The Conquest of America Part 7

This informal talk continued for some time, and I found the Prince possessed of equally accurate and detailed information regarding other New England cities. It was positively uncanny. He inquired about the Bancroft j.a.panese collection in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, and wanted to know the number of women students at Wellesley College. He asked if I had seen the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds at the Athenaeum in Providence.

He had full details about the United States Armory at Springfield, and he asked many questions about the Yale-Harvard boat races at New London, most of which I was, fortunately, able to answer.

Frederick William was curious to know what had given Newport its great popularity as a summer resort, and asked me to compare the famous cottages of the Vanderbilts, the Belmonts, the Astors, along the cliffs, with well-known country houses in England. He knew that Siasconset on Nantucket Island was p.r.o.nounced "Sconset," and he had read reports on marine biology from Woods Hole. He even knew the number of watches made at Waltham every year, and the number of shoes made at Lynn.

I was emboldened by the Crown Prince's good humour and friendly manner to ask the favour of an interview for publication in the London _Times_, and, to my great satisfaction, this was granted the next day when we were settled in our Hartford quarters, with the result that I gained high commendation; in fact my interview not only made a sensation in England, but was cabled back to the United States and reprinted all over America.

Needless to say, it caused bitter resentment in both countries against Frederick William.

"The responsibility for the present war between Germany and the United States must be borne by England," he said in this memorable utterance.

"It was the spirit of hatred against Germany spread through the world by England and especially spread through America that made the United States unwilling to deal with the Imperial government in a fair and friendly way, touching our trade and colonising aspirations in South America and Mexico.

"We Germans regard this as a most astonishing and deplorable thing, that the American people have been turned against us by British misrepresentations. Why should the United States trust England? What has England ever done for the United States? Who furnished the South with arms and ammunition and with blockade runners during the Civil War?

England! Who placed outrageous restrictions upon American commerce during the great European war and, in direct violation of International law, prohibited America from sending foodstuffs and cotton to Germany?

England!

"What harm has Germany ever done to the United States? Turn over the pages of history. Remember brave General Steuben, a veteran of Frederick the Great, drilling with Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge. Remember the German General De Kalb who fell pierced by red-coat b.a.l.l.s and bayonets at the battle of Camden. Remember General Herckheimer with his band of German farmers who fought and died for American independence at the battle of Oriskany.

"Then go to Greenwood cemetery and look at the graves of German soldiers, rows and rows of them, who gave their lives loyally for the Union at Antietam, at Bull Run and at Gettysburg.

"The United States is a great nation with vast resources," he went on, "but these have been largely wasted, owing to the inefficiency and corruption inevitable in all democracies."

"Your Imperial Highness does not think much of American efficiency?"

The prince threw back his head with a snort of contemptuous amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Ha! What can one expect from a government like yours? A government of incompetents, politicians, office seekers."

"I beg your pardon," I protested.

"I do not mean to offend you," he laughed, "but hasn't the whole world known for years that America was utterly defenceless? Haven't you Americans known it since 1914? Haven't you read it in all your newspapers? Hasn't it been shouted at you from the housetops by all your leading men?

"And yet your senators, your congressmen, your presidents and their cabinet officers did nothing about it, or very little. Is that what you call efficiency? America remained lacking in all that makes for military preparedness, did she not? And she tried to be a world power and defend the Monroe doctrine! She told Germany in 1915 what Germany might do with her submarines and what she might not do. Ha! We were at a disadvantage then, but we remembered! You, with your third-rate navy and your tenth-rate army, told us what we might do! Well, you see where your efficiency has brought you."

I sat silent until this storm should pa.s.s, and was just making bold to speak when the prince continued:

"Do you know where America made her great mistake? Oh, what a chance you had and missed it! Why did you not declare war on Germany after our invasion of Belgium? Or after the sinking of the _Lusitania?_ Or after the sinking of the _Arabic?_ You had your justification and, with your money and resources, you could have changed the course of the great war.

That is what we feared in Berlin. We were powerless to hurt you then and we knew you would have time to get ready. Yes, if America had gone into the war in 1915, she would be the greatest power on earth to-day instead of being a conquered province."

These words hurt.

"America is a long way from being a conquered province," I retorted.

He shook his head good-naturedly, whereupon I resolved to control my temper. It would be folly to offend the prince and thus lose my chance to secure an interview of international importance, which this proved to be.

"We hold New York already," he continued. "Within three weeks we shall hold New England. Within three months we shall hold your entire Atlantic seaboard."

"We may win back our lost territory," said I.

"Never. We are conquerors. We will stay here exactly as the Manchu conquerors stayed in China. Exactly as the Seljuk conquerors stayed in Asia Minor. Your military strength is broken. Your fleet will be destroyed when it reaches the Caribbean. How can you drive us out?"

"Our population is over a hundred million."

"China's population is over three hundred million and a handful of j.a.panese rule her. Remember, America is not like Russia with her heart deep inland. The military heart of America lies within a radius of 180 miles from New York City and we hold it, or soon will. In that small strip, reaching from Boston to Delaware Bay, are situated nine-tenths of the war munition factories of the United States, the Springfield Armory, the Watervliet a.r.s.enal, the Picatinny a.r.s.enal, the Frankfort a.r.s.enal, the Dupont powder works, the Bethlehem steel works, and all these will shortly be in our hands. How can you take them from us? How can you get along without them?"

"We can build other munition factories in the West."

