ideal.

Josiah Flynt.