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The public preparatory schools in Germany are so arranged that the pupils are trained to unthinking subservience to the labor policy and materialistic aims of a selfish, bureaucratic State. In fact, it is well to remember that this German illustration only proves that Socialism, instead of being democratic, is essentially undemocratic in its effects. It produces an autocracy of officials which is as unfair and selfish, because entirely materialistic, as any aristocracy of wealth or birth could be. Shrewd observers note the same tendency in the Commonwealth of Australia where the full fruition of its semi-Socialistic policy of recent years has been somewhat retarded by the individualistic influence of the English Common Law. When the Socialistic autocracy is once completely in power, with its professed policy of taking away human ambition and initiative, its position will be almost impregnable and become more and more secure as the average citizen becomes more and more servile, lazy and unambitious. Socialism is politically decadent and contains within itself the germ of self-destruction. During this process of self-destruction the people at large will offer a rich field for exploitation by the demagogue, the corrupt politician and the charlatan.

Furthermore, Socialism is essentially unChristian. It also is opposed absolutely to the whole basis of the Jewish religion as well. The foundation of the Jewish-Christian religion, for they are essentially the same in basis, is the belief in the value of the individual soul in the sight of God, and the dependence upon its relation to something Divine. The impulse from within the human heart is the basis of all right living. Thus Christ taught the social responsibility of the individual for his neighbor. The appeal always was made to the individual and the responsibility was laid upon him.

We read in the New Testament—"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts, XX, 35.)

Right giving, which results from an appreciation of the obligations of service, is an individualistic action; receiving, which means a benefit from the activity and initiative of someone else (and often irrespective of the real deserts of the recipient), is essentially Socialistic in tendency. The one causes a growth in individual character; the other tends to stunt or weaken it. St. Paul mentioned (1st Corinthians XIII, 3) as one of the greatest possible forms of service the bestowal of all one's goods to feed the poor. But he did not suggest as a better way that the individual should sit back, let the State take over his goods and attend to the feeding of the poor, and thus relieve him from responsibility. In fact, "love" itself, which is declared to be the greatest thing of all, is essentially an individual impulse and never could be called forth from the human heart, nor supplied to it either, by the fiat of a government.

The same note runs through the Jewish Scriptures. At the beginning (Genesis, chap. IV), in the old story of Cain's murder of Abel, when Cain inquired of the Lord "Am I my brother's keeper?" the inference to be drawn most decidedly is that the Lord thought he was, and not the State, or the tribal government of that day, in his stead. Both the Christian and Jewish religions are essentially individualistic in appeal and social in responsibility, and so also is Democracy.

May not the extreme brutality of the German soldier of to-day be the result not only of the ruthless command from the official higher up but also of the de-souling, materialistic influence of Socialism on the common people of Germany during the past twenty-five years? Is not the viciousness of Prussian militarism plus the demoralizing influence of Socialism a sufficient explanation?

According to Mr. J. Dover Wilson, "the German nation, in fact, is suffering from some form of arrested development, and arrested development, as the criminologists tell us, is almost invariably accompanied by morbid psychology. That Germany at the present moment, and for some time past, has been the victim of a morbid state of mind, few impartial observers will deny. It has, however, not been so generally recognized that this disease—for it is nothing less—is due not to any national depravity but to constitutional and structural defects."^[8]

Many Socialists point to the housing, sanitary, insurance and other State activities of Germany as showing the care of the Government for the laboring man. My dogs are well fed, are kept clean, dry, healthy and amused, and are carefully looked after in every way. But they are still dogs. They have no soul or any right or power of self-determination. So recent events show beyond cavil that the German workingman, from the standpoint of the State and Government, was in reality a political dog. He existed only for the good of the divinely constituted State and its God-given princely proprietors, and as such was used and sacrificed for the imperial and national glory. The German laboring man was the most exploited, the most servile, the most unfairly treated worker on earth. He was given enough material comforts or even amusements (religious, theatrical, musical or otherwise) to keep him seemingly content, but politically he was not permitted to think—or economically either, when taken in the broad sense of the term. Therefore those who expect from the revolution or uprising against the Kaiser and his military henchmen the immediate establishment of a well-ordered and democratic republic, are reckoning without their host. People must be experienced in self-government before they can make a success of democracy as that term is understood in America, and experienced the German people are not.

While the Socialists of the United States, "parlor" and otherwise, include in their number many sincere and thoughtful, as well as idealistic people, it is well to remember that a large part of them is composed of individuals who have nothing, and want to divide it all with everybody else. It is the old jealousy of the "have nots" for those who have, which usually means the "will nots" for those who have the ambition and will. Or if they are not of this kind, the best that can be said of them is that they are foreigners, who are in reality not Americans, who don't believe in democracy, but in autocracy, and probably don't even know what democracy means. Autocracy is the government of the many by and for the benefit of the selfish few. Real democracy is the government by and for the many, who express their will through their duly chosen representatives.

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