Harper's Weekly/Germany in New York

by Harper's Weekly

GERMANY IN NEW YORK.

The German Peace Festival in New York was one of the most significant days in the history of the city. During four hours the great procession passed through the chief streets, under a summer sky, and amidst the applause of thousands of persons crowding balcony and window and roof. Flags were every where flying, and there was never a more conscious sense of general public enjoyment than on that day. Hitherto our great celebrations have been American or Irish. But Americans are always ashamed to enjoy themselves, and the Irish don't know how. The English Sunday, which we in this country inherited, and which ought to be the happiest and brightest of holidays, is the gloomiest of days; and an Irish fair or feast is famous for the shillelah and broken heads. But the Germans have the genius of enjoyment. There is many a citizen of Dresden, or Munich, or Hanover, or Berlin, or Leipsic, or of the smaller towns, who gets more enjoyment out of an income of five hundred dollars than most Americans from twenty or forty times as much. In the national character, at large, this appears, perhaps, as self-sufficiency. But it is just that quality, well trained, which brought King William of Prussia to be crowned Emperor of Germany at Versailles.

Every part of the pageant on Easter-Monday showed the spirit of the whole. Crossing the city in the morning, we met a little rill flowing along a side street to join the main stream. A band of music, merrily playing, marched before, and a banner borne by a stout arm announced that the little procession was the workmen of a certain cigar factory. They walked in ranks, neat, smiling, sturdy, every one smoking. Then came a huge wagon canopied with flags, and festooned with flowers, in which a group of workmen, with all their material and tools, were busily making cigars, which were scattered among the crowd upon the sidewalks. Another wagon followed, in which other men were making cigar-boxes as tranquilly as if they were sitting in the factory. It was a small procession, a mere handful, but it symbolized the whole. Its impression was unavoidable. It was that of steady, intelligent industry. It was a glimpse of that quality which has made Germany the greatest of Continental powers.

Indeed, in looking for the explanation of the immense superiority which the Germans have shown in the late war with the French, we must consider not only the civil system and the military system, but the educative and industrial system. It is not enough that the bayonets are sharpened and symmetrical; they must also think. There was a great deal of fun made of the German soldier in spectacles solacing himself with a little Hebrew when he was relieved on guard; but the foundation of the jest is as significant a fact as any in the explanation of the German spectacle. The best military system in the world will not make the best soldiers out of worthless men. It is as impossible to get the finest results from human shoddy as the finest cloth from woolen shoddy. The observation of the French officer, Colonel Stoffel, after a long and profound study of the Prussian military system, that the quality which especially characterizes and strengthens the Prussian army and people is “a sense of duty,” is a remarkable recognition of the value of moral forces from a military critic. And it is a striking coincidence that a thoughtful article in the January number of the Edinburgh Review, written perhaps by the Marquis of Salisbury, attributes the decline and fall of France to the spirit of the revolution of 1892 which, by insisting solely upon equality, has destroyed in the French mind the sense of duty, and consequently of responsibility.

The Nation wisely asks why this great German element of industry and intelligence should not be politically combined with American industry and intelligence in the city of New York under Republican auspices. Wherever the German element is powerful, as in the Northwest, and in certain parts of Texas, even, the Republican faith is in the ascendant. The Democratic leaders could never do much with the Germans, who naturally rejected slavery, and they therefore turned to more promising proselytes. But the intelligence, the respect for order, the love of liberty, which underlie the Republican faith, and make it, therefore, in the truest and most comprehensive sense, the national party, are naturally agreeable to the Germans; and at this moment one of the most philosophical and powerful defenders of that faith is a German, Senator Schurz.

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