From all this the great war
called him as with a trumpet.
"Look here, you fellows," he said quietly, "in spite of this war
and all the rest of it, there are some good things in German."
"What," they cried, "you, a fire-eater, stand up for the Kaiser
and his language? Damn him!"
"With all my heart," assented Mitchell. "But the language isn't his.
It existed a long while before he was born. It isn't very pretty,
I'll admit. But there are lots of fine things in it. Kant and Lessing,
Goethe and Schiller and Heine--they all loved liberty and made it
shine out in their work. Do you mean to say that I must give them
up and throw my German overboard because these modern Potsdammers
have acted like brutes?"
"Yes," cried Phipps-Herrick and Rosenlaube, nodding at each other,
"that's what we mean, and that's what America means. The German
language must go!"
"Look here," said Phipps-Herrick, "you admit that modern education
must be useful? Well, there won't be any more use for German, because
we are going to shut Germany out of the international trades-union.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129