"That will take a year or more, in which time we shall have fortified the whole Appalachian Mountain system from Florida to the St. Lawrence, so that no army can ever break through. Do you see?"

The prince paused with a masterful smile and played with a large signet ring on his third finger.

"Surely Your Imperial Highness does not think that Germany can conquer the whole of America?"

"Of course not, at least not for many years. We are content with your Atlantic seaboard, the garden spot of the earth in climate and resources.

We shall hold this region and develop it along broad lines of German efficiency and German _kultur._ What wonderful improvements we will make!

How we will use the opportunities you have wasted!

"Ha! Let me give you one instance among many of your incredible inefficiency. Those disappearing carriages of your coast defence guns! I suppose they were the pet hobby of some politician with an interest in their manufacture, but Gott in Himmel! what foolishness! The guns themselves are good enough, but the carriages allow them an elevation of only ten percent against a thirty percent elevation that is possible for guns of equal calibre on our battleships, which means that our twelve-inch guns outrange yours by a couple of miles simply because we can fire them at a higher angle."

"You mean that one of your super-dreadnoughts--"

"Exactly. One of our super-dreadnoughts can lie off Rockaway Beach and drop sh.e.l.ls from her twelve-inch guns into Union Square, and the twelve-inch guns of your harbour forts, handicapped by their stupid carriages, could never touch her."

The conversation now turned to other subjects and presently the prince was led by enthusiasm or arrogance to make a series of statements that gave extraordinary importance to my interview, since they enraged the whole Anglo-Saxon world, particularly our Western and Middle Western states. Fortunately I submitted my ma.n.u.script to Frederick William before cabling the interview to London, so there was no danger of his repudiating my words.

With brutal frankness this future ruler of a nation maintained that against German arms America must now go down to defeat just as England went down to partial defeat in 1917 and for the same unchangeable reason that the fittest among nations inevitably survive.

"Ask your readers in the London Times, Mr. Langston, why it was that in the fall of 1915 Germany had been able to put into the field nine million fully equipped, highly efficient soldiers, whereas England, with nearly the same population, counting her white colonies, had been able to send out only two and a half million, a third of these being physically defective? Why was that?

"Was it lack of guns and ammunition? Lack of officers and training?

Partly so, but something else was lacking, I mean patriotism among the English ma.s.ses that would give them the desire to fight for England, also a high standard of physical excellence that would make them able to fight effectively and to endure the hardships of the trenches.

"Now why should there be more patriotism in Germany than in England? Why should the ma.s.ses of Germany excel the ma.s.ses of England in physical vigour?

"I will tell you why, and the answer applies in some degree to America; it is because the German system of government is better calculated to create patriotism and physical vigour, just as it is better calculated to create an efficient war machine. In Germany we have concentration of power, a benevolent paternalism that knows the needs of the people and supplies them whether the people wish it or not. For example, in Germany we have to a great extent abolished poverty and such degrading slum conditions as prevail in English and American cities. We know that slums lead to drink, vice and physical unfitness. We know that we must kill the slums or see the slums kill efficiency and kill patriotism.

"In Germany we hold the capitalist cla.s.s within strict bounds. We allow no such heaping up of huge fortunes as are common in America through the exploitation of the weak by the strong. We Germans protect the weak and make them stronger, but you English and Americans make them weaker by oppressing them. You make slaves of children in a thousand factories, crushing out their strength and their hope, so that a few more of you can become millionaires. Do you think those children, grown to manhood, will fight for you very loyally or very effectively when you call on them to rally to the flag? What does such a flag mean to them?"

"What does the American flag mean to thousands of American steel workers forced to toil at the furnaces twelve hours a day for two dollars? Twelve hours a day and often seven days a week lest they starve! Why should these men fight for a flag that has waved, unashamed, over their misery and over the unearned and undeserved fortunes of their task masters, Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan? Why should the down-trodden miners in Colorado fight to perpetuate a John D. Rockefeller system of government?"

"What does Your Imperial Highness mean by a John D. Rockefeller system of government?"

"I mean the English and American system of individualism gone mad--every man for himself and the devil take the hindermost. The result is a trampling on the many by the few, a totally unfair division of the products of toil and such wicked extremes of poverty and riches as are familiar in London and New York but are unknown in Germany.

"In Germany the ma.s.ses are well housed and well nourished. In all our cities cheap and wholesome pleasures abound, music, beer gardens, great parks with playgrounds and dancing pavilions. It is literally true that work at fair wages with reasonable hours is provided for every German citizen who is able to work. And those unable to work are taken care of,--pensions for the aged, homes for the disabled, state a.s.sistance for poor mothers. There are no paupers, no factory slaves in Germany. The central government sees to this, not only as a matter of humanity, but as good policy. We know that every German citizen will fight for the German flag because he is proud of it and has personal reason to be grateful to it, since it represents fair play, large opportunity, a satisfactory life for him and his children."

The prince maintained that here were new elements in the problem of Germany's conquest of America. Not only were the invaders more valiant warriors possessed of a better fighting machine, but they came with a moral and spiritual superiority that must make strong appeal to Americans themselves.

"After yielding to us by force of arms," he went on, "your people will come to welcome us when they see how much better off, how much happier they will be under our higher civilisation. Mr. Langston, we understand your nation better than it understands itself. I a.s.sure you, Americans are sick of their selfish materialism, they are ashamed of the degrading money worship that has stifled their national spirit."